Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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    Trump’s Crackdown on LA Protests Contrasts With His Jan. 6 Response

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    The president often expresses an open desire for aggressive law enforcement and harsh tactics when protests originate from the political left.When violent protests originate from the right — such as those in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, or at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — President Trump has chosen to downplay the violence or suggest the protesters have a noble cause and have been treated unfairly.But when protests originate from what he views as the political left, Mr. Trump often expresses an open desire for law enforcement and the military to harshly crack down on them.Over the weekend, Mr. Trump ordered that 2,000 National Guard troops be deployed on the streets of downtown Los Angeles to quell protests against his administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. That was followed by orders on Monday to send 700 Marines to join them, and then later in the day, with an order for 2,000 additional National Guard troops.Even though the demonstrations have been largely contained to specific areas and mostly peaceful, Mr. Trump claimed on social media that the protesters were “insurrectionist mobs” and that Los Angeles had been “invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals.”In endorsing harsh law enforcement tactics against immigration protests, Mr. Trump is picking a political fight on ground that Republicans believe is advantageous terrain. Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, said on his podcast on Monday that the president’s response was “quite smart.”“He just won a massive national election on this very topic,” Mr. Bannon said, magnifying Mr. Trump’s showing in a race he won by less than 2.3 million popular votes. Mr. Bannon accused Democratic-led jurisdictions of inviting in undocumented immigrants and refusing to arrest violent protesters. “This is why President Trump has to bring in the National Guard and federalize them,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      D.C. Police Officer Sentenced to Prison for Leaks to Proud Boys’ Leader

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      A federal judge gave Lt. Shane Lamond an 18-month sentence for leaking details of an investigation to Enrique Tarrio, the far-right group’s former leader, and lying about it later.A federal judge has sentenced a former intelligence officer in the Washington police force to 18 months in prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about his relationship with Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, the far-right group.The officer, Lt. Shane Lamond, was found guilty in December of illegally leaking details to Mr. Tarrio about an investigation into his burning of a Black Lives Matter banner during a protest in Washington. The federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson, said that Mr. Lamond, who cultivated a close relationship with Mr. Tarrio in the months leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, had undermined his police department colleagues with “entirely unauthorized” back channeling with Mr. Tarrio.A lawyer for Mr. Lamond, Mark Schamel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Lamond’s lawyers argued during the trial that he had reached out to Mr. Tarrio to gather information, and that his updates about the status of police and F.B.I. investigations into the activities of the Proud Boys were intended to build rapport. In a pre-sentencing memo from April, they asked for probation instead of a prison sentence.“Mr. Lamond’s police intel work certainly strayed from the ideal,” his lawyers said. “But he did not impede the investigation in any way, and was the most significant source of information used to successfully prosecute Mr. Tarrio.” They added that he had sought to gain only intelligence that could help stop protesters from coming to Washington after the 2020 election. In requesting probation for Mr. Lamond, they also cited health problems, including with his spine.Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, speaking to reporters in Washington on Friday.Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesProsecutors had argued for a sentence of four years. They said Mr. Lamond had “used his access and power in pursuit of his own personal agenda,” and lied repeatedly about his relationship with Mr. Tarrio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El discurso de Trump sobre un tercer mandato desafía la Constitución y la democracia

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      La 22.ª Enmienda es clara: el presidente de EE. UU. tiene que renunciar a su cargo tras su segundo mandato. Pero la negativa de Trump a aceptarlo sugiere hasta dónde está dispuesto a llegar para mantenerse en el poder.Después de que el presidente Donald Trump dijera el año pasado que quería ser dictador por un día, insistió en que solo estaba bromeando. Ahora dice que podría intentar aferrarse al poder incluso cuando la Constitución estipula que debe renunciar a él, y esta vez, insiste en que no está bromeando.Puede que sí y puede que no. A Trump le gusta alborotar el avispero y sacar de quicio a los críticos. Hablar de un tercer mandato inconstitucional distrae de otras noticias y retrasa el momento en que se le considere como un presidente saliente. Sin duda, algunos en su propio bando lo consideran una broma, mientras los líderes republicanos se ríen de ello y los ayudantes de la Casa Blanca se burlan de los periodistas por tomárselo demasiado en serio.Pero el hecho de que Trump haya introducido la idea en la conversación nacional ilustra la incertidumbre sobre el futuro del sistema constitucional estadounidense, casi 250 años después de que el país obtuviera la independencia. Más que en ningún otro momento en generaciones, se cuestiona el compromiso del presidente con los límites al poder y el Estado de derecho, y sus críticos temen que el país se encamine por una senda oscura.Después de todo, Trump ya intentó una vez aferrarse al poder desafiando la Constitución, cuando trató de anular las elecciones de 2020 a pesar de haber perdido. Más tarde pidió la “rescisión” de la Constitución para volver a la Casa Blanca sin una nueva elección. Y en las 11 semanas transcurridas desde que reasumió el cargo, ha presionado los límites del poder ejecutivo más que ninguno de sus predecesores modernos.“En mi opinión, esto es la culminación de lo que ya ha empezado, que es un esfuerzo metódico por desestabilizar y socavar nuestra democracia para poder asumir un poder mucho mayor”, dijo en una entrevista el representante Daniel Goldman, demócrata por Nueva York y consejero principal durante el primer juicio político a Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. Tries to Intervene on Trump’s Behalf in Jan. 6 Lawsuits

