Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Legal Effort Expands to Disqualify Republicans as ‘Insurrectionists’

      by

      New lawsuits target Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, as well as Mark Finchem, a candidate for Arizona secretary of state, claiming they are barred from office under the 14th Amendment.A legal effort to disqualify from re-election lawmakers who participated in events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol expanded on Thursday, when a cluster of voters and a progressive group filed suit against three elected officials in Arizona to bar them under the 14th Amendment from running again.In three separate candidacy challenges filed in Superior Court in Maricopa County, Ariz., voters and the progressive group, Free Speech for People, targeted Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and State Representative Mark Finchem, who is running for Arizona secretary of state with former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement.It was unclear whether the challenges would go anywhere; an initial skirmish, also led by Free Speech for People, failed to block Representative Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy in North Carolina. But they were the latest bids to find a way to punish members of Congress who have encouraged or made common cause with those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.In all three suits, the plaintiffs claim that the politicians are disqualified from seeking office because their support for rioters who attacked the Capitol made them “insurrectionists” under the Constitution and therefore barred them under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, adopted during Reconstruction to punish members of the Confederacy.That section declares that “no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath” to “support the Constitution,” had then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”A separate action is being pursued by a Democratic-aligned super PAC against Senator Ron Johnson and Representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald, all Wisconsin Republicans.And on Friday, a federal judge in Atlanta will hear Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s effort to dismiss a case filed against her to strike her from the ballot in Georgia. Unless the judge, Amy Totenberg of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, issues a temporary restraining order, an administrative law judge is set to hear arguments next Wednesday on whether Ms. Greene should be removed from the ballot.Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, said the effort was putting pressure on the Justice Department and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack to take action against individual members of Congress — and to find remedies in court.“Our goal is to reach a ruling by a competent state tribunal, which of course can be appealed to the highest levels if need be, that these individuals are in fact disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” he said. “These are even stronger cases. We’re not going after people who have a tenuous connection to the insurrection.”James Bopp Jr., a conservative election lawyer who is defending Ms. Greene and Mr. Cawthorn, said the groups ultimately could take action against as many as two dozen Republican lawmakers, hoping to establish some legal precedent for trying to bar Mr. Trump from the presidential ballot in 2024. And with enough test cases, one might succeed.“Judges do make a difference,” he said.Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs and Mr. Finchem did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The legal fight in the cases has come down to two questions: What is an insurrectionist, and did Congress in 1872 not only grant amnesty to those who supported and fought for the Confederacy but also to those who would take part in future insurrections, effectively nullifying Section 3?In Mr. Cawthorn’s case, a federal judge appointed by Mr. Trump blocked an inquiry into the congressman’s role in the Jan. 6 attack by ruling that the Amnesty Act of 1872 did indeed confer amnesty on all future insurrectionists.The judge, Richard E. Myers II, focused on a caveat within Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that said “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House remove” the disqualification — or “disability” — for insurrection. The Amnesty Act was passed by that wide of a margin.That ruling remains in dispute and is on appeal.In the run-up to Jan. 6, Representative Andy Biggs repeatedly posted the falsehood that President Donald J. Trump had won the election.Cooper Neill for The New York Times“The waiver of disability is the functional equivalent of a pardon,” said Gerard N. Magliocca, a constitutional law professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law who has studied the insurrection clause. “Pardons by presidents or governors cannot be for the future. You cannot license future illegality.”The lawyers bringing the new suits believe they have a stronger case to show that the elected officials in question are insurrectionists.In the run-up to Jan. 6, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs repeatedly posted the falsehood that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Gosar organized some of the earliest rallies to “Stop the Steal,” the movement to keep Mr. Trump in office, coordinating with Ali Alexander, a far-right activist, and with Mr. Finchem.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: New DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5The effort to disqualify “insurrectionists.” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      House Votes to Find Scavino and Navarro in Contempt in Jan. 6 Inquiry

