Motion to dismiss from batshit insane Capitol rioter Pauline Bauer, representing herself in court on a single felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding (the rap most of the rioters who haven’t been connected to an act of violence, vandalism, or theft within the Capitol on January 6th were hit with), and three local DC misdemeanors. NBC 4 Washington’s Scott MacFarlane reports Bauer has been assigned a “standby counsel” by the court, a provision reserved to defendants “both unversed in courtroom etiquette and uneducated in the law” whose defense could suffer from a “disorderly and unfair trial”, per Villanova Law Professor Anne Bowen Poulin. More simply: Standby counsels can take over for crazy assholes like Bauer. This one probably will in short order.

* On a side note we’d like to apologize for misidentifying Scott MacFarlane’s employer as NBC News when it’s actually local NBC affiliate WRC-TV (aka NBC 4 Washington) in pretty much every time he’s been sourced here previously on National Zero. The distinction is a little less important given that WRC-TV is wholly owned and operated by NBC Universal (in contrast to, for example, WTWC in Tallahasee, Florida, an NBC affiliate owned by Sinclair), but it’s a distinction nonetheless. It also raises an important question: Why the fuck is this guy stuck at a local affiliate when he should be working at the national NBC News organization? His work tracking all the criminal cases related to the Capitol riot has been an incredible resource for so many. Somebody at NBC headquarters needs to get their head out of their ass and promote this guy already.