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      Is President Biden Ready for the New Senate?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Biden AdministrationliveLatest UpdatesReview of Russian HackingBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn Politics With Lisa LererIs President Biden Ready for the New Senate?Mr. Biden, a man of old Washington, might be in for a rude awakening.Jan. 23, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETSign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), left, and Vice President Joe Biden, right, make their way into the House Chamber before President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address in the House Chamber at The Capitol Building in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2015. (Zach Gibson / The New York Times)Credit…Zach Gibson for The New York TimesIt was the Senate version of a gold watch.As the Obama administration wound to a close in December 2016, Joe Biden’s old pals gathered around their water cooler — the dais on the Senate floor — and threw what passes for a retirement party in Congress.The event was a bipartisan lovefest. Ten Republicans praised Mr. Biden as a “wonderful man,” “God-fearing and kind,” “a genuine patriot” with “boundless energy and undeniable charm.”Even Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, shared the love, recounting tales of legislative wrangling and shared stages, including one at a University of Louisville center founded by the Senate minority leader.“You have been a real friend, you have been a trusted partner and it has been an honor to serve with you,” he said. “We are all going to miss you.”Four years later, Mr. Biden’s old stamping grounds has become a far less collegial and productive place. Just days after Mr. Biden called for unity in his inaugural address, the Senate is already locked in a stalemate, with leaders of the two parties unable to agree on basic rules of operation.“I look back with nostalgia to how we used to work together,” said Harry Reid, the former Democratic majority leader who retired from the Senate the same year that Mr. Biden left Washington, musing on the Congress of the 1970s and 1980s. “Now the Senate does nothing.”Much has been made of Mr. Biden’s extensive experience in government, a central part of his pitch to voters during the presidential campaign. After serving 36 years in the Senate and another eight in the White House, the new president enters with a deeper understanding of the legislative process and politicians than any president since Lyndon Johnson, a former Senate majority leader.Credit…Zach Gibson for The New York TimesCredit…Zach Gibson for The New York TimesThe question is whether Mr. Biden’s legislative prowess is, well, a little bit sepia toned. When Mr. Biden talks about bipartisanship now, a fair number of Democrats in Washington quietly roll their eyes.In the Senate, more than a quarter of the seats have changed parties in the past four years — including five of the Republicans who praised Mr. Biden at that 2016 event. Many of the new members are products of the deeply polarized Trump era and have never served in a more functional Senate.Some of Mr. Biden’s closest aides believe the attack on the Capitol broke the fever within the Republican Party, creating space for its elected officials to work across the aisle. Yet, there are plenty of signs that former President Donald J. Trump’s influence on his party may linger.While the former president’s approval rating dropped sharply among Republicans after the attack, Trumpism remains embedded in the firmament of the party. Plenty of Republican state officials, local leaders and voters still believe Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud and view Mr. Biden as illegitimate. They’re threatening primary challenges against Republicans who work with Mr. Biden, complicating the political calculus for members of Congress, including several up for re-election next year, like Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who might be inclined to cut some legislative deals.Already, Mr. Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan has received a skeptical response from Republicans, including several centrists who helped craft the economic package that passed late last year. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, called the proposal a “non-starter.”