US Politics

US residents: share your views of the January 6 hearingsWe would like to hear from people in the US about the House committee’s investigation The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol ended its likely final public hearing by subpoenaing former US president Donald Trump to give evidence.We would like to hear what readers in the US think about the committee’s investigation so far. How many of the televised hearings did you watch? What did you make of the evidence presented? Did it change your mind on anything?Share your viewsWe will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature. We will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For more information please see our terms of service and privacy policy.If you are 18 years or over, you can get in touch by filling in the form below or contacting us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding +44(0)7766780300. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. One of our journalists will be in contact before we publish, so please do leave contact details.If you’re having trouble using the form, click here.TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpcalloutReuse this content More

The January 6 panel makes it clear: American democracy needs accountabilityLloyd GreenSlavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away Thursday’s House select committee was one like no other. Shortly after 1pm, Liz Cheney, the daughter of a vice-president and Republican grandees, warned that the US, as a constitutional republic, was in danger. Two-and-a-half hours later, seven Democrats and two Republicans unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump. In all likelihood, he will never appear. Regardless, history had again been made.“Why would Americans assume that our constitution and institutions of our Republic are invulnerable to another attack?” Cheney pondered.The real story of January 6 isn’t what Trump did – it’s what he didn’t | Moira DoneganRead moreTrump yearned to be a modern-day Caesar. He knew that he had lost the election, yet he persevered.White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin testified that a week after the election Trump blurted out, “Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?” After his defeat in the supreme court, a wrath-filled Trump remained unbowed.Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide and a deputy to Mark Meadows, said that he was “just raging”. Trump seethed, futilely grasping for a way out.“I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark,” he told Meadows, his chief of staff and Hutchinson’s boss. “This is embarrassing.”“Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before election day,” Cheney said. This is not stuff of democracies, but of banana republics and strongmen.Right-wing stalwarts were there for Trump, offering aid and comfort along the way. “Let’s get right to the violence,” Roger Stone, the veteran Trump-hand, chuckled.Steve Bannon briefed Chinese associates over Trump’s election denial strategy. “And what Trump is going to do is just declare victory, right?” Bannon semi-asked, semi-stated.“He’s gonna declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.” Bannon later received a presidential pardon. He will be sentenced later this month for his contempt of Congress conviction and faces fraud charges in New York.Peter Navarro, another White House official, concocted the infamous “Green Bay Sweep”. His trial for contempt of Congress kicks off shortly. It’s a rogues’ gallery.Tom Fitton of the well-funded Judicial Watch helped script Trump’s defiance. In a 31 October 2020 email, he urged Trump to declare himself the winner. “We had an election today– – and I won,” Fitton’s email read. Fitton clamored for mass disenfranchisement too.His memo called for Trump to demand that only votes “counted by the election day deadline” be tallied. This time it went way beyond stripping minorities of their vote – a traditional but unstated Judicial Watch goal. Now he was gunning for urban moms and dads too, the bedrock of the Republican party of yesteryear.More broadly, the Republican party’s sedition wing has plenty of allies who wear suits and ties. Ginni Thomas and John Eastman, Justice Thomas’s wife and clerk, respectively, were definitely not alone. It’s not just about folks in camouflage.The armed mob had embraced Trump, and he loved them back. “I don’t care that they effing had weapons,” he muttered on January 6, according to Hutchinson. If blood were to be spilled and the constitution shredded, so be it. It was about clinging to power without legal justification.Documentary evidence presented by the committee revealed that some members of the Secret Service acted like modern-day praetorians, acting oblivious to threats posed by Trump’s supporters to the certification of the election.“Their plan is to kill people,” one message read. “Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.” Members of the Secret Service knew that a storm was brewing but turned a blind eye. Their loyalty ran to Trump the man, not the office he occupied.“The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6th was one man, Donald Trump,” Cheney made clear.Amid the hearing, the supreme court rejected Trump’s efforts to tamp down on the justice department’s investigation of his mishandling of presidential documents and classified records. Mar-a-Lago now looks ever more like a prison of the ex-game show host’s making, a custom-built gilded cage complete with gold leaf and dining room. Or a set of The Apprentice.After the 1787 constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin observed that the US was a republic if we could “keep it”. Slavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away.
