Trump Parts Ways With Five Lawyers Handling Impeachment Defense
The departures, which include his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, come more than a week before his Senate trial is set to begin. More
Subterms
113 Shares199 Views
in ElectionsThe departures, which include his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, come more than a week before his Senate trial is set to begin. More
138 Shares169 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeTracking the Oath KeepersNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Trump’s Focus on Antifa Distracted Attention From the Far-Right ThreatFederal law enforcement shifted resources last year in response to Donald Trump’s insistence that the radical left endangered the country. Meanwhile, right-wing extremism was building ominously.The outrage that President Donald J. Trump spent months stoking would later culminate in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 by loyalist supporters and right-wing extremists.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesAdam Goldman, Katie Benner and Jan. 30, 2021Updated 4:52 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — As racial justice protests erupted nationwide last year, President Donald J. Trump, struggling to find a winning campaign theme, hit on a message that he stressed over and over: The real domestic threat to the United States emanated from the radical left, even though law enforcement authorities had long since concluded it came from the far right.It was a message that was quickly embraced and amplified by his attorney general and his top homeland security officials, who translated it into a shift in criminal justice and national security priorities even as Mr. Trump was beginning to openly stoke the outrage that months later would culminate in the storming of the Capitol by right-wing extremists.Mr. Trump’s efforts to focus his administration on the antifa movement and leftist groups did not stop the Justice Department and the F.B.I. from pursuing cases of right-wing extremism. They broke up a kidnapping plot, for example, targeting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat.But the effect of his direction was nonetheless substantial, according to interviews with current and former officials, diverting key portions of the federal law enforcement and domestic security agencies at a time when the threat from the far right was building ominously.In late spring and early summer, as the racial justice demonstrations intensified, Justice Department officials began shifting federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents from investigations into violent white supremacists to focus on cases involving rioters or anarchists, including those who might be associated with the antifa movement. One Justice Department prosecutor was sufficiently concerned about an excessive focus on antifa that the official went to the department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, telling his office that politics might have played a part.Federal prosecutors and agents felt pressure to uncover a left-wing extremist criminal conspiracy that never materialized, according to two people who worked on Justice Department efforts to counter domestic terrorism. They were told to do so even though the F.B.I., in particular, had increasingly expressed concern about the threat from white supremacists, long the top domestic terrorism threat, and well-organized far-right extremist groups that had allied themselves with the president.White House and Justice Department officials stifled internal efforts to publicly promote concerns about the far-right threat, with aides to Mr. Trump seeking to suppress the phrase “domestic terrorism” in internal discussions, according to a former official at the Department of Homeland Security.Requests for funding to bolster the number of analysts who search social media posts for warnings of potential violent extremism were denied by top homeland security officials, limiting the department’s ability to spot developing threats like the post-Election Day anger among far-right groups over Mr. Trump’s loss.The scale and intensity of the threat developing on the right became stunningly clear on Jan. 6, when news broadcasts and social media were flooded with images of far-right militias, followers of the QAnon conspiracy movement and white supremacists storming the Capitol.Militias and other dangerous elements of the far right saw “an ally in the White House,” said Mary McCord, a former Justice Department official who teaches at Georgetown University and focuses on domestic terrorism. “That has, I think, allowed them to grow and recruit and try to mainstream their opinions, which is why I think you end up seeing what we saw” at the Capitol.Far-right and far-left groups clashing in Portland, Ore., in August. Dozens of F.B.I. employees and senior managers were sent on temporary assignments there, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Credit…David Ryder for The New York TimesA Focus on ‘Anarchists and Thugs’Mr. Trump’s focus on what he portrayed as a major threat from antifa was embraced in particular by Attorney General William P. Barr.Mr. Barr had long harbored concerns about protests and violence from the left. Soon after taking office in early 2019, he began a weekly national security briefing by asking the F.B.I. what it was doing to combat antifa, according to two people briefed on the meetings. Officials viewed his sense of the threat as exaggerated. They explained that it was not a terrorist organization, but rather a loose movement without an organization or hierarchy, and tried to correct what they described as misperceptions, according to one of the people.Still, in meetings last year with political appointees in Washington, department investigators felt pressured to find evidence that antifa adherents were conspiring to conduct coordinated terrorist attacks.When F.B.I. intelligence continued to deem white nationalists the leading domestic terrorism threats — part of what the bureau describes as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists — prosecutors were asked to also consider information from the Department of Homeland Security that antifa and radical leftist anarchists were instead the leading threats, according to a person involved in the conversations.Mr. Barr said in a statement that “there was no ‘prioritization’” of the leftist threat, and that all violence should be condemned.“The F.B.I. already had a robust program to combat violence driven by white supremacy and nationalism,” Mr. Barr said. “I wanted there to be a comparable one for antifa and antifalike groups.”The pressure from Mr. Trump was unrelenting. After Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified to Congress in September that antifa was “more of an ideology or a movement than an organization,” Mr. Trump lashed out at him on Twitter, saying that the F.B.I. protected such “anarchists and thugs” and allowed them “to get away with ‘murder.’”Investigators at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security moved quickly and forcefully to address the violence that erupted amid the summer’s racial justice protests.The demonstrations gave way to looting and rioting, including serious injuries and shootings. Over several chaotic nights in Minneapolis, rioters burned down a corridor of largely immigrant-owned businesses and set a police precinct on fire. Similar scenes played out in other cities.In late August, Michael Reinoehl, a self-professed antifa supporter, shot and killed a pro-Trump protester in Portland, Ore. The president cheered his death at the hands of the federal officers who later tried to apprehend him. “We got him,” he said.But while Mr. Trump and others saw the developments as evidence of a major assault from the left, the picture was actually more complicated.The shooting by Mr. Reinoehl, as the F.B.I. pointed out this month in an internal memo, was the first killing in more than 20 years by what the bureau classifies as an “anarchist violent extremist,” the type of threat Mr. Trump had emphasized.Over the late spring and summer, the F.B.I. opened more than 400 domestic terrorism investigations, including about 40 cases into possible antifa adherents and 40 into the boogaloo, a right-wing movement seeking to start a civil war, along with investigations into white supremacists suspected of menacing protesters, according to F.B.I. data and a former Justice Department official. Even among those movements, career prosecutors saw the boogaloo as the gravest threat.A group affiliated with the boogaloo, a loosely organized far-right movement preparing for a civil war, in Lansing, Mich., in October.Credit…Seth Herald/Getty ImagesMembers of violent militias began to go to protests as self-appointed police forces, sometimes saying that they had heeded Mr. Trump’s call. They attended Republican events as self-described security forces. Still, Justice Department leadership was adamant that terrorism investigators focus on antifa as the demonstrations spread, according to an official who worked on the inquiries.The small cadre of intelligence analysts inside the department’s counterterrorism section were pulled into the effort, writing twice daily reports. National security prosecutors staffed command posts at the F.B.I. to deal with the protests and associated violence and property crimes, and to help protect statues and monuments seen as potential targets.All of this was a strain on the counterterrorism section, which has only a few dozen prosecutors and like other parts of the department was reeling from the coronavirus. A top F.B.I. domestic terrorism chief also expressed concern to Justice Department officials over the summer about the diversion of resources.The counterterrorism section at the time was working with prosecutors and agents around the country on cases involving people affiliated with the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, other militia members and violent white supremacists. In some parts of the country, agents who had been investigating