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      Trump’s possible ties to far right militias examined by January 6 committee

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      Trump’s possible ties to far right militias examined by January 6 committee Capitol attack panel expected to study links between Trump and the extremist groups in closer detail at seventh public hearingTowards the end of her testimony to the House January 6 select committee, former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson raised for the first time the prospect that Donald Trump might have had a line of communication to the leaders of the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol.The potential connection from the former US president to the extremist right-wing groups came through her account of Trump’s order to his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to call Roger Stone and Mike Flynn – which Meadows did – the evening before the Capitol attack.Trump’s order to Meadows, even though Hutchinson said she did not know what was discussed, is significant because it shows the former president seeking to have a channel to two figures with close ties to the leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups.The directive is doubly notable since it was Trump himself who initiated the outreach to Stone and Flynn, suggesting it was not an instance of far-right political operatives freelancing, for instance, potential strategies to overturn the 2020 election results.All of this is important because unresolved questions for January 6 investigators remain whether Trump knew that Proud Boys and Oath Keepers would storm the Capitol, and whether Trump was in contact with their leaders who have since been indicted for seditious conspiracy.The sworn testimony from Hutchinson about Trump’s order to Meadows raised the spectre that Trump wanted to learn what plans had been drawn up for the extremist groups regarding January 6 and wanted his aide – rather than doing it himself – to connect with Stone and Flynn.Now next Tuesday, at its seventh public hearing led by congressman Jamie Raskin, the select committee is expected to examine the connections between Trump and the extremist groups in closer detail, according to a source familiar with the investigation. There seems to be a lot to go after.The account of Trump’s order was not the only link from the White House to the extremist groups. Hutchinson also testified that she recalled hearing the terms “Oath Keepers” and “Proud Boys” whenever former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was around at the White House.The Trump “war room” that Hutchinson referred to in her testimony appears to have been the one set up by Giuliani and Eastman, and staffed by other pro-Trump figures including lawyer Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, and Giuliani’s aide Bernie Kerik.That “war room” had specific goals: to help pressure then vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s election win and send it to the House of Representatives in a contingent election, or failing that, delay the joint session beyond 6 January 2021.While Stone also had a mid-size suite at the Willard hotel on 5 January and 6 January, it was a different room that was totally separate to the “war room” put together by Giuliani and Eastman. Flynn was also briefly at the Willard, but again, did not lead the “war room”.By the evening before the Capitol attack, Trump knew that Pence was resisting that plan to unilaterally reject Biden’s election win and that Pence was unlikely to do anything to stop the certification – what Trump thought was the only way left to somehow get a second term.It was against that backdrop, Hutchinson testified, that Trump wanted Meadows to call Stone and Flynn, a directive that the panel believes could amount to him trying to figure out if any other avenues remained to stop Biden’s certification, say sources close to the inquiry.The select committee, the sources said, is for the same reason also examining whether Meadows initially expressed an interest in going to the Trump “war room” at the Willard the night before the Capitol attack before being talked out of the idea by Hutchinson.Stone and FlynnStone has repeatedly denied he had anything to do with the Capitol attack, but he would have been a natural choice for Trump to try to reach on 5 January 2021 had he sought to get a sense of what extremist groups might have been planning for the next morning.The far-right political operative based in Florida, for instance, had close ties to the Proud Boys and its ex-national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who lived in Miami before his arrest for seditious conspiracy, well before Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden.When Stone travelled to Washington DC before 6 January 2021, he was accompanied by a man named Jacob Engels, a member of the Proud Boys from Florida who served as something of a lieutenant for him on the day before and the day of the Capitol attack.Through Engels in particular, Stone appeared to maintain his ties to the Proud Boys, even though during his stay at the Willard hotel on those two days, it was a small group of the Oath Keepers who acted as his personal security detail, pictures and court records show.The people that guarded Stone included Joshua James, an Oath Keepers member indicted for seditious conspiracy and is cooperating with the government, and Michael Simmons, codenamed “Whip”, who served as the “operations leader” for the Oath Keepers for January 6.Meanwhile, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn would have been another natural choice for the former president to try and reach in order to learn what extremist groups interested in stopping Joe Biden’s election win certification might be planning.Flynn was also connected to the Oath Keepers through his own security detail called the 1st Amendment Praetorian, after the two groups guarded him as early as 12 December 2020, when Flynn took part in a Women for America First-affiliated march and rally.The 1st Amendment Praetorian, though, appeared to serve both a security function and an intelligence-gathering function for Flynn – a former director for the Defense Intelligence Agency – according to multiple people who worked directly with the group.Flynn’s operatives were involved in election fraud conspiracies from the outset, 1AP’s leader Robert Patrick Lewis and others have said, including working to gather intelligence about the claims cited in lawsuits filed by former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell.The members of the 1st Amendment Praetorian do not appear to have stormed the Capitol like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, but at least one of its operatives, Geoffrey Flohr, circled the Capitol as the attack was underway talking covertly with an earpiece.While Flohr walked around the Capitol seemingly relaying information, another member of the 1st Amendment Praetorian, Philip Luelsdorff, was observing proceedings in the Trump “war room” led by Giuliani and then Trump lawyer John Eastman at the Willard hotel.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsDonald TrumpThe far rightanalysisReuse this content More

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      New Zealand declares US far-right Proud Boys and the Base terrorist groups

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      New Zealand declares US far-right Proud Boys and the Base terrorist groupsProud Boys’ involvement in US Capitol attack cited in ruling outlawing organisation New Zealand’s government has declared that the American far-right groups the Proud Boys and the Base are terrorist organisations. The two groups join 18 others, including the Islamic State group, that have been given an official terrorist designation, making it illegal in New Zealand to fund, recruit or participate in the groups, and obligating authorities to take action against them. The US groups are not known to be active in New Zealand, but the South Pacific nation has become more attuned to threats from the far right after a white supremacist shot and killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in 2019.Proud Boys leaders charged with seditious conspiracy in 6 January riotRead moreThe New Zealand massacre inspired other white supremacists around the world, including a white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May.In the US, the state department only lists foreign groups as terrorist entities. But the Proud Boys were last year named a terrorist group in Canada, while the Base has previously been declared a terrorist group in Britain, Canada and Australia. In a 29-page explanation of the Proud Boys designation published Thursday, New Zealand authorities said the group’s involvement in the violent attack on the US Capitol building on 6 January 6 2021 amounted to an act of terrorism. The statement said that while several militia groups were involved, it was the Proud Boys who incited crowds, coordinated attacks on law enforcement officers and led other rioters to where they could break into the building. The statement said there were unlinked but ideologically affiliated chapters of the Proud Boys operating in Canada and Australia. New Zealand authorities argued that before the Capitol attack, the Proud Boys had a history of using street rallies and social media to intimidate opponents and recruit young men through demonstrations of violence. It said the group had put up various smoke screens to hide its extremism. Earlier this month, the former leader of the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, and four others linked to the group were charged in the US with seditious conspiracy for what federal prosecutors say was a coordinated attack on the Capitol.The decline of Proud Boys: what does the future hold for far-right group?Read moreThe indictment alleges that the Proud Boys conspired to forcibly oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power. The five are scheduled to stand trial in August in Washington DC’s federal court. Asked by media on Thursday in New Zealand if the Proud Boys weren’t better known for protest actions rather than extreme violence, the South Pacific nation’s police minister, Chris Hipkins, said: “Well, violent protests attempting to overthrow the government, clearly there is evidence of that.” In making its case against the Base, New Zealand authorities said a key goal of the group was to “train a cadre of extremists capable of accelerationist violence”. The statement said founder Rinaldo Nazzaro “has repetitively counselled members online about violence, the acquisition of weapons, and actions to accelerate the collapse of the US government and survive the consequent period of chaos and violence”.TopicsNew ZealandThe far rightUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Lauren Boebert: could the rightwing extremist be re-elected to Congress?