      by

      The vote was mostly along party lines to recommend that the Justice Department charge Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr. with criminal contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas.The House of Representatives voted to recommend that the Justice Department charge Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr. with criminal contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas issued by the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday voted to recommend criminal contempt of Congress charges against Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr., two close allies of former President Donald J. Trump, after the pair defied subpoenas from the special committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.The mostly party-line vote of 220 to 203 referred contempt charges to the Justice Department, calling for prosecutions of Mr. Navarro, a former top White House adviser, and Mr. Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff. It came as congressional investigators have grown increasingly frustrated with some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters who have refused to meet with the panel or turn over a single page of evidence to the committee as it digs into the worst assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.“We have two people who are flagrantly, brazenly defying the authority of the House of Representatives of the United States,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee. He said the men had “nothing but excuses for their noncompliance — excuses you would not accept from a teenage child.”Only two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both members of the investigative committee, voted for the charges. The rest of their party refused to support the move.Dozens of Republicans lined up on the floor of the House on Wednesday to demand a change of topic, trying to force a vote on immigration legislation in line with their efforts to use problems at the border as a political weapon against Democrats ahead of midterm congressional elections.After that failed, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, attacked the investigation in a floor speech as a “political show trial” and accused the panel of bullying the men and trampling on their civil rights.“Let me be clear: The riot on Jan. 6 was wrong. But make no mistake: the Democrats’ response is also wrong,” Mr. McCarthy said, adding, “Democrats are using the power of the federal government to jail their political opponents.”Mr. Raskin shot back that Republicans were using “circus antics” to try to slow down the vote with a “conga line” of lawmakers queued up on the floor while they skipped out on their committee assignments.Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Trump, addressed the Republican National Convention in 2020.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesHe accused the Republicans of “slavishly” following Mr. Trump like “sycophants,” instead of joining efforts to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol that left more than 150 police officers injured.A contempt of Congress charge carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $100,000. The House vote steered the matter to the Justice Department, which now must decide whether to charge the two men.Representative Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, said the stakes of potential jail time were too high, and noted the vote would mean that four Trump White House aides would face criminal referrals from the committee.“Mr. Scavino has two boys. He’s a good dad,” Mr. Banks said.Ms. Cheney called the vote “sad” and “tragic,” but said the committee was left with no other choice after some in her own party had abandoned the truth for fealty to Mr. Trump.“So many in my own party are refusing to address the constitutional crisis and the challenge we face,” she said.The Jan. 6 committee laid out its arguments against Mr. Navarro and Mr. Scavino in a 34-page report that detailed how closely they were involved in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power even after he lost decisively at the polls.Mr. Navarro and Mr. Scavino are among a handful of Mr. Trump’s closest allies who have refused to sit for interviews or turn over documents, even as more than 800 witnesses — including other top White House officials — have complied with the committee’s requests.In the past week, the panel has interviewed both Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter, and her husband Jared Kushner, both of whom were high-ranking White House advisers to Mr. Trump. Each sat for lengthy interviews with the committee. Neither asserted executive privilege to avoid answering the committee’s questions.Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, contrasted their approach to the hard-line stance adopted by Mr. Scavino and Mr. Navarro.“The president’s own daughter complied with the wishes of the committee,” Mr. Thompson said. “If his daughter complied with the wishes of the committee, everyone else should.”The committee said Mr. Navarro had worked with Stephen K. Bannon, another Trump ally, to carry out a plan to delay Congress’s certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021, and ultimately to try to change the election’s outcome. Mr. Navarro has previously described this plan as the “Green Bay Sweep” and has said more than 100 members of Congress had signed on to it.Mr. Navarro also wrote a report alleging a stolen election, which was widely shared with others working to overturn the election. Mr. Navarro claimed that Mr. Trump “himself had distributed Volume 1 of the report to every member of the House and Senate” before Jan. 6.The Jan. 6 committee laid out its arguments against Mr. Navarro and Mr. Scavino in a 34-page report.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThe committee issued a subpoena in February to Mr. Navarro, but he said he would not comply, citing Mr. Trump’s invocation of executive privilege over White House materials from his time in office.In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Navarro insisted that the committee should have negotiated the matter with Mr. Trump, saying that “it is not my privilege to waive.”“Instead, the committee has colluded with the Biden White House in a futile effort to strip Donald Trump of executive privilege so it can coerce me into cooperating with their witch hunt,” he said. “This dog of a witch hunt won’t hunt at the Supreme Court, and I look forward to arguing the case there.”Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Contempt charges. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Jan. 6 Investigation Confronts Sprawling Cast of Characters

