Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      Debunking the Pro-Trump Right’s Claims About the Jan. 6 Riot

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      A rally scheduled for Saturday in Washington is intended to continue a Republican effort to rewrite the narrative of the assault on the Capitol. The facts undercut their assertions.In the eight months since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, some Republicans have tried to build a case — belied by the facts — that the vast federal investigation of the riot has been essentially unfair, its targets the victims of political persecution.The people charged in the Jan. 6 attack are “being persecuted so unfairly,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a statement on Thursday.That sentiment is the organizing principle behind the rally scheduled in Washington on Saturday, billed as “Justice for J6.” According to the permit application submitted by the organizers, a group called Look Ahead America, the event is meant to “bring awareness and attention to the unjust and unethical treatment of nonviolent Jan. 6 political prisoners.”The rally is the latest effort in the right’s continuing attempt to rewrite the history of the mob attack on Congress, which prosecutors say led to as many as 1,000 assaults against the police and sought to disrupt certification of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Here is what the facts say about assertions from those seeking to promote a false narrative about Jan. 6.The rioters weren’t just tourists who now face excessive criminal charges.One of the first claims that pro-Trump conservatives made about Jan. 6 was that the rioters were little more than tourists and that those arrested were victims of prosecutorial overreach. Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, described the scene at the Capitol that day as “a normal tourist visit,” implying that hundreds of people taken into custody were facing excessive charges.But, in fact, nearly half of the more than 600 people charged have been accused only of misdemeanors like trespassing and disorderly conduct, rather than more serious felonies.At this point, more than 50 of these low-level defendants have pleaded guilty. All of them will serve prison terms of six months or less, or no time at all — fairly modest sentences for the federal penal system. But even when the authorities have agreed to lenient penalties, they have still insisted that no one who broke into the Capitol is innocent.“A riot cannot occur without rioters,” prosecutors wrote in a recent memo proposing no jail time for Valerie Ehrke, a California woman who only spent one minute in the building. “And rioter’s actions — from the most mundane to the most violent — contributed, directly and indirectly, to the violence and destruction of that day.”The government hasn’t widely detained nonviolent protesters.At an event last month hosted by Republican officials in his home state of North Carolina, Representative Madison Cawthorn repeated an oft-heard myth. He complained that hundreds of people taken into custody after Jan. 6 were “political hostages.”The truth is that about 15 percent of those arrested so far in connection with the riot have been denied bail and remain in pretrial custody — much lower than the overall federal pretrial detention rate of 75 percent. Moreover, all of those being detained on charges related to Jan. 6 are facing serious charges like assault or obstruction of Congress; none have been accused of only misdemeanors.Far from jailing everyone, in fact, judges have granted bail to numerous defendants accused of violent attacks on the police or of belonging to extremist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers militia.There are a handful of cases in which people have been denied bail without having engaged in physical violence, but those are the exceptions to the rule.This week, a lawyer for Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys, complained in court that his client has been in jail for months not because of anything he personally did on Jan. 6, but rather because he is a member of a reviled political organization.Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who was appointed to the federal bench by Mr. Trump, responded that the law alone was guiding Mr. Nordean’s case.“Politics has nothing to do with it,” Judge Kelly said. “Not one whit.”Capitol Police officers preparing riot equipment at the Capitol before the rally on Saturday.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesJan. 6 defendants haven’t been treated more harshly than racial justice protesters.The assertion has become a staple on the right: Trump supporters were charged with violent crimes in the Capitol attack because of their conservative beliefs while many leftist activists had similar charges stemming from the racial justice protests last year in cities like Portland, Ore., reduced or dismissed.This summer, a Jan. 6 defendant named Garret Miller filed court papers making that argument. Mr. Miller, who lives in Dallas, claimed he had been “treated differently by the government than the Portland rioters based upon the politics involved,” his lawyer wrote.In rebutting these claims, the government argued there was no comparison between the protests last year prompted by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the storming of