Lloyd Green is a regular freelance contributor and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

The vote to subpoena Trump shows Democrats have found their fighting spiritMoira DoneganDemocrats finally seem to realize that accountability is more important than risk aversion One of the first things that most pundits will tell you about Thursday’s January 6 committee broadcast – the first since August, and probably the last before the November midterms – is that the committee’s subpoena of Donald Trump won’t go anywhere.Sure, there were other notable moments in Thursday’s hearing. The committee presented a thorough summary of their findings, seemingly aiming to remind voters ahead of the midterms of the depth of Donald Trump’s commitment to his plan to overthrow our democracy in the service of his own ego.It bolstered its long-established findings with new evidence: we heard, for the first time, testimony from multiple sources who said that Trump acknowledged privately that he knew he had lost the election.Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’Read moreWe discovered, for the first time, that both the Secret Service and the FBI had much greater and much earlier knowledge of the plan to attack the Capitol than had previously been acknowledged (a revelation that calls those agencies’ actions on that day into question).We saw, for the first time, footage of the Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in hiding from the mob, secured in an off-site location while the looters raged and defecated through the Capitol, calling the Department of Justice and governors of the nearby states in an attempt to get some of the police and military’s help to clear the crowd that was not coming from the Trump administration.All of this was newly specific and remarkable, even if it wasn’t exactly new information. But the real event of the hearings was the subpoena vote. The committee leaked the news strategically, just before the broadcast, with the push notifications from various news outlets alighting on phone screens across America, reminding voters to tune in.The committee made much of their decision to subpoena Trump, performing a roll-call vote on camera (unanimously “aye”) and emphasizing throughout Wednesday’s hearing that he was the primary instigator and designer of the violent and cockamamie attempt to overturn the 2020 election by force.Just before the climactic vote, the committee played a montage of members of the Trump inner circle – John Eastman, the fringe law professor who became Trump’s legal guru in a series of failed attempts to undo his election loss; Roger Stone, the Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster” with ties to both the Trump administration and the violent far-right militias that led the Capitol violence – all taking the fifth in depositions with the committee, and refusing to provide vital information.The idea of this montage was to justify the subpoena of Trump himself. Look, the committee seemed to be saying to the American people, his friends won’t talk, so we need to go after the big guy. But the fifth amendment wasn’t just a justification, it was also a prediction: of course, Trump isn’t going to talk either.It’s this reality – that Trump probably won’t testify, that he will issue a series of legal challenges, lies, or, at best, non-answers that shed little light on his actions that day – that gets jumped on by members of the political commentariat who like to prove their own seriousness by pointing out all the ways that the Democrats can never accomplish anything. “The January 6 panel moves to subpoena Trump, an aggressive move that will likely be futile,” was the headline in the New York Times, a phrasing that almost suggested contempt for the attempt to embark on a fact-finding exercise at all. Some people are so determined not to come off as naive that they adopt a withering cynicism, or even a kind of learned helplessness – and unfortunately, a lot of those people work in political media, or for the Democratic party.But the vote to subpoena Trump, and the willingness to embark on the legal and political fights that will ensue, suggests that congressional Democrats may have a little fighting spirit in them yet. After a halting start to the Biden administration, in which it looked, for a while, as if the Democrats’ agenda would be hamstrung by the intransigence of Senator Joe Manchin, the party has had a remarkable series of wins over the past few months – especially, it should be noted, since the supreme court’s disastrous reversal of Roe v Wade in June angered women voters across the political spectrum and galvanized enthusiasm in the Democratic base.With this wind of popular outrage at their backs, the Democrats were able to pass the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act – really an infrastructure and climate bill – and to muster support for Biden’s student debt relief and mass federal marijuana pardon. But the January 6 committee hearings have