violent white supremacists pivoted to investigate anarchists and others involved in the rioting, struggling in certain cases to find any conspiracy or other federal charges to bring against them.Around the same time, the F.B.I. was tracking worrisome threats emanating from the far right. Agents in Michigan monitoring members of a violent antigovernment militia called Wolverine Watchmen received intelligence in June that the men planned to recruit more members and kidnap state governors, according to court documents.After six members of the group were charged in October with plotting to abduct Ms. Whitmer, one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal opponents, the president insulted her and reiterated that the left posed the true threat. “She calls me a White Supremacist — while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.Dozens of F.B.I. employees and senior managers were sent on temporary assignments to Portland — including the head of the Tampa field office, who was an expert in Islamic terrorism, according to current and former law enforcement officials — where left-leaning protests had intensified since tactical federal teams arrived. Some F.B.I. agents and Justice Department officials expressed concern that the Portland work was a drain on the bureau’s effort to combat what they viewed as the more lethal strains of domestic extremism. The bureau had about 1,000 domestic terrorism cases under investigation at the time, and only several hundred agents in the field assigned to them. The Homeland Security Department even sent agents to Portland who were usually assigned to investigate drug cartels at the border.Mr. Barr also formed a task force run by trusted U.S. attorneys in Texas and New Jersey to prosecute antigovernment extremists. Terrorism prosecutors working on the investigations arising from the summer’s violence were not told beforehand of Mr. Barr’s decision. They questioned the rationale behind the task force because it seemed to duplicate their work and could create confusion, according to two people familiar with their pushback.Ultimately, the federal response to last year’s protests elicited a mixed bag. Federal prosecutors nationwide charged more than 200 people with crimes, including some who self-identified with antifa.But the F.B.I. also charged adherents of the boogaloo, including an Air Force sergeant suspected of murdering a federal officer and trying to kill another in California. The sergeant had previously been charged with the shooting death of a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Cruz County during a gun battle on June 6 that led to his arrest.As attorney general, William P. Barr played up the threat from antifa, a loose collection of leftist agitators, even as Justice Department and F.B.I. officials saw a greater threat from the far right.Credit…for The New York TimesThe Homeland ThreatDomestic terrorism has long been a politically sensitive issue for the Department of Homeland Security.A warning in a 2009 homeland security report that military veterans returning from combat could be vulnerable for recruitment by terrorist groups or extremists prompted backlash from conservatives, forcing the homeland security secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, to apologize and retract the report. An edited version was eventually issued, but the lesson about the political risks of highlighting far-right extremism lingered inside the department.“They overhype the threat of the far left at the expense of far-right extremism,” said Daryl Johnson, a former senior analyst at the department who wrote the 2009 report.Like Mr. Barr, Mr. Trump’s acting homeland security secretary, Chad F. Wolf, took his lead from the White House and emphasized the threat from antifa. At one point, Mr. Wolf formed a task force that deployed tactical agents to protect statues and monuments.Mr. Wolf denied that the administration’s response to the violence at racial justice protests came at the cost of efforts to combat far-right violence, noting that the agency affirmed the rising threat of white supremacy in an assessment in 2019..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-1amoy78{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-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[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.“You could argue the reverse. The fact we were focused on white supremacist extremists in late 2019, early ’20, we missed the antifa stuff coming up,” Mr. Wolf said. “One could always go back and say, ‘You focused on this at the expense of that.’ I would say we focused on things happening in real time.”Mr. Trump said in May that he intended to designate antifa a domestic terrorist organization. National Security Council staff members, including Andrew Veprek, an ally of Stephen Miller who is now at the State Department, asked homeland security officials for evidence to justify such a designation. They sought information about possible ties between antifa and foreign entities; federal law defines domestic terrorism but the statute does not carry any criminal penalties, and designations of terrorist organizations are limited to foreign groups.In fact, the F.B.I. had seen troubling evidence of white supremacists in the United States with foreign ties, including one group that agents believe was being directed by an American living in Russia. The group, called the Base, was such a severe threat that the F.B.I. briefed Mr. Barr about it.Homeland security officials balked at helping designate antifa as a terrorist organization, and the effort failed.Officials in the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis also expressed concern after Mr. Wolf questioned one of their reports that labeled the boogaloo as “far right” in describing the shooting death of the federal officer in which the suspect, an Air Force sergeant, was linked to the movement. Asked about his response, Mr. Wolf said he was only trying to gain information, not alter reports.Under the Trump administration, analysts in the intelligence and analysis office had even more incentive to produce reports on threats outside of right-wing extremism, said Elizabeth Neumann, the former assistant homeland security secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention under Mr. Trump.Many viewed their performance reviews as tied to whether they produced reports that aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities, including Mexican cartel organizations, foreign terrorism and antifa, rather than reports on militias and white supremacists. The number of warnings about all types of extremists in the second half of last year eventually dwindled, according to current and former officials.“You can read the tea leaves and say domestic terrorism isn’t going to be our priority,” Ms. Neumann said.“The culture absorbs those messages they hear the president speak or tweet,” she said, adding that some White House officials even cautioned against using the phrase “domestic terrorism.”Last spring, Brian Murphy, then the homeland security intelligence chief, requested $14 million to bolster training and increase staff to analyze social media for extremist threats, given that online forums had become a prime recruiting and organizing ground. Mr. Wolf’s deputy, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, rejected the request, as well as an appeal for $8 million, officials said.Mr. Cuccinelli said in a statement that requests for additional funding would have come at the expense of other parts of the agency. He added that he had been working to shift resources from other parts of the department to expand training for the intelligence branch.Mr. Murphy had filed a whistle-blower complaint in September that prompted an outcry. He accused department leaders of ordering him to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on violent “left-wing” groups and antifa. Mr. Wolf and Mr. Cuccinelli have denied the allegations, and after congressional backlash, they eventually released a report in October identifying white supremacy as the “most persistent and lethal threat” in the United States.As he campaigned for re-election, Mr. Trump focused relentlessly on antifa, which at one point he sought to designate as a terrorist organization.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAntifa Until the EndCampaigning for re-election, Mr. Trump spent the summer blaming rioting and violence on Democratic governors and mayors and warning about a “left-wing cultural revolution.”Armed far-right militia groups started appearing at racial justice protests and demonstrations about the outcome of the election. Extremists groups like the Proud Boys marched in Washington in December, clashing with anti-Trump protesters in altercations that included stabbings. The Homeland Security Department’s intelligence branch issued an assessment on Dec. 30 highlighting the potential for white supremacists to carry out “mass casualty” attacks, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.But there was no specific mention of armed groups targeting the Capitol, despite plenty of indicators online. The acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda D. Pittman, later said that the department knew militias and white supremacists would be coming and “that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target.”In the days before Jan. 6, the Secret Service was told by homeland security officials to expect only an “elevated threat environment,” according to people familiar with the meeting.The doors to the House chamber after the attack on the Capitol. Trump administration officials did not foresee the extent of the threat from the far right.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Trump administration, however, continued to play up the threat of antifa. The night before the assault on the Capitol, the White House issued a memo seeking to bar any foreigners affiliated with antifa from entering the country and, once again, try to determine if the movement could be classified as a terrorist organization.When the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, some shouted explicit chants against antifa. Others were captured on video yelling, “We were invited by the president of the United States.”Mike Baker and John Eligon contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