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      Lauren Boebert: could the rightwing extremist be re-elected to Congress? The controversial House member from Colorado is facing a challenger from the center, complicating her hopes of a smooth sailing primary“The tip of the spear”, that’s how Lauren Boebert described herself, on a bluebird Saturday in June, to a group of her supporters at a small town Republican party barbecue. Other members of the GOP shy away from the most inflammatory issues and controversial fights, she said – but not her.Extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican party | Thomas ZimmerRead moreBoebert’s extreme rightwing stances range from absolute opposition to gun control to questioning the effectiveness of vaccines and the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections. All are conveyed by a social media persona fine-tuned to inflame the culture wars.It was sweltering inside the gazebo, even with the windows and doors thrown open, but the first-term congresswoman seemed unfazed. Dressed in jeans, a black ballcap and several-inch high heels, she guided her supporters through a litany of inflammatory talking points including immigration, critical race theory, gender transitions and Joe Biden’s mental capacity. The crowd was captivated, with regular shouts of approval and cheering when Boebert paused her careering delivery for effect.“I’m proud to have brought home 100% conservative voting records to each and every one of you,” she told the crowd at the June barbecue. “From gun rights, to immigration, to border security, to life.”In just two years in Congress, Boebert has become one of America’s most famous political figures. Along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, JD Vance and others, she is among a vanguard of younger, stridently conservative politicians following former president Donald Trump’s path to prominence.Boebert’s public battles against Colorado’s Covid-19 business shutdowns at her restaurant, Shooter’s Grill, in the small town of Rifle (the servers carry sidearms), catapulted her to local fame, helping her unseat several-term incumbent Scott Tipton in the 2020 Republican primary. She won the general election for Colorado’s third congressional district that fall.Upon arriving in Washington DC she pledged to carry her handgun on to the floor of Congress, heckled President Biden during his first State of the Union, and was censured by the House for racist remarks made about the Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar. In a May debate, Boebert said she was proud of her attempt to block the certification of President Biden’s election.At the June rally, Boebert spoke to an adoring crowd of core GOP primary voters. If this group and their peers across western Colorado were the sole voters Boebert needed to capture Tuesday’s 2022 Republican primary, she would be a lock. But they are not.Colorado holds what are known as open primaries. This means independent voters automatically receive election ballots for both Republican and Democratic party elections. These unaffiliated voters outnumber both Republicans and Democrats in Colorado’s third district, making up about 44% of active voters. With the Democratic party’s failure to come up with a high-profile candidate, there has been a concerted anti-Boebert push among quietly dissenting Republicans, angry unaffiliated voters and even Democrats who renounce their party registration to vote in the GOP primary against Boebert.“Boebert is an embarrassment to our district,” said Susan Reed, a retired cultural archeologist, who decided to change her registration from Democrat to unaffiliated. This was a first for Reed, but Boebert offends her. “We need a legislator and not a Fox News personality,” she said.Reed is not alone. Across the district, Democrats are de-registering in some numbers. According to an analysis by Colorado Public Radio, the Democratic party lost about 3,700 registered voters between February and May in Boebert’s congressional district (Boebert won the primary two years ago by fewer than 10,000 votes). None of Colorado’s other House districts saw a comparable shift.Tomorrow, these voters will cast their votes for Don Coram, a 74-year-old state senator from the small, conservative town of Montrose. Coram’s family has ranched in the arid Uncompahgre valley for generations, where, today, he grows hemp, in addition to running cattle. He is well-known in this deeply red part of the state, an important source of votes for Boebert’s dark horse primary win two years ago. He has a reputation for expertise in water and mineral policy, as well as for moderation and frequent deal-making with Democrats.“My politics are very similar to my driving,” Coram said at a recent campaign event. “To the chagrin of both my wife and my Republican colleagues, I tend to crowd the center line and sometimes I veer over a bit.”Colorado’s third congressional district is enormous, blanketing the state’s entire western half. High in the Rockies near the Continental Divide, there are posh, well-educated ski towns that attract the wealthiest people in America and vote blue. Several thousand feet of elevation down and to the west are some of Colorado’s most impoverished and least populated areas. The district includes some of Colorado’s most intensely conservative counties. There are two sovereign tribal nations, the Ute Mountain Indian and Southern Ute Indian tribes. The seat is also nearly a quarter Hispanic.Western Colorado includes the state’s last active coalmines, many oil and gas wells, and millions of acres of federal public land. Outdoor recreation and tourism on these public lands have become enormously important revenue sources. The Colorado River’s headwaters emerge here, on the western slope of the Rockies, making water policy existentially important, not only locally, but for the entire south-western US.Truly representing the interests of such a complex assortment of people and communities would be hard for any politician. But Boebert’s critics argue that she does an especially poor job. Voting analyses consistently rank her as one of the most conservative and least bipartisan members of Congress.Coram’s primary challenge rests on the idea that western Colorado voters feel inadequately represented by this hard-right stance. His campaign touts his centrist reputation developed during his 11 years as a state politician. Coram has been an important Republican backer of bipartisan bills on rural hospitals, broadband and water conservation. “The ‘R’ next to my name stands for rural,” he said during a phone interview.At times, Coram’s politics veer beyond the normal GOP boundaries. In 2015, he helped write a bill to provide millions in state funding to provide free contraceptives to teenagers. Coram opposes abortions. Preventing them, in his view, requires easily available contraception. While promoting his bill in the state capitol, Coram wore an IUD pinned to his lapel. “It was rather funny,” he said in a phone interview, “because a lot of my redneck Republican friends looked at me and said, ‘is that some kind of a fishing lure?’”Boebert has seized on these and other votes as evidence that her opponent is a liberal in disguise, an accusation that Coram brushes off – to an extent.