been one of the feathers in the Democrats’ cap, and it is one of the rare achievements that the House Democratic caucus has made not as assistants and handmaids to the administration’s agenda, but on their own.This independence and risk-taking in going after Trump may be a sign of a congressional Democratic party that is shaking off its old habits of learned helplessness and beginning to feel more confident in a political landscape that is less about procedural victories – like, say, whether Trump will ever actually sit down for a deposition with the January 6 committee or not – and more about public demonstrations of commitment and confidence.According to a new book, the House committee that took the bold step of issuing a subpoena to Donald Trump, for instance, is very different from the group of House impeachment managers who made the gun-shy and timorous decision not to call witnesses in the January 6 impeachment trial under pressure from a Biden White House that wanted to move on.The January 6 committee hearings have been, altogether, a much bolder affair than the impeachment, much more cognizant of their audience – the American public – much better at communicating with them, and much more willing to state facts plainly. Maybe Trump will never testify. But subpoenaing him is still the right thing to do. The stakes are high, and when it comes to Donald Trump, the Democrats finally seem to realize that accountability is more important than risk aversion.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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A California measure would tax the rich to fund electric vehicles. Why is the governor against it?Proposition 30 would raise up to $5bn annually to help buy zero-emission cars, trucks and buses; Newsom calls it a ‘Trojan horse’ Two years ago, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued an executive order banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.This year, he’s opposing a ballot measure to fund the transition to electric vehicles – siding with Republicans and against fellow Democrats, environmental groups, firefighters and labor unions.The governor’s counterintuitive position could be a political gambit. It may also doom the measure; support for it appears to have dropped starkly after Newsom cut an ad against it.California wants everyone to drive EVs. How will low-income people afford them?Read moreThe measure, Proposition 30, would hike taxes by 1.75% on those earning $2m or more annually, raising between $3bn and $5bn annually to subsidize households, businesses and schools; buy zero-emission cars, trucks and buses; fund infrastructure to charge electric vehicles; and bolster wildfire prevention efforts.Proponents of the measure, including the coalition of environmental and labor groups that developed it, say the tax would provide urgently needed funds to hasten the transition to zero-emission vehicles, and reduce the disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income, minority communities across the state. According to the American Lung Association, which has endorsed Prop 30, the US could save 110,000 lives and $1.2tn in public health costs by 2050 if it swaps gas-powered vehicles for zero-emissions cars.Newsom, and the proposition’s opponents, claim it is a corporate carve-out for Lyft, the ride-hailing company that has backed the measure and helped fund its campaign.“Prop 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative,” Newsom says in an advertisement against Prop 30. “But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.”The message left some of the organizers and activists who helped write the measure stunned.“It’s just false,” said Denny Zane, the founder and policy director at Move LA, a public transit advocacy group that helped develop the proposition. Lyft joined the effort to promote the proposition after environmental groups and policymakers came up with the idea, he said, but the company did not “devise” the proposition.Overhauling the transportation infrastructureLyft has given more than $15m to support the measure and funded signature-gathering to get it on the November ballot. Though it wouldn’t benefit directly from the proposition, it and other rideshare companies face a 2030 regulatory deadline to transition the majority of their fleets to EVs. Prop 30 could help Lyft drivers, who are responsible for providing their own cars, purchase zero-emission vehicles.