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    Mike Johnson’s Chief of Staff Arrested for DUI After Trump Speech, Police Say

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    The U.S. Capitol Police said the chief of staff to Speaker Mike Johnson was arrested for drunken driving on Tuesday night after the top aide backed his car into a parked Capitol Police vehicle.The arrest came soon after President Trump, with Mr. Johnson presiding behind him, finished delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress since returning to office.“A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,” a Capitol Police spokesman said in a statement. “We responded and arrested them for D.U.I.”Mr. Johnson’s office confirmed on Wednesday that Hayden Haynes, the speaker’s chief of staff, was involved in an “encounter” with Capitol Police on Tuesday night, releasing a statement that indicated that he would continue to hold his powerful post.“The speaker has known and worked closely with Hayden for nearly a decade and trusted him to serve as his chief of staff for his entire tenure in Congress,” Taylor Haulsee, Mr. Johnson’s spokesman, said in a statement about the arrest, which was reported earlier by NBC News. “Because of this and Hayden’s esteemed reputation among members and staff alike, the speaker has full faith and confidence in Hayden’s ability to lead the speaker’s office.”Mr. Haynes was released with a citation, rather than taken to jail, and would have a court date “within the coming weeks,” according to the Capitol Police. Since drunken driving cases in Washington, D.C., are prosecuted by the district’s attorney general rather than the U.S. district attorney’s office under the Justice Department, the Trump administration would have no apparent role in the case. More

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      Brian Bingham, a Veteran, Is Convicted of Assaulting Officer at Capitol Riot

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      Brian Glenn Bingham, of New Jersey, hit an officer in the face as the police tried to clear rioters from the building on Jan. 6, 2021, a jury found.On Monday, the eve of this year’s presidential election, a New Jersey man was convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer as part of the mob of Donald J. Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.A jury in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., found the man, Brian Glenn Bingham, of Pennsville, N.J., guilty of the felony offenses of assaulting, resisting or impeding a police officer and civil disorder, and several misdemeanors, prosecutors said.As part of his defense, court records show, Mr. Bingham argued that his actions were colored by the fact that he had been nearby around the time that a Capitol Police lieutenant fatally shot a woman named Ashli Babbitt as she tried to vault through a window near the House Chamber at the Capitol.Mr. Bingham, a 36-year-old Army veteran, is scheduled to be sentenced in February. Kevin A. Tate, a federal public defender representing him, said Mr. Bingham was “disappointed by the verdict and intends to appeal.”Mr. Bingham is among more than 1,532 people who have been criminally charged in connection with the riot, and among more than 571 who have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers, according to the Justice Department. He and other supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. The investigation into the day’s events is continuing.Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election, was charged with three conspiracy counts arising from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty, and a federal judge will ultimately determine which parts of the indictment should survive under a landmark Supreme Court ruling from July that gives presidents immunity from prosecution for certain official acts while in office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Two Brothers Charged With Assaulting Officers in Jan. 6 Riot

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      Roger and Reynold Voisine, from upstate New York, used weapons that included a pipe, a police shield and a table leg studded with nails, prosecutors said.Two brothers from upstate New York were arrested Thursday on charges of attacking law enforcement agents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and of participating in the violent mob that attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Roger A. Voisine Jr., 48, and Reynold R. Voisine, 47, face felony charges including civil disorder and assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon.The Voisine brothers started the day on Jan. 6 by attending former President Donald J. Trump’s rally at the Ellipse, in front of the White House, according to a news release issued Thursday by Matthew M. Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. They appear to have prepared for trouble. As they left the rally and walked to the Capitol, each man put on a paintball mask. Roger Voisine also carried a two-way radio, a GoPro camera mounted on a stick and a tripod inside his jacket.As the mob attacked officers with the U.S. Capitol Police and forced its way into the building, “both brothers played active roles in the day’s violence,” according to the news release.Reynold Voisine was seen assaulting officers with a crutch, a stolen police riot shield and a blue pole, the authorities said. When images from the riot circulated online, private citizens analyzed the pictures, trying to identify individuals in the mob. The blue pole earned Reynold Voisine the online nickname #BlueJavelin, according to a statement of facts that prosecutors released.At around 3:20 p.m., he was among a group of rioters seen violently beating an officer and dragging the officer from the Lower West Terrace Tunnel, site of some of the day’s most violent attacks against law enforcement, an officer with U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Queens Man Who Pushed Officer Over Ledge on Jan. 6 Sentenced to 6 Years

