Democrats

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Congressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’

      by

      InterviewCongressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’David Smith in Washington The congressman was in the Capitol the day it was stormed by Trump supporters, and led the impeachment prosecution. The fight, he says, is far from over

      Chris Bryant: ‘Nearly everyone I meet says: “I wouldn’t want your job”’
      See more of the Observer’s faces behind the 2021 headlines
      He spent 5 January at a graveside service for his son, Tommy, who had taken his own life after years shadowed by depression. He spent 6 January under siege at the US Capitol as a mob of Donald Trump supporters staged a deadly insurrection. Nearly a year on, Jamie Raskin wonders whether he could have prevented either tragedy.“Just as I have blamed myself for missing cues that I might have picked up with Tommy, I blame myself for cues I missed relating to the violence as well,” says Raskin, carefully measuring each word. “I spent many, many sleepless nights in self-blame and self-prosecution over everything that had happened with Tommy and with the insurrection.”Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, took office in January 2017. Four years later, and a day after burying his 25-year-old son, he was at the US Capitol under coronavirus restrictions to help certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. He witnessed the citadel of American democracy come under attack from a frenzied mob convinced by Trump’s “big lie” about vote rigging.“I heard this terrible sound that I’ll never forget of some people trying to barrel into the House chamber,” the 58-year-old recalls in a phone interview from his home in Takoma Park, Maryland. “I don’t know to this day exactly what kind of physical objects they were carrying, but they kept slamming up against the central door to the House of Representatives and so lots of people began to move over there to try to reinforce it.“But then Capitol police officers came running in with their guns drawn, telling all of us to get back, and they went up and guarded that door. There were people screaming and it was very chaotic. You could hear people yelling, ‘We want Trump!’ and ‘Hang Mike Pence!’” – a reference to the vice-president who ignored Trump’s pleas to overturn the election.Members of Congress were evacuated through the speaker’s lobby, tunnels and stairwells. “We would see members of the mob running by in different directions. It was like a zombie movie. Whenever we saw them, everybody would accelerate efforts to get away. An insurrection is a pretty intimate thing. These people were all over the place. It’s remarkable more people did not die.”Finally, they reached the safety of a committee room in a House office building. But Raskin’s daughter Tabitha, 23, and son-in-law, Hank, who had accompanied him to the Capitol that day, were trapped in the office of Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader. They barricaded themselves in with furniture and hid under Hoyer’s desk.“I was obviously very concerned,” says Raskin. “I was an emotional wreck anyway but I felt now intensely responsible for having brought them with me and put them in harm’s way. It had never occurred to me that the Capitol of the United States would not be secure.”Eventually the building was cleared by security forces and the family was reunited. “I hugged them and kissed them and I told Tabitha how sorry I was and I said it would not be like this the next time she came to the Capitol. That’s when she said, ‘I don’t want to come back to the Capitol again’. The immensity of these events just hit me at that point. They had fundamentally changed everything by unleashing this violence to support their political coup.”That night Congress returned to the building to complete the electoral college counts and confirm Biden as the next president. In a stunned nation, there were demands for Trump to face a reckoning over his role in inciting the riot. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, asked Raskin to become lead prosecutor.He says: “For me the trial was a kind of salvation because I was so deeply in shock and trauma about Tommy and what had just taken place in the Capitol. It was a time of great confusion.“If you remember back to 9/11 and what that was like, everyone walking around buffeted and dumbfounded, there was that feeling. But by becoming the lead impeachment manager, I quickly had to develop a focus on what needed to be done.”Previously a constitutional law professor, Raskin made a compelling case and was not afraid to display his anger, grief and vulnerability. A majority of senators voted to convict Trump but fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required by the constitution. The ex-president was acquitted. But Raskin was not done.He is now a member of the House of Representatives select committee investigating the events of that day. It has been gathering documents and phone records and subpoenaing witnesses in an effort to produce the definitive account of an event that Raskin says was “as close to fascism as any of us wants to come in our lifetime”.The congressman, who has written a book to try to make sense of the 50 days that upended his life, says: “I would like to say that 6 January was the end of something but it feels much more to me like the beginning of something.“Ultimately, that’s up to us. We are definitely in a struggle over the future of democracy. Joe Biden is the right president to try to lead us out of this period of emotional devastation but at this point Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’ lives and his control over the Republican party is absolute. So we are still very much in the fight of our lives.” Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy by Jamie Raskin will be published by HarperCollins on 4 JanuaryTopicsUS Capitol attackThe Observer’s faces of 2021DemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’

