Elections

The US wants a “robust and clear” international probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in China, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has said.Speaking to reporters, she said it was “imperative we get to the bottom” of how the virus appeared and spread. She highlighted “great concern” over “misinformation” from “some sources in China”.The coronavirus has killed more than two million people and infected at least 100m since first being detected about a year ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.This month a team of experts from the World Health Organization arrived in Wuhan after repeated delays to investigate the virus’s origins.Scientists agree that the disease has an animal origin and particular focus is on the Wuhan “wet market”, which sells live animals.Beijing has said that although Wuhan is where the first cluster of cases was detected, it is not necessarily where the virus originated. China denies as conspiracy theories the idea that it originated in a lab, something Donald Trump touted while in office.Beijing countered by suggesting a supposed link to a US biological weapons lab in Maryland.Psaki said the new Biden government was devoting significant resources of its own to understanding what happened and would not take the WHO report for granted. Washington will “draw on information collected and analysed by our intelligence community” and also work with allies to evaluate the “credibility” of the international report.In addition the Biden administration intended to boost its staffing in Beijing, something that “fell back in the last administration”. More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTwitter Troll Tricked 4,900 Democrats in Vote-by-Phone Scheme, U.S. SaysDouglass Mackey, a right-wing provocateur, was accused of spreading memes that made Hillary Clinton supporters falsely believe they could cast ballots in 2016 via text message.Douglass Mackey was arrested on Wednesday in what appeared to be the first criminal case in the country involving voter suppression through the spread of disinformation on Twitter.Credit…Andrew Seng for The New York TimesJan. 27, 2021Updated 4:46 p.m. ETA man who was known as a far-right Twitter troll was arrested on Wednesday and charged with spreading disinformation online that tricked Democratic voters in 2016 into trying to cast their ballots by phone instead of going to the polls.Federal prosecutors accused Douglass Mackey, 31, of coordinating with co-conspirators to spread memes on Twitter falsely claiming that Hillary Clinton’s supporters could vote by sending a text message to a specific phone number.The co-conspirators were not named in the complaint, but one of them was Anthime Gionet, a far-right media personality known as “Baked Alaska,” who was arrested after participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a person briefed on the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.As a result of the misinformation campaign, prosecutors said, at least 4,900 unique phone numbers texted the number in a futile effort to cast votes for Mrs. Clinton.Mr. Mackey was arrested on Wednesday morning in West Palm Beach, Fla., in what appeared to be the first criminal case in the country involving voter suppression through the spread of disinformation on Twitter.“With Mackey’s arrest, we serve notice that those who would subvert the democratic process in this manner cannot rely on the cloak of internet anonymity to evade responsibility for their crimes,” said Seth DuCharme, the acting United States attorney in Brooklyn, whose office is prosecuting the case.Mrs. Clinton was not named in the complaint, but a person briefed on the investigation confirmed that she was the presidential candidate described in the charging documents.A lawyer for Mr. Mackey declined to comment.Mr. Mackey, who was released from custody on Wednesday on a $50,000 bond, faces an unusual charge: conspiracy to violate rights, which makes it illegal for people to conspire to “oppress” or “intimidate” anyone from exercising a constitutional right, such as voting. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.The case will test the novel use of federal civil rights laws as a tool to hold people accountable for misinformation campaigns intended to interfere with elections, a problem that has recently become an urgent priority for social media platforms and law enforcement officials to stop.It has become a game of whack-a-mole to police users like Mr. Mackey, who prosecutors said would simply open new Twitter accounts after his old ones were suspended. Mr. Mackey used four different Twitter accounts from 2014 to 2018, the complaint said, always seeking to hide his true identity from the public.The goal of Mr. Mackey’s campaign, according to prosecutors, was to influence people to vote in a “legally invalid manner.”In 2018, Mr. Mackey was revealed to be the operator of a Twitter account using the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn, which boosted former President Donald J. Trump while spreading anti-Semitic and white nationalist propaganda.Mr. Mackey’s account had such a large following that it made the M.I.T. Media Lab’s list of the top 150 influencers in the 2016 election, ranking ahead of the Twitter accounts for NBC News, Drudge Report and CBS News.Twitter shut down the account in 2016, one month before the election, for violating the company’s rules by “participating in targeted abuse.” At that time, the account had about 58,000 followers. Three days later, an associate of Mr. Mackey’s opened a new account for him, prosecutors