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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

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      Republicans in crosshairs of 6 January panel begin campaign of intimidation

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      US Capitol attackRepublicans in crosshairs of 6 January panel begin campaign of intimidationHouse leader Kevin McCarthy threatened retaliation against tech companies that share records with the committee Hugo Lowellin WashingtonMon 6 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTTop Republicans under scrutiny for their role in the events of 6 January have embarked on a campaign of threats and intimidation to thwart a Democratic-controlled congressional panel that is scrutinizing the Capitol attack and opening an expanded investigation into Donald Trump.The chairman of the House select committee into the violent assault on the Capitol, Bennie Thompson, in recent days demanded an array of Trump executive branch records related to the insurrection, as members and counsel prepared to examine what Trump knew of efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.House select committee investigators then asked a slew of technology companies to preserve the social media records of hundreds of people connected to the Capitol attack, including far-right House Republicans who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The select committee said that its investigators were merely “gathering facts, not alleging wrongdoing by any individual” as they pursued the records in what amounted to the most aggressive moves taken by the panel since it launched proceedings in July.But the twin actions, which threatened to open a full accounting of Trump’s moves in the days and weeks before the joint session of Congress on 6 January, has unnerved top House Republicans, according to a source familiar with the matter.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, decried the select committee’s investigation as a partisan exercise and threatened to retaliate against any telecommunications company that complied with the records requests.“A Republican majority will not forget,” he warned, in remarks that seemed to imply some future threat against the sector.The warning from the top Republican in the House amounted to a serious escalation as he seeks to undermine a forensic examination of the attack perpetrated by Trump supporters and domestic violent extremists that left five dead and nearly 140 injured.But his remarks – which members on the select committee privately consider to be at best, harassment, and at worst, obstruction of justice – reflects McCarthy’s realization that he could himself be in the crosshairs of the committee, the source said.Most of McCarthy’s efforts to undercut the inquiry to date, such as sinking the prospects of a 9/11-style commission to scrutinize the Capitol attack, have been aimed at shielding Trump and his party from what the select committee might uncover.But deeply alarmed at the efforts by House select committee investigators to secure his personal communications records for the fraught moments leading up to and during the Capitol attack, McCarthy went on the offensive to pre-emptively protect himself, the source said.McCarthy was among several House Republicans who desperately begged Trump to call off the rioters as they stormed the Capitol in his name, only to be rebuffed by Trump, who questioned why McCarthy wasn’t doing more to overturn the election.Thompson previously told the Guardian in an interview that such conversations with Trump would be investigated by the select committee, raising the prospect that McCarthy could be forced to testify about what Trump appeared to be thinking and doing on 6 January.The statement from McCarthy asserted, without citing any law, that it would be illegal for the technology companies to comply with the records requests – even though congressional investigators have obtained phone and communications records in the past.The threat is unlikely to be viewed as a violation of federal witness tampering law, which, as part of a broader obstruction of justice statute, makes it a felony under some circumstances to try to dissuade or hinder cooperation with an official proceeding.Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee and the former lead impeachment manager in Trump’s second trial, said that he was appalled by McCarthy’s remarks, which he described as tantamount to obstruction of justice.“He is leveling threats against people cooperating with a congressional investigation,” Raskin said. “Why would the minority leader of the House of Representatives not be interested in our ability to get all of the facts in relation to the January 6th attack?”Meanwhile, other members on the select committee have also seized on McCarthy’s threat as a reminder that Republicans could not be trusted to engage in the inquiry in good faith, according to a source connected to the 6 January investigation.It also underscored to them, the source said, the nervousness among top Republicans as the select committee ramps up its work, even though the inquiry is still in its early days and has yet to sift through thousands of pages of expected evidence.Emboldened by McCarthy’s combative stance, Trump denounced the select committee as a “partisan sham”, while Republicans under scrutiny by the panel such as Marjorie Taylor Greene threatened any companies that complied with the records requests would be “shut down”.The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Biggs, is now also asking McCarthy to remove from the Republican conference Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – the two vocal critics of Trump appointed to the select committee – whom he called “spies” for Democrats.Biggs on Thursday suggested in a letter, first reported by CNN, that Cheney and Kinzinger should be ejected because they are involved in investigating Republicans over 6 January and the party should be able to strategize without having the pair present at conference meetings.Still, McCarthy remains unable to shape an investigation likely to prove politically damaging to Trump and to Republicans at the ballot box at the midterms next year, a reality that has come largely as a result of his own strategic miscalculations.The proposed 9/11-style commission into the Capitol attack had envisioned a panel with equal power between Democrats and Republicans, and McCarthy’s decision to boycott the select committee in a flash of anger inadvertently left Trump without any defenders.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol riot inquiry to investigate whether Trump’s White House was involved in attack

