Eliana Willis

Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was one of nine people arrested during a voting rights protest at the US Capitol on Thursday. Beatty was participating in a protest calling for the Senate to pass a sweeping election reform bill. The bill passed the House in March but is being held up in the Senate because of a Republican filibuster. Beatty and others were arrested by Capitol police for ‘demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol grounds’, said police

Democratic congresswoman arrested during voting rights protest at Capitol More

BooksLandslide review: Michael Wolff’s third Trump book is his best – and most alarming Fire and Fury infuriated a president and fueled a publishing boom. Its latest sequel is required reading for anyone who fears for American democracyLloyd GreenMon 12 Jul 2021 19.00 EDTThe 45th president is out of office and Michael Wolff has brought his Trump trilogy to a close. First there was Fire and Fury, then there was Siege, now there is Landslide. The third is the best of the three, and that is saying plenty.Frankly, We Did Win This Election review: a devastating dispatch from TrumpworldRead moreThree years ago, Trump derided Fire and Fury as fake news and threatened Wolff with a lawsuit. Now, Trump talks to Wolff on the record about what was and might yet be, while the author takes a long and nuanced view of the post-election debacle. Wolff describes Trump’s wrath-filled final days in power.Aides and family members have stepped away, leaving the president to simmer, rage and plot with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other conspiracy theorists, all eager to stoke the big lie about a stolen election. Giuliani calls Powell “crazy”. Powell holds Giuliani in similar regard. “I didn’t come here to kiss your fucking ring,” she tells the former New York mayor.Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is elsewhere, hammering out the “Abraham Accords”, seeking to leave his mark on the world with some sort of step towards Middle East peace. Hope Hicks, a favorite Trump adviser, has gone. Two cabinet secretaries of independent wealth, Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, say adiós. As with hurricanes and plagues, the rich know when to head for high ground.Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s fourth and final press secretary, is awol. Even Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s ultra-loyal chief of staff, has resigned rather than bear witness to the president’s implosion in the aftermath of the deadly assault on the US Capitol.Wolff’s interview with Trump is notable. It is held in the lobby at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort to which Trump retreated. The club’s “throne room”, in the author’s words, is filled with “blond mothers and blond daughters, infinitely buxom”. Fecundity and lust on parade. A palace built in its creator’s image.The interview is an exercise in Trumpian score-settling. He brands Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor brutally fired from the transition in 2016, a “very disloyal guy” – apparently as payback for a debate preparation session that stung Trump with its ferocity, laying bare his vulnerabilities as others watched.Christie told Trump what he didn’t want to hear about his handling of Covid-19. He bandied about expressions such as “blood on your hands” and “failure”. He also reminded Trump that while Hunter Biden, his opponent’s scandal-magnet son, was a one-off, there was a whole bunch of Trump kids to target. Their father was unamused.Turning to the supreme court, Trump lashes out at Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, the chief justice. Trump accuses Kavanaugh of lacking courage and vents his “disappointment” in his most controversial pick for the bench. Under Roberts, the justices refused to overturn the election. So Trump had little use for them. He also takes aim at the Republican leader in the House. Apparently, Kevin McCarthy’s abject prostration still left something to be desired.Trump calls Andrew Cuomo, now New York’s governor but once, in a way, Trump’s own lawyer, a “thug”. He has kind words for Roy Cohn, another Trump lawyer, before that an aide to Joe McCarthy in the witch-hunts of the 1950s who wore that four-letter word far better. But he’s long dead. Bill Barr, the attorney general who made the Mueller report go away but wouldn’t back the big lie and resigned before the end, fares badly.Trump laments four years of “absolute scum and treachery and fake witch-hunts”. Introspection was never his strongest suit. “I’ve done a thousand things that nobody has done,” he claims. Landslide homes in on the bond between Trump and his supporters. Wolff sees that the relationship is unconventional and organic. Trump was never just a candidate. He also led a movement: “He knew nothing about government, they knew nothing about government, so the context of government itself became beside the point.” The bond was rooted in charisma. Trump was “the star – never forget that – and the base was his audience”.Landslide acknowledges that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were born of his disregard for democratic norms and inability to acknowledge defeat. His legal and political arguments wafted out of the fever swamps of the fringes. As drowning men lunge for lifebelts, so Trump, Giuliani and Powell clung on.Wolff is open to criticism when he argues that the path between the 6 January insurrection and Trump is less than linear. Those who stormed the Capitol may well have been Trump’s people, Wolff argues, but what happened was not his brainchild. Six months ago, Trump also put distance between himself and the day’s events. Not any more.Trump has embraced the supposed martyrdom of Ashli Babbitt, the air force veteran who endeavored to storm the House chamber, where members were sheltering in place.“Boom,” he said on 7 July. “Right through the head. Just, boom. There was no reason for that. And why isn’t that person being opened up, and why isn’t that being studied?”Nightmare Scenario review: Trump, Covid and a lasting national traumaRead moreBeyond that, ProPublica has produced a paper trail that supports the conclusion senior Trump aides knew the rally they staged near the White House on 6 January could turn chaotic. What more we learn will depend on a House select committee.Wolff also fails to grapple with the trend in red states towards wresting control of elections from the electorate and putting them into the hands of Republican legislatures.Trump’s false contention that the presidential election was stolen is now an article of faith among Republicans and QAnon novitiates. Ballot “audits” funded by dark money are a new fixture of the political landscape. Democracy looks in danger.Trump tells Wolff his base “feel cheated – and they are angry”. Populism isn’t about all of the people, just some of them. As for responsibility, Trump washes his hands. On closing Wolff’s third Trump book, it seems possible it will not be his last after all. All the trauma of 2020 may just have been prelude to a Trump-Biden rematch.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump administrationMichael WolffUS politicsRepublicansUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

