Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      10 Republicans Voted to Impeach Trump. What's Become of Them?

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      Ten House Republicans voted to charge President Donald J. Trump with inciting the Capitol attack. All of them are still struggling with the consequences.WASHINGTON — The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump did so with the same conviction — that a president of their party deserved to be charged with inciting insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — and the same hope — that his role in doing so would finally persuade the G.O.P. to repudiate him.But in the year since the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries, none of the 10 lawmakers have been able to avoid the consequences of a fundamental miscalculation about the direction of their party. The former president is very much the leader of the Republicans, and it is those who stood against him whom the party has thrust into the role of pariah.Since they cast their impeachment votes on Jan. 13, Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have announced their retirements amid death threats from voters and hostility from colleagues. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has gone from a star in the House Republican leadership to an exiled party gadfly and truth teller.Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan have Trump-endorsed primary challengers on their heels and uncertain political futures. Four others — John Katko of New York, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California — have gone to ground, silent if not silenced, in the apparent hope that the entire episode will be forgotten.The fate of the 10 over the past year has offered a bracing reality check about the nature of today’s Republican Party, one that has fully embraced the lie of a stolen election and its main purveyor, and sidelined the few remaining members who have dared to publicly question Mr. Trump or his actions.“There’s been this waiting game and an arbitrage between an individual’s political future and the trajectory of that guy, assuming the apex has passed,” Mr. Meijer said in a lengthy interview, referring to Mr. Trump. “The view among some was that this would be essentially a self-correcting issue,” and that Mr. Trump’s power would fade.“I think that’s proven overly optimistic,” Mr. Meijer added.The 10 could be forgiven for believing that their votes last January would not leave them so exposed. In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, some of Mr. Trump’s most stalwart allies quit the government in disgust. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, voted against impeachment but declared, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, orchestrated Mr. Trump’s acquittal after a hasty Senate impeachment trial. But he had let it be known that he considered the president culpable, and said as much in a scathing speech afterward: “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”But the rhetorical cover fire proved as ephemeral as it was useless. Mr. Gonzalez, deluged with threats and fearing for the safety of his wife and children, announced in September that he would not seek re-election — and called Mr. Trump “a cancer for the country.”After receiving threats, Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio announced in September that he would not seek re-election.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesA Cuban American who starred as a wide receiver at Ohio State, Mr. Gonzalez had been considered the kind of politician who would ensure the Republican Party’s future in a multiethnic, multiracial country after his election in 2018. But he found little support from the party that recruited him into politics once Mr. Trump endorsed a primary challenger and the threats began.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?Mr. Kinzinger, who announced his retirement in October, has faced similar threats. But he has turned his opposition to Mr. Trump into a capstone of his career, defying Republican leaders to join the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, laying into Mr. Trump and his defenders at every opportunity, and promising not to leave the political stage once his House career ends this year.“The 2020 election was not stolen,” Mr. Kinzinger said in a lengthy video message on Wednesday for the anniversary of Jan. 6. “Joe Biden won, and Donald Trump lost. We have to admit it. But the leadership of the Republican Party won’t. They lied to the American people and continue to push the big lie and echo the conspiracy theories that line their pockets, keeping them in power.”Mr. Upton has never been one for flash, yet his future is no more secure, despite 35 years in the House. He could face Steve Carra, a state representative endorsed by Mr. Trump, who would have to move homes to mount a primary challenge against Mr. Upton because of new congressional maps drafted by a bipartisan commission.“I’m 100 percent running for Congress, it’s an honor to have President Trump’s endorsement, and Fred Upton will not be a congressman in 2023,” Mr. Carra said in a text message.Even if Mr. Upton does not have to face Mr. Carra, his impeachment vote has placed him at risk. The new map pushed Mr. Upton into the same district as Bill Huizenga, a more conservative congressman who voted against impeachment.Under the circumstances, Mr. Upton is showing clear signs of fatigue.“You’ve got metal detectors now going on the House floor. We get really nasty threats at home. The tone gets, you know, tougher and tougher, and it’s a pretty toxic place,” he said last month on CNN. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”None of the 10 have fallen so far in the Republican firmament as Ms. Cheney, nor risen so high in the esteem of many in both parties who fear and loathe Mr. Trump. The daughter of a former vice president who was once the embodiment of confrontational conservatism, for better or worse, Ms. Cheney started 2021 as the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, a political knife fighter believed by many to be destined for the speakership.Her vote to impeach, and her outspoken denunciations of the lie — pushed by Mr. Trump and embraced by many of her colleagues — that the 2020 election was “stolen,” cost her dearly. She was ousted from her leadership post, ejected from the Wyoming Republican Party and targeted repeatedly by the former president, who has tried to unite Wyoming voters around the primary opponent he has endorsed, Harriet Hageman.Ms. Cheney has soldiered on, becoming the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the riot, the face of Republican resistance to Trumpism and a one-woman wrecking crew for Mr. McCarthy’s ambitions to become speaker next year if the party retakes control of the House.Looking back, Ms. Cheney said in an interview that her fall from Republican leadership was inevitable as long as she had to share the stage with Mr. McCarthy, whose brief denunciation of Mr. Trump after Jan. 6 quickly gave way to a resumption of fealty.“It was increasingly clear that staying as conference chair was going to require me to perpetuate the lie about the election,” Ms. Cheney said. “I was simply not willing to look the other way and accept what he did.”Mr. McCarthy, by contrast, visited Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla, near the end of January, making it “pretty clear the path that he had chosen,” Ms. Cheney added. “It was one that was not faithful to the Constitution.”Never one to let bygones be bygones, Mr. Trump has relentlessly pursued retribution against those who voted to impeach him.In September, he endorsed a square-jawed, Army Special Forces veteran, Joe Kent, to challenge Ms. Herrera Beutler, who before her vote had revealed one of the most damning vignettes of Jan. 6 for Mr. Trump. She recounted a phone call in which Mr. McCarthy had personally pleaded with the president to call off the rioters during the assault. Mr. Trump had responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      A Year After Jan. 6: ‘Democracy Is at Risk’

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      Readers worry about the future of our Republic.To the Editor:Re “Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now” (editorial, Jan. 2):We are very close to losing our Republic. I know we are tired after the last few years, but we have had a year to lick our wounds and we must rise up and push back on the Big Lie and hold all of the people who propagated this lie accountable. Period.We are past the “when they go low, we go high” point. The majority of us know that Donald Trump attempted a coup. Where is the Democratic Party with good countermessaging? We need to play the Republicans’ game — harsh, quick and now.We need to brand ourselves the Patriot Party and take away that claim from them. We need to point out through advertisements, billboards, etc., that the acts of Mr. Trump and the Republicans who supported him were seditious. We need to bring all of our advocacy groups together, put aside our causes for now and unite to save our country.A plea for my fellow patriots to write to their representatives, push back on misinformation, use billboards and advertisements, and reach out to notable people and news sources to roar.Susan M. McDonnellFort Pierce, Fla.To the Editor:Although The Times may be ringing in the new year with an alarm bell warning of the ongoing threat that the “stop the steal” movement poses to our democracy, I fear that President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland intend to lower the decibels.Regardless of how important the congressional investigation may be, Donald Trump and his supporters have exploited the weaknesses in Congress’s investigative process and powers. A congressional report may preserve facts for posterity but will change nothing. Only a criminal grand jury investigation can ferret out the truth and demand accountability by issuing criminal indictments.I believe that the president and his attorney general are concerned about the inevitable accusations of political prosecution, the cycle of recriminations such proceedings might ignite, and energizing a Trump movement fueled by grievance and reveling in victimhood. Maybe they presume the powers of normality will prevail to fend off future assaults on our electoral process, just as they had in 2020.Which strategy is the best is currently a matter of debate. What is certain is that in short order we will learn whether Ben Franklin was right to worry about whether we can keep our Republic.Asher FriedCroton-on-Hudson, N.Y.To the Editor:“Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now” evinces the paternalistic mentality that is likely to result in the Democrats facing a wipeout in the November 2022 elections. The evident panic in the editorial reflects the realization that Republicans are poised to retake the House this year. Why are Democrats polling so poorly? Perhaps it is because a dogmatic ideology that sees political opposition as a threat to be suppressed, surveilled, hounded or outlawed is itself a direct threat to our democracy.Political pluralism is a central tenet of our democracy and must be protected from both the reckless zeal of the mob and the self-righteous zeal of the elites. Ultimately, the American people are the caretakers of our democracy, having never failed to fulfill that obligation.Barry ZimanAlexandria, Va.To the Editor:I agree completely with your editorial. Unfortunately, our citizens are in denial. What you describe is terrifying, but denial is even more terrifying. Democracy is at risk, and the filibuster and the courts are collaborating against the will of the people. Without taking drastic measures, the majority will be ruled by the minority for years to come, by a party that denies truth to retain power.The House committee investigating Jan. 6 might be our last hope to save democracy. We need the public to hear the truth.Linda GravellWaterbury Center, Vt.To the Editor:You correctly observe that Democrats and the American public in general are “underestimating the threat facing the country.” Our democratic government remains in peril, as swing states enact laws that permit postelection nullification.Prosecutors and judges who face the insurrectionists in court are also showing a lack of appreciation of the seriousness of Jan. 6 and its ongoing threat to our democracy.Why are convicted rioters (even those who physically assaulted police officers defending the Capitol) getting off with no prison sentences or only three to five years? Why are so many of the Capitol attackers being charged with misdemeanors (such as trespassing or destruction of federal property) rather than with felonies up to and including insurrection and sedition?L. Michael HagerEastham, Mass.The writer is co-founder and former director general of the International Development Law Organization in Rome.To the Editor:You cite President Benjamin Harrison’s belief that the Constitution guarantees to all Americans a republican form of government. He added that “the essential features of such a government are the right of the people to choose their own officers” and to have their votes counted equally in making that choice.It is slightly ironic, however, that Harrison was elected president (in 1888) despite losing the popular vote.Donald IslerIrvington, N.Y.To the Editor:On the basis of information gathered so far by the congressional Jan. 6 committee, one can stipulate that not only did President Donald Trump, while in office, cry “Fire!” when there was no fire (i.e., the Big Lie about a stolen election), but he also did not cry “Fire!” when one was raging — for 187 minutes of presidential dereliction of duty on Jan. 6.Manfred WeidhornFair Lawn, N.J. More

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      Why Republicans Keep Falling for Trump’s Lies

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      When called upon to believe that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya, millions got in line. When encouraged to believe that the 2012 Sandy Hook murder of twenty children and six adults was a hoax, too many stepped up. When urged to believe that Hillary Clinton was trafficking children in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor with no basement, they bought it, and one of them showed up in the pizza place with a rifle to protect the kids. The fictions fed the frenzies, and the frenzies shaped the crises of 2020 and 2021. The delusions are legion: Secret Democratic cabals of child abusers, millions of undocumented voters, falsehoods about the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccine.While much has been said about the moral and political stance of people who support right-wing conspiracy theories, their gullibility is itself alarming. Gullibility means malleability and manipulability. We don’t know if the people who believed the prevailing 2012 conspiracy theories believed the 2016 or 2020 versions, but we do know that a swath of the conservative population is available for the next delusion and the one after that. And on Jan. 6, 2021, we saw that a lot of them were willing to act on those beliefs.The adjective gullible comes from the verb to gull, which used to mean to cram yourself with something as well as to cheat or dupe, to cram someone else full of fictions. “Not doubting I could gull the Government,” wrote Daniel Defoe in 1701, and Hannah Arendt used the word gullible repeatedly in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951. “A mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements, and the higher the rank the more cynicism weighs down gullibility,” she wrote. That is, among those gulling the public, cynicism is a stronger force; among those being gulled, gullibility is, but the two are not so separate as they might seem.Distinctions between believable and unbelievable, true and false, are not relevant for people who have found that taking up outrageous and disprovable ideas is instead an admission ticket to a community or an identity. Without the yoke of truthfulness around their necks, they can choose beliefs that flatter their worldview or justify their aggression. I sometimes think of this straying into fiction as a kind of libertarianism run amok — we used to say “you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” Too many Americans now feel entitled to their own facts. In this too-free marketplace of ideas, they can select or reject ideas, facts or histories to match their goals, because meaning has become transactional.But gullibility means you believe something because someone else wants you to. You’re buying what they’re selling. It’s often said that the joiners of cults and subscribers to delusions are driven by their hatred of elites. But in the present situation, the snake oil salesmen are not just Alex Jones, QAnon’s master manipulators and evangelical hucksters. They are senators, powerful white Christian men, prominent media figures, billionaires and their foundations, even a president. (Maybe the belief that these figures are not an elite is itself a noteworthy delusion.)It’s true that these leading lights of the right often portray themselves as embattled outsiders. But they’re not; they’re the status quo gone rogue. They are still powerful, still insiders, but something even more potent is changing — you could call it the zeitgeist or the arc of justice or historical momentum or just demographic reality. The world is moving on; those who’d rather it stand still are eager to push narratives depicting these shifts as degeneration and white Christian heterosexual America as profoundly imperiled.A lot of conspiracy theories are organic or at least emerge from true believers on the margins when it comes to topics like extraterrestrials, but those at the top of conservative America have preached falsehoods that further the interest of elites, and those at the bottom have embraced them devoutly. Though when we talk about cults and conspiracies we usually look to more outlandish beliefs, climate denial and gun obsessions both fit this template.Both originated as industry agendas that were then embraced by both right-wing politicians and the right-leaning public. For decades, the fossil fuel industry pumped out ads and reports, and supported lobbyists and front groups misleading the public on the science and import of climate change. The current gun cult is likewise the result of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry pushing battlefield-style weapons and a new white male identity — more paramilitary than rural hunter — along with fear, rage and racist dog whistles. I think of it as a cult, because