“It’s absurd to say we’re granting some sort of carve-out specifically for Lyft,” said Bill Magavern, the policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide organization focused on air pollution issues.Proponents of the funding measure point out that the $10bn that Newsom’s budget has already allocated to EV subsidies and infrastructure would help Lyft drivers in the same way. And funds from Prop 30 would ultimately be funneled to the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission and Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, which would allocate the money to various programs.Newsom argues that California’s tax revenues are “famously volatile”, and the measure would make the state’s finances even more unstable. A wealth tax, the governor says, wouldn’t be the best way to fund the programs Prop 30 seeks to support. Moreover, he has noted that the state has already budgeted $10bn for electric vehicles specifically, and $54bn toward climate adaptation broadly.But environmental and transportation experts say even such massive investments won’t be enough to transition the state’s transportation infrastructure.Magavern and other environmental advocates instead see the governor’s stance on the proposition as a capitulation to wealthy donors. “You’ve got billionaires and their allies who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes,” Magavern said.Among the biggest donors to the “No on 30” campaign are William Fisher, hedge fund manager and Gap Inc director, and billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, according to public records. Investment firm founder Mark Heising, who contributed the maximum allowable amount to Newsom’s 2022 re-election campaign, also contributed $1m to oppose Prop 30.Joining these donors, Newsom, and anti-tax Republican politicians is the California Teachers Association, which opposed the measure because it circumvents a 1998 mandate that a minimum of 40% of the state’s budget goes to public education.Opinion columnists and political experts have conjectured that Newsom’s siding with teachers and his traditional enemies – the Republicans – could help bolster the governor’s political future. Though Newsom has repeatedly denied he has any intention of running for president, his recent national-facing campaign ads have stirred up speculation to the contrary. Newsom’s position on Prop 30 could easily fit into a presidential pitch that he walks the line between California progressivism and nationally appealing moderation, those columnists and experts have argued, and that he doesn’t blindly side with his own party and sometimes works with Republicans and business interests. The governor’s campaign did not respond to detailed questions regarding the political implications of this opposition to the proposition. “Prop 30 is fiscally irresponsible and puts the profits of a single corporation ahead of the welfare of the entire state,” the governor said in a statement.Meeting the state’s zero-emission goalsCalifornia will have to make major investments if it wants to live up to its clean energy goals.As more electric vehicles hit the road, the state has set targets to build an additional 170,000 public charging stations over the next three years. And California would need to invest in fortifying its already shaky electrical grid system.“The governor did support record levels of investment in this year’s budget, which is great news, it’s what’s needed,” said Don Anair, an expert in zero-emission transportation technologies and infrastructure at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which supports Prop 30.But it’s unclear how much will be invested in electric and zero-emission vehicles in subsequent yearly budgets, including after Newsom leaves office, Anair said. “We need a long-term, large-scale source of revenue to meet the state’s goals.”The need for investment now is urgent, Anair added. Even if the state phases out gas-powered vehicles by 2035, the cars, buses and freight vehicles already on the road now, or bought over the next few years will remain on the road for decades unless California incentivizes and subsidizes the purchase of zero-emission options.One limitation of the proposition is that it doesn’t specify subsidies for e-bikes and other programs to steer commuters away from cars altogether. Even electric cars are far less efficient than walking, biking and public transportation – they are energy and resource-intensive to build, and encourage urban sprawl. The mining of cobalt, lithium and other rare elements required to build EVs has raised environmental and human rights concerns.In coming years, even more investments in public transit and urban infrastructure, as well as improvements in how EVs are made, will be required in order to truly address the climate crisis.The proposition “is not going to solve all our transportation problems”, Anair said. But for now, transportation remains the largest source of greenhouse emissions in California. “So zero-emission transportation is critically important,” Anair said. “Climate change is already having impacts and the sooner we can start reducing our emissions, the better.”TopicsCaliforniaGavin NewsomElectric, hybrid and low-emission carsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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There is a source of worry for the Democrats coming from the west of the country – Nevada. A state previously considered pretty blue is showing some signs of turning red, and Republicans are hoping to pounce.