“We’re concentrating on what we refer to as kitchen table Republicans, the more moderate Republicans that aren’t all driven by theories and agendas,” he said. “We’re concentrated on them and the unaffiliated vote.”In 2020, Boebert won the general election with 51.4% of the vote, suggesting a competitive seat. After the district’s boundaries shifted last year, Republicans now hold a 9% advantage. J Miles Coleman, an election analyst with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said that between this redistricting and a tough national atmosphere for Democrats, Boebert is likely to be re-elected – if she wins tomorrow’s primary, as Coleman thinks she will.Three candidates are competing in the Democratic primary: Sol Sandoval, Adam Frisch and Alex Walker. All are seen as long shots against Boebert.“It’s a conservative seat with a libertarian streak, especially on guns, taxes and government regulation,” he said. “Boebert checks a lot of those boxes.”Not so long ago, though, Democrats were competitive, even successful. The third district was represented for years by Democrat John Salazar, who lost in 2010. His brother, Ken, did well in the area during his successful 2004 Senate campaign. Another Democrat, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, held the seat for several terms in the late 1980s and early 90s. Part of the issue, as Coleman noted, is that the Hispanic vote is no longer staunchly blue. Pueblo county, which is 43% Hispanic or Latino, voted for Trump in 2016 after going for Obama in both elections. Biden barely clawed the county back in 2020.Based on numerous interviews with western Colorado Democrats, there’s a clear sense of frustration with the state party leadership, overwhelmingly concentrated in the Denver area, hundreds of miles away on the other side of the Continental Divide.“National and state Democrats have lost virtually every line of communication with working-class voters in places like the western slope,” said Joel Dyar a longtime community organizer in Grand Junction (Dyar co-founded a Super Pac that opposes Boebert). “They’ve had three decades to work on strategies and they still have no real strategies. There’s no storytelling, no cultural competence, no ladders for new rural talent. They’ve got to make big, brave, generational investments in rural organizing.”Kathleen Sullivan Kelley encountered this obstacle in the 1980s, when, as a young, single woman in her 20s, she unseated an incumbent Republican state senator in one of the most deeply conservative parts of western Colorado.“It was a problem back when I ran for the legislature,” she said in a phone interview. “The Democratic party didn’t want to spend money on this area.”Kelley would eventually lose her seat and return home to Rio Blanco county, where she bought some of her family’s ranch and went into regenerative agriculture. In 2020, the county voted 82% for Donald Trump. Even so, she sees opportunity for Democrats, if only someone would seize it, especially in fighting consolidation and monopoly power in agricultural markets.For the upcoming primary, she dropped her party registration, in part so she could vote for Coram, but also out of frustration with the Democratic party.“I think any Democrat who would get in their pickup truck and get out there and knock on doors and show the heck up would have a shot,” she said. “There are so many people in this district who are embarrassed by what is going on.”Boebert remains the strong favorite against Coram. She has a more than $4m fundraising advantage, on top of a bedrock of support, even beyond registered Republicans. An analysis of the 2020 election by the Colorado Sun found that western Colorado unaffiliated voters have a noticeably conservative bent.Coram’s uphill battle was evident in early June, at a campaign event he held at a coffee shop he co-owns with his son. Dressed in cowboy boots and a pink shirt with his name and state senate seat stitched on the front, Coram chatted casually with a number of supporters, framing himself as a pragmatic deal-maker.But one young woman seemed skeptical. She pressed him repeatedly on core GOP issues like abortion and gun control. A student at Colorado Christian University who wants to enter the air force, Marissa Archuletta said later that she wanted a more partisan Republican stance from Coram. On abortion, she said, he promised to work with both sides, “but he never really said that he would work with Republicans”. Archuletta would not reveal which candidate she planned to vote for, but said of Boebert, “I like what she’s doing.”Among liberal Democrats, there’s an impulse to doubt that public support for candidates like Boebert is sincere and deeply held. But Coleman, the election analyst, explained that the median Republican primary voter today is much more aligned with Boebert than Coram. Her success is not an illusion. She wins because she’s doing what voters want her to do.Some Republicans are privately frustrated. One state-level elected official praised Boebert’s energy, but wishes it would be directed toward useful things. “I can’t put my finger on anything she’s done to help,” the official said. “She’s hard to take very seriously.” I asked if they have any hope that she might improve with more time in office. “Well, no,” the official said with a laugh. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, because of Boebert’s popularity among the GOP base.This was evident at the small town Republican event that Boebert headlined. That she angers and offends Democrats is intrinsic to her appeal. During her speech, Boebert recounted several instances of fighting Democratic legislation in Congress – at one point, she took some credit for killing a bill that in fact passed the House and stalled in the Senate. (The campaign did not respond to a list of questions sent by the Guardian). “I led the tweets,” Boebert said more than once. “I got loud,” she said repeatedly.At the end of the speech, a woman took the microphone and stood to praise her congresswoman’s work in office. “I don’t have time to waste my vote on a centrist,” the woman told Boebert. “I want a fighter.”TopicsColoradoRepublicansUS politicsThe far rightfeaturesReuse this content More