“We just passed a program with over $900 billion in it,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told reporters shortly after the inauguration. “I’m not looking for a new program in the immediate future.”And then, there’s the issue of Mr. Biden’s own party. After four years of Mr. Trump, many Democrats are unwilling to compromise on their agenda. A vocal portion of the party is pushing to pass Mr. Biden’s rescue package through a budget resolution that would allow the legislation to clear the Senate with just 51 votes, instead of the usual 60 votes.Mr. Reid is urging Mr. Biden not to waste much time trying to win over his former Republican colleagues. Like many Democrats, he’d like Mr. Biden to eliminate the legislative filibuster — the 60-vote requirement for major bills — allowing Democrats to pass their agenda with their slim majority.The Biden AdministrationLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 23, 2021, 12:05 a.m. ETBiden’s Education Department moves to cut ties with an accrediting body linked to a fraud scandal.Two Trump appointees are being investigated for posting reports denying climate change.Giuliani concedes that an associate did ask for $20,000 a day to help Trump post-election.It’s that very prospect that worries Mr. McConnell, who refuses to sign an operating agreement until Democrats guarantee that they will not change the rules — essentially disarming the new majority before major legislative fights even begin. Although Democrats have no firm plans to gut the filibuster, many believe the threat of that possibility remains a powerful lever to force Republicans to compromise.A staunch institutionalist, Mr. Biden has been leery about eliminating the filibuster, though he expressed some openness to the idea in the final months of his campaign. Mr. McConnell’s opposition could change his views, some Democrats argue, as the new president becomes frustrated with his stalled legislative agenda.“Knowing Joe Biden the way I do, he will be very patient and try to continue how the Senate used to be,” Mr. Reid said. “I am not particularly optimistic.”Drop us a line!We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com and follow me on Twitter at @llererThe backlash beginsLast week, 10 Republicans voted to impeach Mr. Trump. Now, many face battles of their own.Trump allies, donors and political aides are rushing to support primary challenges against House Republicans who crossed the former president.“Wyoming taxpayers need a voice in Congress who will stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, and not give them cover,” State Senator Anthony Bouchard said in a statement. He’s one of several Republicans expected to announce campaigns against Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming who was the only member of House Republican leadership who supported the impeachment effort.The primary challenges are part of a broader push by Trump supporters to maintain control of the Republican Party, which now faces deep internal divides over whether to stick with the populist ideology and divisive rhetoric that defined the party’s message during the Trump administration. Many establishment Republicans would like to embrace a more inclusive platform that could help them win back suburban voters who fled the party in the 2020 elections.Trump allies believe such a move would be a mistake, costing them the backing of white working class voters who turned out in droves to support the president.In Michigan, a key battleground state that Mr. Biden won in 2020, Trump allies are supporting the candidacy of Tom Norton, a military veteran who is challenging Representative Peter Meijer in a rematch of their 2020 primary race.“I said, ‘Peter, if you impeach him, we’re going to have to go down this road again’,” Mr. Norton said on Steve Bannon’s podcast to promote his candidacy. “The morning of the impeachment vote, he called me and said: ‘Tom, you might have to put your website back up. I’m voting for impeachment.’”By the numbers: 17… That’s the number of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations by Mr. Biden on his first day in office.NEW YORK TIMES AUDIOThe era of governing by decree continuesWithin hours of entering the White House, Mr. Biden signed a flurry of executive orders to reverse some of his predecessor’s most divisive policies. “The Daily” discussed the potential positives of the orders and point out the pitfalls.… SeriouslyEveryone should have a Doug in their life.Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Raphael Warnock and the Solitude of the Black Senator

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      In late January 1870, the nation’s capital was riveted by a new arrival: the Mississippi legislator Hiram Rhodes Revels, who had traveled days by steamboat and train, forced into the “colored” sections by captains and conductors, en route to becoming the first Black United States senator. Not long after his train pulled in to the New Jersey Avenue Station, Revels, wearing a black suit and a neat beard beneath cheekbones fresh from a shave, was greeted by a rhapsodic Black public. There were lunches with leading civil rights advocates; daily congratulatory visits from as many as 50 men at the Capitol Hill home where he was the guest of a prominent Black Republican; and exclusive interracial soirees hosted by Black businessmen, including the president of the Freedman’s Savings Bank.

