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      US House passes bill to expand supreme court security to justices’ families

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      US House passes bill to expand supreme court security to justices’ familiesThe bill comes after an armed man was arrested outside Brett Kavanaugh’s house as the court is due to rule on an abortion case The US House of Representatives has given final congressional approval to a bill to bolster supreme court security, ahead of an anticipated ruling curtailing abortion rights and in light of the arrest of a man charged with attempting to murder Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative majority.The legislation, which had already cleared the Senate, passed the House on a 396-27 vote. Joe Biden is prepared to sign it into law. It will expand police protection to families of justices and senior court officials.Man arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home charged with attempted murderRead moreThe House Republican leader said the bill would protect justices from “leftwing radicals”.A prominent Democrat said family members of court clerks and officials were also under threat, from “rightwing activists”.The court is due to rule in a major abortion case from Mississippi. A leaked draft opinion showed the conservative majority poised to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that legalized abortion. Protests have ensued outside some justices’ homes.Last week, a California man carrying a handgun, ammunition, a crowbar, pepper spray and zip-tie handcuffs was arrested outside Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland.Republicans have led calls for improved protection but some progressives have contrasted such eagerness to act with many Republicans’ refusal to consider gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings.On the House floor on Tuesday, Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso, Texas, said: “It is incredible to stand here and listen to our Republican colleagues talk about the risks and the dangers that exist to the supreme court.“I want to know where they were when the risks and the dangers existed in my community. In El Paso, Texas, where 23 innocent people were slaughtered by a white supremacist with an AK-47 [in 2019]. Where were they then?“How about Uvalde? Where were they then? How about every other mass shooting? Buffalo, you name it.”Ginni Thomas pressed 29 lawmakers in bid to overturn Trump loss, emails showRead moreNineteen children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde last month. Also in May, 10 people died in a racist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Referring to gun reforms passed by the House but with no chance of passing the Senate, Escobar said: “Last week, we brought to the floor legislation intended to protect millions of Americans, especially including children.“The vast majority of our Republican colleagues voted against those protections for vulnerable people who don’t have access to 24-hour, round-the-clock US marshals protection. Who don’t have access to round-the-clock 24/7 police protection, which supreme court justices have today.“Supreme court justices have far more protection than members of Congress do. But more importantly [they have more protection] than those innocent lives that were taken in innumerable cities across America.”The US justice department is already providing additional support to court police.In the Kavanaugh case, Nicholas John Roske, 26 and from Simi Valley, California, was dressed in black when he arrived by taxi outside Kavanaugh’s home around 1am last Wednesday. According to court documents, he spotted two US marshals guarding the house and walked in the other direction, calling 911 to say he was having suicidal thoughts and planned to kill Kavanaugh.Roske said he had found the address on the internet.On Tuesday the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, greeted passage of the bill by saying: “We are sending a clear message to leftwing radicals: you cannot intimidate supreme court justices.”House Democrats had wanted to add protections for families of clerks and other court employees who, in the words of Ted Lieu, a congressman from California, “are getting threats from rightwing activists”.But Senate Republicans objected.“The security issue is related to supreme court justices, not the nameless staff that no one knows,” the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Monday.Lieu said measures to protect families of clerks and other employees would be considered separately.The federal judiciary is calling for separate legislation to offer more protection for judges. The US marshals service said judges were subject to 4,511 threats and inappropriate communications last year.TopicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)US CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House panel to scrutinize conspiracy theories that led to Capitol attack