the Capitol. While prosecutors acknowledged that those arrested during weeks of unrest at the Portland federal courthouse had committed “serious offenses,” they insisted that the rioters in Washington were involved in “a singular and chilling event” that threatened not only the Capitol but also “democracy itself.”Trying to explain why many cases in the racial justice protests were eventually dismissed, prosecutors also said they have much better evidence against Capitol rioters like Mr. Miller than they ever had against protesters in Portland. Among the material they collected after Jan. 6 were thousands of hours of video footage from surveillance and body cameras worn by the police, and hundreds of thousands of social media posts.A few months after Mr. Miller filed his claims, The Associated Press published an analysis of more than 300 criminal cases stemming from the protests incited by Mr. Floyd’s murder. The analysis undercut the argument that pro-Trump defendants were treated more harshly than Black Lives Matter protesters, showing that many leftist rioters had received substantial sentences.There’s no evidence that Jan. 6 defendants are being treated worse than others in jail.Perhaps the loudest grievances about Capitol defendants concern the jail conditions of those denied bail.The accusations have been many and wide-ranging. Some defendants have complained of being locked in their cells for 23 hours a day in what amounts to solitary confinement. Others have claimed that they have been denied the right to hold religious services and that their hygiene needs have been restricted.One defendant, charged with assaulting the police, has said that he was zip-tied and then “savagely” beaten by a correctional officer in the District of Columbia jail, according to his lawyer. The assault resulted in a broken nose, a dislocated jaw and the loss of sight in the man’s right eye.Jail, of course, is a terrible place to be, regardless of one’s politics. But at least so far, no one has offered evidence that the authorities have imposed harsh conditions on Jan. 6 defendants because of their political beliefs.A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia jail said the 23-hour lockdown was not imposed solely on the Capitol defendants but was a medical provision used throughout the jail to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It has recently been lifted, she said.The Justice Department is using a novel charge in some cases.Prosecutors have taken a legal risk in the way they have chosen to prosecute scores of Capitol cases. The potential problem concerns the use of a federal obstruction law to charge people with disrupting Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote. Lawyers for some of the defendants are challenging the Justice Department in court over use of the law, but pro-Trump activists have yet to make it a big public issue.Instead of using politically fraught and hard-to-prove charges like sedition or insurrection to describe the attempt to block certification of the election results, the Justice Department used a much more measured — albeit novel — law: obstruction of an official proceeding.The law is not a perfect match for what happened on Jan. 6; indeed, it had never before been used in a situation like the Capitol attack.Passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a corporate overhaul law, the measure was devised to prohibit things like shredding documents or tampering with witnesses. Several lawyers have filed papers arguing that the law does not apply to the riot at the Capitol. Two federal judges have signaled that they might agree and could decide to toss the charge for more than 200 defendants.The Justice Department’s use of the obstruction law is arguably the most political move prosecutors have made to date. After all, as some defense lawyers have noted, the government did not use the same charge in 2018 when left-wing activists swarmed the Capitol to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. More

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      Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican Who Voted to Impeach Trump, Won't Run in 2022

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      Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is the first of the group to retire rather than face a stiff primary challenge.WASHINGTON — Calling former President Donald J. Trump “a cancer for the country,” Representative Anthony Gonzalez, Republican of Ohio, said in an interview on Thursday that he would not run for re-election in 2022, ceding his seat after just two terms in Congress rather than compete against a Trump-backed primary opponent.Mr. Gonzalez is the first, but perhaps not the last, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to retire rather than face ferocious primaries next year in a party still in thrall to the former president.The congressman, who has two young children, emphasized that he was leaving in large part because of family considerations and the difficulties that come with living between two cities. But he made clear that the strain had only grown worse since his impeachment vote, after which he was deluged with threats and feared for the safety of his wife and children.Mr. Gonzalez said that quality-of-life issues had been paramount in his decision. He recounted an “eye-opening” moment this year: when he and his family were greeted at the Cleveland airport by two uniformed police officers, part of extra security precautions taken after the impeachment vote.