Six days after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the political and criminal-justice consequences continue to play out as lawmakers have called for the president’s resignation and a second impeachment has begun. Below, updates on the volatile situation.
Updates appear in reverse chronological order.
From tonight’s debate in the House How not to convince Mike Pence to break the law the embarrass himselfIntelligencer’s Jonathan Chait squints at the news that President Trump reportedly tried to goad Pence into helping him overturn the election by telling him if he didn’t, he would be remembered as a “pussy”:
This is Mike Pence. The extremely religious conservative, who won’t be alone with a woman who isn’t his wife and who was mortified by Trump being caught on tape using the word “pussy.” Try telling him Jesus wants him to do it! It probably won’t work, but the pussy line is definitely not going to work.
Jon also notes how much abuse it took for Pence to even sort of turn on the president. Read the rest of his response here.
Another House Republican says they’ll vote to impeachMichigan representative Fred Upton announced on Tuesday night that: “Congress must hold President Trump to account and send a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by any President to impede the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. Thus, I will vote to impeach.”
Upton is now one of four House Republicans who have said they will do that, including the third most powerful GOP lawmaker in the chamber, Liz Cheney.
Meanwhile on Fox NewsSean Hannity is fired up and ready to whoa:
Many GOP lawmakers revolted against the new metal detector outside the House chamber on Tuesday nightAs a result of last week’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a metal detector was installed at the entrance to the House chamber on Tuesday. It’s first night in action did not go well.
Numerous GOP lawmaker objected to the security measure. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who has repeatedly said she wants to carry a firearm inside the Capitol, set off the metal detector and then refused to let Capitol Police search her bag. CNN’s Ryan Nobels captured the scene on Twitter as it unfolded:
Boebert walked through with her bag which set off the [magnetometer]. She refused to offer the bag over to be searched and is now in a standoff with Capitol Police. Capitol Police won’t let her in until Boebert shows them what is in her bag, she won’t and is now standing by the entrance of the chamber. She is respectful but defiant.
Nobles says she was eventually let in, but it wasn’t clear whether or not police searched her bag. HuffPost reporter Matt Fuller said he watched “about ten” Republicans just walk around the metal detector, including Representatives Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, and Scott Perry. Representative Louie Gohmert also walked around, and per Fuller, said to the police officers, “You can’t stop me; I’m on my way to a vote.”
Representative Steve Womack yelled “that he was ‘PHYSICALLY RESTRAINED’ from entering the floor,” Fuller also noted. Another reporter heard Womack yell at police: “You are creating a problem you do not understand the ramifications of.”
Fuller adds:
The metal detectors are going to be useless if they’re just going to let the members who don’t want to go through the magnetometer sidestep it. I’m watching Democrats and about 4/5ths of Republicans comply. It’s really causing tension between police and members.
It’s actually incredible to watch Members of Congress go through a metal detector. There are certain tricks — like walking through the center, not wearing large belt buckles — that won’t set off the machine. They’re blithely unaware, setting it off most of the time.
Another member — I believe it was Russ Fulcher — just pushed his way through. He went through the metal detector, set it off, ran into a cop, and then pushed his way past her.
He concludes:
Indeed.
Pence will not invoke the 25th Amendment, he tells PelosiIn a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday night, Vice-President Mike Pence wrote that he would not invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump for the remainder of his term, as he does not believe “that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution.” Read the whole letter below:
One of the people arrested for storming the Capitol has died by suicideA Georgia man who was among those who stormed the Capitol last week, and was later arrested, died by suicide on Saturday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. 53-year-old Christopher Georgia was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Alpharetta, Georgia. He had been arrested by D.C. Metro Police on Wednesday night in connection with the insurrection at the Capitol, and pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges of “unlawful entry of public property” and violating D.C.’s evening curfew.
McConnell reportedly pleased with impeachment pushThe New York Times and CNN both report that the Senate Majority Leader has told associates that he believes Trump did commit impeachable offenses last week and that he is pleased Democrats and moving to make that official. Per the Times, McConnell believes Trump being impeached “will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking.” CNN adds that McConnell has said he “hates” Trump for inciting the insurrection last week, and is deliberately not defending him:
Another person with direct knowledge told CNN there’s a reason McConnell has been silent on impeachment as other Republicans have pushed back: he’s furious about last week’s attack on the US Capitol by the President’s supporters, even more so that Trump has shown no contrition. His silence has been deliberate as he leaves open the option of supporting impeachment.
That does not, however, mean he will publicly support, or vote in favor of, impeaching Trump himself. Neither McConnell nor House minority leader Kevin McCarthy have publicly said they think Trump should be removed from office. McCarthy, however, is not trying to whip up opposition to the impeachment among House Republicans, and has reportedly asked his caucus not to speak out against any colleagues that do vote to impeach Trump.
Joint Chiefs condemn “sedition and insurrection” at Capitol, while services look for extremists in the ranks“We witnessed actions inside the Capitol building that were inconsistent with the rule of law. The rights of freedom of speech and assembly do not give anyone the right to resort to violence, sedition and insurrection,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement on Tuesday. And CNN reports that a major interagency meeting is happening Wednesday to discuss security in nation’s capital ahead of President-elect Biden’s inauguration next week, and in anticipation of potential violence:
Even as Defense and Justice Department officials work to keep the Capitol and lawmakers safe from domestic terrorists who might try to come to Washington in the next few days, they are also having to examine people in the ranks of the military amid concerns some may be sympathetic to the aims and extremist beliefs being propagated by some Trump supporters.
CNN has learned the US Army is working with the Secret Service to determine if there are soldiers who will be part of the National Guard contingent providing security at Biden’s inauguration who require additional background screening.
The DC National Guard is also providing additional training to service members as they arrive in Washington that if they see or hear something that is not appropriate, they should report it to their chain of command, an Army spokesperson said in a written statement to CNN.
An analysis by Gizmodo using GPS metadata from videos posted to Parler during the insurrection shows
JUSTIN MILLER: The Justice Department is investigating the Capitol riot as a seditious conspiracy, authorities said during a Tuesday press conference in Washington — the first such public briefing since the attack last week.
Feds said they have charged 70 people so far and opened 160 cases, with hundreds more cases for everything from trespassing to felony murder and sedition “I think the scope and scale of this investigation in these cases are really unprecedented not only in FBI history but really in DOJ history,” said Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Sherin said his office has set up a “strike team” to prosecute sedition cases specifically. Authorities are also looking hard at suspects in alleged assaults of police and the press.
“The FBI has a long memory, and a broad reach,” said Seven D’Antuono, assistant director FBI Washington Field Office. “Even if you’ve left D.C., agents from our local field offices will be knocking on your door if we find out you were a part of the criminal activity at the Capitol.”
D’Antuono and Sherwin said the authorities were not caught totally off guard by plans for violence. Those statements were made after the Washington Post reported that an FBI office in Virginia warned the rest of the bureau of an imminent attack on the Capitol. Agents observed extremists online “sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators” across the U.S. to head in groups to Washington. One message read: “Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”
Olympic medalist, Proud Boy among riotersKlete Keller, a 38-year-old former U.S. swimmer who won gold in Athens and Beijing on a relay team with Michael Phelps, has been identified in videos at the riot by former teammates. According to the New York Times, they recognized the 6-foot-6 Olympian in videos “because of his size and because he was wearing a U.S. Olympic team jacket that had “USA” printed across the back and down the sleeves.”
A new report from Vice states that a member of the far-right group the Proud Boys was an instigator at the scene, breaking a Capitol window through which insurrectionists got in.
The pipe bombs placed outside the RNC and DNC were on timersCNN reports that, according to the FBI, both bombs — which were discovered outside the two parties’ D.C. headquarters near the Capitol on Wednesday — were indeed real and had set been set to blow with timers. “We don’t know exactly why they didn’t go off,” the FBI’s Steven D’Antuono said Tuesday.
He also said that the FBI was still investigating whether or not any of the mob members had planned to take members of Congress hostage.
Masks will also be required in the HouseThe acting Sergeant at Arms made the announcement on Tuesday, following outcry among multiple House Democrats that their GOP colleagues refused to wear masks while lawmakers and staff were sheltering together during the attack on the Capitol last week. Three members of the House have since tested positive for COVID-19. Democratic leaders are also introducing fines:
Entering the House chamber will now require walking through a metal detectorNo firearms will be allowed into the chamber.
Trump on 25th Amendment: “Be careful what you wish for”The president, speaking in Texas on Tuesday, once again threatened vague consequences should there be an attempt to remove him from power. Per Bloomberg’s Emma Kinery:
That this even needed to be said …The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
Now is the time for our nation to heal. And it’s time for peace and for calm, respect for law enforcement and the great people within law enforcement is the foundation of the MAGA agenda. We’re a nation of law and a nation of order.
The National Review’s John McCormack tweets that “according to a GOP source on [the House GOP] conference phone call yesterday, [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy warned members not to verbally attack colleagues who vote for impeachment because it could endanger their lives.”
McCarthy also reportedly strongly dismissed the idea that antifa boogeymen were among the mob at the Capitol, both to his House GOP colleagues and in an earlier conversation with the president. A week ago, the Republican leader was one of the most prominent supporters of Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
Or that *this* even needed to be said … Pushing back on the idea that the mob was “low class”Last week, Intelligencer’s Olivia Nuzzi and others reported that President Trump had been turned off by how “low class” the mob who carried out the assault on the Capitol looked. At the Atlantic, Adam Serwer offers a corrective response:
They were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads, and, I assume, some Proud Boys.
The mob that breached the Capitol last week at President Donald Trump’s exhortation, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, was full of what you might call “respectable people.” …
The notion that political violence simply emerges out of economic desperation, rather than ideology, is comforting. But it’s false. Throughout American history, political violence has often been guided, initiated, and perpetrated by respectable people from educated middle- and upper-class backgrounds. The belief that only impoverished people engage in political violence—particularly right-wing political violence—is a misconception often cultivated by the very elites who benefit from that violence.
The members of the mob that attacked the Capitol and beat a police officer to death last week were not desperate. They were there because they believed they had been unjustly stripped of their inviolable right to rule. They believed that not only because of the third-generation real-estate tycoon who incited them, but also because of the wealthy Ivy Leaguers who encouraged them to think that the election had been stolen.
He goes on to note several historical examples; you can read the rest here.
Right-wing extremists are reportedly scurrying for the cover of TelegramNBC News’ Anna Schecter provides a look at the online extremist scene, now that big tech has been cracking down on their usual chat rooms:
Another inflection point in America’s historyRight-wing extremists are using channels on the encrypted communication app Telegram to call for violence against government officials on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, with some extremists sharing knowledge of how to make, conceal and use homemade guns and bombs.
The messages are being posted in Telegram chatrooms where white supremacist content has been freely shared for months, but chatter on these channels has increased since extremists have been forced off other platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. …
[F]ar-right Telegram chat room membership has ballooned in recent days, particularly since the popular platform Parler, financed by the wealthy conservative backer Rebekah Mercer, went offline Monday after Amazon rescinded its web-hosting service.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns offered some thoughts on the past week’s events in today’s Politico Playbook. He argues that America is living through its fourth great crisis as a nation:
The FBI’s Virginia office flagged threats against Capitol one day before the siegeThe story of our democratic experiment is perhaps best told through our nadirs, of which there are many. In order to truly understand and appreciate the promise of the country, still unrealized for too many, we must explore the points at which it was most challenged, at times when it appeared even to almost fall apart.