said, which was also quickly suspended.It was not clear how Mr. Mackey became connected to Mr. Gionet, or “Baked Alaska,” who was also a popular social media figure among white nationalists and far-right activists. A lawyer for Mr. Gionet declined to comment.Mr. Mackey is a Vermont native who graduated from Middlebury College. He worked for five years as an economist at a Brooklyn-based research firm, John Dunham & Associates, until his termination in the summer of 2016, a company representative said.The complaint showed a surgical precision in the disinformation campaign by Mr. Mackey and his four co-conspirators. In private group conversations on Twitter, they discussed how to insert their memes into trending conversations online, and dissected changes in wording and colors to make their messages more effective.Mr. Mackey was obsessed with his posts going viral, the complaint said, once telling his associates, “THE MEMES ARE SPREADING.” He and his co-conspirators joked about tricking “dopey” liberals.Their effort to misinform voters began after the group saw a similar campaign intended to deceive voters in the 2016 referendum in Britain on whether to leave the European Union, also known as Brexit, according to the complaint.Mr. Mackey and his associates created their own version, sharing photos that urged Mrs. Clinton’s supporters to vote for her on Election Day using a hashtag on Twitter or Facebook. To make the images look more legitimate, they affixed the logo of her campaign and linked to her website.Some of their memes appeared to target Black and Latino voters. One image had a Black woman standing in front of a sign supporting Mrs. Clinton, telling people to vote for Mrs. Clinton by texting a specific number. Mr. Mackey shared a similar image written in Spanish, prosecutors said.Less than a week before Election Day, the complaint said, Mr. Mackey sent a message on Twitter: “Obviously, we can win Pennsylvania. The key is to drive up turnout with non-college whites, and limit black turnout.”Around that time, Twitter began removing the images with false information and suspended Mr. Mackey’s account. But the memes had already taken on a life of their own, prosecutors said, as his associates continued to share them with a wider audience.Alan Feuer contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

Americans will have to wait “months” before everyone who wants a Covid-19 vaccine can get one and funding from Congress is “essential”, the White House coronavirus taskforce has warned – in its first public briefing under Joe Biden.The sober assessment came as the taskforce aimed to set a new tone of transparency after last year’s televised briefings became notorious for then president Donald Trump’s political grandstanding, claiming the virus would “go away” and promises of “miracle cures”.Biden, by contrast, was not present on Wednesday. “The White House respects and will follow the science, and the scientists will speak independently,” Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for Covid response, told reporters.“Right now, I want to level with the public that we’re facing two constraining factors. The first is getting supply quickly enough and the second is getting the ability to administer the vaccines quickly once they’re produced and sent out to the sites.”Slavitt added: “We are taking action to increase supply and increase capacity but, even so, it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.”Biden is under pressure to accelerate vaccinations nationwide after a sluggish start under Trump. So far this week the government had been hitting its target of one million vaccinations a day, the taskforce said. Overall it has delivered 47m doses to states and long-term care facilities and administered about 24m so far.On Tuesday the president announced plans to buy an extra 200m vaccine doses from Moderna and Pfizer. And Slavitt said the taskforce had identified 12 areas where Biden has authorised use of the Defense Production Act – a law that directs private companies to prioritise orders from the federal government – to boost production. But the White House says it cannot resolve the crisis alone.Biden has proposed $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill to Congress that includes funding to administer vaccines, increase testing and help schools and businesses reopen. But numerous Republicans have already raised objections, raising fears of political gridlock stalling the rescue effort.Jeffrey Zients, coordinator of the taskforce, said it is “essential” that Congress pass the act. “In order to get all Americans vaccinated, we need Congress to provide funds for vaccinations. We still do too little testing in this country; we need to ramp up testing significantly. We need Congress to fund more testing in order to reopen schools and businesses.”He added: “Furthermore, believe it or not, we still have shortages of PPE and other critical materials. We need emergency funds in order to make sure that we have those materials. So those are just three of the key areas that need to be funded by Congress in order for us to execute on the president’s national plan.”The pandemic remains Biden’s most urgent priority. The US now has more than 25m cases and 425,406 deaths. Rochelle Walensky, the new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said her agency’s latest forecast indicates the country will record between 479,000 to 514,000 deaths by 20 February.The taskforce urged people to continue to wear masks, wash hands and physically distance to mitigate spread of the virus as cases remain “extraordinarily high”.Wednesday’s