“That’s one of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” he said.Mr. Gonzalez, who turns 37 on Saturday, was the sort of Republican recruit the party once prized. A Cuban American who starred as an Ohio State wide receiver, he was selected in the first round of the N.F.L. draft and then earned an M.B.A. at Stanford after his football career was cut short by injuries. He claimed his Northeast Ohio seat in his first bid for political office.Mr. Gonzalez, a conservative, largely supported the former president’s agenda. Yet he started breaking with Mr. Trump and House Republican leaders when they sought to block the certification of last year’s presidential vote, and he was horrified by Jan. 6 and its implications.Still, he insisted he could have prevailed in what he acknowledged would have been a “brutally hard primary” against Max Miller, a former Trump White House aide who was endorsed by the former president in February.Yet as Mr. Gonzalez sat on a couch in his House office, most of his colleagues still at home for the prolonged summer recess, he acknowledged that he could not bear the prospect of winning if it meant returning to a Trump-dominated House Republican caucus.“Politically the environment is so toxic, especially in our own party right now,” he said. “You can fight your butt off and win this thing, but are you really going to be happy? And the answer is, probably not.”For the Ohioan, Jan. 6 was “a line-in-the-sand moment” and Mr. Trump represents nothing less than a threat to American democracy.“I don’t believe he can ever be president again,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “Most of my political energy will be spent working on that exact goal.”Mr. Gonzalez said there had been some uncertainty after the assault on the Capitol over whether Republican leaders would continue to bow to Mr. Trump.But the ouster of Representative Liz Cheney from her leadership post; the continued obeisance of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader; and the recent decision to invite Mr. Trump to be the keynote speaker at a major House Republican fund-raiser were clarifying. At least in Washington, this is still Mr. Trump’s party.“This is the direction that we’re going to go in for the next two years and potentially four, and it’s going to make Trump the center of fund-raising efforts and political outreach,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “That’s not something I’m going to be part of.”His decision to leave rather than fight, however, ensures that the congressional wing of the party will become only more thoroughly Trumpified. And it will raise questions about whether other Trump critics in the House will follow him to the exits. At the top of that watch list: Ms. Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who are both serving on the otherwise Democratic-dominated panel investigating the Capitol riot.Mr. Gonzalez said he believed he could have prevailed in a “brutally hard primary” against Max Miller, right, a former Trump White House aide, who appeared with the former president at an Ohio rally in June.David Maxwell/EPA, via ShutterstockAsked how he could hope to cleanse the party of Mr. Trump if he himself was not willing to confront the former president in a proxy fight next year against Mr. Miller, Mr. Gonzalez insisted that there were still Republicans in office who would defend “the fundamentals of democracy.”With more ardor, he argued that Mr. Trump has less of a following among grass-roots Republicans than the party’s leaders believe, particularly when it comes to whom the rank-and-file want to lead their 2024 ticket.“Where I see a big gap is, most people that I speak to back home agree with the policies but they also want us to move on from the person” and “the sort of resentment politics that has taken over the party,” Mr. Gonzalez said.Congressional maps are set to be redrawn this year, and it’s unclear what Mr. Gonzalez’s district, the 16th, will look like afterward. But he said he would probably not take sides in the primary to succeed him, which is now likely to include additional candidates.He said he would remain in the House through the end of his term unless something changed with his family.Mr. Gonzalez was emphatic that the threats were not why he was leaving — the commute was more trying, he said — but in a matter-of-fact fashion, he recounted people online saying things like, “We’re coming to your house.”In accordance with the advice House officials gave to all members, Mr. Gonzalez had a security consultant walk through his home to ensure it was well protected.“It’s a reflection of where our politics looked like it was headed post-Jan. 6,” he said.Neither Mr. Trump nor any of his intermediaries have sought to push him out of the race, Mr. Gonzalez said.Asked about Mr. Trump’s inevitable crowing over his exit from the primary, Mr. Gonzalez dismissed the former president.“I haven’t cared what he says or thinks since Jan. 6, outside when he continues to lie about the election, which I have a problem with,” he said.What clearly does bother him, though, are the Republicans who continue to abet Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods, acts of appeasement that he said were morally wrong and politically foolhardy after the party lost both chambers of Congress and the White House under the former president’s leadership.“We’ve learned the wrong lesson as a party,” Mr. Gonzalez said, “but beyond that, and more importantly, it’s horribly irresponsible and destructive for the country.” More

