House of Representatives

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      House majority leader Hoyer walks poster of Greene's AR-15 post across House floor – video

      by

      A fiercely divided House removed the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
      During the debate, the House majority, leader Steny Hoyer, exhibited a Facebook post in which Greene is holding a gun next the faces of progressive congresswomen of color
      House votes to remove Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee roles
      Biden declares ‘diplomacy is back’ as he outlines foreign policy agenda at state department – live More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump will refuse to testify at Senate impeachment trial, lawyers say

      by

      Donald Trump’s legal team has said the former president will not voluntarily testify under oath at his impeachment trial in the Senate next week, where he faces the charge from House Democrats that he incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.
      The lead House impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, wrote to Trump asking him to testify under oath before or during the trial, challenging the former president to explain why he and his lawyers have disputed key factual allegations at the center of their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol.
      “You denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue,” Raskin wrote in a letter made public on Thursday.
      He went on to say that if Trump refused to do so, an adverse inference would be made from his reluctance.
      Hours after the letter was released, the Trump adviser Jason Miller said that the former president “will not testify” in what he described as an “unconstitutional proceeding”. Trump’s lawyers dismissed the request as a “public relations stunt”.
      The request from House impeachment managers does not require Trump to appear – though the Senate could later force a subpoena – but it does warn that any refusal to testify could be used at trial to support arguments for a conviction. Even if Trump does not testify, the request nonetheless makes clear Democrats’ determination to present an aggressive case against him even though he has left the White House.
      The Senate impeachment trial starts on 9 February. Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection on 6 January, when a mob of his supporters broke into the Capitol to interrupt the electoral vote count. Democrats have said a trial is necessary to provide a final measure of accountability for the attack. If he is convicted, the Senate could hold a second vote to disqualify him from seeking office again.
      In the letter, Raskin asked that Trump provide testimony about his conduct “either before or during the Senate impeachment trial”, and under cross-examination, as early as Monday, 8 February, and not later than Thursday, 11 February.
      The request from Raskin cites the words of Trump’s own attorneys, who in a legal brief earlier this week not only denied that Trump had incited the riot, but also asserted that he had “performed admirably in his role as president, at all times doing what he thought was in the best interests of the American people”.
      With that argument, Raskin said, Trump had questioned critical facts in the case “notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense”. He said Trump should be able to testify now that he is no longer president.
      Raskin said if Trump refuses to appear, the managers will use his refusal against him in the trial – a similar argument put forth by House Democrats in last year’s impeachment trial, when many Trump officials ignored subpoenas. Trump was eventually acquitted of the Democratic charges that he abused his presidential powers by pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden, now the president.
      The impeachment managers do not have the authority to subpoena witnesses now since the House has already voted to impeach him. The Senate could vote to subpoena Trump, or any other witnesses, on a simple majority vote during the trial. But it is unclear if the Senate would be willing to do so.
      Shortly after Raskin’s letter was made public, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he would listen to the House managers’ arguments if they felt a subpoena was necessary. But he said that “the more I see what’s already in the public record, the more powerful the case” against Trump, based on his own words and actions.
      Trump’s statements before and after the attack on the Capitol “are the most powerful evidence”, Blumenthal said. “His own words incriminate him. They show his guilty intent.”
      The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest GOP allies, said he thought the letter was a “political ploy” and noted that Democrats did not invite or subpoena him to testify before the House, which voted to impeach Trump on 13 January.
      Asked if he thought Trump would testify, Graham said it would be a “bad idea”.
      “I don’t think that would be in anybody’s interest,” he said.
      Associated Press contributed to this report More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats press ahead with move to discipline extremist congresswoman

      by

      Democrats in the US House of Representatives moved forward on Thursday with ousting the extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from the committees she was assigned to, over incendiary statements she made before entering Congress.
      The move is the latest development in Congress members’ attempts to deal with Greene, who has been a stated supporter of the QAnon myth, for years pushing such unfounded conspiracy theories and lies that included racist and antisemitic tropes.
      A vote on Greene’s committee seats was due to take place on Thursday. Democrats, who have the majority in the House, could strip her of her positions without Republican votes.
