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      Jamie Raskin: grieving congressman leads push to impeach Trump

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      For Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman and constitutional law professor who is leading the push to impeach Donald Trump for a second time, the last fortnight has been tumultuous.He lost his son 25-year-old son, Tommy, who had struggled with depression, on New Year’s Eve.Seeing it as his duty, Raskin attended last week’s certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Congress with members of his family, from whom he was separated as a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol building.Despite these profound emotional shocks, Raskin has spent the last week drafting the article of impeachment against Trump over his role in inciting the storming of Congress, which is likely to be voted on by the House of Representatives later on Wednesday.The day before the storming of the Capitol, Raskin had buried his son, who died after leaving his family a note. “Please forgive me,” he had written. “My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”As he stood to speak in the debate on the certification less than 24 hours later, Raskin – who had pinned a piece of black cloth to his lapel – received a standing ovation from fellow members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, who were aware of his recent loss and that he had still come to vote.Not long afterwards, the Trumpist mob broke in.Since then, Raskin has authored the House resolution that called on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and declare Trump unable to complete his term, which expires next week. Pence ruled out doing that Tuesday night.The chamber quickly moved to the article of impeachment, which Raskin also helped draft. He has been clear about why he has needed to push through the difficult emotions he and his family have been confronting to hold Trump to account.“The president is a lethal danger to the American republic and the American people,” Raskin told the Atlantic magazine last week as he began drawing up the article of impeachment. “There has been nothing like this since the civil war.”And as Raskin told the Washington Post, he felt his son’s presence throughout the recent events. “I felt him in my heart and in my chest,” he said. “All the way through the counting of the electoral college votes and through the nightmare of the armed attack on the Capitol.”His son, a law student, as Raskin explained to the paper, had once asked him a question that had focused his mind.For a class about the first amendment issue of freedom of speech, Tommy Raskin had asked his father about “incitement to imminent lawless action”, and whether a government official who had sworn an oath to uphold the constitution should be held to a higher standard.“That ironically is going to be the critical issue for us talking about Donald Trump,” said Raskin. “Some people are saying: ‘Well, Donald Trump was just exercising his free speech.’ As president of the United States, he cannot be encouraging, counselling and inciting mobs that go and attack the Capitol of the United States.”Raskin is clear about what the US is confronting in the aftermath of the assault on Congress.“The president didn’t want to let go, and the fruit of his obsession with his big lie that he had actually won the election was this nightmarish assault on Congress,” Raskin said. “The president has become a clear and present danger to the republic.”“That is the groundwork for fascism, when you add racism, antisemitism, conspiracy theory and magical thinking. That is an absolute powder keg in terms of an assault on democracy,” Raskin said of the riot in an interview. “So we have to be very tough, and very strong right now in defending the constitution and democracy.”During the storming of Congress, Raskin’s thoughts were mostly on his 23-year-old daughter, Tabitha, and his son-in-law, who had accompanied him to the Capitol and were separated in the mayhem.When they were eventually reunited, Raskin assured his daughter that the next time she went to the Capitol, it would be calmer. “Dad, I don’t think there’s gonna be a next time,” she replied.Associated Press contributed to this reportIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. More

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      'Totally appropriate': Trump shows no remorse over role in Capitol attack

