Eliana Willis

Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of powerJustice department alleges Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes called unidentified presidential confidant on January 6 to make request Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, asked an intermediary to get Donald Trump to allow his group to forcibly stop the transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.The previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreOnce the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership at about 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Rhodes, told the Guardian that he was uncertain about who his client called or whether the call took place.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.At about 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison – is the latest in a string of recent such indictments to members of the Oath Keepers. Wilson is cooperating with the the justice department in its criminal investigation into January 6.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

The US president, Joe Biden, joked about his own low approval ratings and his predecessor Donald Trump, as he resumed a Washington tradition of speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The event had been cancelled for two years due to the Covid pandemic and was boycotted by Donald Trump during his presidency. ‘This is the first time the president attended this dinner in six years. It’s understandable: we had a horrible plague, followed by two years of Covid,’ Biden quipped 

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Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseLawyers for groups challenging Republican say text Greene sent to Meadows, released by House panel, shows she lied in testimony Lawyers for voters seeking to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 insurrection have accused her of lying in a hearing in the case.JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican partyRead moreIn a filing Friday, lawyers for groups challenging Greene said a text from the Georgia congresswoman to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, released by the House committee investigating January 6, shows she lied in testimony.At the hearing in Atlanta earlier this month, a fractious affair in front of an administrative judge, Greene said she could not recall advocating for Donald Trump to impose martial law after the Capitol attack, as the then president sought to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.In the text message released this week, Greene told Meadows on 17 January 2021, 11 days after the riot and three days before Biden’s inauguration: “In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law.“I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”As reported by Bloomberg News, attorneys for Greene’s challengers said: “Greene’s testimony at the hearing that she could not remember discussing martial law with anyone was already dubious.“This text with President Trump’s chief of staff makes her testimony even more incredible because it seems like the kind of message with the kind of recipient that a reasonable person testifying truthfully would remember.”Greene’s lawyer, James Bopp Jr, told Bloomberg: “The text very clearly said she doesn’t know about those things. It couldn’t be clearer.“It’s just another outrageous fabrication that we have been seeing from the other side throughout this case, because they don’t have the law on their side.”The attempt to push Greene off the ballot in the Republican primary is based on section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. Ratified in 1868, shortly after the civil war, the amendment bars from office anyone who has taken an oath under the constitution but then engaged in insurrection.A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the Capitol attack, which occurred after Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in service of his lies about electoral fraud.Riot participants have tied Greene to their cause. She has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was stolen but also denied links to rioters and said she was not calling for political violence when she backed Trump’s claims.In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in the House and Senate who objected to electoral college results.The groups challenging Greene have challenged other Trump supporters.An effort to exclude Madison Cawthorn, from North Carolina, failed when a judge said an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive. Attempts to eject two Arizonans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, were also rejected.The judge in Greene’s case has said he will soon make a recommendation to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, who will then rule.Raffensperger is a conservative Republican but also the official who blocked Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in Georgia. Raffensperger has said that caused him to fear for his safety.Greene appears in This Will Not Pass, a hotly anticipated new book by two New York Times reporters, both in her relation to the January 6 attack and as a thorn in the side of congressional Democrats.“If there was one Republican who had shown she had no business serving in Congress,” Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns write, “Democrats believed it was” Greene.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, though, “thought it would be pointless to try expelling Greene from the House. Even if an expulsion vote succeeded, the speaker believed Greene would easily win a special election in her district and return.”TopicsGeorgiaUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby fought back tears and said it was ‘difficult to look at some of the images’ of Vladimir Putin’s ‘cruel’ and ‘depraved’ invasion of Ukraine.
Kirby stated that the US had underestimated the level of ‘violence and cruelty’ that Russian forces would undertake, and described it as ‘brutality of the coldest and most depraved sort’

