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      Nancy Pelosi says US Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within – video

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      Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker of the US Congress, has likened the 6 January attack to 9/11, saying one had been an assault on US democracy from within and the other from the outside. Speaking at a Chatham House seminar in London on Friday, she also claimed the Republicans had been hijacked by a cult that believed neither in science nor government, making it hard for the US to be governed

      US Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within, says Pelosi More

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      US Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within, says Pelosi

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      Nancy PelosiUS Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within, says PelosiHouse speaker makes remarks at Chatham House seminar in London a day after meeting Boris Johnson02:52Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editorFri 17 Sep 2021 09.11 EDTLast modified on Fri 17 Sep 2021 11.02 EDTNancy Pelosi, the House speaker of the US Congress, has likened the 6 January insurrection fomented by Donald Trump to 9/11, saying one had been an assault on US democracy from within and the other from the outside.She also claimed the Republicans had been hijacked by a cult that believed neither in science or government, making it hard for the US to be governed.Her remarks, made at a Chatham House seminar in London on Friday, arguably breach the semi-honoured rule for domestic political disputes to end at America’s water’s edge.Pelosi a strong defender of the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, repeated her warning of two years ago that anything that imperilled the agreement could mean the US Congress would not ratify a free trade deal with the UK.She was speaking at Chatham House the day after meeting Boris Johnson in Downing Street.She said the prime minister had given her some reading material and that she would cross-examine him on the details when they met again in Washington next week.Johnson is due to travel to the US with Liz Truss, the new UK foreign secretary, prior to the UN general assembly.“This is not said as any threat,” Pelosi insisted. “It is a prediction. If there is destruction of the Good Friday accords we’re very unlikely to have a UK-US bilateral [trade deal].”The bulk of her remarks were concerned with the collapse of bipartisanship within the US, and the implications for its relationships as an ally with other countries.The 6 January demonstration, she said, was an insurrection incited by Trump, and added that it “was an assault on Congress, constitution and our democracy. How we deal with it is really the measure of the strength of our democracy.”She also challenged Republican senators for rejecting the congressional commission into the Capitol attack, asking: “Why do they reject finding the truth of what happened in January? Is it because they had some sympathy for the cause?”She compared the 6 January protest with 9/11, saying while the attack in 2001 had been an “assault from outside”, the Capitol attack was an “assault from within”.“Horrible in both cases. What had happened to our democracy on 6 January was horrible,” she said.Although Trump did not create the problems on 6 January, she continued, “he galvanised them” with the help of social media, especially Facebook. She ironically thanked Facebook for hosting 2 million followers of the conspiracy theory QAnon on its site and said social media was a blessing, but a double-edged sword.The roots of American populism lay in fears of globalisation, automation and immigration, and was expressed through Islamophobia, antisemitism and ideas of white supremacy, she said.She added: “I would say to my Republican friends – and I do have some – take back your party, the Republican party. The Grand Old Party has made tremendous contributions to our country founded by Lincoln. Don’t let your party be hijacked by a cult – essentially, that is what is happening.“This is not conservative. This is radical rightwing, off the spectrum, anti-governance and if you are anti-governance it is very difficult to govern.“If you are in denial about climate change, if you don’t believe the science and data and won’t respond to the data, that is a problem.”She admitted the Democrats “have a big fight on our hands whether it is in the states or nationally”. She also admitted some of the alienation was caused by inequality.“In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should. So what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it.“You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that.”TopicsNancy PelosiUS Capitol attackSeptember 11 2001US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol police arrest man with knives in his truck near Democratic party headquarters