guns serve first as totems of identity and belonging, and because the beliefs seem counterfactual about guns as sources of safety rather than danger when roughly 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides and self-defense by gun is a surpassingly rare phenomenon.Right-wing political fictions have a long history, from Joe McCarthy’s bluffs about communists in the government to the United Nations’ black helicopters of 1990s paranoia to an endless stream of stories portraying immigrants, Jews, Muslims, gay men then and trans people now as sinister threats. The digital age and then the pandemic caused many of us to withdraw further from contact with people unlike ourselves, and pundits and social media offered those “others” back as phantasms and gargoyles leering at us through the filters.We all have confirmation biases, and of course leftists and moderates have also entertained delusions and paranoia — about extraterrestrials, vaccines and political assassinations, for instance. But mainstream figures in the center and the left are not pushing radically counterfactual stuff akin to the conservative lies about Covid-19, let alone trying to instigate or whitewash the kind of violence we saw on Jan. 6. Democrats operate on the basis of reasonably factual premises and usually accept the authority of science, law and history, while Republicans uninhibitedly push whatever’s most convenient for their goals and incendiary for their base. More

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      American Democracy: A Status Check

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      Just how much trouble is American democracy in? When we look to 2024, it’s easy to focus on the doomsday scenario: an election where legitimate results get thrown out. But our democracy has been eroding for years — and we’ve never been an equal democracy for everyone in the first place.[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Host Jane Coaston discusses the state of the U.S. democracy and whether Jan. 6 was a turning point with Masha Gessen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and Corey Robin, a political scientist at Brooklyn College.Mentioned in this episode:“We Won’t Know the Exact Moment When Democracy Dies” by Masha Gessen“By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting An Autocratic Breakthrough” with the interview with Bálint Magyar, by Masha Gessen“The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes” by Bálint Magyar“Trump and the Trapped Country” by Corey Robin(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThoughts? Email us at argument@nytimes.com or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha, and edited by Anabel Bacon and Alison Bruzek; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; engineering by Carole Sabouraud; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin. More

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      Prosecutors Move Quickly on Jan. 6 Cases, but Big Questions Remain

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      In the year since the assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, more than 700 people have been arrested, with little public indication from the Justice Department of how high the investigation might reach.By almost any measure, the criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is a prosecutorial effort of unparalleled complexity and scope.For an entire year, federal agents in almost every state have been poring over mounting stacks of tipster reports, interviews with witnesses, public social media posts and private messages obtained by warrants. They have also collected nearly 14,000 hours of video — from media outlets, surveillance cameras and police-worn body cameras — enough raw footage that it would take a year and a half of around-the-clock viewing to get through it.While the Justice Department has called the inquiry one of the largest in its history, traditional law enforcement officials have not been acting alone. Working with information from online sleuths who style themselves as “Sedition Hunters,” the authorities have made more than 700 arrests — with little sign of slowing down.The government estimates that as many as 2,500 people who took part in the events of Jan. 6 could be charged with federal crimes. That includes more than 1,000 incidents that prosecutors believe could be assaults.As of this week, more than 225 people have been accused of attacking or interfering with the police that day. About 275 have been charged with what the government describes as the chief political crime on Jan. 6: obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the 2020 presidential vote count. A little over 300 people have been charged with petty crimes alone, mostly trespassing and disorderly conduct.But a big question hangs over the prosecutions: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?So far, the department has provided no public indication of the degree to which it might be pursuing a case against former President Donald J. Trump and the circle of his allies who helped inspire the chaos with their baseless claims of election fraud. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is scheduled to give a speech on Wednesday, one day before the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, but is not expected to provide any signals about the direction of the department’s investigation. A spokeswoman said he would not address any specific cases or individuals.On Capitol Hill, the House select committee on Jan. 6 is interviewing witnesses and has issued subpoenas to a number of high-profile figures allied with Mr. Trump. And with Mr. Garland and the Justice Department remaining mum about their intentions, members of the committee have signaled a willingness to exert pressure on the department, saying they would consider making criminal referrals if their investigation turns up evidence that could support a prosecution against Mr. Trump or others.Even the prosecutions of those who rioted at the Capitol have presented an array of moral and legal challenges that have bedeviled judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers.Overworked courts have tried to balance the laborious exchange of discovery materials with speedy trial protections and to manage the bleak conditions at Washington’s local jails where some defendants are being held without bail. They have also faced a fundamental, underlying tension: how to mete out justice on an individual level to hundreds of defendants who together helped form a violent mob.Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, was sentenced to 41 months.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPleas and SentencesWith rare speed for a large-scale prosecution, more than 160 people — or slightly more than 20 percent of all who have been charged — have pleaded guilty at this point. Of those, not quite half have already been sentenced.A few weeks ago, Robert Palmer, a Florida man who hurled a fire extinguisher at police officers, was sentenced to more than five years in prison, the longest term handed down so far. In November, one of the most familiar figures in the attack — Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who breached the Senate floor in a horned helmet with a fur draped over his shoulders — was sentenced to 41 months, a term he is appealing.Beneath the headlines, however, there has been a steady stream of penalties for lower-profile defendants: bricklayers, grandmothers, college students, artists, church leaders and long-haul truckers who, by and large, have admitted to little more than illegally entering the Capitol.Many, if not most, have avoided incarceration, sentenced to probation or stints of home confinement. Others have received only modest sentences, ranging from a few weeks to a few months.In court, those accused of minor crimes have almost always expressed remorse, saying their behavior was foolish, embarrassing or out of character. Some have broken into tears or, in one case, physically collapsed. Others have vowed never to attend a political rally again.Federal judges have taken slightly different positions on how to punish the defendants. Judge Trevor N. McFadden, appointed by Mr. Trump, often prefaces his sentences by calling the events that day “a national embarrassment” — though he has frequently declined to jail petty offenders. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, has often given sentences higher than those requested by the government. Her go-to phrase: “There must be consequences.”Judge Amit P. Mehta told John Lolos, a defendant clearly steeped in election fraud conspiracies, that not only had he been lied to, but those who had done the lying were not “paying the consequences.”“Those who orchestrated Jan. 6 have in no meaningful sense been held accountable,” said Judge Mehta, another Obama appointee. “In a sense, Mr. Lolos, I think you are a pawn.”Prosecutors are using an unusual law to charge many of the rioters: the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.Pool photo by Erin SchaffLegal ChallengesFrom the start, prosecutors faced a unique legal problem: Never before had members of Congress been forced from the House and Senate floors while finalizing the transition of presidential power. What law should be used to charge this crime?The government settled on an unusual obstruction law — the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress. It brought the charge against scores of people believed to have disrupted the democratic process, often alongside more traditional counts of trespassing, vandalism and assault.The obstruction law, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, had a few advantages. First, it allowed the authorities to avoid deploying more politically fraught — and harder-to-prove — counts like sedition or insurrection.It also permitted prosecutors to home in on the specific behavior of defendants and judge how much their actions contributed to the chaos that day. If someone went deep into the Capitol, say, or took some other action that helped to chase officials from their duties, chances are they have been charged with an obstruction count.But many defense lawyers have claimed the law was wrongly used.Passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to clamp down on corporate malfeasance, the measure was initially intended to prohibit things like shredding documents or tampering with witnesses in congressional inquiries. Defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors have stretched the law beyond its scope and used it to criminalize behavior that too closely resembles ordinary protest protected by the First Amendment.In the past few weeks, however, five federal judges have ruled that the law is valid, and it now seems certain it will be permitted in scores of Jan. 6 prosecutions, including some that will soon go to trial.More than 160 people have pleaded guilty so far to charges stemming from the riot. The first trials are scheduled to begin in February.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTrials to Begin SoonThe earliest Capitol riot trials are scheduled to begin next month. When the proceedings start, jurors will most likely get a glimpse of how the government believes members of the mob worked together.The first trial, set to begin on Feb. 24, will focus on Robert Gieswein of Colorado, a self-proclaimed militiaman charged with assaulting officers with a chemical spray.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      Sean Hannity Is Asked to Cooperate in Jan. 6 Inquiry as Panel Details Texts

