Matt Taibbi;

Probably no one person or group in the Twitter Files was impacted in more different ways by new quasi-secret digital enforcement mechanisms than [Brandon] Straka and #WalkAway. Two U.S.-government-funded organizations, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index, became sources for a USA Today claim that the group was among “73 U.S.-based hate groups” and “insurrectionists” who “had access to at least 54 means of raising money online.” Straka at the time had been charged in connection with his presence outside the January 6th Capitol riots, but not convicted. He was blocked by PayPal on March 20th, then Venmo, and ultimately Stripe, Patreon, Constant Contact, MailChimp, Facebook, Instagram and many other companies.

The idea of federally-funded organizations preventing a person from raising money for his own criminal defense against federal charges seemed astonishing. Equally remarkable was USA Today’s behavior. Americans are innocent until proven guilty. We also have an absolute Sixth Amendment right to counsel. But the paper targeted defendants’ efforts to “crowdfund their legal fees,” even claiming it was a kind of scandal that they’d been forced — by people like their own reporters! — to “spring from one fundraising tool to another, utilizing new sites, usernames and accounts” […]

Straka and #WalkAway in other words provide an early test case in the incredible range of state-aided or state-administered punishments that can be piled on someone before they’re convicted of a crime. He ended up sentenced to a class B misdemeanor, essentially for being at the Capitol on January 6th, receiving a 30-page sentencing recommendation. I polled defense lawyers last year and asked if they’d ever seen a 30-page sentencing recommendation for disorderly conduct before. “Fuck no,” laughed one, before quickly stopping and checking, “Wait, we’re not using names with this, right?”