The far rightNeo-Confederates worked with other far-right groups in failed efforts to preserve monumentsEmails, documents and videos reveal the Sons of Confederate Veterans collaborated to keep statues and memorials intact Jason Wilson@ More

US Capitol attackSears and Kmart pull Ashli Babbitt T-shirt after outcryUS retailers apologize for shirt reading ‘Ashli Babbitt American Patriot’ for the Capitol rioter shot dead by law enforcement Priya ElanWed 7 Jul 2021 16.54 EDTLast modified on Wed 7 Jul 2021 17.42 EDTThe US retailers Sears and Kmart have apologized and pulled from sale a T-shirt featuring the words “Ashli Babbitt American Patriot” after an outcry on social media.Babbitt was shot dead by law enforcement while taking part in the attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on 6 January. She had been inside the building and was attempting to climb through a broken window when she was shot.After her death, her internet history showed she was a conspiracy theorist, including a believer in QAnon. Elements of the conservative movement have been attempting to make Babbitt a martyr for their cause.After the T-shirt’s availability was brought to attention by a Twitter post from the Vox reporter Aaron Rupar, Sears tweeted a brisk apology from its official account, writing: “Thank you for bringing this product to our attention. This item is no longer available for purchase on Sears.com or Kmart.com.”Both shops are owned by Transformco.Last year, Walmart was found to be selling an All Lives Matter T-shirt on its website.Both instances highlight concerns about third-party sellers: companies will sell items from external sources without vetting.In June, the Wall Street Journal reported that Urban Outfitters and J Crew would open their digital stores up to third-party sellers, in a bid to compete with Amazon, which had been selling items by them for years.In April, in a letter to shareholders, Amazon’s then CEO, Jeff Bezos, said that third-party sellers made up 60% of Amazon’s overall sales, compared with 34% in 2010 and 3% a decade earlier.Last month, the first Capitol rioter to be sentenced, Anna Morgan Lloyd, got probation instead of a prison sentence.TopicsUS Capitol attackRetail industrynewsReuse this content More

Virginia FBI infiltrates militia-style group formed under ‘Bible study’ coverMembers discussed surveilling US Capitol and investigators closely followed one person’s plans to test molotov cocktails G More

