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¿Qué significa el 6 de enero para Estados Unidos?
Un año después del humo y los vidrios rotos, de la horca simulada y la violencia demasiado real de ese día atroz, es tentador hacer una retrospectiva e imaginar que, de hecho, podemos simplemente hacer una retrospectiva. Es tentador imaginar que lo que sucedió el 6 de enero de 2021 —un asalto mortal en la sede del gobierno de Estados Unidos incitado por un presidente derrotado en medio de una campaña desesperada por frustrar la transferencia de poder a su sucesor— fue terrible pero que ahora está en el pasado y que nosotros, como nación, hemos podido avanzar.Es un impulso comprensible. Después de cuatro años de caos, crueldad e incompetencia, que culminaron en una pandemia y con el trauma antes impensable del 6 de enero, la mayoría de los estadounidenses estaban impacientes por tener algo de paz y tranquilidad.Hemos conseguido eso, en la superficie. Nuestra vida política parece más o menos normal en estos días: el presidente perdona pavos y el Congreso se pelea por la legislación de presupuesto. Pero si escarbamos un poco, las cosas están lejos de ser normales. El 6 de enero no está en el pasado: está presente todos los días.Está en los ciudadanos de a pie que amenazan a funcionarios electorales y otros servidores públicos, está en quienes preguntan “¿Cuándo podemos usar las armas?” y prometen asesinar a los políticos que se atrevan a votar con conciencia. Son los legisladores republicanos que luchan por hacer que el voto sea más difícil para las personas y, si votan, que sea más fácil subvertir su voluntad. Está en Donald Trump, quien continúa avivando las llamas del conflicto con sus mentiras desenfrenadas y resentimientos ilimitados y cuya versión distorsionada de la realidad todavía domina a uno de los dos principales partidos políticos de la nación.En pocas palabras, la república enfrenta una amenaza existencial por parte de un movimiento que desdeña de manera abierta la democracia y que ha demostrado su disposición a usar la violencia para conseguir sus propósitos. Ninguna sociedad autónoma puede sobrevivir a una amenaza así negando que esta existe. Más bien, la supervivencia depende de mirar al pasado y hacia el futuro al mismo tiempo.Encarar de verdad la amenaza que se avecina significa entender plenamente el terror de ese día hace un año. Gracias en gran medida a la labor tenaz de un comité bipartidista en la Cámara de Representantes, una toma de conciencia está en proceso. Ahora sabemos que la violencia y el caos transmitidos en vivo a todo el mundo fue solo la parte más visible y visceral de un esfuerzo por revertir las elecciones. Ese esfuerzo llegaba hasta el Despacho Oval, donde Trump y sus aliados planearon un autogolpe constitucional.Ahora sabemos que los principales legisladores republicanos y figuras de los medios de comunicación de derecha entendieron en privado lo peligroso que era el asalto y le pidieron a Trump que lo detuviera, incluso cuando públicamente decían lo contrario. Ahora sabemos que quienes pueden tener información crítica sobre la planificación y ejecución del ataque se niegan a cooperar con el Congreso, incluso si eso significa ser acusado de desacato criminal.Por ahora, el trabajo del comité continúa. Ha programado una serie de audiencias públicas para exponer estos y otros detalles, y planea publicar un informe completo de sus hallazgos antes de las elecciones intermedias de este año. Después de los comicios, si los republicanos recuperan el control de la Cámara, como se espera, indudablemente el comité será disuelto.Aquí es donde entra la mirada hacia el futuro. A lo largo del año pasado, legisladores republicanos en 41 estados han intentado promover los objetivos de los alborotadores del 6 de enero, y lo han hecho no rompiendo leyes, sino promulgándolas. Se han propuesto cientos de proyectos de ley y se han aprobado casi tres decenas de leyes que facultan a las legislaturas estatales para sabotear sus propios comicios y anular la voluntad de sus votantes, según el recuento activo de un consorcio no partidista de organizaciones a favor de la democracia.Algunos proyectos de ley cambiarían las reglas para hacer más fácil que los legisladores rechacen los votos de sus ciudadanos si no les gusta el resultado. Otros proyectos legislativos reemplazan a los funcionarios electorales profesionales con figuras partidistas que podrían tener un interés claro en que gane su candidato predilecto. Y, otros más intentan criminalizar los errores humanos de funcionarios electorales, en algunos casos incluso con amenaza de cárcel.Muchas de estas leyes se están proponiendo y aprobando en estados que suele ser cruciales en las elecciones, como Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia y Pensilvania. A raíz de la votación de 2020, la campaña de Trump se enfocó en los resultados electorales en estos estados: demandó para reclamar un recuento o trataba de intimidar a los funcionarios para que encontraran votos “faltantes”. El esfuerzo fracasó, en buena medida debido al profesionalismo y la integridad de los funcionarios electorales. Desde entonces, muchos de esos funcionarios han sido despojados de su poder o expulsados de sus cargos y reemplazados por personas que dicen abiertamente que las últimas elecciones fueron fraudulentas.De este modo, los disturbios del Capitolio continúan presentes en los congresos estatales de todo Estados Unidos, en una forma legalizada y sin derramamiento de sangre y que ningún oficial de policía puede detener y que ningún fiscal puede juzgar en un tribunal.Esta no es la primera vez que las legislaturas estatales