Right-wing Domestic Terrorism

[andydp]

Lights !! Camera !! Speed* !! Action !!   Bottom line: nothing but a cheap thief.


Bank plot suspect charged


Gloversville man allegedly called plan a “screenplay”


ALBANY — A reputed white supremacist from Gloversville who was allegedly armed with a loaded ghost gun and clad in body armor when police arrested him last month has been charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to rob a bank in Fulton County.

Luke T. Kenna, 43, who police said referred to the bank robbery plot in code language as a “screenplay,” now has a starring role in a complaint naming him and a co-defendant, Michael Brown, 40, a Pennsylvania man known as “Doc Grimson,” in a conspiracy to rob the Community National Bank in Johnstown.

“It’s coming up to the end of the year and I am flat broke with nothing but a gun and a dream,” Kenna said in a notebook that was seized by police from Kenna’s 2003 Chrysler on the night of his arrest, officers said. “I am going to fulfill my destiny one way or another. And it’s going to take bold action to do so.”

<SNIP>

The investigator said evidence on Kenna’s phone also showed that in encrypted instant messages, Kenna and Brown used aliases (Kenna as “Lt,” Brown as “Russ”) to discuss “SS Screenwriter’s Guild.” Two other people were involved in the chat. Neither were named.


digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/odn/albanytimesunion/default.aspx

* When they do movies about movies they leave out the "Speed".  Big Movie cameras take time to get to speed.  Can't start shooting until the camera gets to speed.

[LFC]

Dec 22, 2022 14:28:51 GMT andydp said:

“It’s coming up to the end of the year and I am flat broke with nothing but a gun and a dream,” Kenna said in a notebook that was seized by police from Kenna’s 2003 Chrysler on the night of his arrest, officers said. “I am going to fulfill my destiny one way or another. And it’s going to take bold action to do so.”

Dec 22, 2022 14:28:51 GMT andydp said:

[LFC]

More terrorist threats over perceived "wokeness." These people are insane and very dangerous.

Tufts University has received six bomb threats in the past several days, with those making them claiming to be motivated by opposition to the school’s initiatives on anti-racism and diversity.

The first threat came last Wednesday, following the Tuft’s Diversity and Inclusion department hosting “Unpacking Whiteness” — part of a series of programs focused on addressing “the experience of those who have racial privilege and who would like to find support in understanding how to practice anti-racism in their daily lives.”

The bomb threat, emailed to the Diversity and Inclusion department, said it was a response to the event. 

“Tufts university continues to fuel anti white racism in this country by having bullshit courses like ‘unpack whiteness’ which is anti white propaganda,” the email read. “We are a multiracial group who doesn’t want white people to be treated like shit… We placed several bombs in Tufts university, we don’t want anyone to die, we are just here to send a message.”

[LFC]

Utterly delicious and truly patriotic.

In one of their final moves before they relinquish control of the U.S. House, Democratic lawmakers made sure to do something Republicans almost certainly never would: significantly expand the federal government’s resources to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters and counter domestic extremism.

Those two goals were codified in the 4,000-plus page, $1.7 trillion year-end spending legislation, known as the omnibus bill, which President Joe Biden is set to sign after its passage by both chambers of Congress.

It specifies that federal U.S. attorneys will get a $2.63 billion overall budget, an increase of $212 million—or 9 percent—from fiscal year 2022, in order to “further support prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and domestic terrorism cases,” according to a House Democratic fact sheet.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, meanwhile, will get an $11.3 billion budget for the coming year. That’s an increase of $570 million, or 5 percent, from last year, which House Democrats say is “for efforts to investigate extremist violence and domestic terrorism.” The figure is also a 5 percent increase from what Biden had asked for in his own 2023 budget request to Congress.

Overall, the omnibus increases the budget for the Department of Justice by 10 percent over fiscal year 2022.

It’s a pivotal moment for Congress to authorize that funding commitment, and not only because of the imminent transfer of power in the House. With the incoming GOP majority poised to shutter the Jan. 6 Select Committee and open up a raft of investigations antagonizing the DOJ, lawmakers secured this funding—no sure thing—well into the eleventh hour.

