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      Capitol police officers sue Trump and far-right groups over 6 January attack

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      US Capitol attackCapitol police officers sue Trump and far-right groups over 6 January attack Roger Stone also named in suit by six officers in federal court Ex-president worked with others to ‘commit acts of … terrorism’ Maya Yang in New York and agenciesThu 26 Aug 2021 14.20 EDTLast modified on Thu 26 Aug 2021 14.31 EDTCapitol police officers who were attacked and beaten during the insurrection at the US Congress on 6 January by extremist supporters of Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the former Republican president, his ally Roger Stone and members of far-right extremist groups.The officers accused them of intentionally sending a violent mob to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election.The suit in federal court in Washington DC alleges Trump “worked with white supremacists, violent extremist groups, and campaign supporters to violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, and commit acts of domestic terrorism in an unlawful effort to stay in power”.The suit was filed on behalf of the seven officers by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.“Trump’s and his co-conspirators’ repeated cries of election fraud caused many of his supporters, including other defendants, to plan to employ force, intimidation and threats on his behalf to keep him in office, should he lose the election,” the lawsuit alleges.“Because of defendants’ unlawful actions, plaintiffs were violently assaulted, spat on, teargassed, bear-sprayed, subjected to racial slurs and epithets, and put in fear for their lives. Plaintiffs’ injuries, which defendants caused, persist to this day,” the lawsuit added.It names the former president, the Trump campaign, Stone and members of the extremist far-right groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, some of whose members were involved at the Capitol attack.Roger Stone is understood to have links to some of the far-right individuals who have been charged as a result of the riot in Washington DC. Stone was pardoned by Trump just before the then president left office after his defeat, having previously had his prison sentence commuted for crimes in relation to the Russia investigation into the 2016 election campaign.Trump held a rally near the White House on 6 January in which he encouraged his supporters to march on the nearby Capitol in an effort to stop certification of Biden’s victory over him, which was due to take place in a process involving the House of Representatives and the US Senate that day.Top Republicans move to protect Trump from Capitol attack falloutRead moreThe officers listed in the lawsuit are Conrad Smith, Danny McElroy, Byron Evans, Governor Latson, Melissa Marshall, Michael Fortune and Jason DeRoche. Collectively, the officers “have dedicated more than 150 years” to protecting Congress.While several police officers who served during the riots have come forward with stories of their experiences on 6 January, most notably during the congressional hearing in July, Thursday’s lawsuit is the first time that the seven plaintiffs, five of whom are Black, offered details of their experiences.“One attacker shoved Officer Latson … Attackers then breached the Senate Chamber, physically assaulted Officer Latson, and hurled racial slurs at him, including ‘n****r’ … Officer Latson suffered physical injury from being physically struck by attackers and from exposure to noxious pepper spray, bear spray, fire extinguishers, and other pollutants sprayed by attackers,” the lawsuit said.Another officer, Michael Fortune, upon arrival at the Capitol, “saw that it was like a war zone, with chemical fog in the air, tables flipped, statues defaced, feces on the walls, and blood and broken glass on the floors”.DeRoche, an 18-year Capitol police veteran and a navy veteran, said the lawsuit was not about a monetary settlement. Rather, he said, the lawsuit aimed to set the record straight about what happened on 6 January. He wanted Trump and the other defendants to be held accountable for their actions, so “if they were to do this ever again, there would be consequences,” the suit said.‘I went to hell and back’: officer condemns Republican lawmakers who spurned Capitol attack hearingRead moreA House committee has started in earnest to investigate what happened that day, sending out requests on Wednesday for documents from intelligence, law enforcement and other government agencies.More than 500 people who took part in the insurrection are facing criminal charges in one of the biggest federal investigations since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US.Two other similar cases have been filed in recent months by Democratic members of Congress. The suits allege the actions of Trump and his allies led to the violent siege of the Capitol that injured dozens of police officers, delayed the certification of Biden’s victory and sent lawmakers running for their lives.Trump accused the committee of violating “longstanding legal principles of privilege” but his team had no immediate comment on Thursday’s lawsuit.“Racism and white supremacy pervaded Defendants’ efforts from the outset,” the lawsuit said.Thursday’s lawsuit was the first to accuse Trump of working with both far-right extremists and political organizers to promote his dishonest allegations of a fraudulent election.“This is probably the most comprehensive account of 6 January in terms of civil cases,” said Edward Caspar, a lawyer who is leading the lawsuit.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS policingDonald TrumpRoger StoneThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Rightwing radio host and anti-vaxxer dies of Covid

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      US newsRightwing radio host and anti-vaxxer dies of CovidDick Farrel was a vociferous critic of Dr Anthony Fauci and urged people not to get vaccinated Edward HelmoreSun 8 Aug 2021 11.09 EDTLast modified on Sun 8 Aug 2021 14.35 EDTA rightwing TV and radio host who was a vociferous critic of Dr Anthony Fauci and who urged his listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has died after contracting the virus.Dick Farrel, who had described Fauci as a “power-tripping lying freak” who conspired with “power trip libb loons”, had urged people not to get vaccinated as recently as June.He reportedly changed his opinion about vaccines after falling ill and later being admitted to hospital before passing away on 4 August aged 65. “He texted me and told me to ‘Get it!’ He told me this virus is no joke and he said, “I wish I had gotten [the vaccine]!” close friend Amy Leigh Hair wrote on Facebook.Farrel, a native of Queens, New York, anchored radio shows in Florida and also acted as a stand-in anchor for the rightwing news outlet Newsmax, was described as a pioneer “shock talk” host.His partner, Kit Farley, said: “He was known as the other Rush Limbaugh. With a heavy heart, I can only say this was so unexpected. He will be missed.”Described as an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, Farrel went all-in on unsubstantiated 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories about election fraud and questioned the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines.Hair told WPTV: “I was one of one the people like him who didn’t trust the vaccine. I trusted my immune system. I just became more afraid of getting Covid-19 than I was of any possible side effects of the vaccine. I’m glad I got vaccinated.”TopicsUS newsUS politicsThe far rightCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Battle for the Soul: can Joe Biden beat Trump’s Republicans in the war of words?