intentan arrebatarle el control de los votos electorales a sus ciudadanos, ni es la primera vez que se advierte de los peligros que entraña esa estrategia. En 1891, el presidente Benjamin Harrison advirtió al Congreso del riesgo de que ese “truco” pudiera determinar el resultado de una elección presidencial.La Constitución garantiza a todos los estadounidenses una forma republicana de gobierno, dijo Harrison. “Las características esenciales de tal gobierno son el derecho del pueblo a elegir a sus propios funcionarios” y que sus votos se cuenten por igual al tomar esa decisión. “Nuestro principal peligro nacional”, agregó, es “el derrocamiento del control de la mayoría mediante la supresión o distorsión del sufragio popular”. Si una legislatura estatal lograra sustituir la voluntad de sus votantes por la suya, “no es exagerado decir que la paz pública podría estar en peligro serio y generalizado”.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More
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In the Capitol’s Shadow, the Jan. 6 Panel Quietly Ramps Up Its Inquiry
From a nondescript office building, a few dozen investigators and members of Congress are rushing to dissect what led to the worst attack on the Capitol in centuries.WASHINGTON — Behind closed doors inside a nondescript office building at the foot of Capitol Hill on a recent chilly morning, the House inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was in full swing.As congressional staff aides shuffled through the halls going about their normal business, investigators quietly pulled shades over the windows in conference rooms on several different floors and posted “Do Not Disturb” signs.In one such room sat Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of the Stop the Steal rallies with ties to far-right members of Congress who worked to help Donald J. Trump invalidate his 2020 election loss.A floor below was Kash Patel, a former Pentagon chief of staff involved in discussions about Capitol security. He had been in constant contact with Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 6.Facing questions elsewhere in the building were John Eastman, a lawyer who plotted with Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results; and Christopher Krebs, the Trump administration’s most senior cybersecurity official, who was fired after systematically dismantling Mr. Trump’s false declarations that the presidency had been stolen from him.The committee scrutinizing the pro-Trump mob attack has conducted much of its inquiry in private, drawing public attention mostly for the legal fights it is waging over access to evidence from Mr. Trump and some of his top lieutenants. But from a warren of offices in the O’Neill House Office Building in Southwest Washington, a few dozen investigators and members of Congress have ramped up a sprawling and elaborate investigation into the worst American attack on democracy in centuries.In recent weeks, with the anniversary of the riot looming on Thursday, the panel has redoubled its efforts in the face of mounting resistance from the former president. It is rushing to make as much progress as possible before January 2023. Republicans are favored to regain control of the House this fall, and if they do, that is when they would take power and almost certainly dissolve the inquiry.“We worked on Christmas and on New Year’s Day,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. “The window for getting the job done requires weekends and holidays too. There’s a really firm commitment on the part of the staff to get it done.”Working in color-coded teams, investigators have interviewed more than 300 witnesses, from White House officials close to Mr. Trump to the rioters themselves, and are sorting through more than 35,000 documents. During its first three months, from July through September, the committee had fewer than 30 staff members and spent about $418,000, according to the latest documents filed with the House. Since then, the panel has increased its staff to about 40 and is looking to hire more investigators.Soon, the inquiry will enter a new phase, with plans to hold a series of public hearings in early spring to lay out some of its findings. Those will feature, among other topics, state election officials testifying to the security and accuracy of the 2020 election. A final report will be issued, “obviously before the November elections,” Mr. Thompson said.Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?For now, the O’Neill building is the main hub of activity, where, depending on the day, the political operative Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, might appear outside flashing his signature Nixon-style “V for victory” sign to a sea of news cameras; or a lawyer for a Jan. 6 rally planner might arrive promoting a “treasure trove” of documents he says will leave senior Trump allies “quivering in their boots.” Reporters often dart up and down hallways trying to catch up to the various witnesses leaving the interview rooms.Inside, investigators and members of the nine-person committee are questioning witnesses, with the lawmakers — juggling busy schedules of floor votes and other congressional hearings — often bouncing between the interviews on a direct TV feed.