Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      Trump Rally in Michigan Dominated by More False Statements

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      Former President Donald J. Trump held a rally on Thursday in the key battleground state of Michigan that was notable mainly for his continued false statements and exaggerations on a number of subjects as varied as the 2020 election and the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene.In the roughly 85 minutes that Mr. Trump was onstage, he repeated a pattern of untrue assertions that have characterized many of his events as the 2024 presidential race heads into its final weeks. The crowd of supporters in Saginaw County, which he narrowly lost four years ago, included Mike Rogers, the former Michigan congressman and the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat, and Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican Party chairman.Mr. Trump reiterated his familiar false claim that he had won the 2020 election and made no acknowledgment of new evidence that was unsealed against him on Wednesday in the federal election subversion case. He also said his campaign was up in all polls in every swing state, while several public polls show close races and Vice President Kamala Harris leading narrowly in a number of battlegrounds.Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the state of funding at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying that the Biden administration had stolen disaster-relief money allocated to the agency to give to housing for undocumented immigrants so they would vote for Democrats.He cast electric cars as a threat to the auto industry, while at the same time praising Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who has endorsed his candidacy and featured him prominently on X, the Musk-owned social media platform.Michigan was one of a handful of swing states where Mr. Trump and his allies tried to overturn his defeat in 2020 through a series of maneuvers that included breaching voting equipment and seeking to seat a set of fake presidential electors. Some of his supporters have been criminally charged in the state, where Mr. Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator this year.Mr. Trump spent time in his speech taking satisfaction over his choice of running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, whose debate performance this week was applauded by many.“I drafted the best athlete,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Vance. The audience — several thousand supporters at a recreation center at Saginaw Valley State University, roughly 100 miles north of Detroit — cheered.And he mused, at one point, that instead of being on a beach in Monte Carlo or someplace else, he was running for the presidency again. “If I had my choice of being here with you today or being on some magnificent beach with the waves hitting me in the face, I would take you every single time.”Overall as of Thursday, Ms. Harris led by two percentage points in Michigan, according to The New York Times’s polling average, 49 percent to 47 percent. The vice president is scheduled to return to the state on Friday, campaigning in Detroit and Flint. More

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      How Meta Distanced Itself From Politics

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      In January 2021, after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new priority for Meta: He wanted to reduce the amount of political content on the company’s apps, including Facebook and Instagram.As the United States hurtles toward November’s election, Mr. Zuckerberg’s plan appears to be working.On Facebook, Instagram and Threads, political content is less heavily featured. App settings have been automatically set to de-emphasize the posts that users see about campaigns and candidates. And political misinformation is harder to find on the platforms after Meta removed transparency tools that journalists and researchers used to monitor the sites.Inside Meta, Mr. Zuckerberg, 40, no longer meets weekly with the heads of election security as he once did, according to four employees. He has reduced the number of full-time employees working on the issue and disbanded the election integrity team, these employees said, though the company says the election integrity workers were integrated into other teams. He has also decided not to have a “war room,” which Meta previously used to prepare for elections.Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee laying out how he wanted to distance himself and his company from politics. The goal, he said, was to be “neutral” and to not “even appear to be playing a role.”“It’s quite the pendulum swing because a decade ago, everyone at Facebook was desperate to be the face of elections,” said Katie Harbath, chief executive of Anchor Change, a tech consulting firm, who previously worked at Facebook. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Certification of Election Will Get Extra Security to Try to Prevent Another Capitol Attack