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      House panel to scrutinize conspiracy theories that led to Capitol attackHouse committee’s second hearing on Monday will focus on ‘the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol’ The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection in 2021 will reconvene Monday to scrutinize the conspiracy theories that led a group of Donald Trump’s supporters to attack the US Capitol.House January 6 panel shows it still has surprises in store in televised hearingRead moreThe Democratic chair of the committee, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, has said the second hearing will focus on “the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol to try to stop the transfer of power”.“We’re going to take a close look at the first part of Trump’s attack on the rule of law, when he lit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of January 6,” Thompson said on Thursday.The select committee said ahead of the hearing that the panel would focus on how Trump embraced baseless claims of a stolen election starting on election night – when he falsely declared victory over Joe Biden – and seized upon those claims in the weeks that followed.Trump was told repeatedly on election night that he did not have the numbers to win, the panel is expected to say, relying on live witness testimony from former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt.The select committee will then show how Trump embraced election fraud claims despite being told otherwise by top officials, hearing from former US attorney BJay Pak, who resigned when he was told Trump would fire him for not pushing harder that fraud occurred in Georgia.Trump had an obligation to make court challenges if he believed there was fraud, the panel will say, and also accept the decisions of the courts – he lost virtually every case – but he instead chose to attack the “rule of law”.The select committee said it would also show how Trump and the Republican political apparatus used those baseless claims to rake in millions of dollars from unsuspecting Americans in fundraising, and how the Capitol attack was fueled by those claims perpetuated by Trump.The hearing on Monday, which will last around two hours and see select committee member Zoe Lofgren take a lead role in questioning witnesses instead of committee counsel, comes four days after the panel held its first hearing in primetime.At that first session, the select committee featured shocking and at times emotional testimony from key witnesses who have spoken to investigators over the past year as they conducted the first stage of their inquiry behind closed doors in Washington.Members of Trump’s inner circle testified that the former president was repeatedly told his claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that deprived him of victory over Democrat Joe Biden were entirely baseless, but he continued to spread those lies in the weeks leading up to the insurrection.“I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit,” William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, told investigators in a clip shared on Thursday.Last week’s hearing laid the groundwork for the committee’s argument that Trump played a central role in the planning of the insurrection and bears personal responsibility for the deadly attack. A mob overran the US Capitol on January 6 last year, the day that Congress was due to officially certify Biden’s win over Trump in the previous Novembers presidential election.The five remaining hearings are expected to build upon that argument, as committee members attempt to present a meticulous case for Trump’s culpability.“On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power,” Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said Thursday.“Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.”The Monday hearing will provide committee members with another opportunity to convince the country that America’s democracy is facing a threat from those who do not believe in free and fair election. The panel has accused Trump and his associates of having engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” and argues that the former president bears personal responsibility for the deadly attack on the US Capitol.Although Trump was impeached by the House for inciting the insurrection, he was acquitted by the Senate, leaving many of his critics feeling as though he was not held accountable for his actions.If the committee is successful in building its case against Trump, the hearings could deliver a devastating blow to the former president’s hopes of making a political comeback in the 2024 presidential election. But if Americans are unmoved by the committee’s findings, the country faces the specter of another attempted coup, Thompson warned.“Our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” Thompson said on Thursday. “January 6 and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here.”Hugo Lowell contributed to this reportTopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Sarah Palin Leads Primary Race for Alaska’s Special Election

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      The top four candidates will advance to an August vote to finish the term of Representative Don Young, who died in March.Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska leads the 48-candidate field in a special primary election for the state’s sole congressional seat, according to a preliminary count of ballots on Sunday.The top four candidates in the race will advance to the special election in August. Ms. Palin has nearly 30 percent of the vote tallied so far; Nick Begich, the scion of an Alaskan political dynasty, has 19.3 percent; Al Gross, a surgeon and commercial fisherman who ran for Senate two years ago, has nearly 12.5 percent; and Mary S. Peltola, a former state legislator, has about 7.5 percent.Ms. Palin and Mr. Begich are Republicans, Mr. Gross is not affiliated with a party, and Ms. Peltola is a Democrat.The special election was prompted by the death in March of Representative Don Young, a Republican who was first elected to the House in 1973. The election is to fill the remainder of Mr. Young’s current term.The special election will be held on Aug. 16, which is also the day of Alaska’s primary contest for the House seat’s 2023-2025 term. So, voters will see