Assistant US Attorney Laura Cofer Taylor
Laura Cofer Taylor (courtesy lexology.com)

You may remember the prosecution of two men we wrote about over the sale of AutoKeyCards. Those are the, uh, “bottle openers” that Matt Hoover and Kristopher Ervin were selling through a couple of websites that have since been seized by the ATF.

Courtesy our friends at ATF

Both men were found guilty of conspiring to transfer unregistered machinegun conversion devices (among other charges) back in April. They are due to be sentenced on September 6.

But Assistant US Attorney Laura Cofer Taylor, one of the prosecutors in the case, doesn’t like the fact that John Crump has been reporting about the trial at Ammoland and via his podcast and YouTube channel.

In fact, it upset her enough that she filed a complaint with the presiding judge in the case about Crump’s reporting, citing the fact that he’d apparently been privy to information about the case that was given to him by someone inside the courtroom. Public information.

The judge — properly — denied Taylor’s specious complaint about Crump’s reporting.

Taylor wasn’t finished, however. On Monday night, the AUSA filed another motion with the court regarding a pre-sentence investigative report that Crump has obtained from one of the defendants and has talked about in his YouTube program. Taylor has apparently taken exception to a number of the more vitriolic comments directed at her by readers and viewers under Crump’s YouTube videos and under the articles published on the case at Ammoland.

This has infuriated Taylor to the point that she’s now asking the judge to issue an order commanding Crump to destroy the report he has in his possession. Taylor cited case law involving these PSR reports that prohibit officers of the court from disseminating them. There is nothing, however, to prevent a defendant from sharing a pre-sentence report with anyone they choose.

Last night, Crump — who’s represented by three very capable attorneys — filed his own emergency motion to intervene in the case to respond to Taylor’s attempt to gag him. The matter will be argued before the court in a hearing in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday afternoon and Crump’s attorneys will be there, something AUSA Taylor probably didn’t anticipate.

We talked to Crump this afternoon. He has no intention of backing down. This is a naked attempt by a thin-skinned AUSA to try to intimidate him and keep him from reporting on a public criminal trial.

Taylor is apparently unaware that the Streisand Effect is real. That’s part of why we’re calling all of this pathetically poor behavior by a DOJ prosecutor to your attention. And it would be a darned shame if you shared this news with other people you know.

Read the full report including Crump’s highly entertaining emergency motion at Ammoland HERE.

(And please try to keep the comments civil, okay?)

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46 COMMENTS

  1. I think she is scared….She should remember that sticks and stones may break her bones, but words will never hurt her.

    • Nah, she’s par for the course in DoJ these days. “How dare these peasants criticize their betters?”

      The good news is this is blowing up on her, big time (as it should). Hopefully, the judge will trash her from the bench.

  2. What’s to be upset about? If she believes she’s done right by the law then let the people say whatever the hell they want.

    She has done right, right?

    • She prosecuted those guys under existing laws, that is her job and that’s as right as it gets… Don’t know why she’s got her panties all bunched up over this, they’ve already been convicted just awaiting sentencing… She’s done some good work against child/sex traffickers, good convictions, just needs to take a chill pill and relax…

  3. “(And please try to keep the comments civil, okay?)”
    GFY Laura Cofer Taylor.
    Is that okay?

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  4. Well I’m not surprised Matt Hoover is going to the joint. I used to occasionally peruse his his channel. Now he’s lost his FFL & I assume everything including his shop & for what? Just to be a loudmouth? He’s got a wife & a kid too. Malicious prosecution? Yeah but he ain’t Trump. Poke the bear but bear the consequences🙄😕

    • What was his channel about? I mean guns obviously but why were you not surprised, what was he doing? I am unfamiliar w him/his channel

      • CRS Firearms was/is(?) his Youtube channel. He had/has a shop in Wisconsin. I don’t believe he should go to jail for an auto key card but Dimscum© do. And he was vocal about his disdain for the ATF. Since Illinois is trying to make every lawful gun owner a criminal I sympathize with his predicament. Don’t take my word on this. John Crump has the lowdown…

      • “What was his channel about?”

        What the channel was supposed to be and what it ended up being are two *vastly* different things.

        In reality, it was a channel where he took as long as possible to present in the most round-about way as possible something he could have been done in well-under 2 minuets.

        Almost as annoying as someone who tries to bend your ear several times a day with the same exact mindless prattle, and expects you to be grateful to them for doing it… 🙁

        • @Geoff

          That is some professional level snarcasm.

          Definitely worth three points for the setup and execution.

        • Once in a while, I can pull it off.

          Have you ever seen one of Matt’s long-winded comments on his channel?