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Proud Boys member pleads guilty for role in US Capitol attackPlea agreement filed in federal court calls for Louis Enrique Colon to admit to a single felony charge and cooperate with prosecutors A member of the far-right Proud Boys group on Wednesday pleaded guilty to obstructing police officers when he joined the 6 January 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump, in their attempt to overturn his election defeat.The plea agreement filed in federal court in Washington, DC, calls for Louis Enrique Colon of Missouri to admit to a single felony charge and cooperate with prosecutors.Colon admitted to crossing police barricades during the riot before climbing a wall to gain access to a higher level of the Capitol.While inside the Capitol building, Colon used his hands and a chair to obstruct police officers who were trying to lower retractable doors to stop rioters from streaming into the building.The attack followed a rally led by Trump near the White House, in which he urged thousands gathered to advance to the Capitol and “fight like hell” while both chambers of the US Congress were convening to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election.Biden’s win was certified in the early hours of the following day after lawmakers, staff and journalists had fled for their lives during the deadly riot at the Capitol.Colon, 45, was charged in February 2021, along with four other members of the Kansas City metro chapter of the Proud Boys group. He is the first defendant in that case to plead guilty.A judge had imposed monitoring conditions on Colon while he awaited trial. Colon will be sentenced later this year, and he faces a statutory maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.He will probably receive a reduced sentence because of his admission of responsibility and cooperation.Colon was not charged in the same conspiracy case as Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman and one of the most high-profile of the 800 people facing criminal charges relating to the riot.Colon’s plea comes two weeks after a Proud Boys leader, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding, and assaulting and impeding police officers.Meanwhile, in a different criminal case, one of the dozens of police officers injured during the insurrection testified on Wednesday that he didn’t punch or pick a fight with a retired New York police officer charged with attacking the officer.Thomas Webster, whose trial on an assault charge started this week, claims he was acting in self-defense when he tackled Metropolitan police department officer Noah Rathbun outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021.Rathbun said he reached out with an open left hand and pushed Webster in the face after the New York man shoved a bike rack at him. Rathbun said he was trying to move Webster back from a security perimeter that officers were struggling to maintain behind rows of bike racks.“It’s unfortunate to be in the nation’s capital and be treated like that by another citizen,” Rathbun said during the second day of Webster’s trial.Videos shown by prosecutors depict Webster shoving a bike rack at Rathbun before swinging a flag pole at the officer in a downward chopping motion, striking a metal barricade in front of the officer.After Rathbun grabbed the broken pole and retreated, Webster charged at the officer and tackled him to the ground.Rathbun said he started choking and couldn’t breathe when Webster grabbed his gas mask and the chin strap pressed against the officer’s neck.Separately from the hundreds of criminal prosecutions, a special House of Representatives committee is investigating any links between Trump, his White House team, congressional Republicans and the insurrection.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

US politics liveRepublicansMcCarthy faces House Republican caucus following revelations in leaked audio – live
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LIVE Updated 8m agoRichard LuscombeWed 27 Apr 2022 11.14 EDTFirst published on Wed 27 Apr 2022 09.19 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More

McCarthy accused Republicans of ‘putting people in jeopardy’ after Capitol attackLeaked recording shows senior House Republican said Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and others put Americans at risk Kevin McCarthy, the senior Republican in the House of Representatives, privately accused one of his colleagues of “putting people in jeopardy” in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, according to a leaked audio recording.In a phone call with Republican leaders on 10 January 2021, McCarthy said that Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman and ardent Trump supporter, was putting Americans at risk with his comments after the assault on the US Capitol that left five people dead.The New York Times obtained a recording of the call, in which McCarthy and Republicans including Steve Scalise, the No 2 House Republican, discussed an interview Gaetz had given where he attacked GOP members who had criticized Trump.“He’s putting people in jeopardy,” McCarthy said of Gaetz.“And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”In the days after the insurrection McCarthy strongly criticized Trump, saying: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” Since then McCarthy has defended Trump’s actions, suggesting Trump was unaware that the riot was taking place.In the 10 January call McCarthy also called out Mo Brooks, a congressman from Alabama who at a rally before Trump supporters attacked the Capitol said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”“You think the president deserves to be impeached for his comments?” McCarthy asked those on the call. “That’s almost something that goes further than what the president said.”Discussing the statements and actions of some Republicans, McCarthy said: “Our members have got to start paying attention to what they say, too, and you can’t put up with that type of shit.”Lauren Boebert, a congresswoman from Colorado, and Barry Moore from Alabama, were among the other GOP members named in the call. Boebert has been a staunch defender of Trump’s actions that day.“Tension is too high, the country is too crazy, I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt,” McCarthy said in the call.TopicsRepublicansUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More