some candidates’ names twice on one ballot: once to decide the outcome of the special election and once to pick candidates for the fall’s general election for the full two-year term.For Ms. Palin, the race is a political comeback. As Senator John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential race, Ms. Palin lost to a Democratic ticket that included Joseph R. Biden Jr., and she resigned from the governor’s office, seeking to parlay her newfound profile into work as a well-paid political pundit. Ms. Palin had tapped into a similar anti-establishment, anti-news media vein of the Republican Party that later galvanized Donald J. Trump’s unexpected rise to the White House in 2016.The results announced on Sunday are preliminary and could change over the next few weeks, as more ballots are processed and counted.Alaska is a thinly populated state, with two U.S. senators but only one representative in the House. That small population is spread across an area that is larger than Texas, California and Montana combined, with about 82 percent of communities in the state inaccessible by roads.Counting ballots there can be challenging.Each voter in the state was mailed a ballot, starting on April 27, and the ballots were due back on Saturday. At least three more rounds of preliminary results will be announced by state officials before the results are certified in about two weeks.Alyce McFadden More

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      Sarah Palin leads in special primary for Alaska’s House seat in comeback bid

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      Sarah Palin leads in special primary for Alaska’s House seat in comeback bidRun by former Republican vice-presidential candidate marks first bid since resigning as governor partway through her term in 2009 Former Alaska governor and Republican ex-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin leads in early results from Saturday’s special primary for the state’s only US House seat in what could be a remarkable political re-emergence.Voters in the far north-western state are whittling down the list of 48 candidates running for the position that was held for 49 years by the late US Representative Don Young.The early results showed Palin, endorsed by Donald Trump, with 29.8% of the votes counted so far; Republican Nick Begich had 19.3%; independent Al Gross had 12.5%; Democrat Mary Peltola with 7.5%; and Republican Tara Sweeney had 5.3%.A candidate whose name is Santa Claus, a self-described “independent, progressive, democratic socialist”, had 4.5%.In a statement Palin said she was looking forward to “fixing this country by responsibly developing Alaska’s God-given resources” and then expressed rightwing talking points on gun rights, abortion and a desire for a smaller government.The top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to an August special election in which ranked choice voting will be used. The winner of the special election will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. Young died in March at age 88.This election was unlike any the state has seen, crammed with candidates and conducted primarily by mail. This was the first election, too, under a system approved by voters in 2020 that ends party primaries and uses ranked choice voting in general elections.Saturday marked the first ballot count; state elections officials plan additional counts on Wednesday and Friday, and a final count on 21 June. They have targeted 25 June to certify the race.Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, released a statement expressing gratitude “to all of my wonderful supporters who voted to make Alaska great again!”The sheer number of candidates left some voters overwhelmed, and many of the candidates themselves faced challenges in setting up a campaign on the fly and trying to leave an impression on voters in a short period of time. The candidate filing deadline was April 1.Palin’s run marks her first bid for elected office since resigning as governor partway through her term in 2009. She was endorsed in this campaign by some national political figures who participated in a “telerally” for her and said Palin would “fight harder than anybody I can think of”, particularly on energy issues.Palin sought to assure voters that she is serious about her bid and committed to Alaska.During the campaign, opponents poked at that. Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who made an unsuccessful run for US Senate in 2020, said Palin “quit on Alaska”. Begich and Sweeney made points of saying they are not quitters.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsSarah PalinHouse of RepresentativesAlaskaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Jan. 6 Committee Appears to Lay Out Road Map for Prosecuting Trump

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      The first prime-time hearing into the Jan. 6 attack confronted the fundamental question that has haunted Donald J. Trump since he left office: Should he be prosecuted in a criminal court?He had means, motive and opportunity. But did Donald J. Trump commit a crime?A House committee explicitly declared that he did by conspiring to overturn an election. The attorney general, however, has not weighed in. And a jury of his peers may never hear the case.The first prime-time hearing into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol this past week confronted the fundamental question that has haunted Mr. Trump, the 45th president, ever since he left office: Should he be prosecuted in a criminal court for his relentless efforts to defy the will of the voters and hang on to power?For two hours on Thursday night, the House committee