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      Portraits of the Lasting Trauma of the Capitol Riot

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      WASHINGTON — Three months after supporters of President Donald J. Trump violently stormed the Capitol, Alisa La, a close aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sat in the office suite where she had hid from the rioters, describing the lasting effects of her traumatic experience on Jan. 6. Just as she finished speaking, an intercom began […] More

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      The Trump Coup Is Still Raging

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      What happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was not a coup attempt. It was half of a coup attempt — the less important half.The more important part of the coup attempt — like legal wrangling in states and the attempts to sabotage the House commission’s investigation of Jan. 6 — is still going strong. These are not separate and discrete episodes but parts of a unitary phenomenon that, in just about any other country, would be characterized as a failed coup d’état.As the Republican Party tries to make up its mind between wishing away the events of Jan. 6 or celebrating them, one thing should be clear to conservatives estranged from the party: We can’t go home again.The attempted coup’s foot soldiers have dug themselves in at state legislatures. For example, last week in Florida State Representative Anthony Sabatini introduced a draft of legislation that would require an audit of the 2020 general election in the state’s largest (typically Democratic-heavy) counties, suggesting without basis that it may show that these areas cheated to inflate Joe Biden’s vote count.Florida’s secretary of state, a Republican, knows that an audit is nonsense and has said so. But the point of an audit would not be to change the outcome (Mr. Trump won the state). The point is not even really to conduct an audit.The obviously political object is to legitimize the 2020 coup attempt in order to soften the ground for the next one — and there will be a next one.In the broad strategy, the frenzied mobs were meant to inspire terror — and obedience among Republicans — while Rudy Giuliani and his co-conspirators tried to get the election nullified on some risible legal pretext or another. Republicans needed both pieces — neither the mob violence nor an inconclusive legal ruling would have been sufficient on its own to keep Mr. Trump in power.True to form, Mr. Trump was able to supply the mob but not the procedural victory. His coup attempt was frustrated in no small part by a thin gray line of bureaucratic fortitude — Republican officials at the state and local levels who had the grit to resist intense pressure from the president and do their jobs.Current efforts like the one in Florida are intended to terrorize them into compliance today or, short of that, to push such officials into retirement so that they can be replaced with more pliant partisans. The lonely little band of Republican officials who stopped the 2020 coup is going to be smaller and lonelier the next time around.That’s why the Great Satan for the Republican Party right now is not Mr. Biden but Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of a small number of Republicans willing to speak honestly about Jan. 6 and to support the investigation into it — and willing to contradict powerful people like Kevin McCarthy of California, who has falsely (and preposterously) claimed that the F.B.I. has cleared Mr. Trump of any involvement in Jan. 6.The emerging Republican orthodoxy on Jan. 6 is created by pure political engineering, with most party leaders either minimizing, halfheartedly defending or wholeheartedly celebrating the coup, depending on their audience and ambitions. Pragmatic party leaders like Mitch McConnell, and others like him who were never passionately united with Mr. Trump but need his voters, are hoping that the memory of the riot gets swept away by the ugly news from Afghanistan and the usual hurly-burly. But other Republicans have praised the rioters: Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina insisted that those who have been jailed are “political prisoners” and warned that “bloodshed” might follow another “stolen” election. The middle-ground Republican consensus is that the sacking of the Capitol was at worst the unfortunate escalation of a well-intentioned protest involving legitimate electoral grievances. More

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      Liz Cheney Promoted to No. 2 Post on Jan. 6 Committee