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      The committee told Mr. Hannity it had obtained “dozens of text messages” he exchanged with senior Trump White House officials around the time of the riot.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has requested that Sean Hannity, the star Fox News host, respond to questions about his communications with former President Donald J. Trump and his staff in the days surrounding the riot.In a letter on Tuesday, the committee asked for Mr. Hannity’s voluntary cooperation, meaning that the host has not received a formal subpoena. The letter detailed a series of text messages between the conservative media star and senior officials in the Trump White House, illustrating Mr. Hannity’s unusually elevated role as an outside adviser to the administration.The texts suggest that Mr. Hannity was aware of, and deeply concerned about, what Mr. Trump was planning for Jan. 6, and bracing for a possible mass resignation of top White House lawyers as a result.“We can’t lose the entire WH counsels office,” Mr. Hannity wrote to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in a Dec. 31, 2020, text message that the committee included in its letter. “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.”They also indicate that the Fox News host, a longtime confidant of the former president, had knowledge of a flurry of high-level conversations at the White House, involving Mr. Trump himself, about leaning on Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role in Congress’s official electoral count to keep Mr. Trump in office.“Pence pressure,” Mr. Hannity wrote in a Jan. 5 message. “WH counsel will leave.”The texts were included in a trove of 9,000 pages of documents Mr. Meadows turned over to the panel in response to a subpoena.As Mr. Trump grappled with the political fallout of the attack — including a looming impeachment inquiry and rebukes from some top Republicans — Mr. Hannity wrote on Jan. 10 to Mr. Meadows and Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and a key ally. “He can’t mention the election again. Ever,” Mr. Hannity said in the message, referring to Mr. Trump. “I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?”A lawyer for Mr. Hannity, Jay Sekulow, said on Tuesday that the committee’s request “would raise serious constitutional issues including First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of the press.” Fox News referred inquiries to Mr. Sekulow’s statement.The letter from the committee informed Mr. Hannity that it believed the Fox News host “had advance knowledge regarding President Trump’s and his legal team’s planning for Jan. 6,” calling him “a fact witness in our investigation.” The committee wrote that it had obtained “dozens of text messages” between Mr. Hannity and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including a note on Jan. 5 in which Mr. Hannity expressed concern about the next day’s counting of Electoral College votes.“I’m very worried about the next 48 hours,” Mr. Hannity wrote.Mr. Hannity was one of several Fox News stars who became informal confidants to Mr. Trump over the course of his administration, frequently conversing with the president by telephone and over meals in the White House.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      How Trump Kept Control of the G.O.P. After Jan. 6

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      Only weeks after instigating the Capitol riot, Donald Trump was back in command of the Republican Party.Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the political news in Washington and across the nation. We’re your hosts, Blake and Leah. Today, we have a guest item from our colleague Jeremy W. Peters, adapted from his forthcoming book, “Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.” It will be published on Feb. 8.‘But the people like me the best, by far’Six weeks after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Donald Trump’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, conducted a survey of Republicans that looked at how well liked the former president was among several distinct groups of voters within the party.It was the first time Fabrizio had done a detailed breakdown of the G.O.P. electorate since 2007, when he identified an emerging segment he called “Dennis Miller Republicans,” after the comedian who prides himself on being brash and politically incorrect. The growing sense of cultural isolation and anger among these Americans — conservatives, independents and former Democrats — shaped the contours of what would become the Trump movement.A veteran G.O.P. pollster who has worked on presidential campaigns going back to Patrick J. Buchanan’s first White House bid in 1992, Fabrizio saw how thoroughly Trump had remade the G.O.P. in his image — and how enduring his popularity remained, even after the attack on the seat of American democracy.The people who described themselves as the most committed Republicans were also the most likely to say they were committed to Trump, Fabrizio found in his post-Jan. 6 survey. Feelings about the former president, he explained in his analysis, were so intertwined with the understanding many voters had about what it meant to be a strong Republican that “Trumpism and party fidelity” were becoming one and the same.Trump hits bottomIn the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, Trump’s enduring appeal was not so apparent. A Pew Research poll taken a few days after the attack showed his approval rating reaching the lowest point of his presidency — just 29 percent. Senior Republicans had spent the previous four years carefully avoiding direct conflict with Trump. Now, they felt a need to denounce him.Kevin McCarthy, the House G.O.P. leader, urged his colleagues to support a resolution to censure Trump for inciting the violence. And in a speech on Jan. 13, the day Trump was impeached for the second time, McCarthy was unambiguous about where he believed the blame fell. “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” he said.Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who on Jan. 6 was hustled out of the Senate chamber by Secret Service agents who were concerned he was a target, was angry enough to fume privately to a Republican senator, “After all the things I’ve done for him.”‘One day in January’The breach didn’t last long. And burying the memory of what happened on Jan. 6 — which Pence downplayed recently as “one day in January” — has become a necessity to maintaining power and relevance in today’s G.O.P.One year after that day in January, polls show that most Republicans see little need to re-examine — or even acknowledge — what happened. Around three-quarters of them still view Trump favorably, or roughly the same as when Fabrizio conducted his poll shortly after Jan. 6. And there is no surer sign that the Republican Party remains the party of Trump than the fact that there remains no obvious or able challenger to him in sight.McCarthy was among the first to change tack, visiting Trump’s Palm Beach estate in late January. After the two men posed for a photo, a Trump spokesperson released a statement announcing that the two men had agreed to work together to reclaim the House majority.