investigating the Capitol attack detailed what it called Mr. Trump’s “illegal” and “unconstitutional” seven-part plan to prevent the transfer of power. The panel invoked the Justice Department, citing charges of seditious conspiracy filed against some of the attackers, and seemed to be laying out a road map for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to their central target.Several former prosecutors and veteran lawyers said afterward that the hearing offered the makings of a credible criminal case for conspiracy to commit fraud or obstruction of the work of Congress.In presenting her summary of the evidence, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chairwoman, demonstrated that Mr. Trump was told repeatedly by his own advisers that he had lost the election yet repeatedly lied to the country by claiming it had been stolen. He pressured state and federal officials, members of Congress and even his own vice president to disregard vote tallies in key states. And he encouraged the mob led by extremist groups like the Proud Boys while making no serious effort to stop the attack once it began.“I think the committee, especially Liz Cheney, outlined a powerful criminal case against the former president,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama.“A crime requires two things — a bad act and criminal intent,” Mr. Katyal said. By citing testimony by Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, a lawyer for his campaign and others who told him that he had lost and then documenting his failure to act once supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Katyal said, the panel addressed both of those requirements.At the hearing, Representative Liz Cheney demonstrated that Mr. Trump was told repeatedly by his own advisers that he had lost the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA congressional hearing, however, is not a court of law, and because there was no one there to defend Mr. Trump, witnesses were not cross-examined and evidence was not tested. The committee offered just a selection of the more than 1,000 interviews it has conducted and the more than 140,000 documents it has collected. But it remains to be seen what contrary or mitigating information may be contained in the vast research it has not released yet.Mr. Trump’s allies have dismissed the hearings as a partisan effort to damage him before the 2024 election when he may run for president again. And legal defenders argued that the facts presented by the panel did not support the conclusions that it drew.Read More on the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsThe Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: During the first hearing, the House panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Donald Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Trump’s Depiction: Former president Donald J. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.“Unless there’s more evidence to come that we don’t know about, I don’t see a criminal case against the former president,” said Robert W. Ray, a former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton and later served as a defense lawyer for Mr. Trump at his first Senate impeachment trial.“Whatever the Proud Boys had in mind when they stormed the Capitol, I don’t see how you’d be able to prove that Trump knew that that was the purpose of the conspiracy,” Mr. Ray added. “Whether or not he ‘lit the fuse’ that caused that to happen, the government would have to prove he knowingly joined that conspiracy with that objective.”Beyond the legal requirements of making a criminal case, the prospect of prosecuting a former president also would entail far deeper considerations and broader consequences. Criminal charges against Mr. Trump brought by the administration of the man who defeated him would further inflame an already polarized country. It would consume national attention for months or longer and potentially set a precedent for less meritorious cases against future presidents by successors of the opposite party.“That’s a hill that no federal prosecutor has tried to climb, prosecuting a former president,” said John Q. Barrett, a former associate independent counsel in the Iran-contra investigation. “It’s very fraught,” he said. “It’s a massive undertaking as an investigation, as a trial, as a national saga and trauma.” But he added that accountability was important and that “the threat to the continuity of our government is about as grave as it gets.”All of which is almost certainly going through the mind of Mr. Garland, a mild-mannered, highly deliberative former federal appeals court judge who has largely kept mum about his thinking. A Justice Department spokesman said Mr. Garland watched the hearing but would not elaborate.Democrats have attacked the attorney general for not already prosecuting Mr. Trump, even though a federal judge opined in March in a related civil case that the former president and a lawyer who advised him had most likely broken the law by trying to overturn the election. Mr. Garland has resisted the pressure. While he has called the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack the most urgent work in the history of his department, he has refused to forecast where the inquiry will go as investigators continue evaluating evidence.“We are not avoiding cases that are political or cases that are controversial or sensitive,” he told NPR in March. “What we are avoiding is making decisions on a political basis, on a partisan basis.”Democrats have attacked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for not already prosecuting Mr. Trump, deeming it a miscarriage of justice.Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesMany officials and rank-and-file prosecutors scattered throughout the 115,000-person Justice Department have long believed that Mr. Trump acted corruptly, particularly in pressuring their own department to parrot his baseless claims of election fraud, according to several people involved in such conversations who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.But some career employees expressed fear that as the hearings continued, they would raise expectations for a prosecution that may not be met.The committee “was good at making the case that Donald Trump’s actions were completely horrific and that he deserves to be held accountable for them,” said Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman during the Obama administration. “But an open-and-shut case on television is different from proving someone violated a criminal statute.”With public attention fixated on Mr. Trump, the Justice Department’s work has proceeded along three tracks: charge the people who attacked the Capitol; piece together larger conspiracies, including sedition, involving some of the assailants; and identify possible crimes that took place before the assault.In the 17 months since the attack, more than 840 defendants from nearly all 50 states have been arrested. Of those, about 250 have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding the police, and members of two far-right groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy, a rare accusation that represents the most serious criminal charges brought in the department’s sprawling investigation.Prosecutors are scrutinizing the plan by Mr. Trump’s allies to create alternate slates of pro-Trump electors to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in key swing states, with a federal grand jury issuing subpoenas to people involved. That investigation brings federal prosecutors closer to Mr. Trump’s inner circle than any other inquiry. Mr. Trump also faces the threat of prosecution by a local Georgia prosecutor investigating his efforts to overturn the state’s vote.No sitting or former president has ever been put on trial. Aaron Burr was charged with treason after leaving office as vice president in a highly politicized case directed from the White House by President Thomas Jefferson, but he was acquitted after a sensational trial. Ulysses S. Grant, while president, was arrested for speeding in his horse and buggy. Spiro T. Agnew resigned as vice president as part of a plea bargain in a corruption case.The closest a former president came to indictment was after Richard M. Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal in 1974, but his successor, Gerald R. Ford, short-circuited the investigation by preemptively pardoning him, reasoning that the country had to move on. Mr. Clinton, to avoid perjury charges after leaving office, agreed on his last full day in the White House to a deal with Mr. Ray in which he admitted giving false testimony under oath about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, temporarily surrendered his law license and paid a $25,000 fine.Should the Justice Department indict Mr. Trump, a trial would be vastly different from House hearings in ways that affect the scope and pace of any inquiry. Investigators would have to scour thousands of hours of video footage and the full contents of devices and online accounts they have accessed for evidence bolstering their case, as well as anything that a defense lawyer could use to knock it down. Federal prosecutors would probably also have to convince appeals court judges and a majority of Supreme Court justices of the validity of their case.For all of the pressure that the House committee has put on the Justice Department to act, it has resisted sharing information. In April, the department asked the committee for transcripts of witness interviews, but the panel has not agreed to turn over the documents because its work is continuing.Although critics have faulted Mr. Garland, attorneys general do not generally drive the day-to-day work of investigations. Mr. Garland is briefed nearly every day on the inquiry’s progress, but it is being led by Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney in Washington, who is working with national security and criminal division officials. Lisa O. Monaco, the deputy attorney general, broadly oversees the investigation.“Whether fair or not, Garland’s tenure will be defined by whether or not he indicts Trump,” Mr. Miller said. “The Justice Department may not indict Trump. Prosecutors may not believe they have the evidence to secure a conviction. But that will now be interpreted as a choice by Garland, not as a reality that was forced upon him by the facts of the investigation.” More

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests

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      ‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protestsThe March for Our Lives rallies come after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York

      New Yorkers join march for gun reform