      by

      The wide net being cast by prosecutors as they move beyond charging rioters could encompass scores of potential witnesses from inside and outside of government.Among the challenges facing the federal grand jury recently empaneled to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is the sheer number of people who might have information relevant to its inquiry.According to a subpoena issued by the grand jury, prosecutors are asking for records about people who organized or spoke at several pro-Trump rallies after the election. They presumably include two events in Washington in November and December 2020 that preceded the gathering on the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, where President Donald J. Trump told the crowd to descend on the Capitol.The subpoena is also seeking records about anyone who provided security at those events and about those who were deemed to be “V.I.P. attendees.”Moreover, it requests information about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning or executing the rallies, or tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election.Each of these broad categories could involve dozens of individuals. Taken together, the total number of potential witnesses — or at some point, targets — sought after by the grand jury could easily reach into the hundreds.The investigation appears to be in its early stages and there is no way of knowing at this point where it may go, what crimes it might identify or who it may ultimately focus on. Many people of interest to investigators might be called only as witnesses.One possible road map — at least in terms of who the grand jury may still want to hear from — is the parallel probe by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, which has already interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including, on Tuesday, Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter and adviser.The RalliesA group called Women for America First organized a number of Pro-Trump events, including one in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesA relatively small group of political operatives did the bulk of the work in organizing the pro-Trump rallies in Washington that kicked off after the election and sought to challenge the results, often using the slogan “Stop the Steal.”Prominent among them, according to interviews and documents, was Amy Kremer, a former Tea Party activist who helped create a group called Women for America First. The group set up a cross-country bus tour gathering Mr. Trump’s aggrieved supporters behind the baseless assertions of a stolen election.Within hours of the last polls closing on Election Day, Ms. Kremer started working closely with her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, to set up one of the first “Stop the Steal” Facebook pages. Both women were involved — often in close coordination with the White House — in planning pro-Trump rallies on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12, 2020, and then in setting up Mr. Trump’s appearance at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021.Two other people who helped Ms. Kremer were Jennifer L. Lawrence and Dustin Stockton, both of whom had once worked closely with Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to Mr. Trump. Another organizer for Women for America First was Cindy Chafian, who ultimately broke away from the group to form a new organization, the Eighty Percent Coalition, which planned its own event on Jan. 5.Then there was a separate group of planners around Ali Alexander, a provocateur who rose in right-wing circles after the election. Mr. Alexander, an associate of Mr. Trump’s longtime adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., was part of a group of activists who planned an event at the Capitol itself and marched with the crowd to the building after Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.Altogether, scores of people spoke at the rallies in November and December and at the gatherings on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. They included people like Mr. Stone; Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn; and Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and host of the TV show Infowars. The speakers also included pastors, state-level politicians and anti-vaccine activists.It is hard to know who prosecutors might consider a “V.I.P.” from these events — especially for the November rally, often known as the Million MAGA March, and the one in December, which is sometimes referred to as the Jericho March.There were dozens of V.I.P.s who attended Mr. Trump’s incendiary speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, according to leaked documents from event organizers. That rally also featured appearances by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and John C. Eastman, the law professor who was promoting the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could block congressional certification of the Electoral College results.The attendees at the Ellipse speech included Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who helped spread Mr. Trump’s lies about a rigged election, and the YouTube stars known as Diamond and Silk, who are prominent Trump supporters.Trump’s CirclesMark Meadows, a White House chief of staff under President Donald J. Trump, worked closely with Mr. Trump’s allies in the weeks after Election Day and was with him as the riot at the Capitol unfolded.Al Drago for The New York TimesThe federal grand jury subpoena examined by The New York Times seeks information about members of the executive and legislative branches who might have been involved in the effort to delay congressional certification of the election results, suggesting that prosecutors are interested in learning more about the roles that Mr. Trump’s aides and allies inside the government may have played.It is not clear if any Trump-era executive or legislative branch members have received subpoenas, and there is no public indication that anyone has been targeted for prosecution.But in looking for more information about what was happening at both the White House and on Capitol Hill as Mr. Trump sought to stay in power, the House select committee has already expressed interest in a range of White House and campaign advisers, as well as contractors who worked to set up the rally. They exist in concentric circles in and around Mr. Trump’s orbit.Among them is Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump, who turned over text messages to the House committee that served as a road map not just of his own activities, but those of others. He was one of the few people with Mr. Trump as the riot at the Capitol took place.Katrina Pierson, a longtime Trump political adviser, was in direct contact with Mr. Trump about the details of the rallies on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, including who would be speaking and what music would be played, according to a former administration official and the House committee. She attended a meeting in which Mr. Trump is said to have discussed wanting the National Guard deployed, anticipating counterprotests.Caroline Wren, a professional fund-raiser and a friend of Kimberly Guilfoyle, an adviser to Mr. Trump and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., was listed on an attachment for a permit that rally organizers gave the Park Police. Megan Powers, a longtime Trump aide, was listed on a rally permit.Members of CongressRepresentative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, helped promote “Stop the Steal” rallies, although his staff says he was not involved in planning them.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAmong the Republicans in Congress who worked publicly to keep Mr. Trump in power were Representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Andy Biggs of Arizona, all of whom Mr. Alexander, the “Stop the Steal” organizer, has said helped set the events of Jan. 6 in motion.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Ivanka Trump to testify. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Ivanka Trump to Testify to House Panel Investigating Jan. 6 Attack