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      The move was unusual in the House, where the majority party typically gives such roles to one of its own. The Wyoming Republican has been a vocal critic of Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — House Democrats leading the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob named Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Thursday as the committee’s vice chairwoman, elevating the role of a Republican who has been a vocal critic of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.The announcement effectively makes Ms. Cheney the special committee’s second-ranking member, an unusual move for the majority party in the House, which typically grants that position to one of its own. But her appointment to the panel has been part of a break with convention from the start, given that Democrats nominated her and another Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, in a bid to bring bipartisan credibility to an investigation that most other G.O.P. lawmakers had denounced and worked to thwart.“Representative Cheney has demonstrated again and again her commitment to getting answers about Jan. 6, ensuring accountability, and doing whatever it takes to protect democracy for the American people,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, said in a statement announcing the move. “Her leadership and insights have shaped the early work of the select committee and this appointment underscores the bipartisan nature of this effort.”It comes as the special committee is ramping up its investigation into the violence that engulfed the Capitol as supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the building in his name, brutalizing police officers and delaying for hours the official counting of electoral votes to formalize President Biden’s victory.The committee sent record preservation demands this week to 35 technology firms naming hundreds of people whose records they might want to review, including 11 of Mr. Trump’s most ardent allies in Congress, according to several people familiar with the documents who were not authorized to speak about its contents.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, has threatened to retaliate against any company that complies with the request.Mr. McCarthy led the charge to strip Ms. Cheney of her Republican leadership post over her continued denunciation of Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This week, Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona and leader of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, circulated a letter calling on Mr. McCarthy to expel both Ms. Cheney, a staunch conservative whose father served as vice president, and Mr. Kinzinger from the Republican conference..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{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;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{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;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Congresswoman Cheney and Congressman Kinzinger are two spies for the Democrats that we currently invite to the meetings, despite our inability to trust them,” Mr. Biggs wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Biggs, who promoted false claims of widespread election rigging in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, is among the Republicans whose social media and phone records the select committee is seeking to preserve. In his letter, he proposed changing rules for the Republican caucus to expel any member who accepts a committee assignment from Democrats, a step that Mr. McCarthy has suggested in the past would be appropriate.“We cannot trust these members to sit in our Republican conference meetings while we plan our defense against the Democrats,” Mr. Biggs wrote.Ms. Cheney said in a statement that she was pleased to accept the post as the committee’s No. 2.“Every member of this committee is dedicated to conducting a nonpartisan, professional, and thorough investigation of all the relevant facts regarding Jan. 6 and the threat to our Constitution we faced that day,” Ms. Cheney said. “I have accepted the position of vice chair of the committee to assure that we achieve that goal. We owe it to the American people to investigate everything that led up to, and transpired on, Jan. 6th. We will not be deterred by threats or attempted obstruction and we will not rest until our task is complete.” More

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      McCarthy Threatens Technology Firms That Comply With Riot Inquiry

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      The top House Republican said his party would retaliate against any company that cooperated with an order to preserve the phone and social media records of G.O.P. lawmakers.WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, has threatened to retaliate against any company that complies with the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, after the panel asked dozens of firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress who pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Mr. McCarthy’s warning was an escalation of his efforts to thwart a full accounting of the deadly attack at the Capitol carried out by a pro-Trump mob, and his latest attempt to insulate the former president and Republican lawmakers from scrutiny of any ties to the violence. It came after he led the G.O.P. opposition to the creation of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the riot, and then pulled five Republican congressmen from the select committee that Democrats created on their own, boycotting the proceedings.In preservation orders the special committee sent to 35 technology firms this week, members of the panel included the names of hundreds of people whose records they might want to review, among them some of Donald J. Trump’s most ardent allies in Congress, according to several people familiar with the documents who were not authorized to speak about their contents.The 11 Republicans are Representatives Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jody B. Hice of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.The preservation demands were accompanied by a statement that said the committee was merely “gathering facts, not alleging wrongdoing by any individual.” But the inclusion of the Republicans’ names, reported earlier by CNN, indicated that the panel planned to scrutinize any role they may have played in fueling the violence.