      01:59Rallies for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act following a spate of mass shootings.‘Caring and giving’: funeral for Uvalde victim held amid gun law protestsRead moreIn Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night.”The March for Our Lives rallies came less than a month after 10 people were killed in the racist attack in Buffalo, New York and 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.Other mass shootings, widely defined as shootings in which four people or more excluding the shooter are hurt or killed, have also helped put the issue center-stage.March for Our Lives was formed in 2018 after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three adults were killed. Organisers estimated a million people, mostly young, joined protests then.The group helped force Republicans in Florida to enact reforms including raising the age to buy long guns, including AR-15-style rifles, from 18 to 21; enacting a three-day gap between purchase and access; allowing trained school staff to carry guns; and putting $400m into mental health services and school security.Florida lawmakers also approved a “red flag law” that can deny firearms to individuals believed to pose a danger to themselves or others.Organisers on Saturday were focusing on smaller marches at more locations. The DC protest was expected to draw 50,000. The 2018 march filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people.By noon on Saturday, thousands had gathered around the Washington Monument. Protestors held signs demanding justice for the victims of Uvalde and Buffalo. Speakers included activists, family members of those killed and shooting survivors.Garnell Whitfield, son of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old killed in Buffalo, told the crowd he and his family were “still in a state of shock”. When she was killed, Ruth Whitfield was buying groceries after visiting her husband at a nursing home.Happening now: March for our Lives in Buffalo #MarchForOurLivesJune11 pic.twitter.com/QHPtmTzbor— Gabriel Elizondo (@elizondogabriel) June 11, 2022
      “We are being naive to think that it couldn’t happen to us,” Garnell Whitfield said. “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night as victims. We hear a lot about prayer, and prayer is wonderful and we thank you for your prayers. But prayer is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s an action. You pray, then you get up and you work.”The parents of Joaquin Oliver, a 17-year-old killed in the Parkland shooting, wore shirts bearing a picture of their son.“I was hoping to avoid attending a march like this ever again,” Manuel Oliver said, standing next to his wife, Patricia. “Our elected officials betrayed us and have avoided the responsibility to end gun violence.”The crowd heard from two founders of March for Our Lives, David Hogg and X Gonzalez, both Parkland survivors.“All Americans have a right to not be shot, a right to safety,” Hogg said. “Nowhere in the constitution is unrestricted access to weapons of war a guaranteed right.“We’ve seen the damage AR-15s do. When we look at the innocent children of Uvalde, tiny coffins horrify us. Tiny coffins filled with small, mutilated and decapitated bodies. That should fill us with rage and demands for change.”Hogg emphasized state and local gun legislation passed since 2018. He noted a red flag law that saw a court-ordered disarming of an individual who sent his mother a death threat. He encouraged the crowd to bring the issue of gun control to the polls.“If our government can’t do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school and decapitated, it’s time to change who is in government,” Hogg said.Gonzalez gave an impassioned rebuke to Congress.“I’ve spent these past four years doing my best to keep my rage in check. To keep my profanity at a minimum so everyone can understand and appreciate the arguments I’m trying to make, but I have reached my fucking limit. We are being murdered. Cursing will not rob us of our innocence.“You say that children are the future, and you never listen to what we say once we’re old enough to disagree with you, you decaying degenerates. You really want to protect children, pass some fucking gun laws.”Gonzalez said Congress had started treating mass shootings as a “fact of life”, like natural disasters. She criticized politicians for their relationships with gun lobbyists, saying: “We saw you cash those fucking checks. We as children did the heavy lifting for you. Act your age, not your shoe-size, Congress. You ought to be ashamed.”Yolanda King, who spoke at the 2018 March for Our Lives rally when she was nine, spoke of hope for action after Uvalde and Buffalo. Now 14, she evoked her grandfather, Martin Luther King Jr.“My grandfather was taken from the world by gun violence. Six years after his death, his mother, my great-grandmother, was killed in church during Sunday service. We have all been touched by tragedy, we have all been lifted up by hope.“Today we’re telling Congress, we’re telling the gun lobby and we’re telling the world this time is different. This time is different because we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of having more guns than people here in America. Together, we can carve that stone of love and hope out of that mountain of death and despair. Together we can build a gun-free world for all people.Dozens of other rallies saw protesters call for stronger legislation. In Buffalo, hundreds protested outside the supermarket where the shooting happened. The group held a moment of silence and chanted “Not one more”.March for Our Lives has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for gun purchases and a national licensing system.The US House has passed bills that would raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic weapons and establish a federal “red flag” law. But previous such initiatives have stalled or been watered down in the Senate. The new marches were to take place a day after senators left Washington without reaching agreement in guns talks.On Saturday, Joe Biden tweeted his support.“I join them by repeating my call to Congress: do something,” the president said, adding that Congress must ban assault weapons, strengthen background checks, pass red flag laws and repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity to liability.“We can’t fail the American people again,” the president wrote. More