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      Democrats, Assuming Power, Face Recalcitrant Republicans

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNews AnalysisDemocrats, Assuming Power, Face Recalcitrant RepublicansThe looming impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate also presents a complication for Democrats hoping for a fast start in the Biden era.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is set to realize his goal of becoming majority leader Wednesday after the presidential inauguration.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 19, 2021, 7:55 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Democrats will take control of both the White House and Congress on Wednesday for the first time in a decade, but they have already discovered the difficulties of governing with so little room to maneuver around Republicans who appear in no mood to cooperate.Even before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the new president, a Republican senator put up a roadblock on Tuesday to one of his cabinet nominees, helping deny Mr. Biden the Day 1 confirmation of national security officials that other incoming presidents have taken for granted for decades. And Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who is set to become majority leader, found himself in difficult negotiations with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and incoming minority leader, over plans for running an evenly split Senate.On top of those hardly trifling issues, the looming impeachment trial of President Trump presents an extraordinary complication for a party that would no doubt prefer to focus on a bold Democratic agenda out of the gate. However it is eventually structured, the trial is certain to sap time, energy and momentum from the opening days of the new Democratic era in Washington.“It does put a wrinkle in the road,” conceded Christopher J. Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut and a close adviser to Mr. Biden. “I know Joe is disappointed that it will take some time. But the fact of the matter is, what occurred that day was of such significance that to ignore it or treat it in a casual way would only be an invitation for it to happen again.”The Republican resistance comes as Mr. Biden has made clear that he wants to work with both parties to achieve his legislative ambitions and still sees an opportunity for bipartisan consensus in a Senate that has become much more polarized since he left in 2009 after 36 years.Mr. Schumer is set to become majority leader by the narrowest possible margin on Wednesday afternoon after the inauguration of Mr. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the seating of three new Democratic senators, setting the margin at 50 to 50 with Ms. Harris empowered to cast tiebreaking votes.Dismissing concerns about the implications of the Senate trial for the Biden agenda, Mr. Schumer and his colleagues have said they can manage to do two things at once, conducting the proceeding while advancing Mr. Biden’s nominees and his other priorities.But the Senate has struggled in recent years to do even one thing at once, and experience has shown that presidential impeachments consume a lot of oxygen.Still, Democrats say they have no choice and few reservations about plunging ahead with a trial they see as a crucial element of a national reckoning after the violent Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and attempt to disrupt the counting of the presidential Electoral College ballots.“We have to send a very strong message that it is unacceptable for a president of the United States to incite a violent mob for the purposes of overturning a democratic election,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland. “I think we can make clear that this conduct has to be held accountable while we can work to open a new chapter.”Mr. Schumer, Mr. Van Hollen and other Democrats insist that the trial of Mr. Trump for inciting the attack can be conducted quickly if Republicans cooperate. They were buoyed on Tuesday by a strong statement from Mr. McConnell, who made clear that he held the president responsible for the violence and said Mr. Trump had “provoked” the mob.Senator Josh Hawley, center, said he would block quick confirmation of the homeland security secretary nominee, an early blow to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s hopes of working with both parties.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesBut even as Mr. McConnell has indicated an openness to allowing the trial to move forward, he was playing hardball in talks with Mr. Schumer on a so-called power sharing arrangement for managing the Senate in the longer term. In a memo to Republican colleagues and in talks with Mr. Schumer, Mr. McConnell said he wanted Democrats to agree not to weaken the filibuster in exchange for his cooperation in cutting a deal that would let Senate committees get down to business.That created a dilemma for Mr. Schumer, who, along with Democratic activists, wants to hold out the idea of eliminating the 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation — which in recent years has allowed the minority party to block most major initiatives — if Republicans uniformly line up against Mr. Biden’s agenda. The Democratic leader’s office urged Mr. McConnell to drop his demand and instead implement a plan developed 20 years ago, when the Senate was evenly divided and the two parties split committees down the middle.