US Politics

Federal authorities have arrested a woman whose former romantic partner says she took a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the riot at the US Capitol.Riley June Williams was arrested on Monday, according to a justice department official. It is not yet known when her initial court appearance will be.The FBI said in an arrest warrant on Sunday that Williams hasn’t been charged with theft but only with illegally entering the Capitol and with disorderly conduct.FBI officials said a caller claiming to be an ex of Williams said friends of hers showed him a video of her taking a laptop computer or hard drive from Pelosi’s office. The caller alleged she intended to send the device to a friend in Russia who planned to sell it to that country’s foreign intelligence service, but that plan fell through and she either has the device or destroyed it. The FBI says the matter remains under investigation.Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, confirmed on 8 January that a laptop was taken from a conference room but said “it was a laptop that was only used for presentations”.Williams’ mother, who lives with her in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told ITV reporters that her daughter had taken a sudden interest in President Donald Trump’s politics and “far-right message boards”. Her father, who lives in Camp Hill, told local law enforcement that he and his daughter went to Washington on the day of the protest but didn’t stay together, meeting up later to return to Harrisburg, the FBI said.Williams’ mother told local law enforcement that her daughter packed a bag and left before she was arrested, saying she would be gone for a couple of weeks. She also changed her phone number and deleted a number of social media accounts, the FBI said. Court documents do not list an attorney for her. More

As an investigator turned author, James Comey has developed a forensic eye for detail. The colour of the curtains in the Oval Office. The length of Donald Trump’s tie. Something about the US president that the camera often misses.
“Donald Trump conveys a menace, a meanness in private that is not evident in most public views of him,” says Comey, a former director of the FBI, from his home in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC.
That menace came flooding out to engulf the US on 6 January when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in Washington. Five people, including a police officer, were killed in the mayhem. Comey, whose unorthodox interventions in the 2016 election are blamed by many liberals for putting Trump in the White House, watched in horror.
“I was sickened to watch an attack on the literal and symbolic heart of our democracy, and, as a law enforcement person, I was angered. I am mystified and angry that Capitol Hill wasn’t defended. It’s a hill! If you wanted to defend it, you could defend it, and for some reason it was not defended. I think that’s a 9/11-size failure and we’re going to need a 9/11-type commission to understand it so that we don’t repeat it.”
If he were still at work in the FBI’s brutalist building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Comey would be at the heart of the hunt for the domestic terrorists. He misses the job. Aged 60, a father of five and grandfather of one, he has spent the pandemic learning yoga, training to become a foster parent again and preparing for a teaching job at Columbia University in New York.
Comey has also written another memoir, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust, a slender sequel to his 2018 bestseller, A Higher Loyalty. It includes anecdotes from his law enforcement career, tangling with the New York mafia and others, and quotations from William Shakespeare and Trump (who reported to Comey that “Putin told me: ‘We have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world’”). It acknowledges the flawed history of his beloved FBI while defending the nobility of its purpose; he calls for it to strip the name of the former director J Edgar Hoover from its headquarters and rename it in honour of the civil rights hero John Lewis. More

A new video released by the New Yorker shows pro-Trump intruders inside the US Senate chamber following the storming of the Capitol on 6 January, with some photographing documents and facing off with police. At one point, the insurgents have a disagreement about sitting in the chair reserved for the president of the Senate, vice president Mike Pence. One rioter says: ‘I love you guys, we’re brothers, but we can’t be disrespectful.’ One intruder is seen searching through a binder on the desk of senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has challenged the election results and voted to overturn Biden’s electoral college victory. ‘I think Cruz would want us to do this,’ the rioter is heard saying. More