      by

      The former president’s daughter and adviser was in the West Wing with him as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. She is said to have tried to persuade him to call off the rioters.WASHINGTON — Ivanka Trump, former President Donald J. Trump’s eldest daughter, who served as one of his senior advisers, plans to testify on Tuesday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.Ms. Trump was one of several aides who tried to persuade the president to call off the violence that ultimately injured more than 150 police officers and sent lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence fleeing for safety, according to evidence gathered by the committee.The schedule for her testimony, which was reported earlier by NBC, comes days after her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also a top adviser to Mr. Trump, sat for an interview and provided what one member of the panel described as “valuable” and “helpful” information.“There were some things revealed, but we’ll just share that a little later,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said of Mr. Kushner’s testimony.Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner are among the highest-ranking Trump White House officials to testify before the committee. The interviews have been closed to the public as the panel conducts its work in secret.Ms. Trump’s lawyers have been in talks with the committee since January, when it sent her a letter requesting voluntary testimony. In the letter, dated Jan. 20, the committee said it had heard from Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr. Pence’s national security adviser. Mr. Kellogg had described Mr. Trump’s refusal to condemn the violence as the mob engulfed the Capitol, despite White House officials — including Ms. Trump, at least twice — urging him to do so, the letter said.Mr. Kellogg testified that the president had rejected entreaties from him as well as from Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary. Mr. Kellogg then appealed to Ms. Trump to intervene.“She went back in, because Ivanka can be pretty tenacious,” Mr. Kellogg testified.Mr. Kellogg also testified that he and Ms. Trump had witnessed a telephone call in the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6 in which Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Pence to go along with a plan to throw out electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Congress met to certify the Electoral College results. The call to Mr. Pence was part of an effort to invalidate the 2020 election and give Mr. Trump a chance to stay in office.Mr. Kellogg told the committee that the president had accused Mr. Pence of not being “tough enough” to overturn the election. Ms. Trump then said to Mr. Kellogg, “Mike Pence is a good man,” Mr. Kellogg testified.The committee has interviewed more than 800 witnesses and plans to interview dozens more. Mr. Thompson told reporters on Monday that he had authorized five additional subpoenas that day.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      ‘The Illegality of the Plan Was Obvious’

      by

      Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen and Rachel Quester and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherAfter months of investigation by a congressional committee, a federal judge has found that President Donald J. Trump and his allies most likely engaged in illegal activity in the wake of the 2020 election.How did the committee achieve that ruling?On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.Donald J. Trump at a rally in Georgia on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesBackground readingThe judge’s comments in the civil case of a lawyer, John Eastman, who advised Mr. Trump, marked a significant breakthrough for the House committee.The ruling does not necessarily mean that a prosecution would arrive at the same conclusion. Here’s an explanation.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Kaitlin Roberts, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky and John Ketchum.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli and Maddy Masiello. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Why the Jan. 6 Investigation Is a Test for Biden and Merrick Garland