      A day earlier, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, the top congressional Republican, declined to take action against Greene, despite wider pressure from members of Congress to push some kind of punitive measure for uncovered past statements and social media posts.
      These included supporting the assassination of Democratic members of Congress, denying that the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US ever happened, and perpetuating the myth that the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in 2018 was faked.
      In a private meeting with her colleagues on Wednesday night, Greene received a standing ovation for apologizing for her association with QAnon.
      Democrats nevertheless took steps to remove the Georgia congresswoman from her positions on the House budget and education and labor committees, respectively.
      Greene addressed her past statements under the threat of losing a significant proportion of her legislative power. She stressed that she now believed “school shootings are absolutely real”, that they should be taken seriously, and that “9/11 absolutely happened”.
      She portrayed her descent into conspiracy theories as a misguided period in her life that was over when she realized the falseness of the movement.
      “I never once during my entire campaign said QAnon. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign,” Greene said. Up until her Thursday speech, Greene did not deny any of her past statements and avoided having to publicly address them directly.
      In December, after she was elected, Greene praised a tweet promoting the QAnon movement.
      Democrats have been pushing for Greene to either be expelled from Congress or severely punished if she should stay. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, has called Greene’s past comments “looney lies”.
      In arguing that Greene should lose her assignments, Democrats pointed to the now former congressman Steve King of Iowa, a Republican, who lost his committee assignments after associating with neo-Nazis and making racist statements for years.
      On Thursday, the House rules committee chairman, Jim McGovern, a Democrat, argued that Greene was not entitled to her committee postings.
      “Serving on a committee is not a right, it is a privilege and when someone encourages violence against a member they should lose that privilege,” McGovern said.
      After Greene’s speech, McGovern signaled that it was insufficient.
      “I stand here today still deeply, deeply troubled and offended by the things that she has posted and said and still not apologized for,” McGovern said.
      Republicans largely refrained from defending Greene’s previous comments directly and instead argued that taking away her committee appointments would establish a slippery slope.
      Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia, a Republican, skeptically asked during a floor speech whether Democrats would stop with Greene if successful.
      “We know better. We know better,” Scott said of his Republican colleagues.
      Tom Cole of Oklahoma, McGovern’s Republican counterpart on the rules committee, argued that taking away Greene’s committees “opens up troubling questions about how we judge future members of Congress”. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      A Trump-Supporting Congresswoman in New York City Stands Her Ground

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Trump-Supporting Congresswoman in New York City Stands Her GroundRepresentative Nicole Malliotakis represents Staten Island, where new Republican voters out-registered Democrats during the Trump administration.Representative Nicole Malliotakis said it was her duty to represent her more conservative, pro-Trump constituents. “There’s more of a burden on me now to hear their voice,” she said.Credit…Samuel Corum/Getty ImagesFeb. 4, 2021Updated 8:08 a.m. ETWhen Representative Nicole Malliotakis voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud, constituents and local Democrats protested outside her New York office.An editorial in her local paper, the Staten Island Advance, said she “let America down.”On Monday, a new political action committee — NICPAC, or Nicole Is Complicit PAC — raised more than $20,000 within four hours of launching its website.But Ms. Malliotakis unseated Max Rose, a Democrat, this past November in no small part because of her allegiance to former President Donald J. Trump, who endorsed her. The congresswoman has continued to stand firm with the former president’s base, even if that means leaving others behind.She said her loyalty was to New York’s Republicans, but especially to the narrow, conservative pocket of New York City — a swath of Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn — that made her the only Republican elected to Congress from the five boroughs.