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterAn unrepentant Donald Trump has denied inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol, in an attempt to shift blame Democrats rejected as “despicable”.The president spoke to reporters for the first time since a pro-Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol last week, leaving five people dead. Democrats accuse him of stoking violence and could vote to impeach him on Wednesday.“So if you read my speech – and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television – it’s been analysed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump insisted at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, ahead of a trip to Texas to tour his border wall.The president then sought to draw an equivalence with last summer’s mostly peaceful protests against racial injustice, falsely referring to them as “riots”. He said: “If you look at what other people have said – politicians at a high level – about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle, in various other places, that was a real problem – what they said.”It was shortly before noon last Wednesday when Trump gave an incendiary speech to a raucous crowd, insisting his election defeat by Joe Biden could be overturned and urging them to march to the Capitol and “fight much harder” against “bad people”.He said: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.”Democrats have directly linked the speech, and previous Trump comments, to the carnage that unfolded when rioters, some carrying Confederate flags, fought with police and looted congressional offices. They have demanded Trump be removed or face a historic second impeachment.As he left the White House on Tuesday, Trump said: “The impeachment is really a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in the history of politics. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This impeachment is causing tremendous anger and it’s really a terrible thing that they’re doing.”Democrats gave short shrift to Trump’s denial of responsibility. Speaking to reporters in New York, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said: “What Trump did today, blaming others for what he caused, is a pathological technique used by the worst of dictators.“Trump causes the anger, he causes the divisiveness, he foments the violence and blames others for it. That is despicable. The technique Trump is using is used by the worst dictators the globe has ever seen. Donald Trump should not hold office one day longer and what we saw in his statements today is proof positive of that.”Federal investigators are warning of additional potential security threats around the inauguration of Biden next week. NBC News reported that extremists are using Telegram, an encrypted communication app, to urge violence and even share knowledge of how to make guns and bombs.Multiple media outlets also confirmed an ABC News report that the FBI expects armed pro-Trump protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington before inauguration day.Trump’s potential to fuel further unrest is a source of anxiety. Behind the scenes, he has reportedly continued his retreat into paranoia and unreality, repeating in a conversation with the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, the outlandish lie that so-called “antifa” leftwing activists, not his supporters, were responsible for death and destruction inside the Capitol.“It’s not antifa,” McCarthy reportedly replied. “It’s Maga. I know. I was there.” Maga refers to the Trump slogan “Make America Great Again”.The House was due to vote on Tuesday night on a resolution seeking the use of the 25th amendment, which provides for the removal of a president deemed unfit for office. Dependent on the vice-president, Mike Pence, the gambit seemed sure to fail.After days of silence between the pair, Trump and Pence held a “good conversation” at the White House on Monday evening, an unnamed official told Reuters.Some who responded to Trump’s call to storm the Capitol, prompting clashes in which a police officer was killed, a rioter was shot dead and three others died, were caught on video chanting “Hang Mike Pence”.A House vote to impeach Trump on one article, for incitement of insurrection, is expected on Wednesday. The timetable for an ensuing Senate trial is uncertain. If Trump is convicted after he leaves power, the Senate could decide to disqualify him from running for office again.Unlike Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, a sizable number of Republicans in the House and a handful in the Senate have signaled support. Those lawmakers included Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican. Republicans expect up to 20 GOP lawmakers to vote for impeachment, Punchbowl reported.Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman, told the MSNBC network: “We don’t actually need a lot of evidence here because it’s all out in the open. There’s no dispute Donald Trump gave a speech. No dispute there was an attack on the Capitol. No dispute that multiple people died.”Last week’s huge security failure is under growing scrutiny. The Washington Post said it had obtained an internal FBI document from the day before the attack warning extremists were preparing to commit violence and “war”. The report undermined previous claims that the FBI had no intelligence about an imminent attack.Explanations for why Trump himself could not be reached as the Capitol was attacked continued to emerge. According to the Post, quoting an unnamed close adviser, the president was “hard to reach … because it was live TV”.“If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls,” the adviser said. “If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.”Trump’s Tuesday visit to the Texas border town of Alamo, 240 miles south of the historic Alamo fort, was promoted as a way to highlight work on the border wall and seen as a potential effort to change the narrative.News of Trump’s visit was cause for some confusion with the hugely symbolic Alamo fort in San Antonio, a World Heritage Site where fighters for Texan independence were massacred in 1836.Some observers suggested Trump had booked a venue in error, as his campaign apparently and famously did at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a business in Philadelphia, in November. Many were worried by the prospect of Trump’s visit to Texas, one writing: “Remember the Alamo [is] a rallying cry.”The former federal cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, whom Trump fired for saying the election was secure, told CNN: “This is the equivalent of ignoring that pain in your chest for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden you have a catastrophic heart attack.“We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here.” More