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      The department employed a maneuver that could protect the president from legal and financial consequences in a series of civil suits.The Justice Department made an unusual effort on Thursday to short-circuit a series of civil lawsuits seeking to hold President Trump accountable for his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Department lawyers argued in court papers filed to the judge overseeing the cases that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity as president on Jan. 6 and so the federal government itself should take his place as the defendant. That move, if successful, could protect Mr. Trump from having to face judgment for his role in the Capitol attack and from having to pay financial damages if he were found liable.The legal maneuver appeared to be Mr. Trump’s latest effort to use the powers of the Justice Department to his advantage by effectively having himself removed from the lawsuits, which were brought against him by groups of Capitol Police officers and lawmakers who claim they were injured when the mob stormed the building.The suits are the last remaining effort to hold Mr. Trump responsible for his role in the Capitol attack after two Jan. 6-related criminal cases against him collapsed last year.The department’s attempt to place the federal government itself in the lawsuits’ line of fire instead of Mr. Trump hinges on whether lawyers can persuade the federal judge overseeing the suits, Amit P. Mehta, that Mr. Trump was in fact acting in his official capacity as president on Jan. 6.The department has argued that under the law federal officials acting within the scope of their office or employment cannot be sued personally, and that in such instances the government is the only entity that can be targeted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Thom Tillis’s Surrender to Trump Says About the Trump G.O.P.

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      Few Republican senators give a better floor speech than Thom Tillis of North Carolina does. He’s the Daniel Day-Lewis of moral outrage. He delivered a doozy last month, challenging President Trump’s revisionist history of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling Vladimir Putin “a liar, a murderer” and “the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”But Tulsi Gabbard is apparently no threat at all. Although she has been something of a Putin apologist, Tillis fell in line with 51 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate and voted to confirm her as director of national intelligence. Afterward, on Facebook, he proclaimed his pride in supporting her.He made impassioned remarks in the Senate about his disagreement with Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters who bloodied law enforcement officers.But the following month, he voted to confirm Kash Patel, who has peddled the kinds of fictions that fueled that violence, as director of the F.B.I.Courage, capitulation — Tillis pinballs dizzyingly between the two. As he gears up for a 2026 campaign for a third term in the Senate, he seems to be at war with himself. And perhaps more poignantly than any other Republican on Capitol Hill, Tillis, 64, illustrates how hard it is to be principled, independent or any of those other bygone adjectives in Trump’s Republican Party.That’s a compliment. For most Republicans in Congress, there’s no battle between conscience and supplication. They dropped to their knees years ago. There’s no tension between what they say and what they do. They praise Trump with their every word, including the conjunctions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. Takes Broad View of Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons

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      The department has increasingly taken the position that criminal behavior discovered during an investigation stemming from a suspect’s role in the Capitol attack is in fact related to Jan. 6.Four years ago, when F.B.I. agents searched the Florida home of Jeremy Brown, a former Special Forces soldier, in connection with his role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they found several illegal items: an unregistered assault rifle, two live fragmentation grenades and a classified “trip report” that Mr. Brown wrote while he was in the Army.Mr. Brown was ultimately tried in Tampa on charges of illegally possessing the weapons and the classified material. And after he was convicted, he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison — even before his Jan. 6 indictment had a chance to go in front of a jury.On Tuesday, however, federal prosecutors abruptly declared that because the second case was related to Jan. 6, it was covered by the sprawling clemency proclamation that President Trump issued on his first day in office to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack.And if a judge eventually agrees with that assessment, it could mean that Mr. Brown — whose Jan. 6 charges were already wiped out by the presidential pardon — will get to go free on his other case as well.The Justice Department’s position with regard to Mr. Brown is not the first time it has said in recent days that separate criminal cases emerging from the investigation of Jan. 6 — especially those involving weapons discovered during searches — should be covered by Mr. Trump’s sweeping reprieves.Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, advanced that view on Tuesday in the case of another pardoned Jan. 6 defendant, Daniel Edwin Wilson.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Has the Same Idea in Mind for Ukraine and the Department of Justice