Thousands of military personnel guarding Joe Biden’s inauguration as US president on Wednesday are being vetted by the FBI amid fears of an insider attack.The biggest ever security operation for a presidential transition has turned swaths of Washington into a fortress, barricades, razor wire and 7ft fences erected to prevent a repeat of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol by a mob incited by Donald Trump.National guard personnel train part-time while holding civilian jobs or attending college. Some 25,000 members – more than double the number at previous inaugurations – are pouring into Washington from across the country, at short notice.There are concerns that some of the very people assigned to protect the city could present a threat to the incoming president and other dignitaries, the Associated Press reported. Their names will be fed through an FBI database for any evidence of connections to investigations or terrorism or other red flags.Ryan McCarthy, the army secretary, told the AP guard members were receiving training on how to identify potential insider threats, although no hard evidence had come to light.“We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” he said, adding: “We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this.”At least two active-duty service members or national guard members have been arrested in connection with the Capitol assault. Video footage from inside the building suggests some rioters had military training and that there was a significant level of planning and coordination.The Pentagon received 143 notifications of extremism-related investigation last year from the FBI, 68 of which were related to current and former service members, the Washington Post reported.The national guard played down fears of extremism in its ranks. Maj Gen William Walker, commanding general of the DC national guard, told MSNBC: “I don’t have any concerns because it’s a layered scrub. The FBI is scrubbing, the Secret Service gives out the credentials and then we have other agencies helping with the scrub as well. We really are pretty sure we know who is out here supporting us.”But Washington remains on edge amid fears of attacks by far-right militants, white supremacists and other radical groups encouraged by Trump’s claims that the election was rigged – claims repeatedly tossed out of court and rejected by the US Department of Justice and Republican election officials in battleground states.Five people including a Capitol police officer died in the mayhem on 6 January, which included chants for the death of Vice-President Mike Pence as he presided over the certification of Biden’s victory.Pence will attend the inauguration, with former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama and their wives. Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez will be among the performers. Attendance will be scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic.The Secret Service is in charge of security but a wide variety of military and law enforcement personnel are also involved, from the national guard and FBI to three police departments.The Capitol was temporarily closed on Monday after a fire broke out at a homeless encampment, Capitol police said. All participants in a rehearsal for the inauguration were evacuated into the building, Reuters reported, before the Secret Service said there was no threat to the public.State capitols across the US stayed on alert. Weekend protests were calm and thinly attended but some pro-Trump demonstrators carried weapons. On Monday Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, said he would skip the inauguration to guard against the possibility of violence in his state capital, Albany.On Monday – a public holiday celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King – Trump remained behind closed doors at a mostly deserted White House. Biden, wearing black cap, dark glasses, black mask and blue and yellow gloves, stood at a conveyor belt packing beans and rice for a food bank in Philadelphia.Trump was reportedly planning to issue more than 100 pardons as his last major act in office. The president met his son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka Trump and senior advisers on Sunday to thrash out a lengthy list of requests, the Post reported.Trump will be the first outgoing president to skip his successor’s swearing-in since Andrew Johnson did not attend the inauguration of Ulysses S Grant in 1869. Johnson, like Clinton, was impeached. Trump is the only president to be impeached twice.Trump has requested a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews with a military band and red carpet, ABC News reported.He will then head to his luxury estate, Mar-a-Lago, in West Palm Beach, Florida, to begin an uncertain future. Impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting violence against the US government, he is awaiting a trial in the Senate and a potential ban from running for office.By the time Biden takes the stage on Wednesday, the death toll from coronavirus in the US will in all likelihood have passed 400,000. The pandemic is among “four crises” identified by the new president – along with the economy, climate change and racial injustice.Biden is set to hit the ground running by reversing many of Trump’s most contentious policies with a flurry of executive orders, returning the US to the Paris climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal, accelerating the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines and canceling an immigration ban on some Muslim-majority countries.Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, resigned her Senate seat on Monday. She will be replaced by the California secretary of state, Alex Padilla. More

