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      House panel gathers mountain of evidence in Capitol attack investigation

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      House panel gathers mountain of evidence in Capitol attack investigationPanel on track to interview more than 300 witnesses, chair says, with more than 30,000 documents already turned over The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has amassed a huge trove of evidence as it seeks to connect the Trump White House to the 6 January insurrection, three months after it issued its first subpoenas to the former president’s most senior administration officials.The select committee revealed on Monday that members had reviewed thousands of documents turned over by Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, which showed the White House played a far more substantial role in overturning the 2020 election than previously known.Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts showRead moreBut those communications and other documents that Meadows turned over represent just a small sample of evidence potentially incriminating the Trump White House collected since September.The committee expects this week to depose more top aides, including the Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, from whom they hope to learn more about Trump’s efforts to reinstall himself as president – even if Clark invokes his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.That hope stems from the fact that Clark agreed to appear for a deposition just moments before the select committee would have recommended his prosecution for defying a subpoena – a circumstance that members believe means he will cooperate.Bennie Thompson, the panel chair, said on Monday that after depositions this week, the panel was on track to interview more than 300 witnesses and add to the more than 30,000 documents already turned over.The select committee also obtained about 6,000 documents from Meadows as part of a delicate cooperation agreement requiring the production of non-privileged material, before Meadows abruptly broke off the deal last week.Part of the reason Meadows ended the cooperation deal was that he had learned from his personal cellphone carrier – believed to be Verizon – that the committee had started pursuing his call detail records, his attorney George Terwilliger said in a letter.The select committee has in recent weeks issued subpoenas for the call detail records of several hundred phone numbers, which typically reveal the date, time, duration and target numbers of calls, according to a source close to the investigation.Such records are expected to prove a boon for the inquiry, the source said, since it enables House investigators to map a pattern of which phone numbers were being dialed, and to connect key phone numbers to others on 6 January and the days and weeks before.The release of Meadows’ cellphone records could come around the same time the committee potentially gains access to the several hundred pages of documents from the Trump White House held by the National Archives.The select committee is on track to obtain those records, which Trump has claimed are subject to executive privilege and cannot be given to Congress, after the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia last week upheld a lower court ruling approving their release.In a unanimous decision, the federal appeals court denied Trump’s request for an injunction, saying in a blunt ruling that in a dispute between a current and former president over whether to release White House records, the sitting president’s view must prevail.Those records, so aggressively defended by Trump, the select committee believes, might help members make the case that the former president interfered with Biden’s certification with corrupt intent, a potential crime, the source said.In the cache of communications Meadows furnished, the select committee said, were text messages he received from Republican members of Congress, in the days before the Capitol attack and on 6 January, from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr.Among the messages to Meadows that the committee disclosed was one from an unidentified Republican lawmaker, who apologized to Meadows after the Capitol attack for not succeeding in stopping Joe Biden from being pronounced president.“Yesterday was a terrible day,” the text message from the Republican lawmaker read, referring to the Capitol attack, before saying of the attempt to prevent Biden’s certification: “We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMark MeadowsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows: House votes to recommend criminal contempt charges against Trump ex-chief of staff

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      Mark Meadows: House votes to recommend criminal contempt charges against Trump ex-chief of staffMove comes after senior Trump figure ceased cooperating with panel investigating Capitol attack The US House of Representatives has approved a measure recommending criminal contempt charges against Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, a week after he ended his cooperation with the chamber’s committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.The approval marks the first time the House has voted to hold a former member in contempt since the 1830s, according to the chamber’s records.It is the latest show of force by the 6 January panel, which is leaving no angle unexplored as it investigates the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years. Lawmakers are determined to get answers quickly, and in so doing reassert the congressional authority that Trump eroded while in office.“History will be written about these times, about the work this committee has undertaken,” said Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman. Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman, left in March 2020 to join Trump’s administration. Before he left Congress, Meadows “continually insisted that people and high-ranking government officials respect the authority of Congress to do its job, and investigative powers are implicit in and intertwined with our powers to legislate this”, said Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee.Raskin began Tuesday’s debate by reading from newly released, frantic texts from the day of the attack revealing members of Congress, Fox News anchors and even Trump’s son urging Meadows to persuade the outgoing president to act quickly to stop the three-hour assault by his supporters.Tuesday’s vote followed a recommendation by the committee that Meadows be charged. The matter now heads to the justice department, which will decide whether to prosecute.Republicans on Tuesday called the action against Meadows a distraction from the House’s work, with one member calling it “evil” and “un-American”. Trump has also defended Meadows in an interview, calling him “an honorable man”. The committee’s leaders have vowed to punish anyone who doesn’t comply with their investigation, and the justice department has already indicted Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon on two counts of contempt after he defied his subpoena. If convicted, Bannon and Meadows could face up to one year behind bars on each charge.However, in a Tuesday statement, Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger said the former chief of staff had never stopped cooperating but maintained he could not be compelled to appear for an interview. The attorney said Meadows had “fully cooperated” with respect to documents that are in his possession and are not privileged.Meadows himself has sued the panel, asking a court to invalidate two subpoenas that he says are “overly broad and unduly burdensome”.Members of the committee said the text messages sent to Meadows on the day of the insurrection raised fresh questions about what was happening at the White House, and what Trump himself was doing, as the attack was under way. The committee had planned to question Meadows about the communications, including 6,600 pages of records taken from personal email accounts and about 2,000 text messages. The panel has not released any of the communications in full.The Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s vice chairwoman, said at the committee’s Monday evening meeting that an important issue raised by the texts was whether Trump had sought to obstruct the congressional certification by refusing to send a strong message to the rioters to stop.“These texts leave no doubt,” Cheney said. “The White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol.”The investigating panel has already interviewed more than 300 witnesses, and subpoenaed more than 40 people, as it seeks to create the most comprehensive record yet of the lead-up to the insurrection and of the violent siege itself.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesMark MeadowsUS CongressUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Proud Boys and Oath Keepers sued over Capitol attack

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      Proud Boys and Oath Keepers sued over Capitol attack‘Be prepared to spend money to defend yourself because we are coming after you,’ DC delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton says The District of Columbia has filed a civil lawsuit seeking harsh financial penalties against far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers over their role in the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court, also names dozens of the groups’ senior members, many of whom already face criminal charges for taking part in the violent attack on the Capitol building while Congress was meeting to certify the 2020 election results.Karl Racine, Washington’s attorney general, said the suit seeks compensation for damages to the District of Columbia and to inflict maximum financial damage on the groups responsible.“Our intent is to hold these violent mobsters and violent hate groups accountable and to get every penny of damage we can,” Racine said. “If it so happens that we bankrupt them, then that’s a good day.”There was no immediate response to emails sent to the groups seeking comment.The lawsuit cites as its basis a post-civil war law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, enacted in 1871. A similar tactic was used to secure a $26m verdict last month against white supremacist groups and individuals responsible for organizing the violent 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one person was killed after a man plowed his car into a group of counter-protesters.Racine announced the suit Tuesday alongside Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. Norton said the suit is designed to secure extra funding to support DC police officers injured while defending the Capitol building and to serve as a warning to extremist groups.“They’re going to have to spend money to defend themselves,” Norton said. “Even if we don’t get a penny in restitution, this lawsuit’s deterrent effect will say, ‘Be prepared to spend money to defend yourself because we are coming after you.’ ”Racine said evidence presented in the multiple federal criminal cases under way already proves “explicit evidence of conspiracy” to commit violent acts in the nation’s capital. He said the lawsuit presents an opportunity to publicly explore and expose the financial support structure of the far-right extremist network.“I sure hope they try to defend the case,” he said. “We can’t wait to propound searing questions about the finances of these individuals and these groups.”The Proud Boys emerged from the far-right fringes during the Trump administration to join mainstream GOP circles. The Oath Keepers is a militia group founded in 2009 that recruits current and former military, police and first responders.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts show