“Leader Schumer expressed that the fairest, most reasonable and easiest path forward is to adopt the 2001 bipartisan agreement without extraneous changes from either side,” said Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer.Regardless of how the negotiations go, Mr. McConnell made it clear Tuesday that Republicans had no intention of clearing the way for Democrats’ most cherished progressive priorities.“Certainly November’s elections did not hand any side a mandate for sweeping ideological change,” he said. “Americans elected a closely divided Senate, a closely divided House and a presidential candidate who said he’d represent everyone.”Mr. Biden’s push to have the Senate confirm some of his key nominees as soon as he took the oath Wednesday encountered an obstacle when Senator Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who led the challenge to the Electoral College vote, said he would block quick confirmation of Mr. Biden’s secretary of homeland security nominee, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, over immigration concerns.“Mr. Mayorkas has not adequately explained how he will enforce federal law and secure the southern border given President-elect Biden’s promise to roll back major enforcement and security measures,” Mr. Hawley said.His move infuriated Democrats, many of whom blame Mr. Hawley for the Jan. 6 riot that prompted the heightened security concerns that they say require the position to be filled immediately.“I think it really would be disgraceful, and shameful, but unfortunately, Senator Hawley is marching to his own drummer,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, about the delay.The contours of the impeachment trial remain unclear, and even the start date is unknown since Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet presented the Senate with the sole charge. Democrats would like to operate on two tracks and conduct Senate business for part of the day while holding the trial during the remainder — an approach that would require discipline and long hours.But Republicans, some of whom say Democrats have boxed themselves in by insisting on the trial during the crucial opening days of Mr. Biden’s tenure, offered a reminder and a warning Tuesday that impeachment takes center stage in the Senate once a trial begins.“Once she sends the articles of impeachment over, it displaces all other business,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, told reporters on Capitol Hill.While the Senate obviously has its hands full and the new era is not off to the smoothest start, Mr. Schumer, rising to a position he has coveted for years, said Democrats had big plans for their majority.“The next several months will be very busy,” he said, “and a very consequential period for the United States Senate.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Raphael Warnock and the Legacy of Racial Tyranny

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyRaphael Warnock and the Legacy of Racial TyrannyHis victory in the Georgia Senate runoff made history, and also echoed it.Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.Jan. 17, 2021Credit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesLost in the horror and mayhem of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was another momentous event that happened barely 12 hours earlier and hundreds of miles away: the election to the Senate of the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the first Black Democratic senator from the South in the nation’s history.Mr. Warnock’s triumph, along with that of Jon Ossoff, who won the other Georgia runoff on that Tuesday night, gave Democrats the Senate majority they lost in 2014, and full control of Congress for the first time in a decade.That was the salient political fact, at least before the insurrection began. But the proximity of those two events — the election of a Black man to the Senate followed hard on by the violent ransacking of the Capitol by an overwhelmingly white mob — rang loudly with echoes of the past.A little more than 150 years ago, on the afternoon of Feb. 25, 1870, America’s first Black senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, sat on the floor of the Senate preparing to take his oath of office.“There was not an inch of standing or sitting room in the galleries, so densely were they packed,” this newspaper reported in the following day’s edition. “To say that the interest was intense gives but a faint idea of the feeling which prevailed throughout the entire proceeding.”Hiram Rhodes RevelsCredit…Library of CongressRevels was, like Mr. Warnock, a preacher, ordained by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He had been raised in North Carolina and served as a chaplain to a Black regiment during the Civil War. He was elected to the Mississippi State Senate in 1869, part of a wave of Black lawmakers who took office throughout the South during Reconstruction.In 1870, the State Legislature chose Revels to fill one of Mississippi’s two U.S. Senate seats, both of which had been abandoned several years earlier, when the state seceded. It was a bold and unapologetic statement that Black Americans — Black men, anyway — were the political equals of whites, and were entitled to hold office alongside them.But the wounds of the Civil War were still fresh, and Southern whites were furious at being forced to share power with the people they had so recently enslaved. Before Revels could raise his right hand, the objections began raining down. George Vickers, a Democrat from Maryland, argued that Revels was ineligible to