138 Shares199 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRepublican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under ScrutinyA number of members of Congress have links to organizations and movements that played a role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Members of a Three Percenters group provided security for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, right, during a campaign event last year in Ringgold, Ga.Credit…C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press, via Associated PressLuke Broadwater and Jan. 29, 2021Updated 10:09 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The video’s title was posed as a question, but it left little doubt about where the men who filmed it stood. They called it “The Coming Civil War?” and in its opening seconds, Jim Arroyo, who leads an Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, declared that the conflict had already begun.To back up his claim, Mr. Arroyo cited Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, one of the most far-right members of Congress. Mr. Gosar had paid a visit to the local Oath Keepers chapter a few years earlier, Mr. Arroyo recounted, and when asked if the United States was headed for a civil war, the congressman’s “response to the group was just flat out: ‘We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.’”Less than two months after the video was posted, members of the Oath Keepers were among those with links to extremist groups from around the country who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, prompting new scrutiny of the links between members of Congress and an array of organizations and movements that espouse far-right beliefs.Nearly 150 House Republicans supported President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. But Mr. Gosar and a handful of other Republican members of the House had deeper ties to extremist groups who pushed violent ideas and conspiracy theories and whose members were prominent among those who stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to stop certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Their ranks include Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who like Mr. Gosar was linked to the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election’s outcome.Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado has close connections to militia groups including the so-called Three Percenters, an extremist offshoot of the gun rights movement that had at least one member who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents were among the most visible of those who stormed the building, and she appeared at a rally with militia groups. Before being elected to Congress last year, Ms. Greene used social media in 2019 to endorse executing top Democrats and has suggested that the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was a staged “false flag” attack. The liberal group Media Matters for America reported on Thursday that Ms. Greene also speculated on Facebook in 2018 that California wildfires might have been started by lasers from space, promoting a theory pushed by followers of QAnon.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared last year at an event also attended by members of the Proud Boys, another extremist organization whose role in the Jan. 6 assault, like those of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, is being investigated by the F.B.I.It is not clear whether any elected officials played a role in directly facilitating the attack on the Capitol, other than helping to incite violence through false statements about the election being stolen from Mr. Trump. Officials have said they are investigating reports from Democrats that a number of House Republicans provided tours of the Capitol and other information to people who might have gone on to be part of the mob on Jan. 6. So far, no evidence has surfaced publicly to back up those claims.Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, speaking to protesters in November outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix.Credit…Jim Urquhart/ReutersMs. Boebert said in a statement that she had “never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to anyone besides family members in town for my swearing-in,” and she called accusations from Democrats that she gave a “reconnaissance tour” to insurgents an “irresponsible lie.” After the riot at the Capitol, she said she did not support “unlawful acts of violence.”Mr. Biggs has denied associating with Stop the Steal organizers and condemned violence “of any kind.”“Were you aware of any planned demonstration or riot at the U.S. Capitol to take place after the rally on Jan. 6, 2021? No,” Mr. Biggs said in a statement.A spokesman for Ms. Greene said she now rejects QAnon, and he tried to distance her from militia members.“She doesn’t have anything to do with it,” her communications director, Nick Dyer, said of QAnon. “She thinks it’s disinformation.” As for the militia members, he said, “Those people were at one event independently of Congresswoman Greene.”Mr. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment.Mr. Gaetz, on his podcast, said the Proud Boys were at the event he attended to provide security, and that “just because you take a picture with someone,” it does not mean “you’re tied to every viewpoint they’ve ever had or that they will ever have in the future.”But in signaling either overt or tacit support, a small but vocal band of Republicans now serving in the House provided legitimacy and publicity to extremist groups and movements as they built toward their role in supporting Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election and the attack on Congress.Aitan D. Goelman, a former federal prosecutor who helped convict the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, said that when elected officials — or even candidates for office — took actions like appearing with militia groups or other right-wing groups it “provides them with an added imprimatur of legitimacy.”An examination of many of the most prominent elected Republicans with links to right-wing groups also shows how various strands of extremism came together at the Capitol on Jan. 6.In July, Mr. Gosar, a dentist, posed for a picture with a member of the Proud Boys. Two years earlier, he spoke at a rally for a jailed leader of Britain’s anti-immigrant fringe in London, where he vilified Muslim immigrants as a “scourge.” And in 2014, he traveled to Nevada to support the armed standoff between law enforcement and supporters of the cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, who had refused to stop trespassing on federal lands.Mr. Biggs, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, was seen by leaders of the Stop the Steal movement as an inspiration and has spoken at events hosted by extremists, including one at which a founder of the Oath Keepers called for hanging Senator John McCain.Ms. Boebert, elected to the House in November, said on Twitter that “Today is 1776” on the morning of Jan. 6, and she has connections to the Three Percenters, which shares her view that gun rights are under assault. At least one member of the group has been arrested in the breach of the Capitol.Ms. Greene has for years trafficked in conspiracy theories, expressed support for QAnon and made offensive remarks about Black people, Jews and Muslims. She also appeared at a campaign event alongside members of the Three Percenters.To some degree, the members of Congress have been reflecting signals sent by Mr. Trump.During a presidential debate in October, he made a nod toward the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.” Two months earlier, Mr. Trump described followers of QAnon — several of whom have been charged with murder, domestic terrorism, planned kidnapping and, most recently, storming the Capitol — as “people that love our country,” adding that “they do supposedly like me.”A Stop the Steal protest in November near the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesStop the StealFew Republicans have been more linked to extremist groups than Mr. Gosar.“He’s been involved with anti-Muslim groups and hate groups,” said Mr. Gosar’s brother Dave Gosar, a lawyer in Wyoming. “He’s made anti-Semitic diatribes. He’s twisted up so tight with the Oath Keepers it’s not even funny.”Dave Gosar and other Gosar siblings ran ads denouncing their brother as a dangerous extremist when he ran for Congress in 2018. Now they are calling on Congress to expel him.“We warned everybody how dangerous he was,” Dave Gosar said.In the days after the 2020 election, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs helped turn Arizona into a crucible for the Stop the Steal movement, finding common cause with hard-liners who until then had toiled in obscurity, like Ali Alexander. The two congressmen recorded a video, “This Election Is A Joke,” which was viewed more than a million times and spread disinformation about widespread voter fraud.Mr. Alexander has said he “schemed up” the Jan. 6 rally with Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs and another vocal proponent of Stop the Steal, Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama. Mr. Alexander’s characterization of the role of the members of Congress is exaggerated, Mr. Biggs said, but the lawmakers were part of a larger network of people who helped plan and promote the rally as part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the will of the voters.After the election, Mr. Alexander emerged as a vocal proponent of the president’s stolen election claims, setting up a Stop the Steal website on Nov. 4 and making incendiary statements. On Dec. 8, he tweeted that he was willing to give up his life to keep Mr. Trump in office.The Arizona Republican Party followed up, retweeting Mr. Alexander’s post and adding: “He is. Are you?” Mr. Alexander has since been barred from Twitter.Ten days later, Mr. Gosar was one of the headliners at a rally in Phoenix that Mr. Alexander helped organize. Mr. Gosar used the rally to deliver a call to action, telling the crowd that they planned to “conquer the Hill” to return Mr. Trump to the presidency.During his time onstage, Mr. Alexander called Mr. Gosar “my captain” and added, “One of the other heroes has been Congressman Andy Biggs.”Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, was cited as an inspiration by one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal campaign.Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Biggs has played down his involvement with the Stop the Steal campaign, on Dec. 19, Mr. Alexander played a video message from Mr. Biggs to an angry crowd at an event where attendees shouted violent slogans against lawmakers. At the event, Mr. Biggs’s wife, Cindy Biggs, was seen hugging Mr. Alexander twice and speaking in his ear.In 2019, Mr. Biggs spoke at an event supported by the Patriot Movement AZ, AZ Patriots and the American Guard — all identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to The Arizona Republic. In 2015, he sat silent at an event as a founder of the Oath Keepers called for the hanging of Senator McCain, calling him a traitor to the Constitution. Mr. Biggs told The Republic at the time that he did not feel it was his place to speak up and denounce the comments..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-1amoy78{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-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[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.Mr. Arroyo, of the Oath Keepers in Arizona, said Mr. Gosar had attended two of their meetings, about a year apart. Mr. Arroyo said that his organization “does not advocate for breaking the law” and that he was “saddened to see the display of trespassing on the Capitol building by a few out-of-control individuals.”Just like Mr. Gosar’s family, Mr. Biggs’s two brothers have publicly denounced him, saying he was at least partly responsible for the violence on Jan. 6. In addition, a Democratic state representative in Arizona, Athena Salman, has called on the Justice Department to investigate the actions of Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs before the riot, saying they “encouraged, facilitated, participated and possibly helped plan this anti-democratic insurrection.”Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado tweeted, “Today is 1776,” on the morning of the Capitol riot.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times‘I Am the Militia’In December 2019, hundreds of protesters descended on the Colorado Statehouse to oppose a new state law meant to take firearms out of the hands of emotionally disturbed people.Among those at the rally were members of the Three Percenters, which federal prosecutors describe as a “radical militia group,” and a congressional hopeful with a history of arrests named Lauren Boebert, who was courting their votes. Armed with her own handgun, she posed for photographs with militia members and defiantly pledged to oppose the law.In the months that followed, militia groups would emerge as one of Ms. Boebert’s crucial political allies. As her campaign got underway last year, she wrote on Twitter, “I am the militia.”Militia members provided security for her campaign events and frequented the restaurant she owns, Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo. In a recently posted video, a member of the Three Percenters was filmed giving Ms. Boebert a Glock 22 handgun.Another member of the group, Robert Gieswein, who posed for a photograph in front of Ms. Boebert’s restaurant last year, is facing federal charges in the storming of the Capitol and attacking the police.Photographs from the attack show him clad in tactical gear, goggles and a helmet, wrestling with Capitol Police officers to remove metal barricades and brandishing a baseball bat. Prosecutors have also cited a video of Mr. Gieswein encouraging other rioters as they smashed a window at the Capitol.Once inside, Mr. Gieswein was photographed with another suspect, Dominic Pezzola, a former Marine and a member of the Proud Boys, who has also been charged in the Capitol attack.Ms. Boebert’s communications director, Benjamin Stout, said in an email that she “has always condemned all forms of political violence and has repeatedly made clear that those who stormed the U.S. Capitol should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”He added, “Simply because she takes a photo with someone that asks for one doesn’t mean she endorses every single belief they have or agrees with all other public statements or causes they support.”Robert Gieswein, in a helmet and tactical gear during the riot at the Capitol, is a member of the Three Percenters extremist group, which has supported Ms. Boebert.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe QAnon CaucusOne of the animating forces behind the attack on the Capitol was the movement known as QAnon, and QAnon has few more high-profile supporters than Ms. Greene.QAnon is a movement centered on the fantastical claim that Mr. Trump, secretly aided by the military, was elected to smash a cabal of Democrats, international financiers and “Deep State” bureaucrats who worship Satan and abuse children. It prophesied an apocalyptic showdown, known as “the Storm,” between Mr. Trump and his enemies. During the Storm, their enemies, including Mr. Biden and many Democratic and Republican members of Congress, would be arrested and executed.The mob that attacked the Capitol included many visible QAnon supporters wearing “Q” shirts and waving “Q” banners.Among them was Jake Angeli, a QAnon devotee who styled himself the “Q Shaman.” Mr. Angeli, whose real name is Jacob Chansley, stormed the Capitol in horns and animal furs, and left a note threatening Vice President Mike Pence.Also among them was Ashli Babbitt, a QAnon believer who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window in a barricaded door near the House chamber.Ms. Greene was an early adherent, calling QAnon “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.” Many of her Facebook posts in recent years reflected language used by the movement, talking about hanging prominent Democrats or executing F.B.I. agents.Ms. Greene has also displayed a fondness for some of the militia groups whose members were caught on video attacking the Capitol, including the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Speaking in 2018 at the Mother of All Rallies, a pro-Trump gathering in Washington, she praised militias as groups that can protect people against “a tyrannical government.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
113 Shares179 Views
in ElectionsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe G.O.P. Is in a Doom Loop of BizarroBut will it doom the rest of us, too?Opinion ColumnistJan. 28, 2021Credit…L.E. Baskow/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHere’s what we know about American politics: The Republican Party is stuck, probably irreversibly, in a doom loop of bizarro. If the Trump-incited Capitol insurrection didn’t snap the party back to sanity — and it didn’t — nothing will.What isn’t clear yet is who, exactly, will end up facing doom. Will it be the G.O.P. as a significant political force? Or will it be America as we know it? Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer. It depends a lot on how successful Republicans will be in suppressing votes.About the bizarro: Even I had some lingering hope that the Republican establishment might try to end Trumpism. But such hopes died this week.On Tuesday Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who has said that Donald Trump’s role in fomenting the insurrection was impeachable, voted for a measure that would have declared a Trump trial unconstitutional because he’s no longer in office. (Most constitutional scholars disagree.)On Thursday Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader — who still hasn’t conceded that Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency, but did declare that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on Congress — visited Mar-a-Lago, presumably to make amends.In other words, the G.O.P.’s national leadership, after briefly flirting with sense, has surrendered to the fantasies of the fringe. Cowardice rules.And the fringe is consolidating its hold at the state level. The Arizona state party censured the Republican governor for the sin of belatedly trying to contain the coronavirus. The Texas G.O.P. has adopted the slogan “We are the storm,” which is associated with QAnon, although the party denies it intended any link. Oregon Republicans have endorsed the completely baseless claim, contradicted by the rioters themselves, that the attack on the Capitol was a left-wing false flag operation.How did this happen to what was once the party of Dwight Eisenhower? Political scientists argue that traditional forces of moderation have been weakened by factors like the nationalization of politics and the rise of partisan media, notably Fox News.This opens the door to a process of self-reinforcing extremism (something, by the way, that I’ve seen happen in a minor fashion within some academic subfields). As hard-liners gain power within a group, they drive out moderates; what remains of the group is even more extreme, which drives out even more moderates; and so on. A party starts out complaining that taxes are too high; after a while it begins claiming that climate change is a giant hoax; it ends up believing that all Democrats are Satanist pedophiles.This process of radicalization began long before Donald Trump; it goes back at least to Newt Gingrich’s takeover of Congress in 1994. But Trump’s reign of corruption and lies, followed by his refusal to concede and his attempt to overturn the election results, brought it to a head. And the cowardice of the Republican establishment has sealed the deal. One of America’s two major political parties has parted ways