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      in US Politics

      Mike Pence's 'nuclear football' was potentially at risk during Capitol riot

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      The dramatic footage of the 6 January insurrection shows the mob was within 30 metres of Mike Pence, when he made his escape. But there was a chilling detail that even the House prosecutors missed. With the then vice-president on that terrifying day, was an air force officer carrying the “football”, a large black briefcase carrying nuclear launch codes.The codes in the vice-president’s football are not activated unless the president is dead or incapacitated. But the implications of it falling into the hands of rioters are still chilling.“If the mob had seized Pence’s nuclear football, they may not have been able to order an actual launch but the public may not have known that,” Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund disarmament advocacy group, said. “Parading the nuclear button around would have caused widespread panic and chaos as authorities scrambled to respond.”The secret service bodyguards around Pence would most likely have defended the suitcase with deadly force, but if the pro-Trump mob had managed to seize it, they would have come away, not just with the codes used to identify the vice-president and authenticate his orders, but also the encrypted communications equipment used to make the call to the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon.Most damaging of all, they would have all the nuclear attack options instantly available around the clock to the US commander-in-chief. That list of options used to be in a weighty handbook, but according to Fred Kaplan, author of The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, it has been condensed over the decades into a series of laminated cards, “like a menu at Wendy’s”, as one officer put it to Kaplan.Not only would disclosure of that menu represent one of the worst security breaches imaginable, the encrypted communication equipment would tell an adversary a lot of how the US would respond to a major attack.“They could glean all sorts of information about its structure and technology so it’s very significant,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.Nuclear experts have questioned whether this cold war relic that provides such an obvious target for adversaries and terrorists, is still necessary. But the Trump era has also shone a bright light on the question of whether one individual should continue to have sole authority to launch the US nuclear arsenal.Collina, co-author of The Button, a book on the presidency and nuclear weapons, said: “Of course the even bigger danger was that Trump had his own football that could have been used to end civilization as we know it.”In other words, perhaps the only thing scarier than the football being surrounded by a mob is the thought of Trump being alone with it. More

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      in US Politics

      The martyrdom of Mike Pence

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      After Donald Trump had exhausted all of his claims of voter fraud and could contrive no more conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and after his revolving menagerie of legal mouthpieces had all of their motions tossed out of every venue up to the supreme court, and after his reliable enabler, Attorney General William Barr, informed him his accusations were false and he had reached the end of the line, and resigned, Trump came as a last resort to rest his slipping hold on power on his most unwavering defender and ceaseless flatterer, who had never let him down: his vice-president, Mike Pence.
      Nobody was more responsible for fostering the cult of Trump. The evangelical Pence had been Trump’s rescuer, starting with his forgiveness for the miscreant in the crisis during the 2016 campaign over Trump’s Access Hollywood “grab them by the pussy” tape and then over the disclosure of the “Individual One” hush money payoff to a porn star about a one-night stand to shut her up before election day – AKA “the latest baseless allegations”. Pence was the indispensable retainer who delivered the evangelical base, transforming it through the alchemy of his faith into Trump’s rock of ages. After every malignant episode, from Charlottesville (“I stand with the president”) to coronavirus (“The president took another historic step”), the pious Pence could be counted on to bless Trump for his purity of heart and to shepherd the flock of true believers.
      “Trump’s got the populist nationalists,” Stephen Bannon, Trump’s pardoned former senior adviser, remarked. “But Pence is the base. Without Pence, you don’t win.”
      Withstanding the howling winds of narcissism, the unshakably self-abasing Pence upheld the cross over Trump. On the evening of 3 May 2017, Trump welcomed his evangelical advisory board for dinner in the Blue Room of the White House.
      “I’ve been with [Trump] alone in the room when the decisions are made,” Pence testified to the assembled pastors. “He and I have prayed together. This is somebody who shares our views, shares our values, shares our beliefs.”
      Nobody more than Pence had modeled adulation of Trump to become the standard for sycophantic imitation. At the first meeting of members of Trump’s cabinet, on 12 June 2017, the president called on each to offer praise.
      “I’m going to start with our vice-president. Where is our vice-president?” Trump asked. “We’ll start with Mike and then we’ll just go around, your name, your position.”
      “This is just the greatest privilege of my life,” Pence said, setting the tone for the others. More

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      in Elections

      Riots, effigies and a guillotine: Capitol attack could be a glimpse of violence to come