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      Kamala Harris and why politicians can’t resist Vogue (though it always ends in tears)

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      When Theresa May appeared in US Vogue in 2017, even her deliberately anodyne choice of a posh-end-of-the-high-street dress by British label LK Bennett did not prevent this newspaper calling the Annie Leibovitz shoot a “defining moment” which, “like Margaret Thatcher in the tank turret looking like a cross between Boudicca and Lawrence of Arabia … might easily become a signifier of all that is flawed in her prime ministerial style”. Michelle Obama’s bare upper arms appeared no fewer than three times on the cover of Vogue during her White House years, causing pearl-clutching uproar at the sight of her toned triceps.A political Vogue appearance is such a white-hot issue that it causes controversy even when it doesn’t happen. Donald Trump recently weighed in to complain about “elitist” Vogue having snubbed Melania, notable by her absence from the magazine over the past four years. Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris’s Vogue debut, in the February issue of the magazine’s US edition, is the latest in a long line of political covers to have caused a media storm. Sunday’s release on social media of the rather different newsstand and digital covers quickly fuelled a wave of criticism. Had Harris’s skin tone been “washed-out” by thoughtless or even culturally insensitive lighting? Was it disrespectful, on the newsstand cover, to present Harris wearing her battered Converse trainers, rather than giving her a stately makeover? Was Harris’s team led to believe that the more formal portrait in Michael Kors tailoring, apparently destined for digital editions, would appear on newsstands, too?Vogue has sprung to the defence of images that show Harris at “her casual best” in “styling choices that were her own”. Tyler Mitchell, who in 2018 became the first African American photographer to shoot a US Vogue cover, explains in an accompanying online article that a much-maligned pink-and-green backdrop was chosen to honour Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which Mitchell’s aunt was also a member. Mitchell, who “grew up from a young age deeply understanding the rich history of these sororities and their significance … wanted the set design to pay homage to that history, to [Harris’] status as an AKA, and Black sororities and sisterhoods worldwide.”A Vogue appearance is rarely anything but controversial for women in politics, but the invitation remains apparently irresistible, nonetheless. To be a cover star – and especially for Vogue – is to be the avatar of a cultural moment. To have your image publicly displayed beneath that Vogue font is perhaps the closest any public figure will ever get to having their profile on a stamp or, while still living, their face on a banknote. And in an increasingly atomised media landscape, a Vogue cover is one of the few platforms with the cut-through to reach disparate audiences. It is shared on Instagram, discussed in newspapers, and on display at the supermarket checkout.When Hillary Clinton appeared on the cover of Vogue in 1998 it was in a floor-length velvet gown and pearl drop earrings, smiling beatifically from a stateroom banquette beside an urn spilling red roses. The letters of Vogue were spelt out – in gold – directly on top of the curlicued gilt frame of one of the wall’s oil paintings. The message was clear: a Vogue cover is as close to an official portrait as pop culture gets. Which is why the row around Vogue’s latest cover is not really about Mitchell’s lighting rig, or Harris’s shoes. Rather, these portraits are a lightning rod for a country grappling with a moment of cultural reckoning around gender, race and power.Harris’s stretchy black trousers are a little wrinkled around the knees, the kind of imperfection you might expect to have been smoothed out by a watchful assistantThe relaxed and smiling images were taken in the dizzy post-election relief of November, but landed online a few days after the storming of the Capitol had dialled the emotional tone of politics back up to febrile. This, perhaps, has left them out of step with the particular moment. In the more casual of the two portraits, Harris’s stretchy black trousers are a little wrinkled around the knees – just a tiny imperfection, but the kind that you might expect to have been smoothed out by a watchful assistant before the shutter clicked. Perhaps the informality was judged by the editorial team to chime better with the era of WFH dressing than slick tailoring. Perhaps it was intended to channel Harris’s now famous leggings-clad victory moment. (“We did it, Joe!”).Certainly, any likeness to the 2009 cover for Newsweek of Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, posing in her gym gear, is unintentional. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who after a close relationship with the Obamas has been in self-imposed exile from the circles of political power during Trump’s presidency, will surely be looking to align herself as friend and ally of the incoming Democrat administration.The current British Vogue is more overtly political than ever before, and wears its activist heart on its cover – the magazine equivalent of its sleeve. Recent cover stars have included frontline workers and the Man United and England striker Marcus Rashford who, as one of the most high-profile public figures driving legislation for progressive social change, surely counts as a political figure – and the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who was featured among 15 Forces for Change on the August 2019 cover.British politicians, however, have been notable by their absence. And should a flattering invitation find its way to a Westminster in-tray, it should be approached with caution. A Vogue cover is always a moment, but not always a flattering one. More

