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      In Virginia, Democrats Sprint to Select Nominee for Special House Election

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      After a congressman’s death last month, Jennifer McClellan, a state senator who lost a bid for governor in 2021, is the front-runner and could become the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress.Democrats in Richmond, Va., the state capital, are scrambling to organize a primary election on Tuesday after the death of a congressman just weeks ago, and the race’s front-runner could become the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress since the state was founded in 1788.Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who overwhelmingly won re-election in the midterms last month, died on Nov. 28 at the age of 61, following a yearslong battle with colorectal cancer.Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, set the special election for Mr. McEachin’s seat for Feb. 21. Because Mr. McEachin’s district leans Democratic — the Fourth Congressional District is a predominantly Black and Latino region that stretches from Richmond into rural counties along the North Carolina border — the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary is highly favored to win the special election in February. Mr. McEachin defeated his Republican opponent by 30 points in November.Democrats organized Tuesday’s party-run primary for just one week after the governor’s announcement, a rushed timeline made all the more complicated by holding an election five days before Christmas.“The governor definitely chose the shortest amount of time, which has made us have to put together this nomination contest on the shortest time frame,” said Alexsis Rodgers, chairwoman of the Fourth Congressional District Democratic Committee.A New U.S. Congress Takes ShapeFollowing the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of the Senate while Republicans flipped the House.Who Is George Santos?: The G.O.P. congressman-elect from New York says he’s the “embodiment of the American dream.” But his résumé appears to be mostly fiction.McCarthy’s Fraught Speaker Bid: Representative Kevin McCarthy has so far been unable to quash a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his effort to secure the top House job.The G.O.P.’s Fringe: Three incoming congressmen attended a gala that drew white nationalists and conspiracy theorists, raising questions about the influence of extremists on the new Republican-led House.Kyrsten Sinema: The Arizona senator said that she would leave the Democratic Party and register as an independent, just days after the Democrats secured an expanded majority in the Senate.A front-runner quickly emerged: State Senator Jennifer McClellan, a veteran lawmaker who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2021. In the first 24 hours of declaring her candidacy, she raised more than $100,000, according to her campaign.Two of the state’s top Black elected officials initially expressed interest, Ms. McClellan and Lamont Bagby, a state delegate. They lead the influential Virginia Legislative Black Caucus — Mr. Bagby is the caucus chair and Ms. McClellan is the vice chair.Last week, however, Mr. Bagby dropped out and endorsed Ms. McClellan. Other Democrats soon followed with endorsements of Ms. McClellan, including all eight members of Virginia’s Democratic congressional delegation, Mr. McEachin’s widow and scores of national Democratic groups.A flag at the U.S. Capitol marked the death of Representative A. Donald McEachin in late November.Leigh Vogel for The New York TimesMs. McClellan, who has run what she called a one-week get-out-the-vote campaign and has knocked on doors with several state leaders, centered her message on her Virginia roots and legislative accomplishments. In an interview on Friday, she said being a Black woman helped shape her policies, particularly on workers’ rights and maternal health.“I bring a new perspective to the office that will help me represent the district and those who have not had a voice, in ways that other candidates cannot,” she said. She listed her noteworthy firsts — she was the first Black woman to hold her State Senate seat and was the first person to serve in the State House of Delegates while pregnant.Democrats in the district will hold a so-called firehouse primary on Tuesday. Named for the polling places where they are typically held, such elections are organized and funded by party representatives rather than local or state election officials. Democratic voters in the primary will be required to sign a pledge stating they will vote for the party’s nominee during the general election.Ms. McClellan’s main Democratic opponent is State Senator Joe Morrissey, a self-described rebel within the party. Mr. Morrissey, a former defense lawyer, was disbarred twice and spent time in jail for aiding the delinquency of a minor in 2014. The minor involved later became his wife. In January 2022, then-Gov. Ralph Northam pardoned Mr. Morrissey for his conviction in the case.Mr. Morrissey has voted against Democratic policies and has signaled his opposition to proposed state policies protecting abortion access. John Fredericks, a prominent Virginia Republican and radio host, cut an ad for Mr. Morrissey and has been encouraging his listeners to vote for him in the Democratic primary.State Senator Joe Morrissey has voted against Democratic priorities and has the support of a prominent Virginia Republican.Daniel Sangjib Min/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated PressHowever, Mr. Morrissey’s criminal justice work in Richmond’s Black communities has earned him support in the district. He has also won against tough odds before. In 2019, he defeated an incumbent Democratic state senator.Representatives for Mr. Morrissey did not respond to requests for comment.During an episode of his radio show on Thursday, Mr. Morrissey railed against Democrats’ handling of the primary, saying that setting the primary election on a weekday instead of the weekend, as well as by placing zero voting locations in his home district, unfairly disadvantaged his supporters.“I don’t care that you don’t like me,” he said, addressing Democrats in the district. “That’s fine. That’s your prerogative. Go vote against me.” He added, “But what you’ve done is you have set back the voting gains that we’ve made for the last 10 years in order to get the person you want.”Other Democrats in the race include Joseph Preston, a former state delegate who served for one year, and Tavorise Marks, a businessman from the area.Virginia Republicans have already elected their nominee for the seat. Leon Benjamin, a pastor and Navy veteran whom Mr. McEachin handily defeated in November, won the Republican nomination on Saturday, in a ranked-choice primary held by the district G.O.P. committee. More

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      George Santos Dodges Questions as Democrats Label Him ‘Unfit to Serve’

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      Democratic House leaders stopped short of calling for the resignation of Mr. Santos, a Republican, who may have misrepresented himself in his résumé.Representative-elect George Santos on Monday faced a barrage of questions, as well as an uncertain future, after an article in The New York Times revealed that he may have misrepresented key parts of his résumé on the campaign trail.The Times’s report found that Mr. Santos, a Republican whose victory in Long Island and northeast Queens last month helped his party clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, may have misled voters about his college graduation and his purported career on Wall Street and omitted details about his business from financial disclosures forms.House Republicans and state party leaders were largely silent on Monday. But Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County Republican chairman, said in a statement that The Times’s reporting raised “serious” issues that he believed Mr. Santos should address.