    • I remember seeing a reproduction f the pttern on those sheets of aluminium (or was that stainless? Hard to tell in a pic on a confuser screen….) and cannot fathom what the “offense” is. Have any of you reading this ever taken a flat piece of thin guage sheet metal, carefully drawn a pattern on one face of it, usng a Sharpie fine tip (the metal one) exactly reproducing the size/shape of the patteren onto the metal sheet.. THEN taking any cutting instrument you wish and manually cutting along those lines so precisely you end up with a finished piece that perfectly fits into the action of your rifle……… I have worked with sheet metl a fair bit. I’ve had to make paper patterns of rust holes in car body metal, transfer the pattern to a sheet of non-rusted sheet metal of appropriate gauge, cut out the patch so it exactly replicates the shape/size of the rust hole, then welding the patch into place to completely fill the rust hole.
      Turning that pattern into a functional part is far beyond the skill/ability f the average or even most exceptional gun people. This entire case is a “bow down and worship me” scam by Uncle Stupid. If they’d been able to produce ONE customer who bought their little toy then proceeded to convert his own rifle to be what BATF claims it is protecting us against, then they MIGHT have a case. This mess MUST be appealed.

      • While I could see someone pulling it off with a Dremel and/or a lot of patience with proper filing and sanding yeah I can’t see it being a first time go for the majority of people. But the possibility is there so no fun allowed.

      • Had he sold a decal of proper scale someone could stick to a piece of metal and then cut out, would he be in the same position today?

        I still see those Luty(?) books on submachine gun construction with detailed plans being sold at the gun shows, and those sellers aren’t being prosecuted…

    • well maybe if there was enough of Patriots with balls and you could get them all on same page and be done with talking about it and spill some libtard blood in the streets these government asshole would remember who they work for . fuck the feds every last one of them

    • Does the guy who runs this YT channel give you some sort of incentive or something? That’s pretty much all you’re doing here, completely useless. It’s 2023, most people can find stuff online, you’re not Google!

      • @.40 cal Loser

        You don’t like it, that’s too bad. The internet is a big place and you are not the arbiter of what people can or can not post. Its 2023, most people know how to scroll past something they don’t want to read, except you who has to be childish and create a mocking fake name just to comment on this one post.

  6. You probably aren’t going to get many comments. I just checked the site and you have to “log in” to leave a comment. I’m not going thru the registration process just to comment.

  7. The First and Second Amendments are accompanied by a bodyguard of secrecy. Democracy dies in harsh sunlight.

    • She’s probably having surgery to have that stick removed from her….well, we ALL know what orifice that branch is stuck in. Probably an exotic hardwood.

      • “Probably an exotic hardwood.”

        Like Ebony?

        *snicker*… 😉

  11. This is the petty behavior of a bureaucrat left unchecked. Unfortunately, despite being head of the executive branch, Trump didn’t fire anybody, and now the swamp is emboldened.

    She has chosen to deprive two men of their liberty. She’s lucky they didn’t go down swinging.

  12. One’s karma can not be escaped. It’s like the laws of thermodynamics -there are no exceptions. Threefold will it come -nobody need lift a finger for eternal justice be meeted out. The universe will provide. When the ship lifts all debts will be paid.

  13. The 1st amendment died when Christians were denied the free speech right to protest at abortion clinics in the early 1980s.
    They were attacked by the police. And those attacks were supported by the public statements of the ACLU. And other so-called “supporters” of the First Amendment.

    What is happening to Ammoland now does not surprise me.
    There are a lot of people running around proudly claimingly support free speech of the n@zis and the klan. They have been putting on a great act. But they have never supported the first amendment.

  14. Aside from manufacturing and selling them aren’t computer programs for printing “AutoKey Cards” protected speech just like the 3D printed firearms?

  18. So selling a piece of sheet metal with markings is now selling automatic weapons.
    But you can easily get information on how to make explosives or various firearms parts, including detailed blue prints and recipes for either, at the public library. As well as online.
    Sorry but that cat has been out of the bag for many years.
    This case and several others are nothing but intimidation by the government to force compliance with government edicts.
    “You will comply. You will obey orders.”

    • “So selling a piece of sheet metal with markings is now selling automatic weapons.”

      Makes perfect sense. ATF declared that accessories are not alcohol, tobacco, or firearms; so ATF can regulate accessories.

  19. Laura Cofer is fat and ugly. Explains why she hates Constitutional Rights and carries water for deep state interests…so she can stab men in the gut, to psychology get back at all those boys who passed her over for the pretty girls. She has become an unstable, pathological nightmare and should be nowhere near more than a few molecules of power. Because at the end of every court victory it isn’t enough …she looks in the mirror and is still butt ugly. (She ain’t the only one who can paint a picture.)

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