(Ken Silva, Headline USA) So far, no Jan. 6 defendant has been successful in moving his case outside of Washington DC. That has helped the Justice Department to rack up easy convictions with a liberal-skewing DC jury.
Undeterred by the other defendants, one J6 protestor made a novel argument earlier this month for a venue change from DC to his home state, Washington. The defendant, Jared Wise—who faces six charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising—argued in a June 11 filing that he should be tried outside of DC because he’s a former FBI agent.
“The size of the jury pool is effectively further reduced in Mr. Wise’s case, as compared to other January 6th trials, by his ties to the community and his prior employment in the FBI,” Wise said.
“In the course of his work as an FBI agent, Mr. Wise worked closely with many different departments and agencies in Washington D.C., creating an extensive web of connections — direct and indirect, personal and professional. Notably, the Washington branch of the FBI, his former employer, is helping to investigate this case.”
According to Wise, nearly one-third of DC’s population works for the federal government when postal workers are counted—15,000 of them working on Capitol Hill.
“This means that prospective jurors are likely to have ties to, knowledge of, and strong opinions about Mr. Wise, his past work, the events of January 6th, or the witnesses called by the federal government at trial,” he said.
Wise, who also used to work for Project Veritas, also filed a slew of other motions this month seeking to have charges dismissed, an expert witness called, and to subpoena his FBI personnel file. The presiding judge has yet to rule on those motions.
According to an FBI affidavit accompanying the indictment, he entered the Capitol and exited through a broken window. He also yelled at officers: “You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can’t see it.
“Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