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      Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged Meadows to help stop Capitol attack, texts showThree of the network’s presenters urged Meadows to push Trump to act while Trump Jr said ‘He has to lead now’ Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr and three hosts on the Fox News network begged then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to persuade the former president to stop the 6 January insurrection despite their public efforts to downplay it, newly released text messages show.The sense of panic that enveloped the former president’s inner circle during the attack on the US Capitol was revealed on Monday when Congresswoman Liz Cheney, vice-chair of a House select committee investigating the riot, read aloud texts sent to Meadows.Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecutionRead more“We need an Oval address,” Trump Jr wrote as his father’s supporters were storming the Capitol, sending members of Congress running for their lives and delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”Trump Jr added: “He’s got to condemn this shit asap.”In response, Meadows texted: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”Cheney also made public frantic messages from three Fox News presenters who became notorious as cheerleaders for the Trump administration and for fanning the flames of his lies about voter fraud. Crossing a line from journalists to informal advisers, they urged Meadows to push Trump to act quickly to stop the siege by his supporters.Laura Ingraham, the host of The Ingraham Angle, wrote: “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”Yet later that night Ingraham went on air baselessly shifting blame from Trump’s supporters to the anti-fascist movement antifa. She told viewers: “From a chaotic Washington tonight, earlier today the Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the Maga [Make America Great Again] movement. Now, they were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some reports that antifa sympathisers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.”Brian Kilmeade, co-host of the morning show Fox & Friends, on which Trump appeared regularly, wrote to the chief of staff on 6 January: “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”And Sean Hannity, a prime time host who once appeared onstage with Trump at a campaign rally, texted Meadows: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”But later, on his broadcast, Hannity said: “Our election, frankly, was a train wreck. Eighty-three per cent, according to Gallup, of Republicans, and millions of others, do not have faith in these election results. You can’t just snap your finger and hope that goes away.”Trump has been widely condemned for his casual response to insurrection, which had been raging for three hours before he finally released a video urging the mob: “Go home. We love you. You’re very special.” A few hours later he tweeted: “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”Since then the ex-president, Trump Jr and rightwing media have spent months seeking to minimise the events of 6 January, which resulted in five deaths and more than 500 arrests. Trump has claimed that rioters were “hugging and kissing” police.Last month another Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, produced a three-part documentary, Patriot Purge, for the Fox Nation streaming platform that pushed the lie that the insurrection was a “false flag” operation designed to hurt Trump’s supporters. “January 6 is being used as a pretext to strip millions of Americans – disfavoured Americans – of their core constitutional rights,” he insisted.But Monday’s fresh insight into the symbiotic relationship between the Trump White House and Fox News show that those close to the president realised the gravity of what was unfolding and how damaging it could be.Cheney said the texts show Trump’s “supreme dereliction” as he refused to strongly condemn the violence of his supporters. “These texts leave no doubt,” Cheney said. “The White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol.”Amanda Carpenter, a former communications director to Senator Ted Cruz, wrote on the Bulwark website: “These texts prove something essential. No matter what they say now, Trump’s loyalists knew at the time that what was happening at the Capitol was not a peaceful protest.“They knew that it was a dangerous attack on American democracy. And they knew that Trump was responsible for it. That’s why they sent the texts pleading with him, through his staff, to make it stop.”The texts were among almost 9,000 documents that Meadows turned over to the committee before he ceased cooperation. Cheney disclosed only a tiny fraction, raising the prospect of further embarrassments to come for Trump’s allies.The committee voted 9-0 to recommend that Meadows, himself a former members of the House, be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena. The full House is set to vote on Tuesday to refer the charges to the justice department.The hearing was not broadcast on Fox News but Meadows appeared on the network soon after the vote. There was no mention of the revelatory texts. He told Hannity: “This is about Donald Trump and about actually going after him once again.”Two longtime Fox News contributors, Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, resigned last month in protest at Carlson’s Patriot Purge programme. Chris Wallace, host of the network’s flagship Sunday politics programme, resigned on Sunday after 18 years to join CNN’s new streaming platform.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpDonald Trump JrFox NewsTrump administrationUS politicsMark MeadowsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecution

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      Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecutionIn a unanimous vote, the committee said Donald Trump’s former chief of staff attempted to obstruct the 6 January investigation02:23The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday voted to recommend the criminal prosecution for former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, punishing Donald Trump’s most senior aide for refusing to testify about the 6 January insurrection.The select committee advanced the contempt of Congress report for Meadows unanimously, sending the matter to a vote before the full House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the citation as soon as Tuesday.Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said in an opening statement before the panel recommended Meadows’ referral to the justice department that Trump’s former White House chief of staff displayed willful noncompliance in his defiance of his subpoena.Trump rails against Meadows for revealing Covid test cover-up – reportRead more“It comes down to this,” Thompson said. “Mr Meadows started by doing the right thing: cooperating. He handed over records that he didn’t try to shield behind some excuse. But in an investigation like ours, that’s just a first step.“When the records raise questions – as these most certainly do – you have to come in and answer those questions. And when it was time for him to follow the law, come in, and testify on those questions, he changed his mind and told us to pound sand. He didn’t even show up.”The select committee said in the contempt report they were seeking charges against Meadows after he attempted to obstruct the investigation in myriad ways, from refusing to testify to frustrating their efforts to locate and discover documents relevant to the Capitol attack.The select committee also said Meadows should be prosecuted since he refused to testify even about information he voluntarily provided to the panel through his own document production and conceded were not covered by claims of executive privilege advanced by Trump.And over the course of a near-hour-long business meeting, the select committee outlined in detail the materials Meadows had turned over to the panel – and how Meadows then promptly refused to testify about those very records.Meadows turned over about 9,000 documents as part of a cooperation deal, the select committee said, in his effort to engage with the inquiry to a degree in order to avoid an immediate criminal referral that befell other Trump administration aides who defied subpoenas.Among the materials Meadows turned over to the select committee was a PowerPoint presentation titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference and Options for 6 JAN”, which recommended Trump declare a national security emergency to unilaterally return himself to office.He also turned over text messages – read out loud by the select committee’s vice chair, Liz Cheney – that he received as the 6 January riot unfolded, including from Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, who implored him “we need an Oval Office address” to stop the Capitol attack.Meadows received more texts, the select committee said, from an unnamed lawmaker, who messaged him the day after the Capitol attack: “Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”But his cooperation with the select committee ended with the document production and Meadows informed the panel last week that he would not answer questions because he had come to learn that House investigators had subpoenaed call detail records for his personal phone.The select committee said Meadows’ refusal to testify constituted noncompliance with his subpoena, which was first issued months before in September, and initiated proceedings to recommend that the House hold him in contempt of Congress.The move by the select committee poses damaging consequences for Trump’s most senior aide: if approved by the House, the justice department is required to take the matter before a grand jury, which previously indicted Trump strategist Steve Bannon for subpoena defiance.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor charge may not ultimately lead to his cooperation, and pursuing the offense could still take years.The select committee targeted Meadows from the outset of the investigation as it sought to uncover the extent of his role in Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.The Guardian previously reported, for instance, that hours before the Capitol attack, Trump made a call from the White House to operatives working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC and pressed them about stopping Biden from being named president.But House investigators said in a 51-page contempt report for Meadows that they had also wanted to question him about a range of issues about the 6 January insurrection, including an email he sent that said the National Guard would be there to “protect pro Trump people”.The select committee said they wanted to ask about text messages and emails about having state legislatures send Trump slates of electors to Congress – a plan that one congressman told him was “highly controversial”, to which Meadows responded, “I love it”.House investigators said in the contempt report that they wanted to depose Meadows about texts he sent in December 2020 about installing Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, as well as texts to organizers of the 6 January rally.The select committee said it also had questions about why Meadows used a personal cellphone, an encrypted Signal messaging app and two personal Gmail accounts for official business – and whether their contents had been turned over to the National Archives.Counsel for the select committee noted additionally that it was untenable for Meadows to claim executive privilege protection as a way to dodge testifying before the panel after he wrote about potentially privileged conversations with Trump in his new book.