“Every person deserves an opportunity to ‘clear’ his/her name in the face of accusations,” Mr. Cairo said. “I am committed to this principle, and I look forward to the congressman-elect’s responses to the news reports.”Mr. Santos, 34, has declined numerous requests to be interviewed. On Monday evening, he used Twitter to recirculate a short statement that his lawyer, Joseph Murray, had released on Friday, with one small addition. On Monday, Mr. Murray characterized the Times article as a “shotgun blast of attacks,” but did not provide specific criticisms of what he had called The Times’s “defamatory allegations.”The statement was Mr. Santos’s first public acknowledgment of the questions surrounding his background since Sunday night, when — hours after he had been notified of The Times’s plans to publish its findings — Mr. Santos said on Twitter that he enthusiastically backed Representative Kevin McCarthy of California to be the next House speaker.Mr. McCarthy has been working to quell an effort by hard-right lawmakers to threaten his bid to become speaker when Republicans take control of the House. He has not addressed Mr. Santos’s remarks or The Times’s reporting. A spokesman did not respond to emails and phone calls asking for an interview.A New U.S. Congress Takes ShapeFollowing the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of the Senate while Republicans flipped the House.McCarthy’s Fraught Speaker Bid: Representative Kevin McCarthy has so far been unable to quash a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his effort to secure the top House job.The G.O.P.’s Fringe: Three incoming congressmen attended a gala that drew white nationalists and conspiracy theorists, raising questions about the influence of extremists on the new Republican-led House.Kyrsten Sinema: The Arizona senator said that she would leave the Democratic Party and register as an independent, just days after the Democrats secured an expanded majority in the Senate.A Looming Clash: Congressional leaders have all but abandoned the idea of acting to raise the debt ceiling before Democrats lose control of the House, punting the issue to a new Congress.Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat of California, questioned on Twitter whether Mr. McCarthy might “strike a corrupt bargain” with Mr. Santos, suggesting that Mr. McCarthy would refrain from taking action against Mr. Santos in exchange for his vote as House speaker.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who will be the House Democrats’ leader when the next Congress begins in January, said in a statement that Mr. Santos was “woefully unqualified” and “clearly unfit to serve.”But Mr. Jeffries, whose caucus is days away from falling out of power, stopped short of calling for action on the part of Republican leaders, even as some state Democrats pushed for further investigation.Susan Lerner, the executive director of the government reform group Common Cause, called on Mr. Santos to step down and urged the bipartisan Office of Congressional Ethics and federal prosecutors to investigate.With a razor-thin majority, Republicans have few reasons for challenging or investigating Mr. Santos, and many for defending him. If Mr. Santos were to resign, there is no guarantee that a Republican would win a special election to fill his seat.Mr. Santos, who ran unopposed in his primary this year, was already expected to face a challenging re-election in 2024 in a largely suburban district that, until this year, had recently favored Democrats.Over the course of his campaigns, Mr. Santos claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in 2010 before working at Citigroup and, eventually, Goldman Sachs. But officials at Baruch said they could find no record of his having graduated that year, and representatives from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs could not locate records of his employment.Experts in ethics noted that Mr. Santos’s campaign disclosures revealed little about the source of his fortune, in particular failing to name any client who paid more than $5,000 to his company, the Devolder Organization. Such an omission could be problematic if it were to become clear that he had intentionally avoided disclosing his clientele.Mr. Santos’s candidate disclosures show that he paid himself $750,000 annually, and earned dividends of more than $1 million while running for Congress.There are several avenues by which an ethics investigation could take place within the House of Representatives, but none would be likely to affect Mr. Santos’s ability to assume office in January.Any process would require bipartisan cooperation and would be likely to be lengthy. There is also the question of whether the House would claim jurisdiction over behavior that took place before the subject assumed office, though some recent actions suggest that they might be inclined to take a more expansive approach, if the behavior was campaign-related.Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chair, said that Mr. McCarthy should delay seating Mr. Santos pending an investigation. The state party has been under siege since Democrats underperformed in November, particularly on Long Island, and faced new criticism on Monday over its failure to identify or effectively publicize the inconsistencies in Mr. Santos’s résumé before Election Day.Mr. Jacobs acknowledged that the revelations would have had more impact during the campaign. “The opposition research wasn’t as complete as the Times investigation,” he said, but said that attention would be more appropriately directed at Mr. Santos rather than the party.Several of Mr. Santos’s future constituents said they were shocked and disappointed at the disclosures of his apparent misrepresentations.Andres Thaodopoulos, 36, the owner of a Greek restaurant in the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens, said that he did not vote in November, but that he had welcomed Mr. Santos’s promises to fight crime and cut taxes.“I feel disappointed because the people trust our lives to these leaders,” he said.On Monday night, after Mr. Santos posted his lawyer’s statement, Mr. Swalwell criticized it for insufficiently addressing the questions raised by The Times’s story, including a criminal case for check fraud in Brazil that officials there said remained unresolved.Of the 132 words in the statement, Mr. Swalwell said, “not one addresses the mountain of evidence that you’re a wanted international criminal who lied about graduating college and where you worked.”Others pointed to another seeming inaccuracy. In the last sentence of his statement, Mr. Santos’s lawyer closed with a quote he attributed to Winston Churchill: “You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”According to the fact-checking website PolitiFact, the words probably were not said by Churchill. PolitiFact instead attributed the original sentiment to the French writer Victor Hugo.Nate Schweber More

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      A Diminished Trump Meets a Damning Narrative

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      Former President Donald Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the case the panel laid out against him further complicates his future.As the summer and the House Jan. 6 committee’s hearings began, former President Donald J. Trump was still a towering figure in Republican politics, able to pick winners in primary contests and force candidates to submit to a litmus test of denialism about his loss in the 2020 election.Six months later, Mr. Trump is significantly diminished, a shrunken presence on the political landscape. His fade is partly a function of his own missteps and miscalculations in recent months. But it is also a product of the voluminous evidence assembled by the House committee and its ability to tell the story of his efforts to overturn the election in a compelling and accessible way.In ways both raw and easily digested, and with an eye for vivid detail, the committee spooled out the episodic narrative of a president who was told repeatedly he had lost and that his claims of fraud were fanciful. But Mr. Trump continued pushing them anyway, plotted to reverse the outcome, stoked the fury of his supporters, summoned them to Washington and then stood by as the violence played out.It was a turnabout in roles for a president who rose first to prominence and then to the White House on the basis of his feel for how to project himself on television.Guided by a veteran television executive, the committee sprinkled the story with moments that stayed in the public consciousness, from Mr. Trump throwing his lunch in anger against the wall of the dining room just off the Oval Office to a claim that he lunged at a Secret Service agent driving his car when he was denied his desire to join his supporters at the Capitol.On Monday — the second anniversary of Mr. Trump’s Twitter post urging his followers to come to Washington to protest his loss, promising it “will be wild!” — the committee wrapped up its case by lending the weight of the House to calls for Mr. Trump to be held criminally liable for his actions and making the case that he should never again be allowed to hold power.“No man who would behave that way at that moment can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again,” said Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who served as the committee’s vice chairwoman, referring to Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to intervene to stop the violence on Jan. 6, 2021. “He’s unfit for office.”Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.To emphasize that point, the committee did something Congress had never done before: It referred a former president to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, a largely symbolic step but one that only added to the sense that Mr. Trump is starting his 2024 presidential campaign under a number of very dark legal clouds.Federal prosecutors are investigating not only Mr. Trump’s efforts to thwart the results of the election, but also his mishandling of presidential records and classified material that he took with him when he left the White House. A prosecutor in Georgia is barreling ahead with an investigation of his efforts to reverse his election loss in that state, and his company, the Trump Organization, was convicted in New York this month of tax fraud.Whether Mr. Trump’s legal woes and political missteps will keep him from winning his party’s nomination again is another matter.Mr. Trump still has a durable base of support within the party, though just how large it is at this point is up for debate after a handful of public polls have shown more Republican voters backing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as an alternative. Other potential candidates are also watching carefully, weighing their chances if they get into a race with a weakened Mr. Trump.To some, the talk of Mr. Trump’s current fortunes is like a movie they have seen before, one in which the lead figure is left for dead only to rise again.“There’s still a lot of people that support Donald Trump; there’s just no question about that,” said Rob Gleason, the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. He pointed to stories that have dominated headlines, such as the number of Republicans whom Mr. Trump backed who lost their races, that he said simply have not seeped into the consciousness of his supporters.“We assume people know too much,” he said. “They’re not following a lot of this stuff.”Indeed, some Republicans said privately that the House select committee’s criminal referrals could serve to galvanize Mr. Trump’s supporters behind him, as was the case for a short time after the F.B.I. searched his club, Mar-a-Lago, in August, looking for additional classified documents.Some other Republicans are more skeptical.“I don’t think that anything can save Donald Trump,” said former Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida. “He’s decidedly on the path to irrelevance. He reduces himself by the day.”The rally speeches Mr. Trump gave at events during the midterm elections and his 2024 campaign announcement were largely centered on his grievances about 2020 or the investigations into his conduct — a formulation that some Republicans say is increasingly out of step with voters.“This time is different,” Mr. Curbelo said, adding that six years ago, Mr. Trump was “new and interesting” and that people were curious what kind of leader he would be. “Now Donald Trump is old, predictable, obviously petty.”Some of the candidates who most closely identified with Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election performed poorly in the midterm elections, and Republicans barely captured a House majority, despite a sitting Democratic president whose approval rating has been depressed.“I think he’s been a diminishing figure for some time,” said former Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania and a longtime critic of Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump insisted on declaring a 2024 presidential campaign a week after the midterms, against the advice of nearly all his aides and allies, delivering a lackluster speech he read with minimal emotion from a teleprompter. He has held no public political events in the nearly five weeks since.Instead, he has gotten attention for hosting a dinner at his members-only club and home in Florida with a Holocaust denier and Kanye West, the rap artist who has made a rapid descent into peddling antisemitism.For many members of a party that would like to recover from three bruising election cycles, Mr. Trump has never felt more like a product of the past.“Ironically, this is not too different from a reality TV series that’s run its course,” Mr. Curbelo said. “And people are just kind of over it, even his supporters.” More

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      Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four counts – live

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      The House panel investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat has referred the former president for four criminal charges, including engaging in an insurrection, in what the committee’s chair says is a “roadmap to justice”.01:51The stunning, unprecedented referral of an ex-president came at the final meeting of the bipartisan panel on Monday afternoon. The nine members also voted unanimously to approve the final report of the 18-month investigation, which will be released on Wednesday.The committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the January riot and during his efforts to remain in power after his defeat by Joe Biden.The panel is also referring four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas.The Trump referrals are for “influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government”, “conspiring to defraud the US”, “unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government”, and “assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States”.Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the panel chair, said the referrals will be transmitted to the justice department in very short order.They are largely symbolic, as attorney general Merrick Garland will make his own decision on charges at the conclusion of the justice department’s own investigations, headed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.But, speaking to CNN after the session, Thompson said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m convinced the justice department will charge former president Trump. No-one, including the former president, is above the law.In his opening remarks to the meeting, Thompson said: “We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.”John Eastman, Trump’s attorney, whom the panel said had helped Trump in his conspiracy to stay in power, was also referred. Unnamed others are also likely to face referrals, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former department of justice official Jeffrey Clark.Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin announced the referrals. “Ours is not a system where foot soldiers go to jail, and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” Raskin said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.Unanswered questions, ‘unsolved crimes’: the 6 January pipe bombs After more than a year of work, there are still key questions about 6 January that remain unanswered, including: who was responsible for placing the “viable” pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committee headquarters that were discovered that day? Amazed that there’s not a single mention of the pipe bombs in all 161 pages of the J6 Select Committee’s exec summary of their findings, or in their final hearing. Have we all forgotten about the bombs found on J6 – or the fact that the bomb-maker remains at large?— Tess Owen (@misstessowen) December 19, 2022
      Asked about that issue, congressman Jamie Raskin said “I don’t believe there have been any updates since we first looked int to. Those are unsolved crimes,” CNN reported. #FBIWFO continues to work with @ATFWashington, @CapitolPolice, @DCPoliceDept to identify the person responsible for placing pipe bombs near the Democratic National Committee Headquarters & Republican National Committee Headquarters on 1/5, the night before the Capitol riots. 1/3— FBI Washington Field (@FBIWFO) January 6, 2022
      January 6 committee Democrat who lost her House seat: ‘It’s all been worth it.’This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from Los Angeles.Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria of Virginia, a member of the January 6 House committee, lost her reelection bid to her Republican opponent.As Luria recapped the January 6 committee’s recommendations this afternoon, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her if she thought the committee’s work had played a role in her loss.Luria said she believed it had, but that she felt preventing another event like January 6 was more important than her individual political career.“It’s all been worth it,” she said.Luria also emphasized that the 2022 midterms more broadly had not produced a wave of victories for the most pro-Trump candidates, as the former president had hoped. “The most emphatic election deniers — they did not win,” she said.Donald Trump lit the flame, poured gasoline on the fire, and sat in the White House dining room for hours watching the fire burn as rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol. Today, he continues to fan those flames. This was his dereliction of duty. pic.twitter.com/2bj4zZfmC8— Rep. Elaine Luria (@RepElaineLuria) December 19, 2022
      Luria and other Democrats told the New York Times they believed the January 6 committee’s work had more importance for midterm voters than polls had indicated.Four law enforcement officers who came under attack during the January 6 Capitol riot have just been on CNN, sharing their thoughts about the criminal referrals for Donald Trump handed down this afternoon by the January 6 House committee.Daniel Hodges, DC Metropolitan Police:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s entirely appropriate. I don’t think anything is really surprising about the charges. The chatter was whether it would be meaningful at all for the committee to make these referrals and I think it is, even if it’s just symbolic.
      Symbols have meanings, symbols of power, and, you know, future generations [will] look back and say that this branch of Congress, this branch of government, did the best they could to make accountability happen.Michael Fanone, DC Metropolitan police:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I think it was appropriate having sat through each and every one of the committee’s hearings. This was the inevitable outcome. Again, you know, it is symbolic and it’s up to the Department of Justice, ultimately, to seek criminal accountability for those responsible for the January 6 insurrection.Aquilino Gonell, US Capitol Police:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s been very meaningful to have that coming from Congress, given the amount of evidence that they uncovered, and it’s appropriate.Harry Dunn, US Capitol Police:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m glad that they did it. But respectfully to the January 6 committee, it’s been two years. We knew what they announced today on January 7, 2021.
      I really appreciate all the work that they’ve done and they’re continuing to do, and the justice department is doing. But I don’t even want to get into the what ifs if they don’t [charge Trump].Here’s our full story about this afternoon’s House January 6 committee meeting that approved criminal referrals for Donald Trump. Chris Stein reports:The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the justice department to face criminal charges, accusing the former president of fomenting an insurrection and conspiring against the government over his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and the bloody attack on the US Capitol.The committee’s referrals approved by its members Monday are the first time in American history that Congress has recommended charges against a former president. It comes after more than a year of investigation by the bipartisan House of Representatives panel tasked with understanding Trump’s plot to stop Joe Biden from taking office.“The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former President Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States,” congressman Jamie Raskin said as the committee held its final public meeting.“The committee has developed significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our Constitution. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.”The committee accused Trump of breaching four federal criminal statutes, including those relating to obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, assisting an insurrection and conspiring to defraud the United States. It also believed Trump committed seditious conspiracy — the same charge for which two members of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group were found guilty of by a jury last month.The lawmakers also referred four Republican House representatives to the chamber’s ethics committee. The group includes Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader who is expected to run for speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber next year.Read the full story:House January 6 panel recommends criminal charges against Donald TrumpRead moreDonald Trump could face up to 25 years in prison if he is convicted of the four criminal charges for which a House panel this afternoon referred him to the justice department.The US code on assisting with or engaging in an insurrection allows for a sentence of up to 10 years, and disqualification from holding or running for “any office under the United States” for anyone convicted.The former president announced his third run for the White House as a Republican last month.As for the other three charges Trump could face, all carry prison terms of up to five years, “conspiracy to defraud the US”, “unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government”; and “influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government”.There is, of course, uncertainty over whether the justice department will charge Trump with these crimes, far more whether he would be convicted. But this is the first time we know of the potential penalties Trump faces for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.We’ll see the full report (hopefully) on Wednesday, but here’s the executive summary of the January 6 House panel’s findings, published this afternoon at the conclusion of its final meeting.It gives an outline of the 18-month investigation and key findings that resulted in a criminal referral for Donald Trump on four federal charges today, including assisting in or engaging in an insurrection.You can read the panel’s summary here.The House panel investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat has referred the former president for four criminal charges, including engaging in an insurrection, in what the committee’s chair says is a “roadmap to justice”.01:51The stunning, unprecedented referral of an ex-president came at the final meeting of the bipartisan panel on Monday afternoon. The nine members also voted unanimously to approve the final report of the 18-month investigation, which will be released on Wednesday.The committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the January riot and during his efforts to remain in power after his defeat by Joe Biden.The panel is also referring four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas.The Trump referrals are for “influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government”, “conspiring to defraud the US”, “unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government”, and “assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States”.Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the panel chair, said the referrals will be transmitted to the justice department in very short order.They are largely symbolic, as attorney general Merrick Garland will make his own decision on charges at the conclusion of the justice department’s own investigations, headed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.But, speaking to CNN after the session, Thompson said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m convinced the justice department will charge former president Trump. No-one, including the former president, is above the law.In his opening remarks to the meeting, Thompson said: “We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.”John Eastman, Trump’s attorney, whom the panel said had helped Trump in his conspiracy to stay in power, was also referred. Unnamed others are also likely to face referrals, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former department of justice official Jeffrey Clark.Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin announced the referrals. “Ours is not a system where foot soldiers go to jail, and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” Raskin said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.Here are some more tweets from the House January 6 committee session today:Congresswoman Elaine Luria: “President Trump lit the flame, he poured gasoline on the fire and sat back in the White House dining room for hours watching the fire burn.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 19, 2022
      “Our Committee had the opportunity last Spring to present much of our evidence to a federal judge… The judge concluded that both former President Donald Trump and John Eastman likely violated two federal criminal statutes.”-@RepRaskin— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) December 19, 2022
      Liz Cheney: “Every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority except one.” pic.twitter.com/HmGcnjLbBq— Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 19, 2022
      The January 6 Committee has just referred Donald John Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.There is sufficient evidence that he committed multiple crimes. And it’s past time for him to face justice.— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 19, 2022
      The four Republican congressmen who have been referred to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with the January 6 panel’s subpoenas are Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader and would-be speaker from California; Jim Jordan of Ohio; Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona.New: Jan. 6 referrals subcommittee chair Jamie Raskin recommends referring House Republicans — understood to be Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Andy Biggs — to the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) December 19, 2022
      Illinois Republican and penal member Adam Kinzinger appears to have hit his tweet button within seconds of the hearing ending:Our work on the @January6thCmte has led us to criminally refer Donald Trump to DOJ. We now turn to the criminal justice system to ensure Justice under the law. The American people can ensure he’s never elected again.— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) December 19, 2022
      The final act of the members of the January 6 House panel was to vote unanimously to approve its final report, which will be released on Wednesday.But the “wow” moment of the hearing, which lasted a little more than one hour, was undoubtedly the historic, unprecedented criminal referral to the justice department of former president Donald Trump, including for assisting with or engaging in an insurrection against the United States.We’ll have plenty more reaction and analysis coming up. Please stick with us. The January 6 House panel is recommending criminal referrals for Donald Trump, his lawyer John Eastman and others for violating four federal criminal statutes, Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin says.They are “influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government”, “conspiring to defraud the US”, “unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government”, and “assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States”.Four members of Congress will also be referred to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas, he says.“Ours is not a system where foot soldiers go to jail, and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” Raskin said.The referrals will be sent to the justice department in short order, panel chair Bennie Thompson says.More details to come… More

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      House January 6 panel recommends criminal charges against Donald Trump

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      House January 6 panel recommends criminal charges against Donald TrumpThe referral marks the first time in US history that Congress has taken such action against a former president01:51The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the justice department to face criminal charges, accusing the former president of fomenting an insurrection and conspiring against the government over his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and the bloody attack on the US Capitol.The committee’s referrals approved by its members on Monday are the first time in American history that Congress has recommended charges against a former president. They come after more than a year of investigation by the bipartisan House of Representatives panel tasked with understanding Trump’s plot to stop Joe Biden from taking office.“The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former President Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States,” Congressman Jamie Raskin said as the lawmakers held their final public meeting.“The committee has developed significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our Constitution. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.”January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreThe committee accused Trump of breaching four federal criminal statutes, including those relating to obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, assisting an insurrection and conspiring to defraud the United States. It also alleged Trump committed seditious conspiracy – the same charge which a jury found two members of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group guilty of last month.In his opening remarks, the committee’s Democratic chair, Bennie Thompson, said Trump broke voters’ trust by mounting a campaign to stay in office, despite overwhelming evidence that he had lost.“To cast a vote in the United States is an act of faith and hope. When we drop that ballot in the ballot box, we expect the people named on the ballot are going to uphold that end of the deal,” he said. “Donald Trump broke that faith. He lost the 2020 election and knew it. But he chose to try to stay in office through a multiparty scheme to overturn the results and blocked the transfer of power.”A major architect of that scheme was John Eastman, a lawyer for the president who the committee said laid much of the groundwork for the strategy to overturn Biden’s election win. According to their evidence, Eastman helped Trump pressure Vice-President Mike Pence to disrupt the certification of electoral votes, even though the lawyer knew doing so would be illegal. The lawmaker referred Eastman on conspiracy charges.The lawmakers also referred four Republican House representatives to the chamber’s ethics committee. The group includes Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader who is expected to run for speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber next year, as well as Jim Jordan, a staunch ally of the former president.His spokesman Russell Dye called the referral “just another partisan and political stunt”.Finally, the committee urged the justice department to investigate efforts to obstruct its investigation, including by “certain counsel … who may have advised clients to provide false or misleading testimony to the Committee”.The referrals are largely a recommendation, but will arrive at a justice department already busy investigating the former president for crimes he may have committed during and after his time in office.The attorney general, Merrick Garland, last month appointed the veteran prosecutor Jack Smith to determine whether to charge Trump over the insurrection and his efforts to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. Smith is also handling the inquiry into whether Trump unlawfully retained government secrets after leaving the White House in January 2021. His decisions in those cases will have huge ramifications for the future of the former president, who has announced he will run for the White House again in 2024.On Wednesday, the panel is expected to release a lengthy report into the attack that left five people dead and spawned nearly 1,000 criminal cases. That may be the final word from the committee, which many Americans hoped would follow in the mold of the bipartisan group that investigated the 9/11 attacks, but quickly ran up against opposition from Trump and his allies.Created by an almost party-line vote in the Democratic-led House, the nine-member panel has two Republican lawmakers, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom were censured by their party for participating and won’t return to Congress next year.While Kinzinger opted not to run again, Cheney lost her primary to a Trump-backed candidate. In her final remarks as the panel’s vice-chair, Cheney recounted how Trump failed to act for hours as a mob of his supporters assaulted the Capitol.“No man who would behave that way, at that moment in time, can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again,” Cheney said. “He is unfit for any office.”Their nine public hearings held this year featured in-person testimony from witnesses and recorded interviews that shed light on how the attack happened, but the lawmakers also resorted to issuing subpoenas to a host of uncooperative former Trump officials and allies, some of whom are facing jail time for refusing to comply.In its second-to-last hearing held in October, the committee publicly voted to subpoena documents and testimony from Trump. The former president went to court to stop the summons, and time appears to be on his side. The committee’s mandate runs out at the end of the year, and in 2023, the Republican House majority is almost certain not to continue its work.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS justice systemUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final session

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      ExplainerFive key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionThe House committee has issued the first sections of its report and recommended criminal referrals for Trump The House January 6 committee has staged its final public hearing and issued the first sections of its report. According to its chairman, Bennie Thompson, it will both release “the bulk of its non-sensitive records” before the end of the year and transmit criminal referrals, for Donald Trump and others, to the Department of Justice by the end of business on Monday.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreHere are some key conclusions after the final session on Capitol Hill.Trump is in troubleThe committee has decided to make four criminal referrals of Trump, his associate John Eastman and others to the justice department.In the hearing, the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin introduced referrals for obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection.The referrals received unanimous support and may not be the last. Raskin said: “Depending on evidence developed by the Department of Justice, the president’s actions could certainly trigger other criminal violations.”The report discusses other conspiracy statutes, including seditious conspiracy, which it says could be considered. It also says the committee has “substantial concerns regarding potential efforts to obstruct its investigation”, and “urges the Department of Justice to examine the facts to discern whether prosecution is warranted”.Noting the need for accountability, the report points to recent developments including Trump’s stated desire to “terminate” the US constitution and says: “If President Trump and the associates who assisted him in an effort to overturn the lawful outcome of the 2020 election are not ultimately held accountable under the law, their behavior may become a precedent and invitation to danger for future elections.”The justice department is already investigating, under a special counsel, the notably aggressive prosecutor Jack Smith, who was appointed last month.In messages seen by the Guardian on Monday, former Trump officials acknowledged the strength of the case against Trump. A former administration official said the committee had made “a very solid recommendation” while a former White House official said: “The facts are compelling. These charges are coming.”Trump’s aim was clearly to stop BidenIn its final hearing and its report, the committee seeks to rebut Republican claims it has overstated its case. It makes clear the Capitol attack was not an isolated and chaotic event but the culmination of a concerted attempt, fueled and guided by Trump, to stop Joe Biden becoming the 46th president.As the section on the recommended referral for conspiracy to defraud the United States puts it, “the very purpose of the plan was to prevent the lawful certification of Joe Biden’s election”.House Republicans are breathing easierThe report considers the activities of House Republicans prominently including Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Of such figures’ refusal to cooperate with subpoenas, it says: “The rules of the House of Representatives make clear that their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline.” Therefore, the committee “is referring their failure to comply with the subpoenas … to the ethics committee for further action”.Raskin said the committee was seeking “appropriate sanction by the House ethics committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas”.But Republicans will take the House in January. Jordan, who the report labels “a significant player in President Trump’s efforts”, is on course to chair the judiciary committee. Unlike other panels the ethics committee is split equally but it will be led by a Republican. In all likelihood, Jordan, Perry and others are sitting pretty for now.Ivanka Trump and others were less than forthcomingThe report names Trump’s daughter as a witness “from the Trump White House [who] displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or [was] not otherwise as frank or direct” as other, less senior aides.Describing an exchange between Donald Trump and Mike Pence on January 6, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff said Trump called his vice-president a “pussy” for not going along with election subversion.The report says: “When the committee asked Ivanka Trump whether there were ‘[a]ny particular words that you recall your father using during the conversation’ … she answered simply: ‘No.’”Other aides are singled out. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, refused to testify but did produce a book in which he claimed Trump was “speaking metaphorically” when he told supporters he would march to the Capitol.The committee says: “This appeared to be an intentional effort to conceal the facts. Multiple witnesses directly contradicted Meadows’ account … This and several other statements in the Meadows book were false, and the select committee was concerned multiple witnesses might attempt to repeat elements of these false accounts.”“A few did,” it says. One was Anthony Ornato, a deputy chief of staff who said Trump’s desire to march on Congress “was one of those hypotheticals from the good idea fairy” and who denied Trump was “irate” when told, by Ornato in the presidential SUV, he couldn’t go to the Capitol.The report says other witnesses cited Ornato as their source for accounts of how Trump “was ‘irate’, ‘heated’, ‘angry’ and ‘insistent’. But Ornato professed that he … had no knowledge at all about the president’s anger.”The committee says it has “significant concerns about the credibility” of Ornato’s testimony, including his claim not to have known of information which suggested violence at the Capitol was possible. As Thompson indicated, Ornato’s interview will be among materials released.Trump paid lawyers and pressured witnessesIn findings detailed by the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, the committee says it uncovered “efforts to obstruct” its investigation including a lawyer “receiving payments … from a group allied with” Trump advising a witness she “could, in certain circumstances, tell the committee she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them”.The lawyer is also said to have “instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump, [saying]: ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.’”When the client asked who was paying the lawyer, the report says, the lawyer said: “We’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now.”01:42The client was also reportedly “offered potential employment that would make her ‘financially very comfortable’ … by entities apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates. Such offers were withdrawn or did not materialise as reports of the content of her testimony circulated. The client believed this was an effort to affect her testimony.”The client appears to be Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump and Meadows aide whose testimony lit up a public hearing in June.The panel also says Secret Service agents chose to be represented by private counsel rather than agency lawyers who would have worked free of charge. Such behavior raised concerns that lawyers “receiving such payments have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients”.The report adds that the US Department of Justice and the Fulton county district attorney, investigating election subversion in Georgia, “have been provided with certain information related to this topic”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsexplainersReuse this content More

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      Gen Z Problems: Maxwell Frost Is Struggling to Rent an Apartment

