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      U.S. Declines to Defend Trump Ally in Lawsuit Over Jan. 6 Riot

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      The move could mean that the Justice Department is also unlikely to defend former President Donald J. Trump in the case.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department declined on Tuesday to defend a congressional ally of former President Donald J. Trump in a lawsuit accusing them both of inciting supporters at a rally in the hours before the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.Law enforcement officials determined that Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, was acting outside the scope of his duties in an incendiary speech just before the attack, according to a court filing. Mr. Brooks had asked the department to certify that he was acting as a government employee during the rally; had it agreed to defend him, he would have been dismissed from the lawsuit and the United States substituted as a defendant.“The record indicates that Brooks’s appearance at the Jan. 6 rally was campaign activity, and it is no part of the business of the United States to pick sides among candidates in federal elections,” the Justice Department wrote.“Members of Congress are subject to a host of restrictions that carefully distinguish between their official functions, on the one hand, and campaign functions, on the other.”The Justice Department’s decision shows it is likely to also decline to provide legal protection for Mr. Trump in the lawsuit. Legal experts have closely watched the case because the Biden Justice Department has continued to fight for granting immunity to Mr. Trump in a 2019 defamation lawsuit where he denied allegations that he raped the writer E. Jean Carroll and said she accused him to get attention.Such a substitution provides broad protections for government officials and is generally reserved for government employees sued over actions that stem from their work. In the Carroll case, the department cited other defamation lawsuits as precedent.The Brooks decision also ran counter to the Justice Department’s longstanding broad view of actions taken in the scope of a federal employee’s employment, which has served to make it harder to use the courts to hold government employees accountable for wrongdoing.Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Lawyers for the House also said on Tuesday that they declined to defend Mr. Brooks in the lawsuit. Given that it “does not challenge any institutional action of the House,” a House lawyer wrote in a court filing, “it is not appropriate for it to participate in the litigation.”The Justice Department and House filed their briefs on Tuesday, the deadline set by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit, filed in March by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Brooks of inciting a riot and conspiring to prevent a person from holding office or performing official duties.Mr. Swalwell accused Mr. Brooks, Mr. Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and his onetime personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani of playing a key role in inciting the Jan 6. attack during a rally near the White House in the hours before the storming of the Capitol.Citing excerpts from their speeches, Mr. Swalwell accused the men of violating federal law by conspiring to prevent an elected official from holding office or from performing official duties, arguing that their speeches led Mr. Trump’s supporters to believe they were acting on orders to attack the Capitol.Mr. Swalwell alleged that their speeches encouraged Mr. Trump’s supporters to unlawfully force members of Congress from their chambers and destroy parts of the Capitol to keep lawmakers from performing their duties.During the rally, Mr. Brooks told attendees that the United States was “at risk unlike it has been in decades, and perhaps centuries.” He said that their ancestors “sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives” for the country.“Are you willing to do the same?” he asked the crowd. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?”Mr. Swalwell said defendants in his lawsuit had incited the mob and had continued to stoke false beliefs that the election was stolen.“As a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft, and in direct response to the defendants’ express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol,” Mr. Swalwell said in his complaint. “Many participants in the attack have since revealed that they were acting on what they believed to be former President Trump’s orders in service of their country.”In June, Mr. Brooks asked that the Justice Department defend him in the case. He cited the Westfall Act, which essentially substitutes the Justice Department as the defendant when federal employees are sued for actions deemed within the scope of their employment, according to a court document.He described his speech on Jan. 6 as part of his job, saying that his duties include delivering speeches, making pronouncements on policy and persuading lawmakers.The Justice Department rejected that assertion.“Inciting or conspiring to foment a violent attack on the United States Congress is not within the scope of employment of a representative — or any federal employee — and thus is not the sort of conduct for which the United States is properly substituted as a defendant under the Westfall Act,” the department wrote. “Brooks does not argue otherwise. Instead, he denies the complaint’s allegations that he conspired to incite the attack on the Capitol.”Mr. Trump has not sought to have the government substitute for him as a defendant in the lawsuit under the Westfall Act. But he has argued in court filings that the statements he made on Jan. 6 are covered by broad immunity, that he could not be sued for making them and that the lawsuit violated his free speech rights.Should a judge deny Mr. Trump’s claims, he could ask the Justice Department to intervene on his behalf. But its decision in Mr. Brooks’s case lowered the chances that it would comply. More

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      Republicans Fear Flawed Candidates Could Imperil Key Senate Seats

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      Races in Missouri and Alabama, with others to come, reflect the potential risks for a party in which loyalty to Donald Trump is the main criterion for securing nominations.The entry of two hard-right candidates this week into Senate races in Missouri and Alabama exposed the perils for Republicans of a political landscape in which former President Donald J. Trump is the only true north for grass-roots voters.Strong state parties, big donors and G.O.P. national leaders were once able to anoint a candidate, in order to avoid destructive demolition derbies in state primaries.But in the Trump era, the pursuit of his endorsement is all-consuming, and absent Mr. Trump’s blessing, there is no mechanism for clearing a cluttered primary field. With the former president focused elsewhere — on settling scores against Republicans who advanced his impeachment or showed insufficient loyalty — a combative Senate primary season is in store for the 2022 midterms, when Republicans who hope to regain the majority face a difficult map. They are fighting to hold on to five open seats after a wave of retirements of