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      Why the Democrats should not impeach Donald Trump | Simon Jenkins

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      There is a good reason for America’s Congress to humiliate Donald Trump this week, just days from his end of term. His incitement of violence against the Capitol merits his instant removal, as it does the alternative of impeachment. It would be a signal to the world that America is ashamed of this man and sees him as a mistake, a blip, a passing nightmare. The world should sigh with relief.Beyond that, all reasons for removing Trump are bad ones. They would deflect attention from Joe Biden’s victory and transition into office. And they would run a bigger risk.The single most significant feature of last November’s election was that Trump won 11 million more popular votes than he did in 2016, a rise from roughly 63 million to 74 million. He might be rich, crude, immoral and incompetent, but he became more popular in office with his base, not less. According to exit polls, support for Trump also increased among black and Latino voters.Analysts can debate these figures all night, but they are facts. Biden clearly owed his victory to a rise in support from college-educated and wealthier Democrats. Last week, Trump may have tested populism to destruction, but it remains to be seen if he destroyed the bedrock of his support.Trump’s 2016 desire to “drain the swamp” – of federal power, overseas alliances and political insiders – was undimmed after four years in office. At the end, as at the beginning, he loathed the old guard in Congress and abhorred the normal channels of communication with voters. In last year’s election, Trump portrayed his cause as incomplete and essential, and persuaded almost half of America that its ruling class was still out to balk him. An extra 11 million Americans voted to give him another try.Trump’s enemies may have hoped that his actions last week killed him politically. In which case, leave him dead. To pursue him now looks like a vendetta; not just against him, but against his cause and supporters. It is one thing to hate Trump but another to hate those who voted for him, and who in their hearts may yet admire Trump’s extremism and eccentricity and see him as their spokesman. Many are non-college-educated Americans who feel failed by those in power, those who Hillary Clinton in 2016 called a “basket of deplorables”.The outgoing president’s reputation among these people will only grow with each cry of glee from his enemies. Even if he vanishes into exile, his supporters will seek another saviour, another maverick from the rambling confederacy that is modern American democracy. That is why liberals everywhere should be careful how they react to Trump’s going. Losers should know how to lose well, but victors should know how to win wisely. So ignore Trump, and just count the minutes until he goes. More

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      Pelosi says House will proceed with efforts to remove Trump 'with urgency'