A Texas real estate agent who was part of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the US Capitol said on Monday she was just following the orders of Donald Trump even as she faced federal charges for her part in the insurrection.“I have no guilt in my heart,” Jenna Ryan told NBC News. “I’m glad I was there because I witnessed history. And I’ll never get the chance to do that again.”Ryan, who flew to Washington on a private jet, said she made the trip “in solidarity with President Trump”.“President Trump requested that we be in DC on 6 January,” she said. “So this was our way of going and stopping the steal.”Trump still insists the election was stolen by Joe Biden via massive electoral fraud, a baseless claim repeatedly thrown out of court and rubbished by the US Department of Justice and state Republican officials.Charged with inciting the violent assault on the Capitol, Trump was impeached for a second time. His supporters in the Republican party and rightwing media insist he did not do so, claims contradicted by Trump’s own words when he told supporters to “fight like hell”.“I listen to my president, who told me to go to the Capitol,” she told CBS in an earlier interview.Ryan told NBC her “biggest concern” at the rally before the Capitol attack was that “there were no porta-potties … Because I like to always know I have a bathroom nearby”.She subsequently left a trail of social media posts documenting her participation in the insurrection, including a picture next to a broken window and a video of her saying: “We’re armed and dangerous. This is just the beginning.”A Facebook live stream showed Ryan entering the Capitol, promoting her real estate business and saying: “We’re going to fucking go in here. Life or death.”Five people died as a result of the attack, including a police officer who confronted Trump supporters, a rioter shot by law enforcement and another Trump supporter who was crushed by the crowd.Ryan, who is also a life coach and radio host, faces charges of disorderly conduct and knowingly entering a restricted area.She told NBC that, though she joined a mob that broke into the Capitol, where some rioters ransacked offices and sought out lawmakers to kidnap and kill, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, she had not been advocating aggression.“If you look up the term ‘storm’, you can storm in the kitchen,” she said. “You can storm in and say, ‘No more’. I’m not storming in to kill people. What I meant, ‘life or death’, is if someone kills me, I will stand for my truth, even if someone kills me.”Like other members of the mob, Ryan has asked Trump for a pardon.It is unclear whether Trump will include any of the rioters in a list of about 100 people he plans to pardon in his last days in office. Allies have warned against it.Trump met with White House advisers including his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner to finalize the list. According to CNN it will probably include white-collar criminals and a high-profile rapper, among others.Ryan said she would not hold it against Trump if no pardon were forthcoming.“I’m going to support him no matter what he does,” she said. More

Donald Trump is expected to issue more than 100 presidential pardons on Tuesday, during his final hours in the White House, but may not pardon himself or his immediate family, it was reported on Monday.White House officials say Trump has privately debated with aides whether he should take the extraordinary step of pardoning himself. Some administration insiders have reportedly warned against it, arguing that it would make Trump look guilty.On Sunday, Trump met his son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka Trump and senior advisers to thrash out a lengthy list of pardon requests, the Washington Post reported. The meeting took up much of the day. The president was personally engaged with the details of every case, it said.Some scholars believe a self-pardon would go against the US constitution, since it violates the basic principle that nobody should be able to judge their own case. But the issue has never been tested.The White House discussions took place against the backdrop of a looming Senate impeachment trial, after the storming on 6 January by a pro-Trump mob of the US Capitol building. If convicted, Trump could be disqualified from running again for the presidency in 2024.Out of office, Trump will also be vulnerable to prosecution from federal and state authorities over his actions in office and regarding his business empire.It is not clear whether Trump will act to pardon members of his inner circle including Steve Bannon, who has been charged with defrauding individuals who donated to a wall project on the US-Mexico border. Another possible name is Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, who led attempts to overturn the result of November’s election. Trump and Giuliani are said to have fallen out over unpaid legal bills.CNN reported on Monday that the final batch of clemency actions was expected to feature criminal justice reform-minded pardons as well as more controversial ones for allies and friends. Lobbyists have been pushing for months to include their clients on Trump’s valedictory list.“Everything is a transaction. He likes pardons because it is unilateral. And he likes doing favours for people he thinks will owe him,” one source familiar with the matter told CNN, adding that Trump wanted to help people who could in turn help him in his post-White House career.Dr Salomon Melgen, a prominent eye doctor from Palm Beach who is in prison after being convicted on dozens of counts of healthcare fraud, is expected to be on the clemency list, CNN said.Presidential pardons do not imply innocence – a fact President Gerald Ford clung to in the face of lasting opprobrium for his pardon of Richard Nixon, his predecessor who resigned in disgrace in 1974, over the Watergate scandal.Last-ditch pardons and acts of clemency are common as presidencies come to a close. Infamously, in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned the fugitive financier Marc Rich on his last day in the White House.In an analysis of Trump’s pardons, the blog Lawfare concluded: “The clemency system is dominated by insider access to the president and almost exclusively serves the president’s personal and political goals and whims.”On Sunday the New York Times reported on intensive lobbying for pardons as the Trump era draws to a close. Among startling details, an unnamed associate of Giuliani reportedly told an ex-CIA officer a pardon was “going to cost $2m”.Participants in the Capitol riot have appealed directly – via television or their lawyers – for pardons from Trump. On Sunday Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a key Trump ally, appealed to the president directly, telling him not to pardon anyone associated with the attack.