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Jon Ralston of the Nevada Independent about why Nevada could prove fatal to the Democrats if it flips red in November

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Archive: CSPAN, NBC, Fox News Listen to Jonathan speaking to Jon Ronson about how Alex Jones became the conspiracy theorist he is today Buy your tickets to the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America Live event at 8pm GMT on 2 November Send your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

ExplainerJanuary 6 hearing takeaways: Trump knew he lost and now faces subpoenaCommittee wraps up its likely last hearing with a bang when it voted to subpoena Trump to give evidence More

Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’The committee expressed it had ‘no doubt’ the ex-president led the effort to overturn the election A congressional panel has voted to compel Donald Trump to testify under oath after naming the former president as the “central cause” of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6.The House of Representatives select committee investigating last year’s riot voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena Trump for testimony and documents in what may prove a mostly symbolic gesture, given time constraints and his likely legal resistance.Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testifyRead more“We have left no doubt – none – that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” said Bennie Thompson, chair of the committee, watched by police officers who defended the Capitol that day.“He tried to take away the voice of the American people in choosing their president and replace the will of the voters with his will to remain in power. He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. So we want to hear from him.”Although some members of Trump’s inner circle, including his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, have testified to the committee, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and four fellow Republicans have ignored subpoenas. The panel is set to dissolve soon after next month’s midterm elections if Republicans gain control of the House.Trump responded to the subpoena via his Truth Social platform but did not say whether he would comply. “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?” he wrote. “Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’.”The select committee has been investigating the attack on the Capitol for more than a year, interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses. It surpassed many observers’ expectations over the summer with a series of hearings that, polls suggest, convinced some Republicans that Trump bears some responsibility for the riot.On Thursday, at its ninth and possibly final hearing, the panel sought to reclaim the spotlight less than a month before congressional midterm elections in which hundreds of Republicans who back Trump’s false claim of election fraud are running for office.It presented devastating witness testimony that put Trump at the heart of a premeditated coup attempt and violent assault on American democracy.Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said in an opening statement: “The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it.“Exactly how did one man cause all of this? Today, we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding, and how another January 6 could happen again if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.”The argument echoed earlier hearings which maintained a tight focus on Trump as the singular architect of the insurrection, albeit with the help of aides and enablers, white nationalist extremists and a mob of supporters ready to follow his lead.Cheney – nearing the end of her tenure in Congress after losing a Republican primary race in Wyoming – noted that the committee may ultimately decide to make criminal referrals to the justice department.Leaving no doubt about Trump’s culpability, she added: “Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defence. There is no defence that Donald Trump was duped or irrational. No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a republic, period.”Unlike past hearings, there was no live witness testimony but, one by one, committee members presented video evidence from witnesses – some of whom had not been seen at its earlier hearings – and information from nearly a million emails, documents and recordings obtained from the Secret Service.Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman and member of the panel, argued that Trump planned well in advance to declare victory even before all the ballots had been counted.She said: “We now know more about President Trump’s intention for election night. The evidence shows that his false victory speech was planned well in advance before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the president to declare victory no matter what the actual result was. He made a plan to stay in office before election day.”On 31 October 2020, it emerged, the conservative activist Tom Fitton sent an email to Trump aides Molly Michael and Dan Scavino providing a draft statement for Trump to declare victory before mail-in ballots had been counted. It stated: “We had an election today – and I won.”At around 2.30am on 4 November 2020, in the east room of the White House, Trump held a celebratory event in which he declared: “Frankly, we did win this election.”Video evidence showed that Brad Parscale, a former Trump campaign manager, testified to the panel that, as early as July, Trump had planned to declare victory in the 2020 election even if he lost.‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violenceRead moreThe committee recently obtained footage of Roger Stone, a political consultant and self-proclaimed dirty trickster who worked for Richard Nixon, from a Danish film crew that followed Stone before and after the election for a documentary entitled A Storm Foretold.A clip from 2 November showed Stone commenting: “I said, fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.” Although it does not have all relevant records of Stone’s communications, the panel said, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Trump on 27 December – as preparations for January 6 were under way.Lofgren pointed out that Stone was in close contact with two rightwing groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, that had numerous members attack Capitol police officers. Secret Service records showed that agents received tips ahead of January 6 that the Proud Boys planned to march armed into Washington.Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, told the hearing: “A newly obtained secret service message from that day shows how angry President Trump was about the outcome. ‘Just fyi. POTUS is pissed – breaking news – Supreme Court denied his law suit. He is livid now.’”White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled Trump as being “livid” and “fired up” about the court’s ruling. Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of: ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,’” Hutchinson told the panel in a recorded interview.The hearing also saw vivid film of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders at a secure location in the Capitol. Schumer was seen urging Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, to tell Trump to call off the rioters.Trump and his supporters – including many Republicans on Capitol Hill – have dismissed the January 6 panel as a political witch-hunt, but the panel’s backers say it is a necessary investigation into a violent threat against democracy.But Thompson started Thursday’s hearing by making the case that its work is not politically motivated, but rather a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of an assault on America’s democracy.“Over the course of these hearings, the evidence has proven that there was a multi-part plan led by former president Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election,” the Mississippi congressman said. “When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work the most striking fact is that all this evidence has come almost entirely from Republicans.”Trump, a businessman and former reality TV star denies wrongdoing, repeatedly hinting he will run for the White House again in 2024. He regularly holds campaign rallies where he continues to push his “big lie” falsely that he lost because of widespread fraud.The attack on the Capitol injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths. More than 880 people have been arrested in connection with the riot, with more than 400 guilty pleas so far.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee held what is likely to be its last public hearing, and made the case that Donald Trump, above anyone else, is to blame for the deadly attack on the US Capitol. Here are five takeaways from today’s meeting:
In the final minutes of its two-and-a-half hour hearing, the panel subpoenaed the former president, with committee member Jamie Raskin saying they hope his testimony will clarify aspects of the attack they haven’t been able to uncover. Trump hasn’t yet responded to the summons, but don’t be surprised if he follows the practice of his most loyal former officials and fights it.