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      The House is prepared to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump as early as this week if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet refuse to remove him from office for his role in inciting a mob that carried out a deadly assault on the seat of American government.
      The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delivered the ultimatum in a letter to colleagues on Sunday night that described the president as an urgent threat to the nation.
      On Monday, the House will move forward with a non-binding resolution that calls on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and strip Trump of his presidential authority. If the measure fails to receive unanimous support, as is expected, the House will vote on the resolution on Tuesday. Pence, Pelosi said, would have “24 hours” to respond.
      Next, Pelosi said the House “will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor.” Though she did not specify an exact timeline, top Democrats have suggested the House could begin proceedings as soon as midweek, with a Senate trial delayed – possibly for months – so as not distract from Joe Biden’s agenda.
      Quick guide Impeaching Trump
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      Will Trump be impeached for a second time? Yes. Congressman Ted Lieu has said most Democrats in the House have signed on to articles of impeachment accusing the president of having “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions” that are due to be introduced on Monday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on board.
      Is Trump heading to the Senate for trial? It seems so. A House majority will send the articles to the upper chamber, and it is hard to see any Democrats deserting their party. Some Republicans have also said the president needs to go.
      Can the Senate try Trump so close to Joe Biden’s inauguration? Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that it can, although the narrow timeframe means the earliest a trial could be held would be after inauguration day, 20 January, when Trump will be out of power. The wait may be longer, however: on 10 January, House whip James Clyburn, who is close to Biden, indicated that Democrats may not send articles to the Senate until it has confirmed the new president’s cabinet nominees – a vital process.
      Will he be convicted? Unlikely. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority. The chamber is split 50-50, and though some Republicans have either said Trump should go or indicated sympathy for impeachment, nowhere near enough seem likely to cross their own supporters by voting against the president to whom the party remains overwhelmingly loyal.
      So what happens if he gets off again? Barring a presidential pardon – which Trump may try to give to himself, a move most scholars doubt will work – once out of the White House Trump will be vulnerable to federal prosecution over acts in office. State investigations, including those under way in New York, can proceed and business creditors will circle.  Martin Pengelly

      Photograph: Brian Snyder/X90051

      “In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
      Pelosi noted urgency was required because Trump was due to leave office on 20 January.
      She explained that the resolution called on Pence “to convene and mobilize the cabinet to activate the 25th amendment to declare the president incapable of executing the duties of his office.”

      Jake Sherman
      (@JakeSherman)
      🚨NEW … ⁦@LeaderHoyer⁩ is asking for consent for the 25th amendment bill tomorrow. And then the House will move to impeach trumpHere’s ⁦@SpeakerPelosi⁩ letter to her Dem colleagues. pic.twitter.com/CubXVVvgli

      January 10, 2021

      Under the procedure, the vice president “would immediately exercise powers as acting president,” she wrote.
      On Sunday, Pelosi told 60 Minutes Trump was “a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States,” adding that he has done something “so serious that there should be prosecution against him”.
      Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing Trump out, although talk has been circulating about the 25th amendment option for days in Washington.
      Earlier it had been speculated that House Democrats could try to introduce articles of impeachment as early as Monday.
      One touted strategy was to condemn the president’s actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated 20 January.
      Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas on Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.
      “Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Clyburn said.
      The push by House Democrats came after the office of the Colorado Democratic representative Jason Crow released a readout of a call in which army secretary Ryan McCarthy “indicated that [the Department of Defense] is aware of further possible threats posed by would-be terrorists in the days up to and including Inauguration Day”.
      According to the readout, McCarthy said the Pentagon was “working with local and federal law enforcement to coordinate security preparations” for 20 January.
      Crow, a former US army ranger, said he had “raised grave concerns about reports that active duty and reserve military members were involved in the insurrection” and asked that “troops deployed for the inauguration … are not sympathetic to domestic terrorists”. The readout said McCarthy agreed and said he was willing to testify publicly in the coming days.
      On Sunday Republican senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania joined colleague Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible.”
      “I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he is electable in any way.”
      Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Trump’s conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply “needs to get out.” A third Republican, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his final days in office.
      Corporate America began to tie its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.
      Citigroup said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
      House leaders, furious after the insurrection, appeared determined to act against Trump despite the short timeline.
      Another idea being considered was to have a separate vote that would prevent Trump from ever holding office again. That could potentially only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.
      The Senate was set to be split evenly at 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won Georgia’s Senate runoff elections last week are sworn in. Harris would be the Senate’s tie-breaking vote.
      The FBI and other agencies are continuing their examination of the circumstances of the insurrection, including allegations that Pentagon officials loyal to Trump blocked the deployment of national guard troops for three hours after officials called for help.
      “We couldn’t actually cross over the border into DC without the OK and that was quite some time [coming],” the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, told CNN.
      “Eventually I got a call from the secretary of the army, asking if we could come into the city, but we had already been mobilising, we already had our police, we already had our guard mobilised, and we were just waiting for that call. More