Last week, many asked whether the assault on the Capitol, fueled by Trump and his many political and media enablers, was the start of something or an end.
It is neither, of course. It is a moment when we each get to decide how we want to proceed.
The Washington Post reports:
A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s pro-Trump protest planned to do harm.
A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted a dire portrait of dangerous plans, including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators to meet up in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina and head in groups to Washington.
However:
Trump calls impeachment a “witch hunt,” says his January 6 speech was “totally appropriate”Yet even with [the information threatening violence] in hand, the report’s unidentified author expressed concern that the FBI might be encroaching on free speech rights.
The warning is the most stark evidence yet of the sizable intelligence failure that preceded the mayhem, during which five people died, although one law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action, said the failure was not one of intelligence, but of acting on the intelligence.
President Trump emerged from days of seclusion on Tuesday, answering questions from reporters as he headed to the Texas border. Trump said of last week’s Capitol riot, “We want no violence, never violence,” per the Washington Post, and rejected accusations that he played a role in instigating the attack, recycling a catchphrase from the first time he was impeached.
“On the impeachment, it’s really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics,” Trump said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This impeachment is causing tremendous anger, and you’re doing it, and it’s really a terrible thing that they’re doing.”
Echoing a line some on the right have used in recent days, Trump claimed that Democrats are the ones who are being divisive in trying to hold him and the mob who attacked the Capitol accountable.
“For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country, and it’s causing tremendous anger,” he said.
Trump went on to claim that his remarks to his supporters on January 6 were “totally appropriate,” and he lashed out at the tech companies that banned him in recent days.
“They are making a catastrophic mistake,” he said. “They’re dividing and divisive, and they’re showing something that I’ve been predicting for a long time.”
Comments Intelligencer’s Jonathan Chait in response:
He wants no violence. He’s just giving the sort of friendly warning a gangster might give a shopkeeper. Nobody wants violence. Give the man what he demands, and there won’t be any.
Read the rest of Jon’s reaction here.
Trump’s new-and-unimproved echo-isolation chamberPolitico reported on Monday night that the president is caught in an even tighter feedback loop than usual, as a result of the Capitol riot and its fallout:
House Democrats briefed on chilling plots to take over governmentTrump knows he’s unlikely to be removed from office with Republicans controlling the Senate until next week and only a few days left of his term. The president has also grown increasingly isolated, distrusting the same aides and advisers he had relied on during prior crises in his presidency, including White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. …
In his final days of his term, Trump is still spending time railing against the election that he lost to Joe Biden in November and surrounding himself with a handful of loyalists — among them Rudy Giuliani — who have been with him since the start, according to interviews with eight current and former Trump aides. …
And since Twitter banned his account, Trump has been making more calls than usual — not, as one former Trump aide said, “to more people” but rather, “the same people over and over again.”
“He’s talking to people who are willing to indulge him,” a former senior administration official said.
On Monday night, Capitol police briefed Democrats about three demonstrations planned for the coming days that could pose a serious threat. HuffPost reports:
The first is a demonstration billed as the “largest armed protest ever to take place on American soil.”
Another is a protest in honor of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed while trying to climb into the Speaker’s Lobby during Wednesday’s pro-Trump siege of the Capitol.
And another demonstration, which three members said was by far the most concerning plot, would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court, and then blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government.
Members said they were warned about sharing too much information with journalists, as the organizers are relying on the media to publicize the events now that they’ve been blocked from various social-media sites.
HuffPosts reports that there are also concerns about the threat posed by members of Congress who are sympathetic to the insurrectionists:
Trump reportedly blamed antifa for the violence inside the CapitolOne topic of discussion was the need to put every member of Congress through a metal detector before the inauguration. A member on the call told HuffPost that there was an “eyes-wide-open realization” that Capitol Police needed to take precautions against “all these members who were in league with the insurrectionists who love to carry their guns.”
“You can’t just let them bypass security and walk right up to [Joe] Biden and [Kamala] Harris at inauguration,” this lawmaker told HuffPost.
Last Wednesday, as reports described the president holed up in the White House watching TV without expressing concern for his fellow public servants at the Capitol, he refused to acknowledge the meaning of his name stamped all over the apparel of the insurrectionists. According to Axios, Trump has privately blamed antifa for the violence that will culminate in his second impeachment.
Trump declares state of emergency in D.C. ahead of next week’s inaugurationOn Monday, the president approved a state of emergency for the capital city ahead of the inauguration, to free up federal resources to be used from now until January 24, the Sunday after Joe Biden is sworn into office.
TV-obsessed Trump was too engrossed in Capitol attack coverage to hear pleas to help end it: ReportThe Washington Post’s new reported account of the president’s failure to act as the Capitol siege played out includes this assertion from one of his advisers:
[A]s senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who — safely ensconced in the West Wing — was too busy watching fiery TV images of the crisis unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their pleas.
“He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV,” said one close Trump adviser. “If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.”
As others, like his son, Donald Jr., tried to respond to deescalate the situation, the Post reports that the president “was busy enjoying the spectacle,” and “watched with interest, buoyed to see that his supporters were fighting so hard on his behalf, one close adviser said.”
Trump also apparently grew concerned that the riot would backfire — against his desire to block Congress’s affirmation of Biden’s victory. “At one point,” notes the report, “Trump worried that the unruly group was frightening GOP lawmakers from doing his bidding and objecting to the election results, an official said.”
Pence and Trump speak for the first time since Trump incited a mob to go after himThe president and vice-president spoke Monday, CNN reports, after Trump spend the weekend isolated in the White House, “stewing to his deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, and entered his final full week angrier than ever”:
A senior administration official told CNN they met in the Oval Office, had what was described as a good conversation and discussed the week ahead while “reflecting on the last four years of the administration’s work and accomplishments.”
“They reiterated that those who broke the law and stormed the Capitol last week do not represent the America First movement backed by 75 million Americans, and pledged to continue the work on behalf of the country for the remainder of their term,” the senior official said.
CNN adds that Pence has not discussed removing the president from power with other members of Trump’s Cabinet, but instead, “Pence and his advisers seem to be looking toward their final week in office with an eye toward his legacy, hoping to tout the administration’s achievements.”
Fox News’ ratings fell off a cliff late last week Congressman Mo Brooks, who helped incite pro-Trump mob, faces censureBrooks spoke at Wednesday’s Stop the Steal rally on the Ellipse near the White House along with the president, and as Intelligencer’s Ed Kilgore points out, he arguably “incited violence more clearly than did Trump, telling the crowd that ‘today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.’” He also asked the crowd, many of whom later joined in the mob siege of the Capitol, whether they were willing to sacrifice their lives:
Two Democratic representatives, Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, have introduced a censure resolution aimed at their right-wing Alabama colleague Mo Brooks. The resolution says Brooks “encouraged and incited violence against his fellow Members of Congress, as part of an assault on the United States Capitol” in [his speech to the mob.]
Read the rest of Ed’s response here.
At least two Capitol Police officers have been suspended, more are under investigationAt least two Capitol Police officers have been suspended, and as many 15 more are being investigated over their actions during the siege of the Capitol last week. Representative Tim Ryan said Monday that one of the two suspended officers took selfies with members of the pro-Trump mob inside the Capitol, while the other wore a MAGA hat and gave directions to people inside the building. Ryan said that 10 to 15 other officers were also being investigated over their conduct that day. He also said that there had been one arrest of a police officer or National Guard member — but couldn’t offer any additional details about that yet. Intelligencer’s Matt Stieb adds that:
[Ryan said] the Capitol Police interim chief is taking “aggressive action” to determine if any officers gave insurrectionists any help once they were inside. “The main point is that Capitol police are looking at everybody involved that could have potentially facilitated at a big level or small level in any way,” Ryan said.
The Washington Post reports that the investigation is focused on suspected involvement with or inappropriate support for the mob:
Eight investigations have been launched, according to a congressional official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the status of the probe. In one of the cases, officers had posted what Capitol police investigators found to be messages showing support for the upcoming demonstration, including supporting the president’s baseless claim that the November election had been stolen through voter fraud.
In one instance, investigators found that an officer had posted “inappropriate” images of Joe Biden on a social media account. The officials declined to describe the photographs.
One USCP officer, Brian Sicknick, died Thursday as a result of injuries sustained during the riot. Another Capitol Police officer who responded to the insurrection, Howard Liebengood, died by suicide over the weekend.
Read the rest of Matt Stieb’s post on the news here.
Chad Wolf, the acting head of the DHS, is outPer CNN, Wolf did not cite the attack on the Capitol as some other Trump Cabinet members have in their own resignations in recent days, but rather the ongoing litigation challenging the legality of him holding the position in the first place:
What about the 14th Amendment?FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor will be the new acting secretary, taking over in the wake of the US Capitol attack and as the national security apparatus prepares for possible violence leading up to Inauguration Day. …
“Unfortunately, this action is warranted by recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as Acting Secretary. These events and concerns increasingly serve to divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time of a transition of power,” Wolf [wrote in his resignation letter on Monday.]
Wolf was in the chief role at the department in an acting capacity for 14 months. His tenure has repeatedly come up in litigation against the Trump administration’s immigration actions.
Intelligencer’s Ed Kilgore explores the idea that President Trump, following his incitement of insurrection last week, may already be barred from ever seeking office ever again under the terms of Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which, following the Civil War, was intended to bar ex-Confederate officers and officials from holding office:
Punchbowl refers to this fallback option as “Plan D” for Democrats in dealing with Trump’s definitive misconduct. “There’s some discussion in legal circles that it could be used against Trump, but it’s a longshot.”
It’s a longshot in part because it could only be tested in the event Trump runs for federal or state office at some point in the future, and no one knows for sure if the courts would uphold a 21st-century application of a provision clearly designed for use against those who engaged in what was for many years referred to simply as “the Rebellion.” And the legal ambiguity […] makes it a less than satisfactory source of vindication of the widespread anger at Trump over his effort to subvert an election he lost.
There is, however, something satisfying about branding Trump with the same “traitor” label born by those Confederates he has so resolutely defended as an honorable part of “our history.”
Read the rest of Ed’s analysis here.
Former White House flack: Trump “is most masculine person” to ever be presidentHogan Gidley, the former White House deputy press secretary, was asked by Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on Monday whether the president felt “emasculated” by the loss of his social-media channels. His response is one for the Trump-worshipping ages:
Who dies for Donald Trump?Intelligencer contributor Miranda Green looks into what drove Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a police officer inside the Capitol last week after she and other members of the pro-Trump mob tried to break down a door to where lawmakers were:
[P]eople close to Babbitt said they had no idea how devoted she was to Donald Trump and his movement until they saw her with a mob inside the U.S. Capitol. … Now her family members are trying to reconcile their own image of the feisty but private woman they knew with the one who stormed Congress as part of a violent mob that called for the killing of lawmakers.
