The Department of Justice.
- An accused Capitol rioter said she doesn’t need a lawyer because she is a “self-governed individual.”
- Prosecutors say Pauline Bauer said she wanted to hang Nancy Pelosi while inside the Capitol on January 6.
- Now, Bauer is claiming to have special legal privileges.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
A Pennsylvania pizzeria owner arrested and charged in connection to the January 6 Capitol attack, demanded the removal of “any and all” defense attorneys on her behalf, arguing that she is a divine entity immune from the court’s laws.
Prosecutors say Pauline Bauer, was among the hundreds of pro-Trump protesters who broke into the US Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency. Bauer attempted to organize mass transportation to bus people to DC for the Trump rally that preceded the attack, and once inside the building, she told police she wanted to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, court documents say.
“Bring Nancy Pelosi out here right now,” Bauer can be heard saying on body-worn camera footage from inside the Capitol rotunda, according to prosecutors. “We want to hang that f—ing b—-.”
Now, in a series of bizarre court filings made late last month, Bauer is insisting on representing herself and is claiming to have special legal privileges as a “self-governed individual.”
A court-appointed lawyer for Bauer did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
In a Zoom court appearance on June 11, Bauer told the judge she was attending “by special divine appearance,” according to The Daily Beast.
“I do not stand under the law,” Bauer said, according to the outlet. “Under Genesis 1, God gave man dominion over law.”
Bauer was later removed from that video proceeding “due to her inability to show qualm and decency to the Court,” records show. She was ordered to appear again in-person later that month.
But at a June 21 hearing, Bauer refused to accept the conditions of her release and was jailed overnight as a result, according to court documents. She was later released on personal recognizance after verbally agreeing to the required pretrial release conditions.
Days later, she submitted several filings full of far-right conspiracies, mounting an apparent “sovereign citizens” defense. Subscribers to the pseudo-science movement believe that “they – not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials – should decide which laws to obey and which to ignore,” according to The Southern Poverty Law Center.
In one filing, Bauer included a “Patent of Nativity,” a document which she claimed “serves as proof that [her] living DNA existed on this land before there was a United States of America or Any STATE Thereof.” The document includes a detailed genealogy of both her mother and father’s ancestry.
Among the filed documents, Bauer also demanded corrections be made to existing court documents in her case file.
Bauer, who faces charges of obstructing justice and Congress; knowingly entering a restricted building; knowingly engaging in disorderly conduct in a restricted building; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, is set to head back to court in person later this month.
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