briefing was conducted virtually, rather than in person at the White House, to allow for questions from health journalists, but suffered some technical glitches. When the infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci’s turn came, the screen showed the words “Science Update by Dr Anthony Fauci” with the White House logo but there was a long silence. Six colleagues could be seen in windows on the side of the screen. One held up a sign that said, “We can’t hear you.”Fauci, who has admitted feeling liberated from Trump’s carping and disinformation, said there was cause for concern about the so-called South African variant of the virus, because lab tests have shown that it can diminish the protective power of the vaccines approved to date. But Fauci stressed the level of protection provided was still well within what he called the “cushion” of vaccine effectiveness.One vaccine still in testing is being measured for effectiveness against the South African variant and another strain that has emerged in Brazil, Fauci added. “We will always want to be a step or two ahead of what might be a problem in the future.”The US ranks only 43rd in the world in terms of tracking genetic variants of Covid-19, however, a situation described by Zients as “completely unacceptable”.In another break from Trump, the taskforce briefings will happen regularly, with the next one on Friday. Biden told reporters this week: “We’re bringing back the pros to talk about Covid in an unvarnished way. Any questions you have, that’s how we’ll handle them because we’re letting science speak again.” More

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,’” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”Law enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes”.Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the rightwing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be antifa, short for “anti-fascism”, an amorphous leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.The records uncovered by Reuters are startling because they show that a leader of a far-right group now under intense scrutiny by law enforcement was previously an active collaborator with criminal investigators.Washington police arrested Tarrio in early January when he arrived in the city two days before the Capitol Hill riot. He was charged with possessing two high-capacity rifle magazines, and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a December demonstration by supporters of Donald Trump. The DC superior court ordered him to leave the city pending a court date in June.Though Tarrio did not take part in the Capitol insurrection, at least five Proud Boys members have been charged in the riot. The FBI previously said Tarrio’s earlier arrest was an effort to pre-empt the events of 6 January.The transcript from 2014 shines a new light on Tarrio’s past connections to law enforcement. During the hearing, the prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney asked a judge to reduce the prison sentence of Tarrio and two co-defendants. They had pleaded guilty in a fraud case related to the relabeling and sale of stolen diabetes test kits.The prosecutor said Tarrio’s information had led to the prosecution of 13 people on federal charges in two separate cases, and had helped local authorities investigate a gambling ring.Tarrio’s then lawyer Jeffrey Feiler said in court that his client had worked undercover in numerous investigations, one involving the sale of anabolic steroids, another regarding “wholesale prescription narcotics” and a third targeting human smuggling. He said Tarrio helped police uncover three marijuana grow houses, and was a “prolific” cooperator.In the smuggling case, Tarrio, “at his own risk, in an undercover role met and negotiated to pay $11,000 to members of that ring to bring in fictitious family members of his from another country”, the lawyer said in court.In an interview, Feiler said he did not recall details about the case but added, “The information I provided to the court was based on information provided to me by law enforcement and the prosecutor.”An FBI agent at the hearing called Tarrio a “key component” in local police investigations involving marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, or ecstasy. The Miami FBI office declined comment.There is no evidence Tarrio has cooperated with authorities since then. In interviews with Reuters, however, he said that before rallies in various cities, he would let police departments know of the Proud Boys’ plans. It is unclear if this was actually the case. He said he stopped this coordination after 12 December because the DC police had cracked down on the group.Tarrio on Tuesday acknowledged that his fraud sentence was reduced, from 30 months to 16 months, but insisted that leniency was provided only because he and his co-defendants helped investigators “clear up” questions about his own case. He said he never helped investigate others.That comment contrasts with statements made in court by the prosecutor, his lawyer and the FBI. The judge in the case, Joan A Lenard, said Tarrio “provided substantial assistance in the investigation and prosecution of other persons involved in criminal conduct”.As Trump supporters challenged the Republican’s election loss in often violent demonstrations, Tarrio stood out for his swagger as he led crowds of mostly white Proud Boys in a series of confrontations and street brawls in Washington DC, Portland, Oregon and elsewhere.The Proud Boys, founded in 2016, began as a group protesting against political correctness and perceived constraints on masculinity. It grew into a group with distinctive colors of yellow and black that embraced street fighting. In September their profile soared when Trump called on them to “Stand back and stand by.”Tarrio, based in Miami, became the national chairman of the group in 2018.In November and December, Tarrio led the Proud Boys through the streets of DC after Trump’s loss. Video shows him on 11 December with a bullhorn in front of a large crowd. “To the parasites both in Congress, and in that stolen White House,’” he said. “You want a war, you got one!” The crowd roared. The next day Tarrio burned the BLM banner.Former prosecutor Johannes said she was surprised that the defendant she prosecuted for fraud is now a key player in the violent movement that sought to halt the certification of President Joe Biden.