Judge denies Jan. 6 defendant’s bid to delay case after Trump victory
ABC/Michael Le Brecht II
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory is already beginning to elicit requests from his supporters charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol for delays in their cases due to the potential they could be pardoned after Trump’s inauguration.
Attorneys for Christopher Carnell, a 21-year-old defendant from North Carolina who was found guilty earlier this year of felony and misdemeanor charges over his participation in the Capitol assault, requested Wednesday morning that D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell delay a status hearing in his case scheduled for later this week, citing Trump’s past promises to pardon his supporters.
“Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump made multiple clemency promises to the January 6 defendants, particularly to those who were nonviolent participants,” their filing said. “Mr. Carnell, who was an 18 year old nonviolent entrant into the Capitol on January 6, is expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”
Judge Howell denied Carnell’s request to delay his status hearing in an order on Wednesday.
The filing had stated that Carnell’s attorneys reached out to Trump’s office to get further information “regarding the timing and expected scope of clemency actions relevant to his case.”
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,500 people across the country in the last four years over their roles in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, part of what the Justice Department has described as one of the largest criminal investigations in its history.
The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office has continued to arrest individuals on a near-daily basis, many of whom have been charged with carrying out violent assaults on police protecting the building.
In addition to Trump’s promises to pardon many of those who participated in the attack, it’s widely expected the ongoing criminal investigation will be shuttered once Trump takes office.
(PHILADELPHIA) — The University of Pennsylvania will impose major sanctions against Carey Law School professor Amy Wax, after an investigation concluded that she “engaged in ‘flagrant unprofessional conduct,'” which included “a history of making sweeping and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.”
The university also found that Wax “on numerous occasions in and out of the classroom and in public, [made] discriminatory and disparaging statements targeting specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify.”
The Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility released a report Tuesday confirming sanctions against the tenured professor, which includes a one-year suspension with half-pay, the loss of her named chair and an inability to represent Penn in public appearances, among other measures.
“Last year, a five-member faculty Hearing Board determined that Professor Amy Wax violated the University’s behavioral standards by engaging in years of flagrantly unprofessional conduct within and outside of the classroom that breached her responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal learning opportunity to all students,” a university spokesperson told ABC News.
Wax has been under fire for years for her controversial language about minority groups, particularly Black and Asian populations.
Dean of Penn Carey Law School Ted Ruger had initiated governing sanctions against Wax in January 2022. A hearing board conducted an evaluation in May 2023 and confirmed misconduct from Wax, which she appealed.
The Senate Committee’s decision Tuesday strikes down Wax’s appeal, and Interim President J. Larry Jameson confirmed that he will be upholding this “final decision” and implementing the sanctions recommended.
Provost John L. Jackson, Jr. also issued a public reprimand Tuesday, telling Wax that it is “imperative” that she “conduct [herself] in a professional manner in [her] interactions with faculty colleagues, students, and staff,” which includes “refraining from flagrantly unprofessional and targeted disparagement of any individual or group in the University community.”
Wax and her lawyer, David Shapiro, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In a 2023 op-ed in the Daily Pennsylvanian, Shapiro defended her remarks by saying, “Professor Wax teaches a conservative thought seminar, and she is vocal on social media in expressing conservative ideas.”
“My client must defend herself against scurrilous charges of ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ because, as a white Jewish conservative, she dared to question the liberal orthodoxy about the lives of many African Americans,” Shapiro added. He also went on to attack the university for what he considered to be hypocritical policies.
While Penn’s sanctions constitute major action against a tenured faculty member, students had previously expressed desire for Wax to be fired.
Law student Soojin Jeong told ABC News in 2022 that Wax’s comments were “egregious,” and added, “we really need to fire Amy Wax.”
Also speaking to ABC News in 2022, law student Apratim Vidyarthi pointed to the double standard. “If I had said something like that, or you said something like that, or an NFL coach said something like that, they’d be fired off the bat,” he said.
Students had advocated for Wax to be suspended while the investigation was ongoing. Vidyarthi told ABC News in 2022 that Wax “shouldn’t be allowed to come on campus, she shouldn’t be allowed to interact with students while this investigation is ongoing.”
Jeong and Vidyarthi helped write a petition calling for university action against Wax, in which they stated that “Wax’s racist comments have become a semi-annual ritual that receives temporary furor and temporary consequences.”
In one example cited by the students, Wax in an April 2022 Fox News interview disparaged Indian Americans and said “on some level, their country is a s–thole.”
In December 2021, Wax told Brown University professor Glenn Loury on his podcast “The Glenn Show” that “as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”
Wax also told Loury in 2017, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely in the top half,” calling this a “very inconvenient fact.”
In the letter from June 2022 initiating the disciplinary action against Wax, she was also accused of making homophobic and sexist remarks, including “commenting in class that gay couples are not fit to raise children” and telling students that “women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men.”
Wax has repeatedly defended her rhetoric as free speech.
“Make no mistake, the goal and effect of these charges is to demolish – to totally gut – the protections for extramural speech and free faculty expression, and to drive dissenters like me out of the academy,” she told free speech advocacy group FIRE Faculty Network last year.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
(SANTA MARIA, Calif.) — Two people suffered non-life-threatening injuries from an explosion at the Santa Maria Courthouse in California, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
One person of interest — an adult male — was detained, Santa Barbara County Sheriff public information officer Raquel Zick wrote on social media.
Authorities believe the explosion was the result of an “intentionally set improvised explosive device,” Zick said.
People are urged to stay away from the area.
“Scene has not been deemed safe,” Zick wrote earlier on social media.
The courthouse is closed for the day and city buildings within one block of the courthouse are temporarily closed, said Mark Van de Camp, spokesperson for the city of Santa Maria.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