serve because the Constitution requires a senator to have been an American citizen for at least nine years. According to the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, Black people could never be citizens. While the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, effectively negated that ruling, Vickers contended — with a dose of birtherism that would make Donald Trump proud — Revels had therefore only been a citizen for two years.Revels’s backers argued that he was in fact a lifelong citizen of the United States, because he was born to free Black parents.After more objections and heated debate, the efforts to block Revels’s admission were voted down by the antislavery Republicans who dominated the Senate. “When the Vice-President uttered the words, ‘The Senator elect will now advance and take the oath,’ a pin might have been heard drop,” The Times wrote. “Mr. Revels showed no embarrassment whatever, and his demeanor was as dignified as could be expected under the circumstances. The abuse which had been poured upon him and on his race during the last two days might well have shaken the nerves of any one.”Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts spoke up in Mr. Revels’s defense. “All men are created equal, says the great Declaration,” he said, but “the Declaration was only half established by Independence. The greatest duty remained behind. In assuring the equal rights of all we complete the work.”The rioters incited by President Trump and Republicans to storm the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 did not have Mr. Warnock’s name on their lips. They didn’t have to. In their eagerness to destroy American democracy rather than share it, they showed themselves to be the inheritors of a long tradition of rebellion against a new world order: a genuine, multiracial democracy.Reconstruction was the first attempt to make that world order a reality, and it succeeded remarkably for a few years, as evidenced by the election of leaders like Hiram Revels. But it soon collapsed as the federal government gave up and pulled troops out of the South, leaving Black people at the mercy of vengeful state governments intent on re-establishing white supremacy.In the Jim Crow era that followed, millions of Black Americans were erased from American political life. They may have technically counted as five-fifths of a person, rather than three-fifths as the Constitution had originally set out, but they were no more able to participate in their own governance than their enslaved forebears had been. Those who tried to take part faced everything from poll taxes and literacy tests to campaigns of terrorism and state-sanctioned murder. By the first decades of the 20th century, Black voter registration had fallen into the low single digits across much of the South.That racist, anti-democratic regime was brought down only by the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, led at its apex by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Historians often refer to this time as a second Reconstruction, because it wasn’t until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the United States could claim to be anything resembling a true representative democracy. But this second Reconstruction, like the first, faced reactionary backlash from the start. That backlash has found expression primarily in the Republican Party, which had by then abandoned its abolitionist roots — from Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy to Ronald Reagan’s race-baiting dog whistles to the openly racist campaign and presidency of Donald Trump.If Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016, following the eight-year tenure of the nation’s first Black president, was a symbolic assault on the ideal of a multiracial democracy, the riot he incited at the Capitol on Jan. 6 made that assault literal.There will be no new Jim Crow regime, but the effort to preserve white political domination continues. Republican lawmakers have been working for years to make it harder, if not impossible, for Black voters — who vote roughly 9 to 1 for Democrats — to register and cast their ballots. While no state caved to the outrageous pressure from Mr. Trump to reject its popular vote in favor of Joe Biden and give its electors to him, many states are already debating legislation to cut back access to voting and to strengthen voter ID requirements, both of which would hurt Black voters disproportionately.Those voters were critical to the Democrats’ victories in Georgia, and their showing up despite the obstacles placed in their way has ensured that Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff will be sworn in over the coming days. But it is clearer than ever that as America approaches 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the nation’s work of assuring equal rights for all is far from complete. As in 1870, the greatest duty still remains before us.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Before the Capitol Riot, Calls for Cash and Talk of Revolution