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      In an effort to prevent another attack on the Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security has declared Jan. 6, 2025, to be a special event that requires added security measures when Congress meets to certify the winner of the 2024 presidential election.The designation of a National Special Security Event, announced by Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the director of homeland security, on Wednesday means that significant federal, state and local resources will be directed toward the Capitol a few months from now to increase the security protections and a comprehensive security plan will be put in place.The Secret Service will oversee the security plan.“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” Eric Ranaghan, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division, said in a statement, adding that Secret Service officials, in collaboration with federal, state and local partners, “are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”The Capitol was overrun on Jan. 6, 2021, by a pro-Trump mob that sought to halt the counting of the Electoral College votes from the 2020 election to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s victory. The Capitol Police force was caught unprepared for the mob violence, even though Mr. Trump had summoned the crowd to Washington days earlier and promised a “wild” rally.After the attack, during which more than 150 police officers were injured and several people died, the Government Accountability Office recommended consideration of the special security designation. More

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      Fund-Raiser for Jan. 6 Rioters at Trump’s Golf Club Is Postponed

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      A gala event to raise money for some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, set to take place on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, has been postponed, according to the event website.While Mr. Trump had not been planning to attend the soiree — billed as the J6 Awards Gala — the event attracted attention for the way it reinforced the strong connections he has maintained with those who stormed the Capitol on his behalf at an awkward moment: just as his campaign to return to the White House enters its final stages.The event’s website did not provide a reason for the delay or mention a new date when it might take place. But the primary planner, Sarah McAbee, who runs a nonprofit organization called the Stand in the Gap Foundation, which supports Jan. 6 defendants, said she would try to reschedule it for after the November election, perhaps in February, according to text messages obtained by The New York Times.“I want you to know that we fought until the absolute last minute to have the event,” the text messages said, “but there were multiple issues outside of our control, the main one being safety concerns of attendees and staff.”Ms. McAbee is the wife of Ronald Colton McAbee, a former deputy sheriff from Tennessee who is serving five years in prison after being convicted of attacking police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The event’s location, Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., highlighted the former president’s attempts to normalize the events of Jan. 6, including by often praising those who took part in the Capitol attack.Gala attendees were asked to shell out $2,500 for a single ticket (or $50,000 for a “platinum table” of 12) for the chance to mingle with the families of indicted rioters and to win a custom plaque commemorating “Justice for All,” a song featuring a choir of some of the most violent riot defendants who are now locked up in Washington’s local jail, along with Mr. Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      First Jan. 6 Rioter to Enter Capitol Gets More Than 4 Years in Prison

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      Michael Sparks, 47, was the first rioter to breach the Capitol and among the first to be confronted by the U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman.The first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in prison, federal prosecutors announced.In March, a federal jury found Michael Sparks, 47, of Elizabethtown, Ky., guilty on felony charges of obstructing an official proceeding and civil disorder and several misdemeanor charges for being on the premises of the Capitol building on Jan. 6.On Tuesday, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of U.S. District Court in Washington sentenced him to 53 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $2,000 fine. Mr. Sparks will be on supervised release for three years after his prison term ends, prosecutors said.Video footage presented in court showed that Mr. Sparks entering the Capitol building at 2:13 p.m. on Jan. 6 through a window near a door leading into the Senate Wing that rioters had smashed with a police shield.Mr. Sparks was among the initial group of rioters who were confronted by Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer, who helped hold off the mob from reaching members of Congress.The rioters chased Mr. Goodman up a flight of stairs as they demanded to know where Congress was certifying the results of the election, prosecutors said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Oath Keepers Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Tampering With Jan. 6 Evidence