“We are participating in the depositions and interviews regularly, and these are quite lengthy,” said Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the committee. “Even with other work that we have to do throughout the day, members are joining regularly to ask questions about specific areas.”The so-called green team is following the money trail connected to Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote the baseless assertion that he was the rightful winner of the election, including whether any groups defrauded contributors with false statements about widespread election fraud.The gold team is scrutinizing any plans Mr. Trump made with members of Congress to try to overturn the election and his pressure campaign on local, state and Justice Department officials to try to keep himself in power.Domestic violent extremist groups, such as the QAnon movement and the militia groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, are the focus of the purple team. A fourth, the red team, is digging into the Jan. 6 rally planners and the Stop the Steal movement.The committee is led by Mr. Thompson and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who serves as vice chairwoman. Its top two investigators — both former U.S. attorneys — also come from different parties.Timothy J. Heaphy, whom President Barack Obama named U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, is the Jan. 6 committee’s chief investigative counsel; and John Wood, whom President George W. Bush hired as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is the committee’s senior investigative counsel.Mr. Wood, an ally of Ms. Cheney, is closely supervising the team focused on Mr. Trump’s direct involvement.One witness recently interviewed by the committee said arriving at the O’Neill building, a gleaming glass-encased behemoth, was like entering the British intelligence agency’s headquarters, with its modern lines and sterile feel. A congressional staffer escorted him up an elevator to a room with a U-shaped table and a large television on the wall. The TV had a live remote feed through which members of the committee could watch and listen.The witness said that before the deposition questioning began, he had been presented with a large binder full of evidence that investigators had collected on him. The lawyers conducting the inquiry were often “adversarial and hostile” in tone, he said, and were interested in the most minute details, even the moods and emotions of the people they were asking about.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More
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Capitol attack panel in race against time as Trump allies seek to run out clock
Capitol attack panel in race against time as Trump allies seek to run out clock A barrage of delay tactics as Republicans are expected to do well in 2022 midterms that would give them control to shut down inquiryThe House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol is facing a race against time in 2022 as Trump and his allies seek to run out the clock with a barrage of delay tactics and lawsuits.Bannon and allies bid to expand pro-Trump influence in local US politicsRead moreRepublicans are widely expected to do well in this year’s midterm elections in November and, if they win control of the House, that would give them control to shut down the investigation that has proved politically and legally damaging to Trump and Republicans.The select committee opened its investigative efforts into the 6 January insurrection, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, with a flurry of subpoenas to Trump officials to expedite the evidence-gathering process.But aside from securing a trove of documents from Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the select committee has found itself wading through molasses with Trump and other top administration aides seeking to delay the investigation by any means possible.The former US president has attempted to block the select committee at every turn, instructing aides to defy subpoenas from the outset and, most recently, launching a last-ditch appeal to the supreme court to prevent the release of the most sensitive of White House records.His aides are following Trump in lockstep as they attempt to shield themselves from the investigation, doing everything from filing frivolous lawsuits to stop the select committee obtaining call records to invoking the fifth amendment so as to not respond in depositions.The efforts amount to a cynical ploy by Republicans to run out the clock until the midterms and use the election calendar to characterize the interim report, which the bipartisan select committee hopes to issue by the summer, as a political exercise to damage the GOP.The select committee, sources close to the investigation say, is therefore hoping for a breakthrough with the supreme court, which experts believe will ensure the panel can access the Trump White House records over the former president’s objections about executive privilege.“I think the supreme court is very unlikely to side with Trump, and part of it is the nature of executive privilege – it’s a power belonging to the President,” said Jonathan Shaub, a former DoJ office of legal counsel attorney and law professor at the University of Kentucky.“It’s hard to see how a former president could exercise constitutional power under a theory where all the constitutional powers are vested in the current president, so I think Trump is very likely to lose or the court may not take the case,” Shaub said.Members on the select committee note that several courts – the US district court and the US appeals court – have already ruled that Biden has the final say over which White House documents are subject to executive privilege, and that the panel has a legislative purpose.A victory for the select committee at the supreme court is important, members believe, not only because it would give them access to the records Trump has fought so hard to keep hidden, but because it would supercharge the inquiry with crucial momentum.The select committee got its first break when House investigators obtained from Meadows thousands of communications involving the White House, including a powerpoint detailing ways to stage a coup, and are hoping the supreme court can help to sustain their pace.