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      Inequality, racism and polarisation set stage for Trump's 'American carnage'

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      Analysis: The attack on the US Capitol shook America’s image of itself but is democracy really in its most precarious moment since the civil war?In the film Mr Smith Goes to Washington, James Stewart’s eponymous hero gazes with reverence and awe at the dome of the US Capitol, the near sacred citadel of American democracy. Continue reading… More

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      US Capitol attack: Trump impeachment looms as Republican support wavers

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      [embedded content]
      Efforts to remove Donald Trump from the White House gathered pace on Saturday, as Democrats announced that at least 180 members of Congress would co-sponsor an article of impeachment they intend to introduce in the House of Representatives on Monday.
      The show of force by the president’s opponents comes amid continuing revulsion at Trump’s incitement of Wednesday’s deadly US Capitol riot and his attempts to overturn electoral defeat by Joe Biden.
      One of the authors of the impeachment resolution, the California congressman Ted Lieu, repeated demands for Trump to resign or face the ignominy of being the first president to be impeached twice.
      On Twitter, Lieu announced that the vast majority of the 222 Democratic House members were onboard for impeachment, and revealed a letter to the New York state bar demanding the disbarment of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who advocated “trial by combat” at a rally preceding the violent invasion of the US Capitol building by a mob of Trump supporters.
      “We will hold responsible everyone involved with the attempted coup,” Lieu wrote.
      Trump’s grip on the presidency appeared increasingly tenuous as impeachment plans advanced, allies continued to abandon him and Twitter banned him, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.
      On Friday night one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, called for the president’s removal.
      “I want him to resign,” she said. “I want him out. He has caused enough damage.”
      Five people died around the chaos at the Capitol, including a police officer who confronted rioters and a rioter shot by law enforcement. Multiple arrests have been made, among them a Florida resident photographed walking off with the lectern of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Also arrested was a man from Arizona who styles himself as the QAnon shaman and who sat in the Vice-President’s chair in the Senate, dressed in horns and animal skins.
      Amid reports the FBI was investigating whether some rioters intended to take lawmakers hostage, the Washington US attorney said a 70-year-old Alabama man was charged after his truck was discovered packed with homemade bombs and guns. Another man was alleged to have threatened to kill Pelosi and to have been heavily armed.
      The article of impeachment, which charges Trump with inciting an insurrection and having “gravely endangered the security of the United States” and its institutions, prompted a flurry of legal activity at the White House, according to Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter. She tweeted that a defence team was beginning to take shape, including Giuliani and possibly Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer who has defended Trump before.

      Significantly, current White House counsel, including Jay Sekulow, Marty and Jane Raskins, Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, were reportedly unlikely to be involved in any Senate trial, which according to indications from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is almost certain to take place after Trump leaves office on 20 January.
      The impeachment move is part of a multi-pronged approach by Democrats pressing for Trump’s removal ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Pelosi, who spoke to the leader of the US military, seeking to ensure Trump cannot launch a nuclear attack, has also called for Trump’s removal via the 25th amendment, which provides for the ejection of a president deemed unable to fulfil his duties.
      The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was reportedly among officials to discuss such a course but it seems unlikely, particularly as cabinet members who might participate have resigned.
      White House sources have asserted Trump will not resign or turn over power to Vice-President Mike Pence in order to seek a pardon, so a second and high-speed impeachment looms. In his first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, Trump was acquitted by a Republican-held Senate.
      This time, more Republican senators are indicating support. Murkowski became the first in the open, telling the Anchorage Daily News: “I think he should leave.
      “He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with Covid. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice-president. More

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      'I ended up horrified': Black organizers had barely celebrated victory when mob attacked Capitol