A select committee to investigate the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol will have 13 members and the power to subpoena witnesses, according to legislation released by the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week.Senate Republicans blocked an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the attack in which hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters broke into the Capitol and interrupted certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The new House panel will have eight members appointed by Pelosi and five appointed “after consultation with” the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy. A Pelosi aide said the speaker was considering including a Republican among her appointments, which would bring the split to 7-6.Pelosi said 6 January was “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history”.“The select committee will investigate and report upon the facts and causes of the attack and report recommendations for preventing any future assault,” she said.Democrats are likely to investigate Trump’s role in the siege and rightwing groups that were present. Almost three dozen House Republicans voted to create an independent panel, which would have had an even partisan split. Seven Republicans in the Senate supported that bill.The new committee will have subpoena power and no end date. It will be able to issue interim reports.Trump is not explicitly referenced in the legislation, which directs the committee to investigate “facts, circumstances and causes relating to the 6 January 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power”.The panel will also study “influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American democracy while engaged in a constitutional process”.Pelosi has not said who will lead the committee. She has said she is “hopeful there could be a commission at some point”. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has said he might hold a second vote on forming the independent body, but there’s no indication any Republican votes have changed.Many Republicans have brushed aside questions about the insurrection, including how government and law enforcement missed intelligence and the role of Trump.One Republican has said the rioters looked like tourists and another insisted a Trump supporter named Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed while trying to break into the House, was “executed”.Two officers who battled rioters, Metropolitan officer Michael Fanone and Capitol officer Harry Dunn, have been lobbying Republicans. They met McCarthy on Friday and said they asked him to denounce comments downplaying the violence.Fanone said he asked McCarthy for a commitment not to put “the wrong people” on the new select committee and that McCarthy said he would take it seriously. McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment.The officers also asked McCarthy to denounce 21 Republicans who voted against giving medals of honor to the Capitol and Metropolitan Police for their service on 6 January. Dozens suffered injuries, including chemical burns, brain injuries and broken bones.McCarthy, who voted for the measure, told them he would deal with those members privately.Seven people died during and after the rioting, including Babbitt and three Trump supporters who died of medical emergencies. Two police officers died by suicide and a third, Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner determined he died of natural causes. More

Donald Trump told supporters he would march on the Capitol with them on 6 January – then abandoned them after a tense exchange with his chief of staff, according to the first excerpt from Landslide, Michael Wolff’s third Trump White House exposé.The extract was published by New York magazine. Wolff’s first Trump book, Fire and Fury, blew up a news cycle and created a whole new genre of salacious political books in January 2018, when the Guardian revealed news of its contents.That book was a huge bestseller. A sequel, Siege, also contained bombshells but fared less well. Wolff’s third Trump book is among a slew due this summer.On 6 January, Congress met to confirm results of an election Trump lost conclusively to Joe Biden. Trump spoke to supporters outside the White House, telling them: “We’re going to walk down [to the Capitol to protest] – and I’ll be there with you.”According to Wolff, the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was reportedly approached by concerned Secret Service agents, who he told: “No. There’s no way we are going to the Capitol.”Wolff, one of a number of authors to have interviewed Trump since he left power, writes that the chief of staff then approached Trump, who seemed unsure what Meadows was talking about.“You said you were going to march with them to the Capitol,” Meadows reportedly said. “How would we do that? We can’t organize that. We can’t.”“I didn’t mean it literally,” Trump reportedly replied.Trump is also reported to have expressed “puzzlement” about the supporters who broke into the Capitol in a riot which led to five deaths and Trump’s second impeachment, for inciting an insurrection.Wolff says Trump was confused by “who these people were with their low-rent ‘trailer camp’ bearing and their ‘get-ups’, once joking that he should have invested in a chain of tattoo parlors and shaking his head about ‘the great unwashed’.”Trump and his family watched the attack on television at the White House.As reported by Wolff, the exchange between Trump and Meadows sheds light on how the would-be insurrectionists were abandoned.The White House, Wolff writes, soon realised Mike Pence had “concluded that he was not able to reject votes unilaterally or, in effect, to do anything else, beyond playing his ceremonial role, that the president might want him to do”.Trump aide Jason Miller is portrayed as saying “Oh, shit” and alerting the president’s lawyer and chief cheerleader for his lie about electoral fraud, Rudy Giuliani.Wolff writes that the former New York mayor was “drinking heavily and in a constant state of excitation, often almost incoherent in his agitation and mania”.As the riot escalated – soon after Trump issued a tweet attacking the vice-president – aides reportedly pressed the president to command his followers to stand down.Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, reportedly saw the assault on the Capitol as “an optics issue”. After an hour or so, Wolff writes, Trump “seemed to begin the transition from seeing the mob as people protesting the election – defending him so he would defend them – to seeing them as ‘not our people’”.In a further exchange, Trump reportedly asked Meadows: “How bad is this? This looks terrible. This is really bad. Who are these people? These aren’t our people, these idiots with these outfits. They look like Democrats.”Trump reportedly added: “We didn’t tell people to do something like this. We told people to be peaceful. I even said ‘peaceful’ and ‘patriotic’ in my speech!” More