[goldenvalley]

Two of the people who plotted to kidnap the Michigan Governor were sentenced. 

A man who was convicted as one of the key orchestrators in the 2020 scheme to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and blow up a bridge in hopes of inciting a civil war was sentenced Wednesday to 19½ years in prison, the longest sentence of the four men convicted on federal charges in the most closely watched domestic terrorism case in recent years.
Barry Croft Jr., 47, of Delaware was described by prosecutors in a federal courtroom in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Wednesday as the “spiritual leader” and “the ideas guy” of the plot, which was ultimately undone after a sting that involved informants and undercover FBI agents who embedded with the group of men drawn together by their association with the armed, right-wing “Wolverine Watchmen” group.

Croft and his co-conspirator, 39-year-old Adam Fox of Michigan, were convicted by a federal jury after a second trial in August on two counts of conspiracy, while Croft also was found guilty of an additional weapons charge. Prosecutors depicted the two men as furious over covid-19 lockdowns and supposed “tyranny” by elected officials, and poured their anger into a violent plot they were eager to see grow into a bloody “revolution.”

Other plotters are awaiting trial on state charges.

While Croft’s sentencing wrapped up the federal prosecutions of six defendants, several more alleged collaborators still face state trials. In October, three men were convicted in Jackson County Circuit Court of breaking Michigan anti-terrorism laws enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Joseph Morrison, 28; Pete Musico, 45; and Paul Bellar, 24, were sentenced to a minimum of 10 years, 12 years and at least seven years in prison, respectively, for aiding in the plan.

Five more men are awaiting trial on state charges in Antrim County, the northern Michigan area where Whitmer has a vacation home.

[LFC]

A number of the participants in the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection are now pulling a "sovereign citizen" defense. I guess they aren't bright enough to understand the cognitive dissonance required to claim you don't believe in the federal government's right to exist at all so that's why you attacked in an effort to overturn a federal election. I'm sure some are just desperate but I suspect that most are just dumb as f***.

On October 28, long after pleading guilty to brawling with police inside the U.S. Capitol, James Mault and Greg Rubenacker filed near-identical documents from inside Pennsylvania’s Allenwood Low correctional facility.

“The United States District Court is a private for profit corporation. (It is not government owned),” read Rubenacker’s handwritten filing. “This court was created in 1871, along with the new form of government without the backing of the 1787 Constitution of the United States for America [sic]. This court was created 14 years after the 1787 Constitution.”

On these grounds, and what they described as other new legal revelations, Mault and Rubenacker requested their cases be dismissed. “If I knew about this information, I would of never plead guilty,” Rubenacker wrote.

The filings, full of pseudo-legal arguments, strange punctuation, and (in Rubenacker’s case) what appears to be blood, bear the hallmarks of sovereign citizen ideology. The sovereign citizen movement falsely claims that adherents are immune from large portions of the law, or that many government institutions are secretly illegitimate. The movement has a growing foothold in far-right communities, including among QAnon followers and members of an alleged plot to overthrow the German government who were arrested this month.

And increasingly, sovereign citizen legal tactics have found their way into cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. At least 11 defendants have deployed what experts describe as sovereign citizen talking points, either during their arrests, their trials, or even after pleading guilty.

“The sovereign citizen ideology is essentially that ‘You don’t have power over me, you don’t have control of me. The law doesn’t apply to me. The government is nonexistent,’” Christine Sarteschi, an associate professor of social work and criminology at Chatham University told The Daily Beast. “And if they could, they would essentially like to overthrow the government.”

Embracing Sovereign Citizenship

Sarteschi, who tracks the sovereign citizen movement, has documented nearly a dozen apparent adherents in Capitol riot cases. Most famous among those is Pauline Bauer, a Pennsylvania restaurant owner who made headlines for strange, sovereign-inspired antics in court.

Bauer is facing multiple counts of violent entry, disruptive conduct, and obstruction of Congress for her actions on Jan. 6, when she was filmed entering the Capitol and telling a police officer to “bring Nancy Pelosi out here now… we want to hang that fucking bitch.”

