Militia Member Convicted in First Jan. 6 Trial

being turned in by his own teenage son, Jackson. Reffit told CNN his father had threatened him and his sister as it became clear that law enforcement was hunting down rioters. He said to choose a side or die, and if I chose a certain side, I would cross a line and he would do something he didn't want to do. The jury took less than four hours to convict Refit of all charges, including obstruction of Congress, a crucial victory for the Johnstice Department. Joining me is Eric Larson, a

Bloomberg legal reporter who covered the trial. Eric tell us what the charges against Refit were so. Mr ruff It was accused of basically leading the first crowd of writers that went up the steps of the terrorism and eventually broke into the capitol, so they claimed that he really led them on, egged them on, encouraged them to more

forcefully confront the police, which they did. They also claimed that he was armed with a pistol a loaded gun at the time, and that he had traveled to Washington from Texas with an a R fifteen as well, which he had left in his hotel room. So they claimed that he went there prepared for battle and prepared to fight, and that that is what he did. Was there a reason why he was tried? First of all the January

six rioters, not that I'm aware of. You know, more than seven hundred and fifty people have been charged, only around two hundred or so pleaded guilty, So there are hundreds of people who are supposedly going to go to trial here. Um, it just seems that this one sort of moves the fastest. We're going to see a lot of trials later this year. I think it was just the luck of the draw for him. Let's talk about the prosecution's case, and what was so unusual and telling

was that his son was the government's star witness against him. Yeah, that's correct. That was a real twist. His then eighteen year old son contacted the FBI, informed him about his father's involvement in the riots, and even went so far as to secretly record his father talking at the kitchen table, to put his iPhone down on the table and just let his father speak as he was bragging about all of his activities on January six. So he really went

pretty far and trying to help the government. And one of his reasons for doing so is that at one point, as his father realized that so many writers were being arrested and charged, he threatened his children to keep them quiets, knowing that they had different political views than he did, and knowing that they had some pretty incriminating information. He told them that speaking with law enforcement would be treason

and that traders get shot, as they put it. And some Capital police officers testified, did one breakdown on the stand. There were several who testified, and one in particular, as she was in the command center during the riot, and you know, they have several different commanders and officers in this room with lots of screens watching different camera feeds

from all over the Capitol. They've got all the radios with them, and she just described as the scene just deteriorated, and they saw writers running through the building and started to hear officers screaming for help on their radios, and they just realized that there was only so much they could do that they really felt unprepared, and she she broke down crying describing it. So it was fairly emotional for for some of them. Talk about how federal prosecutors

built their case against him. You know, what kinds of evidence they used besides direct testimony, you know, it was really a lot of evidence. I have to say. They really built the case as if someone, you know, in this case, the jurors didn't know anything about the riot. I think that they all did. But they really explained

how it occurred, what happened. They showed the video footage of people attacking that they had witnesses talk from the Senate floor explaining how they had to abandon the session all to back up all of the various charges for obstruction of Congress and being armed on Catholic grounds and

things like this. They showed photographs from Mr. Refit's house when they rated it, showing the gun sitting on his nightstand and then comparing it to pictures taken during the riot where they say he had the same gun on his hip, so cell phone footage from other writers, Mr Ruffitt's own helmet mounted camera, his zoom calls with other militia leaders, things like that, so they really they put it all out there, and the defense didn't call any

witnesses at all. What was the defense. Of course, defendants aren't required to put on a case, and the judge, you know, instructed the jury that that shouldn't be interpreted as any sort of admission of guilt or anything like that. But based on the cross examination of the witnesses, the defense was basically that Mr ruff It didn't hurt anyone, didn't damage any property, didn't steal anything, and didn't interfere with any attempts by law enforcement to arrest anyone. And

also that he didn't enter the capital. Of course, he isn't accused of any of those things, so it was a fairly limited defense. He was stopped by pepper spray before he could go in the capitals that day, but by then, as the prosecution alleged, he had already encouraged and led everyone else up the stairs. So the defense was really focused on saying that Raffit hadn't done things that he wasn't accused of. There was some attempt to illustrate that there wasn't enough evidence that he was armed,

but the jury clearly did not buy that. There was actually an audio recording of Mr. Reffitt in the mob that day bragging that he had a gun with it, So it really didn't work out with the jury. The jury didn't take very long to come back with guilty on all charges. Was this trial at chest for prosecutors?