Donald Trump’s “big lie” that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is “a bit like WWF”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics.“It’s entertaining,” said the Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. “But it’s not real.”Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Romney was asked about former attorney general William Barr’s assertion to the Atlantic on Sunday that Trump’s claims were always “bullshit”.Barr said as much publicly in December – a month after Joe Biden’s win. He told the Atlantic the then Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, had wanted him to say so in November.Romney suggested most Americans have always known Trump is lying about electoral fraud, which he was told about by conspiracy theorists – “the MyPillow guy [Mike Lindell and] Rudy Giuliani” – rather than any official source.Most Americans, Romney suggested, would not take seriously such partisan operations as an ongoing recount in Arizona’s most popular county. Polling, however, shows belief in Trump’s claims shared by a majority of Republican voters.Romney also said Trump’s lie “is surely being used around the world to minimise the support for democracy”.“If the autocratic nations can point to the United States,” he said, “which is the birthplace really of this modern democracy, and can say, ‘Look, they can’t even run an election there that’s not fraudulent … that obviously is having an impact on on the cause of democracy and freedom around the world.”But in the US, Romney insisted, “it’s pretty clear. The election was fair. It wasn’t the outcome that the president wanted, but let’s move on.”Trump has not moved on. At a rally in Ohio on Saturday which marked his return to the campaign trail, supporters wore T-shirts saying “Trump won, deal with it”; “Trump 2024. Make votes count again”; and “Biden is not my president”.Trump told them: “This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the century. We’re never going to stop fight for the true results of this election … Remember I’m not the one trying to undermine American democracy. I’m trying to save American democracy.”Romney was the only Republican in Congress to vote to impeach Trump twice. But he was joined at Trump’s second trial by six other GOP senators who thought Trump guilty of inciting the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, by a mob seeking to overturn the election.Despite that, Republicans in the Senate blocked the formation of a 9/11-style independent commission to investigate the January attack. This week the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced the formation of a select committee.Republicans say that will be too partisan. Key witnesses such as the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who pleaded with Trump to call off the attack, seem unlikely to agree to appear.Romney said he hoped Pelosi would “appoint people that are seen as being credible and are willing to look at the evidence on a clear-eyed basis”.He added: “I voted in favour of a bipartisan commission. I think that would have had more credibility … and yet there will be a an effort to look back at what happened on 6 January. I think there are questions that are appropriate to be evaluated.“One question is why did it take so long for security to come to the Capitol and to rescue the Capitol police that were battling away, and to make sure that the Vice-President [Mike Pence] was safe and his family was safe, as well as other elected officials.“Why was the delay so long? Why didn’t the Pentagon for instance move more quickly? What happened in the White House?“… That was a terrible day in American history, and it’s going to be used against us around the world. It already is by China and Russia. It has huge implications. It should never happen again in any effort to understand why it happened, is in my opinion, appropriate.” More