“I actually saw it first on video when I was on the phone with multiple hospitals trying to find her,” said Kayla Joyce, 29, who said she is the mutual live-in girlfriend of Babbitt and her husband, Aaron. “We found out through the news. Through live television.” …
“I blame Trump. How could you not? I mean he is their figure, their president,” Joyce said. “Why else would they do that unless their leader tells them to do that?”
Read the rest of Miranda’s report here.
Kevin McCarthy rejects impeachment, suggests censure and forming a commissionHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a letter to his GOP colleagues on Monday that he continued to oppose impeaching the president, while laying out four alternative options “to ensure that the events of January 6 are rightfully denounced and prevented from occurring in the future.”
Those options were censure, a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol, reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (which Republicans cited in their grandstanding effort to reject electoral votes for Biden last week), and “Legislation to Promote Voter Confidence in Future Federal Elections” (which would likely include voter-ID measures long sought by Republicans).
McCarthy, a staunch Trump ally who had expressed support for the president’s attempts to overthrow the election, did not acknowledge Biden was the president-elect until Friday. He and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise have been facing backlash over their postelection loyalty to Trump and failure to quickly condemn the president’s role in inciting the attack on the Capitol.
During a call with Republican lawmakers on Monday, McCarthy reportedly claimed that Trump had told him he did bear some responsibility for the riot at the Capitol. If that’s true, it would be very, very out of character for the president.
Trump is reportedly more upset about being condemned by the PGA than he is about his second impeachmentIntelligencer’s Matt Stieb took note of PGA news and the overall reckoning that Trump is facing in the pro-golf world as a result of his incitement of an insurrection (among many other transgressions):
On Sunday night, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America announced that its board of directors had voted to move the 2022 PGA Championship from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to a new location as a consequence of the Capitol insurrection. Holding the tournament at the Trump links in Bedminster would be “detrimental” to the PGA’s reputation, said the organization’s president, Jim Richerson. A second rebuke came hours later when the R&A, the U.K.’s elite organizer of golf tournaments, announced it would not consider Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland for the British Open for the “foreseeable future,” despite the club’s historic ties to the circuit.
Read the rest of Matt’s post here.
A “disgruntled” staffer changed Trump’s bio on the State Department website House will vote on impeachment WednesdayPolitico reports:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team informed members on a private call Monday they will need to return to the Capitol — for many, the first time since the Jan. 6 attacks — on Tuesday night. Impeachment is scheduled for consideration at 9 a.m. Wednesday, if Trump refuses to resign and Vice President Mike Pence won’t initiate other procedures to remove him.
Key members of the House Judiciary Committee introduced a single article of impeachment Monday that has already gathered at least 218 cosponsors, according to a congressional aide involved in the process, meeting the majority needed for passage in the House.
Intelligencer’s Ed Kilgore explains the likely timeline for the impeachment process here.
15,000 National Guard members authorized for inauguration dutyThere are currently 6,200 National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., following last week’s mayhem and more are arriving, with a total of 10,000 expected to be in the city by Saturday. Per CNN, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has asked Americans to avoid coming to the city for the event, as had Biden’s inauguration committee last month. The National Guard and other agencies will conduct a dress rehearsal of the inauguration this week.
House member announces positive COVID-19 testNew Jersey Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman said in a tweet on Monday, “Following the events of Wednesday, including sheltering with several colleagues who refused to wear masks, I decided to take a COVID test. I have tested positive.”
Represenative Watson Coleman — a 75-year-old cancer survivor who, as a member of Congress, had already received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine but got infected anyway — said she had mild symptoms and was working from home.
It is very, very likely that there will be more cases among members of Congress and their staff as a direct result of the mayhem at the Capitol last week. Intelligencer’s Charlotte Klein wrote about their exposure risk on Thursday.
FBI warns of looming armed protests in all 50 state capitols, and again at the U.S. Capitol in the lead-up to inaugurationA new FBI bulletin, obtained by ABC News on Monday, also warns of a threat to storm government buildings nationwide if Trump is removed from power:
Washington Monument closed until after Biden’s inauguration“Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the US Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,” according to an FBI bulletin obtained by ABC. A group is calling for “storming” state, local, and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event President Trump is removed prior to Inauguration Day[.]
The FBI has “received information about an identified armed group intending to travel to Washington, DC on 16 January. They have warned that if Congress attempts to remove POTUS via the 25th Amendment a huge uprising will occur,” according to [the] bulletin.
The National Parks Service announced the closure on Monday, citing “credible threats to visitors and park resources,” and that “groups involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol continue to threaten to disrupt” the inauguration.
House has introduced article of impeachment, for incitement of insurrectionThe House will vote on it this week; read it below:
Republicans block resolution on 25th AmendmentDemocrats in the House of Representatives attempted to pass a resolution Monday morning, by unanimous consent, that would recommend Vice-President Pence invoke the 25th Amendment in an attempt to force President Trump from office. Pence has indicated that he has no plans to do so. Pelosi said Sunday that she would bring the resolution to the floor if Monday’s unanimous consent request failed.
Democrats aim to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection”House Democrats are set to formally unveil their resolution to impeach President Trump at 11 a.m. on Monday, CNN reports. The single impeachment article will focus on his false claims that he won the election in recent weeks, the phone call in which he encouraged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to flip the state, and his speech to his supporters just before they stormed the Capitol on January 6.
“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the resolution says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
Melania’s commitment to the plagiarism bit is truly stunning Melania Trump releases statement on Capitol riotFive days after rioters, instigated by her husband, tore through the Capitol, First Lady Melania Trump has released a statement on the matter — and it’s as awkward and unsettling as you might expect. She says her “heart goes out” to everyone who died in the riot, mentioning the rioters before Capitol Police officers (and misspelling the name of one of the rioters, Ashli Babbitt). In the very next paragraph she paints herself as a victim, complaining about “unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me.”
Like all of you, I have reflected on the past year and how the invisible enemy, Covid-19, swept across our beautiful country. All Nations have experienced the loss of loved ones, economic pain, and the negative impacts of isolation.
As your First Lady, it has been inspiring to witness firsthand what the people of our great Nation will do for one another, especially when we are at our most vulnerable.
With nearly every experience I have had, I found myself carrying many individual’s stories home with me in my heart.
Most recently, my heart goes out to: Air Force Veteran, Ashli Babbit, Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood. I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time.
I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week. I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda. This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.
Our Nation must heal in a civil manner. Make no mistake about it, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our Nation’s Capitol. Violence is never acceptable.
Read the full statement here.
Pelosi says House will indeed proceed with impeachmentThe House Speaker informed her caucus on Sunday night that Democrats will bring both impeachment legislation and a resolution urging Vice-President Mike Pence to remove Trump using the 25th Amendment the floor of the House this week. Per the Associated Press:
House Democrats are expected to introduce articles of impeachment on Monday and vote as soon as Tuesday. The strategy would be to condemn the president’s actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Joe Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated Jan. 20.
Pelosi said Representative Jamie Raskin’s resolution, which calls for Pence “to convene and mobilize the Cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare the President incapable of executing the duties of his office,” will be brought to the floor no later than Tuesday, with Pence then having 24 hours to respond.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” Pelosi told her Democratic colleagues. “The horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
There’s been a major lack of transparency in the aftermathWhile silence from Trump is to be more-or-less expected, former prosecutors and others have questioned why so many federal agencies have failed to hold public press briefings in the wake of the attack on Wednesday:
New details of serious coordination at the CapitolIn an interview with the Washington Post, Capitol Police chief Steven Sund said that he now suspects that pipe bombs placed near the Capitol grounds were an effort to draw officers away from the building and its perimeter, a notable step-up in the understanding of the coordination and planning that went into the attack. In the interview, Sund, who has submitted his resignation, said that he requested that the National Guard be put on standby, but his higher-ups turned it down.
Stripe to stop processing payments for Trump campaign siteThe digital reckoning continues: On Sunday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that the payment-processing company Stripe would stop processing donations to the Trump campaign. According to the firm’s website, Stripe asks users to agree that they won’t accept payments for “high risk” activities, which includes any operation that “engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property.”
No reconciliation yet between Pence and TrumpAfter riling up a crowd that threatened to “hang Mike Pence,” the relationship between the vice-president and Donald Trump is “pretty raw right now,” according to a top congressional aide who spoke with ABC News. It apparently hasn’t gotten better over the weekend. As of Saturday, Pence reportedly hadn’t ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment. As of Sunday, the two reportedly have not spoken. Pence has, however, promised to attend the inauguration.
The motley pro-Trump coalition that was outside the CapitolHistorian Terry Bouton attended Wednesday’s Stop the Steal rally outside the Capitol with his wife — “as observers, NOT participants,” he stressed — and he shared their eyewitness takeaways in a widely read Twitter thread on Sunday afternoon:
Preppy looking “country club Republicans,” well-dressed social conservatives, and white Evangelicals in Jesus caps were standing shoulder to shoulder with QAnon cultists, Second Amendment cosplay commandos, and doughy, hardcore white nationalists. We eavesdropped on conversations for hours and no one expressed the slightest concern about the large number of white supremacists and para-military spewing violent rhetoric. Even the man in the “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt wasn’t beyond the pale. They were all “patriots.”
He noted that Capitol Police were already “clearly overwhelmed” by the time they arrived at the Capitol, that there was a stark difference between the security at the rally compared to the many other protests they had been to in D.C., and that the rioters quickly turned on Capital Police once they realized the officers weren’t going to join them. Bouton also wrote that he was most shocked by the amount of “blood lust” he and wife heard expressed:
These people are serious and they are going to keep escalating the violence until they are stopped by the force of law. There were many, many people there who were excited by the violence and proud and excited about the prospect of more violence. And it wasn’t just the white nationalists, Second Amendment radicals, and QAnon boneheads. I can’t adequately describe the blood lust we heard everywhere as we walked over the Capitol grounds, even from mild-mannered looking people.
The most alarming part to me was the matter-of-fact, causal ways that people from all walks of life were talking about violence and even the execution of “traitors” in private conversations, like this was something normal that happened every day.
Read Bouton’s whole thread and see the photographs his wife took here.
For a participant’s detailed perspective, read the Wall Street Journal’s new profile of Trump fan Doug Sweet. He explained to the Journal that he traveled to the rally because he wanted to support the president, then marched on the Capitol because that’s what Trump asked him to do in his speech on Wednesday, then followed the mob into the Capitol building because, he claims, it seemed like the only way he would be able to personally speak with lawmakers, and because he felt God pushing him forward. He was alarmed by the violence, subsequently arrested (and not surprised he was arrested), and now says, “I am seriously contemplating getting in touch with Donald Trump and asking him to pardon all of us who were in our group.”
New video shows pro-Trump mob beating Capitol Police officer Capitol Police made no extra preparations ahead of pro-Trump rally, scheduled routine number of personnel — despite apparent warnings from FBI and NYPDThe Associated Press reported Sunday that U.S. Capitol Police did not add extra personnel or make any preparations for the possibility of violence during last Wednesday’s pro-Trump demonstration outside the Capitol:
The revelations shed new light on why Capitol police were so quickly overrun by rioters. The department had the same number of officers in place as on a routine day. While some of those officers were outfitted with equipment for a protest, they were not staffed or equipped for a riot. Once the mob began to move on the Capitol, a police lieutenant issued an order not to use deadly force, which explains why officers outside the building did not draw their weapons as the crowd closed in. Officers are sometimes ordered against escalating a situation by drawing their weapons if superiors believe doing so could lead to a stampede or a shootout. In this instance, it also left officers will little ability to resist the mob. In one video from the scene, an officer puts up his firsts to try to push back a crowd pinning he and his colleagues against a door. …
Capitol police leaders [had only] prepared for a free speech demonstration. No fencing was erected outside the Capitol and no contingency plans were prepared for if the situation escalated, according to people briefed.