In some ways? I would say so. I think that especially the obstruction of Congress charge, there has been some I wouldn't say controversy, but some dispute over whether or not Congress was technically in session at the moment that the Capitol was breached, and whether or not, you know, the counting of the certification of the votes qualifies as

the kind of legal proceeding that can be obstructed. Sort of technical arguments around that, And clearly the judge denied emotion to dismiss that charge earlier, and of course it went to trial and and the jury agreed, based on the evidence that Congress wasn't session, that what was happening was an official proceeding of the government and that it

was obstructed by the actions. So I did speak with a former federal prosecutor who said that that was an important test to see if a jury would agree that Congress had been obstructed, since that is a charge that will see in so many of these cases. Yeah, prosecutors trying to elevate some of the cases beyond misdemeanor and trespassing.

Another judge dismissed that charge against a January six rioter this week, saying the law was meant to apply more specifically to destroying documents or records in connection with the proceedings. So we may actually see that that question go up to the d C Circuit. Yeah, I think that we

probably will. And you know, the defense lawyer after the jury verdict was handed down and the jury was dismissed, the defense lawyer did renew his request to have the case thrown out, which is not uncommon after a trial, but he specifically cited that ruling which had come in another case in DC just the prior day, I believe, and the judge had already had her decision prepared on that and said that regardless of that earlier decision, she's

standing by her finding that the Congress wasn't session and was obstructed. Um, she said, well, basically what you just said. We'll have to wait and see. It's a question that might might be decided by the d C Circuit. But she seems to think that the words in the statutes were being defined too narrowly in that decision the day before,

and that she's standing by her more broad interpretation. So will this be a bell weather for the trials to come in perhaps the way the prosecution laid out the case,

You know, I it's possible. It's hard to predict, but I think one thing that the judge at some point during the trial when the jury wasn't around, sort of not admonished, but that to the prosecution, you know, you're really doing too much here, almost like knowing too much evidence, showing the same evidence too many times, getting too many

witnesses to say the same things. So in a way she was kind of like, look, you've you've made your case to move on, And just from having watched it it was a six day trial, they really did put on so much evidence to prove things that maybe in our minds would feel like, yeah, we already know this, right happened we know this happened. We know this happened. I think they really wanted to just sew everything up from every angle and just make it sort of impossible

to work around the charges. You know, they really have to get around that, that doubt, so we'll see you well. I guess that shows how much the first trial means to sort of set a standard. And also I think this means that a lot of defendants whose trials are coming up are going to end up pleading. You know,

that would definitely make sense. That's what some have been speculating here that once they saw how effective the prosecution was that presenting the government and how quickly the jury accepted the evidence to back the charges, that they really wanted to take that chance and go to trial if they can get some lesser time. And we have seen that some defendants who have pleaded guilty are getting some

seemingly short sentences. I mean, just a day or two ago, one defendant of current f A, a employee who's been suspended and he participated in the riot, pleaded guilty to illegal parading in the capitol. He took a photo in front of the Nancy Pelosi's office. He was one of the first people in the building. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to no time behind bars and three years of probation um. And the government actually had requested only two weeks behind bars, so he ended up getting nune.

So clearly, you know, say what you will about whether that was too lenient or not. Um. They're clearly, as many defense floors, no benefit to pleading out at some point. It's interesting that outside the courthouse after the verdict, wrath It's wife told other defendants not to take a plea deal, don't take a police, do not take a police. They

want us to take a police. The reason that we have all guilty verdicts as they are making a point out of guy and that is to intimidate the other members of the one sixers and we will all fight together. We'll see what happens there. So what is he facing when he's sentenced on June? Ay, I know that Jacob chans Ley, the Q and On Shaman as he's known, was sentenced to more than three years in prison on

I think the obstruction charge. Yeah, well, I do know a lot of these maximum sentences, you know, they never end up being the amount that is handed down and when there are multiple accounts that they're not always placed on top of each other, they're sort of put together. So I think the maximum sentence for the obstruction charge alone is twenty years. I think you could add them all up and say, you know, maybe it's like sixty years or something, but I don't think it would be

anything like that. So we'll see this judge is that sentencing for June eighth, so we'll see if that. That will be another important test to see what judges give these defendants that they're convicted at trial, right, because usually there's an extra sort of added on if you make the government prove their case at trial instead of pleading out like Chansley did. So the trials that are happening later this year, they're the most serious charges against the

insurrectionists involved two group trials. That's right, Um, they're mostly from this group called the Oathkeepers. For the record, Mr Ruffort was with the militia group called the Three per Centers, But these trials coming up later are mostly Oathkeepers. Here. There's one in April or some of these militia members

who are charged with conspiracy. So that's going to be a real interesting case to see whether these conspiracy charges can stick at trial the same way we saw in this trial just now, whether or not an obstruction of Congress charge being sick this will show a much more serious conspiracy charge work. Then in July will see another group of the oathkeepers who have been charged with the most serious charge in from the right, which is sedition.