      by

      WASHINGTON — Immediately after Merrick B. Garland was sworn in as attorney general in March of last year, he summoned top Justice Department officials and the F.B.I. director to his office. He wanted a detailed briefing on the case that will, in all likelihood, come to define his legacy: the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Even though hundreds of people had already been charged, Mr. Garland asked to go over the indictments in detail, according to two people familiar with the meeting. What were the charges? What evidence did they have? How had they built such a sprawling investigation, involving all 50 states, so fast? What was the plan now?The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr. Garland said that he and the career prosecutors working on the case felt only the pressure “to do the right thing,” which meant that they “follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”Still, Democrats’ increasingly urgent calls for the Justice Department to take more aggressive action highlight the tension between the frenetic demands of politics and the methodical pace of one of the biggest prosecutions in the department’s history.“The Department of Justice must move swiftly,” Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the House committee investigating the riot, said this past week. She and others on the panel want the department to charge Trump allies with contempt for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas.“Attorney General Garland,” Ms. Luria said during a committee hearing, “do your job so that we can do ours.”This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen people, including officials in the Biden administration and people with knowledge of the president’s thinking, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations.In a statement, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said the president believed that Mr. Garland had “decisively restored” the independence of the Justice Department.“President Biden is immensely proud of the attorney general’s service in this administration and has no role in investigative priorities or decisions,” Mr. Bates said.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.The Jan. 6 investigation is a test not just for Mr. Garland, but for Mr. Biden as well. Both men came into office promising to restore the independence and reputation of a Justice Department that Mr. Trump had tried to weaponize for political gain.For Mr. Biden, keeping that promise means inviting the ire of supporters who say they will hold the president to the remarks he made on the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, when he vowed to make sure “the past isn’t buried” and said that the people who planned the siege “held a dagger at the throat of America.”President Biden and Mr. Garland are managing a relationship between the White House and the Justice Department unlike any other in American history. Doug Mills/The New York TimesComplicating matters for Mr. Biden is the fact that his two children are entangled in federal investigations, making it all the more important that he stay out of the Justice Department’s affairs or risk being seen as interfering for his own family’s gain.The department is investigating whether Ashley Biden was the victim of pro-Trump political operatives who obtained her diary at a critical moment in the 2020 presidential campaign, and Hunter Biden is under federal investigation for tax avoidance and his international business dealings. Hunter Biden has not been charged with a crime and has said he handled his affairs appropriately.Justice Department officials do not keep Mr. Biden abreast of any investigation, including those involving his children, several people familiar with the situation said. The cases involving Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden are worked on by career officials, and people close to the president, including Dana Remus, the White House counsel, have no visibility into them, those people said.Still, the situation crystallizes the delicate ground that Mr. Biden and Mr. Garland are navigating.When it comes to Jan. 6, Justice Department officials emphasize that their investigation has produced substantial results already, including more than 775 arrests and a charge of seditious conspiracy against the leader of a far-right militia. More than 280 people have been charged with obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the election results.And federal prosecutors have widened the investigation to include a broad range of figures associated with Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power. According to people familiar with the inquiry, it now encompasses planning for pro-Trump rallies ahead of the riot and the push by some Trump allies to promote slates of fake electors.The Justice Department’s Jan. 6 inquiry has led to more than 775 arrests. More than 280 people have been charged with obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the election results.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Justice Department has given no public indication about its timeline or whether prosecutors might be considering a case against Mr. Trump.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack can send criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but only the department can bring charges. The panel is working with a sense of urgency to build its case ahead of this year’s midterm elections, when Republicans could retake the House and dissolve the committee.Mr. Biden, a longtime creature of the Senate, is aghast that people close to Mr. Trump have defied congressional subpoenas and has told people close to him that he does not understand how they think they can do so, according to two people familiar with his thinking.Mr. Garland has not changed his approach to criminal prosecutions in order to placate his critics, according to several Justice Department officials who have discussed the matter with him. He is regularly briefed on the Jan. 6 investigation, but he has remained reticent in public.“The best way to undermine an investigation is to say things out of court,” Mr. Garland said on Friday.Even in private, he relies on a stock phrase: “Rule of law,” he says, “means there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.”He did seem to acknowledge Democrats’ frustrations in a speech in January, when he reiterated that the department “remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”Quiet and reserved, Mr. Garland is well known for the job he was denied: a seat on the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama nominated him in March 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but Senate Republicans blockaded the nomination.Mr. Garland’s peers regard him as a formidable legal mind and a political centrist. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal appeals court judge and Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court before becoming a top official in the Justice Department under Attorney General Janet Reno. There, he prosecuted domestic terrorism cases and supervised the federal investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing.His critics say that his subsequent years as an appeals court judge made him slow and overly deliberative. But his defenders say that he has always carefully considered legal issues, particularly if the stakes were very high — a trait that most likely helped the Justice Department secure a conviction against Timothy J. McVeigh two years after the Oklahoma City attack.During the presidential transition after the 2020 election, Mr. Biden took his time mulling over candidates to be attorney general, according to a senior member of the transition team. He had promised the American people that he would reestablish the department as an independent arbiter within the government, not the president’s partisan brawler.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Democratic Hopes and Anxiety Rise Over the Jan. 6 Panel