establishment figures, and even deep-red Missouri and Alabama pose potential headaches.A scandal-haunted former Missouri governor, Eric Greitens, entered the race on Monday to replace the retiring Senator Roy Blunt. His candidacy set off a four-alarm fire with state party leaders, who fear that Mr. Greitens may squeak through a crowded primary field, only to lose a winnable seat to a Democrat.In Alabama, the entry of Representative Mo Brooks, a staunch but lackluster Trump supporter, into the race for the seat being vacated by Senator Richard C. Shelby raised a different set of fears with activists: that Mr. Brooks, who badly lost a previous statewide race, would cause waves of Republican voters, especially women, to sit out the off-year election and crack open the door in a ruby red state for a Democrat.Both candidacies are likely to pose challenges for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who has weighed in to cull potentially flawed candidates in the past and has said he may do so again this time. Last year, a super PAC aligned with Mr. McConnell intervened in a Senate primary in Kansas against Kris Kobach, a polarizing figure whose candidacy threatened the loss of a seat that was ultimately won by the G.O.P. establishment’s favorite, Roger Marshall.Mr. Trump has so far stayed out of the potential pileups to fill the open Senate seats — the others to date are in Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Alabama and Missouri, both Republican strongholds, afford the G.O.P. a margin of error even with a flawed candidate, a cushion not available in the more competitive traditional battleground states.In announcing his candidacy on Fox News on Monday, Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, sought to appeal to Mr. Trump and Trump voters, boasting of having routed “antifa” from Missouri as governor and pledging to be a “fighter” who would be committed to “defending President Trump’s America First policies.”Mr. Greitens, who took office in 2017, resigned the next year amid accusations of physical and sexual abuse by a woman he had been involved with in an extramarital affair before his election. Still, he remains popular with a core of Republican voters. Many Republican officials fear that in a multicandidate primary, which appears likely, he could win with around 30 percent of the vote.“There is a high level of concern,” said Gregg Keller, a Republican strategist in Missouri, where Democrats have been shut out of major statewide victories for nearly a decade.Mr. Keller, who is unaligned in the race, said nominating Mr. Greitens would be “the only way Republicans stand a chance of losing this seat.” He added, “It would be an incredible self-own and would put the seat in play.”On Wednesday, a second candidate entered the race, Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who had joined a Texas-led lawsuit by attorneys general to overturn the 2020 election results, which was rejected by the Supreme Court. At least three other Republicans have shown interest in the race, including Representative Ann Wagner, a moderate from the St. Louis suburbs.Mr. Greitens claimed while announcing his candidacy that he had been “completely exonerated” in the scandals that led to his resignation. But he elided important details. Accused by a hair stylist of binding her hands, spanking her, taking seminude pictures and threatening to release them if she disclosed their affair, Mr. Greitens was charged with felony invasion of privacy. The case fell apart, but the Republican-led Legislature moved to impeach Mr. Greitens anyway. An explosive investigation by the Missouri House concluded that the woman’s accusations were credible.Representative Mo Brooks was one of the first Republicans to announce that he would object to the Electoral College certifying President Biden’s victory.Elijah Nouvelage/ReutersSeparately, the attorney general at the time, Josh Hawley, now the state’s junior senator, turned up evidence that led to a felony count against Mr. Greitens related to political fund-raising, which Mr. Hawley described as “serious charges.”Mr. Greitens, 46, stepped down in May 2018 after reaching a deal with prosecutors that led to the campaign finance charge being dropped. A state ethics commission later found he had not engaged in wrongdoing in the finance case.“His claim to have been totally exonerated is a fraud and misrepresentation of the facts,” said Peter Kinder, a former Republican lieutenant governor. “An overwhelmingly Republican Legislature was prepared to impeach him and was within days of doing that.”Mr. Greitens has both grass-roots supporters and high-profile enemies in the Missouri G.O.P., including Mr. Kinder, who lost to him in a 2016 primary for governor, and Mr. Hawley.After Mr. Blunt this month announced his plans to retire, Mr. Trump called Mr. Hawley to ask about whom he should support, according to a person familiar with the conversation. They agreed to stay in touch as the field develops, and Mr. Hawley could be expected to steer Mr. Trump away from the former governor.In an argumentative interview on Wednesday with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mr. Greitens said the Missouri House’s 24-page report about him had been “discredited,” but he would not say how. He claimed, without evidence, that his accuser, two of her friends and her former husband, all of whom testified under oath, were “lying.” “Why did you quit?” Mr. Hewitt asked Mr. Greitens, referring to his resignation. “SEALs don’t quit.”In Alabama, the fear of some Republicans about a lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Brooks, the highest-profile candidate in an emerging field, traces to the lacerating sting of 2017, when the Democrat Doug Jones won a Senate seat after G.O.P. voters failed to show up to support the party’s nominee, the scandal-plagued Roy Moore.Mr. Brooks, a six-term congressman from northern Alabama, was one of the first Republicans to announce that he would object to the Electoral College certifying President Biden’s victory. He faced calls for censure from Democrats after an incendiary speech he made at the pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6 before the riot at the Capitol. In announcing his candidacy on Monday, he aired once again his and Mr. Trump’s false accounts of the election. “In 2020, we had the worst voter fraud and election theft in history,” he said. Few individual cases and no evidence of widespread fraud have been confirmed.But in Alabama, Mr. Trump’s fraud narrative is hardly a controversial view among Republican voters. Both Mr. Brooks, 66, and the only other announced candidate to date, Lynda Blanchard — a major G.O.P. donor who was ambassador to Melania Trump’s native Slovenia — have aggressively sought Mr. Trump’s endorsement. But it is entirely possible he will withhold one in the interest of not alienating potential future allies, political observers say.The bigger danger with Mr. Brooks, in the view of some party strategists, is that he simply fails to excite Republican voters in an off-year election. He finished an unimpressive third in a 2017 primary to fill an open Senate seat, winning fewer than one in five Republican votes.“The danger becomes that there will be nothing to motivate Republicans to go to the polls,” said Angi Horn, a Republican strategist in Alabama, “which would put us at the peril that we have been in in the past, when a large majority of Republican voters did not see a candidate that motivated and inspired them to go vote.” More

