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      Capitol attack panel said to be considering subpoenas to Trump White House aides

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      US Capitol attackCapitol attack panel said to be considering subpoenas to Trump White House aidesMark Meadows, Dan Scavino and former campaign manager Brad Parscale are among those being targeted Hugo Lowell in Washington DCWed 22 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 22 Sep 2021 02.02 EDTThe House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol is considering issuing a blitz of subpoenas for top Trump White House aides including the former chief and deputy chief of staff, according to a source familiar with the matter.The subpoenas – which are expected to be authorized as early as this week – would place House select committee investigators inside the White House and Trump campaign war rooms at the time of the insurrection as the panel prepares to ramp up the pace of its inquiry.Republicans in crosshairs of 6 January panel begin campaign of intimidationRead moreHouse select committee investigators are considering subpoenas for call detail records or testimony of key aides including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, the source said.The scope and subjects of the subpoenas are not yet finalized and discussions about who to include in the first tranche are still ongoing, the source said, although the three Trump officials are presently considered likely targets.Taken together, the developing move from the select committee marks perhaps the most aggressive investigative actions since the panel made an array of records demands and records preservation requests for Trump officials last month.It is also likely to further inflame tensions with Trump, already furious at the select committee for opening a line of inquiry into what he knew in advance of plans to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, as well as Republicans under scrutiny over 6 January.Trump officials such as Meadows, Scavino and Parscale played a major part in advancing baseless and disproven lies about a stolen 2020 election that precipitated the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally which descended into the insurrection as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.The former White House chief of staff, who remained by Trump’s side as the violence unfolded, is among several aides who may hold the key to unlock inside information pertaining to the Capitol attack that left five dead and nearly 140 injured.But House select committee investigators are also taking a special interest in the role played by Scavino, the source said, since he held the additional role of being the director of social media – Trump’s preferred messaging platform.Subpoenas for call detail records, testimony or other material from those Trump officials and other individuals involved in the 6 January attack would cast a close net around the former president’s inner circle while simultaneously putting them at the center of the probe.House select committee investigators first signaled their intention to pursue a close inquiry into the potential role played by the Trump White House and House Republicans when they asked 35 telecom and social media companies to preserve records in case of later subpoenas.In the records preservation requests, the select committee instructed the companies to avoid destroying the records of several hundred people, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and, as the Guardian reported, the White House chief of staff Meadows.Much of the investigative work by the select committee has so far been focused on gathering evidence, as a prosecutor might, to build a case backstopped by empirical data that would safeguard its final report from criticism of partisanship or built-in bias.To that end, the select committee is also in the process of scheduling closed-door depositions with key persons of interest included in and beyond the subpoenas, the source said, though the agenda and potential subjects of the interviews were not immediately clear.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment about subpoena discussions for Trump administration and campaign officials. But the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, previously told the Guardian he would investigate 6 January conversations involving Trump.House select committee investigators are showing a new urgency to jolt the investigation into higher gear after the panel held its first hearing before members departed Washington for an extended summer recess. The full select committee – members, counsel and advisors – met for the first time on Monday for more than five hours in the Capitol, taking only short breaks to vote, grab dinner and make an occasional dash to the toilet.Members and staff for the select committee say they remain in discussions about when and on what topic to schedule a second hearing. At least two members told the Guardian they now expect the next public hearing will be delayed until October, though plans remain fluid.Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee, told reporters after the meeting that new facts about the Capitol attack were surfacing every day and that he expected the panel to ultimately receive all the records and testimony it sought.Raskin added that he was pushing to secure testimony under oath from anyone with relevant information. “We should see it as an honor and a privilege to be able to provide evidence to Congress about this violent insurrection,” he said.House select committee investigators are expected to present the subpoenas as non-negotiable, and 6 January select committee member Adam Schiff told reporters that subpoenas were imminent for individuals expected to resist requests for testimony.“In some cases, we’re making requests we think will be complied with,” said Schiff. “In other cases, we’re going straight to subpoenas where we think we’re dealing with recalcitrant witnesses.”Schiff, a former Trump impeachment manager from the 2019 trial and the chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he hoped the justice department would also help the select committee hold subpoena defiers in contempt of Congress.Trump has threatened in recent weeks to mount challenges to the select committee’s work, enraged at the prospect of his embarrassing private efforts to subvert the 2020 election results and reinstall himself in office being made public.“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 his claims of executive privilege carried weight. The justice department has declined to assert the protection over Capitol attack testimony after the White House office of legal counsel determined it did not exist to benefit private interests.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Washington DC police preparing for rally in support of 6 January rioters