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      With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war | Stephen Marche

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      With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil warStephen MarcheThe question is no longer whether there will be a civil conflict in America. The question is how the sides will divide, and who will prevail The cracks in the foundations of the United States are widening, rapidly and on several fronts. The overturning of Roe v Wade has provoked a legitimacy crisis no matter what your politics.For the right, the leaking of the draft memo last month revealed the breakdown of bipartisanship and common purpose within the institution. For the left, it demonstrated the will of dubiously selected Republican justices to overturn established rights that have somewhere near 70% to 80% political support.Accelerating political violence, like the attack in Buffalo, increasingly blurs the line between the mainstream political conservative movement and outright murderous insanity. The question is no longer whether there will be a civil conflict in the United States. The question is how the sides will divide, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how those strengths and weaknesses will determine the outcome.The right wing has been imagining a civil war, publicly, since at least the Obama administration. Back in 2016, when it looked like Hillary Clinton would win the election, then Kentucky governor Matt Bevin described the possibility in apocalyptic terms: “The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood. Of who? The tyrants, to be sure. But who else? The patriots. Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren,” he told supporters at the Values Voter Summit.The possibility of civil war has long been a mainstay of rightwing talk radio. Needless to say, when the right conjures these fantasies of cleansing violence, they tend to fantasize their own victory. Steve King, while still a congressman from Iowa, tweeted an image of red and blue America at war, with the line: “Folks keep talking about another civil war. One side has about 8tn bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.”Any time anyone acts on their violent rhetoric, the rightwing politicians and media elites are appalled that anyone would connect what they say to what others do. “We need to understand we’re under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war footing,” Alex Jones said in the lead-up to the Capitol riot.According to a New York Times series, Tucker Carlson has articulated the theory of white replacement more than 400 times on his show. Calls to violence are normal in rightwing media. Calls to resist white replacement are normal in rightwing media. The inevitable result is the violent promotion of resistance to white replacement. Republican politicians like Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik are outraged when their one plus one turns out to equal two, but their outrage is increasingly unbelievable, even to themselves. America is witnessing a technique used in political struggles all over the world. Movements devoted to the overthrow of elected governments tend to divide into armed and political wings, which gives multiple avenues to approach their goals as well as the cover of plausible deniability for their violence.The leftwing American political class, incredibly, continues to cling to its defunct institutional ideals. Democrats under Biden have wasted the past two years on fictions of bipartisanship and forlorn hopes of some kind of restoration of American trust. When violence like Buffalo hits, they can do little more than plead with the other side to reconsider the horror they’re unleashing, and offer obvious lectures about the poison of white supremacy. Since January 6 didn’t wake them up to exactly what they’re facing, it’s unclear what might ever wake them up. The left has not made the psychological adjustment to a conflict situation yet. But it won’t be able to maintain the fantasy of normalcy for much longer.The conflict, which on the surface seems so unequal, with an emboldened and violent right against a demoralized and disorganized left, is not as one-sided as it looks at first. It is unequal but it is also highly asymmetrical. The right has the weaponry and an electoral system weighted overwhelmingly in its favor. The left has money and tech.Steve King was, in a sense, absolutely correct about the armed status of the two sides. Half of Republicans own a gun, compared with 21% of Democrats. But that gap, though wide, is closing. In 2020, 40% of gun buyers were new buyers. There was a 58% rise in gun sales to African Americans in 2020 over 2019. In 2021, women were nearly half of new gun buyers, an astonishing statistic. The real structural advantage the right possesses is not military but electoral. By 2040, 30% of the country will control 70% of the Senate. The institutions of the US government distinctly favor those who want to destroy it. Every Democrat who fights to end the filibuster is fighting for their own future irrelevance, or rather for the acceleration of their own irrelevance.Two essential facts of the 2020 election should give leftwing partisans hope, however. Biden-voting counties amounted to 70% of GDP, while 60% of college-educated voters chose Biden. That is to say, the left-democratic wing of America is the productive and educated part of the country. One way of looking at the American political condition of the moment is that the leftwing part of the US has built the networks that have left behind the rightwing part. The networks are the left’s strength.The struggle over abortion has already revealed how the divide plays out. Anti-abortion factions control the pseudo-legitimate court system and the poorer states in the Union. Pro-choice factions have responded, first of all, with their superior financial resources. Oregon started the Oregon Reproductive Equity Fund with $15m. New York is establishing a fund to make the state a “safe haven”. California governor Gavin