“It’s pretty clear that these documents are serious documents that shed light on the president’s activities on January 6 and that may be quite damaging for Trump,” said Kate Shaw, a former Obama White House counsel and now a professor at the Cardozo School of Law.“They could make a difference to the record being compiled by the committee and thus they could give the process additional momentum,” Shaw said. “That’s probably why Trump is resisting their release as hard as he is.”More generally, the select committee says they are unconcerned by attempts by Trump aides and political operatives to stymie the inquiry, since Democrats control Washington and the panel has an unprecedented carte blanche to upturn every inch the Trump administration.“The legislative and executive branches are completely in agreement with each other, that this material is not privileged and needs to be turned over to Congress,” said congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee. “Things have been moving much more quickly.”But the select committee acknowledges privately that they face a longer and more difficult slog with Trump aides and political operatives who are mounting legal challenges to everything from the panel’s attempts to compel production of call records and even testimony.The trouble for the select committee, regardless of Democrats’ controlling the White House, Congress and the justice department, is that they are counting on the courts to deliver accountability for Trump officials unwilling to cooperate with the inquiry.Yet Trump and his officials know that slow-moving cogs of justice have a history of doing nothing of the sort. House investigators only heard from former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn this past summer, years after the end of the special counsel investigation.The House has not even been able to obtain Trump’s tax returns – something Democrats have been fighting to get access to since they took the majority in 2018 – after repeated appeals from the former president despite repeated defeats in court.Trump and his aides insist they are not engaged in a ploy to stymie the investigation, though they admit to doing just that in private discussions, according to sources close to the former president.When the select committee issued its first subpoenas to his former aides Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, Trump’s lawyers told their lawyers to defy the orders because it would likely serve to slow down the investigation, the sources said.The result of Trump’s directive – first reported by the Guardian – is that Bannon and Meadows refused to appear for their depositions, and the select committee now may never hear their inside information about the Capitol attack after they were held in contempt of Congress.It remains possible that Bannon and Meadows seek some kind of a plea deal with federal prosecutors that involves providing testimony to the select committee in exchange for no jail time, but the court hearing for Bannon, for instance, is scheduled late into the summer.The reality for House investigators is that the cases are now in the hands of a justice department intent on proving it remains above the political fray after years of Trump’s interference at DoJ, and therefore indifferent to the time crunch felt by the 6 January committee.The situation for the select committee may be even trickier with Republican members of Congress involved in 6 January, as they just need to stonewall the investigation only through the midterms, before which the panel hopes to release an interim report into their findings.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on the outlook for the investigation and their expectations for the supreme court hearing in the case against Trump, which the panel, cognizant of their limited timeframe, has asked to expedite.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, originally aimed to have the final report completed before the midterm elections, but the efforts by the most senior Trump officials to delay the investigation means he could need until the end of the year.Either way, sources close to the investigation told the Guardian, the select committee is hoping that the supreme court will deliver the elusive Trump White House records – and that it could pave the way for the investigation to shift into yet another higher gear.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More
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Representative Bobby Rush, Longtime Illinois Democrat, Will Retire
The decision by the pastor and civil rights activist added to a wave of Democrats deciding not to run for re-election in a difficult midterm cycle.WASHINGTON — Representative Bobby L. Rush, the most senior Illinois House lawmaker, said on Monday that he planned to retire at the end of the year, adding to a wave of Democrats who have decided against seeking re-election in what is expected to be a tough midterm cycle for the party.Mr. Rush, 75, a pastor and former Black Panther who built himself into an electoral powerhouse in his district on the South Side of Chicago, said in an announcement video obtained by The New York Times that he wanted to focus on his ministerial work and his family.“I’m not retiring — I’m returning home,” Mr. Rush said in the video, in which he reflected on nearly three decades of service in Congress and earlier battles with a rare cancer. “I’m returning to my church. I’m returning to my family.”“Being a member of Congress — although it’s powerful — it can be very limited,” he added, saying he would be broadening his horizons. “I think I’ll be more effective because I have the gift of a 75-year-old, and that’s wisdom.”In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, where he disclosed his plans, Mr. Rush said his decision came after a conversation with his 19-year-old grandson, Jonathan, saying that he did not want his grandchildren “to know me from a television news clip or something they read in a newspaper.”Two dozen House Democrats have now announced their plans to either retire or seek a different political office before the November election, when many Democrats fear they will lose control of the House. With the departure of several senior lawmakers, Democrats face a loss of institutional knowledge and experience.Although Mr. Rush’s district is heavily Democratic and unlikely to switch parties, the House Republican campaign arm gloated over what Mike Berg, a spokesman, described as evidence that “Democrats are abandoning ship as fast as possible because they know their majority is doomed.”Mr. Rush is set to hold a news conference at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago on Tuesday. The funeral of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager whose murder by two white men helped shape the civil rights movement, was held at the church in 1955.Before winning the seat in 1992, Mr. Rush enlisted in the Army, helped found the Illinois Black Panther Party and served as a Chicago alderman. As he climbed in Democratic electoral politics, he faced criticism from some other Black activists that he had become too mainstream, but he defeated multiple bids to oust him, including a primary challenge by former President Barack Obama, then a state senator. He was set to face another primary this year.In the 16-minute video, Mr. Rush reflected on the critical funding he had funneled toward his district and the legislation he had shepherded into law. He has long fought against gun violence and continued his civil rights activism in the House, breaching chamber rules on dress in 2012 when he wore a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses to honor Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager killed in Florida.The speech, he said in the video, was a chance to “let the whole world see that although I’m a member of Congress, I’m still a Black man in America who’s fighting for justice and equality.”He vowed to continue pushing for bills to be passed before his retirement, including the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which would explicitly make lynching a federal crime.“I’m going to get this bill passed,” he pledged. More
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Jan. 6 Panel Faces Difficult Questions as Anniversary of Capitol Riot Approaches
Decisions about subpoenas and a Supreme Court ruling loom as lawmakers, staff members and Capitol employees plan to commemorate the day.WASHINGTON — The anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot arrives this week with the congressional committee investigating the attack confronting a series of difficult questions, including how forcefully to flex its subpoena power and whether the Supreme Court will stymie a major element of its inquiry.As the nine-member panel continues to examine the events leading up to the worst attack on Congress in centuries, it is waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will refuse a request from former President Donald J. Trump to block the committee’s access to White House records related to the riot. The committee also has not ruled out moving to subpoena members of Congress, or Mr. Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.Thursday will mark a year since a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, determined to disrupt the formal certification of President Biden’s electoral victory. At least seven people died in connection with the riot, dozens more were injured and hundreds of workers in the Capitol were shaken and traumatized, further fracturing an increasingly partisan Congress.The committee, aiming to release a final report before the November midterm elections, is planning for a more public stage of its investigation in the coming weeks as lawmakers work to trace the planning of the attack and expand the scope of the investigation. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the panel, said on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that public hearings could begin “in a matter of weeks, if not a couple of months from now.”But as the inquiry continues, the first anniversary will draw even more attention as lawmakers, staff members, Capitol employees and journalists commemorate the day. Both Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to give speeches marking the anniversary.While the House is not scheduled to return for legislative work until Jan. 10, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has mapped out events for lawmakers to participate in on Thursday, either in Washington or virtually from their districts, in what she described as “an observance of reflection, remembrance and recommitment.”The House will hold a moment of silence before Dr. Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress, moderates a discussion with historians “to establish and preserve the narrative of Jan. 6,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a letter to her caucus. Lawmakers will give speeches reflecting on the day, and lawmakers will hold an early evening prayer vigil on the center steps of the Capitol.Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?Unlike the House, the Senate is scheduled to be in session this week as Democrats continue confirming Biden administration nominees and seek to revive their party’s stalled legislative agenda. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, is expected to invoke the riot and efforts by Trump loyalists to overturn the 2020 election as he pushes to pass a voting rights overhaul and try to change Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster against that legislation.The Senate Rules Committee will hold an oversight hearing with J. Thomas Manger, the Capitol Police chief, on Wednesday. On Thursday, however, it is likely that some senators may be in Atlanta to attend an afternoon memorial service for former Senator Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican who died in December.Some lawmakers have questioned whether it was appropriate for Congress to be in session, given the lingering trauma from the day.“It was a sad day in our nation’s history, and a terrible day, and I don’t think bringing a lot of attention to the day is a great idea,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump after he was impeached for his role in inciting the mob that day. “For some of the staffers,” she added, “for some of the Capitol Police officers, it brings back a lot of trauma, and I just think it’d be better if we aren’t here.”A majority of Republicans, however, have sought to downplay the attack. They have largely refused to acknowledge their party’s complicity in failing to quash Mr. Trump’s lies about the election and cut ties with the former president, who continues to peddle conspiracy theories rather than accept his electoral loss.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, called former President Donald J. Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6 “a dereliction of duty.”Jason Andrew for The New York Times“Our party has to choose,” Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee and one of two Republican panel members, said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And right now there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president.”In a series of separate televised appearances on Sunday, Ms. Cheney and Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, pointedly did not rule out making criminal referrals to the Justice Department.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More
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Capitol attack: Cheney says Republicans must choose between Trump and truth
Capitol attack: Cheney says Republicans must choose between Trump and truthRepublican member of the House committee investigating the events of 6 January issues stark warning to her party
The Steal: stethoscope for a democracy near cardiac arrest
On a day of alarming polling about attitudes to political violence and fears for US democracy, and as the first anniversary of the Capitol attack approached, a Republican member of the House committee investigating the events of 6 January 2021 had a stark warning for her party.One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollRead more“Our party has to choose,” Liz Cheney told CBS’s Face the Nation. “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the constitution, but we cannot be both.”Trump supporters attacked Congress in an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden, which Trump maintains without evidence was the result of electoral fraud. Five people died around a riot in which a mob roamed the Capitol, searching for lawmakers to capture and possibly kill.On Sunday, Cheney and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee chairman, again discussed the possibility of a criminal referral for Trump over his failure to attempt to stop the riot or for his obstruction of the investigation.Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Cheney said there were “potential criminal statutes at issue here, but I think that there’s absolutely no question that it was a dereliction of duty. And I think one of the things the committee needs to look at is … a legislative purpose, is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty.”Thompson said subpoenas could be served on Republicans in Congress who refuse to comply with information requests of the kind which have led to a charge of criminal contempt of Congress for Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, and a recommendation of such a charge for Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff.The Democrat told NBC’s Meet the Press the committee was examining whether it could issue subpoenas to members of Congress, immediately Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.“I think there are some questions of whether we have the authority to do it,” Thompson said. “If the authorities are there, there’ll be no reluctance on our part.”Last month, the committee asked Jordan for testimony about conversations with Trump on 6 January. Jordan told Fox News he had “real concerns” about the credibility of the panel.Perry was asked for testimony about attempts to replace Jeffrey Rosen, acting head of the justice department, with Jeffrey Clark, an official who tried to help overturn Trump’s defeat.Perry called the committee “illegitimate, and not duly constituted”. A court has ruled that the panel is legitimate and entitled to see White House records Trump is trying to shield, an argument that has reached the supreme court.Sunday saw a rash of polls marking the anniversary of 6 January.CBS found that 68% of Americans saw the Capitol attack as a sign of increasing political violence, and that 66% thought democracy itself was threatened.When respondents were asked if violence would be justifiable to achieve various political ends, the poll returned an average of around 30%. A survey by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland said more than a third of Americans said violence against the government could be justified.ABC News and Ipsos found that 52% of Republicans said the Capitol rioters were trying to protect democracy.Other polling has shown clear majorities among Republicans in believing Trump’s lie about electoral fraud and distrust of federal elections.On CNN’s State of the Union, Larry Hogan, Maryland governor and a moderate Republican with an eye on the presidential nomination, said: “Frankly, it’s crazy that that many people believe things that simply aren’t true.“There’s been an amazing amount of disinformation that’s been spread over the past year. And many people are consuming that disinformation and believing it as if it’s fact. To think the violent protesters who attacked the Capitol, our seat of democracy, on 6 January was just tourists looking at statues? It’s insane that anyone could watch that on television and believe that’s what happened.”Cheney told CBS the blame lay squarely with her own party.“Far too many Republicans are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president or look the other way and hope that the former president goes away, or trying to obstruct the activities of this committee, but we won’t be deterred. At the end of the day, the facts matter, the truth matters.”Her host, Margaret Brennan, pointed out that Republicans across the US, some in states where Trump’s attempt to steal the election was repulsed, are changing election laws to their advantage.“We’ve got to be grounded on the rule of law,” Cheney said. “We’ve got to be grounded on fidelity of the constitution … So I think for people all across the country, they need to recognise how important their vote is for their voices. They’ve got to elect serious people who are going to defend the constitution, not simply do the bidding of Donald Trump.”Trump acolytes vie for key election oversight posts in US midtermsRead moreCheney faces a primary challenger doing Trump’s bidding and enjoying his backing. The other Republican on the 6 January committee, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, will retire in November rather than fight such a battle of his own.Cheney said she was “confident people of Wyoming will not choose loyalty to one man as dangerous as Donald Trump”, and that she will secure re-election.She also notably did not say no when she was asked if she would run against Trump if he sought the nomination next time.On ABC, Cheney was asked if she agreed with Hillary Clinton, who has said a second Trump presidency could end US democracy.“I do,” Cheney said. “I think it is critically important, given everything we know about the lines that he was willing to cross.“… We entrust the survival of our republic into the hands of the chief executive, and when a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the co-ordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More - in Elections
Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now
One year after from the smoke and broken glass, the mock gallows and the very real bloodshed of that awful day, it is tempting to look back and imagine that we can, in fact, simply look back. To imagine that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 — a deadly riot at the seat of American government, incited by a defeated president amid a last-ditch effort to thwart the transfer of power to his successor — was horrifying but that it is in the past and that we as a nation have moved on.This is an understandable impulse. After four years of chaos, cruelty and incompetence, culminating in a pandemic and the once-unthinkable trauma of Jan. 6, most Americans were desperate for some peace and quiet.On the surface, we have achieved that. Our political life seems more or less normal these days, as the president pardons turkeys and Congress quarrels over spending bills. But peel back a layer, and things are far from normal. Jan. 6 is not in the past; it is every day.It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, “When can we use the guns?” and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time.Truly grappling with the threat ahead means taking full account of the terror of that day a year ago. Thanks largely to the dogged work of a bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives, this reckoning is underway. We know now that the violence and mayhem broadcast live around the world was only the most visible and visceral part of the effort to overturn the election. The effort extended all the way into the Oval Office, where Mr. Trump and his allies plotted a constitutional self-coup.We know now that top Republican lawmakers and right-wing media figures privately understood how dangerous the riot was and pleaded with Mr. Trump to call a halt to it, even as they publicly pretended otherwise. We know now that those who may have critical information about the planning and execution of the attack are refusing to cooperate with Congress, even if it means being charged with criminal contempt.For now, the committee’s work continues. It has scheduled a series of public hearings in the new year to lay out these and other details, and it plans to release a full report of its findings before the midterm elections — after which, should Republicans