In court, she has claimed divine immunity from laws. “I do not stand under the law,” Bauer told a judge last year. “Under Genesis 1, God gave man dominion over the law.”

Strange though the argument was, it wasn’t Bauer’s invention. She learned it from Bobby Lawrence, a Pennsylvania man who’s built a following by preaching a fantasy legal theory that he describes as “American state nationalism.”

Like many orbiters of the sovereign citizen world, Lawrence insists his teachings are not related to the sovereign movement. “By and large everyone equates us to sovereign citizens,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s how the public looks at it. They don’t realize there’s a difference between a national and a city-zen. City-zen. Municipal public servant. Break down the word: city, zen, ship. Municipal servant in admiralty.”

He’s correct insofar as sovereign citizenship isn’t real and no one can attain it. But his teachings, which urge followers to declare themselves as “nationals” of individual states (rather than of the U.S., which he believes is actually called the “several states”) is indistinguishable from other sovereign citizen practices.

Bauer tried following his advice for a time, spurning a lawyer in favor of representing herself—and likely resulting in more pretrial jail from a judge who stated that “I don’t want to lock you up... But you have made it clear that you feel you are above the law.”

In retrospect, Lawrence said, Bauer should have taken a more conventional legal route. “I’ve been studying on it for two years and I’ve learned so much in two years,” he said. But “knowing what I know now, I would’ve advised her to find a really good attorney and not helped her because it was too much of a heavy lift for her to do that.”

Read on for a lot more insanity.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 28, 2022 17:34:39 GMT LFC said:

A number of the participants in the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection are now pulling a "sovereign citizen" defense. I guess they aren't bright enough to understand the cognitive dissonance required to claim you don't believe in the federal government's right to exist at all so that's why you attacked in an effort to overturn a federal election. I'm sure some are just desperate but I suspect that most are just dumb as f***.

Sovereign citizen, libertarian...it all means "I can do the whatever the hell I please" and "You can't make me!"  They convince themselves they have some big serious legal theory they're standing on but it really boils down to adolescent style opposition to authority...arrested development.

[LFC]

Dec 28, 2022 17:40:21 GMT goldenvalley said:

Sovereign citizen, libertarian...it all means "I can do the whatever the hell I please" and "You can't make me!"  They convince themselves they have some big serious legal theory they're standing on but it really boils down to adolescent style opposition to authority...arrested development.

And when somebody else does something they don't like they screech, "TYRRRAAAAANNNNYYYY!!!" They don't want to have to live by any rules but their own, but want to force others to live by their rules. It's why they claim every agreed upon group authority, like any government, isn't allowed to exist. Why can't a group of people decide that they wish to live like that? Don't they have that freedom? Instead they demand to bust in and force those people to accept their childishness.

BTW, how is the authority of the United States "illegal?" That authority is what defines legality, at least within our borders. In fact it even defines the borders. (And I love the idea of some asshat in Bumf***, Oklahoma claiming that maritime law takes precedent. That's a special kind of stupid.)

[jackd]

Tranlated from "immature speak": You're not the boss of me!

[LFC]

Well that didn't last long.

Political action committees affiliated with more than 70 major corporations said they would pause or reconsider donations to those who objected to certifying the results of the 2020 election after the attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago.

Then they gave more than $10 million to members of Congress who did just that, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal campaign finance filings.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 riots — fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — dozens of companies including Walmart, Comcast and Lockheed Martin said they would either suspend political donations entirely or specifically cut off Republicans who echoed Trump’s stolen election claims or voted against certifying the election results.

But over the next two years, amid a contentious midterm battle, less than half of those companies kept those promises for a full election cycle, the analysis of campaign donations found.

The contributions made by corporate political action committees to the 147 members of Congress who sought to challenge the election results represent only a small fraction of the more than $350 million that those members raised over the past two years.

[LFC]

This is what we're seeing before the likes of Gym Jordan spin up the crazies with endless, lying, corrupt "investigations." And when somebody gets killed we'll see the same feigned innocence of the terrorist, Republican right (but I repeat myself).