“I knew that he was a fraudster, but had no reason to know that he was also a domestic terrorist,” she said. More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRioters Followed a Long Conspiratorial Road to the CapitolThe Capitol extremists and their cheerleaders did not make a giant leap to “Stop the Steal.” A pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones led them there.The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was animated by Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesJan. 27, 2021Updated 9:41 a.m. ETWhen Brendan Hunt was arrested and charged with demanding the “public execution” of Democratic leaders this month, students of American conspiracy theory could hardly be surprised.Two decades ago, Mr. Hunt, a 37-year-old sometime Shakespearean actor, had spread misinformation around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A decade later, he falsely implicated the federal government in a cover-up of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which killed 20 first graders and six educators. He sowed conspiracy theories around the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and disseminated anti-Semitic tropes on social media. Finally he reached the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump by a vast conspiracy of power brokers in both political parties.For many of the Capitol rioters and others who believe Mr. Trump won, it was not a large leap to “Stop the Steal” from a pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones that included the “Pizzagate” claim of 2016 that Democrats were running a child sex ring in the back of a popular Washington pizza parlor, the debunked allegation that a low-level Democratic National Committee aide was murdered for leaking Hillary Clinton’s emails and many more.Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, which animated the riot on Jan. 6, have reassembled — virtually, anyway — a cast of characters that go way back. Other conspiratorial theorizers that mass shootings were false flag operations by liberals to promote gun control included Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia; the Infowars impresario Alex Jones; the fired Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy; and the retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor James Fetzer, all of whom then embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims. “If you look at these Sandy Hook folks, it’s not like they slipped on a banana peel and believe in Sandy Hook conspiracy theories. This is an expression of a whole worldview, or an expression of personality traits,” Joe Uscinski, an assistant professor at the University of Miami and an author of the book “American Conspiracy Theories,” said in an interview. “You’re not going to change someone’s mind. And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter because you’re going to end up in a game of Whac-a-Mole.”Mr. Hunt visited Newtown, Conn., after the 2012 mass shooting, filming the fenced perimeter and the woods around the abandoned elementary school and going to the home of a man who had sheltered six children who ran from the gunman.Mr. Hunt worked as an assistant analyst in the New York Office of Court Administration’s attorney registration unit. He is the son of a retired family court judge. In December and January, he allegedly posted videos calling for violence in Washington.Brendan Hunt in a picture from his account on the video-hosting site BitChute.According to a Jan. 18 complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York, two days after the Capitol riot Mr. Hunt, who was not in Washington that day, posted a video to a video-sharing site urging violence during President Biden’s inauguration.“We were aware of Brendan Hunt back in 2013 when he was attacking Sandy Hook families,” said Lenny Pozner, whose son was killed at the school, and who founded the HONR Network, an organization of volunteers who seek the removal of harmful online content. “I’m not surprised that he became more radical.”