So I think a lot of people will be watching that to see how far the government can take this attempt to essentially overthrow Congress and forced Congress to allow Trump to essentially have another tournament office. So whether or not that's edition still remains to be seen. And the former chairman of the Proud Boys was arrested. Was that a big arrest? You know? I it's ah, he had already. He was arrested yesterday in Miami, and he has been added to an earlier case against some other Proud Boys,

and that's another conspiracy case. And I believe that one goes to trial in May, or at least the schedule two.

At this point. UM, it's unclear of adding um Henry Tario is his name, whether that may slow things down, But I would say it's not a surprise only because you know he was the leader of the group, and the group was clearly deeply involved in the planning of UM that march on the Capitol UM and say, you know you might remember during the UH during the presidential debate, um Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy and and the militia groups UH and groups like the Proud Boys,

and he said to the Proud Boys that stand back and stand by. Of course, Trump was pretty widely criticized for that. UM. So the fact that the leader of the Proud Boys has been added to this isn't too surprising to me. UM. But I spoke with his lawyer yesterday. UM. He didn't want to comment, but he was wondering whether or not UM the case would go to trial as play in May. Thanks Eric, that's Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Lawson. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine heads towards the two week mark,

the stakes are escalating. Russian President Vladimir Putin said again on Sunday the war will continue until Ukraine accepts his demands and halts resistance. Are we in danger of a new Cold War? Joining me is Michael Doyle, a professor at Columbia Law School and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs start by telling us about the Cold War

and when it ended. Well, whenever we say the word Cold War, everyone in my generation, the ones before and the one after, of course, thinks about the Cold War, which is the conflict and the contest between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union supported by the war saw packed the US by NATO that starts up in and ends roughly with garbage off somewhere about

nineteen ninety. So that's the Cold War, and it's a contest between two superpowers, the US the U s s are divided by two polar opposite ideologies of communism and capitalism, also different political systems of dictatorship and democracy. That's sort of the Cold War. But what I think we should realize is that there are many other conflicts in international

history that are special, even if they're not identical. And what makes them special is that their contests that are not just over a different interest at stake, you know, who controls that province or this province, or who can get the most out of a trade deal and become wealthier. Their conflicts about legitimacy, wherein one partner or one state regards the other as in some form or another illegitimate.

That is, that it holds territory that it should not, or that it's political system is violative of the principles of the rival. So I think we need to expand the meaning of Cold War to take into account those conflicts over legitimacy, and there are a number of them.

And the danger is is that we may be entering a new one today in which the US and its liberal capitalists democratic allies face off against China and Russia as nationalist autocracies that are also corporatist in their economic orientation. And there's a danger of that that's emerging today. What would you say the situation between the US and Russia

has been for the last let's say two decades. I would go back sort of to three decades, that is, the Cold War ended in and then there was ten years roughly when Russia was unfortunately in a bit of crisis under President Elson economically and politically, but nonetheless was verging in a direction of shared universal values as Gorba Jeff had announced, and movements towards elections and democracy and more of a free market. And that era was one

of very considerable cooperation, though not equality. In the nineteen nineties, starting around the period of twenty years ago, we began to see some deterioration. Russia itself experienced failures in democracy, very problematic movements moving towards a party that was more

hegemonic and less tolerant of dissent. At the same time, as we saw the emergence of Mr. Putin, a strongman who built a coterie of oligarchs and party officials around himself, determined to reverse the losses that the Soviet Empire had experienced with its collapse in n and so, starting then and then peaking about twelve, the full Putin regime was put in place, a regime which the state controls media, controls overall corporate activity, and is able to extract rents

for it, for its for its cronies, and manipulates the elections that do occur, such as there's no real accountability, and adopts of quite aggressive foreign military policy in places like Georgia, Syria and not of course most recently in Ukraine. Do you have a theory about why Putin now decided to invade Ukraine and start this war? I think it

was it was an opportunity. He saw the West, that is, the NATO allies being both weak and quite divided, increasing dependence upon Russian gas that he thought would deter any United Front. He just came off a very successful military campaign in which he propped up assad in Syria and routed those who were trying to over throw Aside. So there's a great deal of confidence on the military side, a sense of vulnerability looking into Western Europe, which appeared

divided to him. And he was also I think concerned that Mr Zelenski, you know, the then newly elected president, had the capacities for mobilizing Ukraine in a way that made him very far from the kind of clients that he had previously experienced in Kiev. And so we saw Ukraine slipping away. He saw the West disunited, and he had just come off a very successful military campaign that made him quite confident in the capabilities of his army. So it looked like an opportunity to him. Are we