“President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time,” the statement noted. McCarthy has since tried to derail the congressional commission investigating the attacks.No remorseNo one seems more intent on proving how damaging it is politically for a Republican to question Trump’s revisionist accounts of what happened in the 2020 election and on Jan. 6 than Trump himself.In an interview at Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after the attack, he suggested that Pence had jeopardized his political future by not heeding his demand to interfere with the counting of the Electoral College votes in Congress that day.“There was no downside,” Trump said. “So Mike could have done that. And I wish he did. I think it would have been much better for the country. I also think it would have been better for Mike.”He expressed little interest in discussing what harm might have befallen Pence, his beseechingly loyal lieutenant of four years, as rioters marauded through the halls of Congress calling for his execution. Their threats weren’t real, he insisted. “I think it was an expression. I don’t think they would have ever thought of doing it,” he said.As Republicans at first tried to dispel the idea that Trump’s dominance over the party would continue once he left office, many of them sounded like Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who said in a television interview a year ago that the G.O.P. belonged to no single person but to its voters — the people.Trump, however, offered a revealing clarification to Scott’s comment: “But the people like me the best, by far.”A former U.S. Capitol Police officer holding his inauguration badge.Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesWhat to read tonightFor The New York Times Magazine, Susan Dominus and Luke Broadwater interviewed more than 20 Capitol Police officers and their families about their emotional and physical scars after the Jan. 6 riot. Officers who have since left the department “said the failures of Jan. 6 were the most egregious of a series of management crises and errors.”Broadwater and Alan Feuer have written a preview of what the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks is planning, and Broadwater explained what the panel can actually accomplish.Pro-Trump groups are raising money and holding events that “seem intended to reinforce the former president’s grip on the Republican Party and its donors,” Kenneth P. Vogel and Shane Goldmacher report.Time is running out for New York’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new congressional and state legislative maps, which makes it increasingly likely that Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature will have the final word instead, Nicholas Fandos writes.The New York Times asked parents about child care during the pandemic, and Maggie Astor shared a handful of responses.reply allWhat you want to knowWe asked what you wanted to read in 2022, and readers of On Politics certainly delivered.Our inbox was full of your questions about voting access and your personal experiences with the pandemic, not to mention requests to learn more about individual political figures and international politics.We’ve bookmarked these ideas for future newsletters, but in the meantime we noted a real sense of anxiety about polarization and the survival of democratic institutions. A few examples below:“How do we fix this? Did folks in 1850 ask the same question? How do you stop a tidal wave? And yet there is still drivers ed and wrestling tournaments and Xmas and college applications and the new iPhone.” — Amy Vansen, Michigan“We’ve lived through a lot of political crises but this is one mess we would hope not to leave behind for our children and grandchildren to deal with.” — Jaime McBrady, Medellín, Colombia“When I read in today’s story ‘just as election season begins in earnest,’ I cursed. I am very tired of hearing everything related to the election prospects of the parties so far ahead of the event.” — Keith Johnson, SeattleOne more thing…Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who lives in Richmond, was among hundreds of drivers stranded in traffic on I-95 after an unusually severe winter storm hit the Washington, D.C. area.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      in Elections

      Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find

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      A new study analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes, showing the extent to which podcasts pushed misinformation about voter fraud.Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck outlined his prediction for how Election Day would unfold: President Donald J. Trump would be winning that night, but his lead would erode as dubious mail-in ballots arrived, giving Joseph R. Biden Jr. an unlikely edge.“No one will believe the outcome because they’ve changed the way we’re electing a president this time,” he said.None of the predictions of widespread voter fraud came true. But podcasters frequently advanced the false belief that the election was illegitimate, first as a trickle before the election and then as a tsunami in the weeks leading up to the violent attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to new research.Researchers at the Brookings Institution reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular political podcasts. Among episodes released between the election and the Jan. 6 riot, about half contained election misinformation, according to the analysis.In some weeks, 60 percent of episodes mentioned the election fraud conspiracy theories tracked by Brookings. Those included false claims that software glitches interfered with the count, that fake ballots were used, and that voting machines run by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged to help Democrats. Those kinds of theories gained currency in Republican circles and would later be leveraged to justify additional election audits across the country.Misinformation Soared After ElectionThe share of podcast episodes per week featuring election misinformation increased sharply after the election.