“Once people buy into the concept that the government is an evil organization trying at every turn to harm them, it is easy for people to essentially radicalize themselves and find others who agree,” he added.Mr. Hunt has been assigned a public defender, who declined to comment on Tuesday.Sandy Hook was the first American mass shooting to ignite viral, fantastical claims that it was a phony event staged by the Obama administration as a pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms. Since then virtually every high-profile mass shooting has generated similar theories.Ms. Greene, elected to Congress in November, has for years circulated bogus theories, including around mass shootings. On Tuesday, CNN reported that in 2018 and 2019, Ms. Greene indicated support on her Facebook page for commenters recommending violence against Democratic leaders. In January 2019, CNN reported, Ms. Greene “liked a comment that said ‘a bullet to the head would be quicker’ to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” In response, Ms. Greene posted a statement on Twitter attributing the inflammatory content to “teams of people” who “manage my pages.”During her 2020 campaign, Politico mined her social media accounts, finding Islamophobic conspiracy theories and the false claim that George Soros, a wealthy Democratic donor, is a Nazi. After calling the 2020 presidential vote a “fraudulent, stolen election,” Ms. Greene voted on Jan. 6 with 146 other Republicans against certifying the Electoral College count that officially declared Mr. Biden the winner. The day before the Capitol riot, she referred to the Stop the Steal protests as “our 1776 moment.”In 2018 she wrote on Facebook, “The people in power stop the truth and control and stall investigations, then provide cover for the real enemies of our nation.”When a follower from Jamestown, N.Y., posted false claims about the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and said Sandy Hook was “staged,” Ms. Greene responded, “This is all true.” The post was surfaced last week by Media Matters for America, a liberal group that monitors conservative news and media posts.Ms. Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, did not address her false election claims. He referred to her statement on Twitter last week acknowledging the Parkland shooting and blaming “‘gun-free’ school zones” for the massacre.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, elected to Congress in November, has for years circulated bogus theories, including around mass shootings.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“Politicians and Hollywood celebrities are the first to protect themselves with armed security, as you can clearly see by the military fortress around the Capitol,” Ms. Greene wrote.Mr. Jones, another purveyor of election disinformation, spread false Sandy Hook conspiracy claims to millions through his Infowars radio and online show. He has falsely labeled most mass shootings “false flags,” and baselessly claims that the Sept. 11 attacks and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City were government inside jobs.Last week, the Texas Supreme Court allowed three defamation cases filed by Sandy Hook survivors against Mr. Jones to move forward. The lawsuits say Mr. Jones spreads false claims in part to sell merchandise geared toward a conspiracy-minded audience preparing for the end of times.Those suits did not stop Infowars from staging a rally in Washington the night before the Capitol riot. Then on Jan. 6, Mr. Jones broadcast live near the Capitol while an Infowars cameraman filmed the rioters from inside the building, even capturing the moment when one of them, Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.“Our own cameraman followed the crowds into the Senate, and I watched them execute an unarmed woman,” Mr. Jones said.Mr. Jones brought Ali Alexander, a Stop the Steal organizer and a leading election conspiracy promoter, onto his show.Mr. Jones’s ex-wife, Kelly Morales, said she sent video of Mr. Jones’s broadcasts during the riot, most of which she said had since been removed from his website, to the F.B.I. She has been posting excerpts on her Twitter account, @realkellyjones.“Just like Sandy Hook and Pizzagate, Alex knows his actions culminate in violence and harassment,” Ms. Morales said in an interview. She and Mr. Jones are engaged in a court battle stemming from their 2015 divorce.After the Sandy Hook shooting, Mr. Jones repeatedly invited Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the far-right militia Oath Keepers, onto Infowars to discuss the massacre, which they viewed as a threat to the Second Amendment.During one appearance, Mr. Jones suggested that “the solution is to get involved in Oath Keepers.”Now federal law enforcement is investigating the group as central to the Capitol attack. Mr. Rhodes had appeared on Infowars just before the November election, vowing that his members would “stand up and protect people on Election Day” against Democrats who he claimed would be “stealing the election.”At least a half-dozen people arrested after the Capitol riot have been linked to the Oath Keepers. Those arrested include three people charged with conspiracy to commit federal crimes, after recordings emerged that suggest members of the group planned and coordinated their role in the Capitol attack.Infowars and Mr. Jones did not immediately respond to emails and text messages requesting comment.Mr. Tracy, a former journalism professor at Florida Atlantic University, also questioned Sandy Hook, leading to his firing in 2015. He did not protest in Washington on Jan. 6, but he has latched onto 2020 election falsehoods.“The fake news media that have been complicit in U.S. ‘regime change’ over the past four years are now acting as the ideological agency to enforce the unfounded legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election,” he wrote on his blog.In an interview, Mr. Tracy said he also thought the Democratic nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders in 2016 and insisted that “the truth movement” is “becoming much more mainstream.” On his blog, Mr. Tracy posts wild theories about the health risks of 5G networks, communist revolution in America and the Covid Tracking Project.Mr. Tracy contributed to the book “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook,” coedited by Mr. Fetzer, the retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor. Mr. Fetzer moved from Sandy Hook in 2012 to the Boston Marathon bombing a year later, helping to write another book titled “And Nobody Died in Boston, Either.” Mr. Fetzer helped found an outfit called Moon Rock Books, which published false conspiracy theories related to Sept. 11, the John F. Kennedy assassination — longtime obsessions of Mr. Fetzer’s — as well as mass shootings in Parkland, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.In late 2019, Mr. Pozner won a $450,000 defamation judgment against Mr. Fetzer. But he has continued to pursue other conspiracy theories, including around the 2020 election.