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      US Capitol attackWashington DC police preparing for rally in support of 6 January rioters Some leading Republicans in Congress are distancing themselves from the event and Proud Boys are avoiding it as well Chris McGreal in WashingtonSat 18 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 18 Sep 2021 10.57 EDTWashington DC has prepared for Saturday’s rally in support of those arrested for storming the Capitol on 6 January by mounting the kind of security operation it failed to put in place before the attempted coup.Peril review: Bob Woodward Trump trilogy ends on note of dire warningRead moreThe city has surrounded congressional buildings with reinforced fencing, called up large numbers of police officers and put the national guard on standby to prepare for the “Justice for J6” protest near the Capitol building.But even amid warnings from the Department of Homeland Security about threats of violence, there were signs the demonstration may fall short of the impact its organisers hope for, as mainstream Republican politicians and some ardent pro-Trump groups distanced themselves from the rally.The protest was called to demand the release of about 650 people charged with offences after thousands of Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol in an attempt to prevent members of Congress certifying the 2021 presidential election.Four people died during the riot, including a woman shot by a police officer as she tried to get on to the floor of the House of Representatives. Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer attacked by the protesters, died the next day.Nearly 60 people have pleaded guilty, mostly to relatively minor crimes including obstruction of official proceedings and illegally demonstrating in the Capitol.Supporters have characterised them as “political prisoners” who were lawfully protesting at the urging of Donald Trump, who held a rally nearby at which he urged supporters to “fight like hell” to defend his claim to have won the 2020 election.The organisers, Look Ahead America, said Saturday’s rally was not intended to demonstrate support for Trump and appealed for those attending not to wear political paraphernalia.The group’s director, Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign operative, told CNN it would be “a completely peaceful protest”.Look Ahead America applied for a permit for 700 people to attend the protest. It remains to be seen if it will attract even that number after the demonstration was disparaged by some pro-Trump groups and mainstream Republicans who have spent the past few days distancing themselves from the protest.Senator Lindsey Graham called on police to take a “firm line” with demonstrators.“If anybody gets out of line, they need to whack ’em,” he told the New York Times.Far-right groups tell supporters planned Washington rally is a government ‘trap’Read moreThe Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia, whose members are among those facing some of the most serious charges over the 6 January attack, appear to be avoiding the event. A Proud Boys social media channel said the protest “sounds like bait” subject to government surveillance and warned members not to go.Trump, who was impeached for inciting the riot but acquitted at trial in the Senate, has condemned prosecutions over 6 January.“Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the 6 January protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election,” he said in a written statement.Trump then declared: “In the end, however, JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL!”The former president will not be attending the rally. He is scheduled to spend the day at a golf tournament in New Jersey.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS policingnewsReuse this content More

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      Peril review: Bob Woodward Trump trilogy ends on note of dire warning