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBefore the Capitol Riot, Calls for Cash and Talk of RevolutionA network of far-right agitators across the country spent weeks organizing and raising money for a mass action to overturn President Trump’s election loss.A conservative organizer and QAnon adherent, Keith Lee, helped rally a mob outside Congress on Jan. 6.CreditCredit…Timothy Wolfer for The New York TimesDavid D. Kirkpatrick, Mike McIntire and Jan. 16, 2021Updated 1:54 p.m. ETKeith Lee, an Air Force veteran and former police detective, spent the morning of Jan. 6 casing the entrances to the Capitol.In online videos, the 41-year-old Texan pointed out the flimsiness of the fencing. He cheered the arrival, long before President Trump’s rally at the other end of the mall, of far-right militiamen encircling the building. Then, armed with a bullhorn, Mr. Lee called out for the mob to rush in, until his voice echoed from the dome of the Rotunda.Yet even in the heat of the event, Mr. Lee paused for some impromptu fund-raising. “If you couldn’t make the trip, give five to 10 bucks,” he told his viewers, seeking donations for the legal costs of two jailed “patriots,” a leader of the far-right Proud Boys and an ally who had clashed with the police during an armed incursion at Oregon’s statehouse.Much is still unknown about the planning and financing of the storming of the Capitol, aiming to challenge Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat. What is clear is that it was driven, in part, by a largely ad hoc network of low-budget agitators, including far-right militants, Christian conservatives and ardent adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Mr. Lee is all three. And the sheer breadth of the movement he joined suggests it may be far more difficult to confront than a single organization.Rioters after they breached the doors of the Capitol.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIn the months leading up to the riot, Mr. Lee had helped organize a series of pro-Trump car caravans around the country, including one that temporarily blockaded a Biden campaign bus in Texas and another that briefly shut down a Hudson River bridge in the New York City suburbs. To help pay for dozens of caravans to meet at the Jan. 6 rally, he had teamed up with an online fund-raiser in Tampa, Fla., who secured money from small donors and claimed to pass out tens of thousands of dollars.Theirs was one of many grass-roots efforts to bring Trump supporters to the Capitol, often amid calls for revolution, if not outright violence. On an online ride-sharing forum, Patriot Caravans for 45, more than 4,000 members coordinated travel from as far away as California and South Dakota. Some 2,000 people donated at least $181,700 to another site, Wild Protest, leaving messages urging ralliers to halt the certification of the vote.Oath Keepers, a self-identified militia whose members breached the Capitol, had solicited donations online to cover “gas, airfare, hotels, food and equipment.” Many others raised money through the crowdfunding site GoFundMe or, more often, its explicitly Christian counterpart, GiveSendGo. (On Monday, the money transfer service PayPal stopped working with GiveSendGo because of its links to the violence at the Capitol.)A few prominent firebrands, an opaque pro-Trump nonprofit and at least one wealthy donor had campaigned for weeks to amplify the president’s false claims about his defeat, stoking the anger of his supporters.Amy Kremer is one of the leaders of Women for America First, which helped sponsor rallies ahead of the riot.Credit…Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressA chief sponsor of many rallies leading up to the riot, including the one featuring the president on Jan. 6, was Women for America First, a conservative nonprofit. Its leaders include Amy Kremer, who rose to prominence in the Tea Party movement, and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, 30. She started a “Stop the Steal” Facebook page on Nov. 4. More than 320,000 people signed up in less than a day, but the platform promptly shut it down for fears of inciting violence. The group has denied any violent intent.By far the most visible financial backer of Women for America First’s efforts was Mike Lindell, a founder of the MyPillow bedding company, identified on a now-defunct website as one of the “generous sponsors” of a bus tour promoting Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. In addition, he was an important supporter of Right Side Broadcasting, an obscure pro-Trump television network that provided blanket coverage of Trump rallies after the vote, and a podcast run by the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon that also sponsored the bus tour.“I put everything I had into the last three weeks, financial and everything,” Mr. Lindell said in a mid-December television interview.In a tweet the same month, he urged Mr. Trump to “impose martial law” to seize ballots and voting machines. Through a representative, Mr. Lindell said he only supported the bus tour “prior to December 14th” and was not a financial sponsor of any events after that, including the rally on Jan. 6. He continues to stand by the president’s claims and met with Mr. Trump at the White House on Friday.Mike Lindell, the head of MyPillow, helped fund a bus tour that promoted President Trump’s false election claims.Credit…Erin Scott/ReutersBy late December, the president himself was injecting volatility into the organizing efforts, tweeting an invitation to a Washington rally that would take place as Congress gathered to certify the election results.