FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.

Here’s what happened today:

• The FBI’s No 2 waswarned that a number of its agents were sympathetic to the January 6 rioters. It’s unclear what impact that has had on the investigation into the attack.

• A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.

• Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.

• The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.

• Congress may finally repeal the authorizations justifying American involvement in the Gulf war and the invasion of Iraq.

A Democratic member of the January 6 committee said it will continue to wait for a response from Donald Trump to the subpoena it approved yesterday, which could compel his testimony before the panel investigating the Capitol attack.

In a tweet, Adam Schiff rejected a letter Trump had sent to the committee’s chair that attacked its work and reiterated a number of baseless theories about alleged fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election:

Trump has not said if he will honor the subpoena, though reports have emerged that he is open to speaking to lawmakers. Should he choose to fight it, it’s unlikely the court battle would be resolved before the committee’s mandate runs out at the end of the year.

Trump and his allies’ attempts to interfere with the election in Georgia is the subject of yet another investigation ensnaring the ex-president, and CNN reports one of his operatives has testified as part of the inquiry.

Last week, Scott Hall spoke for more than three hours to a special grand jury empaneled by district attorney Fani Willis in Fulton county, Georgia to investigate the meddling campaign, CNN said. While it’s not known what he told the jurors, Hall, a Republican poll watcher in Fulton county, was part of a group who may have improperly accessed voter information in another county.

Here’s more from CNN:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On January 7, 2021, the day after the attack on the US Capitol, Hall and others connected to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office, where they set up computers near election equipment and appeared to access voting data.

Willis’s criminal investigation recently expanded to include the breach of voting systems in the deeply-red Coffee County by operatives working for Powell.

Hall did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

According to court documents obtained by CNN, Hall’s role investigating supposed voter fraud in Georgia is also referenced in a November 2020 email that the head of Trump’s election day operations in Georgia received from the state’s Republican Party Chairman.

“Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him,” David Shafer, the Georgia Republican Party chairman wrote on November 20, 2020, to Robert Sinners, the head of Trump’s Georgia election day operations.

Shafer, who was among the 16 individuals who served as a fake Trump elector in Georgia, has been informed he is a target in the Fulton County DA’s criminal investigation.

Trump has broadcast plans to run for president again in 2024 practically since leaving the White House last year, and many fear he would steamroll his opponents in the primaries to win the GOP nomination, as he did in 2016.

But unlike the campaign that delivered his shock victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton six years ago, Trump is a known quantity by now, and some Republicans think he’s simply unelectable, no matter how popular he may be among a segment of the party.

Republican former speaker of the house Paul Ryan made that very argument yesterday in an interview for the Teneo Insights Series:

The January 6 committee made clear in its hearing yesterday that it continued to have reservations about the Secret Service’s candor with its investigation.

The agency tasked with protecting the president and other top officials has been under scrutiny ever since it was revealed it permanently deleted all of agents’ text messages from around the time of the insurrection, citing a pre-planned technology upgrade.

MSNBC has a good rundown of the lawmakers’ comments about the Secret Service:

Today, there was pushback, of sorts, from a spokesman for the agency, Politico reports:

Speaking of books, former vice-president Mike Pence will release a memoir about his time serving under Donald Trump on 15 November.

The New York Times has obtained the book’s description included on its jacket, which pretty much lines up with what is known about his relationship with the former president:

In August, Vermont’s Democratic senator Patrick Leahy – the most senior lawmaker in all of Congress – published a memoir reflecting on his decades in Washington politics.

That included the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he opposed. Longtime Washington journalist Garrett M. Graff read Leahy’s book and noted that the senator’s opposition to the invasion had won the attention of some mysterious, like-minded individuals who sought the senator out:

A movement is gathering in the Senate to repeal Congress’ authorizations allowing the United States to attack Iraq.

Democratic senator Tim Kaine and Republican senator Todd Young are backing a renewed effort to pass a bill repealing the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force enacted in 2002 and 1991, which gave legal justification for America’s involvement in the Iraq and Gulf wars, respectively.

A similar attempt passed the House last year and had Joe Biden’s support, but ultimately didn’t make it through the Senate. The latest effort is expected to be included in a defense spending bill that will be a top priority when both houses of Congress reconvene next month.

Few have embraced the baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election like Donald Trump, and he’s widely expected to run again for the presidency in 2024.

The big question is: when will he announce it? Democrats hope he does so before the midterm elections, so they can refocus voters’ attention on all that went on during his administration.

Politico reports that the former president is keeping it vague:

Meanwhile, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Tim Scott have both taken steps indicating they are contemplating a 2024 run, according to Politico.

More than two-thirds of Republicans seeking office this November have cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, reported the New York Times.

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}They include candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, and the state offices of governor, secretary of state and attorney general — many with clear shots to victory, and some without a chance. They are united by at least one issue: They have all expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And they are the new normal of the Republican Party.

More than 370 people — a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November — have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a monthslong New York Times investigation. These candidates represent a sentiment that is spreading in the Republican Party, rupturing a bedrock principle of democracy: that voters decide elections and candidates accept results.

Read the full article here.

Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden released a statement on a Thursday shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, where five people were killed and two were injured.

The suspect, a 15-year old white male, is in custody and in critical condition.

From the White house press office:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer.

As we mourn with the people of Raleigh, we are grateful for the law enforcement and other first responders, including federal law enforcement who were on the scene last night and into this morning. My Administration is working closely with Governor Cooper to assist local authorities in this investigation to the fullest extent needed.

Enough. We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever. This year, and even in just the five months since Buffalo and Uvalde, there are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that don’t even make the national news.

For the lives we’ve lost and the lives we can save, I took historic action to stop gun violence in our nation, including signing the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years. But we must do more. We must pass an assault weapons ban. The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets. House Democrats have already passed it. The Senate should do the same. Send it to my desk and I’ll sign it.

May God bless our fellow Americans we lost and their families and may He grant the wounded the strength to recover in Raleigh, North Carolina.

A top FBI official was warned that a large number of bureau employees were sympathetic to Capitol rioters who threatened the lives of law makers.

NBC News reported that Paul Abbate, number two at the FBI, was warned about agents within the bureau showing sympathy to 6 January participants.

The email, sent from an unnamed person, read:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s no good way to say it, so I’ll just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol… Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of ‘political correctness.

The email also added that several agents felt that the Capitol riots were no different than racial justice protests that happened in summer 2020.

Abbate responded to the email with: “Thank you [redacted] for sharing everything below.”

The FBI declined to comment on the email, reported NBC.

Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.

Here’s what has happened today so far:

• A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.

• Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.

• The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.

Many people testified to the January 6 committee. Doing so did not come without costs.

Here’s what Alyssa Farah, a former communications director in the Trump White House, said on “The View” about happened after the panel aired her testimony:

And here is what she told the committee:

Did the January 6 committee’s hearings change your mind about what happened that day?

Were you surprised by the evidence presented? Or are you wondering what the big deal is?

Whatever your answers to these questions, the Guardian’s community team is looking for readers’ input, and has a survey you can fill out at the link below: