Jessica Watkins, An Oath Keeper Charged In The DC Attack, Fears Harsh Treatment Because She Is TransgenderThe question is why would she want to join a group that hates trans people?
Her attorney argues in a new court motion that she is no threat and should be allowed to go home with a monitoring device.
Buzzfeed
By Jessica Garrison, Ken Bensinger, and Zoe Tillman
February 21, 2021
Jessica Watkins, an Oath Keeper charged with conspiring to storm the US Capitol, has asked to be released from jail pending trial, alleging that she has been “treated harshly” and is at “particular risk in custody” because she is transgender. She also argues she is no threat to the public and went to the Capitol only because “she believed that the president of the United States was calling upon her.”
Watkins, 38, a former Army ranger who served in Afghanistan, was “forced out of the military after her sexual orientation was discovered,” her attorney wrote in a motion for home detention filed late Saturday. In the petition, Watkins alleged that while in a county jail in Ohio, she was stripped naked and left “in a cell with lights on 24 hours a day for 4 days in full view of everyone.” According to the attorney, that was a response to a hunger strike Watkins went on in a failed attempt to get medical attention for an injury to her arm.
[…]
A grand jury has indicted her and eight others associated with the extremist group the Oath Keepers on charges of descending upon the Capitol in “an organized and practiced fashion” to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president.
Watkins wore full tactical gear as she joined a line of Oath Keepers who pushed through the mob outside the Capitol, up the stairs, and finally inside the building. Prosecutors have obtained messages and videos in which she appeared to exult in what happened that day.
Prosecutors have alleged that Watkins was part of an organized group of Oath Keepers and charge that they conspired to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.She is also the one who is claiming that she met with the Secret Service before the insurrection.
Court filings indicate that as early as Nov. 9 — less than a week after the election — Watkins was sending text messages inviting people to her group’s basic training in Ohio, telling one person, "l need you fighting fit by innaugeration [sic]."
Oath Keeper claims she was VIP security at Trump rally before riot and says she met with Secret Service agentsThe Secret Service said…
CNN
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
February 21, 2021
A leader in an alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy in the US Capitol insurrection claims she was given a VIP pass to the pro-Trump rally on January 6, had met with Secret Service agents and was providing security for legislators and others, including in their march to the Capitol, according to a new court filing.
Attorneys for Ohio Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins detail how the efforts among paramilitants who are now accused of conspiracy on January 6 were closer to the apparatus around then-President Donald Trump and his rally than was previously known.
The US Secret Service, in response to Watkins' claims in the Saturday filing, denied that private citizens were working with the Secret Service to provide security on January 6.Another scary part is that she was an Army Ranger who tried to overthrow the government because the people didn’t vote the way they wanted!
"To carry out its protective functions on January 6th, the U.S. Secret Service relied on the assistance of various government partners. Any assertion that the Secret Service employed private citizens to perform those functions is false," a US Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement to CNN on Sunday.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Oath Keepers as an Extremists Group.
Why do people join a white supremacist organization that hate them?
Why do people join a white supremacist organization that hate them?
Update2/23/2021 @ 7:30 PM
Guess What?
She lied…
CNNBy Katelyn Polantz, CNNFebruary 22, 2021Jessica Watkins, a leader in an alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy in the US Capitol insurrection, changed her story Monday about meeting with Secret Service agents in describing her actions on January 6.In a court filing over the weekend, Watkins said she was given a VIP pass to the Trump rally, had met with Secret Service agents and was providing security for legislators and others, including in their march to the Capitol.But on Monday, Watkins took back some of those assertions, saying she had merely spoken with Secret Service members as she passed through security at the rally.Watkins also continued to point a finger at rally organizers whom she felt had empowered her as a security presence for the private event, according to her court filing on Monday.
And it even gets weirder the Daily Beast reports that…
Prosecutors say Jessica Watkins should remain in detention because she’s been “charged with a federal crime of terrorism.”By Pilar MelendezFebruary 23, 2021In the days after Jessica Watkins stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 with her fellow Oath Keepers, prosecutors say, the Army veteran’s allegiance to the far-right paramilitary group only “calcified.”The 38-year-old, who is accused of preparing and training for at least two months to “fight hand to hand” to take over the Capitol, was worried about the optics of the Oath Keepers after the insurrection—and talked about suing anyone “class-action style” who spoke out against the group.[…]Prosecutors deem Watkins a flight risk because she’s suggested she’s willing to go “underground if this coup [Biden election] works.”
I can only say, Keep her in jail. She is not only a threat to our society but to our community as well. Her reason stands out, “she believed that the president of the United States was calling upon her.” Too bad he didn't say jump off the bridge. When we read this "Watkins wore full tactical gear as she joined a line of Oath Keepers who pushed through the mob outside the Capitol, up the stairs, and finally inside the building." We know she is no innocent who went to a rally to protest but a person hell bent on stopping the work of Congress. I know full well that folks like her are an enemy of our people and if the barricades were erected today she would be on the other side and would not hesitate in killing anyone in the LGBTQI+ community. She is an enemy within. The other question, Why do people join a white supremacist organization that hate them? is one that has interested me for years. I look at history why in the first months after Hitler came to power before the night of the long knives, (a lesson here Ms. Watkins) did gays support the closing of the clubs, the LGBT organizations, the round up, the burning of the books?
ReplyDeleteI think a question that must be examined here and we must demand of the U.S prison system even if Ms. Watkins in an enemy, that she be treated with the upmost respect as a Trans woman in jail. Ill treatment of people in the prisons can not be tolerated no matter what. But if we take up this cause it must be stated that we do not in anyway support what Ms. Watkins did or what she stands for but stand with the bigger issue of human treatment of all prisoners. Of course each and everyone of us will have our own views on this.