“These are the individuals who have been publicly supportive of Jan. 6 and the people who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6,” Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the panel’s chairman, said in an interview.“We need to find out exactly what their level of participation in this event was,” he said. “If you helped raise money, if you provided misinformation to people, if you served on a planning committee — whatever your role in Jan. 6, I think the public has a right to know.”The panel has not asked to preserve the records of Mr. McCarthy, who has said he had a tense phone call with Mr. Trump as the mob laid siege to the Capitol, but Mr. Thompson said the top Republican’s name could yet be added.Mr. Thompson said Mr. McCarthy’s protestations were “typical of somebody who may or may not have been involved in Jan. 6 and doesn’t want that information to become public.”On Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy said Republicans would “not forget” and “hold accountable” those tech companies that preserve records sought by the committee. His remarks followed denunciations of the committee’s work by Representative Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, who has called the panel’s tactics “authoritarian,” and Mr. Trump, who has called it a “partisan sham.”Ms. Greene threatened on Fox News that telecommunications companies that cooperated with the investigation would be “shut down.”Mr. McCarthy asserted, without citing any law, that it would be illegal for the technology companies to cooperate with the inquiry, even though congressional investigations have obtained phone records before. He said that if his party won control of the House, it would use its power to punish any that did.“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said he was stunned by Mr. McCarthy’s remarks, describing them as akin to obstructing an investigation.“He is leveling threats against people cooperating with a congressional investigation,” Mr. Raskin said. “That’s an astounding turn of events. Why would the minority leader of the House of Representatives not be interested in our ability to get all of the facts in relation to the Jan. 6 attack?”Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and University of Michigan law professor, called Mr. McCarthy’s claims “baseless,” noting that the panel had not requested the content of any communication.“He is falsely portraying the committee as overreaching so that he can protect his own political interests, to the detriment of Congress’s ability to do its job and the public trust in our institutions of government,” she said.In the past week, the select committee has ramped up its work, taking three wide-ranging investigative steps: a records demand to seven federal agencies focusing in part on any ties Mr. Trump may have had to the attack’s planning or execution; a document demand to 15 social media companies for material about efforts to overturn the election and domestic violent extremists who may have been involved; and the record preservation orders including the Republican representatives.The 11 Republicans include lawmakers who spearheaded the effort to challenge the election outcome in Congress on Jan. 6 and those who played at least some role in the “Stop the Steal” effort to protest the results, including promoting rallies around the country and the one in Washington whose attendees attacked the Capitol.Some of the lawmakers named in the order have continued to publicly spread the election lies that inspired the riot, and to allude to the possibility of more violence to come. Mr. Cawthorn falsely claimed on Sunday that the election had been “rigged” and “stolen,” telling a crowd in Franklin, N.C., that if elections were not safeguarded in the future, it could result in “bloodshed.”The select committee has been meeting twice a week, even during Congress’s summer recess, as its members plan their next steps. Mr. Thompson said two more hearings were in the works, one to dig deeper into the pressure campaign Mr. Trump and his allies started to overturn President Biden’s victory, and another to explore who encouraged militia and extremist groups to come to Washington before the assault.Representative Bennie G. Thompson, right, and members of the select committee have ramped up their work in the past week. Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“There’s a concern on the committee about the executive branch leaning on state elected officials to change the outcome of the election,” Mr. Thompson said. “There’s concern about the identification with domestic terrorist organizations and their participation and encouragement to participate in the Jan. 6 march and insurrection.”Last week, the panel sought communications among top Trump administration officials about attempts to place politically loyal personnel in senior positions in the run-up to the attack; the planning and funding of pro-Trump rallies on Jan. 5 and 6; and other attempts to stop or slow the process of Mr. Trump handing over the presidency to Mr. Biden.It demanded records of communications between the White House and Ali Alexander, who publicized the “Stop the Steal” rallies, as well as Tom Van Flein, Mr. Gosar’s chief of staff.Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a committee member, said the requests were “broad” by design as the panel sought to produce a “comprehensive report.” He said they could be expanded to include more members of Congress if evidence emerges to suggest it is necessary.“We know that there are members who were involved in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally; we know that there are members who had direct communications with the president while the attack on the Capitol was going on,” he said. “There are any number of members who have very pertinent information.”On Friday, the panel sent letters to 15 social media companies — including sites where misinformation about election fraud spread, such as the pro-Trump website theDonald.win — seeking any documents in their possession pertaining to efforts to overturn the election and any domestic violent extremists associated with the Jan. 6 rally and attack.The committee had already asked for records on extremist groups and militias that were present at the Capitol that day, including QAnon, the Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. A person familiar with the committee’s discussions said its members intended to investigate more deeply plans among militia groups to coordinate.At least 10 suspected militia extremists attended paramilitary training in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina before the breach, according to court documents. Suspected domestic violent extremists also “coordinated efforts to bring tactical equipment to the event, presumably in anticipation of violence,” according to an April homeland security analysis obtained by The New York Times through a public records request filed by the group Property of the People.“There were undoubtedly insurrectionist groups that were dead-set on committing violence,” Mr. Raskin said. “If you listen to their chatter post-Jan. 6, it’s all abut how close they came, and next time they will be carrying arms.”The records preservation request delivered on Monday asked telecommunications companies to keep on file information about cell tower locations, text messages and call logs, and information uploaded to cloud storage systems.Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of the committee, emphasized that the request was “an investigation, not an accusation.”“We’ll see what we find out,” she said. “It’s fair to say you didn’t have 10,000 people just happen to show up and attack Capitol Police officers, maim them and threaten to kill the vice president and members of Congress just because they felt like it. There was a reason, there was a structure to this, and we need to uncover everything about that.” More

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

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

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      Monday was supposed to be a banner day for former President Donald Trump and the MAGAverse. After multiple delays, legal challenges and public controversies, the results of the third — and hopefully final — review of the presidential voting in Maricopa County, Ariz., was scheduled for delivery to its Republican sponsors in the State Senate. At long last, the proof of mass election fraud would be laid out for all to see! Mr. Trump would be vindicated! Maybe even reinstated!At least, that’s what MAGA die-hards hunkered down in their bunkers of disinformation were hoping. Most everyone else — including plenty of Arizona officials from both parties — just wanted this gong show to end.Alas, it was not to be. On Monday, the Republican president of the State Senate, Karen Fann, announced that the Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based firm overseeing the recount, had not yet completed a full draft report after all. It seems the firm’s chief executive and two other members of the “audit team” had come down with Covid-19. Also, the State Senate had only just received images of the ballot envelopes from Maricopa County, which still needed to be analyzed for inclusion in the final report.And so the spectacle grinds on.The clown-car chaos in Arizona is a near-perfect distillation of what Mr. Trump has done to the Republican Party, as well as much of the broader public. On what feels like a daily basis, he beats the drum about a stolen election, setting a tuneful lie that many Republican voters still dance to as the party mandarins look on, in either active support or silence. The political ramifications of this disinformation will be on display in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race next year, as well as those elsewhere, as independents and moderates assess if this is the party they want to reward.But there’s another cost that should worry all of us: the integrity of election audits, which are important and