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      Other young adults, who have poor credit history and are frustrated with expensive rental application fees, can relate to the housing troubles of the first Gen Zer elected to Congress.WASHINGTON — At 25, Representative-elect Maxwell Frost will be youngest member of Congress. He’s also in debt, after maxing out credit cards to win Florida’s 10th Congressional District seat.He said he was upfront about his bad credit when he applied for a one-bedroom apartment in Washington, D.C., where he now has to live part-time for at least the next two years. A broker, he said, told him that was fine. He paid a $50 application fee and then was denied the apartment because of his poor credit history.Mr. Frost, the first Gen Zer elected to Congress and a Democrat, took to Twitter in early December to voice his frustration: “This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money.”While most other Gen Zers haven’t accrued campaign debt, Mr. Frost’s housing woes have generated a wide range of commiserating among Gen Z Twitter users who have short credit histories and less capital to afford expensive deposits and application fees.Mr. Frost said he also lost hundreds of dollars last year when he was searching for housing in his home district in Orlando.“Application fees are becoming a source of revenue for management companies,” Mr. Frost said in an interview. “We live in a world right now where you can run an extensive background check for $15, why are fees up to $200? Why do we use a credit score to determine if an applicant can pay rent when there’s so many things that hurt someone’s credit score?”The fees are the sour cherry on top of a brutal housing market: Last month, the typical asking rent in the United States was over $2,000, up from $1,850 in November 2021 and $1,600 in November 2020, according to data from Zillow. For Washington D.C., the typical asking rent was over $2,200 last month, a figure that’s been following the national trajectory.Some Gen Zers see no feasible way to get a place of their own: Nearly a third of people between the ages of 18 and 25 are living at home permanently, one recent report found.Raegan Loheide, 25, started looking for a new apartment with their partner and their current roommate last May. Mx. Loheide, a barista, was living in an apartment in Queens, but said their mental and physical health was deteriorating from a series of maintenance issues that their landlord refused to fix, including a roach infestation, holes in the ceiling, a lack of heat and a broken toilet.“We didn’t feel safe,” Mx. Loheide said.But in the months following, Mx. Loheide, their roommate and their partner applied to five apartments — spending hundreds of dollars on application fees — all of which they were rejected from.“The first rejection was because we didn’t have a third guarantor,” Mx. Loheide said. “I kept asking the brokers ‘why?’ but I barely ever got a real answer.”Eventually, Mx. Loheide felt they had no choice but to stay in their current apartment, even if it meant an emotional toll and more landlord troubles.“We couldn’t move,” Mx. Loheide said. “We kept expanding our budgets and scraping together more to afford to relocate, but what good is that if we can’t even get approved?”Why Landlords Care About Your CreditCredit is one of the tools property owners have to utilize to tell upfront if a tenant will be able to make their rent payments, said Jay Martin, the executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, a trade association for 4,000 property managers and owners in New York.“Property owners have a fiduciary duty to figure out that the applicants that they’re screening are going to be able to pay the rent that they are applying for, because they have mortgages that they’ll have to pay with the rent money that they are collecting,” Mr. Martin said.Mr. Martin added that the money from application fees “is not in any way a form of revenue for management companies, brokers or property owners.” The fee, Mr. Martin said, goes toward covering the cost of running the background checks, credit checks and other screening processes.Still, some tactics and motives have drawn criticism.Brokers also may encourage people who will likely get denied from an apartment application to apply anyway, for financial incentives or in hopes of raising their statistics on how many applicants they can bring in, said Felipe Ernst, a faculty member in Georgetown’s masters of real estate program and founder of a D.C.-based real estate development firm.While it can create more competition for an apartment and give a landlord more options to choose from, it can negatively impact potential renters who are already struggling since application fees, which can add up to hundreds of dollars, are almost always nonrefundable, he said.“It’s borderline unethical to put someone in the wringer, knowing that they won’t get approved,” Mr. Ernst said. “But at the same time, you need to have a realistic look on your finances. I don’t go to a Ferrari dealership if I can only buy a Honda.”Vipassana Vijayarangan could not live with her boyfriend as planned because her lack of credit disqualified her from renting an apartment with him.Todd Midler for The New York TimesSettling for a Room or a CouchFor people desperate to rent apartments, they are just searching high and low for somewhere to live.In 2018, Vipassana Vijayarangan had to move to D.C. on short notice for a new job. She stayed in an Airbnb until she had pay stubs for a rental application, and with her partner, she found a suitable two-bedroom apartment to apply to in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.“I told the agent in an email, ‘I’m very interested in this apartment, but I do not have any credit,’” Ms. Vijayarangan, 31, said. “When I lived in the U.S. on a student visa, I didn’t have — and was not allowed — to get a social security card. So it was impossible for me to even apply for the secured version of a credit card until I had work authorization.”Similar to Mr. Frost’s situation, the broker assured Ms. Vijayarangan that her lack of credit wouldn’t be a problem, but in the end, her application was denied.Ms. Vijayarangan, who now works as a data scientist in New York, eventually rented a room in a rowhouse from an immigrant landlord who understood her situation, she said. But, Ms. Vijayarangan and her partner, an American citizen who had a more established credit history, ended up living apart because he could get approved but she could not. “That could have been the first time that we were living together and building a life together,” she said. “We didn’t get to do that.”Mr. Frost is now the proxy for discouraged Gen Zers, but he is just the latest in the storied tradition of members of congress lamenting the process of finding a secondary residence in D.C. after being elected. Through the years, representatives and senators have opted to split a place with one another or even sleep in their offices to save money.In an interview last week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said that she has previously “dealt with very similar issues.”In 2018, just after she was first elected and was set to be the youngest woman to serve in Congress, she told The Times, “I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real.”Similarly, Representative Mondaire Jones, Democrat of New York, said he also ran up debt when he first ran for office.“This place is not set up for people who are not independently wealthy,” Mr. Jones said. “People here don’t understand wealth inequality because they’ve not experienced it.”Mr. Frost has a budget of less than $2,000 a month. He’s looking for a studio apartment within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol since he does not intend to have a car or a driver to chauffeur him. His geographic hopes have restricted his apartment hunt to a few gentrifying neighborhoods.Unsure when he’ll finally secure a place to live, he plans to continue couch surfing for a few months to save money and find an apartment in one of his desired neighborhoods.“I was very close to taking out a loan, which would mean spending a lot of personal money to pay back the loan,” Mr. Frost said. “Rent problems are not just mine. There are millions of Americans that have these same problems.” More

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      A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for power