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      A guillotine outside the state capitol in Arizona. A Democratic governor burned in effigy in Oregon. Lawmakers evacuated as pro-Trump crowds gathered at state capitols in Georgia and New Mexico. Cheers in Idaho as a crowd was told fellow citizens were “taking the capitol” and “taking out” Vice-president Mike Pence.As a mob of thousands invaded the US capitol on 6 January, Trump supporters threatened lawmakers and fellow citizens in cities across the country. Compared with the violent mob in Washington, the pro-Trump crowds elsewhere in the country were much smaller, attracting dozens to hundreds of people. But they used the same extreme rhetoric, labeling both Democratic politicians and Republicans perceived as disloyal to Trump as “traitors”.As the FBI warns of plans for new armed protests in Washington and all 50 state capitols in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration, and fresh calls for extreme violence circulate on social media forums, the intensity of the nationwide pro-Trump demonstrations and attacks last week offer evidence of what might be coming next. Some of the pro-Trump demonstrations on Wednesday did not turn violent. The dozens of Trump supporters who entered the Kansas state capitol remained peaceful, according to multiple news reports. In Carson City, Nevada, hundreds of Trump supporters drank beer and listened to rock music while denouncing the election results, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.But in Los Angeles, white Trump supporters assaulted and ripped the wig off the head of a young black woman who happened to pass their 6 January protest, the Los Angeles Times reported. A white woman was captured on video holding the wig and shouting, “Fuck BLM!” and, “I did the first scalping of the new civil war.”In Ohio and Oregon, fights broke out between counter-protesters and members of the Proud Boys, the neo-fascist group Trump directed in September to “stand back and stand by”. Proud Boys also reportedly demonstrated in Utah, California, Florida, and South Carolina.And in Washington state, Trump supporters, some armed, pushed through the gate of the governor’s mansion and stormed onto the lawn of Democrat Jay Inslee’s house. In Georgia, where lawmakers were evacuated from the state capitol, members of the III% Security Force militia, a group known for its anti-Muslim activism, had gathered outside.An effigy of Gov. Kate Brown is tarred and feathered by pro-Trump Supporters and anti-lockdown protesters at the Oregon State Capitol. pic.twitter.com/XSmHI82cXD— Brian Hayes (@_Brian_ICT) January 6, 2021
      Militia members, neo-Nazis, and other rightwing extremists have discussed multiple potential dates for armed protests in the coming days, researchers who monitor extremist groups say, with proposals ranging from rallies or attacks on state capitols to a “million militia march” in Washington.The FBI’s intelligence bulletin has warned of potential armed protests from 16 January “at least” through inauguration day on 20 January, but researchers say that energy had not yet coalesced around a single event. Public social media forums where Trump supporters have gathered to discuss plans are full of dramatic, contradictory rumors, but experts say that more concrete plans are likely being made in private and in smaller forums that are more difficult to infiltrate.The United States has no shortage of heavily armed extremists who have been openly calling for a new civil war, from members of the Boogaloo Bois – a nascent domestic terrorism group that has been linked to the murders of two law enforcement officers – to militia leaders such as Stewart Rhodes, the Yale-educated founder of an anti-government group that recruits policy and military officers, who was photographed outside the capitol during the mob invasion last week.Accusations at public protests that Democratic politicians are dictators, tyrants and “traitors” and suggestions that white Americans need to seize power back from their elected officials, have been intensifying for more than a year, fueled in part by furious demonstrations against public health measures that forced businesses to close to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has disproportionately killed Black and Latino residents.Before they stormed the US Capitol last week, angry crowds of white Americans, some armed with rifles, had staged chaotic demonstrations at state capitols in Michigan, Idaho, California and elsewhere, often calling law enforcement officers “traitors” when they would not let them pass.On 6 January, the news that Trump supporters were forcing their way into the capitol was greeted with cheers at pro-Trump protests in other states. “Patriots have stormed the Capitol,” a protest organizer in Arizona announced, prompting chants of “USA!” according to the Arizona Republic.“Supposedly, they’re taking the Capitol and taking out Pence,” the organizer of an Idaho protest told a crowd of about 300 people, according to the Spokesman-Review. The crowd cheered.In Washington DC, part of the mob at the capitol had been captured on video shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” after the vice-president refused to give in to Trump’s repeated demands to deny the results of the election and name him the winner.Signs and rhetoric linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that Trump is fighting a secret war against a powerful network of elite pedophiles, were present at multiple state events last week.In Salem, Oregon, where an effigy of Democratic governor Kate Brown was tarred and feathered before being burned, the protest outside the statehouse turned violent, as Proud Boys clashed with counter-protesters. In Colorado, an estimated 700 people gathered at the state capitol to protest, many of them not wearing masks, and Denver’s mayor announced he was closing municipal buildings early as a precaution.In Arizona, where 1,000 Trump supporters gathered to protest the certification of Biden’s victory, the guillotine outside the state capitol had a Trump flag on it, and the Trump supporters who had brought it gave an Arizona Republic reporter a written statement, which included a list of baseless allegations of election fraud, and demands for new fraud audits and investigations.“Why do we have a guillotine with us? The answer is simple,” the statement read. “For six weeks Americans have written emails, gathered peacefully, made phone calls and begged their elected officials to listen to their concerns. We have been ignored, ridiculed, scorned, dismissed, lied to, laughed at and essentially told, no one cares.“We pray for peace,” the statement concluded, “but we do not fear war.” More