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      Why Is Space Command Moving Into Mo Brooks’s Backyard?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Is Space Command Moving Into Mo Brooks’s Backyard?The congressman from Huntsville, Ala., was quick to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. His district continues to get special treatment.Ms. McWhorter, who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., is writing a book about Huntsville, Ala., and the Cold War space race.March 10, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETAs uncommon as it is for the White House to worry about where the Pentagon puts its people and hardware, President Biden may need to follow the example of his predecessor and take a hard look at the site selection for U.S. Space Command. It tells a tale of two cities, Colorado Springs and Huntsville, Ala., and reveals a lot about our modern-day season of stunt guillotines and Trumpist revolutionaries.The Trump administration’s decision to move Space Command — the Defense Department’s coordinating body for space-related military operations — from Colorado Springs to Huntsville came one week after the congressman from Huntsville, Mo Brooks, took the stage at President Donald Trump’s last-stand rally on Jan. 6, invoked the patriotic ancestors who “sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives,” and rasped at the crowd, “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?”Rumors of Trumpian quid pro quo ensued, especially from Aerospace Alley in Colorado, which seemed to have the advantage of incumbency over five other contenders. (Space Command was based in Colorado Springs from 1985 to 2002 and was deactivated for 17 years before being revived. It is not to be confused with Mr. Trump’s military legacy, Space Force, the littlest branch of the armed services.)Was the Huntsville pick Mr. Trump’s thank-you to Mr. Brooks, the very first member of Congress to declare, in December, that he would challenge Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6? Or perhaps bug off to Colorado for repudiating Mr. Trump along with Republican senator Cory Gardner last November?The Defense Department’s inspector general has agreed to review the transfer, which won’t occur until 2026 at the earliest. But even if the study finds that Huntsville beat out Colorado Springs on the merits, would the Biden administration have cause to rescind the move? Or put another way, should law-abiding taxpayers be asked to send their government’s treasure to a district whose chosen representative was at the fore of the government’s attempted overthrow (or whatever that was)?Roughly half of Huntsville’s economy already comes from federal spending, and most of that money is dedicated to the defense and security of the United States. Yet for 10 years, the city has been represented in Congress by an anti-government nihilist whose crusade has ultimately endangered democracy itself. The riot fueled by Mr. Brooks’s big lie of a stolen election also contributed to the death of one of his constituents and resulted in the arrest of another North Alabama man, a military veteran whose truckload of weaponry included machetes and a crossbow with bolts.Reasonable Americans might ask whether our national security should be entrusted to a community in which a significant portion of the work force may not believe that Mr. Biden is the legitimate commander in chief. (When I asked Mr. Brooks by email whether he considered Mr. Biden the legitimate president, he did not answer the question.)History advises that collective punishment is rarely a good teacher. That is why Huntsville should try to live up to its reputation as the forward-looking, high-tech standout in an underdeveloped Heart of Dixie and redeem itself through a little enlightened self-interest. As the 2020 election deniers found their precedent in the Compromise of 1877, which anointed President Rutherford B. Hayes and not coincidentally ended Reconstruction, Huntsville could begin a reverse process of self-Reconstruction by rejecting Confederate politics and bringing them in line with its Union purpose.Huntsville has long had an exceptionalist attitude toward the rest of the state. Even Mr. Brooks plays into the local “most Ph.D.s per capita” urban legend as the nerd-demagogue with a degree in politics and economics from Duke.There’s no question that Huntsville is competent to host Space Command. It has called itself the Rocket City since the 1950s, when Wernher von Braun and the German engineers who built Hitler’s V-2 rocket — the first long-range ballistic missile — were imported to make missiles for the U.S. Army. The group had switched over to NASA by 1961, when John F. Kennedy decided the United States should send a man to the moon, which happened in 1969, courtesy of the German-American team’s Saturn V rocket.Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center was the biggest of the Apollo-boom NASA installations in the so-called Space Crescent of federal money leveraged to the Southland — scything from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to the Manned Spacecraft Center in East Texas. The reason Houston gets to hear about the problem is undoubtedly related to its being in the home state of Lyndon B. Johnson. Especially as a senator and as vice president, he helped shape the space program as an agent of economic reconstruction; he expected social progress to flow from it throughout the South. His presidency’s civil rights program, after all, was also framed in economic terms, as a War on Poverty.Among the grinding obstacles to Johnson’s aspirations was George C. Wallace, Alabama’s “Segregation forever!” governor and Mr. Trump’s John the Baptist. In the fall of 1964, it was impossible in Alabama to vote to re-elect the sitting president. (Its Democratic electors were unpledged, meaning, basically, that they would vote in the Electoral College for whomever Wallace told them to.)And so after a visit with Alabama business leaders that October, NASA’s head, James Webb, threatened to pull high-level Marshall personnel — and their portion of the multimillion-dollar payroll — out of the state. The practical reason was that von Braun could not recruit talent to a place so egregious on civil rights. And on a personal note, Webb was not crazy about how unappreciative Alabama was toward the government that fed it.NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center stayed intact, thanks in good part to Huntsville’s impressive advocates in Congress. Its former representative John Sparkman was the junior senator to the still powerful Franklin Roosevelt point man Lister Hill and had been Adlai E. Stevenson’s running mate on the 1952 Democratic ticket. Representative Robert Jones was a stoic Johnson ally — and later a key sponsor of the 1972 Clean Water Act (undermined by Mr. Trump).The reason you probably haven’t heard of them is that their more positive legacies were eclipsed by their racist votes. Still, when Johnson gave him permission to expediently oppose his poverty bill, Jones replied, “My conscience won’t let me.” Decades later, his successor Mr. Brooks consulted his conscience after the sacking of the Capitol and found that “fascist ANTIFA” was likely to blame.Not