The Secret Service is in for continued scrutiny, with committee member Pete Aguilar warning the panel may recall witnesses with knowledge of Trump’s allegedly explosive behavior on January 6, when his protective detail declined to drive him to the Capitol. Aguilar also warned “the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue,” and to expect more details about this in its forthcoming report.
Officials in the Trump White House looked to fire up his supporters ahead of the president’s speech on January 6 – then pled ignorance as the Secret Service and other security agencies began getting reports the president’s most ardent supporters were planning violence.
Even as he plotted to stop Joe Biden from taking over the White House, Trump acted like a man who had lost re-election, signing an order to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before his term was over, which would have been a huge undertaking.
All along, Trump planned to declare victory even before all the ballots were counted – a fact that one of his most extreme supporters Roger Stone stated openly to a documentary crew.
The January 6 committee wasn’t today’s only story:
The supreme court rejected Trump’s attempt to get justices to weigh in on his attempt to complicate the federal investigation into government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
The United States and Saudi Arabia are waging a war of words over the Opec+ oil production cut and Washington’s claim Riyadh has aligned itself with Russia.
The New York attorney general has warned Trump and his business are taking steps to undermine her lawsuit against them, and asked a judge to step in.
Social security recipients are getting a big increase in monthly payments – but only because inflation is so high.
CNN has lately been tracking who comes and goes from a federal courthouse in Washington, where a grand jury investigating the January 6 attack is meeting.The latest visitors: former vice-president Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short and Kash Patel, a national security aide in the Trump White House, CNN reports.The two men had nothing to say when the network asked what brought them there, but it’s not surprising to hear that Short turned up. He was a foe of Trump’s plot to steal the 2020 election and cooperated with the January 6 committee.Patel, however, promoted various baseless lies about the election and is seen as loyal to the former president. Why subpoena Trump? Here’s what CNN was told by Jamie Raskin, a Democratic committee member:Jamie Raskin tells me 1/6 committee subpoenaed Trump because the panel has been unable to nail down some of Trump’s specific actions & conversations. Raskin said that’s because the witnesses closest to Trump, who would know these answers, have pled the 5th in committee interviews pic.twitter.com/kK6zsiXKrT— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 13, 2022
CNN has more from the January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson about what he expects to result from lawmakers’ subpoena to Donald Trump:Talked with Bennie Thompson about the subpoena for Trump. He wouldn’t say if they would go to court to fight this. Asked if he really thought Trump would testify, he said: “Ask Donald Trump.” He says “no” subpoena for Pence pic.twitter.com/HxvhWUCfhv— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 13, 2022
Punchbowl News says the subpoena issue may likely linger beyond the 8 November midterms:NEW – @BennieGThompson is expected to issue Trump subpoena next week. The response date probably won’t be until after Nov. 8 midterm elections, but date hasn’t been set yet— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) October 13, 2022
And that’s it. With their vote to subpoena Donald Trump, the January 6 committee concluded what lawmakers have hinted is likely to be their last public presentation of evidence. But the group’s work is far from over. Trump may very well reject their order to testify, and head to court to fight it. Meanwhile, the lawmakers have a report to finish, and said they’re not done asking questions of the Secret Service and what it knew about Trump’s behavior and plans for that day.The committee’s mandate expires when the current Congress ends on the final day of the year, and at least two of their members will not be returning to their chamber. While they have not said definitively, the just-concluded hearing is likely the last time they will all be seen in public together – though there’s always the chance they schedule another hearing.The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee has juxtaposed gripping footage of Democratic congressional leaders pleading for help as the Capitol is stormed with Trump administration officials making clear that the president could have quickly disseminated a message to condemn the rioters – but chose not to.The footage showed insurrectionists fighting with police and overrunning the Capitol, while top lawmakers including House speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer pled for reinforcements from the department of defense and the governor of Virginia.Led by Democrat Jamie Raskin, the committee then showed previously aired testimony by top administration officials saying that Trump could have quickly made a public address to call off rioters, and showed video footage of them listening to a message sent during the insurrection where he asked them – albeit tepidly – to go home.“It was President Lincoln at the start of the civil war in 1861, who best explained why democracy rejects insurrection. Insurrection, he said, is a war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people. American democracy belongs to all the American people, not to a single man,” Raskin said, as he concluded his testimony.The supreme court has turned down an appeal from Donald Trump as he tries to frustrate the federal investigation into government secrets discovered at Mar-a-Lago.Breaking: Supreme Court denies Trump motion seeking to re-include 103 docs in the special master review— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