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      in US Politics

      Pelosi says House will proceed with efforts to remove Trump 'with urgency'

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      The House is prepared to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump as early as this week if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet refuse to remove him from office for his role in inciting a mob that carried out a deadly assault on the seat of American government.
      The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delivered the ultimatum in a letter to colleagues on Sunday night that described the president as an urgent threat to the nation.
      On Monday, the House will move forward with a non-binding resolution that calls on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and strip Trump of his presidential authority. If the measure fails to receive unanimous support, as is expected, the House will vote on the resolution on Tuesday. Pence, Pelosi said, would have “24 hours” to respond.
      Next, Pelosi said the House “will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor.” Though she did not specify an exact timeline, top Democrats have suggested the House could begin proceedings as soon as midweek, with a Senate trial delayed – possibly for months – so as not distract from Joe Biden’s agenda.
      Quick guide Impeaching Trump
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      Will Trump be impeached for a second time? Yes. Congressman Ted Lieu has said most Democrats in the House have signed on to articles of impeachment accusing the president of having “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions” that are due to be introduced on Monday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on board.
      Is Trump heading to the Senate for trial? It seems so. A House majority will send the articles to the upper chamber, and it is hard to see any Democrats deserting their party. Some Republicans have also said the president needs to go.
      Can the Senate try Trump so close to Joe Biden’s inauguration? Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that it can, although the narrow timeframe means the earliest a trial could be held would be after inauguration day, 20 January, when Trump will be out of power. The wait may be longer, however: on 10 January, House whip James Clyburn, who is close to Biden, indicated that Democrats may not send articles to the Senate until it has confirmed the new president’s cabinet nominees – a vital process.
      Will he be convicted? Unlikely. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority. The chamber is split 50-50, and though some Republicans have either said Trump should go or indicated sympathy for impeachment, nowhere near enough seem likely to cross their own supporters by voting against the president to whom the party remains overwhelmingly loyal.
      So what happens if he gets off again? Barring a presidential pardon – which Trump may try to give to himself, a move most scholars doubt will work – once out of the White House Trump will be vulnerable to federal prosecution over acts in office. State investigations, including those under way in New York, can proceed and business creditors will circle.  Martin Pengelly

      Photograph: Brian Snyder/X90051

      “In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
      Pelosi noted urgency was required because Trump was due to leave office on 20 January.
      She explained that the resolution called on Pence “to convene and mobilize the cabinet to activate the 25th amendment to declare the president incapable of executing the duties of his office.”

      Jake Sherman
      (@JakeSherman)
      🚨NEW … ⁦@LeaderHoyer⁩ is asking for consent for the 25th amendment bill tomorrow. And then the House will move to impeach trumpHere’s ⁦@SpeakerPelosi⁩ letter to her Dem colleagues. pic.twitter.com/CubXVVvgli