They had apparently been warned, too. NBC News reported Sunday that the FBI and New York City Police Department “passed information to U.S. Capitol Police about the possibility of violence during the protests Wednesday against the counting of the Electoral College vote, and the FBI even visited more than a dozen extremists already under investigation to urge them not to travel to Washington, senior law enforcement officials said.”
The report notes that this contradicts the head of the FBI’s D.C. field office, who said on Friday that “There was no indication that there was anything [planned] other than First Amendment-protected activity.” NBC News adds that “Ken Rapuano, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, told reporters that the Justice Department and other law enforcement officials told the Defense Department repeatedly that they had no indications that there would be ‘significant violent protests.’”
Then on Wednesday, according to the AP, the Capitol Police leadership’s failures to prepare or react accordingly “left the officers policing the Capitol like sitting ducks, [law enforcement] officials said, with little guidance and no cohesive plan on how to deal with the flood of rioters streaming into the building”:
The hate groups and extremists within the mobThe department’s leaders were also scattered during the riots. The chief of police was with Vice President Mike Pence in a secure location, and other high-ranking officials had been dispatched to the scene of bombs found outside the nearby headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees. The rioters had more equipment and they weren’t afraid to use it, said Ashan Benedict, who leads the Washington field division for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and was there that day.
“They had apparently more bear spray and pepper spray and chemical munitions than we did,” Benedict said.
ProPublica reported Saturday that a diverse collection of fringe groups were present during the siege of the U.S. Capitol:
The precise composition of the mob that forced its way into the Capitol … remains unknown. But a review by a ProPublica-FRONTLINE team that has been tracking far-right movements for the past three years shows that the crowd included members of the Proud Boys and other groups with violent ideologies. Videos reveal the presence of several noted hardcore nativists and white nationalists who participated in the 2017 white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that President Donald Trump infamously refused to condemn. …
As the crowds ringing the Capitol swelled on Wednesday, a small group of men clad in body armor shuffled toward the doors at the center of the building’s east-facing facade.
The eight men, whose movements were captured on video, were identified by ProPublica and FRONTLINE as members of the Oath Keepers, a long-standing militia group that has pledged to ignite a civil war on behalf of Trump. Members of the group joined the protesters and insurrectionists flooding into the Capitol. Footage from later in the day shows Oath Keepers dragging a wounded comrade out of the building. …
Members of the Boogaloo Bois group may have also been there, ProPublica notes:
A Capitol Police officer died by suicide this weekendAfter the siege, a Boogaloo Bois group called the Last Sons of Liberty, which includes militants from Virginia, posted a video to Parler purporting to document their role in the incident — a clip that shows members inside the Capitol. A loose-knit confederation of anti-government militants, the Boogaloo Bois have been tied to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and to the murder of two law enforcement officers in California. ProPublica and FRONTLINE have been unable to independently confirm their involvement.
As Intelligencer’s Matt Stieb explains, 51-year-old USCP officer Howard Liebengood, who reportedly responded to the insurrection at the Capitol last week, was the second Capitol Police officer to die in the past week.
House may vote to impeach on Tuesday, but delay sending articles of impeachment to Senate until after Biden’s first 100 daysHouse Majority Whip James Clyburn said on Sunday that the House may vote to impeach President Trump as soon as Tuesday, but also suggested the possibility of putting off sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a few months in order to give President-elect Biden time to get going on his agenda without the distraction of an impeachment trial. Clyburn made the comments during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, explaining, “So if we are the people’s House, let’s do the people’s work and let’s vote to impeach this president, and then we’ll decide later — or the Senate will decide later — what to do with that, an impeachment.”
“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” he said. “And maybe we will send the articles sometime after that.”
Trump is heading to the border in a last-minute attempt to highlight his accomplishmentsThe president is planning to travel to Texas on Tuesday in what seems likely to be an unsuccessful attempt to refocus attention on his accomplishments as president while he still can. The Associated Press notes that he’ll visit the town of Alamo, Texas (not THE Alamo), to “mark the completion of 400 miles of border wall and his administration’s efforts to reform what the White House described as the nation’s broken immigration system.”
The trip will likely feature Trump’s first public appearance since inciting the attack on the Capitol last Wednesday. The effort will also undoubtedly be significantly overshadowed by the unfolding aftermath of the riot, as well as his impeachment, which may be underway at the same time.
The southern U.S. border has been Trump’s favorite threat since the first day of his presidential campaign, so it’s no surprise he and his advisers would try to use it as a bookend to his presidency. But the border has never been the danger Trump exaggerated it to be, and aside from the fact that Trump’s war on immigrants has been arguably his biggest policy success — or the fact that the southern border has been the stage for some of his administration’s most inhumane policies — calling attention to his efforts to fend off mythical foreign threats may fall on especially deaf ears in light of Trump’s incitement of a domestic insurrection less than a week earlier in the nation’s capital.
The attack “was even worse than we knew”Standing back, CNN’s Brian Stelter summarizes what many have come to realize as more and more videos and firsthand accounts of the Capitol riot have emerged in the last few days:
Another chilling account from inside the Capitol during the siegeIt was even more violent. It was even more treacherous. And Trump’s behavior was even more disturbing.
On Wednesday we witnessed history through a handful of soda straws, to borrow a metaphor from the 2003 Iraq invasion. Journalists bravely covered the riot in real time and deserve enormous credit for doing so. But in the fog of chaos, it was impossible to see the full picture as it was happening … As is the case with many traumatic events, it has taken some time for the reality to sink in. “I was in the crowd and didn’t realise how bad it was until a day or two after,” reporter Richard Hall of The Independent, a British newspaper, tweeted Saturday …
There was so much news that it was hard to process: Reports of explosive devices, an armed standoff, a shooting and evacuations. Viewers were able to see some of it with their own eyes, but most of the information was secondhand, from tweets and phone calls and emailed dispatches from congressional reporters, many of them locked in the Capitol.
Only later did it become clear that lawmakers feared for their lives; that some of the attackers were hunting for congressional leaders; that there could have been a massacre.
The Washington Post has published one of the most vivid accounts of what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday:
A cacophony of screaming, shouting and banging echoed from the floor below. McConnell’s security detail rushed past and into the chamber. The adviser began walking toward the Rotunda and came face to face with a U.S. Capitol Police officer sprinting in the opposite direction. The two made eye contact and the officer forced out a single word: “Run!”
The aide to McConnell (R-Ky.) darted down a side hallway lined with offices. He jiggled one locked doorknob, then another. A co-worker poked his head out of the office of McConnell’s speechwriter. The adviser lunged, pushing him and a colleague back inside.
The screaming and shouting soon seemed right outside. Only then, a text alert from Capitol police blared on every phone in the room: “Due to security threat inside: immediately, move inside your office, take emergency equipment, lock the doors, take shelter.”
Three senior GOP aides piled furniture against the door and tried to move stealthily, worried that the intruders would discover them inside. In waves, the door to the hall heaved as rioters punched and kicked it. The crowd yelled “Stop the steal!” Some chanted menacingly, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”
The report emphasizes how traumatized lawmakers and staffers were by the siege, while Capitol Police remained overwhelmed, and everyone’s repeated calls for help from outside the building went unfulfilled, no matter who made them, or to whom:
As impeachment nears, historic percentage of Americans want Trump removed from officeBack in the barricaded room with McConnell aides, one staffer began snapping photos through a window. They could see Trump supporters streaming toward the building — and just four police officers.
Outside the door, the intruders kept coming, as if running laps, trying to open doors. The McConnell aides heard a woman praying loudly outside their door for “the evil of Congress to be brought to an end.”
Calls for help were going out as fast as people could text and dial.
ABC News reports:
In the new survey, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, 56 percent of Americans think the sitting commander-in-chief should be removed from office before the official transfer of power in less than two weeks, while 43 percent say he should not. Among those who say Trump should not be removed immediately, nearly half (45 percent) nevertheless say his actions this week were wrong.
Ousting the current president before his term expires splits Americans along partisan lines, with 94 percent of Democrats and only 13 percent of Republicans supporting the move. A majority of independents — 58 percent — also back removing him.
CNN’s Harry Enten notes the historical parallels in regard to previous impeachments:
What it was like to be a Black cop trying to defend the Capitol against the pro-Trump mobWhen Democrats began an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September 2019, removing him from office wasn’t anywhere near as popular. Before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that inquiry, only about 40 percent of Americans were for impeaching and removing Trump. About half the electorate was against it.
The fact that so many Americans want Trump out of office is, indeed, historically unprecedented this early in the process. The percentage of Americans who wanted Bill Clinton impeached after his affair with Monica Lewinsky never climbed higher than 40 percent. Likewise, the percentage of Americans who thought Richard Nixon should be removed or should resign from office was at about 40 percent when the House voted to formally start an impeachment inquiry in February 1974. Eventually, the plurality of Americans wanted Nixon and Trump out of office, but it took impeachment proceedings for support to outrun opposition.
In one of several must-read articles to come out this weekend, BuzzFeed News’ Emmanuel Felton spoke with some Black Capitol Police officers about their horrifying experiences on Wednesday:
Management’s inaction left Black police officers especially vulnerable to a mob that had been whipped up by President Donald Trump, a man who has a record of inspiring racist vigilantes to action. One of the most defining videos of that day was of one of their colleagues, another Black officer, trying in vain to hold back the tide of rioters who had broken into the building and were hunting for congressional members.
BuzzFeed News spoke to two Black officers who described a harrowing day in which they were forced to endure racist abuse — including repeatedly being called the N-word — as they tried to do their job of protecting the Capitol building, and by extension the very functioning of American democracy. The officers said they were wrong-footed, fighting off an invading force that their managers had downplayed and not prepared them for. They had all been issued gas masks, for example, but management didn’t tell them to bring them in on the day.
They encountered other cops in the crowd:
The officer even described coming face-to-face with police officers from across the country in the mob. He said some of them flashed their badges, telling him to let them through, and trying to explain that this was all part of a movement that was supposed to help.
“You have the nerve to be holding a Blue Lives Matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” he told one group of protesters he encountered inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘We’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘Well, you gotta be kidding.’”
One of the officers vividly recounted his rage and anguish after the siege ended:
At the end of the night, after the crowds had been dispersed and Congress got back to the business of certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, the veteran officer was overwhelmed with emotion, and broke down in the Rotunda.
“I sat down with one of my buddies, another Black guy, and tears just started streaming down my face,” he said. “I said, ‘What the fuck, man? Is this America? What the fuck just happened? I’m so sick and tired of this shit.’”
Soon he was screaming, so that everyone in the Rotunda, including his white colleagues, could hear what he had just gone through.