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      Kellye SoRelle admitted to telling members of the far-right group to illegally delete their text messages after the mob attack.The former lawyer for the Oath Keepers militia pleaded guilty on Wednesday to advising members of the far-right group to illegally delete their text messages after the violent mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.At a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, the lawyer, Kellye SoRelle, admitted to charges that included tampering with evidence and illegally entering and remaining in a restricted area of the Capitol grounds.After Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, Ms. SoRelle, who is based in Texas, had close ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement, which claimed that Mr. Trump had been cheated out of a victory in his run against Joseph R. Biden Jr. She also served as the general counsel of the Oath Keepers and had a romantic relationship with the militia’s leader and founder, Stewart Rhodes, who was found guilty at a trial in Washington of seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack and sentenced to 18 years in prison.During Mr. Rhodes’s trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he and Ms. SoRelle worked closely for weeks organizing the Oath Keepers to descend on Washington on Jan. 6. The evidence also showed that she was present at a mysterious meeting in an underground parking garage near the Capitol on the day before the attack where Mr. Rhodes met with Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, another far-right group instrumental in the violence.On Jan. 6 itself, Ms. SoRelle accompanied Mr. Rhodes to the Capitol, although neither entered the building. Still, court papers say that after the building was stormed and dozens of Oath Keepers came under scrutiny by federal investigators, Ms. SoRelle advised Mr. Rhodes and other members of the group to delete encrypted messages from their cellphones.In the early days of investigation, Ms. SoRelle told reporters that she was cooperating with the Justice Department’s inquiry into the Oath Keepers’ role. She also spoke several times to staff investigators working with the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-Marine Sentenced to Nearly 5 Years for Role in Jan. 6 Riot

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      Tyler Bradley Dykes was charged with assaulting law enforcement after prosecutors said he stole a police officer’s riot shield to help break into the Capitol.A South Carolina man who was serving in the United States Marine Corps when he stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and stole a police officer’s riot shield to help break into the building was sentenced on Friday to nearly five years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.The man, Tyler Bradley Dykes, 26, who was previously convicted of a felony for his actions while marching in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., was sentenced by Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to four years and nine months in prison for assaulting law enforcement during the 2021 riot, the U.S. Department of Justice said.“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election,” the department said.Prosecutors said that Mr. Dykes moved fences to help other members of the crowd get to the Capitol doors, helped push officers back from their posts, gave a Nazi salute, stole a police riot shield and used it to help break into the Capitol.They recommended that Mr. Dykes, who is from Bluffton, S.C., receive a sentence of five years and three months.Lawyers for Mr. Dykes asked for a sentence of two years, arguing that he had acknowledged his wrongdoing when he pleaded guilty in April to the assault charges, that he was only 22 years old at the time of the riot, and that he had enlisted in the Marine Corps to serve his country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Had a Clear Message: Trump Was a Threat. Then the Shooting Happened.

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      Former President Donald J. Trump has gone from being an instigator of political violence to a victim of it. The assassination attempt raised questions about how far language should go in a heated campaign.For months, the message from the White House and Wilmington was as stark as it was simple: This year’s election amounts to an existential choice between a defender of democracy and a destroyer of democracy. Nothing less than the future of America is at stake.And then the bullets started flying.The assassination attempt over the weekend has complicated President Biden’s argument now that former President Donald J. Trump has gone from being a longtime instigator of political violence to a victim of it. Republicans, including Mr. Trump’s newly anointed running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, instantly blamed Mr. Biden, citing his sharp rhetoric.No one in Mr. Biden’s camp thinks that is a good-faith argument, especially from allies of a former president who sent the mob that marauded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and did nothing to stop its assault, and has now vowed to pardon rioters convicted of violent crimes. But the images of Mr. Trump with blood streaked across his face after being grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet raise the question of how far language should go in a heated campaign.Mr. Biden, who has long preached unity and civility, conceded on Monday that it was “a mistake” to tell supporters a week ago that he wanted to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye,” an expression that was certainly metaphorical but opened the president to criticism after his opponent found himself in literal cross hairs. At the same time, Mr. Biden and his team have made clear that they will not back off efforts to demonstrate that Mr. Trump is a budding dictator who is dangerous to the country.“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?” Mr. Biden asked Lester Holt of NBC News on Monday during his first interview since the assassination attempt. “Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”Mr. Biden responded to the shooting in Butler, Pa., on Saturday by calling Mr. Trump to express relief that he was not more seriously wounded and urging Americans to “lower the temperature” this campaign season. His campaign suspended television ads and its regular barrage of attack emails.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More