Video Shows DOJ Senior Adviser Urging Fellow Jan. 6 Rioters to Attack Cops: ‘F*ck Them! Yeah! Kill’Em! Yeah!’

Screenshot via Metropolitan Police Department body cam video.
A January 6 rioter who was captured on police body cam video yelling for police officers to be attacked and killed now has a top job at the Department of Justice.
Almost five years ago, Jared Wise stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other supporters of President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, cheering on the violent mob that assaulted law enforcement officers, breached the Capitol, vandalized the building and facilities, and disrupted the certification of the Electoral College votes.
And not only was this captured on video, Wise himself admitted much of it in court, NPR correspondent Tom Dreisbach reported on Thursday.
Wise is currently a senior adviser in the office of the deputy attorney general. A DOJ spokesperson told NPR, “Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.”
In 2023, Wise was indicted for civil disorder, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, as well as aiding and abetting an assault on law enforcement officers. His trial took place just days before Trump was sworn into office. Both defense and prosecution had made their closing arguments but the case never got to a verdict or sentence.
On his first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order issuing sweeping pardons for those who had been convicted for their actions leading up to and during the riot, as well as ordering the prosecutions of any pending cases to cease. Judge Randolph D. Moss with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Wise’s case the day after Trump’s inauguration.
For his report, Dreisbach reviewed the evidence submitted in Wise’s trial, including transcripts of his trial testimony and the below video taken from the police body cam video worn by several different officers.
Wise can be seen wearing a hat but his face uncovered, talking to the officers who were guarding the Capitol, insulting them and then egging on the rioters who were physically brawling with the cops who were attempting to hold them back from entering the Capitol.
When the video begins at 4:21 pm ET, the rioters had already largely taken over the Capitol grounds and assaulted police officers with weapons they had brought with them or seized from overwhelmed officers, including flagpoles, batons, stun guns, bear and pepper sprays, and the cops’ riot shields.
The first clip shows Wise approaching a line of officers on the Capitol’s upper west terrace. According to prosecutors, he had already been inside the breached Capitol, entering through a door other rioters had forced open and then exiting through a broken window about ten minutes later. He would remain on the Capitol grounds for several more hours as the riot continued.
Wise identified himself as a former law enforcement officer and insulted the cops guarding the Capitol.
“You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,” he said, as rioters around him chanted “USA! USA! USA!”
“I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo,” he continued. “You can’t see it, because you’re chasing your pension, right? Your pension, your retirement, right? That’s what runs your life, your retirement.”
“The sad thing is they’re not even going to get their pension,” another rioter can be heard saying in the background.
“Shame on you!” yelled Wise. “Shame on you! Shame on you!”
As more violence broke out with the rioters in front of him shoving the officers (prosecutors said at least one was knocked to the ground), Wise cheered them on from a few feet away.
“Yeah! Fuck them!” he bellowed. “Yeah! Kill ’em! Yeah!”
Another officer’s body cam a few moments later showed Wise from a different angle, still urging the rioters to violently attack the cops.
“”Kill ’em! Kill ’em!” yelled Wise. “Get ’em! Get ’em!”
Greg Rosen, the prosecutor who headed up the DOJ’s “Capitol Siege Section” in pursuing the Jan. 6 cases, led the prosecution against Wise, and denounced the Trump administration for hiring someone who was not only involved in the riot, but cheered on the assault of law enforcement officers.
“The hypocrisy is astounding,” said Rosen of a White House that has sought to project an image of supporting law enforcement.
Rosen added that Wise’s past history as a law enforcement officer himself — he worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 on international terrorism and as a supervisory special agent — “certainly informed his understanding of what was right and what was wrong and the circumstances that he was presented with that day in the middle of that riot.”
“Somebody who is in a position of authority and somebody who’s in a position of trust should know better,” he added.
Wise’s defense attorneys argued that his speech was protected by the First Amendment and there was “no evidence that anyone involved in the skirmish heard and was encouraged by his words, especially given the cacophony of noise at the time.”
Nonetheless, the trial transcripts show him acknowledging what he said when he testified in his own defense, saying it was just an “angry reaction.”
“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” said Wise on the stand. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”
He also testified that he thought he would have been “morally justified” in assaulting the police officers to stop them from what he characterized as excessive force against the rioters, who vastly outnumbered the law enforcement present at the Capitol during the riot.
Watch the video above, via NPR.
The post Video Shows DOJ Senior Adviser Urging Fellow Jan. 6 Rioters to Attack Cops: ‘F*ck Them! Yeah! Kill’Em! Yeah!’ first appeared on Mediaite.
from Mediaite https://ift.tt/tu4aV7I
0 comments