“These are racist-ass terrorists,” he yelled out …
“I got called a nigger 15 times today,” the veteran officer shouted in the Rotunda to no one in particular. “Trump did this and we got all of these fucking people in our department that voted for him. How the fuck can you support him?”
Read the rest of Felton’s report here.
How many cops traveled to D.C. for Trump’s rally?Police departments across the country are trying to figure that out. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that police departments in at least four states have suspended or are investigating officers who participated in Wednesday’s events while off duty in order to determine whether or not the officers entered the Capitol or broke any laws. Reuters reports that the New York City Fire Department and Sanford Fire Department in Florida are also investigating the involvement of some of their firefighters. Per Reuters, FDNY “said it provided information to the FBI after receiving ‘anonymous allegations’ that some of its members, active or retired, were present during the rioting in the nation’s capital.”
Parler suspended by Amazon, Apple, and GoogleThe suspensions, which come in response to well-earned criticism of the social media company’s failure to address the calls for violence among its often far-right users, are an existential threat to the platform, which has become popular with many extremists. Intelligencer’s Chas Danner has more on the big tech crackdown on the company, and what might happen next.
The eerie sound of Trump’s silenceIntelligencer’s Olivia Nuzzi reflects on the absence of Trump’s tweets:
Before the presidency was the violent insurrection on the United States Capitol, the tweets were the presidency. Stupid, grammatically incoherent, racist, false, mean, petty, hilarious. His online persona was the same as his private self.
Trump made most decisions only after surveying a wide network of informal advisers he reached by phone, often late at night or early in the morning, or in the long stretches of his day in which he was doing fuck-all, or what would formally become known later as “executive time.” And he made policy and played politics and offered commentary and threatened war by typing out tweets and launching them into the ether. Sometimes the tweets were sent by his aides, like Dan Scavino, his social-media director. But even that process was usually just dictation, with Trump barking aloud exactly what he wanted Scavino to type, even down to the specific and often incorrect punctuation and capitalization of words. During his early days on Twitter, in 2011, Trump relied on an aide to tweet for him. Justin McConney, a former Trump Organization employee, once told me how he’d print out Trump’s mentions to show him in analog what was happening online, and Trump would manually select what to respond to. But by 2012, when he replaced the flip phone with an Android, Trump began tweeting himself.
She concludes her piece by noting that her lasting image of Trump “is of a guy shitposting his way through a single term in office, one finger on the nuclear button, the others glued to his phone.” Indeed, the shitposter-in-chief is no more, and for those of us who write about politics for a living, the silence continues to be deafening — and a little unsettling.
Read the rest of Olivia’s thoughts here.
Armed “Patriot Rally” at Kentucky Capitol condemned by Governor Andy BeshearThe rally drew about 100 pro-Trump protesters, many of whom were armed, to the state Capitol in Frankfort on Saturday while both chambers of the Kentucky General Assembly were in session. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that one of the armed protesters was photographed carrying zip ties in his backpack, and said he had brought them “just in case.”
Governor Andy Beshar, who is facing a long-shot impeachment effort over his COVID-19 lockdown measures in the state, condemned the rally on Twitter, commenting that: “Three days after domestic terrorists attacked our U.S. Capitol, there was a militia rally in Frankfort. They brought zip ties. We will not be intimidated. We will not be bullied. America is counting on the real patriots. Those who condemn hate and terror when they see it.”
The rally lasted about two hours, and no violence was reported.
West Virginia lawmaker who stormed the Capitol resignsWest Virginia state lawmaker Derrick Evans, who was charged Thursday with unlawfully entering the Capitol during Wednesday’s riot, resigned from the West Virginia House of Delegates on Saturday, saying in a statement that, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and deeply regret any hurt, pain, or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents, and fellow West Virginians.”
Across the country, members of the pro-Trump mob are being arrested and firedNumerous arrests were reported by authorities and local media organizations across the country on Friday and Saturday, including some of the most prominent mob members in photographs and video taken during the riot.
“Horn guy” Jake Angeli (real name Jacob Anthony Chansley) — the QAnon follower and well-known fixture at pro-Trump events in his native Arizona who paraded through the Capitol shirtless wearing a bearskin headdress, horns, and red, white, and blue facepaint on Wednesday — was arrested and charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” according to D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office.
The Florida man who was photographed carrying off Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern during the riot was also arrested. Adam Johnson, 36, faces the same charges as Chansley, in addition to a count of theft of government property.
Doug Jenson, the man in a QAnon shirt who was seen in a video aggressively pursuing and threatening a retreating Capitol Police officer during the riot — and who had identified himself on social media — was arrested by the FBI on Saturday morning in Polk County, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports.
CNN is also collecting reports of people who have been fired, suspended, or have resigned from their jobs over their involvement in the riot or public comments supporting it, including former Pennsylvania state representative Rick Saccone, who posted a Facebook video outside the Capitol; an employee of the direct marketing firm Navistar in Maryland who was photographed wearing his company badge inside the Capitol; a Texas attorney named Paul Davis who posted “we’re all trying to get into the Capitol to stop this” on social media from the scene; an unnamed teacher in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who has been temporarily suspended while an investigation into his involvement in Wednesday’s events is conducted; and the sergeant-at-arms of the Texas GOP, who expressed support for the siege on Facebook.
Retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr., decorated Air Force combat veteran who was photographed with zip ties inside the Capitol on Wednesday — and later gave an interview to the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow after he was identified by an extremism researcher — has also been fired from his job at the Texas-based Hillwood Airways, USA Today reported Saturday. In his interview with Farrow, Brock insisted he had picked up the zip ties in order to find a police officer to give them to (and denied that he held racist views, after family members told Farrow that they had heard him make racist statements):
What the mob damaged, stole — and left behindBrock denied that he had entered Pelosi’s office suite, saying that he “stopped five to ten feet ahead of the sign” bearing her title that insurrectionists later tore down and brandished. However, in the ITV video, he appears to emerge from the suite. Brock said that he had worn tactical gear because “I didn’t want to get stabbed or hurt,” citing “B.L.M. and Antifa” as potential aggressors. He claimed that he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he told me. “My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one… I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.” He also said that he was opposed to vandalizing the building, and was dismayed when he learned of the extent of the destruction. “I know it looks menacing,” he told me. “That was not my intent.”
The Washington Post offers a partial accounting of the damage and theft that occurred in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday:
A lot of things were broken to pieces, or pilfered, or defaced. Windows and door frames. The placard above House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s door. Camera equipment owned by the Associated Press. A photo of the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, with a quote about the necessity of getting into “good trouble,” that had stood on an easel outside of the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
The office of the Senate parliamentarian was ransacked. A bust of President Zachary Taylor was smeared with what appeared to be blood.
Missing: Laptops from the offices of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Pelosi and others. Mail. Paperwork. Records that the Department of Justice referred to cryptically as “national security equities.”
Seven pieces of historically significant art were covered in “corrosive gas agent residue,” according to a spokesperson for the Committee on House Administration, which has oversight over the House curator and the Architect of the Capitol. Those gas-doused artifacts — including a marble statue of Thomas Jefferson, marble busts of House speakers Joseph Gurney Cannon, Joseph W. Martin Jr., Thomas Brackett Reed and Champ Clark and portraits of James Madison and John Quincy Adams — were being sent to the Smithsonian for assessment and restoration. A 19th-century gold mirror in Speaker Pelosi’s office was smashed and will be repaired, per the spokesperson.
The Post also reports that New Jersey Representative Andy Kim, who, out of sadness, stayed at the Capitol until the early morning hours Thursday to help clean up, said he found body armor among the other trash and debris strewn about:
He cleaned up car keys, and Trump flags, and water bottles — as well as some alarming items such as body armor. There were some police posted nearby. “I asked the officers if it was theirs, and they said no,” says Kim. He says he found a manufacture date on the armor: It had been bought just weeks earlier, as if for this very occasion.
Kim kept cleaning. He cleaned the Rotunda, Statuary Hall, the crypt. It was 1 a.m. The litter was a testament to the violence. “There was some metal furniture that was broken, which was pretty amazing to me,” he says. “These are like, metal benches that were just broken to pieces.”
Some of what the mob left behind has been collected by museum curators looking to document and preserve evidence of the historic event, the Post adds.
Horrifying new video emerges showing a police officer being crushed by the mob at the CapitolIn the video, an unidentified police officer at the Capitol screams in pain as he is crushed amid a coordinated onslaught by the pro-Trump mob, as they try to force their way into one of the entrances of the Capitol. It is one of the most violent scenes captured on video to yet emerge. Fair warning, it is difficult to watch:
Parler briefly crashed after Trump’s Twitter ban — but he doesn’t have an account there, yetThe competing platform, which has been a haven for people on the right who have either left or been banned by Twitter, suffered some kind of network problem on Friday night following the news that Twitter had permanently banned the president. While a few members of the Trump clan, and the president’s campaign, have seldom-used accounts on the site, thus far the president does not.
Meanwhile, Parler is having some problems of its own. Google suspended the app from the Google Play store on Friday, while Apple threatened to do the same, should the company not commit to doing a better job moderating content on its platform.
Trump was reportedly enraged by Twitter banPolitico reports:
The president is “ballistic,” a senior administration official said after Twitter permanently took down his account, citing the possibility that it would be used in the final 12 days of Trump’s presidency to incite violence. The official said Trump was “scrambling to figure out what his options are.”
Read more about Twitter’s Trump ban from Intelligencer’s Justin Miller here.
Senior official: He’s a “fascist”New York’s Olivia Nuzzi reports on the aftermath of the insurrection in the White House, where a senior administration official confesses the critics were right all along.
“This is confirmation of so much that everyone has said for years now — things that a lot of us thought were hyperbolic. We’d say, ‘Trump’s not a fascist,’ or ‘He’s not a wannabe dictator.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Well, what do you even say in response to that now?’”
For four years, people like this official — lifelong Republican operatives — have convinced themselves that Trump’s obvious faults were worth tolerating if it meant implementing a conservative policy agenda. These officials believed the benefits of remaking the courts with conservative justices, or passing tax reform, outweighed the risks that a Trump presidency posed to democracy and to the reputation of the country in the world. Now, at the eleventh hour, with twelve days left before Joe Biden is sworn into office, it’s clear to some that it was always a delusion.
Read the rest of the story here.
Twitter bans Trump for lifeOn Friday at 6:21 p.m., Twitter banned Trump forever. The company said it permanently suspended Trump’s account and cut him off from 88 million followers after a review of his conduct following the riot he incited at the Capitol.
Pelosi moves forward with impeachment prepOn Friday evening, the House Speaker said that if President Trump did not resign, as she has called on him to do in the aftermath of Wednesday’s riot, she will go ahead with plans to impeach the president for a second time.
Biden says impeachment is “a decision for the Congress to make”During a press availability on Friday, President-elect Joe Biden declined to take a position on whether President Trump should be impeached, but he noted, “I have thought for a long time that President Trump was not fit to hold the job. That is why I ran.”
Biden also welcomed Trump’s announcement that he will not attend his inauguration, calling it “one of the few things he and I have ever agreed on.” Biden added that Vice-President Mike Pence would be welcome.