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      El comité sobre el ataque al Capitolio muestra a Trump como un aspirante a autócrata

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      Según el comité que investiga el ataque al Capitolio del 6 de enero, Donald Trump llevó a cabo una conspiración en siete partes para anular una elección democrática libre y justa.Es muy probable que en los 246 años de historia de Estados Unidos nunca se haya hecho una acusación más comprometedora contra un presidente estadounidense que la presentada el jueves por la noche en una sala de audiencias cavernosa del Congreso, donde el futuro de la democracia parecía estar en juego.A otros mandatarios se les ha acusado de actuar mal, incluso de cometer delitos e infracciones, pero el caso en contra de Donald Trump formulado por la comisión bipartidista de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque al Capitolio del 6 de enero de 2021 no solo describe a un presidente deshonesto, sino a un aspirante a autócrata dispuesto a violar la Constitución para aferrarse al poder a toda costa.Como lo describió la comisión durante su audiencia televisada, a la hora de mayor audiencia, Trump ejecutó una conspiración en siete partes para anular una elección democrática libre y justa. Según el panel, le mintió al pueblo estadounidense, ignoró todas las pruebas que refutaban sus falsas denuncias de fraude, presionó a los funcionarios estatales y federales para que anularan los resultados de las elecciones que favorecían a su contrincante, alentó a una turba violenta a atacar el Capitolio e incluso señaló su apoyo a la ejecución de su propio vicepresidente.“El 6 de enero fue la culminación de un intento de golpe de Estado, un intento descarado, como dijo uno de los alborotadores poco después del 6 de enero, de derrocar al gobierno”, dijo el representante demócrata por Misisipi, Bennie Thompson, presidente de la comisión especial. “La violencia no fue un accidente. Representa la última oportunidad de Trump, la más desesperada, para detener la transferencia de poder”.Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, led the first hearing on the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which included testimony from a Capitol police officer and a documentary filmmaker.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesLas palabras de los propios asesores y personajes nombrados por Trump fueron las más incriminatorias. Se proyectaron en video en una pantalla gigante sobre el estrado de la comisión y se transmitieron a una audiencia de televisión nacional. Se pudo ver cómo su propio fiscal general le dijo a Trump que sus denuncias de una elección falsa eran “patrañas”. Su abogado de campaña testificó que no había suficientes pruebas de fraude para cambiar el resultado. Hasta su propia hija, Ivanka Trump, reconoció haber aceptado la conclusión de que la elección no fue robada, como su padre seguía afirmando.Read More on the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsThe Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: During the first hearing, the House panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Donald Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Trump’s Depiction: Former president Donald J. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.Buena parte de las pruebas fueron presentadas por la principal figura republicana en la comisión, la representante por Wyoming Liz Cheney, quien ha sido condenada al ostracismo por Trump y por buena parte de su partido por condenar una y otra vez las acciones del entonces presidente después de la elección. Cheney planteó con firmeza el caso y luego se dirigió a sus compañeros republicanos que han optado por apoyar a su derrotado expresidente y justificar sus acciones.“A mis colegas republicanos que defienden lo indefendible les digo: llegará el día en el que Donald Trump se haya ido, pero el deshonor de ustedes permanecerá”, declaró.Muchos de los detalles ya se habían dado a conocer y muchas interrogantes sobre las acciones de Trump quedaron sin respuesta por ahora, pero Cheney resumió los hallazgos de la comisión de una forma implacable y acusadora.Un grupo de personas en Washington que se reunió para ver la audiencia, escuchaba a la representante Liz Cheney, republicana por Wyoming.Shuran Huang para The New York TimesAlgunas de las nuevas revelaciones y las confirmaciones de las noticias recientes fueron suficientes para provocar exclamaciones de asombro en el recinto y, tal vez, en las salas de todo el país. Se informó que luego de que se le dijo que la multitud del 6 de enero coreaba “Cuelguen a Mike Pence”, el vicepresidente que desafió las presiones del presidente para bloquear la transferencia de poder, Trump respondió: “Quizá nuestros seguidores tengan la idea correcta”. Mike Pence, agregó, “se lo merece”.Cheney, vicepresidenta del panel, informó que en la víspera del ataque del 6 de enero, miembros del propio gabinete de Trump hablaron de invocar la Vigésima Quinta Enmienda para destituir al entonces presidente del cargo. Reveló que el representante por Pensilvania Scott Perry y “otros congresistas republicanos” que habían participado en el intento de anular la elección buscaron obtener indultos de Trump durante sus últimos días en el cargo.Cheney reprodujo un video en el que se veía a Jared Kushner, yerno del exmandatario y asesor principal que después de la elección se ausentó en lugar de enfrentar a los teóricos de la conspiración que incitaban a Trump, desechar con displicencia las amenazas de Pat A. Cipollone, consejero de la Casa Blanca, y otros abogados de presentar su renuncia en señal de protesta. “Me pareció que solo eran lloriqueos, para ser sincero”, declaró Kushner.También la vicepresidenta del comité señaló que mientras Pence tomó medidas reiteradas para buscar asistencia y detener a la turba el 6 de enero, el presidente no hizo tal esfuerzo. En cambio, su jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, Mark Meadows, trató de convencer al general Mark A. Milley, presidente del Estado Mayor Conjunto, de fingir que Trump estaba activamente involucrado.