Federal Judge Leans Toward Release of Jan. 6 Undercover DC Police Video

On March 3, a Washington federal judge told the U.S. Department of Justice that he wasn’t impressed by their argument to keep video footage of three undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers secretly under court seal.

Rudolph Contreras, District Judge, stated that he wasn’t influenced by the federal prosecutor’s response to a question. motion January 6, William Pope, Kansas, defendant to unseal GoPro video shot By undercover MPD officers Jan. 6.

According to Pope’s court papers, the video shows at least one officer pushing people up the Northwest steps of Capitol and encouraging them toward the entrance.

An officer, who was standing behind Ashli Bettbitt on the steps, reportedly made comments about Ashli’s behavior “someone will get shot.” This occurred just one hour after U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot Babbitt at the Speaker’s Lobby inside Capitol.

Kelly Moran, Kelly’s prosecutor, was told by Contreras that he found her guilty. opposition Pope’s Motion “a little vague and a little devoid of case law.”

Moran said prosecutors “don’t understand the relevance of these videos to Mr. Pope’s criminal matter and why this is being treated as a discovery issue.”

Contreras said “even if it’s not a criminal discovery issue, it’s a protective order issue. Most discovery is not subject to a protective order unless there’s a special reason. And I’m not hearing a particularly good special reason.”

Moran said that she is worried about the safety and well-being of the three officers in the event the video is made public.

Prosecutors are “trying to protect the sanctity of other cases, as well as the physical safety of the officers who were participating in filming on this bodycam, or excuse me on this GoPro video,” Moran said.

Pope “candidly says” Moran stated that part of his motivation for the undercover video was to share it with media.

“In the typical case, discovery is not subject to a protective order. And there’s many a defendant that use the press for their, you know, for their own purposes, and, in particular in high-profile cases,” Contreras.

“And I didn’t see anything in your pleading that says … anything prevents him from doing that under the law,” The judge agreed. “So under the protective order, I believe it’s your burden, and I’m not sure you’re there.”

Pope was indicted on November 20, 21 superseding indictment Eight counts include obstruction of a formal proceeding, civil disorder and impeding ingress or egress in restricted buildings or grounds. He pleaded not guilt to all charges.

‘Abhorrent Attack’

Pope informed the judge that the DOJ would be closing on January 7, 2021. “rushed to do a press conference and taint the reputations and inflame public perception of everyone who came to Washington D.C. that day.”

“I consider this an abhorrent attack on the First Amendment by them, accusing me of using my First Amendment in a way that hurts them,” Pope. “I’m not out to do any damage to an officer or hurt the officers. But the public deserves to know what happened on January 6.”

Contreras indicated that he hoped for a ruling by March 3. another motion Pope to have full access the DOJ’s video evidence databases in order to prepare his defense

Contreras indicated that he would delay a decision on the motion due to Congress’s current debates about whether all 41,000 hours of security video and other Jan. 6-video to criminal-case defendants could be released.

“I’d like to hear more from the government on what I’m reading in the papers about production of the CCTV video to Tucker Carlson and to, after a point of exclusivity, to other news outlets,” Contreras said.

“…It seems like there’s disclosures being made to individual defendants on a case-by-case basis. I don’t know what case-by-case basis means and why the Speaker gets to choose which defendants get to see what.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.), in February granted Fox News access 41,000 hours of Jan. 6-video. The defense attorneys have been informed they will also be able to access the complete video collection.

Joseph McBride, the defense attorney, filed a motion before U.S. District Senior Judge Royce Lamberth requesting that Ryan T. Nichols’ trial be rescheduled until the defense team can evaluate the exculpatory evidence in the 41,000 hours video.

McCarthy’s decision came just before a Rasmussen Reports poll It was found that 80 percent of likely voters think it is important for all citizens to view the Jan. 6 video. More than 6 in 10 respondents said that they believed the federal government was responsible for the violence of Jan. 6.

Pope expressed satisfaction with the way that the hearing was conducted.

“He’s been pretty open to releasing the undercover MPD video,” Pope spoke to The Epoch Times. “And he wasn’t impressed with the government’s arguments. So things are trending in the right direction on both motions right now.”