      by

      Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’Democrat urges House Republican leaders to act after Lauren Boebert ‘jihad squad’ controversy03:46The US politician Ilhan Omar played a harrowing death threat left recently on her voicemail, as she implored House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down “anti-Muslim hatred” in their ranks and “hold those who perpetuate it accountable”.The Democratic Minnesota representative, one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress, has been the subject of repeated attacks by conservative pundits and some Republicans in Congress, which she says have led to an increase in the number of death threats she receives.Recently a video of the first-term Colorado representative Lauren Boebert calling Omar a member of the “jihad squad” and likening her to a bomb-carrying terrorist went viral.“When a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the ‘jihad squad’ and falsifies a story to suggest I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just an attack on me but on millions of American Muslims across the country,” Omar said during a news conference on Tuesday. “We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences.”She then played the voicemail, laden with profanity, racial epithets and a threat to “take you off the face of this fucking Earth”, which she said was among hundreds of such messages she has reported since joining Congress. Omar said the voicemail was left for her after Boebert released another video on Monday criticising her.In the grainy recording, a man can be heard saying: “You will not be living much longer, bitch,” and that “we the people are rising up”. He calls Omar a “traitor” and says she will stand trial before a military tribunal.Omar said: “It is time for the Republican party to actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks and hold those who perpetuate it accountable.”Boebert’s remarks were the latest example of a Republican lawmaker making a personal attack against another member of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone largely unchecked by House Republican leaders.A video posted to Facebook last week showed Boebert speaking at an event and describing an interaction with Omar – an interaction that Omar maintains never happened.In the video, Boebert claims that a Capitol police officer approached her with “fret on his face” shortly before she stepped into a House elevator and the doors closed. “I look to my left and there she is, Ilhan Omar. And I said: ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,’” Boebert says with a laugh.Omar called on the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, to “take appropriate action”. But so far McCarthy, who is in line to become Speaker if Republicans retake the majority next year, has been reluctant to police members of his caucus whose views often closely align with those of the party’s base.Boebert initially took steps to ease the situation, apologising last week “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended”. But after declining to apologise directly to Omar during a tense phone call on Monday, which Omar abruptly ended, Boebert again went on the attack.“Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101 and a pillar of the Democrat party,” Boebert said in an Instagram video.So far, McCarthy is taking her side. When asked on Tuesday what he would do if Democrats tried to censure Boebert, McCarthy said: “After she apologised personally and publicly? I’d vote against it.”TopicsIlhan OmarDemocratsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lie