“There actually is a deep state, and they really do not honor the election results nor the will of the people,” Mr. Fetzer wrote on his blog last week. He also posted his approval of Ms. Greene’s Parkland conspiracy theories, saying, “No member of Congress has been willing to speak the truth about it.”Chris Cameron More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFirst Candidate Drops Out of Crowded N.Y.C. Mayor RaceZach Iscol says he’ll now run for comptroller, but there are still roughly 30 candidates seeking to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio.Zach Iscol, a former Marine, considers Hillary Clinton to be a mentor.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesJan. 27, 2021Updated 9:30 a.m. ETIn the New York City mayoral race, where there are at least 30 declared candidates, if one of the lesser-known entrants drops out, will it make a ripple?Zach Iscol hopes so.Mr. Iscol is ending his long-shot bid for mayor, amid hopes that he can make more of an impact as a new candidate in the city comptroller’s race.Mr. Iscol’s odds will certainly improve: Eight other comptroller candidates have filed paperwork with the city Campaign Finance Board, though one has already dropped out; of those remaining, only two — Brad Lander, a Brooklyn city councilman, and Brian A. Benjamin, a state senator — have met the minimum thresholds to receive matching public funds.Mr. Iscol had hoped that his moderate brand of Democratic politics and history of public service in the military and in the nonprofit world would attract a following. But he was unable to gain much traction and said he decided that he and New York might be better served if he shifted his focus to another race.“There are some amazing people who would be history-making in becoming mayor — people of color, women, women of color, people with various ideologies and backgrounds and experiences,” Mr. Iscol said in an interview. “It’s a strong field, and I’m confident in that field we will end up with a good mayor. I don’t see the same happening in the comptroller’s race.”The mayoral field remains unsettled. Candidates such as Eric Adams, the borough president of Brooklyn, and Scott M. Stringer, the comptroller, are leading the field in fund-raising. Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, recently raised $5 million in three months and appears to have support from the city’s business community.Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, has attracted a lot of attention with his entrance into the race and is expected to be a competitive fund-raiser. Maya Wiley, a former commentator on MSNBC, shored up her campaign by meeting the matching funds threshold. Dianne Morales, a former social services executive, has attracted support with her staunch support for defunding the police.Other candidates for mayor include Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary; Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn; and Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner.Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mr. Stringer cannot run for re-election because of term-limits laws.Mr. Iscol, a former marine who often speaks about his combat experience in Iraq, entered the race for mayor in October but said he wishes he had launched his campaign earlier. He still did well in fund-raising for a little-known candidate: His most recent filing showed that he had raised $746,000 and missed the $250,000 threshold to receive matching public funds by about $20,000.Mr. Iscol will be able to use the money he raised while running for mayor in the comptroller’s race, according to the campaign finance board. He has already probably met the lower threshold to qualify for matching funds for that race, pending an audit by that board, as has Assemblyman David Weprin from Queens, another candidate for comptroller.Because the race for mayor is far from decided, voters may not treat Mr. Iscol’s departure from that race as a negative in the comptroller’s contest, said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist.“I don’t know if he’s the last, but he’s smart to be the first,” Mr. Gyory said. “The mayor’s race is so crowded with major figures that someone like Iscol would have been crowded out.”There are several established candidates in the race for comptroller, including Mr. Lander, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Weprin and Kevin Parker, a state senator from Brooklyn.But it is unlikely that any can claim Hillary Clinton as a mentor, as Mr. Iscol can.Mr. Iscol is friends with Chelsea Clinton, and his mother, Jill Iscol, has been an adviser to Ms. Clinton.“I’ve known Zach Iscol for over two decades, and he comes at everything from the mind-set of ‘How do we bring resources and assets together to solve problems and address inequities,’” Ms. Clinton said in a statement. “He’s done it at the community level, the national level and in combat zones. He’s got a big heart and is indefatigable when he puts his mind to something.”Mr. Iscol isn’t the only new entrant to the comptroller’s race. Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former anchorwoman for CNBC who unsuccessfully challenged Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Democratic congressional primary last year, filed paperwork to enter the campaign on Monday, her campaign confirmed.Mr. Iscol said he wants to help the city recover economically from the pandemic, with a focus on the performance of city agencies. He cited “allegations of ethics and campaign finance issues” as helping to have motivated him to enter the race. That was a reference to Mr. Benjamin’s campaign, which relinquished nearly two dozen donations after the The City raised questions about their authenticity.Mr. Benjamin, who is Black, did not take kindly to the remark.“It’s unfortunate that a very privileged and failed mayoral candidate like Zach Iscol thinks they can step on Black leaders just to advance their own petty ambition,” Mr. Benjamin said in a statement.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMyPillow C.E.O.’s Trump Conspiracy Theories Put Company on the SpotRetailers have stopped carrying its products, though Mike Lindell, the founder and face of MyPillow, blamed “cancel culture” and said he didn’t think it would last.Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow, has become closely identified with former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesSapna Maheshwari and Jan. 27, 2021Updated 8:43 a.m. ETFor the past four years, most American corporations have tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship while also distancing themselves from the inflammatory rhetoric of former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters, walking a tightrope to keep customers and employees happy.It has been a different story for MyPillow. Mike Lindell, the company’s founder and chief executive, has remained one of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters. His sustained peddling of debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud got him barred from Twitter on Monday night. With retailers like Kohl’s and other major companies cutting ties with the privately held manufacturer, Mr. Lindell has managed to make his pillows partisan.“It goes to my money, you know where my money’s going,” Mr. Lindell said in an interview this month with a pro-Trump online channel called Right Side Broadcasting Network, offering a discount code for viewers to use on MyPillow’s website.Mr. Lindell’s baseless claims of election fraud have prompted a backlash against MyPillow in recent weeks, with several retailers deciding to stop carrying its products, an example of just how strongly his personality dominates the public perception of his company.Mr. Lindell, a former crack cocaine and gambling addict, founded the company after the idea for MyPillow came to him in a dream in 2004, according to his memoir. He is now a devout Christian and credits God with aiding his recovery.MyPillow is based in Chaska, Minn., and Mr. Lindell said in an interview this week that it employed nearly 2,500 people. Its products — it carries more than 100 — have been widely distributed in national chains, and Mr. Lindell’s face is prominently featured in infomercials and boxes carrying its patented pillows. Two former MyPillow employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said they were asked to display multiple cardboard cutouts of the executive in stores and to play his infomercials.Mr. Lindell with Mr. Trump at a White House event in 2017.Credit…Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesPolitics became a bigger part of Mr. Lindell and MyPillow’s identity in the past decade, following the success of its infomercials, which first aired in 2011 and were later a hit on Fox News, according to the memoir and interviews with former employees.The company has said in court filings that it spends an average of $5 million a month on advertising. While Mr. Lindell said he had advertised in The New York Times and on CNN, much of his spending has been with Fox News — 59 percent of the company’s total television spending last year, according to data from MediaRadar — which raised his profile with the former president, an avid viewer of the network.“Politics does not hurt your business,” he said in the interview this week. “I have not alienated anybody except for the bots and the trolls and the hit jobs of the media.”Mr. Lindell said MyPillow’s 2019 revenue exceeded $300 million. MyPillow sells through its website and is carried by retail behemoths like Walmart, Amazon and Costco.The company is tightknit, and its leadership leans conservative, with Mr. Lindell employing many members of his own family and even a sister of former Vice President Mike Pence, according to Aaron Morgan, a procurement planner at MyPillow between September 2019 and last March.“Most companies say don’t talk about politics,” Mr. Morgan said, noting that Mr. Lindell was pleasant. “But a lot of people there talked about politics. People there leaned obviously toward Mike’s beliefs because they were all family. It was not uncommon to see MAGA hats on desks.”Mr. Lindell had a deck of playing cards in the MyPillow office depicting Mr. Trump.Credit…Aaron MorganMr. Morgan shared photos of playing cards that Mr. Lindell offered to employees last year, which used a king card to display Mr. Trump as a proxy for Julius Caesar, Hillary Clinton in an orange prison jumpsuit on a queen card, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer as jokers. Mr. Lindell, whose likeness was also in the deck, said that the cards were given to him as a gift and kept in his office and that employees were able to take them if they wished.