“There’s more of a burden on me now to hear their voice,” Ms. Malliotakis, 40, said in an interview. “They want someone who is going to fight to be better, who is going to bring their perspective to the forefront, who is going to push back when policies are being proposed that will hurt them or cost them money or make their lives miserable.”Her stance could alienate the majority of New York voters, overwhelmingly Democratic, whom she needs to rise to higher office — or it could cement her place in New York politics as a rare Republican voice. Though there are more registered Democrats on Staten Island, which makes up the majority of Ms. Malliotakis’s district, Republicans registered far more new voters during the Trump administration than Democrats did, creating an invigorated, Trump-loving base that Ms. Malliotakis plays to.Ms. Malliotakis campaigning door to door in September in Staten Island. She unseated Max Rose, who was the Democratic incumbent.Credit…James Estrin/The New York TimesBut if she runs again in 2022, Ms. Malliotakis may face a completely different playing field. Congressional districts will be redrawn following the results of the 2020 census. New York could lose up to two congressional seats, decreasing its representation in the House from 27 people to 25, according to a prediction by Election Data Services, a political consulting firm.New York’s 11th District, which Ms. Malliotakis represents, will likely extend further into Brooklyn or into Lower Manhattan, picking up more Democratic voters and putting her seat in jeopardy.Some residents have been so unnerved by the events of Ms. Malliotakis’s nascent term that they are already plotting for her removal. NICPAC officially launched on Monday, establishing itself as a bipartisan watchdog organization of constituents both outraged over her decertification vote and disappointed in her lukewarm response to the Capitol riot. (Ms. Malliotakis’s statement condemned rioters and thanked the law enforcement officers.)The group plans to buy ads and conduct outreach to Ms. Malliotakis’s constituents, in order to “keep her accountable,” said Jonathan Yedin, a Democratic political operative and founding member of the PAC.“Some of us voted for her, some of us didn’t, but we’re all united in the message that she’s unfit to serve, given her actions,” Mr. Yedin said.Dan Hetteix, host of Radio Free Bay Ridge, a progressive politics podcast based in the 11th District, said Ms. Malliotakis had to try to secure her base to fend off opposition.“She needs to keep these new voters engaged in a ticket that doesn’t have Trump on it anymore,” Mr. Hetteix said. “She needs to make the most of Staten Island’s red voters. The more she can whip them up, the more she can resist whatever redistricting does to her.”Ms. Malliotakis defended her vote not to certify the presidential election results in a tweet. “I voted against certification of the two challenged states not to ‘overturn an election’ but to highlight need for a proper hearing into unconstitutional rule changes, irregularities and alleged fraud,” she wrote. “I swore an oath to the Constitution and REFUSED to turn a blind eye.”Peers find her ambitious, hardworking and sharp, and she has positioned herself as the antidote to the state’s far-left politicians. The congresswoman has even joined the “anti-socialist squad,” to counter a fellow New York representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and “the Squad.”Ms. Malliotakis is as much against unauthorized immigration and universal health care as she is in favor of strengthening bail laws and protecting father-daughter dances. But some local Democrats say that she’s a reactionary ideological flip-flopper.“She is someone who has changed everything she’s believed in every time she’s ever run for office,” said Kevin Elkins, a longtime adviser to Mr. Rose, whom Ms. Malliotakis defeated in November.Mark Murphy, a local businessman and former Democratic congressional candidate in the district, said he wants Ms. Malliotakis to move to the middle to better speak for all residents. “I want her to dial back the hard-core conservative ideology that is driving her, and think about who we, as a community, really are,” Mr. Murphy said.But Staten Island tends to vote Republican. In 2016 and 2020, it was the only borough in New York City that Mr. Trump won. Her base is expecting her to represent the sentiment of Trump voters in the district.In an interview, Ms. Malliotakis praised the successes of Mr. Trump’s term, proof, in her eyes, that he deserved to be re-elected: improved health care for veterans, low unemployment numbers, renegotiated trade deals. “People didn’t even know about the good things because the other side has been so busy criticizing him and trying to impeach him and investigate him over the four years, which I think was very unfair,” she said.Some believe that Ms. Malliotakis’s vote simply represented the wishes of a district that wanted to see Mr. Trump re-elected.“I really do believe she had a mandate from her constituents, who also overwhelmingly voted to support Trump, to object to the election results, as well as vote against impeaching the president,” said Peter Giunta, president of the Staten Island Young Republican Club.Allan Katz, a financial planner on Staten Island, voted for both Ms. Malliotakis and Mr. Trump last November. “Max Rose, when he was in office, voted for impeachment when most of his constituents wanted him to vote against it,” said Mr. Katz.In May, Ms. Malliotakis spoke at a rally in support of a tanning salon whose owner opened the business in defiance of coronavirus restrictions.Credit…Stephanie Keith/Getty ImagesSome of her supporters believe she is making all the right moves.