with facts, logic and democracy, and it’s not coming back.What happens next? You might think that a party that goes off the deep end morally and intellectually would also find itself going off the deep end politically. And that has in fact happened in some states. Those fantasist Oregon Republicans, who have been shut out of power since 2013, seem to be going the way of their counterparts in California, a once-mighty party reduced to impotence in the face of a Democratic supermajority.But it’s not at all clear that this will happen at a national level. True, as Republicans have become more extreme they have lost broad support; the G.O.P. has won the popular vote for president only once since 1988, and 2004 was an outlier influenced by the lingering rally-around-the-flag effects of 9/11.Given the unrepresentative nature of our electoral system, however, Republicans can achieve power even while losing the popular vote. A majority of voters rejected Trump in 2016, but he became president anyway, and he came fairly close to pulling it out in 2020 despite a seven million vote deficit. The Senate is evenly divided even though Democratic members represent 41 million more people than Republicans.And the Republican response to electoral defeat isn’t to change policies to win over voters; it is to try to rig the next election. Georgia has long been known for systematic suppression of Black voters; it took a remarkable organizing effort by Democrats, led by Stacey Abrams, to overcome that suppression and win the state’s electoral votes and Senate seats. So the Republicans who control the state are doubling down on disenfranchisement, with proposed new voter ID requirements and other measures to limit voting.The bottom line is that we don’t know whether we’ve earned more than a temporary reprieve. A president who tried to retain power despite losing an election has been foiled. But a party that buys into bizarre conspiracy theories and denies the legitimacy of its opposition isn’t getting saner, and still has a good chance of taking complete power in four years.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
138 Shares119 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentDivisions in the SenateList of Senators’ StancesTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMcCarthy Seeks Thaw With Trump as G.O.P. Rallies Behind Former PresidentThe top House Republican met with former President Donald J. Trump, working to mend fences after saying that Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Representative Kevin McCarthy tempered his initial criticism, saying that while former President Donald J. Trump bore “some responsibility” for the Capitol assault, so did “everybody across this country.”Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 28, 2021Updated 6:15 p.m. ETTwo weeks after Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, enraged Donald J. Trump by saying that he considered the former president responsible for the violent mob attack at the Capitol, the two men met on Thursday for what aides described as a “good and cordial” meeting, and sought to present a united front.The meeting at Mr. Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., came two weeks after Mr. McCarthy, in a speech on the House floor, said that the former president “bears responsibility” for the events of Jan. 6, when a throng of his supporters stormed the Capitol after a rally in which Mr. Trump urged them to “fight like hell” against his election defeat.It was the latest evidence that top Republicans, many of whom harshly criticized Mr. Trump after the assault, have quickly swung back into line behind him and are courting his support as he faces a second impeachment trial.While Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, voted against the impeachment article, Mr. Trump was infuriated by the speech that he delivered just before doing so, advisers said.Aides to both men have been trying to broker a thaw between the two ever since, even as Mr. Trump has targeted other Republicans who criticized him more harshly for his role in the Capitol breach and voted in favor of impeaching him. They included Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, who joined nine others in the party who voted in support of impeaching Mr. Trump on a charge of “incitement of insurrection.”Mr. Trump’s advisers have been seeking to highlight his remaining popularity with Republican voters as the Senate trial is set to begin in less than two weeks. All but five Republicans voted on Tuesday to toss out the impeachment case against him as unconstitutional, reflecting how reluctant members of his party are to abandon Mr. Trump even after he has left office.On Thursday, aides released a photograph of Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump posing together in one of the ornate rooms at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club, and issued a statement calling the meeting a “very good and cordial one.” The statement bore the hallmarks of Mr. Trump’s bombastic and often false assertions about himself, incorrectly claiming that his “popularity has never been stronger than it is today.”“His endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time,” the statement, issued by Mr. Trump’s Save America political action committee, added, saying that Mr. Trump had agreed to work with Mr. McCarthy to try to take back the House majority in 2022.Mr. McCarthy’s own statement was noticeably less focused on Mr. Trump personally and more on the broader effort to win House Republican seats.“Today, President Trump committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022,” Mr. McCarthy said, adding, “A united conservative movement will strengthen the bonds of our citizens and uphold the freedoms our country was founded on.”Their meeting took place shortly before an ally of Mr. Trump, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, made an appearance in Wyoming to attack Ms. Cheney for her vote in favor of impeaching Mr. Trump. Mr. McCarthy was already in Florida for a fund-raising trip, and the meeting was added to his schedule, officials said.Mr. McCarthy, people close to him said, has been under attack from nearly every side, as members of his caucus who are allied with Mr. Trump have pushed to fight harder to defend him. After the speech that angered Mr. Trump, Mr. McCarthy tempered his criticism, saying he did not believe that the former president “provoked” the Capitol attack, and that while Mr. Trump bore “some responsibility,” so did “everybody across this country.”Mr. McCarthy has made no secret of his desire to be the speaker, which could happen if Republicans reclaimed the House.And his party is now in the unstable position of having a de facto leader in Mr. Trump, whose approval rating among all Americans is low, but who remains popular with a majority of its voters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
163 Shares159 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEl experto militar en desinformación que formó parte de la turba del CapitolioLa presencia en Washington de un exmiembro de la unidad Seal de la Armada que fue entrenado para identificar la desinformación refleja la política partidista que ayudó a provocar el asalto.Adam Newbold, exmiembro de las fuerzas de operaciones especiales de la Armada, se sentó en una motocicleta de la policía cerca de los escalones del Capitolio durante el asalto del 6 de enero. Newbold dice que no entró al edificio.Credit…William Turton28 de enero de 2021Actualizado 10:13 ETRead in EnglishEn las semanas transcurridas desde que Adam Newbold, exmiembro de la unidad Seal de la Armada, fue identificado como parte de la multitud enfurecida que asaltó el Capitolio el 6 de enero, ha sido entrevistado por el FBI y renunció, bajo presión, a sus puestos de trabajo como mentor y como entrenador de lucha libre voluntario. Cree que su negocio perderá importantes clientes por sus acciones.Pero nada de esto lo ha hecho cambiar su creencia, contra toda evidencia, de que las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos fueron robadas y que gente como él tuvo razones para rebelarse.Es sorprendente porque los antecedentes de Newbold parecen blindarle mejor que a la mayoría contra el atractivo de las teorías de conspiración sin fundamento. En la Marina fue entrenado como experto para determinar lo que era información y detectar la desinformación, además formó parte de un comando clandestino que pasó años trabajando en inteligencia a la par de la CIA, y una vez se burló de la idea de los oscuros complots antidemocráticos.Sin embargo, al igual que otros miles de personas que acudieron a Washington este mes para apoyar al presidente Donald Trump, Newbold se creyó la teoría inventada de que las elecciones fueron amañadas por una oscura camarilla de poderosos liberales que llevaron a la nación al borde de la guerra civil. Nadie pudo convencerlo de lo contrario.Las fotos del Capitolio muestran a Newbold con una camiseta negra que tenía la frase “Nosotros, el pueblo” y a horcajadas sobre una motocicleta de la policía del Capitolio, a pocos pasos de donde los agentes se enfrentaban a los alborotadores.Newbold ha dicho que no entró en el Capitolio y que no ha sido acusado de ningún delito. Pero su presencia allí refleja el volátil brebaje de la política partidista y la desinformación viral que ayudó a provocar el asalto.Su visión del mundo queda clara en su cuenta de Facebook. En un video combativo lleno de improperios que publicó una semana antes de los disturbios, repitió afirmaciones desacreditadas pero que circularon ampliamente sobre las elecciones, diciendo que “es absolutamente increíble, existen montañas de pruebas sobre el fraude electoral y el fraude en la votación y las máquinas y las personas que votaron, hay muertos que votaron”. Cuando los comentaristas lo desafiaron, respondió con improperios y réplicas como “sí, sigue riendo, te vas a reír cuando te pisoteen”.Un aspecto sorprendente de la multitud iracunda que asaltó el Capitolio es que muchos de sus miembros no provenían de los márgenes de la sociedad estadounidense, sino de entornos de la clase media —como bomberos y agentes de bienes raíces, un ejecutivo de mercadeo y un miembro del Ayuntamiento— se trata de personas que fueron cautivadas por extrañas teorías de la conspiración. La presencia de Newbold mostró cuán persuasiva se había vuelto la historia de las elecciones amañadas.En teoría, su experiencia laboral debía convertirlo en un hombre difícil de engañar. Unos años antes, cuando ayudó a organizar un ejercicio de entrenamiento militar conocido como Jade Helm 15, estaba en el otro extremo de ese fervor infundado y potencialmente peligroso sobre un supuesto complot siniestro del gobierno, y se reía de eso.Sin embargo, después de los disturbios en el Capitolio expresó que no se había dejado engañar por las elecciones.