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      Joe BidenBattle for the Soul: can Joe Biden beat Trump’s Republicans in the war of words? The president appeals to the ‘civil religion’ of Washington and Kennedy. His opponents use weasel words and seek to limit democracy. The stakes could not be higherMichael CornfieldSun 8 Aug 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 8 Aug 2021 02.01 EDTJoe Biden declared his third candidacy for president on 25 April 2019 in a three-and-a-half minute video. The format was new, but for Biden relied on an old-fashioned conception of masculinity.Want to make Jim Jordan sing about the Capitol attack? Ask Jefferson Davis | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreHe talked about the 12 August 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, about which Donald Trump (in)famously said there were “very fine people on both sides”. The incident provided Biden with a good vs evil story frame, which he entered as a sort of superhero.“At that moment,” Biden intoned, as viewers saw white supremacists marching with torches, “I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had seen in my lifetime.”
      I wrote at the time that we’re in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that’s even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation.
      If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. Who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen.
      The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America, America, is at stake.
      Captain America, out of retirement and to the rescue. The Charlottesville setting, adjacent to Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, supplied Biden with a pretext to quote the Declaration of Independence. And the video displayed, in colonial cursive font, passages many Americans could recite from memory.The “battle for the soul of America” narrative frame served Biden well. It helped differentiate Biden’s criticism of Trump, as both personal and constitutional. It converted his age into a campaign asset: a man with historic consciousness would be a good choice for Democrats, a party that usually opted for youth. And it ennobled his call for unity as the solution to Trump’s divisiveness. A Biden victory would win the battle for the soul through an appeal to transcendent patriotic values.Two men, longtime adviser Mike Donilon and the historian Jon Meacham, have worked on Biden’s speeches and the “soul” verbiage. But regardless of the authorial division of labor, it has been Biden’s sign-off, delivery, and persona which give the phrase its public meaning.During the campaign, Biden repeated his theme in speeches on national holidays and historic anniversaries, often in Pennsylvania: at an 18 May 2019 campaign kick-off rally at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia; in a 2 June 2020 speech at Philadelphia City Hall (commenting on the eruption of protest for the George Floyd death and the president’s use of tear gas at Lafayette Square in Washington); and on 6 October 2020 at the Gettysburg battlefield:
      You and I are part of a covenant, a common story of divisions overcome and hope renewed. If we do our part, if we stand together, if we keep faith with the past and with each other, then the divisions of our time will give way to the dreams of a brighter, better future. This is our work. This is our pledge. This is our mission.