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      The sentencing judge called Ralph Joseph Celentano III’s attack on the police officer amid the Capitol riot a “truly cowardly and despicable thing to do.”A Queens man who tackled a police officer and pushed him over a ledge during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced this week to six and a half years in prison, court records show.The man, Ralph Joseph Celentano III, 56, of Broad Channel, was sentenced on Tuesday, according to court records. A jury convicted him last June on two felony counts — assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer, and interference with officers during a civil disorder — and several misdemeanor counts, court records show.In sentencing Mr. Celentano, the Justice Department said in a news release, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Federal District Court in Washington called his actions during the riot “disgraceful” and his assault on the officer “a truly cowardly and despicable thing to do.”Mr. Celentano is among more than 1,265 people to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, according to the Justice Department. He and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. A federal investigation into the day’s events is continuing.Mr. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination in this year’s presidential election, faces federal conspiracy and other charges arising from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty.A federal public defender representing Mr. Celentano did not immediately respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Authorities Investigate Threats to Democratic Lawmakers

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      The inquiry by the Capitol Police and the F.B.I. came after a website released a recording that it said captured Roger J. Stone Jr. in 2020 expressing a desire for the deaths of two Trump critics.The Capitol Police and the F.B.I. are investigating remarks reported to have been made by Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime Republican operative and informal adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, in which he expressed a desire for the deaths of two Democratic lawmakers in the weeks before the 2020 election, a government official familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.The investigation into Mr. Stone was opened shortly after the website Mediaite released an audio recording in which someone sounding like him can be heard discussing Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York and Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who are among Mr. Trump’s most vocal congressional critics.“It’s time to do it,” the speaker can be heard saying. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Swalwell or Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message.”An article by Mediaite accompanying the recording claimed that Mr. Stone made the remarks to an associate, Salvatore Greco, a former New York City policeman, at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But the recording itself does not make clear whom the speaker was addressing.Mr. Stone has denied making the comments, calling the recording “a deep fake.” He repeated that denial on Tuesday, claiming that “forensic examinations” had shown the recording to be fake. He did not respond to a question about the F.B.I. and Capitol Police investigation.Both agencies declined to comment on the inquiry.Mr. Greco, who was dismissed from the Police Department in 2022 after an internal inquiry into his relationship with Mr. Stone, responded to the initial release of the recording on Friday by calling it “political fodder.” Neither he nor his lawyer responded on Tuesday to a message seeking comment about the investigation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Harry Dunn, Who Defended Capitol on Jan. 6, Will Run for Congress

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      Harry Dunn, who endured racist slurs as he fought off a pro-Trump mob and gained fame with his emotional testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, is joining a crowded Democratic primary.Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who rose to prominence for his defense of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for his emotional public testimony describing the attack, announced on Friday that he was running for Congress in Maryland’s third district.“On Jan. 6, 2021, I did my duty as a police officer and as an American and defended our nation’s Capitol from violent insurrectionists,” Mr. Dunn said in a statement. “Today, I’m running for Congress because the forces that spurred that violent attack are still at work, and as a patriotic American, it is my duty to defend our democracy.”Mr. Dunn, 40, will enter a crowded Democratic primary field to replace Representative John Sarbanes, the retiring 17-year incumbent. Five state lawmakers have already announced their campaigns to represent the central Maryland district, which snakes between Washington and Baltimore. Whoever emerges from the primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic district is almost certain to win the general election.Mr. Dunn, a member of the Capitol Police for 15 years, was one of four officers who testified at the first public hearing of the House committee that investigated the attack by the pro-Trump mob on the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. He described how fellow officers bloodied in the battle and how rioters used racist slurs against him.“I sat down on a bench with a friend of mine who is also a Black Capitol Police officer and told him about the racial slurs I had endured,” Mr. Dunn recalled during a memorable portion of the testimony. He added that he “became very emotional,” asking how such a thing could happen and yelling, “‘Is this America?’”“I began sobbing, and officers came over to console me,” he said.In 2023, President Biden awarded Mr. Dunn the Presidential Citizens Medal in recognition for his role in protecting the Capitol.Mr. Dunn grew up in the Washington suburbs of Prince George’s County, Md., and graduated from James Madison University in Virginia, where he played football and helped lead the team to its first national title.He has written a book called “Standing My Ground.” More