entering another phase of a Cold War? Or might it even be worse because he's threatening to use Russia's nuclear capabilities. My own view is that we've, you know, for the past ten years, we've been in towards the Cold War in suspicions cyber war industrial warfare with both Russia and China that have been boiling under the surface, UH for quite a long time. UM. We had a little proxy war in Syria, which which so to speak, the West lost, partly because we had no idea which side we were

fighting for. Frankly, we certainly weren't fighting for Isis, which was the major opponent of ASAD. UH. So that you know, we're we're in a in that kind of a of a of a different world where we've been edging towards the Cold War. I suspect that this will solidify it in very significant ways, in the same way that the coup in Czechoslovakia and UH the war in Korea solidified

the first Cold War. This will solid if I not an iron curtain, but a very significant disarticulation, you know, splitting up of the world along ideological lines between autocracy and democracy, as President Biden said, now there will be strong pushback against that. The Chinese don't want to enter that kind of a split world. They want to be on both sides. They want the economy of the West and the and the polity, the politics of Putin and

they've tried to play that middle course. It will be very difficult now, but they don't want a full blown Cold war, and the Europeans, of course, would have immense economic cost if there's something like an iron curtain that goes down between Western Europe and Russia. The United Nations estimates that more than one and a half million people have fled Ukraine since Russia began bombing some countries Pole in, Romania,

think Slovakian else who are taking them in. Well, what's happening is that these deeply unfortunate people are fleeing for their lives to the border. And as you say, it's it's quite striking the welcome that they are receiving in the countries you just mentioned plan and including Hungary to a certain extent, and certainly Romania and others have stepped

forward to welcome the refugees. That's exactly the right thing to do, and they should all deserve commendation for that over time, unless we expect, you know, some kind of a quick magical piece and everything gets returned to normal right away, or normal that is the independence of Ukraine and peace, which I think is very unlikely. They're going to be in a protracted situation of having to live outside their home country at the expense of so far

generous Poles and others. And I think it's gonna be very important that at least the financial burdens of supporting these refugees a million and a half now, who knows how many more are coming, should be shared. It should

be shared in Europe, it should be shared globally. The US has announced that will be providing ten billion dollars of support for Ukraine humanitarian and refugee assistance that will probably go through the Congress, and a refugee cost roughly ten thousand euros or so per year, So you multiply the figures out and one is talking about a considerable number of billions of dollars that will need to be invested to support them in their asylum in the countries

what is now the West. So this will be a humanitarian crisis that's not going to go away quickly, and it's one that we need to share, at least financially. So the EU has agreed to grant temporary residents to Ukrainian access to employment, social welfare and housing for up to three years. Is three years enough and also why

hasn't the UK done that. It's a good question, as you know, the Brexit uh anxieties in the Produced Breakfast were predominantly driven by immigration concerns in the in the UK, and so they're deeply allergic to all of this. I think it speaks well to the EU that they've offered the three years. Again, I stressed that the financial burden needs to be shared beyond the EU budget. They can afford it, but there's no reason why they should have to pay for it alone. This is a global emergency.

The US and Britain have roles to play. The only thing I would say is that, you know, the typical refugee in the world today is outside of her country for more than eighteen years, and so it's very optimistic

to think in three years this will be resolved. It would be wonderful if that's the case, but it would require some extremely statesman like peacemaking in the very near future, and I suspect some very considerable further peddling back of ambitions by Mr Putin and some concessions by Ukraine in order to imagine a three year window that would allow the refugees to be able to go back to Ukraine

and then of course all the cost of rebuilding. Today, in the past week, the level of destruction of the major cities radically escalated and is likely to continue to do so in the next few days. The US has given temporary protected status to Ukrainians who are here by March one. That doesn't seem like very much compared to what other nations are doing. Do you think that the U s should be doing more, should be taking in Ukrainians? Yes,

we should. That is again, um, there will be many people in asylum in Western Europe who might prefer to be uh in the US because of family connections, job opportunities, etcetera. So we two should step up and play of our our fair share in supporting these refugees. And again we can do it both by resettlement, that is, by issuing visas and permits to bring refugees here to the US, as we did, you know, way back in n with Hungarians who were quickly moved from Western Europe to the

United States. And we can provide financial support to assist the Europeans in the you know, the temporary integration of

these persons into Western Europe. The governments the taxpayers. We should all step up, the people who should really be at the front of the line to pay for these damages that have been inflicted on the Ukrainian people or Mr Putin and the oligarch that support him, and measures are afoot in various places to try to seize, not just freeze, the wealth that Putin and his fellow orligarchs have parked in western banks in Western Europe, Canada, the

United States and further afield. Thanks for being on the show. That's Professor Michael Doyle of Columbia Law School and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law, And remember to tune in to The Bloomberg Law Show every

week night. Attend B M. Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg