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      House Panel Demands Records of Trump’s Movements on Jan. 6

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      The request was part of a far-reaching set of documents the select committee sought from seven federal agencies, which suggested the inquiry was focusing on the former president’s role.WASHINGTON — The select committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot demanded detailed records on Wednesday about Donald J. Trump’s every movement and meeting on the day of the assault, in a series of requests to federal agencies that suggested it was focusing on any ties the former president may have had to the attack’s planning or execution.The committee’s demands, sent to the National Archives and Records Administration and six other agencies, show that as they ramp up their inquiry, investigators are looking closely at efforts by the former president to overturn the results of the 2020 election and any connections he or his administration had to the rioters.They are also looking into the potential involvement of at least one top aide to a Republican member of Congress who helped publicize the “Stop the Steal” rallies, which drew Mr. Trump’s supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 to protest the election outcome.The panel sought communications among top Trump administration officials about attempts to place politically loyal personnel in senior positions as Mr. Trump sought to invalidate President Biden’s victory in the run-up to the attack. Investigators are also focused on the planning, organization and funding of pro-Trump rallies on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 and other attempts to stop or slow the process of Mr. Trump handing over the presidency to Mr. Biden.“Our Constitution provides for a peaceful transfer of power, and this investigation seeks to evaluate threats to that process, identify lessons learned and recommend laws, policies, procedures, rules or regulations necessary to protect our Republic in the future,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, wrote in the letters.The committee asked the National Archives, which keeps presidential records, for material it has about any plans hatched from within the White House or other federal agencies to derail the Electoral College vote count by Congress. The process was halted for hours on Jan. 6 as a mob of rioters breached the Capitol, hunting for lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence and brutalizing police officers in the name of Mr. Trump.From the Defense Department and the Justice Department, the committee asked for records of discussions about potentially invoking the Insurrection Act, which some feared Mr. Trump might use to deploy the military to cling to power; communications between government entities during the Capitol violence; and exchanges between the Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s campaign legal team about challenges to the election’s outcome.The committee called on the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. to furnish records of intelligence gathered before the assault; documents about the Secret Service’s protection of Mr. Pence and his family as the mob threatened him; and records tracking the spread and source of online disinformation about the election.The panel also sought information from the Interior Department about permitting for the rallies that preceded the mob violence and communications with the U.S. Park Police as the attack escalated. And it requested information from the National Counterterrorism Center about briefing materials prepared for senior officials before Jan. 6.The letters kicked off what is expected to be a flurry of records demands the committee plans to issue this week.Mr. Thompson told reporters that the committee planned to ask social media and telecommunications companies to preserve records of potentially “several hundred people,” including several unidentified members of Congress, as it scrutinizes those who worked to inflame the mob and were in communication with groups seeking to overturn the election.“We’ll look at everything that will give us information on what happened on Jan. 6,” Mr. Thompson said on Capitol Hill this week. “We have quite an exhaustive list of people.”The expansion of the select committee’s investigation came after a hearing in July in which four police officers told in excruciating detail of the brutal violence, racism and hostility they suffered as a throng of angry rioters beat, crushed and shocked them on Jan. 6.After that hearing, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of two Republicans on the panel, pledged to move quickly to uncover any potential ties between the rioters and the Trump administration and campaign.Lawmakers must learn “what happened every minute of that day in the White House: every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during and after the attack,” Ms. Cheney said then.Among the documents sought on Wednesday were “all calendars, schedules and movement logs regarding meetings or events attended by President Trump, including the identity of any individuals in attendance, whether virtual or in-person, on Jan. 6, 2021.”The committee asked for any documents and communications between the White House and some of Mr. Trump’s allies most involved in trying to undermine the election, including Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist; Michael T. Flynn, his former national security adviser; Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as his lawyer; and his longtime associate Roger J. Stone Jr.The committee is also seeking White House communications with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive and confidant of Mr. Trump, and the lawyer Sidney Powell, both of whom pushed lies and conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud. And it demanded records of communications between the White House and Ali Alexander, who publicized the “Stop the Steal” rallies, as well as Tom Van Flein, the chief of staff to Representative Paul Gosar, the Arizona Republican who helped promote them and tried to invalidate electoral votes for Mr. Biden on Jan. 6.It also asked for records on extremist groups and militias that were present at the Capitol that day, including QAnon, the Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.The requests indicated the committee planned to investigate Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on state officials to overturn the results of the election. Among the information sought were records from Republican state officials including Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state.A records demand is often the first step a congressional committee takes before issuing subpoenas to obtain documents.The investigative push came as Michael A. Bolton, the Capitol Police inspector general, is continuing his own internal investigation into security failures on Jan. 6.In his latest report, a summary of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Bolton faulted the agency’s communications during the attack, when officers say their urgent pleas for help went unanswered.The report, based on interviews with 36 Capitol Police officers, criticized what the inspector general called “departmentwide command and control deficiencies related to information sharing, chain of command directions, communication, preparedness, training, leadership development, emergency response procedures and law enforcement coordination.”In response, the Capitol Police said in a statement that the agency had “acknowledged there were communication gaps on Jan. 6.”“Given the events of Jan. 6, the enormous amount of radio traffic that day was not surprising,” the statement said. “Additionally, the size and magnitude of Jan. 6 made it difficult to respond to each officer’s emergency radio broadcast in real time.”The department said it had enlisted a retired Secret Service agent to help oversee a new operational planning process. 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      Capitol attack committee issues sweeping requests for official records

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      US Capitol attackCapitol attack committee issues sweeping requests for official records House select committee writes to multiple government agencies
      Chairman says panel plans to contact ‘several hundred’ people
      US politics – follow live Maya YangWed 25 Aug 2021 14.08 EDTLast modified on Wed 25 Aug 2021 17.26 EDTThe House select committee tasked with investigating the 6 January attacks on the Capitol has issued its first round of sweeping demands for records from multiple US government agencies.In a statement released on Wednesday, the committee revealed that it has sent its initial demands to various executive branch agencies including the National Archives and Records Administration, the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and Justice, the FBI, National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.US Capitol police didn’t properly respond to officers’ calls for help in attack – reportRead moreThe committee chairman, Bennie G Thompson, a congressman from Mississippi, gave the agencies a two-week deadline to produce materials. In a statement, Thompson wrote, “Our Constitution provides for a peaceful transfer of power, and this investigation seeks to evaluate threats to that process, identify lessons learned and recommend laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations necessary to protect our republic in the future.”The letters sent to the agencies seek records dealing with a variety of matters related to the 6 January attacks, including intelligence gathering and dissemination before the attack, security preparations around the Capitol, the role agencies played in the Capitol’s defense, event planning and organization in Washington on 5 and 6 January, and how the attacks fit in the continuum of attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.“I’m curious to see if this will lead to any reveal of actionable evidence of a conspiracy,” said Dr Steven Leach, a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project.“These things don’t just happen in a vacuum. The records requests aren’t just for what happened on the sixth but also the fifth, where some members of Congress gave tours [of the Capitol]. The investigation should establish patterns and connections and focus on the bigger picture.”On Monday, Thompson told reporters that the committee plans to request records of several hundred people, including lawmakers, from telecommunication companies. The requests will include phone, email and text records.“We have quite an exhaustive list of people. I won’t tell you who they are, but it’s several hundred people that make up the list of people we are planning to contact,” he said.Wednesday’s announcement comes a month after law enforcement officers delivered harrowing testimonies of their experiences during the 6 January attacks.In July, the Department of Justice declined to assert executive privilege over some of the testimonies, allowing former officials from the Trump administration to testify to Congress about Donald Trump’s role in the deadly attacks.The DoJ’s decision marks a sharp departure from the Trump era, when the department frequently intervened on behalf of top White House officials to assert executive privilege and protect them from congressional investigations into the former president.In an interview with the Guardian in July, Thompson said he was prepared to depose members of Congress and senior Trump administration officials who might have participated in the insurrection that left five dead and nearly 140 injured.“Nothing is off limits,” Thompson said..TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      As Congress Recesses, Democratic Successes Do Not Include Voting Rights

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      Democratic leaders vow to make voting legislation the “first matter of legislative business” in September. But their path remains cluttered with obstacles.WASHINGTON — With deadlines looming ahead of next year’s midterm elections, the Senate adjourned on Wednesday for a monthlong recess with only the slimmest of paths left for passing federal voting rights legislation that Democrats hope can stop a wave of Republican state laws clamping down on ballot access.Before dawn on Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked last-minute attempts to debate a trio of elections bills, but Democratic leaders vowed that more votes would be the “first matter of legislative business” when they return in mid-September. First up is likely to be a scaled-back version of the party’s far-reaching Senate Bill 1, the For the People Act, or S. 1, that Democrats believe will unite all 50 senators who caucus with them.“Let there be no mistake about what is going on here,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said just after 4 a.m. “We have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure — no matter how common sense — to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy.”But such outrage did little to clarify how the party plans to get around a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate that has blocked progress since June. Nor did it quiet some of the outspoken and well-financed activists demanding that President Biden and his congressional majorities do everything possible — including scrapping the Senate’s planned vacation and its legislative filibuster rule — to get the job done.Pressed by reporters later on Wednesday to outline how exactly Democrats would reverse their fortunes, Mr. Schumer said he was making progress by “showing very clearly to every one of our 50 senators that Republicans won’t join us.”“As I’ve said before, everything is on the table,” Mr. Schumer said.Advocates of voting rights legislation believe fleshing out Republicans’ opposition will help build a rationale for centrist Democratic senators like Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to reverse course and support either changing the entire filibuster rule or creating an exemption for elections-related changes to pass with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes.“Biden and Senate Democrats need to tell us what their plan to pass S. 1 is,” said Nita Chaudhary, the head of programming at the liberal advocacy group MoveOn, “before it’s too late.”“We have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure — no matter how common sense — to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesThe Census Bureau was expected on Thursday to share detailed demographic data with states, kicking off the final stages of the once-in-a-decade process of redrawing congressional districts. Under the current rules, Republicans plan to press their advantages in control of state redistricting processes to draw new maps that tilt the national playing field toward their own candidates, making it easier to retake control of the House next year.The For the People Act, which passed the House this spring, would end partisan gerrymandering by both parties by forcing states to use independent commissions to draw district boundaries. The bill would also mandate that states set up automatic voter registration, 15 days of early voting and no-excuse mail-in voting. It would require political groups to disclose the identity of their big donors.But Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said Democrats could soon lose their window of opportunity to change the course of the redistricting process and the 2022 election. In time, it could similarly become difficult to stop the effects of new voting laws in more than a dozen Republican states that experts say will make it harder for young people and people of color to vote.“If something passes after states have gone through those processes and the election is underway, it would be much less likely that any congressional requirement could go into effect before the 2024 elections,” Mr. Hasen said of the redistricting process.Still, Democratic leaders insist they are making progress and can pass elections legislation even as they try to sew up two vast infrastructure and social program bills in the fall.Mr. Manchin, the only Democratic senator who does not support the original For the People Act, appears to be on the cusp of endorsing a somewhat narrower alternative that he has spent weeks negotiating with fellow Democrats. The new bill is likely to maintain many of the pillars of the original legislation, but include for the first time a national voter identification requirement and lop off new ethics requirements and a public campaign financing program for senators.Mr. Manchin said this week that he was still trying to win Republican votes for the plan, an unlikely outcome. But his colleagues have another motivation: They believe that Mr. Manchin will be more determined to fight for — and potentially change Senate rules for — a bill he helped write and watched Republicans tank.Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia is the only Democratic senator who does not support the original For the People Act, but he appears close to endorsing a narrower alternative.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times“This is an iterative process,” said Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat pushing party leaders not to let the issue lapse. He acknowledged they were up against a “tight deadline.”The votes early Wednesday morning appeared to be intended to make precisely that point. After hours of debate over Democrats’ separate $3.5 trillion budget blueprint, Mr. Schumer tried to force debates and votes on the original For the People Act, and on narrower bills focused on redistricting and campaign finance disclosure using unanimous consent to waive the normal Senate procedures.Republicans blocked all three, which they said constituted an attempt by Democrats to usurp the states and rewrite election rules for their benefit.“This isn’t going to work,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “It isn’t going to work tonight, and it isn’t going to work when we get back.”Republicans have threatened to grind the Senate to a halt if Democrats ax the filibuster rule. Mr. McConnell also suggested that his vote on Tuesday for Mr. Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package was in part to show Ms. Sinema and Mr. Manchin — two of its lead architects — that the Senate could still function in a bipartisan way.So far, it has worked.Ms. Sinema told ABC’s “The View” last week that a rules change could backfire and allow Republicans to pass a nationwide ban on mail-in voting when they next control Congress. And in an interview this month, Mr. Manchin appeared to rule out any filibuster exemptions.But Democrats still believe the new state voting laws and Republican efforts to rack up new safely red House seats in the weeks ahead may help move the senators.“They are going to try to use the redistricting process to draw themselves into the majority, not only in the House of Representatives but the state legislatures,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.Mr. Holder said that as long as Congress passed legislation outlawing the practice by the fall, Democrats could probably use the courts to stop the new maps. If not, he suggested Republicans might be correct when they spoke of locking in “a decade of power.”“That’s what’s at stake,” he said. More