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      BooksPeril review: Bob Woodward Trump trilogy ends on note of dire warning Behind the headlines about Gen Milley, China and the threat of nuclear war lies a sobering read about democracy in dangerLloyd GreenSat 18 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 18 Sep 2021 01.02 EDTDonald Trump is out of a job but far from gone and forgotten. The 45th president stokes the lie of a rigged election while his rallies pack more wallop than a Sunday sermon and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.Melania Trump like Marie Antoinette, says former aide in hotly awaited bookRead more“We won the election twice!” Trump shouts. His base has come to believe. They see themselves in him and are ready to die for him – literally. Covid vaccines? Let the liberals take them.Deep red Mississippi leads in Covid deaths per capita. Florida’s death toll has risen above 50,000. This week alone, the Sunshine State lost more than 2,500. Then again, a century and a half ago, about 258,000 men died for the Confederacy rather than end slavery. “Freedom?” Whatever.One thing is certain: against this carnage-filled backdrop Bob Woodward’s latest book is aptly titled indeed.Written with Robert Costa, another Washington Post reporter, Peril caps a Trump trilogy by one half of the team that took down Richard Nixon. As was the case with Fear and Rage, Peril is meticulously researched. Quotes fly off the page. The prose, however, stays dry.This is a curated narrative of events and people but it comes with a point of view. The authors recall Trump’s admission that “real power [is] fear”, and that he evokes “rage”.Peril quotes Brad Parscale, a discarded campaign manager, about Trump’s return to the stage after his ejection from the White House.“I don’t think he sees it as a comeback,” Parscale says. “He sees it as vengeance.”Parscale knows of whom and what he speaks. His words are chilling and sobering both.The pages of Peril are replete with the voices of Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Bill Barr, Trump’s second attorney general. Each seeks to salvage a tarnished reputation, Milley’s somewhat, Barr’s badly.In June 2020, wearing combat fatigues, Milley marched with Trump across Lafayette Square, a historic space outside the White House which had been forcibly cleared of anti-racism protesters so the president could stage a photo op at a church. The general regrets the episode. Others, less so.In an earlier Trump book, I Alone Can Fix It, Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker, also of the Post, captured Milley telling aides just days before the attack on the Capitol on 6 January, “This is a Reichstag moment.” This week, in the aftermath of reports based on Peril of Milley’s contacts with China in the waning days of the Trump administration, seeking to reassure an uncertain adversary, Joe Biden came to the general’s defense.As for Barr, for 20 months he bent the justice department to the president’s will. Fortunately, he refused in the end to break it. Overturning the election was a far greater ask than pouring dirt over the special counsel’s report on Trump and Russia or running interference for Paul Manafort, Trump’s convicted-then-pardoned campaign manager. Barr, it seems, wants back into the establishment – having smashed his fist in its eye.Woodward and Costa recount Barr’s Senate confirmation hearing, in which he promised to allow Robert Mueller to complete the Russia investigation, Trump’s enraged reaction and an intervention by his wife, Melania. According to the author, Barr may have owed his job to her.Emmett Flood, then counsel to Trump, conveyed to Barr his mood.“The president’s going crazy,” he said. “You said nice things about Bob Mueller.”Melania was having none of it, reportedly scolding her husband: “Are you crazy?”In a vintagely Trumpian moment, she also said Barr was “right out of central casting”.In another intriguing bit of pure political dish, Mitch McConnell is seen in the Senate cloakroom, joking at Trump’s expense.“Do you know why [former secretary of state Rex] Tillerson was able to say he didn’t call the president a ‘moron’?” the Senate Republican leader asks.“Because he called him a ‘fucking moron’.”By contrast, McConnell has kind words for Biden – a man he is dedicated to rendering a one-term president. America’s cold civil war goes on. Some, sometimes, still send messages across no man’s land.Woodward and Costa show Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, the goddess of alternative facts, reminding Trump that he turned voters off in his second election. In 2020, Trump underperformed among white voters without a college degree and ran behind congressional Republicans.“Get back to basics,” Conway tells him. Stop with the grievances and obsessing over the election. From the looks of things, Trump has discounted her advice. Conway has a book of her own due out in 2022. Score-settling awaits.Ending somewhere near the political present, Woodward and Costa shed light on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and Senator Lindsey Graham with it.In office, Trump affixed his signature to a document titled “Memorandum for the Acting Secretary of Defense: Withdrawal from Somalia and Afghanistan”. It declared: “I hereby direct you to withdraw all US forces from the Federal Republic of Somalia no later than 31 December 2020 and from the Islamic Republican of Afghanistan no later than 15 January 2021.”Steve Bannon prepped Jeffrey Epstein for CBS interview, Michael Wolff claimsRead moreApparatchiks were baffled as to where the memo had come from. Then they blocked it. Trump folded when confronted.As for Graham, the South Carolina Republican and presidential golfing buddy expresses “hate” for both Trump and Biden over Afghanistan.Graham and Biden were friends once. As Graham has repeatedly trashed Hunter Biden, expect the fissure between him and the new president to prove to be long lasting. As for Graham and Trump, it’s a question of who needs whom more at any given moment. With John McCain gone, it’s a good bet Graham will latch on to an alpha dog again.Fittingly, in their closing sentence, Woodward and Costa ponder the fate of the American experiment itself.“Could Trump work his will again? Were there any limits to what he and his supporters might do to put him back in power?“Peril remains.”TopicsBooksBob WoodwardPolitics booksUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressreviewsReuse this content More

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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

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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