Shootings Reported at Homes and Offices of 5 New Mexico Democrats

No one was injured in the shootings, which occurred in Albuquerque between Dec. 4 and Thursday. The authorities are investigating whether they were related and politically motivated.

Federal and local authorities in New Mexico are investigating whether several shootings since early December at the offices or homes of five elected Democratic leaders were connected and possibly politically motivated, officials said.

No one was injured in the shootings in Albuquerque involving three residences, a workplace and a campaign office associated with a pair of county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general. Three of the shootings took place in December and two this month, the latest of which was on Thursday, the authorities said.

The Albuquerque police chief, Harold Medina, said at a news conference on Thursday that there could be a pattern to the shootings, possibly tied to political affiliation.

“On the surface, that is one of the things that, as a law enforcement agency, we are looking at and is a concern to us,” Chief Medina said.

Wayback link if you hit the NY Times paywall.    

[LFC]

Yes, paramilitary terrorist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are still a threat to American democracy, and the Republican Party loves them for that.

Two years ago, when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol and ruptured our country’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, images of the mob’s extremism burst into national public consciousness. Americans watched insurrectionists bludgeoning law enforcement officers with Trump banners and Confederate flags, some wearing tokens of the QAnon conspiracy, anti-Semitism, and violent paramilitary groups.

At the time of the insurrection, the extent to which then-President Donald Trump was aware of and intended the events of January 6 was not yet clear to the public. The January 6th House Select Committee’s final report has now exposed, in painstaking detail, a record of the efforts by the former president and his allies to illegally keep him in the White House, culminating in the attack on the Capitol. But the Select Committee’s investigation has also revealed important truths about the ongoing threat posed by the far-right extremists who captured the nation’s attention on that day. Its final report and underlying materials establish that the violence by extremist paramilitaries like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys cannot be disentangled from the anti-democratic subversion attempted by political leaders, in this case, Trump.

The former president’s dog whistles to extremists had been evident throughout the campaign, including his direction to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the presidential debate with then-candidate Joe Biden in September 2020. Trump gave these groups a pathway to legitimacy and power, while they gave him a final chance to overturn the seat of government with mob violence. This type of partnership is a hallmark of nascent authoritarian regimes.

The narrative laid out in the Select Committee’s report illustrates how the twin threats of political violence and anti-democracy schemes were able to feed off each other in the lead-up to January 6 in a vicious cycle that still has not subsided. After the insurrection, paramilitary groups and other extremists adopted a decentralized strategy focused on local politics. Across the country, paramilitaries have shown up, armed and intimidating, at events supporting white supremacy, school board meetings debating COVID policies or more inclusive curricula, LGBTQ–friendly events, and demonstrations in opposition to the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade. Extremists, including militia members, have run for local and state offices, signed up as poll workers and precinct chairs, orchestrated recall elections to replace moderate Republicans with election deniers and anti-government extremists, and ingratiated themselves with elected state and federal officials who seek short-term political gain over long-term preservation of democratic processes. By making strides to mainstream the political violence and illiberalism that they espouse, private paramilitaries have established themselves as a sinister force in American life that has endured long after Trump’s term ended.

[LFC]

They may have caught the anti-Democrat terrorist in Albuquerque, assuming they worked alone.

Police in New Mexico on Monday said they had arrested a man in connection with shootings at the homes and offices of six elected Democratic officials, incidents that have raised concerns of political violence.

"There is a suspect in custody, on unrelated charges, related to these incidents," Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina told a press conference. "We do have one of the firearms involved in one of the incidents in our possession."

[AnBr]

Isn't it time to hit Faux et al with incitement to violence charges/suits?

[LFC]

Jan 10, 2023 22:29:23 GMT AnBr said:

Isn't it time to hit Faux et al with incitement to violence charges/suits?

Past time, IMHO.

[LFC]

The right-wing domestic terrorist in New Mexico was a failed MAGAt candidate. He hired others to perform some of the attacks.