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      A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for powerExecutive summary of report released by House panel investigating January 6 details a failed self-coup It was, all in all, a very American attempt at a coup. Or self-coup to be exact.The world watched its denouement dumbfounded on 6 January 2021 as thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the heart of US democracy, the Capitol in Washington, with cries to hang the vice-president, in an attempt to overturn an election and keep Trump in power.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreBut, as the detailed executive summary of the report released by the congressional committee investigating the insurrection lays bare, Trump’s bid to usurp power began while the votes from the November 2020 presidential election were still being counted.That kicked off what amounted to a rolling coup attempt as an increasingly desperate president sought to compromise and corrupt officials from the US justice department to state election boards in an effort to find a way, any way, to have his defeat declared null and void.The seeds were sown by Trump as he watched the results roll in on election night. The president’s own campaign manager, Bill Stepien, had told him that the way the count was conducted in several states meant that early results were likely to give Trump the lead but that would be eroded as absentee and other postal votes were tallied.The count panned out as Stepien predicted and Trump’s aides cautioned the president that, for all his euphoria at the prospect of pulling off another astonishing upset, it was way too soon to be declaring victory. But all Trump saw was his numbers go up and then down. He brushed off his advisers and went on television.“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election,” he declared.The following morning, Trump inevitably used Twitter to demand that the results already declared, and showing him ahead, be frozen: “STOP THE COUNT!”The report notes that almost none of Trump’s aides supported his claims, with the exception of the increasingly erratic former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But that fed the narrative pushed by the president and his supporters that he was the victim of an establishment conspiracy.By the time the electoral college met on 14 December to cast and certify each state’s votes, many of Trump’s senior staff, cabinet secretaries and even members of his family, were pressing him to admit defeat. The president preferred to listen to Giuliani’s conspiratorial claims that the voting machines were rigged and suitcases of fake ballots had been used to tip the result against him.As Trump grew more desperate, he pressured Republican officials in key swing states he had lost to overturn the results. In early January, he called Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to demand he “find 11,780 votes” to reverse Joe Biden’s crucial victory in the state.“Trump also made a thinly veiled threat to Raffensperger and his attorney about his failure to respond to Trump’s demands: ‘That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense … That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen,’” the report said.In Arizona, Trump targeted the Republican speaker of the state legislature, Russell “Rusty” Bowers. The president and Giuliani repeatedly called or met with Bowers to claim that Arizona’s results were fraudulent and to press him to replace the state’s members of the electoral college with ones who would vote for Trump.Bowers told Giuliani: “You are asking me do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.”Trump exerted similar pressure on officials in Michigan, which he had won in 2016 but lost four years later.The president was pursuing a parallel track with the US justice department. The attorney general, William Barr, grew so exasperated with Trump’s actions that he resigned. The president called or met with Barr’s replacement, Jeff Rosen, nearly every day of the following weeks in an attempt to pressure the justice department “to find factual support for his stolen election claims and thereby to assist his efforts to reverse election results”, according to the report.When Rosen repeatedly told Trump that there was no evidence for the allegations, Trump replied: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”When this didn’t fly either, Trump turned to those he could always trust: the men and women in the red Make America Great Again caps. As he saw it, the “deep state” was working to rob him of his rightful victory. Trump would count on the people to save him.And so the president summoned the faithful to Washington for a rally on January 6, the day his vice-president, Mike Pence, was to preside over a joint meeting of both houses of Congress to count and approve the electoral college votes, a routine affair for much of the US’s existence.Trump’s efforts to pressure states to withhold their tallies in the hope of delaying the endorsement of Biden’s victory had come to naught and a wave of court challenges to the results failed. Pence made clear to Trump that he would fulfil his duty and that the president’s days in the White House were numbered.Trump told the world a different story. On the evening of 5 January, he released a statement falsely claiming that his vice-president was “in total agreement” with him that Pence had the power to prevent endorsement of the results by “sending them back” to the states.In the early hours of the following morning, Trump tweeted: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!”Pence did not agree and, astonishingly, refused to take his own president’s call on the morning of the rally. When Trump finally reached his vice-president by phone, the president called him “a wimp” for refusing to block Congress from approving Biden’s victory.The crowd that arrived for the Washington rally was already stoked by weeks of Trump’s tweets and conspiratorial claims bolstered by Fox News and other rightwing broadcasters. The committee’s report noted that far-right militia groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters were also instrumental in spreading the false claims of fraud.“President Trump’s supporters believed the election was stolen because they listened to his words, and they knew what he had called them to do; stop the certification of the electoral count,” the report said.It noted that supporters tweeted messages ahead of the rally predicting what would happen.“IF TRUMP TELLS US TO STORM THE FUKIN CAPITAL IMA DO THAT THEN!” said one.Others circulated flyers proclaiming “#OccupyCongress” over images of the Capitol.The report records that the intelligence services had wind of all of this, and warned the president and his staff. Some of Trump’s aides urged him to make a public statement disavowing violence.The president refused. His speech on January 6 instead made clear who he regarded as the real villain of the moment.As the congressional report recorded, Trump told the assembled crowd: “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country.” The president added a veiled threat: “If you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”The report records the reaction of Trump supporters at the rally.“I’m telling you, if Pence caved, we’re going to drag motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are going to get fucking drug through the streets,” said one.And then the mob headed Pence’s way.The report concluded that the Proud Boys militia led the attack on Congress.“Multiple Proud Boys reacted immediately to President Trump’s December 19th tweet and began their planning,” it said.Someone erected an imitation gallows in front of the Capitol. As the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence”, the vice-president fled his office near the Senate chamber but refused to leave the building. The protesters passed within 40ft.Pence was not the only target. The report records that one woman was looking for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, “to shoot her in the frigging brain”.By the time the crowd broke through the barriers around the Capitol, beating police officers with flag poles and smashing their way into the corridors of Congress, Trump was back in the White House.Alarmed aides pleaded with him to make a call to stop the violence. Trump instead sent out yet another tweet denouncing Pence for failing to overturn the election result.Finally, he was pressured into acting.“As the evidence demonstrates, the rioters at the Capitol had invaded the building and halted the electoral count. They did not begin to relent until President Trump finally issued a video statement instructing his supporters to leave the Capitol at 4:17 p.m., which had an immediate and helpful effect: rioters began to disperse,” the report said.The self-coup had failed. Biden’s election win would be certified.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More