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      I grew up a Reagan Republican in the middle of the Cold War, and I never thought I’d see the day when the president of the United States became the world’s most prominent and effective Russian propagandist.Yet that’s exactly what happened last week, when President Trump began a diplomatic offensive against the nation of Ukraine and the person of President Volodymyr Zelensky.This month, the administration couldn’t seem to get its message straight. First it seemed to want to offer unilateral concessions to the Russian government — including by taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table and recognizing Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine — only to walk back the concessions days (or hours) later.The cumulative effect was confusing. What was the administration’s position on Ukraine? Last week, however, the words and actions of the administration left us with no doubt — the United States is taking Russia’s side in the conflict.What other conclusion should we draw when Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, begins peace negotiations with Russia without Ukraine or any of our NATO allies at the table, dangling “historic economic and investment opportunities” for Russia if the conflict ends?What other conclusion should we draw when Trump demands ruinous economic concessions from Ukraine to compensate America for its prior aid? He’s demanding a higher share of gross domestic product from Ukraine than the victorious Allies demanded from Germany after World War I.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says He Would Have Had a ‘Very Nasty Life’ if He’d Lost the Election

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      President Trump said Wednesday he would have had a “very nasty life” if he lost the presidential election, a surprisingly public acknowledgment that his legal challenges could have consumed his life and brought jail time.“If I lost, it would have been very bad,” Mr. Trump said at an investment summit in Miami Beach. “It was dangerous, actually very dangerous.”When Mr. Trump won in November, the Justice Department abandoned the two federal cases against him, and a judge in Manhattan issued an unconditional discharge in his hush money case.Mr. Trump gave voice to something that his advisers had long said he had in the back of his mind as he campaigned. But he did not publicly acknowledge throughout 2024 that he was campaigning for his freedom as much as for the White House itself.The president made the comments in response to a question about how he would spend a year if granted a sabbatical. Mr. Trump did not directly answer the question, saying he was honored to be president. But he said it took “a certain amount of courage” to run again because of the personal risks.Mr. Trump also said he disagreed with historians’ assessment that Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated, were the two most mistreated presidents.“Nobody was treated like me,” he said. “Nobody, and I will tell you, you learn a lot about yourself, but there’s nothing I’d rather do.”During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump faced dozens of criminal charges across four different cases. Jack Smith, who served as a special counsel, charged him in two different cases, one related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and another related to his handling of classified government documents after he left the White House in 2021. The documents case had been dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge, but Mr. Smith’s team was appealing it.He also faced charges in Georgia over attempts to overturn his election loss in 2020, and he was found guilty on all counts in the hush-money case in New York, where he could have faced up to four years in prison.Maggie Haberman More

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      Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?

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      When I was a teenager, my older brother took me to see “Shane.”I wasn’t that into westerns, and the movie just seemed to be about a little boy running after Alan Ladd in the wilderness of the Tetons, screaming “Sha-a-a-a-ne, come back!”I came across the movie on Turner Classic Movies the other night, and this time I understood why the George Stevens film is considered one of best of all time. (The A.F.I. ranks “Shane, come back!” as one of the 50 top movie lines of all time.)The parable on good and bad involves a fight between cattle ranchers and homesteaders. Ladd’s Shane is on the side of the honest homesteaders — including an alluring married woman, played by Jean Arthur. Arriving in creamy fringed buckskin, he is an enigmatic golden gunslinger who goes to work as a farmhand. Jack Palance plays the malevolent hired gun imported by the brutal cattle ranchers to drive out the homesteaders. Palance is dressed in a black hat and black vest. In case you don’t get the idea, a dog skulks away as Palance enters a saloon.It’s so easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, the right thing to do versus the wrong. Law and order wasn’t a cliché or a passé principle that could be kicked aside if it interfered with baser ambitions.The 1953 film is also a meditation on American masculinity in the wake of World War II. A real man doesn’t babble or whine or brag or take advantage. He stands up for the right thing and protects those who can’t protect themselves from bullies.I loved seeing all those sentimental, corny ideals that America was built on, even if those ideals have often been betrayed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More