“Number one, she is a rising star,” said Mike Long, the former chairman of the Conservative Party of New York, who has known Ms. Malliotakis for over a decade. “She knows exactly what she believes in and where she wants to go.”For years, Ms. Malliotakis has fought to be a significant Republican voice in the state.Born in New York in 1980 to Greek and Cuban immigrant parents, she grew up on Staten Island. Her mother fled the Castro regime in the late 1950s; her father arrived in the United States from Crete in 1962, with $50 to his name. One point of familial pride, she has said, is that neither of them took any public assistance.After working on state campaigns, Ms. Malliotakis was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2010. She gained citywide recognition when she faced Mayor Bill de Blasio in his 2017 re-election campaign, losing but ultimately seeing overwhelming support in her home borough, where about 70 percent of the population voted for her.In 2020, she challenged Mr. Rose in a particularly aggressive race. Ms. Malliotakis’s campaign seized on conservative backlash to the protests against racial injustice in the summer. Mr. Rose’s attendance at a single protest became a focal point of the campaign, enabling Ms. Malliotakis — who boasted the endorsement of five police unions — to accuse Mr. Rose of being a supporter of efforts to defund the police.She also grabbed Mr. Trump’s endorsement. Just four years earlier, she had served as the New York State chair for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, and had openly criticized Mr. Trump’s behavior, using the #NEVERTRUMP hashtag on social media.But once Mr. Rubio lost the nomination, Ms. Malliotakis shifted from being against Mr. Trump to entrenching herself fervently in his camp. She even hosted a get-well rally for him after he tested positive for the coronavirus.Longtime friends and local politicians were confused by the sudden switch, claiming that she swung right to secure votes.Mike Arvanites, a surveyor for the city’s Board of Elections in Staten Island, has known Ms. Malliotakis for so long that he was present at her 40-day blessing and baptism in their Greek Orthodox Church. He pointed out that Ms. Malliotakis was elected to the New York State Assembly during the rise of the Tea Party, but she rejected the group’s extremism.“The year she was running for mayor, she explained to me that she was terrified of some Trump supporters,” Mr. Arvanites, a Democrat, said.He said he believed that Ms. Malliotakis has been radicalized by several in her camp, including Leticia Remauro, a Republican operative associated with Ms. Malliotakis’s congressional campaign and a longtime friend of the congresswoman. Last month, Ms. Remauro was pilloried for saying “Heil Hitler” in an earlier protest against coronavirus restrictions. (Ms. Malliotakis released a statement repudiating Ms. Remauro’s remarks.)Ms. Malliotakis made her loyalty clear, joining three New York-based representatives and other Republicans in Congress to vote to overturn the election results.But she said she would keep an open mind when it comes to President Biden.“I’m willing to hear him out,” Ms. Malliotakis said in her interview. “There are opportunities for us to work together where there is some common ground, when it comes to vaccine distribution, reopening the economy and returning the jobs that we lost.”“But,” she said, “I’m also mindful of the fact that I’m going to need to push back.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Impeachment Case Argues Trump Was ‘Singularly Responsible’ for Capitol Riot

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentDivisions in the SenateList of Senators’ StancesTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyImpeachment Case Argues Trump Was ‘Singularly Responsible’ for Capitol RiotThe House managers cited the Constitution’s framers in urging that Donald J. Trump be convicted and disqualified from holding office. Mr. Trump’s lawyers said the Senate had no jurisdiction.“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,”  Donald J. Trump told his supporters at a rally in Washington on Jan. 6. Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesNicholas Fandos and Feb. 2, 2021Updated 8:35 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The House impeachment managers on Tuesday laid out their case against Donald J. Trump, asserting that he was “singularly responsible” for the deadly assault on the Capitol last month and must be convicted and barred from holding public office.In an 80-page brief filed on Tuesday, the managers outlined the arguments they planned to make when the Senate opens Mr. Trump’s trial next week, contending that the former president whipped his supporters into a “frenzy” as part of a concerted campaign to cling to power. Spinning a vivid narrative of a harrowing day when lawmakers were forced to flee as a violent pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol, the prosecutors also reached back centuries to bolster their case, invoking George Washington and the Constitutional Convention.“The framers of the Constitution feared a president who would corrupt his office by sparing ‘no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected,’” wrote the nine House Democrats, led by Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, quoting directly from the 1787 debate in Philadelphia. “If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a joint session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be.”In Mr. Trump’s own shorter filing, specked with typos and stripped of the former president’s usual bombast, his lawyers flatly denied that he had incited the attack and repeatedly argued that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction” to try a former president. They repeatedly urged an immediate dismissal of the single charge against him, “incitement of insurrection.”