      Note: Among the most popular political talk show podcasts evaluated by Brookings, using a selection of keywords related to electoral fraud between Aug. 20, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021.Source: The Brookings InstitutionThe New York TimesThe new research underscores the extent to which podcasts have spread misinformation using platforms operated by Apple, Google, Spotify and others, often with little content moderation. While social media companies have been widely criticized for their role in spreading misinformation about the election and Covid-19 vaccines, they have cracked down on both in the last year. Podcasts and the companies distributing them have been spared similar scrutiny, researchers say, in large part because podcasts are harder to analyze and review.“People just have no sense of how bad this problem is on podcasts,” said Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at Brookings who co-wrote the report with Chris Meserole, a director of research at Brookings.Dr. Wirtschafter downloaded and transcribed more than 30,000 podcast episodes deemed “talk shows,” meaning they offered analysis and commentary rather than strictly news updates. Focusing on 1,490 episodes around the election from 20 popular shows, she created a dictionary of terms about election fraud. After transcribing the podcasts, a team of researchers searched for the keywords and manually checked each mention to determine if the speaker was supporting or denouncing the claims.In the months leading up to the election, conservative podcasters focused mostly on the fear that mail-in ballots could lead to fraud, the analysis showed.At the time, political analysts were busy warning of a “red mirage”: an early lead by Mr. Trump that could erode because mail-in ballots, which tend to get counted later, were expected to come from Democratic-leaning districts. As ballots were counted, that is precisely what happened. But podcasters used the changing fortunes to raise doubts about the election’s integrity.Election misinformation shot upward, with about 52 percent of episodes containing misinformation in the weeks after the election, up from about 6 percent of episodes before the election.The biggest offender in Brookings’s analysis was Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser. His podcast, “Bannon’s War Room,” was flagged 115 times for episodes using voter fraud terms included in Brookings’ analysis between the election and Jan. 6.“You know why they’re going to steal this election?” Mr. Bannon asked on Nov. 3. “Because they don’t think you’re going to do anything about it.”As the Jan. 6 protest drew closer, his podcast pushed harder on those claims, including the false belief that poll workers handed out markers that would disqualify ballots.“Now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack,” Mr. Bannon said the day before the protest. “The point of attack tomorrow. It’s going to kick off. It’s going to be very dramatic.”Mr. Bannon’s show was removed from Spotify in November 2020 after he discussed beheading federal officials, but it remains available on Apple and Google.When reached for comment on Monday, Mr. Bannon said that President Biden was “an illegitimate occupant of the White House” and referenced investigations into the election that show they “are decertifying his electors.” Many legal experts have argued there is no way to decertify the election.Election Misinformation by PodcastThe podcast by Stephen K. Bannon was flagged for election misinformation more than other podcasts tracked by the Brookings Institution.

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      Episodes sharing electoral misinformation
      Note: Among the most popular political talk show podcasts evaluated by Brookings, using a selection of keywords related to electoral fraud between Aug. 20, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021.Source: Brookings InstitutionBy The New York TimesSean Hannity, the Fox News anchor, also ranked highly in the Brookings data. His podcast and radio program, “The Sean Hannity Show,” is now the most popular radio talk show in America, reaching upward of 15 million radio listeners, according to Talk Media.“Underage people voting, people that moved voting, people that never re-registered voting, dead people voting — we have it all chronicled,” Mr. Hannity said during one episode.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More