“Dijo: ‘Tenemos que eliminar el relato de que el vicepresidente está tomando todas las decisiones’”, dijo el general Milley en un testimonio grabado en video. “‘Necesitamos imponer la versión de que el presidente todavía está a cargo, y que las cosas están firmes o estables’, o palabras en ese sentido. Inmediatamente interpreté eso como política, política, política”.Trump no tuvo aliados en la comisión de nueve integrantes de la Cámara de Representantes y él y sus seguidores rechazaron el trabajo del panel con el argumento de que es un intento partidista para desprestigiarlo. En Fox News, que optó por no transmitir la audiencia, Sean Hannity se esmeraba por cambiar el tema y atacó a la comisión por no centrarse en las violaciones de seguridad del Capitolio, de las que culpa principalmente a la presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, aunque el senador por Kentucky Mitch McConnell, entonces líder de la mayoría republicana, compartía con ella el control del edificio en ese momento.Antes de la audiencia, Trump trató una vez más de reescribir la historia al presentar el ataque al Capitolio como una manifestación legítima de agravio público contra unas elecciones robadas. “El 6 de enero no fue solo una protesta, sino que representó el mayor movimiento en la historia de nuestro país para hacer a Estados Unidos grandioso de nuevo”, escribió en su nuevo sitio de redes sociales.El panel reprodujo un video de Ivanka Trump, la hija de Trump y exasesora de la Casa Blanca, testificando a puerta cerrada.Kenny Holston para The New York TimesTrump no es el primer presidente que ha sido señalado por mala conducta, infracción de la ley o incluso violación de la Constitución. Andrew Johnson y Bill Clinton fueron acusados ​​por la Cámara de Representantes, aunque absueltos por el Senado. John Tyler se puso del lado de la Confederación durante la Guerra de Secesión. Richard M. Nixon renunció bajo amenaza de juicio político por abusar de su poder para encubrir actividades corruptas de campaña. Warren G. Harding tuvo el escándalo del Teapot Dome y Ronald Reagan el caso Irán-Contras.Pero los delitos alegados en la mayoría de esos casos palidecen en comparación con las acusaciones contra Trump, y aunque Tyler se puso en contra del país que una vez dirigió, murió antes de que pudiera rendir cuentas. Nixon enfrentó audiencias durante Watergate no muy diferentes a las que comenzaron el jueves por la noche y estuvo involucrado en otros escándalos más allá del robo que finalmente derivó en su salida. Pero la deshonestidad flagrante y la incitación a la violencia expuestas el jueves eclipsaron incluso sus fechorías, según diversos académicos.Trump, por supuesto, ya fue impugnado en dos ocasiones y absuelto otras dos, la segunda por su involucramiento en el ataque del 6 de enero. Pero, aun así, el caso en su contra ahora es mucho más amplio y expansivo, después de que la comisión llevó a cabo unas 1000 entrevistas y obtuvo más de 100.000 páginas de documentos.Lo que el comité intentaba demostrar era que no se trataba de un presidente con preocupaciones razonables sobre el fraude o una protesta que se salió de control. En cambio, el panel estaba tratando de obtener las pruebas de que Trump formó parte de una conspiración criminal contra la democracia; que sabía que no había un fraude generalizado porque su propio entorno se lo dijo, que, de manera intencional, convocó a una turba para que detuviera la entrega del poder a Joseph R. Biden Jr. y se quedó cruzado de brazos sin hacer casi nada cuando el ataque comenzó.Aún no sabemos si el panel puede cambiar las opiniones públicas sobre esos acontecimientos, pero muchos estrategas y analistas políticos piensan que es poco probable. Con medios más fragmentados y una sociedad más polarizada, la mayoría de los estadounidenses ya tienen una opinión sobre el 6 de enero y solo escuchan a quienes la comparten.Sin embargo, había otro espectador de las audiencias, el fiscal general Merrick B. Garland. Si la comisión estaba exponiendo lo que consideraba una acusación formal contra el expresidente, parecía estar invitando al Departamento de Justicia a seguir el caso de verdad con un gran jurado y en un tribunal de justicia.Al adelantar la historia que se contará en las próximas semanas, Cheney casi le escribió el guion a Garland. La representante dijo: “Van a escuchar sobre complots para cometer conspiración sediciosa el 6 de enero, un delito definido en nuestras leyes como conspirar para derrocar, destituir o destruir por la fuerza el gobierno de Estados Unidos u oponerse por la fuerza a la autoridad del mismo”.Pero si Garland no está de acuerdo y las audiencias de este mes resultan ser el único juicio al que se enfrente Trump por sus esfuerzos para anular las elecciones, Cheney y sus compañeros de la comisión estaban decididos a asegurarse de que, al menos, sea condenado por el jurado de la historia.Peter Baker es el corresponsal jefe de la Casa Blanca y ha cubierto a los últimos cinco presidentes para el Times y The Washington Post. También es autor de seis libros, el más reciente The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III. @peterbakernyt • Facebook More