“Mr Meadows has shown his willingness to talk about issues related to the select committee’s investigation across a variety of media platforms – anywhere, it seems, except to the select committee,” the panel said in the contempt report.During the contempt vote, the select committee beamed screenshots of texts he had received on his personal cellphone from lawmakers on 6 January and, crucially, a passage from his book that described a private conversation he had with Trump as rioters breached the Capitol.The select committee showed Meadows wrote in his book: “When he got offstage, President Trump let me know that he had been speaking metaphorically about the walk to the Capitol. He knew as well as anyone that we couldn’t organize a trip like that on such short notice.”The move to recommend Meadows’ criminal prosecution marks the third such instance by the select committee, after it first approved a contempt of Congress citation against Bannon in October, and then against Clark last month, for defying subpoenas.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Judges weigh social media posts in criminal sentences for US Capitol attack

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      Judges weigh social media posts in criminal sentences for US Capitol attackMuch of the evidence has come from rioters’ own words and videos, as many used social media to celebrate the violence For many insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January, self-incriminating messages, photos and videos that they broadcast on social media before, during and after the attack are influencing their criminal sentences.Earlier this month, US district judge Amy Jackson read aloud some of Russell Peterson’s posts before she sentenced the Pennsylvania man to 30 days imprisonment.“Overall I had fun lol,” Peterson had posted on Facebook, using the social media abbreviation for “laugh out loud”.The judge told Peterson that his posts made it “extraordinarily difficult” for her to show him leniency.“The ‘lol’ particularly stuck in my craw because, as I hope you’ve come to understand, nothing about January 6th was funny,” Jackson added. “No one locked in a room, cowering under a table for hours, was laughing.”Among the biggest takeaways so far from the justice department’s prosecution of the insurrection is how large a role social media has played, with much of the most damning evidence coming from rioters’ own words and videos, in addition to evidence of entering the Capitol, destroying property or hurting people.Extremist supporters of Donald Trump broke into the Capitol following days of build-up among the rightwing and after a rally in Washington, DC, where the then president urged the crowd to try to stop the official certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.FBI agents have identified scores of rioters from public posts and records subpoenaed from social media platforms. Prosecutors used posts to build cases and judges are now weighing them in favor of tougher sentences.As of last Friday, more than 50 people have been sentenced for federal crimes related to the insurrection.In at least 28 of those cases, prosecutors factored a defendant’s social media posts into their requests for stricter sentences, according to an Associated Press review of court records.Many insurrectionists used social media to celebrate the violence or spew hateful rhetoric. Others used it to spread misinformation, promote baseless conspiracy theories or play down their actions.Prosecutors also have accused a few defendants of trying to destroy evidence by deleting posts.Approximately 700 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot. About 150 of them have pleaded guilty.More than 20 defendants have been sentenced to jail or prison terms or to time already served behind bars. Over a dozen others received home confinement sentences.Prosecutors recommended probation for Indiana hair salon owner Dona Sue Bissey, but the judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, sentenced her to two weeks in jail for her participation in the riot.The judge noted that Bissey posted a screenshot of a Twitter post that read: “This is the First time the U.S. Capitol had been breached since it was attacked by the British in 1814.”Chutkan said: “When Ms. Bissey got home, she was not struck with remorse or regret for what she had done. She’s celebrating and bragging about her participation in what amounted to an attempted overthrow of the government.”‘A roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump’s plot to steal the presidencyRead moreFBI agents obtained a search warrant for Andrew Ryan Bennett’s Facebook account after getting a tip that the Maryland man live-streamed video from inside the Capitol.Two days before the riot, Bennett posted a Facebook message that said: “You better be ready chaos is coming and I will be in DC on 1/6/2021 fighting for my freedom!”Judge James Boasberg singled out that post as an “aggravating” factor weighing in favor of house arrest instead of a fully probationary sentence.“The cornerstone of our democratic republic is the peaceful transfer of power after elections,” the judge told Bennett. “What you and others did on January 6th was nothing less than an attempt to undermine that system of government.”Meanwhile, videos captured New Jersey gym owner Scott Fairlamb punching a police officer outside the Capitol. His Facebook and Instagram posts showed he was prepared to commit violence there and had no remorse for his actions, prosecutors said.Senior Judge Royce Lamberth said other rioters in Fairlamb’s position would be “well advised” to join him in pleading guilty.“You couldn’t have beat this if you went to trial on the evidence that I saw,” Lamberth said before sentencing Fairlamb to 41 months in prison.The role of social media has drawn criticism of the tech companies behind the relevant platforms. Facebook was shown to have ignored warning signs in the build-up to the attack.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS crimeLaw (US)Social medianewsReuse this content More