“The Senate of the United States lacks jurisdiction over the 45th president because he holds no public office from which he can be removed, rendering the article of impeachment moot and a non-justiciable question,” the lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David Schoen, wrote in their 14-page response to the charge.Their other broad argument was that Mr. Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6 and in the weeks before were constitutionally protected. While they did not argue explicitly that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, as some said he wanted his legal team to do, the lawyers sought to shroud his false claims of widespread voter fraud in free-speech arguments.They effectively argued that Mr. Trump believed he “won it by a landslide,” and therefore was within his First Amendment rights to “express his belief that the election results were suspect.” His claims could not be disproved, they added, because there was “insufficient evidence.”President Biden won the election by about seven million votes, according to results certified by every state. Dozens of cases Mr. Trump brought alleging voting fraud or improprieties were tossed out or decided against him, many times by Republican-appointed judges, for lack of evidence.The impeachment filings provided the clearest preview yet of the legal strategies that are likely to shape a politically fraught impeachment trial of Mr. Trump — his second in just over a year — that is scheduled to begin in earnest in the Senate on Tuesday. They indicated that both sides expected drawn-out debates over the constitutionality of a trial, as much as Mr. Trump’s culpability for what took place.Despite their initial criticisms, a majority of Republican senators now appear to be lining up once again to acquit Mr. Trump. But the arguments could determine the difference between a near-party-line verdict like the one that capped the former president’s first trial in 2020 or a more bipartisan rebuke that could constrain any future political ambition he harbors.Though senators have yet to agree to a final set of rules to govern the proceeding, both parties appear to share an interest in an exceedingly swift trial, without new witnesses or fact-finding, that could conclude as soon as Saturday, Feb. 13. That would be far shorter than any presidential impeachment trial in history. But Republicans are eager to turn a page on a divisive former president, and Democrats are impatient to turn to advancing the agenda of the current one.The House impeachment managers, led by Representative Jamie Raskin, right, submitted an 80-page brief blaming Mr. Trump for the violent attack.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf Mr. Trump’s lawyers were trying to reassure Republican senators that they could dismiss the case without confronting its merits, the House managers were aiming instead to force them to confront the terror of the Capitol riot with an unusually visceral prosecution. They have compiled hours of footage from Parler, Twitter and elsewhere that they plan to play from the well of the Senate next week to compel Republicans to face Mr. Trump’s conduct head on, rather than retreating behind arguments around the process.The approach was evident in their legal brief, which was more dramatic in parts than a typical courtroom filing. It follows Mr. Trump from his early-summer warnings about a “rigged” election up to his last, futile attempts to target Congress’s Jan. 6 counting session to snatch victory away from President Biden.All the while, the managers argued, Mr. Trump was issuing a “call to mobilize” to his supporters to “stop the steal.” He invited them to come to Washington in early January. Then used a speech on the Ellipse outside the White House just before the attack to urge them to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol to confront members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence.The calls incited the mob to action, they argued, citing videos posted on social media in which supporters of Mr. Trump can be heard yelling “invade the Capitol building” after he urges them to “show strength.”“He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the managers wrote.Unlike the first impeachment case against Mr. Trump, which centered on his pressure campaign on Ukraine, this one has bipartisan support and the prosecutors appear poised to make frequent use of Republicans’ own criticisms of Mr. Trump. Their brief quoted Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach, as well as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, who said publicly that Mr. Trump “provoked” the mob.In making constitutional arguments in favor of Mr. Trump’s conviction, though, they reached hundreds of years further back, arguing that Mr. Trump had not only prompted violence but threatened the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power begun by Washington. They also cited debates by the founders about who would be subject to impeachment and when, as well as a 19th-century impeachment trial of a former war secretary, to assert that the Senate clearly had a right to try Mr. Trump even after he left office.