Newsom plans to add $57m to the state budget to deal with out-of-state patients.At the same time, pro-choice organizers are turning to technology. The Atlantic recently reported on networks using “encrypted, open-source Zoom alternatives” to provide women with support for their procedures. Already, anonymous web access to self-managed abortions is available, just as it has been for many years in some restrictive jurisdictions.This divide isn’t just American. As the forces of the world split between a liberal-democratic elite and authoritarian populists, the same asymmetry can be seen in the struggle everywhere. In Canada, the convoy that held the city of Ottawa hostage was defeated, in the end, not by force, but by money and technology. Other countries responded to similar convoys with direct assaults – the French teargassed their convoy immediately and the United States called in the national guard before they had even left for Washington. But in Canada, the government, not wanting to have the blood of children on its hands, weakened the convoy’s financial networks by simply turning off their fundraising accounts. A small band of anonymous hackers also tormented the convoy organizers by disrupting their communication lines. They infiltrated their Zello channels, blaring the hardcore gay pornography country anthem Ram Ranch. The “Ram Ranch Resistance” almost single-handedly undid the protests at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. This same divide has played out on an international level, in the struggle between Russia and Ukraine. Russia, overwhelmed by resentment because it cannot meaningfully compete in an integrated 21st-century economy, has devolved into a conservative authoritarianism with no other outlet than violence. But Ukraine had better access to the global financial and media networks. The reaction, from the forces of the democratic west, has been to cut Russia off from financial systems and to provide Ukraine with superior technology. Technology and financial networks have proven the match, at the very least, of brute force.Incipient civil conflict in the United States won’t be formal armies struggling for territory. The techniques of both sides are clarifying. Republican officials will use the supreme court, or whatever other political institutions they control, to push their agenda no matter how unpopular with the American people. Meanwhile, their calls for violence, while never direct, create a climate of rage that solidifies into regular physical assaults on their enemies. The technical term for this process is stochastic terrorism; the attack in Buffalo is a textbook example.The leftwing resistance is more nascent but is also taking shape: if you’re rich and you want to stay living in a democracy, the time has come to pony up. If you’re an engineer, the time has come to organize. The conclusion is not at all determined. Neither side has an absolute advantage. Neither side can win easily. But one fact is clear. The battle has been joined, and it will be fought everywhere.
      Stephen Marche is the author, most recently, of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future
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      DoJ seeks delay in Proud Boys case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiry

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      DoJ seeks delay in Proud Boys case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiryTwo cases had managed to steer clear of each other as the justice department and House panel pursued the same ground The US justice department’s criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack collided with the parallel congressional investigation, causing federal prosecutors to seek a delay in proceedings in the seditious conspiracy case against the far-right Proud Boys group.The two January 6 inquiries had largely managed to steer clear of each other even as both the justice department and a House select committee pursued the same ground. But it all came to head on Wednesday.At a hearing in federal court in Washington, federal prosecutors and defendants in the justice department’s seditious conspiracy case asked a federal judge to delay the August trial date of the former Proud Boys national chairman Henry Tarrio, AKA Enrique Tarrio, and other top members of the far-right group.January 6 panel to focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on justice departmentRead more“It is reasonably foreseeable that information relevant to the defendants’ guilt (or innocence) could soon be released,” assistant US attorney Erik Kenerson wrote on Tuesday. “Inability to prepare their respective cases … is potentially prejudicial – to all parties.”The request was granted “reluctantly” by US district judge Timothy Kelly, who said the trial will now start in December, agreeing that the select committee’s report and witness transcripts that are slated to be made public in September could upend preparations.The justice department has run into the issue that because it is conducting a criminal investigation, its federal prosecutors are bound by strict rules requiring high standards of proof before they start issuing subpoenas and collecting evidence.By contrast, the select committee, in conducting a congressional investigation examining the circumstances surrounding the Capitol attack, can issue subpoenas for documents and testimony whenever and however it likes, given the approval of a majority of its members.That has meant the panel has amassed more than 1,000 transcripts of closed-door depositions conducted with key witnesses related to the January 6 inquiries, some of which the justice department believes are relevant to its cases but the panel had declined to share.In a letter last week, Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, and assistant attorneys general Kenneth Polite and Matthew Olsen complained their inability to access transcripts was hampering criminal investigations, including in the Proud Boys case.