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      US Capitol attackCapitol riot inquiry to investigate whether Trump’s White House was involved in attackThe committee has issued sweeping requests for Trump executive branch records related to the insurrection Hugo Lowellin Washington DCWed 1 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 1 Sep 2021 02.01 EDTCongressman Bennie Thompson, chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, is preparing an expanded inquiry into Donald Trump that will scrutinize whether the White House helped plan or had advance knowledge of the insurrection.The move amounts to an escalation for the committee as they embark on an inquiry into the events around the 6 January assault that could ensnare the former US president and some top allies in the White House and on Capitol Hill, portending an aggressive inquiry with far-reaching ramifications.Trump officials can testify to Congress about his role in Capitol attack, DoJ saysRead moreHouse select committee investigators in July started examining the events that left five dead and nearly 140 injured as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.But for the first time in a congressional inquiry, the committee will also scrutinize whether the White House was involved in efforts to precipitate the Capitol attack – and what Trump knew of such efforts ahead of time, according to a source familiar with the matter.The committee’s intentions to examine potential White House involvement were telegraphed in part when Thompson last week issued sweeping requests for Trump executive branch records related to the insurrection, the source said.In letters to the National Archives and seven other agencies including the justice department and FBI, Thompson said House select committee investigators were seeking documents and communications from the previous administration related to 6 January.But in a notable additional request, Thompson also demanded communications of White House personnel and members of Congress that referred to attacks on the Capitol – on both the day of the insurrection as well as key dates before.“Our constitution provides for a peaceful transfer of power, and this investigation seeks to evaluate threats to that process, identify lessons learned,” Thompson said in the letters.The expansion of the dragnet to include 5 January is significant, the source said, since it raises the specter of the committee prying open a window into what Trump and his top allies were thinking and doing the day before the Capitol attack.White House aides and members of Congress were among those who huddled that evening to pressure more Republicans to object to the electoral college results and push then-Vice-president Mike Pence to reject Biden’s certification, according to one Trump administration official.The meetings alarmed some White House aides, the official said, because they feared it could leave White House aides vulnerable to charges that the administration was involved in plans to violently intimidate federal officials from carrying out the transition of power, a potential crime.House select committee investigators are poised to examine whether Trump – who Republican senator Ben Sasse was told was “delighted” at images showing rioters storming the Capitol – contributed to such deliberations, the source said.A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment on the direction of the investigation. But taken together, the committee’s moves mark a politically treacherous turning point for the former president and his supporters on Capitol Hill.House and Senate Republicans in June blocked the creation of a 9/11-style commission into the Capital attack for fear it could conclude the GOP’s role in promulgating Trump’s lies about a stolen election incited the rioters and prove damaging in the 2022 midterms.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the top Republican on the House judiciary committee, Jim Jordan, were already certain to face scrutiny over their separate phone calls to Trump on 6 January.But far from avoiding a close accounting of the insurrection, the dooming of the commission opened an avenue for House speaker Nancy Pelosi to empanel a select committee and start an inquiry overseen by some of Trump’s fiercest critics in Congress.CNN reported on Monday that the committee plans to order that a group of telecom companies preserve the phone records of House Republicans suspected of playing a role in the “Stop the Steal” rallies and marches before the insurrection.The list was said to be evolving but included Jordan and Republican lawmakers Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Jody Hice and Scott Perry.Enraged at the sharpening contours of the committee’s inquiry, which raises the prospect of an embarrassing airing of Trump’s private attempts to reinstall himself in the Oval Office, the former president threatened last week to block its efforts.“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my administration and the patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the office of the president of the United States and the future of our nation,” Trump said in a statement.It was not clear whether invoking executive privilege would be successful. The justice department previously declined to assert the protection over 6 January testimony after the White House office of legal counsel determined it did not exist to benefit private interests.The National Archives also acknowledged to CNN earlier this month that they were in possession of records and communications from the Trump administration and indicated that they would comply with records requests from Congress.Even as Trump threatened to mount court challenges against the investigation, House select committee investigators are expected to exercise a broad mandate that mirrors the framework used by Republicans for the select committee into the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya.The new line of inquiry – whether Trump and White House officials played a role in planning the Capitol attack – is expected to continue for months as the committee sifts through what is anticipated to be thousands of pages of documents, the source said.Other investigative actions are also underway. The committee announced last week that it was seeking records from social media companies for material “related to the spread of misinformation, efforts to overturn the 2020 election or prevent the certification”.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More