are necessary. While many secretaries of state are now pushing for new standards for such audits, the Arizona recount stands as an object lesson about the embarrassing damage to democracy that one party can inflict when led by a sore loser who still manages to scare people.For those who have blissfully forgotten the Arizona back story: Mr. Trump was mad about narrowly losing the state to Joe Biden. He was madder still when two recounts of vote-rich Maricopa County confirmed his loser status. Desperate to appease him and his devoted base, a gaggle of Republican state senators arranged for yet another review, this one run according to their preferences and overseen by private contractors of their choosing. The result has been a poisonous, partisan P.R. stunt so poorly executed that it makes the hunt for a new “Jeopardy!” host look smooth by comparison.From the jump, it was clear that Arizona’s Republican lawmakers weren’t interested in putting together a serious audit. Ms. Fann tapped the Cyber Ninjas to run the show, despite the firm’s total lack of auditing experience — and despite it not submitting a formal proposal. How did this happen? It may have helped that the firm’s chief executive, Doug Logan, had tweeted his support of some of the wackier election-fraud conspiracy theories. (Venezuela? Really?)The Republican lawmakers arranged for state taxpayers to foot part of the bill — an outrage in itself. But the Cyber Ninjas also gathered millions in private funding from Trump supporters. These include the former chief executive of Overstock.com, himself another spreader of election-fraud manure; a nonprofit group led by the former Trump administration official and QAnon flirt Michael Flynn; and a nonprofit founded by a host on the MAGA-tastic One America News Network.As for the ballot counting process, the word “squirrelly” doesn’t begin to cover it. Among other absurdities, the ballots were examined for secret watermarks and for bamboo fibers, a nod to the conspiracy theory that fake ballots had been shipped over from Asia. And forget careful screening of workers for political bias. Among those hired was the former state lawmaker Anthony Kern, a “stop the steal” crusader who was photographed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot. (After a reporter posted a picture on Twitter of Mr. Kern at a counting table, the ex-lawmaker was removed over concerns about “optics.”)In an independent evaluation of the process, Barry Burden, the head of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky, detailed the review’s many “maladies.” “They include processing errors caused by a lack of basic knowledge, partisan biases of the people conducting the audit, and inconsistencies of procedures that undermine the reliability of the review and any conclusions they may draw. In particular, the operation lacks the consistency, attention to detail and transparency that are requirements for credible and reliable election reviews.”Even some Republican officials have had enough. In May, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, a Republican-dominated body, accused state lawmakers of having “rented out the once good name of the Arizona State Senate” to “grifters.”Last week, the Maricopa County recorder, a Republican, issued a long prebuttal to the Ninjas’ expected report, lamenting that the process had been an unnecessary disaster, that its results could not be trusted and that it was time for his party to “move forward.”If only.Some of the costs of the recount are easier to calculate than others. Because of concerns that the security of its voting machines had been compromised during the review, Maricopa County decertified the equipment. Last week, county officials demanded that the State Senate shell out $2.8 million for the purchase of new machines. Ms. Fann promptly pooh-poohed the request, but if the Senate doesn’t officially respond within 60 days, the county can sue.However the Arizona odyssey ends, officials who care about restoring faith in the electoral system should take steps to prevent such nonsense from spreading. The Republicans’ recount was never going to change the outcome of the 2020 race. But it did become a model for Trump dead-enders across the nation — a beacon of obduracy.At its summer conference this month, the National Association of Secretaries of State overwhelmingly recommended establishing concrete guidelines for postelection audits. Among other measures, they advised states to adopt timelines for audits, to ensure that area election officials remain central to the process and to rely only on state or federally accredited test labs. Outside contractors, they urged, should be used sparingly and operate under intensive oversight.Having observed the slow-rolling Arizona debacle, states would be well served to install guard rails sooner rather than later. If there’s one thing the Trump years taught the nation, it’s that you cannot simply rely on public officials to operate in good faith or abide by widely accepted norms.Serious, well-run audits play an important role in safeguarding the integrity of elections. What Arizona’s Republican senators arranged, by contrast, is what you’d get if you crossed a clown pageant with a QAnon convention and made the whole thing open bar. The whole mess would be entertaining if it weren’t so destructive.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. More