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| Photo Credit: AP. |
The leader of the notorious white supremacy movement, Proud Boys – Joseph Biggs wants his trial transferred to Florida after January 6 panel investigating the violent attack at the Capitol by former President Trump’s supporters found he instigated the deadly riot.
Biggs who is now a key figure in the first hearing of the January 6 select committee filed a seven page case late Tuesday contending that “media-attractive” Washingtonians will accept the select committee’s presentation about him which cast him as a central figure in igniting the siege, Politico reports.
A Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards who was injured
during the initial breach of police line testified before the panel recalling
how she saw Biggs leading a crowd of rioters to her position and huddle with
rioter Ryan Samuel who was among the first to charge the barricades.
Biggs attorney John Hull derided Edwards’ testimony as “canned,
cagey and morally superior” and accused her of making up details about what she
witnessed, Politico cited the filling.
“Apart from risk of prejudice that comes with Joseph Biggs’
name being mentioned four times in rapid succession up front on opening night
of the House Select Committee’s hearings, Biggs and his counsel respectfully
submit that the above testimony alone by Officer Edwards in its totality is
more than enough to justify a transfer of venue to Miami, Florida, as defendant
[Enrique] Tarrio has urged,” Hull writes, according to Politico.
The transfer case was filed before U.S. District Court Judge
Tim Kelly and underscores the degree to which high-profile January 6 defendants
are likely to use the select committee’s June hearings to benefit their
defense. During the panel’s June 9 hearing, the Proud Boys were cast as key
instigators of the January 6 violent siege in Washington after Mr Trump called
on his supporters to make their voices heard at the U.S Capitol following his
defeat at the polls.
According to Politico, Biggs is charged along with Tarrio,
the group’s national leader and Proud Boys Ethan Nordean, Zach Rehl and Dominic
Pezzola with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors described them as chief
organizers of the attacking mob that attached the seat of Congress. Prosecutors
also presented evidence of a plan Tarrio espoused to occupy federal government
buildings, which they say referenced in messages with a fellow group member on
January 6, Politico reported.
Five jury trials have so far held in January 6 cases with
jurors returning guilty verdicts on all counts, prompting defendants to say is
evidence of bias that some judges have noted may reflect the strength and
overwhelming nature of the evidence prosecutors presented in those cases, according
to Politico.
Proud Boys attorneys have accused prosecutors of
coordinating actions in the case with the select committee, arguing that the decision
by the Justice Department to level seditious conspiracy charges against the
group’s leaders earlier this month was times to the committee hearings, an
allegation the DOJ has denied, Politico reported.
Edwards said she was injured when the mob which included
Samsel pushed a barricade into her and she fell backward and hit her head on a
small set of stairs and said it was a “war scene” among officers fending off
violent rioters.
“There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They
were throwing up,” she recalled. ”I saw friends with blood all over their
faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It
was carnage. It was chaos.”
She said the crowd was led by Joseph Biggs adding, “Joseph
Biggs started, he had a micro, or a megaphone, and he started talking about,
first it was things kind of relating to Congress,” she recalled, according to
Politico. After the crowd grew, she said “Then the table started turning…Joseph
Biggs’ rhetoric turned to the Capitol Police. He started asking us questions
like, ‘You didn’t miss a paycheck during the pandemic?’ … I know when I’m being
turned into a villain. That’s when I turned to my sergeant and I stated the
understatement of the century. I said, ‘Sarge, I think we’re going to need a
few more people down here.’”
Hull said the description of Bigg’s involvement in the mob
was fals, arguing that his conversation with Samsel was one-sided.