      Pennsylvania is both the state where Biden was born and a perennial swing state. As the city where America’s foundational documents were written and signed, Philadelphia stands out in the national imagination as the Jerusalem of what sociologist Robert Bellah termed the “civil religion”. In his 1966 analysis of inaugural addresses from Washington to Kennedy, Bellah noted that presidents up to the incumbent at that time, Lyndon Baines Johnson, enlarged and deepened their rhetoric by invoking God. It was neither the God of any particular denomination nor a perfunctory bow to the religiosity of the American people. Rather, such references to God legitimated political authority by “supplying moral consensus amidst continuous political change”. Invocations of the civil religion reassure and integrate the disparate members of a pluralistic capitalist society.Biden relied more on the word “soul” than “God” but the functionality was the same. “Soul” is also a word with extensive philosophical and religious lineage. It denotes the essence of a being (or nation, or people). It connotes reason, feeling, presence, expressivity, depth, the substance of a style. In running for president, Biden was embarked on a moral crusade. He was battling, as he put it in another frequently used phrase, for “hope over fear, unity over division, and truth over lies”.And “the idea of America” at the seat of the civil religion was not an empty notion. Jill Lepore’s 2018 one-volume history of the US identified “These Truths” as the nation’s core values: political equality, natural rights, popular sovereignty and the meta-truth that they are “self-evident”, Benjamin Franklin’s Enlightenment amendment to Jefferson’s “sacred and undeniable”.Like most campaign slogans, “battle for the soul of America” was an expedient coinage, tinged in this case with a touch of bravado. Yet it has become uncannily apt. Some Americans continue to resist “these truths” and others. And so Biden has justly continued to use the phrase as president.In his inaugural address two weeks after the assault on the Capitol and Congress he quoted Abraham Lincoln’s attestation that “my whole soul is in it” as he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and reiterated his claim that national unity was essential “to restore the soul and to secure the future of America”. On Memorial Day, at Arlington National Cemetery:
      The soul of America is animated by the perennial battle between our worst instincts – which we’ve seen of late – and our better angels. Between “Me first” and “We the People”. Between greed and generosity, cruelty and kindness, captivity and freedom.
      These Truths review: Jill Lepore’s Lincolnian American historyRead moreOn 13 July, back at the National Constitution Center, Biden zeroed in on the opposition:
      It’s no longer just about who gets to vote or making it easier for eligible voters to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote – who gets to count whether or not your vote counted at all. It’s about moving from independent election administrators who work for the people to polarized state legislatures and partisan actors who work for political parties.
      To me, this is simple: This is election subversion. It’s the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history …
      We have to ask: Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy? That’s what it’s coming down to …
      The Republicans on the other side peddle disinformation and bank on partisan polarization. They seek to negate the truth of the 2020 election results and tilt the certification process against a reoccurrence in 2024. Under the banners of a “stolen” and “rigged” election and a vastly exaggerated claim of election “fraud”, they are conducting feckless audits and enacting voter suppression laws in battleground states, including Pennsylvania. They blocked the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the riot on the day they voted to decertify the election. Biden also cited Jim Crow in view of the racial dimensions of the soul battle. The opposition has launched a coded attack on a misappropriated academic term, “Critical Race Theory”.The soul battle is distinct from the programmatic initiatives and negotiations being conducted under another Biden slogan, “Build Back Better”. In that political domain differences can be monetized and split without recourse to dire dichotomies. However, the emotions summoned over voting cannot be easily compartmentalized and hived off from the dollar figures.Wake review: a must-read graphic history of women-led slave revoltsRead moreThe soul battle also bears on the effort to persuade Americans to get vaccinated, both in Biden’s exhortations to get the shot which appeal to patriotic duty and the opposition’s efforts to brand resistance to vaccination as a stand for freedom against the government. Analyzing that argumentation requires an essay unto itself, although I note in passing that Biden’s rhetorical approach has eschewed the designation of a “czar” to coordinate the administration’s public appeals and briefings, which would put distance between the soul battle and the urgent project of pandemic mitigation. As it is, government messaging on Covid runs through the president and state governors. And it is certainly valid to see the battle against the virus as a test of the force of reason in politics.Occasions for more soul speechmaking dot the national calendar. A rally in Washington DC on 28 August will commemorate Dr Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” address, which the president will probably recognize but not attend. The 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks will necessarily reference the pullout of troops from Afghanistan, but Biden could also validate the House inquiry into the Capitol riot as being in the spirit of the 9/11 Commission. Thanksgiving is the quintessential holiday of the American civil religion. More occasions will crop up after congressional voting on the For the People and John Lewis Voting Rights Acts.But before any of those holidays or events surface on the civil religion calendar there is next Thursday, 12 August, the fourth anniversary of the battle that marked Biden’s starting point. He might do well to travel to Charlottesville and speak at the downtown spot vacated by the 10 July removal of the Robert E Lee statue that sparked the Unite the Right rally. It would be a sign that the mostly nonviolent but deeply conflicted war over the idea of America – for that is what a series of battles amounts to – is being won.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS voting rightsProtestfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      I Alone Can Fix It review: Donald Trump as wannabe Führer – in another riveting read