surprisingly, the local committee of business leaders and state officials that wooed Space Command to Huntsville “did not coordinate our efforts with Congressman Brooks,” as a Chamber of Commerce spokesman told me by email. But historically, the educated, white-collar Alabamians that are Huntsville’s proud base have tended to regard their more deplorable politicians as harmless if not useful.Consider one of Mr. Brooks’s largest donors, the law firm of McDaniel & McDaniel. One of its co-founders, Mark McDaniel, is a Democrat turned self-described “very moderate Republican” who currently recognizes the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s election — “Oh, absolutely I do,” he told me, adding, “I don’t think it was a hoax, and Covid is real.”Even so, he said he does not intend to “bail out on” his friend. “Mo Brooks is just a decent human being,” he said, plus the two guarded each other on rival basketball teams in high school. Shortly before Mr. Trump left office, Mr. Brooks announced the president’s appointment of Mr. McDaniel to a U.S. Agency for International Development advisory board.And what of Mr. Brooks’s top corporate donors, including the household names of the military-industrial complex? Asked if they would follow the lead of the other brand-name companies that have pledged to withhold cash from Congress’s election-rejection caucus, Lockheed Martin and Boeing would not commit to anything beyond a pause in political contributions. Northrop Grumman did not respond to several inquiries.As for the homegrown defense contractors behind Mr. Brooks — Radiance Technologies, Torch Technologies and Davidson Technologies — it may require some bottom-line blowback from the congressman’s free-enterprise extremism to make them appreciate the democracy that has so enriched them.Perhaps they would take their representative more seriously if the Biden administration decided to take his anti-government rhetoric literally and withdrew — along with the 1,400-job prospect of Space Command — the Army Materiel Command, the FBI’s so-called second headquarters and NASA, which is overseeing the launch vehicle for the coming Artemis lunar missions (and employs Mr. Brooks’s son).The stakes of enabling Mr. Brooks increase as the unbowed congressman — facing a censure resolution from House colleagues and a lawsuit filed by Representative Eric Swalwell against him, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani — eyes the Senate seat that Alabama’s quasi-independent senior senator, Democrat turned Republican Richard Shelby, is vacating in 2023. A win would make Mr. Brooks the junior senator to his election-defying confederate Tommy Tuberville, the civically illiterate former football coach who also carried Huntsville’s Madison County in November.While the inspector general is evaluating the Space Command decision, Colorado Springs may want to order up some blue #usspaceCOm T-shirts to replace the MAGA red ones the local Chamber of Commerce distributed for Mr. Trump’s visit there last year. Colorado is hardly Alabama, what with two Democratic senators and an openly gay governor.But Doug Lamborn, the congressman from Colorado Springs, is his state’s answer to Mo Brooks: anti-gay, anti-PBS, anti-“war on Christmas.” He voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s election on Jan. 6, after the Capitol was stormed by his constituents Klete Keller, who was an Olympic swimmer, and Robert Gieswein, who is suspected of being a Three Percenter.Given the long reach of Trumpism and the reluctance of multinational defense industries to take a stand against even a hypothetical Senator Mo Brooks, Alabama is beginning to look like a state of mind without borders.Diane McWhorter, who is writing a book about Huntsville and the Cold War space race, is the author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Representative Eric Swalwell Sues Trump Over Capitol Riot

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFormer Impeachment Manager Sues Trump Over Capitol RiotThe suit by Representative Eric Swalwell accuses Donald J. Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 attack and conspiring to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory.“The horrific events of Jan. 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” according to the suit, filed by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMarch 5, 2021, 5:35 p.m. ETA House Democrat who unsuccessfully prosecuted Donald J. Trump at his impeachment trial sued him in federal court on Friday for acts of terrorism and incitement to riot, trying to use the justice system to punish the former president for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.The suit brought by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Trump and key allies of whipping up the deadly attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s election victory.Echoing the case laid out in the Senate, which acquitted him, it meticulously traces a monthslong campaign by Mr. Trump to undermine confidence in the 2020 election and then overturn its results, using his own words and those of his followers who ransacked the building to narrate it.“The horrific events of Jan. 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” Mr. Swalwell asserts in the civil suit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington. “As such, the defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”Though not a criminal case, the suit charges Mr. Trump and his allies with several counts including conspiracy to violate civil rights, negligence, incitement to riot, disorderly conduct, terrorism and inflicting serious emotional distress. If found liable, Mr. Trump could be subject to compensatory and punitive damages; if the case proceeds, it might also lead to an open-ended discovery process that could turn up information about his conduct and communications that eluded impeachment prosecutors.In addition to the former president, the suit names as defendants his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, who led the effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s election defeat when Congress met on Jan. 6 to formalize the results.All three men joined Mr. Trump in promoting and speaking at a rally in Washington that day, which Mr. Swalwell says lit the match for the violence that followed with incendiary and baseless lies about election fraud.Read the Suit: Swalwell v. TrumpThe suit from Representative Eric Swalwell accuses Mr. Trump and several allies of inciting the attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory.Read DocumentA majority of the Senate, including seven Republicans, voted to find Mr. Trump “guilty” based on the same factual record last month, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict him. Several Republicans who voted to acquit him, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, concluded that Mr. Trump was culpable for the assault but argued the courts, not the Senate, were the proper venue for those seeking to hold him accountable.Phil Andonian, a lawyer representing Mr. Swalwell, said that the lawsuit was an answer to that call.That Mr. Trump “seems to be made of Teflon cuts in favor of finding a way to pierce that because he hasn’t really been held fully accountable for what was one of the darkest moments in American history,” he said in an interview.The lawsuit adds to Mr. Trump’s mounting legal