“Be there, will be wild!” Mr. Trump wrote.The next day, a new website, Wild Protest, was registered and quickly emerged as an organizing hub for the president’s most zealous supporters. It appeared to be connected to Ali Alexander, a conspiracy theorist who vowed to stop the certification by “marching hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of patriots to sit their butts in D.C. and close that city down.”Mr. Alexander could not be reached for comment, but in a video posted to Twitter last week, he denied any responsibility for the violence.While other groups like Women for America First were promoting the rally where Mr. Trump would speak — at the Ellipse, about a mile west of the Capitol — the Wild Protest website directed Trump supporters to a different location: the doorsteps of Congress.Wild Protest linked to three hotels with discounted rates and another site for coordinating travel plans. It also raised donations from thousands of individuals, according to archived versions of a web portal used to collect them. The website has since been taken down, and it is not clear what the money was used for.“The time for words has passed, action alone will save our Republic,” a user donating $250 wrote, calling congressional certification of the vote “treasonous.”Another contributor gave $47 and posted: “Fight to win our country back using whatever means necessary.”Mr. Lee, who sought to raise legal-defense money the morning before the riot, did not respond to requests for comment. He has often likened supporters of overturning the election to the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and has said he is willing to give his life for the cause.A sales manager laid off at an equipment company because of the pandemic, he has said that he grew up as a conservative Christian in East Texas. Air Force records show that he enlisted a month after the Sept. 11 attacks and served for four years, leaving as a senior airman. Later, in 2011 and 2012, he worked for a private security company at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.In between, he also worked as a police detective in McKinney, Texas.He had never been politically active, he has said. But during Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Lee began to immerse himself in the online QAnon conspiracy theory. Its adherents hold that Mr. Trump is trying to save America from a shadowy ring of pedophiles who control the government and the Democratic Party. Mr. Lee has said that resonated with his experience dealing with child crimes as a police officer.His active support for Mr. Trump began last August when he organized a caravan of drivers from around the state to show their support for the president by circling the capital, Austin. That led him to found a website, MAGA Drag the Interstate, to organize Trump caravans around the country.By December, Mr. Lee had achieved enough prominence that he was included in a roster of speakers at a news conference preceding a “March for Trump” rally in Washington.“We are at this precipice” of “good versus evil,” Mr. Lee declared. “I am going to fight for my president. I am going to fight for what is right.”He threw himself into corralling fellow “patriots” to meet in Washington on Jan. 6, and at the end of last month he began linking his website with the Tampa organizer to raise money for participants’ travel..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.The fund-raiser, who has identified himself as a web designer named Thad Williams, has said in a podcast that sexual abuse as a child eventually led him to the online world of QAnon.While others “made of steel” are cut out to be “warriors against evil” and “covered in the blood and sweat of that part,” Mr. Williams said, he sees himself as more of “a chaplain and a healer.” In 2019, he set up a website to raise money for QAnon believers to travel to Trump rallies. He could not be reached for comment.Trump supporters boarded a bus from Massachusetts to Washington on the night before the riot.Credit…Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy the gathering at the Capitol, he claimed to have raised and distributed at least $30,000 for transportation costs. Expressions of thanks posted on Twitter appear to confirm that he allocated money, and a day after the assault the online services PayPal and Stripe shut down his accounts.Mr. Lee’s MAGA Drag the Interstate site, for its part, said it had organized car caravans of more than 600 people bound for the rally. It used military-style shorthand to designate routes in different regions across the country, from Alpha to Zulu, and a logo on the site combined Mr. Trump’s distinctive hairstyle with Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right that has been used by white supremacists.Participants traded messages about where to park together overnight on the streets of Washington. Some arranged midnight rendezvous at highway rest stops or Waffle House restaurants to drive together on the morning of the rally.On the evening of Jan. 5, Mr. Lee broadcast a video podcast from a crowd of chanting Trump supporters in the Houston airport, waiting to board a flight to Washington. “We are there for a show of force,” he promised, suggesting he anticipated street fights even before dawn. “Gonna see if we can do a little playing in the night.”A co-host of the podcast — a self-described Army veteran from Washington State — appealed for donations to raise $250,000 bail money for Chandler Pappas, 27.Chandler Pappas outside the the Oregon statehouse last month.Credit…Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/ReutersTwo weeks earlier in Salem, Ore., during a protest against Covid-19 restrictions, Mr. Pappas had sprayed six police officers with mace while leading an incursion into the State Capitol building and carrying a semiautomatic rifle, according to a police report. Mr. Pappas, whose lawyer did not return a phone call seeking comment, had been linked to the far-right Proud Boys and an allied local group called Patriot Prayer.