“There are a lot of people urging the president to pardon the folks who participated in defiling the Capitol, the rioters,” he told Fox Business.“I don’t care if you went there and spread flowers on the floor. You breached the security of the Capitol. You interrupted a joint session of Congress. You tried to intimidate us all. You should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and to seek a pardon of these people would be wrong. I think it would destroy President Trump, and I hope we don’t go down that road.”Trump has already given pardons to 94 people, most to prominent figures caught up in the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller into conspiracy with Russia. They include Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime crony Roger Stone and ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI.US news organisations said the clemencies were expected to be issued on Trump’s last full day in office on Tuesday. Skipping the inauguration of the president-elect, Joe Biden, Trump leaves on Wednesday morning to begin his post-presidency at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. His presidency ends at noon on Wednesday. More

The rightwing Missouri senator Josh Hawley has found a publisher for a book dropped by Simon & Schuster over his role in attempting to overturn the US election on the day of the Capitol riot – and Simon & Schuster will distribute it.The Tyranny of Big Tech will now be published by Regnery, a conservative press, in a deal first reported by the Federalist, a rightwing outlet.But under a distribution agreement announced in 2018, Simon & Schuster “handles distribution for Regnery titles in all markets and territories around the world” and “sales in Canada and export markets”.Simon & Schuster declined to comment.The publisher dropped Hawley’s book a day after the attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump left five dead. More than 100 arrests have been made, amid reports some rioters planned to kidnap and even kill lawmakers. Trump was impeached for a second time over the riot, charged with inciting it.Hawley was photographed raising a fist towards Trump supporters at the Capitol on the day of the riot. Later, with the Capitol in lockdown, he went through with his objections to electoral college results, in support of Trump’s claims the election was stolen, which have repeatedly been thrown out of court.Hawley faces growing calls for censure, even expulsion, by Senate leadership. Some donors have suspended contributions. As reported by the Guardian on Monday, one major Hawley donor, the billionaire Jeffrey Yass, has said he feels “deceived”.On dropping Hawley’s book, Simon & Schuster said: “We did not come to this decision lightly. As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”Hawley responded angrily, saying: “This could not be more Orwellian … Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It’s a direct assault on the first amendment … I will fight this cancel culture with everything I have. We’ll see you in court.”Simon & Schuster said it was “confident that we are acting fully within our contractual rights”.On Monday, the Federalist report about Hawley’s new deal accused Simon & Schuster of “quickly caving to a pressure campaign organized by leftist activists and making the Missouri Republican one of the highest-profile victims of cancel culture”.The report also channelled Republican defenses of Trump, referring to the insurrection at the Capitol as an “incursion” which it said was “the result of organized planning rather than impromptu incitement, as media and leftist activists had initially claimed”.Numerous rioters have been recorded, inside the Capitol and since the attack, saying they were following Trump’s instructions.“We are listening to Trump – your boss,” one told a police officer in remarks reported by the New Yorker. More

Donald Trump is planning an early morning sendoff event for himself at a military airfield in Maryland on Wednesday several hours before his successor, Joe Biden, is inaugurated as the 46th US president at the Capitol in Washington DC.For his last presidential ceremony, Trump reportedly wants an ostentatious military parade and an official armed forces farewell as the commander-in-chief, as well as a large crowd of supporters, selected backers and current and former officials in his administration and their guests at a huge red-carpet affair.But latest reports indicate that Trump, who is facing an impeachment trial in the Senate and a number of criminal and civil investigations, will not be afforded a big military sendoff just two weeks after a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol that followed his exhorting supporters to fight to overturn the election.Invitations have been issued from the White House for an event taking place at Joint Base Andrews, the military base in Maryland used by Air Force One, at 8am on Wednesday – four hours before Biden will take his oath.Many details of the ceremony are not yet clear, although attendees will have to make a pre-dawn start and have been told to arrive by 7.15am, when temperatures are forecast to be below freezing.Attendees may not bring items including firearms, ammunition, explosives, laser pointers or toy guns.President Trump is leaving office on Wednesday. Plans are underway for a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews. This is the invite sent to supporters. It includes a list of prohibited items such as ammunition, explosives, firearms, laser pointers and toy guns. pic.twitter.com/AZNoPUxCWB— Brie Jackson (@PositivelyBrie) January 18, 2021