      by

      Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lie
      Former president issues typically rambling statement
      Capitol attack: Schiff says Meadows contempt decision soon
      Donald Trump has challenged leading editors and politicians to debate him in public over his lie that Joe Biden beat him in 2020 through electoral fraud.In a typically rambling statement on Sunday, the former president complained about “the heads of the various papers [and] far left politicians” and said: “If anyone would like a public debate on the facts, not the fiction, please let me know. It will be a ratings bonanza for television!”Can the Republican party escape Trump? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead moreDespite Trump’s insistence that “the 2020 election was rigged and stolen” – and his well-known fixation on TV ratings – it was not.Even William Barr, an attorney general widely seen as willing to run interference for Trump, publicly stated there was no evidence of widespread electoral fraud.Biden beat Trump by more than 7m in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college, a result Trump called a landslide when he beat Hillary Clinton by it in 2016. Clinton also beat him in the popular vote.Trump’s proposal of a public debate – which seemed unlikely to bear fruit – extended to what he called “members of the highly partisan unselect committee of Democrats who refuse to delve into what caused the 6 January protest”.The attack on the US Capitol, Trump said, was caused by “the fake election results”.In a way, he was right. It was his lies about the election which led to the deaths of five people around the attack on Congress by a mob seeking to stop certification of Biden’s win, some chanting that Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, should be hanged.At a rally near the White House shortly before the riot, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in his cause. He was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when only seven GOP senators found him guilty, not enough to convict.On Sunday, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee and a member of the 6 January panel, told CNN: “We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment. That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”To adapt the Tennessee Republican Howard Baker’s famous question about Richard Nixon and Watergate, the House committee is focusing on what Trump knew about plans for protest and possible violence on 6 January – and when he knew it.00:45Numerous Trump aides and allies have been served with subpoenas. Most, like the former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to contempt of Congress in the first such case since 1983, have refused to cooperate.‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violenceRead moreSchiff said a decision on a possible contempt charge for Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, would likely be made in the coming week.It seems unlikely any senior figure in the US media or among Democrats in Congress or state governments will take up Trump’s challenge to debate him in public.Observers including the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who helped Trump prepare for his debates against Biden, agree that a near-berserk performance in the first such contest did significant damage to Trump’s chances of re-election.At one point on a chaotic evening in Cleveland in September, Biden was so exasperated as to plead: “Would you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsUS CongressUS press and publishingDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent

      by

      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent
      House panel investigating Trump supporters’ deadly riot
      Former White House chief of staff has not co-operated
      Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
      The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is likely to decide this week whether to charge Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff, with criminal contempt of Congress, a key panel member said.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead more“I think we will probably make a decision this week on our course of conduct with that particular witness and maybe others,” Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chair of the House intelligence committee, told CNN’s State of the Union.Schiff also said he was concerned about the Department of Justice, for a perceived lack of interest in investigating Trump’s own actions, including asking officials in Georgia to “find” votes which would overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The 6 January committee is investigating the attack on the Capitol by supporters who Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Trump was impeached with support from 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven senators defected. The select committee contains only two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who broke with Trump over 6 January.“We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment,” Schiff said. “That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”Asked about Meadows – who is due to publish a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, on 7 December – Schiff said: “I can’t go into you know, communications that we’re having or haven’t had with particular witnesses.“But we are moving with alacrity with anyone who obstructs the committee, and that was really the case with Mr Bannon, it would be the case with Mr Meadows and Mr Clark or any others.”Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist, pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal contempt, the first pursued by Congress and the DoJ since 1982. Facing a fine and jail time, on Thursday Bannon filed a request that all documents in his case be made public.Like Bannon and Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official, has refused to co-operate with the House committee. Lawyers for Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege, the doctrine which deals with the confidentiality of communications between a president and his aides. Many experts say executive privilege does not apply to former presidents. The Biden White House has waived it.“It varies witness to witness,” Schiff said, “but we discuss as a committee and with our legal counsel what’s the appropriate step to make sure the American people get the information. We intend to hold public hearings again soon to bring the public along with us and show what we’re learning in real time. But we’re going to make these decisions very soon.”Schiff said he could not “go into the evidence that we have gathered” about Trump’s role in the events of 6 January, around which five people died and on which the vice-president, Mike Pence, was hidden from a mob which chanted for his hanging.“I think among the most important questions that we’re investigating,” Schiff said, “is the complete role of the former president.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders know about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead more“I think among the most, the broadest category of unknowns are those surrounding the former president. And we are determined to get answers.”Schiff was also asked about suggestions, including from Amit Mehta, a judge overseeing cases against Capitol rioters, nearly 700 of whom have been charged, that Trump might seem to be being let off the hook by the Department of Justice.Schiff said: “I am concerned that there does not appear to be an investigation, unless it’s being done very quietly by the justice department of … the former president on the phone with the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find, really demanding he find 11,780 votes that don’t exist, the precise number he would need to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that state.“I think if you or I were on that call and reported we’d be under investigation [or] indictment by now for a criminal effort to defraud the people in Georgia and the people in the country.“So that specifically I’m concerned about.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More