“There is no ‘January exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the managers wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”They also insisted that the First Amendment right to free speech could not shield Mr. Trump from responsibility for inciting violence that would seek to do harm to the Constitution, undermining all the rights enshrined there, including free speech.The president’s filing was narrower by design, with a lengthier, more detailed brief due from his lawyers early next week. Still, the contours of their defense were becoming clear.The lawyers said Democrats had misinterpreted Mr. Trump’s actions and his intent, denying that he was responsible for the Capitol riot or that he intended to interfere with Congress’s formalizing of Mr. Biden’s win. They said his words to supporters on Jan. 6 — “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” — were not meant as a call to violent action, but were “about the need to fight for election security in general.”“It is denied that President Trump incited the crowd to engage in destructive behavior,” they wrote. In another section, they denied that Mr. Trump had “threatened” Georgia’s Republican secretary of state or “acted improperly” when he demanded during a January phone call that the official “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in that state and vaguely warned of a “criminal offense.”The lawyers reprised an argument against the constitutionality of the trial popular with Republican senators. They asserted that a plain reading of the Constitution — which does not explicitly discuss what to do with an official impeached but not tried before he leaves office — does not permit the Senate to try a former president.But they also said that Mr. Trump “denies the allegation” that his claims that he won the election were false. If that argument plays a central role in the trial, Republican senators could quickly find themselves painfully wedged between a conspiracy theory they fear could do lasting damage to their party and millions of their own voters who believe it.Mr. Trump’s response appeared to be somewhat hastily assembled after the former president shook up his legal team just 48 hours before the brief was due; the response, for example, was addressed to the “Unites States Senate.”In an interview later, Mr. Schoen pointed to another potential argument that could help Mr. Trump: that at least some of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol planned their attack in advance, suggesting that the former president was not the inciting force.“I have no reason to believe anyone involved with Trump was in the know,” he said of the violence that unfolded at the Capitol. Still, he conceded the heart of the defense would lie elsewhere.Nicholas Fandos More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Impeachment trial: Trump lawyers claim 'fight like hell' speech didn't incite riot

      by

      In a damning summary of the case against Donald Trump to be made at his impeachment trial next week, prosecutors from the House of Representatives on Tuesday submitted an 80-page memorandum documenting how the then president called supporters to Washington and set them loose on the US Capitol.
      Describing scenes of violence inside the Capitol in previously undisclosed detail, the prosecutors accused Trump of creating a “powder keg” of discontent among supporters who on 6 January became an “armed, angry, and dangerous” mob.
      Lawyers for Trump issued a thinly argued 14-page document that said his speech did not amount to a call to storm the Capitol, and argued his trial was unconstitutional because he has left office.
      In their memo, the House impeachment managers said Trump’s supporters had arrived in Washington “prepared to do whatever it took to keep him in power. All they needed to hear was that their president needed them to ‘fight like hell’. All they needed was for President Trump to strike a match.”
      They placed the blame for the violence that followed – five died, hundreds were injured, members of Congress and staff were terrorized and the building was left with “bullet marks in the walls, looted art, smeared feces in hallways” – squarely at Trump’s door.
      “President Trump’s responsibility for the events of 6 January is unmistakable,” the prosecutors charged.
      The document cleared the way for a dramatic showdown next week, prosecutors indicating they will use new footage and witness accounts, thought to include police officer testimony, to make their case in the eyes of the public – and to extract the maximum political price from Republicans set to refuse to convict Trump no matter what the evidence against him.
      Trump is charged with incitement of insurrection. If convicted, Trump could be barred from political office. But it seems unlikely Democrats will find the 17 Republican votes they need.
      Trump’s lawyers said: “It is denied that President Trump incited the crowd to engage in destructive behavior.
      “It is denied that the phrase, ‘If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore’ had anything to do with the action at the Capitol, as it was clearly about the need to fight for election security in general, as evidenced by the recording of the speech.”