      by

      As the congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot races to conclude its work, the political stakes are increasing along with the legal expectations.It’s one of the X factors that could, in theory, alter the contours of this year’s midterm elections: What does the Jan. 6 committee have in its pocket?The bipartisan House investigation of the assault on the U.S. Capitol is “entering a critical stage,” as the panel’s vice chair, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, put it this week — and it is kicking up a lot of dust along the way.On Monday, the committee voted to recommend that two onetime aides to former President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino, be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Also Monday, a federal judge wrote that it was “more likely than not” that Trump had broken the law by trying to disrupt a joint session of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.Investigators have identified a nearly eight-hour gap in Trump’s call logs from Jan. 6 and are discussing whether to demand the former president’s mobile phone records. They’re also looking into whether a Trump tweet from December 2020, in which he invited his supporters to swarm Washington on Jan. 6, constituted incitement. Lawmakers on the panel are constantly weighing the value of trying to gather additional information against the danger that the former president and his allies will bog them down in time-consuming litigation.“We’re playing beat-the-clock here against Trump’s inner coterie,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters this week.The Justice Department’s own inquiries are proceeding in parallel, and a grand jury has convened in Washington to investigate the planning of the pre-riot rallies. But that work is shrouded in mystery, and pressure is growing on Attorney General Merrick Garland to produce results. Federal law enforcement officials have arrested more than 775 people suspected of involvement in the Capitol riot, but they have yet to charge any member of Trump’s inner circle with a crime.As a political matter, Democrats hope the committee’s work will highlight what they say is the extremism of House Republicans, anchoring them to Trump. And though voters are currently preoccupied with inflation and the war in Ukraine, Democrats expect that a series of upcoming public hearings and reports about Jan. 6 will put Republicans’ anti-democratic behavior on display for the American people to judge.“It’s going to be an enormous exclamation point on the fact that House Republicans are dangerous,” said Simon Rosenberg, the president of NDN, a center-left think tank.Republican Party leaders counter that the panel is seeking to criminalize “legitimate political discourse,” and have censured its two Republican members for their involvement in the Jan. 6 inquiry. This week, a lobbyist close to Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, took the extraordinary step of hosting a fund-raising event for Cheney’s primary opponent, and more than 50 House Republicans attended the gathering.But, ultimately, the Jan. 6 committee will be judged by whether Americans view its findings as authoritative, fair and comprehensible, said Garrett Graff, the author of a new history of the Watergate scandal. Recalling the disappointment many Democrats felt upon the unveiling of Robert Mueller’s spare, legalistic account of the dealings between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, Graff said it was important for lawmakers to grab the public’s attention with a compelling narrative of the Jan. 6 events.“Congress can assign moral blame and moral responsibility in a way that Mueller couldn’t and Garland can’t,” Graff said. “I think it’s possible that the Jan. 6 committee can surprise us.”Members of the Jan. 6 committee have treaded carefully in trying to interview Trump allies.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWhere will the investigation go next?To try to make some sense of it all, we spoke with Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The Times who has been covering the investigation for months. Our conversation, edited lightly for length and clarity:There’s been a constant dribble of news about the House investigation. Where would you say the inquiry stands? Is it in the final stages?I would say it’s in the third quarter, to use a sports metaphor. The committee has interviewed 800 witnesses, which is a ton, but there are probably at least 100 more people they’d like to talk to and some witnesses they want to re-interview.And the people they haven’t met with include some of the most important: Mike Pence, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and Ivanka Trump.The committee is still shooting for public hearings in May, though I would not be surprised if those get pushed back again.You wrote this week about the hourslong gap in the records of Trump’s phone calls on the day of Jan. 6. Why are investigators so interested in that?The committee is highly interested in Trump’s activities the day of the Capitol riot, especially what he was doing for the 187 minutes during which he delayed making any statement to call off the violence. The committee has argued that his lack of action makes him culpable for the violence and sheds light into his mind-set.But the call logs are blank for the duration of the riot, so that presents a challenge for investigators as they try to determine exactly whom Trump was talking to during that pivotal time.This week, the panel heard from Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law. What’s the holdup with the others you mentioned: Pence, Giuliani and Ivanka Trump?Each case is different, but each witness has been engaged in negotiations with the committee. Two of Pence’s top aides have already testified, causing his team to argue, according to what I’m told, that they have supplied the committee with plenty of testimony that alleviates the need for the former vice president to appear. Giuliani has made clear that he does not intend to provide information against Trump, but he is considering providing information about his dealings with members of Congress, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Ivanka Trump is also negotiating. Each of these is a sensitive dance, in which the committee wants to get information out of the witness without threatening him or her in a way that could lead to a contempt of Congress charge but no information.Our colleagues wrote that Attorney General Merrick Garland is under “growing political pressure” to move more aggressively with the Justice Department’s criminal inquiry. Is that a complaint you hear from House members, too?Yes, constantly — particularly with regard to the criminal contempt of Congress referral against Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff. Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, has encouraged Garland to move “with alacrity” against Meadows. And Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, made this statement this week: “Attorney General Garland, do your job so that we can do ours.”That said, there are signs the Justice Department investigation has entered a new phase. A grand jury in Washington has recently issued subpoenas (one of which we were able to review) that seek information about people “classified as V.I.P. attendees” at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and about members of the executive and legislative branches who were involved in the “planning or execution” of any attempt to delay the certification of the 2020 election.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Justice Dept. Widens Jan. 6 Inquiry to More Pro-Trump Figures