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      Washington DCCapitol police arrest man with knives in his truck near Democratic party headquartersTruck with white supremacist symbols contained bayonet and machete, a month after police standoff over bomb threat Maya YangMon 13 Sep 2021 17.04 EDTLast modified on Mon 13 Sep 2021 17.05 EDTUS Capitol police arrested a man who had multiple knives, including a bayonet and a machete, in his truck near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC on Monday.Patrol officers noticed a Dodge Dakota pickup truck that bore a swastika and had other white supremacist symbols painted on it around midnight on Sunday. According to pictures released by the police, the truck did not have a license plate but instead a picture of an American flag. The truck also had antlers attached to its front grill.The owner of the truck was identified as 44-year old Donald Craighead of Oceanside, California. Bayonets and machetes are illegal in Washington DC, according to police.“Craighead said he was ‘on patrol’ and began talking about white supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy,” according to a press release by the Capitol police.“This is good police work, plain and simple,” said the Capitol police chief, Tom Manger. “We applaud the officers’ keen observation and the teamwork that resulted in this arrest.”Monday’s incident comes less than a month after a North Carolina man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hours-long standoff. Police who searched the vehicle said they had not found a bomb but had collected possible bomb-making materials.Craighead’s arrest also comes as law enforcement officials prepare for potential unrest and violence during a rightwing rally on Saturday. The rally, titled Justice for J6, aims to defend the nearly 600 insurrectionists who were charged in connection with the deadly 6 January Capitol attack this year.Top security officials in Congress are expected to reinstall a 7ft fence around the Capitol and authorize the use of deadly force ahead of the rally. The officials have no plans so far to request the national guard as their threat assessment did not warrant their deployment, according to sources familiar with the matter.“We intend to have the integrity of the Capitol be intact,” said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, last Wednesday. “What happened on January 6 was such an assault on this beautiful Capitol, under the dome that Lincoln built during the civil war.”In an interview with USA Today, Craighead’s father said he did not believe his son had been in Washington to attend Saturday’s upcoming rally, adding that his son had been struggling with drug abuse and mental illness. “He’s not a Trump supporter; I don’t think he’s ever hurt anyone,” said Donald W Craighead.TopicsWashington DCUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s White House chief of staff is target of Capitol attack records request

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      US Capitol attackTrump’s White House chief of staff is target of Capitol attack records requestHouse select committee investigating 6 January wants telecom and social media companies to preserve records on Mark Meadows Hugo Lowell in WashingtonMon 13 Sep 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 13 Sep 2021 05.02 EDTThe House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol has instructed telecom and social media companies last week to preserve records of Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to a source familiar with the matter.The move positions the select committee on the doorstep of the Oval Office as it pursues a far-reaching inquiry into whether Trump and his White House helped plan or had advance knowledge of the insurrection perpetrated by the former president’s supporters.Republicans in crosshairs of 6 January panel begin campaign of intimidationRead moreHouse select committee investigators signaled their intention to examine potential involvement by the Trump White House and House Republicans when they last week made a series of records demands and records preservation requests for Trump officials connected to the Capitol attack.In the records preservation requests, the select committee instructed 35 telecom and social media companies to avoid destroying communications logs of several hundred people, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and 10 House Republicans, in case it later issues subpoenas.But the previously unreported inclusion of Meadows on the list of people whose records the select committee wants preserved suggests the panel will seek more information on the most senior aide in the Trump administration and could upturn every inch of the West Wing in its inquiry.The former chief of staff is among several top White House officials who may hold the key to unlock inside information pertaining to the extent of the former president’s involvement in the Capitol attack that left five dead and nearly 140 injured.Meadows remained at Trump’s side in the weeks before 6 January as well as on the day itself, as the White House strategized ways to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and ensure the then vice-president, Mike Pence, would not certify Joe Biden’s victory.The White House chief of staff started the day of the insurrection with Trump in the Oval Office, before attending the “Save America” rally that preceded the Capitol attack, according to a Trump administration official familiar with his movements.Meadows then accompanied Trump back to the White House with a coterie of aides and advisers, from where the former president told the Republican senator Ben Sasse that he was “delighted” at the images of his supporters and domestic violent extremists storming the Capitol in his name.He then also spoke to Marc Short, the chief of staff to Pence, as well as Kash Patel, the chief of staff to the then defense secretary, Christopher Miller, the official said.Such proximity to Trump and the chiefs of staff to two key Trump cabinet members closely connected to the Capitol attack suggests Meadows is likely to be a prime witness for the inquiry, insofar as he can shed light on Trump’s private thoughts as the violence unfolded.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on the preservation request for Meadows. But the chair of the House select committee, Bennie Thompson, previously told the Guardian that any conversations with Trump would be investigated by the select committee.The inclusion of Meadows on the list, alongside McCarthy and 10 other far-right House Republicans, nonetheless provides a clearer picture of the sharpening contours of the investigation and its overall direction as the select committee ramps up its work.It also echoes congressional investigations of eras past: Richard Nixon’s White House chief of staff, HR Haldeman, came under scrutiny from the Senate select committee into the Watergate scandal and was forced to testify about the extent of Nixon’s involvement.But it was not immediately clear which companies had received a records preservation request for Meadows from the select committee. Some telecom and social media companies – such as the online forum 8kun popular with QAnon conspiracy theorists – did not even receive a list of names, counsel for the forum said.House select committee investigators are still in the evidence-gathering phase, but the committee is likely to schedule its second hearing before the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the matter.The select committee said on Friday that investigators had received thousands of pages of documents, and that they understood the National Archives had started the process required by law for the review of presidential records.Meadows’s communications, meanwhile, may be of interest to the select committee in other aspects of the inquiry into the origins of 6 January, an area that falls under the panel’s purview after it took charge of all congressional investigations into the Capitol attack.The select committee subsumed several inquiries into the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, including one by the House oversight committee that was examining how Meadows pressured the justice department to investigate baseless allegations of election fraud.Top Republicans under scrutiny have embarked on a campaign of threats and intimidation in an attempt to thwart the inquiry.The Republican House minority leader, McCarthy, last week lashed out at the select committee’s records preservation requests and warned that the GOP would retaliate against companies that complied when his party retakes the House majority.McCarthy argued, without citing any specific law, that it would be illegal for telecom and social media companies to comply with the records requests – even though congressional investigators have obtained phone and communications records without issue in the past.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Top security officials to reinstall Capitol fence ahead of far-right rally