woes as he transitions into life after the presidency and contemplates a political comeback. Another Democratic lawmaker, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, already filed suit on similar grounds in recent weeks with the N.A.A.C.P.Prosecutors in New York have active inquiries into his financial dealings, and in Georgia, prosecutors are investigating his attempts to pressure election officials to reverse his loss.In a statement, Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, blasted Mr. Swalwell as a “a lowlife with no credibility” but did not comment on the merits of the case.Mr. Brooks rejected the claims, saying he would wear Mr. Swalwell’s “scurrilous and malicious lawsuit like a badge of courage.” He said he made “no apology” for his actions around the riot, when he urged rallygoers outside the White House to start “taking down names and kicking ass.”Both men resurfaced Republican attacks on Mr. Swalwell questioning his character based on his former association with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy. Mr. Swalwell broke off contact with the woman after he was briefed by American intelligence officials, and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.Mr. Giuliani, who urged the same crowd to undertake “trial by combat,” and a lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment.Both Mr. Thompson’s suit and Mr. Swalwell’s rely on civil rights law tracing to the 19th-century Ku Klux Klan Act, but their aims appear to differ. The earlier suit targets Mr. Trump’s association with right-wing extremist groups, naming several groups as defendants and explicitly detailing racialized hate it claims figured in the attack. Mr. Swalwell focuses more narrowly on punishing Mr. Trump and his inner circle for the alleged scheme.“He lied to his followers again and again claiming the election was stolen from them, filed a mountain of frivolous lawsuits — nearly all of which failed, tried to intimidate election officials, and finally called upon his supporters to descend on Washington D.C. to ‘stop the steal,’” Mr. Swalwell said in a statement.In the suit, Mr. Swalwell describes how he, the vice president and members of the House and Senate were put at direct risk and suffered “severe emotional distress” as armed marauders briefly overtook the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name.“The plaintiff prepared himself for possible hand-to-hand combat as he took off his jacket and tie and searched for makeshift instruments of self-defense,” it says.During the Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers flatly denied that he was responsible for the assault and made broad assertions that he was protected by the First Amendment when he urged supporters gathered on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” to “stop the steal” he said was underway at the Capitol.The nine House managers argued that free speech rights had no place in a court of impeachment, but they may prove a more durable defense in a court of law. Though the suit targets them in their personal capacities, Mr. Trump may also try to dismiss the case by arguing that the statements he made around the rally were official, legally protected acts.Lyrissa Lidsky, the dean of the University of Missouri School of Law, said that the suit relied on a novel application of civil rights law originally meant to target racialized terrorism in the Reconstruction-era South. But she predicted the case would ultimately boil down to the same fundamental questions that animated Mr. Trump’s trial in the Senate: whether his words on Jan. 6 and leading up to it constituted incitement or were protected by the First Amendment.“By filing the suit, Swalwell is trying to relitigate in the court of public opinion the case he lost in the impeachment trial,” Ms. Lidsky said. A change of venue can sometimes produce different outcomes, she added, but Mr. Swalwell faces an uphill climb.“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” she said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      After Capitol Riot, Republican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under Scrutiny

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      #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 storyRepublican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under ScrutinyA number of members of Congress have links to organizations and movements that played a role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Members of a Three Percenters group provided security for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, right, during a campaign event last year in Ringgold, Ga.Credit…C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press, via Associated PressLuke Broadwater and Jan. 29, 2021Updated 10:09 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The video’s title was posed as a question, but it left little doubt about where the men who filmed it stood. They called it “The Coming Civil War?” and in its opening seconds, Jim Arroyo, who leads an Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, declared that the conflict had already begun.To back up his claim, Mr. Arroyo cited Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, one of the most far-right members of Congress. Mr. Gosar had paid a visit to the local Oath Keepers chapter a few years earlier, Mr. Arroyo recounted, and when asked if the United States was headed for a civil war, the congressman’s “response to the group was just flat out: ‘We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.’”Less than two months after the video was posted, members of the Oath Keepers were among those with links to extremist groups from around the country who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, prompting new scrutiny of the links between members of Congress and an array of organizations and movements that espouse far-right beliefs.Nearly 150 House Republicans supported President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. But Mr. Gosar and a handful of other Republican members of the House had deeper ties to extremist groups who pushed violent ideas and conspiracy theories and whose members were prominent among those who stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to stop certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Their ranks include Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who like Mr. Gosar was linked to the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election’s outcome.Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado has close connections to militia groups including the so-called Three Percenters, an extremist offshoot of the gun rights movement that had at least one member who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents were among the most visible of those who stormed the building, and she appeared at a rally with militia groups. Before being elected to Congress last year, Ms. Greene used social media in 2019 to endorse executing top Democrats and has suggested that the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was a staged “false flag” attack. The liberal group Media Matters for America reported on Thursday that Ms. Greene also speculated on Facebook in 2018 that California wildfires might have been started by lasers from space, promoting a theory pushed by followers of QAnon.