We reported earlier this month about a number of shootings at the homes and offices of Democratic lawmakers in the Albuquerque region over the course of December and early January. Now Albuquerque Police Department has arrested Solomon Pena, a unsuccessful state house candidate in 2022, for the shootings.

From the Albuquerque Journal …

The Albuquerque Police Department has arrested Solomon Pena, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for House District 14 seat in the South Valley, in connection with the shootings at local Democratic politicians’ homes, the police chief announced Monday afternoon.

“Pena, an unsuccessful legislative candidate in the 2022 election, is accused of conspiring with, and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators,” Chief Harold Medina said.

[LFC]

The Christian Nationalist terrorists chalk up a major case of arson against a Planned Parenthood branch in Illinois.

Amid rising reports of violence against abortion clinics, a fire at a central Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic is being investigated as arson, police and fire officials said Tuesday.

The fire comes just days after Illinois enacted sweeping abortion protections.

No patients of staff members were inside the clinic during the fire, said Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois in a statement. But the fire caused "significant damage" to the building in Peoria, an Illinois city about 150 miles southwest of Chicago, Welch said.

Peoria police received a report of an "unknown person throwing a Molotov cocktail" into the clinic at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday, police spokesperson Semone Roth said. No suspects have been identified, Roth said.

The clinic closed Tuesday and rescheduled patients who had appointments to other health care centers, Roth said.

It's part of a pattern of violence by these freaks.

In 2021, abortion providers saw a 600% increase in stalking, a 129% increase in invasions and a 128% increase in assaults and battery compared to the year before, according to a report released in May 2022 by the National Abortion Federation, the U.S. professional association of abortion providers. Assaults rose from 15 in 2018 to 123 in 2021, the report said.

Since 1977, when NAF began collecting this data, the organization has reported 11 murders, 42 bombings, 196 arsons and 491 assaults targeting patients, providers and volunteers at abortion clinics.

Most abortion care providers have long been trained to expect violence "as part of our everyday jobs," wrote Dr. Colleen P. McNicholas, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri in St. Louis, Mo., in a USA TODAY opinion column last week.

House Republicans are responding to the violence of their base by playing the victims. What a shock.

A Republican-led House also voted last week to pass a measure condemning attacks on anti-abortion facilities and churches — a move reproductive rights advocates condemned as disingenuous, arguing it ignores mounting violence and threats against abortion providers and people seeking abortion care.

[LFC]

These scumbags need to be both prosecuted and court martialed. Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems like this would be legitimate as different charges would apply, with military charges being related to violating their oaths when they enlisted.

Three active-duty Marines have been hit with federal misdemeanor charges for their alleged roles in the Capitol siege by a mob of Trump supporters. After one of them posted photographs from Jan. 6 to his Instagram page with the caption, “Glad to be apart [sic] of history,” FBI agents matched images of USMC members Micah Coomer, Dodge Dale Hellonen, and Joshua Abate inside the Capitol building with their official military ID photos, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. Hellonen, his detachment’s March 2018 “Student of the Month,” was last stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the filing states. Coomer, who the feds say expressed support for the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely organized extremist collective aiming to foment a second Civil War, was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, according to the filing, which does not identify Abate’s most recent duty station.

[andydp]

Jan 19, 2023 19:53:52 GMT LFC said:

These scumbags need to be both prosecuted and court martialed. Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems like this would be legitimate as different charges would apply, with military charges being related to violating their oaths when they enlisted.

Three active-duty Marines have been hit with federal misdemeanor charges for their alleged roles in the Capitol siege by a mob of Trump supporters. After one of them posted photographs from Jan. 6 to his Instagram page with the caption, “Glad to be apart [sic] of history,” FBI agents matched images of USMC members Micah Coomer, Dodge Dale Hellonen, and Joshua Abate inside the Capitol building with their official military ID photos, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. Hellonen, his detachment’s March 2018 “Student of the Month,” was last stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the filing states. Coomer, who the feds say expressed support for the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely organized extremist collective aiming to foment a second Civil War, was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, according to the filing, which does not identify Abate’s most recent duty station.

Its called "conduct unbecoming"

[jackd]

I think that only applies to officers. The standard criminal charges should be enough.

