January 29, 2025
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Yesterday, in a round-up of stories related to Trump’s pardons of the January 6 prisoners --- mostly about the shameful resistance to this order by some in law enforcement --- we brought you the tragic story of Matthew Huttle of Hobart, Indiana, who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop. He had been pardoned by President Trump just days earlier.
Some of what you see in the news about this will be dependable, but much of it probably won’t be, especially what you encounter online. It’ll take a while to get the all-important bodycam footage (if there IS bodycam footage, and there had better be) and investigative reports, but in the meantime, we’re combing the news to find out what we can. You know how we operate: some version of the 72-hour rule is in force, to make sure we have something right before we report it.
It was around 4:45 PM on Monday that Matthew Huttle, 42, was pulled over on Indiana State Road 14 in Jasper County, Indiana, which is in the northwestern part of the state within an hour’s drive south of Gary. As THE BLAZE reported on Tuesday, the reason for the stop was “unclear.”
The deputy apparently attempted to place him under arrest --- it’s not known why --- but, according to a statement from the Indiana State Police (ISP), “the suspect resisted” and “an altercation took place between the suspect and the officer.” The officer drew his service weapon and fatally wounded him.
In an update from the story we had yesterday, the ISP have said that Huttle had a firearm “in his possession.” That does not necessarily mean he was brandishing it in any way, just that it was there in the car. (In fact, one would think that if he HAD been brandishing it, that would have been included in the report.)
Matthew and his uncle Dale Huttle were among the approximately 1,500 January 6 defendants who had just received pardons from President Trump. According to his defense attorney, as reported in THE BLAZE, Matthew wasn’t necessary even political, not a “true believer.” He was arrested in November 2022 after he allegedly entered the Capitol building, walked down several hallways and paid a visit to “multiple” offices. He spent 16 whole minutes inside the building, recording it on video.
In 2023, he pleaded guilty to just one misdemeanor charge of entering a restricted building, the kind of charge that should never have been brought. He was sentenced to six months in federal prison plus a year of supervised release.
So, to clarify, he hadn’t JUST been released from prison, as the original story we saw had implied. The WASHINGTON POST reports that he was released in July of last year. So he was already out but did still have to report to a parole officer, at least until he got the pardon from President Trump, which would have put an end to his supervised release.
It was Dale, his uncle, who faced the more serious charges; he was accused of assaulting police officers. As THE BLAZE reports, “an archived version of a DOJ statement of facts includes images showing Dale Huttle carrying an American flag tied to a flagpole and tussling with cops over the flagpole.” In a DOJ press release, he’s quoted as saying, “I’m not ashamed of being there. It was our duty as patriots. I put myself on the line to defend the country. And I have, I have no regrets. I will not say I’m sorry.”
Dale agreed to a plea deal that led to his being sentenced to 30 months in prison plus two years of supervised release. So, apparently, Dale was still in prison when his nephew was killed.
Matthew, the deceased, had previously served time for a traffic-related offense, according to the NEW YORK POST. In fact, according to the POST, “His defense attorney at the time said in a court filing he went to the rally because he thought it would be a historic moment and he had nothing better to do after getting out of jail for a driving offense.”
Defense attorney Andrew Hemmer said at the time, “He is not a true believer in any political cause.” (Not that his political beliefs should have mattered to his guilt or innocence, but you know how these cases were viewed.)
The Indiana State Police have taken the lead on this investigation, so now we have to wait for them to be forthcoming. According to the NEW YORK POST, they’ve expressed condolences to Huttle’s family but have not revealed anything else about the shooting, including the reason he was pulled over in the first place and why he was being arrested.
Until bodycam footage is released, we simply can’t say what happened that led to the shooting. USA TODAY reports that “while trying to arrest Huttle, police say he resisted and began struggling with the deputy.” They also say that police did NOT say he wielded his weapon or “where exactly it was found.” They also offered no details about the gun itself.
Here’s the news release from the Indiana State Police. As they say here, “The investigation is ongoing, and no further information can be released.” So we’ll leave it here for now, as we await more.
http://pages.subscription.in.
RELATED J6 STORY: If you’d really like to get into the weeds on the legal manipulations used to charge January 6 defendants, REDSTATE has a great article about how Biden DOJ prosecutors disregarded a series of Supreme Court decisions between 2005 and 2021 to charge them with “obstructing Congress” when they entered the Capitol the day of vote certification.
On Monday, the Interim U.S. Attorney for DC, Ed Martin, announced that his office would, as reported in REDSTATE, “undertake a review of the decision-making that led to the charging of hundreds of January 6 protesters with ‘obstructing Congress’ in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1512 (c).” This law, stemming from the Enron/Arthur Anderson litigation, had been created to plug a “hole” in another law having to do with the destruction of client records, expanding it to allow prosecution of a defendant whose own “corrupt acts” interfered with an official proceeding. This could add 20 years to a prison sentence.
The Biden DOJ used this statute against many nonviolent J6 defendants who had done nothing more than simply step inside the Capitol. They hadn’t interfered with ANYTHING. (You know, pretty much like the late Matthew Huttle.)
U.S. Attorney Martin is going to be looking at where --- and WHOM --- the reasoning for this abuse of the law came from. Leading up to it, the Supreme Court had repeatedly struck down criminal convictions by the DOJ because of overly expansive uses of statutes in the area of “obstruction of justice.” But that didn’t stop them from using their “novel legal theory” to go after the J6 defendants. When the U.S. attorney finds out whose brilliant idea this was, he needs to fire them immediately, if they haven’t already been fired.
RELATED READING: Investigative reporter Julie Kelly has a good wrap-up of President Trump’s first week, including pardoning the J6-ers and shutting down that prosecution. There was no reason to wait for Pam Bondi’s confirmation as U.S. Attorney General to get started with this. As Kelly writes, “...if Democrats had hoped postponing Bondi’s confirmation would delay the Trump administration’s carpet bombing of the Department of Justice, they are once again mistaken.”
Take a look at the various firings and reassignments at the “Justice” Department, and it’ll warm your heart. Haha, it turns out that George Toscas, the official who had pushed hard for the Mar-A-Lago raid in the Trump “classified” documents case, has indeed been reassigned to the unit set up to fight resistance from “sanctuary cities” to Trump’s deportation plans. We had speculated yesterday that this might be the case. Good joke on him. (If he doesn’t quit over this, please just fire him and get it over with.)
Kelly has much more. This really is the feel-good story of the day.
https://www.declassified.live/
Well, here’s another feel-good story. Can you stand another one? New CIA Director John Ratcliffe is gearing up for sweeping changes at the agency and plans to turn it into “the ultimate meritocracy.”
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