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared last year at an event also attended by members of the Proud Boys, another extremist organization whose role in the Jan. 6 assault, like those of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, is being investigated by the F.B.I.It is not clear whether any elected officials played a role in directly facilitating the attack on the Capitol, other than helping to incite violence through false statements about the election being stolen from Mr. Trump. Officials have said they are investigating reports from Democrats that a number of House Republicans provided tours of the Capitol and other information to people who might have gone on to be part of the mob on Jan. 6. So far, no evidence has surfaced publicly to back up those claims.Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, speaking to protesters in November outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix.Credit…Jim Urquhart/ReutersMs. Boebert said in a statement that she had “never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to anyone besides family members in town for my swearing-in,” and she called accusations from Democrats that she gave a “reconnaissance tour” to insurgents an “irresponsible lie.” After the riot at the Capitol, she said she did not support “unlawful acts of violence.”Mr. Biggs has denied associating with Stop the Steal organizers and condemned violence “of any kind.”“Were you aware of any planned demonstration or riot at the U.S. Capitol to take place after the rally on Jan. 6, 2021? No,” Mr. Biggs said in a statement.A spokesman for Ms. Greene said she now rejects QAnon, and he tried to distance her from militia members.“She doesn’t have anything to do with it,” her communications director, Nick Dyer, said of QAnon. “She thinks it’s disinformation.” As for the militia members, he said, “Those people were at one event independently of Congresswoman Greene.”Mr. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment.Mr. Gaetz, on his podcast, said the Proud Boys were at the event he attended to provide security, and that “just because you take a picture with someone,” it does not mean “you’re tied to every viewpoint they’ve ever had or that they will ever have in the future.”But in signaling either overt or tacit support, a small but vocal band of Republicans now serving in the House provided legitimacy and publicity to extremist groups and movements as they built toward their role in supporting Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election and the attack on Congress.Aitan D. Goelman, a former federal prosecutor who helped convict the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, said that when elected officials — or even candidates for office — took actions like appearing with militia groups or other right-wing groups it “provides them with an added imprimatur of legitimacy.”An examination of many of the most prominent elected Republicans with links to right-wing groups also shows how various strands of extremism came together at the Capitol on Jan. 6.In July, Mr. Gosar, a dentist, posed for a picture with a member of the Proud Boys. Two years earlier, he spoke at a rally for a jailed leader of Britain’s anti-immigrant fringe in London, where he vilified Muslim immigrants as a “scourge.” And in 2014, he traveled to Nevada to support the armed standoff between law enforcement and supporters of the cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, who had refused to stop trespassing on federal lands.Mr. Biggs, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, was seen by leaders of the Stop the Steal movement as an inspiration and has spoken at events hosted by extremists, including one at which a founder of the Oath Keepers called for hanging Senator John McCain.Ms. Boebert, elected to the House in November, said on Twitter that “Today is 1776” on the morning of Jan. 6, and she has connections to the Three Percenters, which shares her view that gun rights are under assault. At least one member of the group has been arrested in the breach of the Capitol.Ms. Greene has for years trafficked in conspiracy theories, expressed support for QAnon and made offensive remarks about Black people, Jews and Muslims. She also appeared at a campaign event alongside members of the Three Percenters.To some degree, the members of Congress have been reflecting signals sent by Mr. Trump.During a presidential debate in October, he made a nod toward the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.” Two months earlier, Mr. Trump described followers of QAnon — several of whom have been charged with murder, domestic terrorism, planned kidnapping and, most recently, storming the Capitol — as “people that love our country,” adding that “they do supposedly like me.”A Stop the Steal protest in November near the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesStop the StealFew Republicans have been more linked to extremist groups than Mr. Gosar.“He’s been involved with anti-Muslim groups and hate groups,” said Mr. Gosar’s brother Dave Gosar, a lawyer in Wyoming. “He’s made anti-Semitic diatribes. He’s twisted up so tight with the Oath Keepers it’s not even funny.”Dave Gosar and other Gosar siblings ran ads denouncing their brother as a dangerous extremist when he ran for Congress in 2018. Now they are calling on Congress to expel him.“We warned everybody how dangerous he was,” Dave Gosar said.In the days after the 2020 election, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs helped turn Arizona into a crucible for the Stop the Steal movement, finding common cause with hard-liners who until then had toiled in obscurity, like Ali Alexander. The two congressmen recorded a video, “This Election Is A Joke,” which was viewed more than a million times and spread disinformation about widespread voter fraud.Mr. Alexander has said he “schemed up” the Jan. 6 rally with Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs and another vocal proponent of Stop the Steal, Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama. Mr. Alexander’s characterization of the role of the members of Congress is exaggerated, Mr. Biggs said, but the lawmakers were part of a larger network of people who helped plan and promote the rally as part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the will of the voters.After the election, Mr. Alexander emerged as a vocal proponent of the president’s stolen election claims, setting up a Stop the Steal website on Nov. 4 and making incendiary statements. On Dec. 8, he tweeted that he was willing to give up his life to keep Mr. Trump in office.The Arizona Republican Party followed up, retweeting Mr. Alexander’s post and adding: “He is. Are you?” Mr. Alexander has since been barred from Twitter.Ten days later, Mr. Gosar was one of the headliners at a rally in Phoenix that Mr. Alexander helped organize. Mr. Gosar used the rally to deliver a call to action, telling the crowd that they planned to “conquer the Hill” to return Mr. Trump to the presidency.During his time onstage, Mr. Alexander called Mr. Gosar “my captain” and added, “One of the other heroes has been Congressman Andy Biggs.”Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, was cited as an inspiration by one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal campaign.Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Biggs has played down his involvement with the Stop the Steal campaign, on Dec. 19, Mr. Alexander played a video message from Mr. Biggs to an angry crowd at an event where attendees shouted violent slogans against lawmakers. At the event, Mr. Biggs’s wife, Cindy Biggs, was seen hugging Mr. Alexander twice and speaking in his ear.In 2019, Mr. Biggs spoke at an event supported by the Patriot Movement AZ, AZ Patriots and the American Guard — all identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to The Arizona Republic. In 2015, he sat silent at an event as a founder of the Oath Keepers called for the hanging ​of Senator McCain, calling him a traitor to the Constitution. Mr. Biggs told The Republic at the time that he did not feel it was his place to speak up and denounce the comments..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.Mr. Arroyo, of the Oath Keepers in Arizona, said Mr. Gosar had attended two of their meetings, about a year apart. Mr. Arroyo said that his organization “does not advocate for breaking the law” and that he was “saddened to see the display of trespassing on the Capitol building by a few out-of-control individuals.”Just like Mr. Gosar’s family, Mr. Biggs’s two brothers have publicly denounced him, saying he was at least partly responsible for the violence on Jan. 6. In addition, a Democratic state representative in Arizona, Athena Salman, has called on the Justice Department to investigate the actions of Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs before the riot, saying they “encouraged, facilitated, participated and possibly helped plan this anti-democratic insurrection.”Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado tweeted, “Today is 1776,” on the morning of the Capitol riot.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times‘I Am the Militia’In December 2019, hundreds of protesters descended on the Colorado Statehouse to oppose a new state law meant to take firearms out of the hands of emotionally disturbed people.Among those at the rally were members of the Three Percenters, which federal prosecutors describe as a “radical militia group,” and a congressional hopeful with a history of arrests named Lauren Boebert, who was courting their votes. Armed with her own handgun, she posed for photographs with militia members and defiantly pledged to oppose the law.In the months that followed, militia groups would emerge as one of Ms. Boebert’s crucial political allies. As her campaign got underway last year, she wrote on Twitter, “I am the militia.”Militia members provided security for her campaign events and frequented the restaurant she owns, Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo. In a recently posted video, a member of the Three Percenters was filmed giving Ms. Boebert a Glock 22 handgun.Another member of the group, Robert Gieswein, who posed for a photograph in front of Ms. Boebert’s restaurant last year, is facing federal charges in the storming of the Capitol and attacking the police.Photographs from the attack show him clad in tactical gear, goggles and a helmet, wrestling with Capitol Police officers to remove metal barricades and brandishing a baseball bat. Prosecutors have also cited a video of Mr. Gieswein encouraging other rioters as they smashed a window at the Capitol.Once inside, Mr. Gieswein was photographed with another suspect, Dominic Pezzola, a former Marine and a member of the Proud Boys, who has also been charged in the Capitol attack.Ms. Boebert’s communications director, Benjamin Stout, said in an email that she “has always condemned all forms of political violence and has repeatedly made clear that those who stormed the U.S. Capitol should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”He added, “Simply because she takes a photo with someone that asks for one doesn’t mean she endorses every single belief they have or agrees with all other public statements or causes they support.”Robert Gieswein, in a helmet and tactical gear during the riot at the Capitol, is a member of the Three Percenters extremist group, which has supported Ms. Boebert.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe QAnon CaucusOne of the animating forces behind the attack on the Capitol was the movement known as QAnon, and QAnon has few more high-profile supporters than Ms. Greene.QAnon is a movement centered on the fantastical claim that Mr. Trump, secretly aided by the military, was elected to smash a cabal of Democrats, international financiers and “Deep State” bureaucrats who worship Satan and abuse children. It prophesied an apocalyptic showdown, known as “the Storm,” between Mr. Trump and his enemies. During the Storm, their enemies, including Mr. Biden and many Democratic and Republican members of Congress, would be arrested and executed.The mob that attacked the Capitol included many visible QAnon supporters wearing “Q” shirts and waving “Q” banners.Among them was Jake Angeli, a QAnon devotee who styled himself the “Q Shaman.” Mr. Angeli, whose real name is Jacob Chansley, stormed the Capitol in horns and animal furs, and left a note threatening Vice President Mike Pence.Also among them was Ashli Babbitt, a QAnon believer who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window in a barricaded door near the House chamber.Ms. Greene was an early adherent, calling QAnon “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.” Many of her Facebook posts in recent years reflected language used by the movement, talking about hanging prominent Democrats or executing F.B.I. agents.Ms. Greene has also displayed a fondness for some of the militia groups whose members were caught on video attacking the Capitol, including the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Speaking in 2018 at the Mother of All Rallies, a pro-Trump gathering in Washington, she praised militias as groups that can protect people against “a tyrannical government.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How Republicans Fanned the Flames Before US Capitol Building Riot

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutliveLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeInauguration SecurityNotable ArrestsIncitement to Riot?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBefore Capitol Riot, Republican Lawmakers Fanned the FlamesA “1776 moment”: Several of the president’s closest allies in Congress used bellicose language to urge their supporters to attend the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a deadly riot.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia with other Republican lawmakers at the Capitol on Jan. 4. Ms. Greene and other Trump allies met with the president in December to discuss their drive to overturn the election results.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesCatie Edmondson and Jan. 11, 2021Updated 8:35 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Standing before a crowd of thousands of MAGA-clad protesters on the National Mall on Wednesday, Representative Mo Brooks roared out a message that he said members of Congress who dared to accept President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory needed to hear.“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” said Mr. Brooks, Republican of Alabama. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”Hours later, urged on by President Trump at the same rally, rioters stormed the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to formalize Mr. Biden’s election, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” threatening to shoot Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forcing lawmakers to evacuate the building in a scene of violence and mayhem. Afterward, police officers recovered long guns, Molotov cocktails, explosive devices and zip ties. At least five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died during the protests and the siege and in the immediate aftermath.Even after the tear gas cleared and the Capitol was secured, more than 135 House Republicans, including the party’s two top leaders, ultimately voted to throw out millions of lawfully cast votes, fulfilling the rioters’ demands and answering Mr. Trump’s call for Congress to subvert the election results in his favor.But a handful of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies in the House had gone even further in the days and weeks before the riot, urging their supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to make a defiant last stand to keep him in power. They linked arms with the organizers of the protest and used inflammatory, bellicose language to describe the stakes.Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, first-term lawmakers who ran as outspoken defenders of Mr. Trump, referred to the day as Republicans’ “1776 moment.”Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who for weeks promoted the Jan. 6 protest and other “Stop the Steal” events across the country more than a dozen times, repeatedly referred to Mr. Biden as an “illegitimate usurper” and suggested that Mr. Trump was the victim of an attempted “coup.”“Be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House,” Mr. Gosar wrote in an op-ed titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup d’État?”As rioters laid siege to the Capitol, Mr. Gosar posted a message of calm on Twitter, telling his followers, “Let’s not get carried away here.” But he wrote a far more sympathetic message on Parler, using the same photo of people scaling the walls of the building: “Americans are upset.”Their comments have raised questions about the degree to which Republicans may have coordinated with protest organizers. In a since-deleted tweet, Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, wrote that he “had a great meeting today with the folks from Stop The Steal,” one of the leading groups that organized last week’s rally.And in a separate video, Ali Alexander, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist who emerged as a leader of Stop the Steal, claimed that he, along with Mr. Brooks, Mr. Gosar and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, had set the Jan. 6 event in motion.“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr. Alexander said in a since-deleted video, “so that who we couldn’t rally, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”A spokesman for Mr. Biggs denied in a statement on Monday that the lawmaker had had any role in organizing the rally, and said he had focused his efforts on working “within the confines of the law and established precedent to restore integrity to our elections.”“Congressman Biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting Mr. Alexander at any point — let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest on Jan. 6,” said the spokesman, Daniel Stefanski. “He did not have any contact with protesters or rioters, nor did he ever encourage or foster the rally or protests on Jan. 6.”But Mr. Gosar appeared to be on friendly terms with Mr. Alexander, frequently tagging him in Twitter posts. At a rally late last month outside the Arizona State Capitol at which Mr. Gosar spoke, Mr. Alexander called the congressman “the spirit animal of this movement.”“He’s helped out where he could,” Mr. Alexander said. “He’s offered to call donors. We actually had our first D.C. march because he called me and he said, ‘You need to go to the Supreme Court.’ I said, ‘All right, my captain.’ And that’s what started that.”“Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?” Representative Mo Brooks asked at the rally on Jan. 6. Credit…Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressFor his part, Mr. Brooks has remained unapologetic about his role in encouraging the rioters.“I make no apology for doing my absolute best to inspire patriotic Americans to not give up on our country and to fight back against anti-Christian socialists in the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Mr. Brooks told a local newspaper. “I encourage EVERY citizen to watch my entire rally speech and decide for themselves what kind of America they want: One based on freedom and liberty or one based on godless dictatorial power.”Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, on Monday introduced a resolution to formally censure Mr. Brooks, asserting that he was responsible for inciting the crowd and “endangering the lives of his fellow members of Congress.”“We’re going to need to take a broader look at members of Congress who may have encouraged or even facilitated the attack on the Capitol,” Mr. Malinowski said in an interview. “People like Brooks literally endangered the lives of their fellow members,” he said.Other House Democrats were pushing to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, added after the Civil War, which disqualifies people who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from holding public office. The clause was originally enacted to limit the influence of former Confederates in the Reconstruction era.Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, introduced a resolution on Monday with 47 co-sponsors that would initiate investigations for “removal of the members who attempted to overturn the results of the election and incited a white supremacist attempted coup.”“I can’t act like it didn’t affect me,” Ms. Bush said in an interview of being in the Capitol during the siege. “I felt in danger. My staff was in danger.”Ms. Bush said she did not know ultimately how many members of Congress should be expelled, but expected to learn the number from an investigation of the Ethics Committee.“Even if it’s just a few, we have to make sure the message is clear that you cannot be a sitting Congress member and incite an insurrection and work to overturn an election,” she said. For weeks before the rally, mimicking Mr. Trump’s tone, Republican operatives and lawmakers had used inflammatory language to describe the president’s effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory.At a Turning Point USA event in December, Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina encouraged attendees to “call your congressman and feel free — you can lightly threaten them.”“Say: ‘If you don’t support election integrity, I’m coming after you. Madison Cawthorn’s coming after you. Everybody’s coming after you,’” Mr. Cawthorn said.Some of Mr. Trump’s closest allies in Congress, including Mr. Brooks, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs and Ms. Greene, met with him at the White House in December to discuss their drive to overturn the election results. Lawmakers present described the meeting as a fairly dry one, centered on how the process would play out on the House and Senate floors.But Mr. Gosar cast the meeting to his followers as a call to action, pledging not to “accept disenfranchisement” of those who voted for Mr. Trump.“This sedition,” he wrote, “will be stopped.”Kevin Roose More