      The Trump strategy was the result of a late personnel shift. After five lawyers resigned at the weekend, the former president announced two new lawyers, frequent Fox News contributor David Schoen and former county prosecutor Bruce Castor, as replacements.
      Schoen told Fox News that “President Trump has condemned violence at all times” and “this has nothing to do with President Trump”. That assertion appeared to wither next to dozens of pages of footnoted Trump quotations going back six months that peppered the document submitted by the House managers. The document culminated with a description of Trump’s speech to supporters before he sent them to the Capitol.
      “Surveying the tense crowd before him, President Trump whipped it into a frenzy, exhorting followers to ‘Fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country anymore’,” the memo said.
      “Then he aimed them straight at the Capitol, declaring: ‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.’
      “He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the prosecutors charged.
      The nature of Trump’s defense had been in question for weeks, amid reports he was insisting lawyers build their case around the central lie the election was stolen. A team, led by South Carolina lawyer Butch Bowers,resisted the strategy but the relationship fell apart over fees, according to multiple reports. The memo filed on Tuesday said Trump could not be tried because he had already left office.
      “The 45th president believes and therefore avers that as a private citizen, the Senate has no jurisdiction over his ability to hold office,” it said.
      The argument was anticipated and forcefully rebutted by the House prosecutors, who wrote, “That argument is wrong. It is also dangerous … There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the constitution. A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
      The article of impeachment was approved in a bipartisan House vote. Many constitutional scholars agree there is debate to be had over whether Trump’s speeches amount to “incitement” as charged.
      “The rights of speech and political participation mean little if the president can provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls,” the House managers wrote. “President Trump’s incitement of deadly violence to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, and to overturn the results of the election, was therefore a direct assault on core first amendment principles.”
      The document underscored how narrowly the lawmakers trapped in the Capitol on 6 January and the country escaped more calamitous violence.
      “Rioters chanted, ‘Hang Mike Pence!’” the memo said, noting that the vice-president had informed Trump he would fill his ceremonial role of counting the electoral vote in favor of Joe Biden. “Another shouted, ‘Mike Pence, we’re coming for you … fucking traitor!’ Others shouted, ‘Tell [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi we’re coming for that bitch’.
      “To protect our democracy and national security – and to deter any future president who would consider provoking violence in pursuit of power – the Senate should convict President Trump and disqualify him from future federal officeholding,” the memo concluded.
      “Only after President Trump is held to account for his actions can the nation move forward with unity of purpose and commitment to the constitution.” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      McConnell says Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'loony lies' are 'a cancer' on GOP

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian Today US newsletterMitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate, has intensified pressure on the extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” that she endorses a “cancer for the Republican party”.In a statement to the Hill on Monday night, McConnell did not name Greene personally. But his excoriating attack was clearly targeted at the new member of Congress who is a fierce supporter of Donald Trump.Her embrace of the racist conspiracy theory QAnon and other extreme positions is causing turmoil among Republican lawmakers and across Congress.“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s airplane is not living in reality,” McConnell said.In keeping with her defiant rejection of any criticism, Greene immediately fired back at McConnell through her Twitter feed. “The real cancer for the Republican party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully,” she said.The intervention of the Republican Senate leader raises the ante in the debate about what to do with Greene. Democratic leaders in the House have indicated that they are prepared to expel her from several congressional committees should Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, fail to do so first.Just weeks into her arrival in Congress, Greene’s bizarre and offensive stances on a range of subjects have created a rising chorus of calls for her to be censured. She was filmed in 2019 harassing David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting in Florida, which Greene has claimed was an “false flag” act of make-believe.A CNN review of her Facebook posts also showed that she expressed support for the idea of executing prominent Democratic leaders including Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.McConnell’s outspoken remarks on Greene can be seen as part of the delicate path he is trying to walk between the pro-Trump and post-Trump wings of the Republican party which are increasingly at loggerheads. Greene, a fervent member of the former group, has said that she recently talked with Trump and has his support.The spiraling controversy comes just a week before Trump himself is set to face his second impeachment trial, on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” relating to the 6 January storming of the Capitol building. McConnell is walking a tightrope on that issue too, having suggested that he might be open to convicting the former president while also voting with most Republicans to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. More