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      US politicsTop security officials to reinstall Capitol fence ahead of far-right rallyJustice for J6 rally organized by pro-Trump supportersFence to protect people but no request for national guard Hugo Lowell in WashingtonSun 12 Sep 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 12 Sep 2021 05.39 EDTTop security officials in Congress are expected to reinstall fencing around the Capitol and authorize the use of deadly force ahead of a planned rally by far-right Trump supporters next weekend demanding the release of rioters arrested in connection with the 6 January insurrection.How 9/11 led the US to forever wars, eroded rights – and insurrectionRead moreThe officials, however, had no plans so far to request the national guard, and were not pushing for such a request, principally because the threat assessment did not warrant their deployment, according to sources familiar with the matter.The Justice for J6 rally on 18 September is being organized by the Trump operative Matt Braynard and his organization Look Ahead America. It is being held to demand that the justice department drop charges against nearly 600 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack which the group calls “non-violent protesters”, despite widespread violence and five deaths during the insurrection.The Senate sergeant-at-arms, Lt Gen Karen Gibson, House sergeant-at-arms, Maj Gen William Walker, and US Capitol police chief, Thomas Manger, are expectedto approve fencing to form the backbone of their security response, the sources said.The reinstallation of the 7ft fence as part of a perimeter that could extend to the Capitol reflecting pool will be supplemented by the authorization of US Capitol police officers to use deadly force to protect members of Congress and staff, the sources said.Both measures were characterized to the Guardian as a move to warn against anyone attempting a repeat of the 6 January attack on the Capitol. The final recommendations are slated to be unveiled at a briefing to congressional leaders on Monday.“We intend to have the integrity of the Capitol be intact,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Wednesday of measures being considered. “What happened on January 6 was such an assault on this beautiful Capitol, under the dome that Lincoln built during the civil war.”The approval for the fence is almost certain to be granted as security officials believe it remains the most efficient method to secure the Capitol – and can serve as a dry-run for a new quick-reaction fencing contract funded in a $2.1bn security bill passed by Congress in July.Members of the US Capitol police board weighed whether to request the national guard but the threat assessment for the 18 September rally reviewed at a series of meetings in recent days did not warrant the backstop, the sources said.That appears to have come after allies of Donald Trump largely distanced themselves from the protest while no lawmakers – including House Republicans under scrutiny for their roles in the Capitol attack – have said they will attend.The Capitol attack ultimately left nearly 140 police officers injured, including 15 who were hospitalized after battling to retake control of Congress from rioters who sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden‘s election victory.One officer lost the tip of his right index finger. Others were smashed in the head with baseball hats, flag poles and pipes, while another officer lost consciousness after rioters pushed her backwards into stairs as they tried to reach the Capitol steps.According to the union representing US Capitol police, one officer had two cracked ribs and two shattered spinal discs, while his colleague was stabbed with a metal fence stake. Four police officers who responded to the Capitol attacks have since died by suicide.The event, for which Braynard filed a permit predicting 700 people to attend, comes as the Capitol has seen a series of troubling one-off incidents, including a man who parked a pickup truck next to the Library of Congress and said he had a bomb and detonator.TopicsUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More