Earlier this month, Trump asked the supreme court to allow a special master to review 100 classified documents as part of his efforts to exclude privileged information from the investigation. If granted, the special master could have excluded some classified files from being used in the federal case, where prosecutors may level charges against Trump for unlawfully keeping government documents after his term in the White House ended.Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago special master disputeRead moreThe hearing has resumed, with Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar addressing one of the most shocking revelations from its hearings over the summer.In June, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson related hearing a story that Trump had lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle as he demanded his unwilling Secret Service agents drive him to the Capitol just as it was being attacked by his supporters. Aguilar said the committee had uncovered additional evidence corroborating this story.“After concluding its review of the voluminous additional Secret Service communications from January 5, and January 6, the committee will be recalling witnesses and conducting further investigative depositions based on that material. Following that activity, we will provide even greater detail in our final report,” he said. “And I will also note this, the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue, including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic. We will address this matter in our report.”The Secret Service has come under scrutiny for what it knew about the attack, particularly after it was revealed that the agency erased all its text messages from around the time of the insurrection in what it says was a pre-planned technology upgrade.The January 6 committee is now on a 10-minute recess after Democratic congressman Adam Schiff finished presenting evidence, which showed how the Secret Service documented numerous threats before January 6 – some of which were encouraged by Trump’s White House staff.“I got the based FIRED up,” White House adviser Jason Miller wrote in a text message to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. Miller included a link to a website where supporters of the president wrote comments like, “Gallows don’t require electricity”, “If the filthy commie maggots try to push their fraud through, there will be hell to pay”, and “Our lawmakers in Congress can leave one of two ways: one, in a body bag, two after rightfully certifying Trump the winner.”“If I had seen something of that nature I would have said, we got to flag this for Secret Service or something of that nature,” Miller told the committee’s investigators when they asked him about the texts. Schiff said that despite testimony from some White House staffers and Secret Service agents that they had no warnings of violence before January 6, “evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.” He went on to detail how the Secret Service was monitoring online threats ahead of the joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s election win, including against vice-president Mike Pence. One threatening post said would be “a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing”.Schiff said Trump was able to hear how angry his supporters were the night before the insurrection, when he opened the door in the White House’s Oval Office and heard them gathering a few blocks away.“The president knew the crowd was angry because he had stoked that anger. He knew that they believe that the election had been rigged and stolen because he had told them falsely that it had been rigged and stolen,” Schiff said. “And by the time he incited that angry mob to march on the Capitol, he knew they were armed and dangerous. All the better to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has confirmed that once the January 6 committee finishes publicly presenting evidence today, it will vote to subpoena Donald Trump:New: Confirming NBC that the Jan. 6 committee plans to subpoena Trump today after the end of presentations @GuardianUS— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
Now led by Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, the committee is shifting into records newly obtained from the Secret Service, which show agents were receiving tips about plans for violence on January 6.According to one tip detailed by Schiff, “the Proud Boys plan to march armed into DC. They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed, the source reported, and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped. The source went on to say their plan is to literally kill people. Please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”“The Secret Service had advance information more than 10 days beforehand regarding the Proud Boys planning for January 6. We know now, of course, that the Proud Boys and others did lead the assault on our Capitol building,” Schiff said. At its hearing, the January 6 committee plans to vote to subpoena Donald Trump, NBC News reports:SCOOP: J6 Cmte currently plans to vote to subpoena fmr Pres Trump during today’s hearing, sources familiar w/ their plans tell @NBCNews. Members want to put the move in the public record despite acknowledging how unlikely it’d be for him to comply – w/ @haleytalbotnbc— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) October 13, 2022