      January 10, 2021

      Under the procedure, the vice president “would immediately exercise powers as acting president,” she wrote.
      On Sunday, Pelosi told 60 Minutes Trump was “a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States,” adding that he has done something “so serious that there should be prosecution against him”.
      Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing Trump out, although talk has been circulating about the 25th amendment option for days in Washington.
      Earlier it had been speculated that House Democrats could try to introduce articles of impeachment as early as Monday.
      One touted strategy was to condemn the president’s actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated 20 January.
      Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas on Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.
      “Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Clyburn said.
      The push by House Democrats came after the office of the Colorado Democratic representative Jason Crow released a readout of a call in which army secretary Ryan McCarthy “indicated that [the Department of Defense] is aware of further possible threats posed by would-be terrorists in the days up to and including Inauguration Day”.
      According to the readout, McCarthy said the Pentagon was “working with local and federal law enforcement to coordinate security preparations” for 20 January.
      Crow, a former US army ranger, said he had “raised grave concerns about reports that active duty and reserve military members were involved in the insurrection” and asked that “troops deployed for the inauguration … are not sympathetic to domestic terrorists”. The readout said McCarthy agreed and said he was willing to testify publicly in the coming days.
      On Sunday Republican senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania joined colleague Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible.”
      “I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he is electable in any way.”
      Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Trump’s conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply “needs to get out.” A third Republican, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his final days in office.
      Corporate America began to tie its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.
      Citigroup said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
      House leaders, furious after the insurrection, appeared determined to act against Trump despite the short timeline.
      Another idea being considered was to have a separate vote that would prevent Trump from ever holding office again. That could potentially only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.
      The Senate was set to be split evenly at 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won Georgia’s Senate runoff elections last week are sworn in. Harris would be the Senate’s tie-breaking vote.
      The FBI and other agencies are continuing their examination of the circumstances of the insurrection, including allegations that Pentagon officials loyal to Trump blocked the deployment of national guard troops for three hours after officials called for help.
      “We couldn’t actually cross over the border into DC without the OK and that was quite some time [coming],” the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, told CNN.
      “Eventually I got a call from the secretary of the army, asking if we could come into the city, but we had already been mobilising, we already had our police, we already had our guard mobilised, and we were just waiting for that call. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump attempted a coup: he must be removed while those who aided him pay | Robert Reich

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      A swift impeachment is imperative but from Rudy Giuliani and Don Jr to Fox News and Twitter, the president did not act aloneInsurrection: the day terror came to the US CapitolCall me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Related: Saving Justice review: how Trump’s Eye of Sauron burned everything – including James Comey Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      Trump adviser resigns and two other senior officials consider quitting

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      Donald Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, has resigned, and two other senior White House officials – the national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, and the deputy chief of staff, Chris Liddell – are reportedly considering stepping down after a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building.Pottinger’s departure comes amid speculation that others will also quit after the US president incited and praised rioters while continuing to air baseless grievances over his loss of the presidency.So far six officials associated with Trump and his inner circle have said they are quitting, including members of the first lady Melania Trump’s team, after the deadly violence that surrounded the Congressional vote to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in November.Senior Republican figures have also indicated splits from the president.Tweeting from his personal account, O’Brien – a staunch Trump loyalist – praised the behaviour of the vice-president, Mike Pence, who resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the election certification, , while making no mention of Trump.“I just spoke with Vice President Pence. He is a genuinely fine and decent man,” he tweeted. “He exhibited courage today as he did at the Capitol on 9/11 as a Congressman. I am proud to serve with him.”In further fall out that underlined the fracturing of the Trump administration’s inner circles, Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, indicated to journalists he had been banned from the White House by Trump after the president “blamed” him for advice he gave to Pence on Trump’s demands he overturn the election result.According to reports in the US media, some senior administration officials have also begun talking informally about invoking the 25th amendment to remove the president before his term expires on 20 January, while calls are also growing for a second impeachment to ensure Trump cannot run for public office again.In stark language that underlined the toxic and swirling sense of crisis, the Washington Post quoted one administration official describing Trump’s behaviour on Wednesday as that of “a monster,” while another said the situation was “insane” and “beyond the pale”.Two of the first lady’s top aides resigned on Wednesday night including Stephanie Grisham, a longtime Trump loyalist who previously served as White House press secretary. Anna Cristina Niceta, the White House social secretary, also resigned.The deputy White House press secretary, Sarah Matthews, also announced her resignation, saying she was “deeply disturbed” by the storming of the Capitol.“I was honoured to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted. As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today,” Matthews said in a statement. “I’ll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”The sense of anger within a Republican party at war with itself was increasingly in full view. “[Trump] screwed his supporters, he screwed the country and now he’s screwed himself,” a 2016 Trump campaign official told Politico.The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie – who said he repeatedly tried to call Trump during the crisis – also laid the blame squarely at Trump’s feet.“The president caused this protest to occur,” Christie told ABC News. “He is the only one who can make it stop.” More

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      in US Politics

      Democratic and Republican senators unite to condemn deadly US Capitol violence – video

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      Senators from both sides of US politics have condemned the violence unleashed on the Capitol building on Wednesday.  The vice-president, Mike Pence, described it as ‘a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol’. The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, labelled the Trump supporters as ‘goons’, ‘thugs’ and ‘domestic terrorists’, while Republican Mitt Romney labelled the events ‘an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States’
      American carnage: how Trump’s footsoldiers ran riot in the Capitol
      Maga mob’s Capitol invasion makes Trump’s assault on democracy literal More