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      Prosecutors Ask Judge to Keep Trump From Making ‘Baseless Political Claims’ in Trial

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      The special counsel, Jack Smith, is seeking to shape the evidence the jury in the federal election interference case will hear.Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Wednesday to keep former President Donald J. Trump and his lawyers from claiming to the jury in his upcoming election interference trial that the case had been brought against him as a partisan attack by the Biden administration.The move by the prosecutors was designed to keep Mr. Trump from overtly politicizing his trial and from distracting the jury with unfounded political arguments that he has often made on both the campaign trail and in court papers related to the case.Ever since Mr. Trump was charged this summer with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, he and his lawyers have sought to frame the indictment as a retaliatory strike against him by President Biden. Mr. Trump has also placed such claims at the heart of his presidential campaign even though the charges were initially returned by a federal grand jury and are being overseen by an independent special counsel, Jack Smith.Molly Gaston, one of Mr. Smith’s senior assistants, asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is handling the election case in Federal District Court in Washington, to keep Mr. Trump’s political attacks as far away from the jury as possible.“The court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation,” Ms. Gaston wrote, “and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding.”The 20-page motion was filed two weeks after Judge Chutkan effectively froze the case in place as an appeals court considers Mr. Trump’s broad claims that he is immune from prosecution. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear the question of the immunity immediately, although the justices are likely to take up the issue after the appeals court completes its highly accelerated review.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Biden Marks 2nd Anniversary of Jan. 6 By Awarding 14 Presidential Medals

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      President Biden marked the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack by awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to 14 people.Fourteen people who fought the violent mob at the Capitol two years ago and stood against election denialism in 2020 were awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday honored 14 people who stood against election denialism in 2020 and fought the violent mob at the Capitol two years ago, telling them in a White House ceremony that history “will remember your names, remember your courage, remember your bravery.”Speaking from the East Room, he awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to nine police officers — three of whom died after protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and five local officials who were subjected to personal violence but resisted pressure to undermine the election in 2020.Together, Mr. Biden said, the individuals he honored represented the “extraordinary Americans” whose service to the country helped thwart the efforts of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies as they sought to keep Mr. Trump in power.“A violent mob of insurrectionists assaulted law enforcement, vandalized sacred halls, hunted down elected officials, all for the purpose of attempting to overthrow the will of the people and usurp the peaceful transfer of power,” Mr. Biden said. “All of it — all of it — was fueled by lies about the 2020 election. But on this day, two years ago, our democracy held because we the people, as the Constitution refers to us, we the people did not flinch.”A year ago, on the first anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Biden rejected the idea that Americans are “too bogged down by division to succeed,” though he added a grim, cautionary note: “Believe me, I know how difficult democracy is.”On Friday, as the president marked the second anniversary, those divisions were on full display in Washington.Twenty Republican lawmakers, most of them eager participants in the election lies that gave rise to the Jan. 6 attack, have repeatedly failed this week to elect a speaker, bringing the proceedings of democracy to a halt in the House.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.Democracy, it seems, is as difficult as Mr. Biden predicted a year ago.Mr. Biden’s first speech about Jan. 6 was also more focused on Mr. Trump and his actions. Speaking from Statuary Hall in the Capitol in 2022, the president issued a scathing takedown of his predecessor and vowed to “stand in this breach” to ensure that no one places “a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”This time, Mr. Biden sought to draw attention not to Mr. Trump, but to the people who stood against the former president.He began by honoring nine police officers, all of whom fought against the surge of violence on Jan. 6 as lawmakers met to certify Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump.He praised Daniel Hodges, a Washington police officer who was injured during his first visit to the Capitol, for his bravery amid the chaos.“Sprayed with poison, pinned and crushed, eye almost gouged out — he didn’t break,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Hodges.Mr. Biden honored Michael Fanone, a Capitol Police officer who he said was “beaten, beaten, not pushed around, beaten” and yet “defended our democracy with absolute courage.” And Mr. Biden also paid tribute to Caroline Edwards, the first law enforcement officer injured by the rioters, saying she was knocked unconscious by rioters but “got back up to help hold the line.”Mr. Biden also awarded the medal to Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who faced racial slurs and harassment on Jan. 6; Aquilino Gonell, a sergeant with the Capitol Police who was injured in the attack; and Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer who led a pro-Trump mob away from the entrance to the Senate chamber.Three officers Mr. Biden honored on Friday died after the Jan. 6 attacks: Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died of a stroke a day after the attacks; Howard C. Liebengood, who died by suicide three days after the attack; and Jeffrey L. Smith, a Metropolitan Police officer who also died by suicide after helping to protect the Capitol.Speaking to the family members of the honorees, who accepted the medals on the men’s behalf, Mr. Biden offered condolences and a sense of understanding about the grief they are still struggling to deal with.“Boy is it hard,” he said. “I know how proud I am when my son Beau is honored on the anniversary of his death as a consequence of burn pits in Iraq. But it brings everything back like it happened that moment.“I want to thank you for having the courage to be here today,” he added.In addition to the police officers, Mr. Biden awarded the medals to five local officials, each of whom refused to do the bidding of those who insisted that the election had been rigged.Two of them — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who is her daughter — received the awards for serving as poll workers in Atlanta, where they were subjected to abuse by Trump supporters who falsely accused them of participating in election fraud.“Both of them were just doing their jobs, and they were targeted and threatened by the same peddlers of a lie that was fueling the insurrection,” Mr. Biden said. “They were literally forced from their homes and faced despicable racist taunts.”Mr. Biden also praised Al Schmidt, who was a city commissioner on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections in 2020, noting that he “did not bend, he did not bow, he did not yield to the political threats and pressure.” And he hailed Jocelyn Benson, who served as the Secretary of State of Michigan during the 2020 election, and Rusty Bowers, the Republican House speaker in Arizona. All three resisted pressure from those seeking to overturn the results in 2020.Mr. Biden called Ms. Benson “a true leader in our nation” and said Mr. Bowers shows people “what integrity is all about.”A year ago, with the events of Jan. 6 looming in the more recent past, Mr. Biden expressed greater worry about the future of the country, saying that “as we stand here today — one year since Jan. 6, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated.”But on Friday, he returned to the optimism that has often characterized his speeches.“We’re not a land of kings and dictators, autocrats and extremists,” he said. “As we see in today’s honorees, we’re a nation and we the people that toughen our fiber, renew our faith and strengthen our cause. There’s nothing beyond our capacity, if we act together.” More

