(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last week, a defense attorney in the ongoing Proud Boys sedition trial said the number of identified undercover agents, informants and police officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest crowd was at least 40.
Over the weekend, the DOJ disclosed another 10 to 12 undercover DC Metropolitan Police Department officers who participated in Jan. 6, bringing the total now to at least 50, according to attorney Roger Roots, who is representing Jan. 6 defendant Dominic Pezzola.
PEZZOLA’S MOTION FOR MISTRIAL
AND NEW TRIAL FOR MULTIPLE BRADY VIOLATIONSDefendants are now aware of at least some fifty (50) undercover informants among protestors on January 6, but the government is withholding information regarding this exculpatory evidence.
1) pic.twitter.com/ngbmBr9z77— Treniss Evans (@CondemnedUSA) April 10, 2023
And just this past weekend, the defense learned that there were at least 10 to 12 additional, previously unknown plain-clothes MPD officers among the Proud Boys on January 6. This brings the total number of informants among defendants on or around Jan. 6 to 50 or more,” Roots said Monday in a motion seeking a retrial.
Observers, such as Jan. 6 defendant William Pope, who is facing trial in a separate case, have cautioned that Roots may be estimating the number of informants.
It appears the claim of 19 DHS informants is based solely on two DHS agents telling Jeremy Brown they had 19 more stops to make the day they visited him pre-J6.
This does not confirm 19 DHS informants were at the Capitol.
But documents do show DHS had a J6 command center. https://t.co/Rtb4TWMwQa
— 🇺🇸 (@FreeStateWill) April 6, 2023
But according to Roots, “there are reasons to suspect the true number [of informants] is higher.”
Roots said Monday that federal prosecutors recently allowed defense attorneys to interview three undercover MPD officers.
During one interview, an officer apparently said that he was not one of the undercovers serving on the MPD’s previously disclosed “electronic surveillance unit.” Rather, he was dispatched as part of an undercover “narcotics special investigation division” in response to a “1033” code asking for “everyone to come” on Jan. 6, according to Woods.
“Most significantly of all, [the undercover officer] said his assignment was simply to record evidence on his bodycam. Nothing else. Yet he said he didn’t know if the other 10 to 12 narcotics undercovers were recording at all,” Roots said.
“[The undercover officer] said he had destroyed his iPhone and that all his text messages (including, apparently, messages about Proud Boy structure and recruitment) relating to Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, had been autodeleted.”
Roots argued that all this evidence is clearly exculpatory for his client. He said the DOJ committed multiple legal violations by not providing him with this information sooner, as the trial is heading into its final week.
Accordingly, Roots is seeking a retrial.
The DOJ has yet to respond to Roots’ motion. The trial is set to resume tomorrow.
Pezzola is one of the defendants in the ongoing Proud Boys sedition conspiracy trial, along with Zachary Rehl, Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