“The select committee’s failure to grant the department access to these transcripts complicates the department’s ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” they wrote in the letter.The select committee relented and suggested it would not even wait until September but start making transcripts public as early as July. But lawyers for the Proud Boys took issue with both dates, saying the contents of the transcripts could bias a jury ahead of trial.Not all of the defendants sought a delay. Tarrio opposed the request because “an impartial jury will never be achieved in Washington DC whether the trial is in August, December, or next year”. Ethan Nordean, another prominent Proud Boys figure, opposed the request unless he was freed from pre-trial detention.The potential for the transcripts to influence a jury pool has been a recurring complaint for the Proud Boys lawyers, who argue the January 6 hearings – which started three days after Tarrio and others were charged with seditious conspiracy – will irreparably taint a jury.Federal prosecutors have pushed back, contending that people in Washington were no more likely to have seen the hearings than people in New York or Miami. Still, the government agreed for the need for breathing space between the trial and transcripts being made public.The justice department, meanwhile, has its own concerns with the transcripts’ release and would seemingly prefer to get the transcripts in private to compare what witnesses have told the select committee and what they have secretly told a grand jury.At least two members of the Proud Boys have testified before the select committee in closed-door depositions: Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes, and Jeremy Bertino, who has been mentioned in court filings but is currently not charged.Also on Wednesday, the justice department issued new subpoenas to at least three people connected to the Trump campaign’s potentially illegal plan to send fraudulent election certificates to Congress as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.The confirmed recipients of the grand jury subpoenas were Brad Carver, a Georgia Republican party official who was a Trump elector, Thomas Lane, a Trump campaign official in Arizona and New Mexico, and Sean Flynn, a Trump campaign aide in Michigan, the New York Times reported.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsThe far rightHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Feds seek delay in Proud Boys conspiracy case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiry

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      Feds seek delay in Proud Boys conspiracy case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiryThe two cases had managed to steer clear of each other as the justice department and House panel pursued the same ground The US justice department’s criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack collided with the parallel congressional investigation, causing federal prosecutors to seek a delay in proceedings in the seditious conspiracy case against the far-right Proud Boys group.The two January 6 inquiries had largely managed to steer clear of each other even as both the justice department and a House select committee pursued the same ground. But it all came to head on Wednesday.At a hearing in federal court in Washington, federal prosecutors and defendants in justice department’s seditious conspiracy case asked a federal judge to delay the August trial date of former Proud Boys national chairman Henry Tarrio, AKA Enrique Tarrio and other top members of the far-right group.January 6 panel to focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on justice departmentRead more“It is reasonably foreseeable that information relevant to the defendants’ guilt (or innocence) could soon be released,” assistant US attorney Erik Kenerson wrote on Tuesday. “Inability to prepare their respective cases … is potentially prejudicial – to all parties.”The request was granted “reluctantly” by US district judge Timothy Kelly, who said the trial will now start in December, agreeing that the select committee’s report and witness transcripts that are slated to be made public in September could upend preparations.The justice department has run into the issue that because it is conducting a criminal investigation, its federal prosecutors are bound by strict rules requiring high standards of proof before they start issuing subpoenas and collecting evidence.By contrast, the select committee, in conducting a congressional investigation examining the circumstances surrounding the Capitol attack, can issue subpoenas for documents and testimony whenever and however it likes, given the approval of a majority of its members.That has meant the panel has amassed more than 1,000 transcripts of closed-door depositions conducted with key witnesses related to the January 6 inquiries, some of which the justice department believes are relevant to its cases but the panel had declined to share.In a letter last week, Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, and assistant attorneys general Kenneth Polite and Matthew Olsen complained their inability to access transcripts was hampering criminal investigations, including in the Proud Boys case.“The select committee’s failure to grant the department access to these transcripts complicates the department’s ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” they wrote in the letter.The select committee relented and suggested it would not even wait until September but start making transcripts public as early as July. But lawyers for the Proud Boys took issue with both dates, saying the contents of the transcripts could bias a jury ahead of trial.Not all of the defendants sought a delay. Tarrio opposed the request because “an impartial jury will never be achieved in Washington DC whether the trial is in August, December, or next year”. Ethan Nordean, another prominent Proud Boys figure, opposed the request unless he was freed from pre-trial detention.The potential for the transcripts to influence a jury pool has been a recurring complaint for the Proud Boys lawyers, who argue the January 6 hearings – which started three days after Tarrio and others were charged with seditious conspiracy – will irreparably taint a jury.Federal prosecutors have pushed back, contending that people in Washington were no more likely to have seen the hearings than people in New York or Miami. Still, the government agreed for the need for breathing space between the trial and transcripts being made public.The justice department, meanwhile, has its own concerns with the transcripts’ release and would seemingly prefer to get the transcripts in private to compare what witnesses have told the select committee and what they have secretly told a grand jury.At least two members of the Proud Boys have testified before the select committee in closed-door depositions: Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes, and Jeremy Bertino, who has been mentioned in court filings but is currently not charged.Also on Wednesday, the justice department issued new subpoenas to at least three people connected to the Trump campaign’s potentially illegal plan to send fraudulent election certificates to Congress as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.The confirmed recipients of the grand jury subpoenas were Brad Carver, a Georgia Republican Party official who was a Trump elector, Thomas Lane, a Trump campaign official in Arizona and New Mexico, and Sean Flynn, a Trump campaign aide in Michigan, the New York Times reported.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsThe far rightHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC

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      Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DCDocument reveals plans for entering buildings and blocking traffic to prevent law enforcement access A document revealed in court on Wednesday has exposed a detailed plan by the Proud Boys to occupy government buildings in Washington DC, including the supreme court.The document, titled “1776 Returns”, laid out the plans for which buildings to target, the number of members required for each building, and tactics, including instructions to use the pandemic as an excuse for wearing masks and face shields without raising suspicion.It called for at least 50 members of the group to invade each building “or it’s a no go for that building”.​​“These are OUR building, they are just renting space,” read a part of the document, according to NBC. “We must show our politicians We the People are in charge.”Five members of the far-right Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, were charged earlier this month with “seditious conspiracy”. Tarrio was slapped with the charge on top of already existing charges against him for, among other things, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting officers. Other charges include a felony charge against Louis Enrique Colon, who pleaded guilty in April.The document was submitted to court by the lawyer of a Proud Boys member, Zachary Rehl, while filing for a motion for his release from pre-trial detention.Rehl’s lawyer claimed, in an attempt to distance his client from allegations that he had a leadership role in the insurrection, that Rehl had no idea about the document.The detailed nine-page memo has directions for participants to “use Covid to your advantage” and to create a “fake appointment” for one member, identified as “Covert Sleeper”, to get inside the building and eventually let the others in.The “Sleeper” was tasked to spend the day as an “insider”.The plan also called on participants to create distractions for the guards by “causing trouble” at the gate.Another part directed participants to block traffic from as many angles as possible.“Traffic blocks have network effects,” read the document. “The Rerouting traffic will block other important areas, and also stop access to any law enforcement vehicle.”The buildings they targeted are the supreme court, three Senate office buildings, and three House office buildings. Another target is listed as “CNN”, possibly referring to the CNN office in Washington, which is about a six-minute drive from the Capitol.The demands made in the document called for a new election on 20 January, the day of President Biden’s inauguration, with requirements such as paper ballots only, no electronic or mail-in votes, and the use of national guards for monitoring.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      ‘It was a war scene’: Caroline Edwards describes Capitol attack violence

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      ‘It was a war scene’: Caroline Edwards describes Capitol attack violenceThe Capitol police officer, who was injured in the insurrection, said she saw colleagues ‘bleeding, on the ground, throwing up’ Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who sustained a brain injury during the January 6 attack, gave a chilling recollection of the brutal violence of that day on Thursday, telling the committee investigating the attack it was a “war scene”.Her testimony offered key evidence for underscoring the stakes of the congressional hearing. It showed viewers at home that the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC was not an accident, but rather an intentional effort to inflict violence.“I can remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was a war scene,” she told the committee. “Officers on the ground. They were bleeding, on the ground, throwing up,” she said.January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’Read more“I was slipping in people’s blood,” she added. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”Edwards is believed to have been one of the first officers injured during the attack, the New York Times reported last year. The committee played several clips of her being attacked.She described standing near a barricade as members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group that played a key role in the violence, escalated their attack. She described telling her sergeant they would need more people to defend the Capitol before a bike rack was thrown on top of her and she hit her head on nearby stairs, causing her to black out.But after regaining consciousness, Edwards, then 31, returned to defending the Capitol. “Adrenaline kicked in. I ran towards the west front, and I tried to hold the line at the Senate steps at the lower west terrace. More people kept coming at us.”In her testimony, she recalled seeing a fellow police officer, Brian Sicknick, after he had been pepper-sprayed and how he was pale. “He was ghostly pale, which I figured at that point that he had been sprayed and I was concerned,” she said.Sicknick died in the immediate aftermath of the attack but a medical examiner ultimately determined he died of a stroke. His mother and girlfriend attended the hearing on Thursday. After the hearing concluded, Edwards turned to his girlfriend, Sandra Garza, and said “I’m so sorry,” and hugged her, according to the Wall Street Journal.Edwards didn’t hesitate when she was asked to recall a memory that stuck out to her from that day.“It was something I’d seen out of the movies,” she said. “I saw friends with blood all over their faces,” she said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”“I’m trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd, but I’m not combat trained,” She said. “That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS policingThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More