      by

      Federal prosecutors have been seeking documents and testimony about the fake electors scheme and the planning for the rally just before the storming of the Capitol.Federal prosecutors have substantially widened their Jan. 6 investigation to examine the possible culpability of a broad range of figures involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, people familiar with the inquiry said on Wednesday.The investigation now encompasses the possible involvement of other government officials in Mr. Trump’s attempts to obstruct the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory and the push by some Trump allies to promote slates of fake electors, they said.Prosecutors are also asking about planning for the rallies that preceded the assault on the Capitol, including the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 of last year, just before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.The federal investigation initially focused largely on the rioters who had entered the Capitol, an effort that has led to more than 700 arrests. But the Justice Department appears to have moved into a new phase, seeking information about people more closely tied to Mr. Trump. This development comes amid growing political pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to move more aggressively on the case.A grand jury sitting in Washington is investigating the rallies that preceded the storming of the Capitol, a person familiar with the matter said.One of the subpoenas, which was reviewed by The New York Times, sought information about people “classified as VIP attendees” at Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.It also sought information about members of the executive and legislative branches who had been involved in the “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 election.And it asked about the effort by Trump supporters to put forward alternate slates of electors as Mr. Trump and his allies were seeking to challenge the certification of the Electoral College outcome by Congress on Jan. 6.Another person briefed on the grand jury investigation said at least one person involved in the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally had been asked to appear.In pursuing Jan. 6 cases, prosecutors have been assembling evidence documenting how defendants have cited statements from Mr. Trump to explain why they stormed the Capitol. And prosecutors have cited in some cases a Twitter post from Mr. Trump weeks before Jan. 6 exhorting his followers to come to Washington, a call that motivated extremist groups in particular.The expanded criminal inquiry is unfolding as a separate investigation by the House select committee on the Capitol riot is gathering evidence about Mr. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power and weighing the possibility of making a criminal referral of Mr. Trump to the Justice Department.On Monday, a federal judge in California, in a civil case involving the House committee, concluded that Mr. Trump likely engaged in criminal conduct, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.Mr. Garland has given little public indication of whether the Justice Department would consider prosecuting Mr. Trump, saying only that the department will follow the facts wherever they lead.But the expanded inquiry, elements of which were reported earlier by the Washington Post, suggests that prosecutors are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. Those include any connections between the attack on the Capitol and the organizers and prominent participants in the rally on the Ellipse, and potential criminality in the promotion of pro-Trump slates of electors to replace slates named by states won by Mr. Biden.The Justice Department previously said it was looking into the slates of electors that had falsely declared Mr. Trump the victor in seven swing states won by Mr. Biden.Even as election officials in the seven contested states sent official lists of electors who had voted for Mr. Biden to the Electoral College, the fake slates claimed Mr. Trump was the winner in an apparent bid to subvert the election outcome.Lawmakers, state officials and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had asked the Justice Department to look into the role played by those fake electors and the documents they submitted to the National Archives on Dec. 14, 2020. The grand jury subpoenas suggest that prosecutors are seeking to gather evidence of whether submitting the documents to a federal agency amounted to a crime.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Jan. 6 call logs. More