Remaining Cabinet and national security officials claim they’re trapped Capitol rioters arrestedFederal prosecutors and the FBI said Friday that several people involved in the Capitol riot have been arrested across the country. Richard Barnett, the man who posted a photo of himself on social media with his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, was arrested in Arkansas on federal charges including unlawful entry into a restricted area, Politico reports. A West Virginia lawmaker, Republican Delegate Derrick Evans, was charged for entering the Capitol without permission.
Pelosi talked to Joint Chiefs chairman about preventing Trump from ordering a nuclear attackOn Friday Nancy Pelosi revealed in a letter to fellow Democratic lawmakers that she spoke with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing Trump from initiating military actions or a nuclear strike. Somehow “Preventing an Unhinged President From Using the Nuclear Codes” was the fourth bullet.
“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi wrote. “The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy.”
A spokesman for the Office of the Joint Chiefs said Pelosi initiated a call with Milley and “he answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority,” CNBC reports.
In the same letter, Pelosi said she and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer placed a call to Vice-President Mike Pence and “hope to hear from him as soon as possible” about whether he and the Cabinet intend to remove Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. She then repeated her threat to remove Trump via impeachment.
“Nearly 50 years ago, after years of enabling their rogue President, Republicans in Congress finally told President Nixon that it was time to go,” Pelosi said. “Today, following the President’s dangerous and editions acts, Republicans in Congress need to follow that example and call on Trump to depart his office — immediately. If the president does not leave office immediately and willingly, the congress will proceed with our action.”
Trump’s inauguration RSVP Democrats are moving ahead on impeachmentA day after Speaker Pelosi said the House would impeach Trump again if Pence does not invoke the 25th Amendment, House Democrats appear to be moving to do just that. House Democrats will discuss impeachment during a conference call at noon on Friday, and Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark told CNN that we could see articles of impeachment on the House floor as soon as “mid-next week.”
Removing Trump via impeachment would be a tall order, as there isn’t much time before Biden’s inauguration and it’s unclear if 18 GOP senators would vote to oust Trump. Intelligencer’s Ed Kilgore explores the timing here, concluding that while it would be difficult to move impeachment through both chambers of Congress in the next 12 days, “Pelosi and Schumer [may] still want to move ahead on impeachment for symbolic reasons, or simply because they consider it their duty to condemn Trump’s behavior, even if there are no consequences other than giving the 45th president a swift kick in the pants on his way out the door.”
Federal murder investigation will be opened into Capitol Police officer’s deathProsecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office intend to open a federal murder investigation into the death of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died on Thursday night of injuries sustained while responding to Wednesday’s riot. “The death is being investigated by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s homicide branch, the U.S. Capitol Police, and their federal partners,” CNN reports.
Trump is reportedly in “bunker mode”Trump is “increasingly angry and isolated,” according to a Wall Street Journal report on the situation inside the White House. While Trump usually chats on the phone with friends during a crisis, he’s reportedly declining calls from advisers and lashing out at the people around him in the White House:
The casualty count grows to five The president may be finally realizing the severity of the momentSeveral White House officials steered clear of the Oval Office on Thursday, wanting to avoid a president described by one adviser as “in a dark place.” Advisers said the president appears more consumed with his election loss than remorseful for the riot.
“It’s like watching someone self-destruct in front of your very eyes, and you can’t do anything,” said another adviser who recently spoke to the president.
On Wednesday, shortly before the president left the White House to deliver remarks to supporters, Mr. Pence told him that he lacked the constitutional authority to block certain electors from being counted, which the president had been pushing him to do, according to people familiar with the conversation. Mr. Pence said it would set a bad precedent if he veered off course, according to one of the people.
The president was furious, the people said. “I don’t want to be your friend,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Pence, according to one of the people. “I want you to be the vice-president.”
“It’s all hit him since yesterday,” a current Trump adviser told Intelligencer’s Olivia Nuzzi. “You may have legal exposure from yesterday. You definitely have legal exposure from other things. You have less than two weeks to remain ensconced in here with executive privilege.” As for the riots yesterday, Trump eventually grew annoyed because his supporters looked “low-class” and “he doesn’t like low-class things.”
Trumpkins turn on their leader after conceding Trump acknowledges defeat, says a “new administration” is comingIn a stilted video released more than two months after he lost reelection, Trump admits he won’t stay in office. The announcement comes a day after Congress confirmed Biden’s election victory — and after five people died in a pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol.
Capitol Police chief to resignAfter the disastrous failure to protect the Capitol, the head of the U.S. Capitol Police will resign next week, according to a spokesperson. The AP reports Capitol Police twice turned down the D.C. National Guard — including as the mob descended on the Capitol.
White House condemns attackIn a brief statement at the White House, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said: “Let me be clear, the violence we saw yesterday at the Capitol was appalling, reprehensible, and antithetical to the American way. We condemn it — the president and this administration — in the strongest possible terms. it is unacceptable and those who broke the law should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” McEnany took no questions.
Capitol Police: No intelligence about breachThe head of the D.C. Police and the secretary of the Army, in charge of the D.C. National Guard, acknowledged Thursday their collective failure to safeguard the Capitol, according to the Washington Post. Secretary Ryan McCarthy said a breach was not in his “wildest imagination” while D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said, “There was no intelligence that suggested there would be a breach of the U.S. Capitol.” That is contrary to numerous postings on social media calling for such a siege.
House prepared to begin impeachmentED KILGORE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Vice-President Pence and the Trump Cabinet to remove the president from office via the emergency provisions of the 25th Amendment. If that doesn’t happen quickly, she said, the House would begin impeachment proceedings. She indicated there is overwhelming support for that step in her caucus. But she brushed off questions about the exact timing and whether there is enough time for impeachment and removal in the 13 days remaining before the Biden inauguration.
Cruz: Trump ‘crossed the line’Texas senator Ted Cruz — who vociferously defended Trump’s false accusations of voter fraud and expressed support for challenging Biden electors — told KTKR-TV in Houston: “the president’s language and rhetoric crossed the line and it was reckless. I disagree with it, and I have disagreed with the president’s language and rhetoric for the last four years.”
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to resignAs New York’s Benjamin Hart notes, there is a ”growing list of staffers who are considering abandoning ship,” but this is by far the biggest Trump administration departure so far.
First GOP House member calls for removing Trump via 25th AmendmentRepresentative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called for Trump’s removal in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday morning. “It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment and to end this nightmare,” said Kinzinger, who has occasionally criticized the president in the past and was among the minority of House Republicans who voted to certify Biden’s win last night.
White House withdraws Chad Wolf nomination after he calls on Trump to condemn riotOn Thursday morning, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf issued a statement calling on Trump to speak out against yesterday’s violence in the Capitol.
“These violent actions are unconscionable, and I implore the president and all elected officials to strongly condemn the violence that took place yesterday,” Wolf said. “DHS takes the safety and security of all Americans very seriously — it’s at the core of our mission to defend our homeland. Any appearance of inciting violence by an elected official goes against who we are as Americans.”
Less than two hours later, the White House announced that it was withdrawing Wolf’s nomination to lead the department in a permanent capacity, per The Hill. White House spokesman Judd Deere claimed in a statement that the withdrawal actually happened on Wednesday and “was not related at all to Wednesday’s events or the Acting Secretary’s comments this morning.”
Wolf is currently on an official trip to the Middle East and intends to keep serving until Biden is inaugurated.
Former Speaker John Boehner says his party must “awaken”But he doesn’t name the Republicans who “incited” yesterday’s mob with their “lies.”
Schumer calls for Trump to be removed from office immediatelySenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that in light of yesterday’s violence at the Capitol, President Trump should be immediately removed from office, via either impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer,” the Democratic leader said in a statement.
“The quickest and most effective way — it can be done today — to remove this president from office would be for the vice-president to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment,” he continued. “If the vice-president and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president.”
Barr calls Trump’s conduct a “betrayal”Former Attorney General William Barr said in a statement to the AP that Trump’s conduct as a mob occupied the Capitol yesterday was a “betrayal of his office and supporters.” He added, “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable.”
A big move from Facebook (finally) Some Republicans are acting like nothing happened GOP Congresswoman Nancy Mace: Trump’s legacy “wiped out”Nancy Mace, a freshman congresswoman who worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, told CNN on Thursday morning that she feels his administration’s accomplishments were erased yesterday. “Everything that he’s worked for … all of that — his entire legacy — was wiped out yesterday,” she said, according to Politico. “We’ve got to start over.”
“I’m disappointed right now,” Mace continued. “I think that after last night — and I’m on my 100th hour of being a member of Congress, I’m working on about two hours of sleep — I’m distraught. We’ve got to rebuild our nation, and we’ve got to rebuild our party. This is not who we are. It’s extremely distressing. And it’s saddening. It’s heartbreaking.”
A reporter’s firsthand account of the chaos inside the Capitol yesterdayPolitico’s Olivia Beavers shared a harrowing breakdown of what was happening inside the Capitol as rioters breached the building:
Fear came first, then the chaos ensued. Messages from the U.S. Capitol Police to ‘Stay calm’ were soon followed by police announcing they deployed tear gas in the Capitol Rotunda and members should find emergency escape hoods, which could be used essentially as gas masks, below their seats. That’s when the gravity of the situation seemed to fully click for lawmakers, who also realized what was unfolding as the crinkling sound of unwrapping our hoods filled the House chamber.
BLAME: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) shouted at his GOP colleagues: “This is your fault.” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), sitting in the House gallery, yelled at Republicans located below to ask their “friend” Trump to tell the rioters to stand down. As I recall, both were met with groans.
Then very quickly, members and staff, holding or wearing their escape hoods, were ushered from the House floor, followed by press and other lawmakers in the gallery. It was difficult to walk through the gallery because of the narrow path between the stationary chairs, not to mention the brass guardrails that section off various parts of the area. It was right as I reached the guardrail that the police shouted for everyone to take cover.
I still crossed the guardrail and after I found a suitable hiding spot, I realized the glass panels on a door to the House entryway had been shattered, and Capitol police were aiming their guns through the small holes at faceless intruders I could not see on the other side. I wondered, then, would I see someone die today?
Later, a guard refused to let Beavers and several other journalists into a safe room with members of Congress, leaving them stranded in a hallway until Representative Ruben Gallego said they could shelter in his office. Read Beavers’ full account here.
Rudy Giuliani strikes a different tone this morningYesterday Giuliani told the crowd at the “Save America March” that the dispute over the election should be settled via “trial by combat.” A short time later they stormed the Capitol.
Mick Mulvaney resigns: “I can’t stay here”Mulvaney, President Trump’s former chief of staff, announced during a Thursday morning appearance on CNBC that he has resigned as special U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland.
“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney said.
He predicted others in the administration may resign in the coming days, as Trump is “not the same as he was eight months ago.”
“We didn’t sign up for what you saw last night,” Mulvaney said. “We signed up for making America great again, we signed up for lower taxes and less regulation. The president has a long list of successes that we can be proud of.”
As for those who choose to stick around for the last two weeks of the Trump administration, Mulvaney said, “I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in.”
Stunning video of the moment when the mob broke the first barrier outside the Capitol Senator Jeff Merkley gives a tour of the damage to his officeThe Oregon senator shows how the mob trashed his office, leaving a Trump flag behind to “mark their presence.” He also says a laptop was stolen from his desk.