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      Biden Will Mark Jan. 6 With Presidential Medals for Election Officials

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      The Presidential Citizens Medal will honor those who resisted efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including law enforcement officers and Rusty Bowers, the former House speaker in Arizona.WASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday will mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to a dozen people who resisted efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Mr. Biden will present the award, which is among the nation’s highest civilian honors, at a ceremony at the White House, officials said. The award is given to people who have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”The group to be honored is a who’s who of figures that defended the 2020 election results in the face of threats from Donald J. Trump and his most fervent supporters.It includes leading Republicans, like Rusty Bowers, the former Arizona House speaker, and Al Schmidt, a city commissioner in Pennsylvania, who helped confirm Mr. Trump’s defeat in their states by insisting all absentee ballots be counted. Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, oversaw an extended process to tabulate votes in Detroit.Mr. Biden will also honor Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, who processed ballots during the 2020 election for the Fulton County, Ga., elections board. They were falsely accused of manipulating ballots by Mr. Trump, his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and the conspiracy website The Gateway Pundit.The two women later sued The Gateway Pundit and Mr. Giuliani, and Ms. Freeman, like several of the other honorees, testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.The president will also honor seven police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, including Brian Sicknick, who died of a stroke a day later.The ceremony comes two years after the attacks by Trump supporters, who violently forced their way into the Capitol with the intent to stop lawmakers from formally certifying Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump.Since then, Mr. Biden has repeatedly warned that the day’s events — and the broader effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undermine confidence in the election — represent a significant threat to American democracy.“For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Mr. Biden said during a speech on the first anniversary of the attacks.In those remarks, Mr. Biden vowed to work against the forces who enabled the attack on that dark day in American history.“I will stand in this breach,” he said, speaking from the Capitol. “I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”This year, Mr. Biden’s speech will focus on the people who attempted to defend democracy.Other awardees include:Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who faced racial slurs and harassment on Jan. 6.Caroline Edwards, the first law enforcement officer injured by the rioters.Michael Fanone, a Washington police officer who was injured in the attack.Aquilino Gonell, a sergeant with the Capitol Police who was injured in the attack.Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer who led a pro-Trump mob away from the entrance to the Senate chamber during the attack.Daniel Hodges, a Washington police officer who was injured in the attack. According to the White House, Jan. 6 was his first time in the Capitol. More