In his last few hours as president, Trump will fly to his private Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, aboard the Air Force One jumbo jet for the last time in a presidential capacity, ensuring he and his wife Melania are almost 1,000 miles away from the White House and Capitol when Biden takes over.Air Force One will then be at the disposal of Biden. Trump would have had to have permission from the Democrat who defeated him to use it if he had waited to leave Washington until Biden was sworn in.According to some reports, a 21-gun salute has been under consideration for the event at Andrews, and officials are considering an elaborate ceremony that would have the feel of a state visit.Senior Pentagon officials reportedly told the security and intelligence news website Defense One that no military farewell was being planned for the commander-in-chief, unlike ceremonies for Ronald Reagan, George HW and George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.With the sun barely up at the start of an expected-to-be-chilly Wednesday, a minimal group of staff still left in a rapidly emptying White House will see off Trump as he takes one last walk across the lawn to enter Marine One, the presidential helicopter, for the short flight to Andrews just a few miles away.Strict security arrangements in place for the inauguration, following the 6 January violence , have also limited the number of people who can attend the White House departure.Four years ago, Barack and Michelle Obama hosted Donald and Melania Trump for tea at the White House before traveling to the ceremony to watch Trump inaugurated as the 45th US president.But Trump has made it clear he would become the only president in a century and a half not to attend his successor’s inauguration and only the fourth in history not to do so, with the plans for his premature departure unprecedented.Vice-President Mike Pence is attending Biden’s inauguration, but it is not yet known if he will attend Trump’s farewell at either the White House or Joint Base Andrews beforehand.Pence traveled to thank troops in California and New York over the weekend as part of a farewell from the Trump-Pence administration, engagements that would have been expected to be carried out by the president.Trump has not been seen in public since he traveled to the US-Mexico border last Tuesday. In recent weeks he has not visited the US military. And has not visited or spoken of healthcare workers overwhelmed at hospitals and vaccination sites as the US coronavirus death toll approaches 400,000.The Bidens may be able to see and hear Trump departing aboard Marine One as they are staying close to the White House the night before the inauguration.There is no word on whether Trump will call Biden or leave the traditional letter to his successor upon the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.Reports on Monday afternoon said that the Bidens would be greeted by the White House chief usher on Wednesday, whereas traditionally it would be the departing president and first lady.Joe and Jill Biden won’t be greeted by Donald and Melania Trump Wednesday, breaking White House tradition.Instead, they’ll be greeted by the White House chief usher, @KateBennett_DC reports.— Alexis Benveniste (@apbenven) January 18, 2021
They also said Melania Trump would become the first modern first lady not to invite her successor for a tour of the private living quarters.Melania Trump will become the first modern first lady not to invite the woman who will replace her to the White House for a walk-through of the private living quarters on the second and third floors. https://t.co/a1e9RVzq6l— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 18, 2021
Workers have already hung bunting that reads “2021 Biden-Harris Inauguration” from temporary stands across from the White House’s north portico, visible from the third-storey residence, CNN reported.The cable network also reported that on the day the White House Military Office will ensure there are several “nuclear footballs” available, the heavy briefcase that is always carried near the president with codes to launch weapons in case of nuclear attack.One such football will reportedly travel with Trump to Florida and his codes will be deactivated by the time Biden is sworn in at noon on Wednesday, when an aide carrying another nuclear football and working codes will then begin to shadow the new president.The invitation for Trump’s sendoff specifies that masks must be worn .Late last year, Trump was criticised for hosting a series of indoor and outdoor events at the White House where social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines were not enforced, leading to several high-profile Covid cases, with the gatherings described as “super-spreader” events. More