Scarborough rant encapsulates how many are feeling this morningOn Morning Joe, a furious Joe Scarborough demanded to know why Capitol Hill police failed to keep the Trump-supporting mob out of the building yesterday.
“So I want to know from the Capitol Hill police, what is it, just white people? Or is it Donald Trump supporters?” Scarborough said. “Why do you scream at people for walking across the street three blocks away from the Capitol? Why are you known as badasses around the Capitol, but then Trump supporters come in and you hold open the fucking doors for them? You open the doors for them? And let them breach the people’s house! What is wrong with you?”
President Trump finally acknowledges defeatTwo months after losing the election, after doing everything he could to deny, discredit, and undo that reality, Trump released a statement following Congress’s confirmation of Biden’s win in which he finally acknowledged that it was all over:
It’s over. Congress has affirmed Biden’s victory.Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.
After the electoral votes had all been counted and certified, Vice-President Pence read the results to applause, and after a closing prayer from Chaplain Barry Black reflecting on the horrifying events at the Capitol on Wednesday, the joint session of Congress was dissolved.
Trump and his allies’ fantasy of overturning the election is dead for good.
Video of the finale:
Hawley retracted his support for Wisconsin objection — which means no more pointless delaysThat welcome relief from more debate came at about 3:36 a.m.
138 House Republicans support objection to Pennsylvania election resultsThat’s nearly two-thirds of the House GOP. They lost, of course: 64 Republicans and 218 Democrats outnumbered them. Eight of Pennsylvania’s nine GOP representatives voted against their own state’s election results.
Now it’s on to another joint session to keep counting electoral votes from the dozen remaining states and, eventually, certifying Biden’s victory and ending this absurd drama once and for all.
A COVID case in the HouseFreshman Kansas Republican Jake LaTurner received a positive test result late Wednesday night after having been on the floor of the House voting in favor of the objection to Arizona’s electoral votes. It surely won’t be the last case among lawmakers and everyone else who spent time in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and couldn’t possibly have followed all the appropriate coronavirus precautions during a literal mob scene and sudden evacuation.
The madness — and mania — inside the White House as the Capitol riot ensuedThe Washington Post reports on how Wednesday’s chaos played out in the West Wing and offers more details about the bunker-minded Trump’s failure to act:
People who interacted with Trump on Wednesday said they found him in a fragile and volatile state. He spent the afternoon and evening cocooned at the White House and listening only to a small coterie of loyal aides …
As rioters broke through police barricades and occupied the Capitol, paralyzing the business of Congress, aides said Trump resisted entreaties from some of his advisers to condemn the marauders and refused to be reasoned with. “He kept saying, ‘The vast majority of them are peaceful. What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren’t thugs,’” an administration official said. “He didn’t want to condemn his people.”
“He was a total monster today,” this official added …
Current White House aides tried to get Trump to call into Fox News Channel, but he refused. He at first did not want to say anything, but was convinced to send some tweets — although Twitter later locked his account, something that enraged the president. Then they scripted a video message for him to record, which he agreed to record and distribute on Twitter. But the president ad-libbed by including references to false voter fraud claims that they had asked him not to include, the administration official said.
Trump was also reportedly obsessed with hating on Pence:
A former senior administration official briefed on the president’s private conversations said, “The thing he was most upset about and couldn’t get over all day was the Pence betrayal … All day, it was a theme of, ‘I made this guy, I saved him from a political death, and here he stabbed me in the back.’”
Read the rest of the Post’s report here.
Looking for answers about the spectacular failure to protect CongressA first attempt to make sense of how in the hell Wednesday’s siege on the Capitol was allowed to happen, from the Washington Post:
In a city on high alert, in a building with its own 2,000-officer police department, people forced their way into the sanctums of American democracy with nothing more than flagpoles, riot shields and shoves.
Nobody stopped them — and some officers were captured on video appearing to stand back as rioters streamed inside.
On Wednesday, while police were still struggling to eject the last intruders from the Capitol, current and former law enforcement officials said it appeared the U.S. Capitol Police and other agencies had failed to anticipate the size and intentions of the crowd that Trump urged to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to where lawmakers were gathered …
And at the Capitol itself, police had set out low barriers and officers were largely in street uniforms, not riot gear. All were prepared to confine a protest, but not to deter an attack, law enforcement officials said. Law enforcement experts said they were mystified by the tactics that police used once the mob was already inside the Capitol.
A former chief of the Capitol Police was dumbfounded:
“It’s like watching a real-life horror movie. I mean, we train and plan and budget every day, basically, to have this not happen,” said Kim Dine, who was chief of the Capitol Police from 2012 to 2016. “How it happened, I can’t figure that out.”
Dine said he was surprised to see that, on Wednesday, the Capitol Police had allowed rioters to gather so close to the building, on the Capitol steps — and that, once they forced their way inside, the rioters were not immediately arrested.
As of late Wednesday night, D.C. police had only made 52 arrests, 47 of which were for violating the 6 p.m. citywide curfew.
Klobuchar on the wee-hour wait: “Seriously?”At 1:25 a.m., the Minnesota Democrat tweeted: “Still at senate waiting for house Republicans to be done debating ridiculous objection to PA election. After all this, seriously? 92 senators already rejected this. Around 3 a.m. I’ll go back to House to read rest of states & declare that Joe Biden is the next president.”
Pence was pissed about Trump’s attacks, Senator Inhofe saysTusla World reports:
The debate continues in the House, and a fight almost breaks out“I’ve known Mike Pence forever,” Inhofe said Tuesday night. “I’ve never seen Pence as angry as he was today. “I had a long conversation with him,” said Inhofe. “He said, ‘After all the things I’ve done for [Trump].’”
It’s 1:45 a.m. and representatives are still going back and forth decrying Wednesday’s violence, grandstanding, and arguing about the election results or Trump and Republicans’ efforts to discredit them. There was also just some rancor while Pennsylvania representative Conor Lamb was speaking, with some representatives exchanging threats:
Inside the Capitol during the siegeThe Washington Post’s Paul Kane shares his experience amid the chaos. An excerpt:
Soon, the Senate was sealed off and the session was adjourned. Capitol Police raced around the two-story Senate Chamber locking every set of doors. Then Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) looked at her phone and announced: “Shots fired.” A veteran Capitol Police officer tried to calm the senators, telling them the report might not be accurate. But at 2:30 p.m., police ordered everyone out.
In the most dramatic moments of the siege, with armed officers in every corner of the Senate, police began barking out instructions. They marched us all — a phalanx of senators, staff and press — through multiple office buildings in search of the safest grounds to shelter on the Capitol complex.
The New York Times reports on the ordeal in the House:
Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona and a veteran, jumped on the arm rests of chairs and began directing members to move calmly and quickly from the chamber. Frantic shouting filled the room as lawmakers struggled to unfold the plastic bags that they were instructed to prepare to put over their heads in case of tear gas. Police officers and members of the floor staff began yelling for lawmakers to exit.
A wooden chest was pushed in front of the main doors to the chamber. Security officers drew their guns, pointing and shouting at the entrance, as lawmakers, staff aides and reporters cowered in the top levels of the chamber. There was a bang, and everyone was told to get down.
Shortly after 2:45, the evacuation resumed. With the police in the lead, guns drawn, the lawmakers entered a scene of havoc, Mr. Crow said. Some police officers scrambled to barricade other doors to block pro-Trump extremists. Others pinned some protesters to the ground to allow the lawmakers to pass.
At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos recalls the strange sight of Trump loyalists taking over — and taking advantage:
For anyone who has been to the U.S. Capitol, the scenes that followed were so unhinged that they took a moment to absorb. In the two decades since September 11th, much of the grounds of Congress have been encircled by rings of security. Now any sense of control was gone. The mob quickly overwhelmed the police, broke windows, and forced open doors. A jittery throng coursed through the Capitol, mugging with the statues and lounging at the desks of senators and representatives. They rummaged through drawers and brandished their loot for photographers. A man in a wool Trump hat, with a pom-pom on it, and a rictus of glee, carried off a carved wooden podium bearing the seal of the Speaker of the House.
The Washington Post’s Paul Kane also recounts how senators reacted while huddling in a secure room:
Trump’s deputy national security adviser has resignedEventually, reporters were herded out of the main secure room and into an outside lobby. Senators stayed behind, and began discussing what had gone wrong with the basic fabric of American democracy. Televisions were wheeled into the senators-only room so they could watch the chaos unfold for themselves. Pressure mounted on the few Republicans who had been objecting to counting Biden’s Electoral College votes, giving life to the mob’s delusions of four more years for Trump. Just before 5 p.m., Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) led a contingent of GOP objectors into a separate room to discuss whether to go forward with their challenge in light of the mob violence.
Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reports that deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger resigned on Wednesday afternoon, adding that, “Pottinger was among [the] White House officials [who were] dismayed by [the] protesters’ attack and Trump’s role in inciting [the] violence. Pottinger had intended to resign on Election Day, regardless of outcome, but stayed at [National Security Adviser Robert] O’Brien’s request.”
Pottinger is one of at least four White House officials known to have resigned as a result of the Capitol riot. Deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, social secretary Anna Cristina Niceta, and Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s chief of staff, also submitted their resignations on Wednesday.
Senate rejects Pennsylvania challenge, futile attempt to overturn election has failedBut House members are still mouthing off during their debate on Pennsylvania’s results, which means the official certification won’t happen until sometime Thursday morning.
Steve Vladeck summarizes how the Senate votes went down:
Hawley gets in the waySenate votes 92-7 (Cruz, Hawley, Hyde-Smith, Lummis, Marshall, Scott (FL), Tuberville) to reject Perry/Hawley objection to Biden’s Pennsylvania electors. It doesn’t even matter what the House does now, since *both* chambers must approve the objection for it to be successful …
As between the Arizona (93-6) and Pennsylvania (92-7) objections, three Senators switched votes: Kennedy voted in favor of the Arizona challenge but against the Pennsylvania one. Lummis voted in favor of Pennsylvania but against Arizona. Scott (FL) voted in favor of Pennsylvania but against Arizona. The other five objectors were the same.
ED KILGORE: For a good while it looked like the joint session of Congress might breeze through the roll call of the states after the Arizona challenge failed as part of an implicit deal in which Republican senators withdrew their support. Planned objections to Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada elections were presented by House members who had to admit they had no senatorial sign-ons anymore. Each time, applause filled the joint session of weary solons. But when Pennsylvania arrived, the House challengers proudly brandished an agreement from Josh Hawley, who earlier signaled that the Keystone State was of special interest to him. So the joint session adjourned and again the Senate and House split up into separate sessions to debate and vote upon the Pennsylvania challenge.
This could take a while.
GOP senators abandon challenge of electoral votes in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada in aftermath of the siegeED KILGORE: As sleep-craving members of Congress, media observers, and TV viewers held their breaths, the joint session of Congress proceeded alphabetically through the states until it reached Georgia, where 74 House Republicans had signed on to an objection to Biden’s electors. But when questioned, the House member presenting the objection admitted that “after today’s events,” the senators who originally signed on to the challenge had withdrawn their support, effectively killing it. The chamber broke into hearty applause.