The hearing is ongoing, with lawmakers outlining various ways Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden won the White House.Despite all his bluster and scheming, the committee, now led by Republican Adam Kinzinger, is arguing that Trump was well aware he had lost.Case in point: eight days after the 3 November election, he issued an order for the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia and Afghanistan before Joe Biden was to take office in late January. The task would have been a huge, potentially unfeasible logistical undertaking, and the committee played testimony showing several defense staffers viewed it as a dangerous move that would have undercut allies globally.“Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business,” Kinzinger said. “Keep in mind, the order was for an immediate withdrawal. It would have been catastrophic, and yet President Trump signed the order. These are the highly consequential actions of a president who knows his term will shortly end.”Biden ended up ordering the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed later in 2021. As for Somalia, Trump did order a withdrawal, but Biden reversed it last year.Biden reverses Trump withdrawal of US army trainers from SomaliaRead moreRoger Stone has made an appearance. The Trump ally and Richard Nixon fan is shown, in footage obtained from a documentary team, advocating for Trump to declare victory before the ballots had been counted.“The key thing to do is to claim victory,” Stone says. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. No, we won, fuck you. Sorry, over. You’re wrong, fuck you.”The committee then showed footage of his deposition before lawmakers, where he refused to answer questions.“Do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?” an investigator asks. “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer your question on the basis of the Fifth Amendment,” Stone replies.The committee then went on to outline Stone’s ties to people who violently attacked the Capitol, including members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, both groups facing seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the insurrection.Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has now taken over, and is airing evidence showing how Trump ignored the advice of his advisers to encourage more mail-in voting, and planned well in advance to declare victory even before all the ballots had been counted.“We now know more about President Trump’s intention for election night. The evidence shows that his false victory speech was planned well in advance before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was. He made a plan to stay in office before election day,” Lofgren said.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that this hearing will be different from previous sessions, in that the committee could vote on how to proceed further:New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson says today is actually a “business meeting” — meaning the panel may take votes on next investigative steps— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
From its start in June, the January 6 committee has distinguished itself from other congressional proceedings through its tight scripting and lack of votes or back-and-forth between lawmakers. The former has allowed it to clearly present evidence and testimony to a viewing audience, but it seems today could be different. Liz Cheney, the Republican co-chair of the committee, just made clear what the message of today’s hearing will be: “The central cause of January 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed.”“None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it,” Cheney continued. “Today we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding. And how another January 6 could happen again, if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.”Other things Trump was a central cause of: Cheney losing the Republican primary in Wyoming two months ago, ensuring she will not return to Congress next year.The January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson has started off the hearing by making the case that its work is not politically motivated, but rather a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of a shocking act of violence targeting a pillar of America’s democracy.“Over the course of these hearings, the evidence has proven that there was a multi-part plan led by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election,” the Mississippi lawmaker said.He appealed to the public to view the committee’s work as separate from politics.“We understood that some people watching those proceedings would wrongly assume that the committee’s investigation was a partisan exercise. That’s why we asked those who was skeptical of our work, to simply to listen, to listen to the evidence, to hear the testimony with an open minded and to let the facts speak for themselves before reaching any judgment,” Thompson said.He noted that much of the committee’s most revealing testimony has come from former officials in Trump’s Republican administration, campaign workers, or GOP officials at the state level.“When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence come almost entirely from Republicans,” Thompson said. More