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      BooksI Alone Can Fix It review: Donald Trump as wannabe Führer – in another riveting read Gen Mark Milley saw that the US was in a ‘Reichstag moment’ – four days before the Capitol riot. With this and much more startling reporting, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post deliver the goods once againLloyd GreenFri 16 Jul 2021 07.37 EDTLast modified on Fri 16 Jul 2021 08.24 EDTCocooned at his resorts, the Trump Organization indicted, Donald Trump has come to embrace the insurrection.Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book saysRead more“Personally, what I wanted is what they wanted,” he tells Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.Five people died after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January, seeking to overturn the election.Last week, Trump declared: “These were peaceful people, these were great people.”So much for blaming Antifa. Think Charlottesville redux, on a larger stage. Or something even more ominous.In their second book on the Trump presidency, Leonnig and Rucker report that on 2 January 2021, two months after election day and as Trump still refused to concede defeat, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told aides: “This is a Reichstag moment.”He was referring to the fire at the German parliament on 27 February 1933, an incident seized as a pretext by Hitler to begin arresting opponents and to consolidate his power.“The gospel of the Führer,” the authors quote Milley as saying.According to the general, the US under Trump was experiencing its own version of the late Weimar Republic, complete with modern-day “Brownshirts”. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Milley was not alone in seeing shadows of the past slither into the daylight.Trump, Leonnig and Rucker quote a senior official as saying, is a “guy who takes fuel, throws it on the fire, and makes you scared shitless”, then says “‘I will protect you.’“That’s what Hitler did to consolidate power in 1933.”This is a blockbuster follow-up to A Very Stable Genius, in which Leonnig and Rucker chronicled the chaos of Trump’s first three years in office. I Alone Can Fix It pulls back the curtain on the handling of Covid-19, the re-election bid and its chaotic and violent aftermath.The pair are Pulitzer winners, for investigative reporting. Their book is essential reading. They have receipts, which they lay out for all to see.Of Covid, they capture Marc Short, Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, telling folks in February 2020: “It’s not that bad.” The families of more than 600,000 dead Americans would probably disagree. (Short later contracted the virus.)Feeling burned by the authors’ first book, this time Trump sat for a two-and-a-half-hour interview. At the end of it, he let it be known – with a “twinkle in his eye” – that “for some sick reason” he “enjoyed it”.Much as he claims to hate the media and the elite, Trump craves their attention. Much as he believes in his own power of persuasion, Leonnig and Rucker were not converted.Trump’s hubris shines through. But for the pandemic, he claims re-election was inevitable. It’s a salesman’s pitch but one sufficiently rooted in reality. He also claims America’s two greatest presidents could not have defeated him. That is just surreal:
      I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me.”
      Before Covid, the economy was humming. Trump had taken down Qassem Suleimani, a top general in Iran’s Quds force, and the public approved.Joe Biden lost nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. His first win was on 29 February, days after the stock market’s Covid-induced crash, assisted by James Clyburn of South Carolina, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and House majority whip.On the relationship between Covid and Trump’s defeat, Leonnig and Rucker describe Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s now former prime minister, sharing his thoughts with Tony Fabrizio, a pollster who worked for him and Trump, in early 2020.Netanyahu said: “The only thing that can beat President Trump is coronavirus.”With analytic capacity Trump could never muster and a sense of history he lacked, Netanyahu added: “If you don’t understand what a pandemic is and the mathematics behind how this will spread if we don’t contain it, it will collapse economies, and that changes the ball game tremendously.”In August, Trump reamed out Fabrizio after he warned the president the electorate was “really fatigued”. Trump bellowed: “They’re tired? They’re fatigued? They’re fucking fatigued? Well, I’m fucking fatigued, too.”The book’s rawest revelations concern 6 January. At best, Trump was blasé about Mike Pence’s plight, presiding over confirmation of Biden’s win, stuck inside the Capitol as halls and offices were plundered. Like Nero watching Rome burn, Trump fiddled in front of his TV.As for the rioters, Trump now claims he and they are one: “They showed up just to show support because I happen to believe the election was rigged at a level like nothing has ever been rigged before.”On 6 January, James Lankford of Oklahoma argued against certification, citing constituents’ concerns about voter fraud. He failed to mention it was Trump who spread that very concern.Hours later, however, the senator voted to certify. Months earlier, Tulsa was the venue for Trump’s infamous comeback rally, a flop which cost Brad Parscale his job as campaign manager and Herman Cain his life.Landslide review: Michael Wolff’s third Trump book is his best – and most alarmingRead moreLiz Cheney also makes a telling appearance in Rucker and Leonnig’s story. In a 7 January call with Gen Milley, the Wyoming congresswoman unloaded on Jim Jordan, a hard-right Ohio representative and Trump favorite, as a “son of a bitch”.Stuck with Jordan during the Capitol siege, Cheney discounted his expressions of concern, saying: “Get away from me. You fucking did this.” Cheney is now a member of the House select committee charged with investigating the riot.Leonnig and Rucker also quote Doris Kearns Goodwin: “There is nothing like this other than the 1850s, when events led inevitably to the civil war.”Politicians and acolytes make pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mecca in Palm Beach. Each dusk, Leonnig and Rucker write, he receives a standing ovation.Just the way he likes it.
      I Alone Can Fix It is published in the US by Penguin and in the UK by Bloomsbury
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS elections 2020US Capitol attackreviewsReuse this content More