“American citizens feel like they’ve been attacked. Fear’s reaction is anger, anger’s reaction is patriotism and voilà — you get a war,” said Mr. Lee’s co-host, who gave his name as Rampage.He directed listeners to donate to the bail fund through GiveSendGo, and thanked them for helping to raise $100,000 through the same site for the legal defense of Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the Proud Boys who is accused of vandalizing a historically Black church in Washington.By 10:45 a.m. the next day, more than an hour before Mr. Trump spoke, Mr. Lee was back online broadcasting footage of himself at the Capitol.“If you died today and you went to heaven, can you look George Washington in the face and say that you’ve fought for this country?” he asked.CreditCredit…GhoSToRM143, via PeriscopeBy noon, he was reporting that “backup” was already arriving, bypassing the Trump speech and rally. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were among the groups that went directly to the Capitol.“Guys, we got the Three Percent here! The Three Percent here that loves this country and wants to fight!” Mr. Lee reported a little later, referring to another militant group. “We need to surround this place.”Backed by surging crowds, Mr. Lee had made his way into the Rotunda and by 3 p.m. — after a fellow assailant had been shot, police officers had been injured and local authorities were pleading for help — he was back outside using his megaphone to urge others into the building. “If we do it together,” he insisted, “there’s no violence!”When he knew that lawmakers had evacuated, he declared victory: “We have done our job,” he shouted.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Lankford Apologizes to Black Constituents for Election Objections

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyLive Updates: Pelosi Expected to Speak About ImpeachmentA Republican senator from Oklahoma apologizes to Black constituents for seeking to disenfranchise them.Jan. 15, 2021, 7:59 a.m. ETJan. 15, 2021, 7:59 a.m. ETMike Ives and Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, in October. He has apologized for trying to reverse the results of the presidential election and disenfranchise tens of millions of voters.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesSenator James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican who spent weeks trying to reverse the results of the presidential election before changing his mind at the last moment, apologized on Thursday to Black constituents who felt he had attacked their right to vote.In a letter addressed to his “friends” in North Tulsa, which has many Black residents, Mr. Lankford, who is white, wrote on Thursday that his efforts to challenge the election result had “caused a firestorm of suspicion among many of my friends, particularly in Black communities around the state.”“After decades of fighting for voting rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to matter, and even a belief that their votes made an election in our country illegitimate,” he wrote, according to the news site Tulsa World.Mr. Lankford said in the letter that he had never intended to “diminish the voice of any Black American.” Still, he added, “I should have recognized how what I said and what I did could be interpreted by many of you.”Mr. Lankford, who sits on a key Senate oversight committee, was initially one of the Republicans who tried to upend Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, even as courts threw out baseless questions raised by President Trump and his allies about election malfeasance.Democrats in Congress have viewed Mr. Lankford as a rare, cooperative partner on voting rights, and his decision to join those Republicans seeking to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters — many of them Black citizens living in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta — came as a surprise.The first indication he might do so came during his appearance in December at a Senate hearing about alleged voting “irregularities,” when he repeated unsupported Trump campaign allegations about voting in Nevada that had been debunked in court nearly two weeks earlier.Mr. Lankford and other Republicans had claimed that by challenging the election results, they were exercising their independence and acting in the interests of constituents who were demanding answers.“There are lots of folks in my state that still want those answers to come out,” Mr. Lankford said a few days before the Electoral College vote was certified.After the riot at the Capitol, Mr. Lankford was one of several Republican senators who abandoned their earlier challenge, saying the lawlessness and chaos had caused them to changed their minds.In a joint statement that night with Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, Mr. Lankford called on “the entire Congress to come together and vote to certify the election results.”Mr. Lankford has faced calls from Black leaders to resign from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, which is designed to commemorate the racist massacre in the city’s Greenwood district, an affluent Black community known as Black Wall Street. The massacre, which took place 100 years ago this spring, was one of the worst instances of racist violence in American history. A white mob destroyed the neighborhood and its Black-owned businesses, and up to 300 residents were killed.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More