[andydp]

Jan 19, 2023 20:09:15 GMT jackd said:

I think that only applies to officers. The standard criminal charges should be enough.

There's other articles that apply to enlisted and NCO.  The other way is to charge them for having been arrested and tried in Civilian court.  It gets tricky but they're not charged with the crime that got them in trouble. They're charged under any number of articles most of them dealing with their conduct.

They can also be convicted by courts martial if the arresting authority passes the case to the Military. 

[LFC]

Jan 19, 2023 20:09:15 GMT jackd said:

I think that only applies to officers. The standard criminal charges should be enough.

Are they though? It seems that participating in an insurrection as a member of the military is a more serious crime, and one that may not be covered by criminal charges. You are literally being paid to protect the country while attacking the country. Or is that something that might simply come out in harsher sentencing guidelines?

[LFC]

More conservative patriots that make up a part of the Republican base.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland announced in a press conference on Monday that a neo-Nazi leader and his girlfriend are being charged for allegedly plotting an attack on the Maryland power grid.

Twenty-seven-year-old Brandon Russell — founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen (AWD) — and 34-year-old Sarah Clendaniel were arrested last week for conspiring to destroy an energy facility, according to the criminal complaint obtained by TPM.

“Clendaniel and Russell conspired and took steps to shoot multiple electrical substations in the Baltimore area aiming to ‘completely destroy this whole city,’” U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek Barron said in the Monday press conference.

Clendaniel and Russell were taken into custody late last week, in Maryland and Florida, respectively. They are expected to make their initial appearances in court on Monday.

They “conspired to inflict maximum harm on the power grid,” Tom Sobocinski, who heads the FBI’s field office in Baltimore, said. “The accused were not just talking, but taking steps to fulfill their threats and further their extremist goals.”

The FBI views their extremist views as “racially or ethnically motivated,” he added.

Russell — a former member of the Florida National Guard — is the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen (AWD). AWD is a terrorist neo-Nazi organization that is “organized as a series of terror cells that work toward civilizational collapse,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In 2018, Russell was sentenced to five years in prison for stocking explosive materials in his Florida apartment where one of his roommates killed the other two roommates. After his arrest, Russell pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device and improper storage of explosive materials.

[LFC]

Liberal deep state, my ass. We need to learn how to handle terrorists, especially those in uniform.

Marines Charged In Capitol Riot Got Intel Jobs AFTER Jan. 6

We knew that the active duty Marines recently arrested for allegedly participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol worked in military intelligence roles, but what we didn’t know is that they were assigned those highly sensitive posts after Jan. 6, according to the latest reporting from James Risen at The Intercept.

[LFC]

Does everybody in Michael Flynn's family support terrorism?

Suspecting that Michael Flynn’s family members deleted documents and communications, CNN asked a federal judge to order a forensic examination of their cellphones.

It’s the latest wrinkle over the fallout of a video that former national security advisor Michael Flynn posted of himself and his family members at a July 4th barbecue on 2020.

In the footage, the Flynns raised their right hands in the style of a pledge of allegiance, reciting the words “Where we go one, we go all.” Flynn posted the video to his Twitter account with the hashtag #TakeTheOath. CNN flagged the video in a segment days later, characterizing it as a QAnon oath. The broadcasts sparked multiple federal lawsuits by Flynn family members, claiming the resemblance of the slogan and hashtag to the extremist conspiracy theories are incidental.

The lawsuit currently snaking through the Southern District of New York, filed by Flynn’s brother John “Jack” Flynn and that sibling’s wife Leslie Flynn, insisted that what CNN branded an oath was a “simple, family, July 4 statement of support for each other.”

As discovery in that case progresses, CNN claims that the Flynns have stonewalled requests for encrypted chats.

“Plaintiffs’ counsel has said he has not — and will not — search additional messaging platforms containing potentially responsive documents on his clients’ cell phones, despite confirming that his clients communicated on these platforms,” the network’s lawyer Katherine M. Bolger, from the firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, wrote in a filing on Thursday evening.

CNN believes that relevant messages might be lurking on Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.