We will now see if this set a precedent for other planned challenges, which if so would bring the proceedings to a speedy conclusion with the confirmation of Joe Biden’s election. (Update: It did set a precedent, no GOP senators supported the challenges related to Michigan or Nevada. We’ll see if Pennsylvania gets a pass as well.)
Where the madness played out at the Capitol
Our eagle-eyed Curbed colleagues Deane Madsen and Christopher Bonanos have gone through images of today’s chaos at the U.S. Capitol and determined where they were taken. Have a look at the results and the photos that correspond to above aerial shot here.
Majority of House Republicans backed challenge of Arizona electoral votesED KILGORE: True to the ideologically more strident nature of the House Republican Caucus, and the influence of its powerful House Freedom Caucus faction, where the electoral-vote-protest stunt was designed, there was a lot more support for the Arizona challenge among House as opposed to Senate Republicans. They favored the challenge by a 122-82 margin, with all 220 Democrats who voted opposing it. Now the joint session that began the day’s long and eventual proceedings will reconvene, as senators file into the House chamber. We’ll soon know if there is enough bicameral Republican support for additional challenges, which, if they are made, will drag the process far into the wee hours.
Obviously the Trump bravos are far short of the majority in both Houses needed to sustain one of these challenges and deny Joe Biden electoral votes.
Four deaths now linked to Capitol riotWashington, D.C., police say three additional people lost their lives amid today’s chaos at the Capitol. D.C. police announced late Wednesday that in addition to the woman who was shot and killed, an adult man and two adult women suffered medical emergencies resulting in their deaths. It’s not yet clear what those medical emergencies were.
D.C. police also announced that 14 of their officers were injured in the violence.
Trump was reportedly psyched about the riotCNN’s Kaitlin Collins reports: “White House officials were shaken by Trump’s reaction to a mob of his supporters descending on the Capitol today. He was described to me as borderline enthusiastic because it meant the certification was being derailed. It has genuinely freaked people out.”
How Pence could remove Trump without a congressional voteIt comes down to Section Four of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice-president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president unfit for office. Such an action would put Pence in charge for up to 21 days, if one chamber of Congress chooses not to act. With just 14 days remaining in his presidency, if Pence pursued the 25th Amendment, he would remain in office until Biden’s inauguration.
Presciently, University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos wrote about the matter just days ago for Intelligencer. Speaking with our own Matt Stieb today, he added:
In the mob members’ own wordsOne reason I wrote the article — it wasn’t some crazy, desert-island hypothetical. The Trump administration has been full of craziness, and it was very easy to imagine that something could happen in the last few weeks that could be unendurable by the political system. Today in some ways might have been, who knows. A lot of people who were soft Trump supporters may say “This is way too much.”
Also, the inauguration is 14 days away. We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next 14 days. People are saying this is the low point. It may not be.
Intelligencer contributor Shawn McCreesh spoke with some of the mad MAGA faithful at the Capitol today:
“Something had to be done,” said Marilyn Bittner, who works as a “house flipper” in Maine. “They’re not listening to us in the courts or in the legislature, so it’s reached a point where people are going to break in,” she said.
On the muddy lawn, a contractor from Philly named Dave told me “This is just the beginning. People are pissed off.” Why wasn’t it an act of domestic terrorism to break into the U.S. Capitol? “This is our house,” he said. “We own it. They don’t own it.” Inside the building, Trump loyalists ran wild through the halls, posing for pictures in Nancy Pelosi’s office and scrawling “MURDER THE MEDIA” on the walls while he tweet-egged them on.
“The building belongs to us,” said Dave Hall, an unemployed Middlebury, Vermont, man who was waving a QAnon flag in front of the marble steps. He said his favorite news sources were The Epoch Times and One America News Network. Like everyone I spoke to, he had nothing but disdain for the Vice-President.
“This pretty much solidifies what we already knew about Pence,” said Hall. “He’s not aligned with freedom, he’s not aligned with Trump.”
Read the rest of Shawn’s report here.
Now waiting on the House (and hopefully a deal to end the debate)ED KILGORE: The Senate will now have to wait on the House, which reconvened about an hour later, to catch up before Congress goes back into joint session and we find out whether Trump supporters will insist on going on through the night with additional challenges. In the House, the very Trumpy Florida Republican Matt Gaetz enlivened matters by claiming that some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol today were actually members of antifa.
White House deputy press secretary resignsSarah Matthews says she’s done. “I was honored to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted,” Matthews wrote in a statement. “As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today. I’ll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”
Senate votes against objection to counting Arizona’s electoral votes — only six supportedED KILGORE: When the Senate finally voted on the Arizona challenge, only six Republicans supported it: Ted Cruz (who brought this particular challenge), Josh Hawley (who was the first senator to support any challenge), Cindy Hyde-Smith, Roger Marshall, John Kennedy, and Tommy Tuberville. Fourteen senators had originally indicated support for the attempted coup, so their numbers were pared by more than half, and 45 Republican senators split with Trump. Other than Cruz, the other five “aye” voting senators were from very red states.
Lindsey Graham flips on fraudED KILGORE: There was a bit of a surprise just before the Senate began voting on the Arizona challenge. Yes, Lindsey Graham had been dismissive toward the challenge and had never said he would support it. But his brief speech attacking the challenges as representing an effort to disenfranchise the entire American electorate was not something you’d expect to hear from one of Trump’s closest allies and an enabler of the election-fraud talk. It might be another sign that Trump is losing his grip on Republicans enough that a born opportunist like Graham is loosening his tongue.
Mo Brooks pretends nothing happened todayED KILGORE: If most Republican senators are either opposing challengers or soft-peddling them, over in the House the original instigator of this whole process, Mo Brooks of Alabama, didn’t bother with any denunciation of violence or grace notes for the Capitol police. He immediately launched into a high-speed, high-volume rap about alleged “voting by illegal aliens” that presumably keeping Joe Biden out of the White House will prevent. Brooks was particularly enamored of the phrase “the illegal-alien bloc vote” that lifted Biden to the threshold of power. I couldn’t help but remember Brooks’s Alabama predecessors who used to talk with the same hostile tone about the “Negro bloc vote” during the civil-rights era. It’s hard to ignore the high odds that Brooks is their moral and spiritual descendant.
More on the 25th Amendment discussionsCNN reports:
Some Cabinet members are holding preliminary discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to force President Trump’s removal from office, a GOP source said. The discussions are ongoing but it’s unclear if there will be enough Cabinet members to result in Trump’s removal. The conversations have reached the Hill where some senators have been made aware of the discussions, the source said.
And on Wednesday night, the House Judiciary Committee released a statement urging Vice-President Pence to invoke the 25th:
Hawley’s sad attempt at jujitsuEven in his video announcement this afternoon, President Trump revealed that he is not mentally sound and is still unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election. President Trump’s willingness to incite violence and social unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet this standard. So too are his recent Tweets, which Twitter has since deleted, saying the election was ‘stolen’ and that today’s riots ‘are the things and events that happen.
ED KILGORE: In an inverse move from Kelly Loeffler, Josh Hawley, who made this whole absurd process possible, claimed that today’s violence made the challenges “more important than ever” as an example of the “right” (non-violent) way to seek change. It’s a clever maneuver, but unfortunately, stealing an election nonviolently is only marginally better than stealing it violently.
Romney: Only the truth will set the GOP freeMitt Romney addressed his Senate colleagues with tears in his eyes, saying his 25 grandchildren were wondering if he was okay after the attack. “We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride,” Romney intoned, saying what happened was an “insurrection incited by the president of the United States.” Romney said Republicans who vote with Trump will go down in history alongside the mob. “No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters … the best way to convince [them] is by telling them the truth!” The chamber stood and applauded.
Hawley doubles down on self-serving protest against Biden’s certificationJosh Hawley, the first Republican senator to say he would object to Biden’s certification, doubled down — using the riot as a foil. Hawley said deliberating is the right way to sort out disagreements about the election, instead of resorting to violence. “What we are doing here tonight is actually very important. For those who have concerns about the integrity of the election … for what happened in November, this is the appropriate means,” he said. The shtick isn’t going down well in his native Missouri — the Kansas City Star said Hawley has “blood on his hands” after today.
Iraq Veteran Duckworth tears up in impassioned speech against the attack on CongressSenator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost both her legs in combat in Iraq, assailed Republicans for appeasing Trump’s “porcelain ego” and linked them to the mob that stormed the Capitol, tearing up at the end of her speech.
Pelosi reconvenes House with call for epiphanyED KILGORE: In reconvening the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted in passing that today is the Feast of the Epiphany on the Catholic Church’s calendar of holy days. In the biblical context, the “epiphany” refers to the recognition of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, beginning with the Magi. Given the events of the day and the shocked reaction of many Republicans, you might say they are experiencing an “epiphany” about Donald Trump’s true and sinister nature.
How many Trump administration officials will now resign?CNN reported earlier tonight that Melania Trump’s chief of staff, former White House communications director Stephanie Grisham, resigned in protest over the violence. Vox’s Alex Ward reports that National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, and possibly Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination Chris Liddell are also considering resigning.
The Daily Beast adds:
According to two sources familiar with the matter, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been busy making calls to the White House in an effort to try and maintain cohesiveness, at least for the next few hours. As Trump aides rushed to keep the departures to a minimum and perform some semblance of damage control, the president vented his fury that politicians and people on cable news were already starting to hold him responsible for the day’s mayhem, according to two people familiar with the situation. Predictably, Trump held the position that it wasn’t his fault, and that a strong public denunciation was not necessary at the time, the sources relayed.
ED KILGORE: The most tangible immediate sign of the change today’s violence wrought was when Kelly Loeffler — who just lost her Senate seat last night — arose to briefly say she could no longer support the challenge to Arizona’s electoral votes. Maybe she is simply dropping the mask of being a pro-Trump ultra now that it didn’t save her Senate career, but in any event, it was a dramatic change of tone for her and other Republican senators who insisted on these challenges.
Senate leaders deliver bipartisan rebuke of mob’s attackED KILGORE: Congress came back into session after law-enforcement officers swept the Capitol and the grounds around it and issued an all-clear. Clearly Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell decided that reconvening as quickly as possible was important symbolically to show that they were not intimidated by the rioters. And in sharp contrast to Trump’s tender tips-from-the-coach tone toward those rioters (whom he said he “loved”), Mitch McConnell opened the Senate session by referring to them as an “unhinged mob” that had “tried to disrupt democracy, and they failed.” Soon-to-be Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was predictably more blunt, directly blaming Trump for the violence.
And then Oklahoma’s James Lankford, who was speaking in favor of the Arizona electoral-vote challenge when the Senate was abruptly adjourned with the rioters near their chamber, mostly confined his remarks to a condemnation of the violence and appreciations for the law-enforcement officers who hustled the senators out of harm’s way. But he did concede that the electoral commission he and other Senate Republicans had asked for “is not going to happen at this point” and that Biden was going to be certified as president.
What has happened is that the session that was supposed to be about the presidential election is now mostly about the pro-Trump violence that disrupted it. Whatever else you can say about Trump’s incitement of the mob this morning, it has turned into another classic Trumpian unforced error.
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