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      [embedded content]
      Wednesday was supposed to be a day of jubilation for organizers in Georgia.
      Early that morning, news organizations projected that the Rev Raphael Warnock, a Democrat would win an upset victory over Senator Kelly Loeffler, making him the first Black senator ever elected from the state. Jon Ossoff was on the verge of defeating David Perdue in a second runoff. It was a dual result that would give Democrats control of the US Senate, and the first Democratic win for Georgia in decades.
      After years of meticulously registering and organizing the state’s growing population of minority voters, Black voters turned out in droves and were responsible for powering Democrats to victory. It was a payoff years in the making.
      But as the day wore on, those same organizers watched with horror as a pro-Trump mob took over the US Capitol in Washington, bypassing law enforcement officers and forcing lawmakers to evacuate. By the time the Associated Press formally declared Ossoff the winner in his race by mid-afternoon, it was no longer the biggest story of the day.
      Felicia Davis, an organizer who is the convener of the Clayton county Black Women’s Roundtable, said her feelings shifted from when she woke up in the morning.
      “I woke up feeling joy, I then went into a state of anxiety, and then finally I ended up horrified,” she said.
      Deborah Scott, the executive director of Georgia Stand-Up, one of the groups that helped mobilize voters, said she and other organizers left their office on Wednesday morning on a high note, but the mood shifted just hours later. “It definitely was overshadowed,” she said. “You look at the paper today, and the election is almost an afterthought. I think that’s what they want, they want chaos.”
      Watching the images on television, Scott said she couldn’t help but think of how much more aggressive police were towards Black Lives Matter protesters.
      “Most Black people saw that and watched in horror and said it would be such a different thing if it was us,” Scott said. “It kind of took away from the feeling of ecstasy, like the people won, they chose who they wanted.”
      Warnock’s Twitter feed underscored the whiplash of the day, the New York Times noted. At 1.55pm he sent out a tweet celebrating the historic nature of his win. His next tweet, less than two hours later, quoted Martin Luther King Jr and condemned the violence in Washington.

      Senator-Elect Reverend Raphael Warnock
      (@ReverendWarnock)
      Georgia, we made history. I am forever grateful. pic.twitter.com/hQfCYKEo3q

      January 6, 2021

      Senator-Elect Reverend Raphael Warnock
      (@ReverendWarnock)
      In this moment of unrest, violence and anger, we must remember the words of Dr. King, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Let each of us try to be a light to see our country out of this dark moment.

      January 6, 2021

      It had been a victory in Georgia that was made possible by months of methodical canvassing on display even in the final days of the race. In a final push early on Monday morning, canvassers with Georgia Stand-Up worked in pairs in a quiet suburban neighborhood, quickly placing leaflets on doors with information telling people how they could vote. Their goal was to knock on just over 6,000 doors in the final day, bringing their statewide total to 100,000.
      On Wednesday evening, after the violence at the Capitol unfolded Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate credited with leading efforts to mobilize minority voters, tweeted a reminder of that work, and the historic achievement in Georgia.

      Stacey Abrams
      (@staceyabrams)
      While today’s terrible display of terror and meanness shakes us, let’s remember: @ossoff, Jewish son of an immigrant & @ReverendWarnock, first Black Senator from Georgia, will join a Catholic POTUS & the first woman, Black + Indian VP in our nation’s capital. God bless America.

      January 7, 2021

      The attack on the Capitol also took place as Republican lawmakers, led by Donald Trump, pushed forward with their effort to undermine confidence in the results of the 2020 race. Even though courts across the country have universally rejected Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud, Republicans in Congress objected on Wednesday to the counting of electoral votes from swing states Joe Biden won in November.
      Though the challenges were ultimately unsuccessful, they were still a form of voter suppression, said Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group that also helped register voters.
      “They’re trying to put doubt in our process and they’re trying to make sure that certain people don’t vote, it’s not counted,” she said. “Kind of putting water on fire, kind of dampening spirits. But we’re resilient and we’re not going to let that stop us. Because we intend to protect the right to vote.”
      Scott said her group had already received calls from people in other southern states – North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi – seeking to learn and replicate strategies in Georgia in their states.
      “By the end of [the day] it was like ‘OK, we know more work has to be done now,” she said. “It’s gonna make us stronger. I see this, particularly the Georgia win, as a tipping point for the rest of the south.” More