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 27, 2021, 10:13 a.m. ETAT&T now has 17.2 million HBO Max customers.John Kerry will talk about climate change at the World Economic Forum.The Fed downplays the chance that it will limit banks from oil and gas lending.Mr. Lindell’s politics entered his company in other ways. On Jan. 6, the day of the riot at the Capitol, MyPillow’s website was accepting a “FightForTrump” discount code that a conservative radio host had promoted on his show. Mr. Lindell, who retweeted the discount code that day, claimed without evidence that Twitter employees gained access to his account and retweeted the post in his name.“We have reviewed the rule violations and consequential enforcement activity and have found no evidence supporting Mr. Lindell’s allegations,” a Twitter representative said.The violence in Washington set in motion a social media campaign against MyPillow and Mr. Lindell, spearheaded by the group Sleeping Giants, which was created in 2016 to stop companies from advertising on Breitbart News. The pressure prompted retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s, H-E-B, Today’s Shopping Choice in Canada and Wayfair to drop MyPillow products, according to Mr. Lindell, who said without providing evidence that the protest was led by “bots and trolls.”Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s cited the brand’s poor performance for their exits, while Today’s Shopping Choice did not comment beyond confirming the removal. Wayfair declined to comment, and H-E-B did not respond to requests for comment. Zulily said it stopped carrying MyPillow in July. Affirm, the financing start-up, separately confirmed that it severed ties with MyPillow last week.Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were shown as jokers in the deck.Credit…Aaron MorganMatt Rivitz, a co-founder of Sleeping Giants, said the claim about bots was “ridiculous.” Throughout the Trump presidency, he said, consumers grew more aware of their collective power, beginning with ads on Breitbart and boycotts of Ivanka Trump products at Nordstrom. This has been the culmination of those efforts.“There were a number of videos that came out with Lindell doing these rants about how the election was stolen and clearly that led to violence,” Mr. Rivitz said. “It was just a natural inclination to ask companies if they supported that because ultimately these companies have greatly benefited from democracy and they likely don’t want to see the country fall into chaos because of these lies.”Mr. Lindell said only one of the companies that had dropped his products cited false information about voting machines, but added, “It’s pretty coincidental when over nine companies do that the same day.” Still, he said he was not concerned about the impact on his business. He added that he did not view his comments to Right Side Broadcasting as “politically skewed” and blamed “cancel culture” for the retailers’ actions, though he anticipated they would return to selling his products.This month, Mr. Lindell was photographed at the White House carrying notes that mentioned the Insurrection Act, by which a president can deploy active military troops into the streets.Until around 2011, MyPillow was run out of a former bus garage in Minnesota, with roughly 40 employees, according to Tonja Waring, who worked there from 2009 to 2012 and appeared in its infomercials. Ms. Waring said Mr. Lindell was fiercely loyal and regularly pushed back against conventional wisdom on issues like maintaining manufacturing in the United States.Mr. Lindell was also included among the Trump presidential playing cards.Credit…Aaron Morgan“He doesn’t care what people think or what they say — he cares about doing the right thing,” she said. She added that Mr. Lindell had grown more comfortable in the spotlight than when she first met him, when he was “barely able to go on TV.”While the infomercials fueled MyPillow’s rise, they have also drawn complaints. In one settlement in 2016, MyPillow paid $995,000 in penalties after a group of district attorneys in California took issue with the company’s claims that its products could soothe insomnia, fibromyalgia and other medical conditions. Last year, Mr. Lindell also faced criticism after pitching an unproven Covid-19 “cure” to Mr. Trump.When customers asked about health claims made in MyPillow commercials, the two former store employees said, they would try to evade the subject without confirming or denying promises made in the ads. One former employee said Mr. Lindell also pushed stores to sell other products that workers were wary to endorse, such as a powder that claimed to stop wounds from bleeding within seconds.In his memoir, Mr. Lindell wrote of “a shady bankruptcy” he declared in 2003 to avoid a lawsuit involving a bar he owned, working with a lender he had met through his bookie’s stepson, who encouraged Mr. Lindell to concoct fake creditors.“It wouldn’t be the first time I’d colored outside the lines of the law,” he wrote of the episode.Even now, as retailers cut ties and he has been kicked off Twitter, Mr. Lindell is defiant, convinced that “real people” do not care about the claims he has been perpetuating.“The people on the left, the Democrats, they’re buying the same amount of product they always buy from me,” he said, “and the people supporting me standing up to cancel culture are buying more.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More