Here are the tweets making the announcement and explaining the situation.
On September 4, I wrote this article on Substack bout Jake's plea agreement and the actions of his former attorney Albert Watkins.
Jacob Chansley's Guilty Plea In January 6 Case Reeks of MORE Horrible Defense Work by his Attorney
Given the way DOJ has disposed of cases recently, Chansley's attorney must have worked hard to come up with a "deal" as bad as the one Chansley agreed to.
On Sunday night Jake Chansley told us he wanted to fire Albert Watkins as his attorney, and he wanted John Pierce and myself to take over his representation based on our discussions about what might still be done.
What is important to understand about a federal criminal case is that the case ends with the sentencing of a defendant and the entry of the Judgement by the Court. For the district court case, that is "The End." There is nothing left to do unless directed by the defendant.
Albert Watkins stated yesterday that he remains Jake Chansley's attorney.
That is not true. There is nothing for Watkins to do in the criminal case, and he has no authorization to do anything else on behalf of Jake Chansley.
Obviously, since the role of the District Court is now finished, the legal work still to be done will have to be at the Appellate level. It doesn’t take much if any reading between the lines to figure that any work on appeal with have to go through the issue of ineffective representation of counsel. You can find links to various sites explaining that concept at the link. It’s a fairly steep hill to climb, as you can see from this outline of what’s involved, what needs to be demonstrated:
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
The Supreme Court has held that part of the right to counsel is a right to effective assistance of counsel. Proving that their lawyer was ineffective at trial is a way for convicts to get their convictions overturned, and therefore ineffective assistance is a common habeas corpus claim. To prove ineffective assistance, a defendant must show (1) that their trial lawyer's performance fell below an "objective standard of reasonableness" and (2) "a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
Still, the standard of reasonability and reasonable probability provide hope. The most difficult part will be the “but for” part:
“a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different."
In other words, even if the the original lawyer’s representation fell below “an objective standard of reasonableness", the new legal team on appeal still needs to overcome the “but for” hurdle.
As you’ll see from Doc SWC’s early Substack article (9/4/21, linked above), he’s been following these cases closely and was concerned with what he was seeing in the Chansley case. He made no bones at the time of what he thought of the representation of counsel that Chansley had been getting. Here is the gist of that article, but follow the link for further details:
[Watkins’] defense of Chansley in the January 6 protest case reflects a standard of representation far below what I would consider “mixed.”
I previously wrote about Watkins's failure to obtain Chansley’s release on bond in early July. Watkins made representations in a bail review hearing about conditions of release that could be arranged for Chansley in St. Louis. District Judge Royce Lamberth waited for Watkins to supply details to the Court regarding the representations he made, but Watkins never submitted the information. Judge Lamberth pointed that out in his written decision two weeks ordering that Chansley remain detained pending trial. From the language in Judge Lamberth’s order, it seemed clear he would have released Chansley on bail had Watkins done his job.
But Watkins’s performance in the bail matter pales in comparison to his horrendous representation reflected in Chansley’s guilty plea.
DOJ has agreed to dismiss felony counts and accept guilty pleas to misdemeanors in several cases since early July. ...
It is normally a violation of written DOJ policy to agree to dismiss a felony charge by a grand jury and accept a guilty plea to a misdemeanor in order to resolve a case. But prosecutors started down that road in response to judicial criticisms in order to begin the process of reducing the number of pending cases rather than continue to add to them with new filings.
Given that, it is hard to contemplate how Chansley’s attorney could have come up with a worse outcome via plea agreement than the one filed yesterday.
First, Chansley agreed to plead guilty to the most serious charge filed against him — the felony “obstruction of an official proceeding” charge. That is the same charge DOJ has been dismissing in other cases.
Second, the plea agreement provides that the parties agree that an eight (8) level enhancement under the sentencing guidelines is appropriate under the facts of Chansley’s case because of “injury/property” damage. The written agreement states this will not be a matter of dispute at sentencing.
…
Chansley is not charged in a conspiracy with any other January 6th protesters. His guilty plea and sentence must be based on his conduct alone, not the conduct of some larger crowd of people in the same location where he was present. What others were doing around him is not relevant to the determination of an appropriate sentence for the specific crime he admitted to committing.
But the Statement of Facts filed along with his plea agreement does not include any allegation that Chansley himself “caused or threatened physical injury” to any person, nor is there an allegation that he caused or threatened to cause property damage.
And that doesn’t even touch on the question of what is meant by “obstruct the administration of justice” in that guideline provision.
This whole episode—bringing the full weight of the federal criminal justice system to bear on people who, by and large, were harmless but concerned citizens and who had, for the most part, done nothing that others had done and not been prosecuted for—is a blot on the DoJ as well as our politics.
<i>"It is not enough to simply to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again."</i> -- David Plouffe tweet 2:03pm 13 June 2016
I've been watching these cases and the Jan 6th carnival that's on going in Congress. I think many are dismissive confusing this as "get Trump". In reality it's far more sinister.
It's become more of an all out attempt to very specifically and selectively stomp down any leading voices of political discontent. It reminds me historically of the American colonists extradited to England for trial by King George III in some way.
These things tend to fail and fail in spectacular scale once people have had enough. The subject of the "enough" part has been the debate lately, "what is considered enough?". I think we're going to see that subject grow very long legs here in the near future.
I am also reminded of another set of rights we have as Americans that for whatever reason seem to consistently (conveniently) be historically swept under a rug. Everyone is generally aware of the enumerated rights granted to us in the Declaration of Independence "...that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.". However there are two expressed other rights we rarely hear of and those are.
"... it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
And
"...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,..."
Historically we seem to like ignoring those though even the shrewdest of scholars admit the Declaration and Constitution are separate but standing documents each containing very specific powers granted to us.
If you take the time (and I encourage you to do so) to read through that beautiful document I would ask you to specifically read through the list of grievances between the colonists and King George and ask yourself in today modern terms how many directly related to our current political list of grievances. Because when you get down to it and honestly think out the militarization of police, trial by district, taxation, election fraud, the DOJ and perversions of the courts I, at least draw some pretty stark parallels.
I think we are currently hampered in representation by our quasi two party system. We need states to stand up meaningfully against federal over reach and we don't have that happening in the scale required though we are seeing it increase slowly. Most would point to the covid jabs and states like Florida or the current 6th circuit fight but I would say that Oklahoma Guard situation carries far more gravity because it's not a civil court pissing match but a matter of both national security and military strength.
We will see where this goes but Florida will be faced with standing up their own OSHA and throwing off the shackles of federal funding to do so. While Oklahoma now has to debate funding and providing for it's own State Defense Force... I say that could be far more interesting as those laws dusted off.
I don't think either of these two situations are going to be major developments. But I do think they are going to put some very interesting light on certain processes we've long forgotten about in the relationships between our states and federal governments, and that's a good thing if we can keep the submissive nature of red states to their beloved party masters out of the picture!!!