“He estado en países de todo el mundo que están adoctrinados por la propaganda”, dijo Newbold en una larga entrevista telefónica la semana pasada, y agregó que sabía cómo se puede usar la desinformación para manipular a las masas. “No tengo dudas. Estoy convencido de que las elecciones no fueron libres y justas”.Dijo que creía que las élites anónimas habían logrado ejecutar un golpe manipulando el software electoral, y advirtió que el país todavía estaba al borde de la guerra.En un video de Facebook publicado el 5 de enero, Adam Newbold dijo que los simpatizantes de Trump como él deben respetar a la policía y a las tropas de la Guardia Nacional. Pero agregó: “Estamos muy preparados, somos muy capaces y somos patriotas muy hábiles que estamos listos para la pelea”.Credit…Facebook vía Associated PressNewbold, de 45 años, vive en las colinas rurales del este de Ohio, y es uno de los tres hermanos de su familia que se convirtieron en comandos de las fuerzas especiales SEAL de la Marina. Pasó 23 años en la fuerza de élite, según los registros de la Marina, incluyendo siete en la Reserva Naval, antes de retirarse como suboficial mayor en 2017. Recibió dos medallas de Elogio de la Marina por su valor en los despliegues de combate y varias por buena conducta.Un antiguo marine que sirvió con él en la Base Expedicionaria Conjunta Little Creek, en Virginia, dijo que Newbold era inteligente y tenía una buena reputación en los equipos SEAL, y que había trabajado con la CIA en tareas de recopilación de información.Tras su carrera en la Marina, Newbold se trasladó a la pequeña ciudad de Lisbon (Ohio), abrió una cafetería y fundó una empresa llamada Advanced Training Group que enseña tácticas al estilo de las fuerzas SEAL a miembros del ejército y de la policía, y mantiene un gimnasio y un club de tiro para los lugareños.A través de su empresa, se involucró en el diseño y la ejecución de Jade Helm 15, un ejercicio de entrenamiento militar de ocho semanas en Texas y otros estados del suroeste en el verano de 2015, que incluyó a más de mil tropas de operaciones especiales y convencionales que practicaban misiones simuladas, incluyendo el reconocimiento encubierto y las incursiones nocturnas.Cuando se filtró una diapositiva de PowerPoint que resumía el ejercicio, fue aprovechada por grupos marginales de Facebook y promotores profesionales de teorías conspirativas como Alex Jones, que comenzaron a afirmar que Jade Helm era un complot encubierto para que las tropas federales invadieran Texas, confiscaran las armas de los ciudadanos e impusieran la ley marcial. Circularon rumores infundados sobre “helicópteros negros” y tiendas Walmart que supuestamente se habían convertido en campos de detención.La tormenta de paranoia política suscitada por un simple ejercicio militar llegó a ser tan feroz que algunos miembros del Congreso empezaron a exigir respuestas, y el gobernador Greg Abbott ordenó a la Guardia Nacional de Texas que se mantuviera alerta.Al final, el ejercicio se desarrolló sin problemas. Newbold dijo que él y los otros exmiembros de las fuerzas de operaciones especiales que planearon el ejercicio de entrenamiento se rieron de la paranoia, e incluso hicieron camisetas que decían: “Fui a Jade Helm y lo único que obtuve fue este sombrero de papel de aluminio”.La semana pasada, reconoció que el frenesí de desinformación que rodea a Jade Helm podría haber sido letal. Los residentes locales en Texas habían estado asustados hasta el borde de la violencia. Tres hombres fueron arrestados después de planear atacar el ejercicio con bombas caseras.“De hecho, algunos agricultores y terratenientes amenazaron con disparar si alguien entraba en sus tierras, por lo que había preocupaciones reales”, dijo Newbold. “Es gracioso, pero es algo que debemos tomar en serio”.En ese momento, desestimó esa situación como desvaríos marginales, sin saber que era un precursor de las fantasías que llegaron a absorber a muchos más estadounidenses incluyendo a soldados, oficiales de policía, miembros del Congreso y un presidente en funciones, sin mencionar al mismo Newbold..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-1amoy78{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-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[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.Newbold es un republicano registrado desde hace tiempo que dijo haber votado por Trump. En los últimos cuatro años, a medida que la cobertura sobre el presidente por parte de los principales medios de comunicación se hizo más rigurosa, y el apoyo a veces estridente de Newbold en Facebook atrajo más reproches, emigró a fuentes de noticias y salas de chat que compartían sus puntos de vista.Para fines del otoño de 2020, pasaba tiempo en páginas privadas de Facebook donde proliferaban las charlas de extrema derecha. Publicaba largos videos, a menudo furiosos, sobre cómo se estaban robando al país. Parecía estar cada vez más convencido de que la gente estaba conspirando no solo en contra de Trump sino también en contra de la Constitución, y como veterano era su deber defenderla.Newbold comenzó a celebrar reuniones privadas en su club de tiro con otros miembros de ideas afines, según un exmiembro que dijo que dejó de asistir porque se sintió alarmado ante el creciente extremismo.“Se convirtió en algo muy parecido a una secta”, dijo el exmiembro, que habló con la condición de mantener su anonimato por temor a represalias. “Intenté razonar con él, mostrarle los hechos, y estalló como un loco”.Después de las elecciones de noviembre sus publicaciones de Facebook que pronosticaban una guerra preocuparon a algunas personas en Lisbon, al punto de que al menos una dijo que alertó al FBI.La semana pasada, cuando habló sobre sus convicciones, Newbold desestimó las docenas de decisiones judiciales que rechazan las impugnaciones a los resultados de las elecciones y se encogió de hombros ante los obstáculos logísticos para manipular una elección realizada por funcionarios independientes en más de 3000 condados. Sin citar ninguna prueba, sugirió que era ingenuo asumir que los resultados no habían sido manipulados.En un largo video publicado a finales de diciembre, el exmiembro de los Seal predijo una toma del poder por parte de los comunistas si la gente no se levantaba para detenerla. “Cuando las cosas empiezan a ponerse violentas, entonces estoy en mi elemento”, dijo en el video. “Y defenderé este país. Y hay muchas otras personas que también lo harán”.Una semana después, Newbold organizó a un grupo de empleados de su empresa, miembros del club y simpatizantes para viajar en caravana a Washington, y se unió a la multitud que ondeaba banderas camino al Capitolio el 6 de enero.En un video publicado esa noche, dijo que los miembros de su grupo habían estado en la “primera línea” de los disturbios. “Chicos, estarían orgullosos”, narró Newbold para sus espectadores. “No sé cuándo fue la última vez que asaltaron el Capitolio. Pero eso es lo que ocurrió. Fue histórico, fue necesario”. Añadió que los miembros del Congreso estaban “temblando de miedo”.En la entrevista de la semana pasada, Newbold trató de restarle importancia a su participación en los sucesos del Capitolio. Dijo que se sentó en la moto de la policía solo para alejar a los vándalos y que había viajado a Washington no para incitar a la violencia, sino para proteger el Capitolio de los liberales furiosos, en caso de que el Senado accediera a suspender la certificación de la elección.Tras el ataque al Capitolio, borró algunos de sus mensajes más incendiarios en internet. Pero lo ocurrido en Washington no parece haber logrado que cuestione sus creencias. Dijo que estaba seguro de que las elecciones fueron robadas y que el país estaba en camino hacia una autocracia global.Y en un video publicado seis días después de los disturbios, cuando se supo que habían fallecido algunas personas, Newbold dijo que en el Capitolio había sentido “un sentimiento de orgullo por el hecho de que los estadounidenses por fin se levantaron”. No descartó recurrir a la violencia.“No me disculpo por ser un hombre rudo dispuesto a hacer cosas rudas en situaciones rudas”, dijo. “A veces es absolutamente necesario, y lo ha sido a lo largo de nuestra historia”.Dave Philipps cubre temas sobre los veteranos y los militares, y ganó el Premio Pulitzer de Reportajes Nacionales. Desde que comenzó a trabajar en el Times, en 2014, ha cubierto la comunidad militar. @David_Philipps • FacebookAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