regain control of the House as expected, the committee will undoubtedly be dissolved.This is where looking forward comes in. Over the past year, Republican lawmakers in 41 states have been trying to advance the goals of the Jan. 6 rioters — not by breaking laws but by making them. Hundreds of bills have been proposed and nearly three dozen laws have been passed that empower state legislatures to sabotage their own elections and overturn the will of their voters, according to a running tally by a nonpartisan consortium of pro-democracy organizations.Some bills would change the rules to make it easier for lawmakers to reject the votes of their citizens if they don’t like the outcome. Others replace professional election officials with partisan actors who have a vested interest in seeing their preferred candidate win. Yet more attempt to criminalize human errors by election officials, in some cases even threatening prison.Many of these laws are being proposed and passed in crucial battleground states like Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Trump campaign targeted voting results in all these states, suing for recounts or intimidating officials into finding “missing” votes. The effort failed, thanks primarily to the professionalism and integrity of election officials. Many of those officials have since been stripped of their power or pushed out of office and replaced by people who openly say the last election was fraudulent.Thus the Capitol riot continues in statehouses across the country, in a bloodless, legalized form that no police officer can arrest and that no prosecutor can try in court.This isn’t the first time state legislatures have tried to wrest control of electoral votes from their own people, nor is it the first time that the dangers of such a ploy have been pointed out. In 1891, President Benjamin Harrison warned Congress of the risk that such a “trick” could determine the outcome of a presidential election.The Constitution guarantees to all Americans a republican form of government, Harrison said. “The essential features of such a government are the right of the people to choose their own officers” and to have their votes counted equally in making that choice. “Our chief national danger,” he continued, is “the overthrow of majority control by the suppression or perversion of popular suffrage.” If a state legislature were to succeed in substituting its own will for that of its voters, “it is not too much to say that the public peace might be seriously and widely endangered.”A healthy, functioning political party faces its electoral losses by assessing what went wrong and redoubling its efforts to appeal to more voters the next time. The Republican Party, like authoritarian movements the world over, has shown itself recently to be incapable of doing this. Party leaders’ rhetoric suggests they see it as the only legitimate governing power and thus portrays anyone else’s victory as the result of fraud — hence the foundational falsehood that spurred the Jan. 6 attack, that Joe Biden didn’t win the election.“The thing that’s most concerning is that it has endured in the face of all evidence,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of the vanishingly few Republicans in Congress who remain committed to empirical reality and representative democracy. “And I’ve gotten to wonder if there is actually any evidence that would ever change certain people’s minds.”The answer, for now, appears to be no. Polling finds that the overwhelming majority of Republicans believe that President Biden was not legitimately elected and that about one-third approve of using violence to achieve political goals. Put those two numbers together, and you have a recipe for extreme danger.Political violence is not an inevitable outcome. Republican leaders could help by being honest with their voters and combating the extremists in their midst. Throughout American history, party leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to Margaret Chase Smith to John McCain, have stood up for the union and democracy first, to their everlasting credit.Democrats aren’t helpless, either. They hold unified power in Washington, for the last time in what may be a long time. Yet they have so far failed to confront the urgency of this moment — unwilling or unable to take action to protect elections from subversion and sabotage. Blame Senator Joe Manchin or Senator Kyrsten Sinema, but the only thing that matters in the end is whether you get it done. For that reason, Mr. Biden and other leading Democrats should make use of what remaining power they have to end the filibuster for voting rights legislation, even if nothing else.Whatever happens in Washington, in the months and years to come, Americans of all stripes who value their self-government must mobilize at every level — not simply once every four years but today and tomorrow and the next day — to win elections and help protect the basic functions of democracy. If people who believe in conspiracy theories can win, so can those who live in the reality-based world.Above all, we should stop underestimating the threat facing the country. Countless times over the past six years, up to and including the events of Jan. 6, Mr. Trump and his allies openly projected their intent to do something outrageous or illegal or destructive. Every time, the common response was that they weren’t serious or that they would never succeed. How many times will we have to be proved wrong before we take it seriously? The sooner we do, the sooner we might hope to salvage a democracy that is in grave danger.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