138 Shares159 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesBiden’s Climate AmbitionsBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyExtremists Emboldened by Capitol Attack Pose Rising Threat, Homeland Security SaysThe warning was a notable departure for a Department of Homeland Security accused of being reluctant during the Trump administration to publish intelligence reports or public warnings about the dangers posed by extremists and white supremacist groups.National Guard troops on Wednesday at the Capitol, which they have patrolled since after the attack there on Jan. 6.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesZolan Kanno-Youngs and Jan. 27, 2021Updated 9:46 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Warning that the deadly rampage of the Capitol this month may not be an isolated episode, the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday said publicly for the first time that the United States faced a growing threat from “violent domestic extremists” emboldened by the attack.The department’s terrorism alert did not name specific groups that might be behind any future attacks, but it made clear that their motivation would include anger over “the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives,” a clear reference to the accusations made by President Donald J. Trump and echoed by right-wing groups that the 2020 election was stolen.“D.H.S. is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021,” the department said.The Department of Homeland Security does not have information indicating a “specific, credible plot,” according to a statement from the agency. The alert issued was categorized as one warning of developing trends in terrorism, rather than a notice of an imminent attack.But an intelligence official involved in drafting Wednesday’s bulletin said the decision to issue the report was driven by the department’s conclusion that Mr. Biden’s peaceful inauguration last week could create a false sense of security because “the intent to engage in violence has not gone away” among extremists angered by the outcome of the presidential election.The warning contained in a “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” was a notable departure for a Department of Homeland Security accused of being reluctant during the Trump administration to publish intelligence reports or public warnings about the dangers posed by domestic extremists and white supremacist groups for fear of angering Mr. Trump, according to current and former homeland security officials. Starting with the deadly extremist protest in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when Mr. Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides,” he played down any danger posed by extremist groups. And when racial justice protests erupted nationwide last year, his consistent message was that it was the so-called radical left that was to blame for the violence and destruction that had punctuated the demonstrations.Even after the Department of Homeland Security in September 2019 singled out white supremacists as a leading domestic terrorism threat, analysts and intelligence officials said their warnings were watered down, delayed or both. Former officials in the Trump administration have even said that White House officials sought to suppress the phrase “domestic terrorism.”As recently as last September, a former top intelligence official with the department, Brian Murphy, filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing department leaders, including the acting secretary, Chad F. Wolf, and his deputy, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, of ordering him to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on left-wing groups to align with Mr. Trump’s messaging.Mr. Wolf and Mr. Cuccinelli denied the accusations, and after a congressional backlash, released an annual threat assessment in October that acknowledged that violent white supremacy was the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.”The intelligence official involved with the bulletin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its findings, added that the public warning should have been issued as early as November, when Mr. Trump was making an escalating series of false accusations about the election, and that far-right groups continued to be galvanized by such false statements.But at the time, Mr. Trump was also seeking to dismiss department officials whom he regarded as disloyal, including Christopher Krebs, the chief of its cybersecurity agency, after a committee overseeing the election declared it had been “the most secure in American history.” The agency failed to issue a warning to state and local agencies warning of specific violence aimed at the Capitol before the attack on Jan. 6.Members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, demonstrating last year in Washington.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesThe report listed a broad range of grievances across the political spectrum, including “anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force.” And left-wing groups have not been silent: After the inauguration of Mr. Biden, some demonstrators in Portland, Ore., shattered windows and targeted a federal building with graffiti.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 27, 2021, 8:53 p.m. ETWhitmer pleads with Michigan lawmakers to find common ground amid the pandemic.The Biden administration is reviewing arms sales to the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia that were approved by Trump.Two officers who defended the Capitol have died by suicide, police chief says.But the bulletin’s specific references to the Jan. 6 attack and a mass shooting in El Paso that targeted Hispanics made clear that the most lethal current threat is from the racist extremist groups.Until now, the closest federal law enforcement had come to that conclusion since the attack at the Capitol was in a joint bulletin issued this month by law enforcement agencies, warning that extremists aiming to start a race war “may exploit the aftermath of the Capitol breach by conducting attacks to destabilize and force a climactic conflict in the United States,” according to a copy of the bulletin obtained by The New York Times.But that warning came in a private channel to law enforcement agencies. Terrorism warnings issued to the public like the bulletin on Wednesday are rare: The most recent came a year ago during a period of tension with Iran after the American military’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.The bulletins issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have typically identified foreign terrorist threats. Federal authorities have for years lagged on warnings about the threat of terrorism from within United States borders, perpetrated by American citizens.“There’s value in soliciting the public’s assistance in identifying and alerting authorities about suspicious activity,” said Brian Harrell, a former assistant secretary for homeland security in the Trump administration. “The watchful public will always be the best ‘eyes and ears’ for law enforcement.”Asked during a briefing about the motivation for the new terrorism bulletin, Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security under President George W. Bush, said, “In my view, it is domestic terrorism mounted by right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi groups.” He added, “We have to be candid and face what the real risk is.”Such candor has long been an exception.When a warning in a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report, early in the Obama administration, that military veterans returning from combat could be vulnerable to recruitment by terrorist groups or extremists prompted a backlash from conservatives, the homeland security secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, was forced to apologize.The report was retracted and an edited version was eventually reissued.“It was an early lesson in how fraught dealing with these issues can be, but it turns out the report itself and the substance of the report was quite prescient,” Ms. Napolitano said in an interview. “What we saw two weeks ago is what I think we were seeing in 2009, but it has only grown and it seems to have exploded in the last four years.”This week, Mr. Biden ordered a comprehensive assessment of the threat of domestic violent extremism. During his confirmation hearing, the president’s pick for homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, said he would empower the department’s intelligence branch, which has long struggled to distinguish its assessments from the F.B.I.The department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is responsible for gathering information on emerging threats and sharing it with state authorities to bolster coordination among federal and local law enforcement.“The truth is what has to come out of D.H.S,” Mr. Chertoff said. “Not playing patty cake with political agendas.”Mike Baker More
113 Shares189 Views
in Elections#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRioters Followed a Long Conspiratorial Road to the CapitolThe Capitol extremists and their cheerleaders did not make a giant leap to “Stop the Steal.” A pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones led them there.The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was animated by Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesJan. 27, 2021Updated 9:41 a.m. ETWhen Brendan Hunt was arrested and charged with demanding the “public execution” of Democratic leaders this month, students of American conspiracy theory could hardly be surprised.Two decades ago, Mr. Hunt, a 37-year-old sometime Shakespearean actor, had spread misinformation around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A decade later, he falsely implicated the federal government in a cover-up of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which killed 20 first graders and six educators. He sowed conspiracy theories around the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and disseminated anti-Semitic tropes on social media. Finally he reached the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump by a vast conspiracy of power brokers in both political parties.For many of the Capitol rioters and others who believe Mr. Trump won, it was not a large leap to “Stop the Steal” from a pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones that included the “Pizzagate” claim of 2016 that Democrats were running a child sex ring in the back of a popular Washington pizza parlor, the debunked allegation that a low-level Democratic National Committee aide was murdered for leaking Hillary Clinton’s emails and many more.Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, which animated the riot on Jan. 6, have reassembled — virtually, anyway — a cast of characters that go way back. Other conspiratorial theorizers that mass shootings were false flag operations by liberals to promote gun control included Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia; the Infowars impresario Alex Jones; the fired Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy; and the retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor James Fetzer, all of whom then embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims. “If you look at these Sandy Hook folks, it’s not like they slipped on a banana peel and believe in Sandy Hook conspiracy theories. This is an expression of a whole worldview, or an expression of personality traits,” Joe Uscinski, an assistant professor at the University of Miami and an author of the book “American Conspiracy Theories,” said in an interview. “You’re not going to change someone’s mind. And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter because you’re going to end up in a game of Whac-a-Mole.”Mr. Hunt visited Newtown, Conn., after the 2012 mass shooting, filming the fenced perimeter and the woods around the abandoned elementary school and going to the home of a man who had sheltered six children who ran from the gunman.Mr. Hunt worked as an assistant analyst in the New York Office of Court Administration’s attorney registration unit. He is the son of a retired family court judge. In December and January, he allegedly posted videos calling for violence in Washington.Brendan Hunt in a picture from his account on the video-hosting site BitChute.According to a Jan. 18 complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York, two days after the Capitol riot Mr. Hunt, who was not in Washington that day, posted a video to a video-sharing site urging violence during President Biden’s inauguration.“We were aware of Brendan Hunt back in 2013 when he was attacking Sandy Hook families,” said Lenny Pozner, whose son was killed at the school, and who founded the HONR Network, an organization of volunteers who seek the removal of harmful online content. “I’m not surprised that he became more radical.”“Once people buy into the concept that the government is an evil organization trying at every turn to harm them, it is easy for people to essentially radicalize themselves and find others who agree,” he added.Mr. Hunt has been assigned a public defender, who declined to comment on Tuesday.Sandy Hook was the first American mass shooting to ignite viral, fantastical claims that it was a phony event staged by the Obama administration as a pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms. Since then virtually every high-profile mass shooting has generated similar theories.Ms. Greene, elected to Congress in November, has for years circulated bogus theories, including around mass shootings. On Tuesday, CNN reported that in 2018 and 2019, Ms. Greene indicated support on her Facebook page for commenters recommending violence against Democratic leaders. In January 2019, CNN reported, Ms. Greene “liked a comment that said ‘a bullet to the head would be quicker’ to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” In response, Ms. Greene posted a statement on Twitter attributing the inflammatory content to “teams of people” who “manage my pages.”During her 2020 campaign, Politico mined her social media accounts, finding Islamophobic conspiracy theories and the false claim that George Soros, a wealthy Democratic donor, is a Nazi. After calling the 2020 presidential vote a “fraudulent, stolen election,” Ms. Greene voted on Jan. 6 with 146 other Republicans against certifying the Electoral College count that officially declared Mr. Biden the winner. The day before the Capitol riot, she referred to the Stop the Steal protests as “our 1776 moment.”In 2018 she wrote on Facebook, “The people in power stop the truth and control and stall investigations, then provide cover for the real enemies of our nation.”When a follower from Jamestown, N.Y., posted false claims about the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and said Sandy Hook was “staged,” Ms. Greene responded, “This is all true.” The post was surfaced last week by Media Matters for America, a liberal group that monitors conservative news and media posts.Ms. Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, did not address her false election claims. He referred to her statement on Twitter last week acknowledging the Parkland shooting and blaming “‘gun-free’ school zones” for the massacre.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, elected to Congress in November, has for years circulated bogus theories, including around mass shootings.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“Politicians and Hollywood celebrities are the first to protect themselves with armed security, as you can clearly see by the military fortress around the Capitol,” Ms. Greene wrote.Mr. Jones, another purveyor of election disinformation, spread false Sandy Hook conspiracy claims to millions through his Infowars radio and online show. He has falsely labeled most mass shootings “false flags,” and baselessly claims that the Sept. 11 attacks and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City were government inside jobs.Last week, the Texas Supreme Court allowed three defamation cases filed by Sandy Hook survivors against Mr. Jones to move forward. The lawsuits say Mr. Jones spreads false claims in part to sell merchandise geared toward a conspiracy-minded audience preparing for the end of times.Those suits did not stop Infowars from staging a rally in Washington the night before the Capitol riot. Then on Jan. 6, Mr. Jones broadcast live near the Capitol while an Infowars cameraman filmed the rioters from inside the building, even capturing the moment when one of them, Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer..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-1amoy78{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-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[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.“Our own cameraman followed the crowds into the Senate, and I watched them execute an unarmed woman,” Mr. Jones said.Mr. Jones brought Ali Alexander, a Stop the Steal organizer and a leading election conspiracy promoter, onto his show.Mr. Jones’s ex-wife, Kelly Morales, said she sent video of Mr. Jones’s broadcasts during the riot, most of which she said had since been removed from his website, to the F.B.I. She has been posting excerpts on her Twitter account, @realkellyjones.“Just like Sandy Hook and Pizzagate, Alex knows his actions culminate in violence and harassment,” Ms. Morales said in an interview. She and Mr. Jones are engaged in a court battle stemming from their 2015 divorce.After the Sandy Hook shooting, Mr. Jones repeatedly invited Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the far-right militia Oath Keepers, onto Infowars to discuss the massacre, which they viewed as a threat to the Second Amendment.During one appearance, Mr. Jones suggested that “the solution is to get involved in Oath Keepers.”Now federal law enforcement is investigating the group as central to the Capitol attack. Mr. Rhodes had appeared on Infowars just before the November election, vowing that his members would “stand up and protect people on Election Day” against Democrats who he claimed would be “stealing the election.”At least a half-dozen people arrested after the Capitol riot have been linked to the Oath Keepers. Those arrested include three people charged with conspiracy to commit federal crimes, after recordings emerged that suggest members of the group planned and coordinated their role in the Capitol attack.Infowars and Mr. Jones did not immediately respond to emails and text messages requesting comment.Mr. Tracy, a former journalism professor at Florida Atlantic University, also questioned Sandy Hook, leading to his firing in 2015. He did not protest in Washington on Jan. 6, but he has latched onto 2020 election falsehoods.“The fake news media that have been complicit in U.S. ‘regime change’ over the past four years are now acting as the ideological agency to enforce the unfounded legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election,” he wrote on his blog.In an interview, Mr. Tracy said he also thought the Democratic nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders in 2016 and insisted that “the truth movement” is “becoming much more mainstream.” On his blog, Mr. Tracy posts wild theories about the health risks of 5G networks, communist revolution in America and the Covid Tracking Project.Mr. Tracy contributed to the book “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook,” coedited by Mr. Fetzer, the retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor. Mr. Fetzer moved from Sandy Hook in 2012 to the Boston Marathon bombing a year later, helping to write another book titled “And Nobody Died in Boston, Either.” Mr. Fetzer helped found an outfit called Moon Rock Books, which published false conspiracy theories related to Sept. 11, the John F. Kennedy assassination — longtime obsessions of Mr. Fetzer’s — as well as mass shootings in Parkland, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.In late 2019, Mr. Pozner won a $450,000 defamation judgment against Mr. Fetzer. But he has continued to pursue other conspiracy theories, including around the 2020 election.“There actually is a deep state, and they really do not honor the election results nor the will of the people,” Mr. Fetzer wrote on his blog last week. He also posted his approval of Ms. Greene’s Parkland conspiracy theories, saying, “No member of Congress has been willing to speak the truth about it.”Chris Cameron More
This portal is not a newspaper as it is updated without periodicity. It cannot be considered an editorial product pursuant to law n. 62 of 7.03.2001. The author of the portal is not responsible for the content of comments to posts, the content of the linked sites. Some texts or images included in this portal are taken from the internet and, therefore, considered to be in the public domain; if their publication is violated, the copyright will be promptly communicated via e-mail. They will be immediately removed.