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      Want to make Jim Jordan sing about the Capitol attack? Ask Jefferson Davis | Sidney Blumenthal

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      OpinionUS Capitol attackWant to make Jim Jordan sing about the Capitol attack? Ask Jefferson DavisSidney BlumenthalThe Ohio Republican admits he spoke to Trump the day the Confederate flag flew in Congress. Aptly, the investigation of John Brown’s raid sets precedent for what must happen next

      What did Jim Jordan know about the insurrection and when?
      Mon 2 Aug 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 2 Aug 2021 10.37 EDTThe House select committee on the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, according to chairman Bennie Thompson, should “not be reluctant” to include on its witness list Republicans including the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan and others who have knowledge of or may have been implicated in the attack.Kinzinger: McCarthy and Jordan should face Capitol attack subpoenas – but maybe not TrumpRead moreThose who would be requested to testify spoke with Donald Trump before, during and after the assault, attended strategy meetings and held rallies to promote the 6 January “Stop the Steal” event, and are accused by Democrats of conducting reconnaissance tours of the Capitol for groups of insurrectionists.But committee members and legal scholars are grappling to find precedent.“I don’t know what the precedent is, to be honest,” said Adam Schiff.There is one.After a bloody insurrection was quelled, a congressional committee was created to investigate the organization of the insurrection, sources of funding, and the connections of the insurrectionists to members of Congress who were indeed called to testify. And did.On the morning of 16 October 1859, John Brown led a ragtag band of armed followers in an attack on the US arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to attract fugitive slaves to his battle, take refuge in the Allegheny mountains and conduct raids on plantations throughout the south, raising a slave army to overthrow the government and replace the constitution with one he had written.Brown became notorious as pro- and anti-slavery forces fought over how Kansas would be admitted to the Union. Brown committed a massacre and rampaged out of control. Radical abolitionists idealized him as an avenging angel of Puritan virtue. Some of the most prominent and wealthiest, known as the Secret Six, funded him without being completely clear about how the money was going to be used.Brown confided his plan on the eve of his raid to the great Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass and asked him to join. Douglass told him he would be entering “a perfect steel-trap and that once in he would never get out alive” and refused the offer. Brown was undeterred.Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom review: a monumental biographyRead moreWithin hours of the assault Brown and his band were cornered in the engine room of the armory, surrounded by local militia. Then the marines arrived under the command of Col Robert E Lee and Lt Jeb Stuart. At Brown’s public trial, his eloquent statements against slavery and hanging turned him into a martyr. John Wilkes Booth, wearing the uniform of the Richmond Grays and standing in the front ranks of troops before the scaffold on which Brown was hanged on 2 December, admired Brown’s zealotry and composure.Nearly two weeks later, on 14 December, the Senate created the Select Committee to Inquire into the Late Invasion and Seizure of the Public Property at Harpers Ferry. Senator James M Mason of Virginia, the sponsor of the Fugitive Slave Act, was chairman. He appointed as chief prosecutor Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.Davis was particularly intent on questioning Senator William H Seward of New York, the likely Republican candidate for president.“I will show before I am done,” Davis said, “that Seward, by his own declaration, knew of the Harpers Ferry affair. If I succeed in showing that, then he, like John Brown deserves, I think, the gallows, for his participation in it.”In early May 1858, Hugh Forbes, a down-at-heel soldier of fortune, a Scotsman who fought with Garibaldi in the failed Italian revolution of 1848, a fencing coach and a translator for the New York Tribune, knocked on Seward’s door with a peculiar tale of woe. He had been hired by Brown to be the “general in the revolution against slavery”, had written a manual for guerrilla warfare, but had not been paid. Seward sent him away and forgot about him.Forbes wandered to the Senate, where he told his story to Henry Wilson, a Republican from Massachusetts. Wilson, who later became Ulysses S Grant’s vice president, was alarmed enough to write to Dr Samuel Gridley Howe, a distinguished Boston physician and reformer, founder of the first institution for the blind, and Massachusetts chairman of the Kansas committee. Wilson relayed that he had heard a “rumor” about John Brown and “that very foolish movement” and that Howe and other donors to the Kansas cause should “get the arms out of his control”.But Howe, a member of the Secret Six, continued to send Brown money.The investigating committee called Seward and Wilson. On 2 May 1860, Seward testified that Forbes came to him, was “very incoherent” and told him Brown was “very reckless”. Seward said he offered Forbes no advice or money, and that Forbes “went away”.Davis pointedly asked Seward if he had any knowledge of Brown’s plan to attack Harpers Ferry.Seward replied: “I had no more idea of an invasion by John Brown at that place, than I had of one by you or myself.”Wilson also testified, producing his correspondence with Howe, his recollection of strangely encountering Brown at a Republican meeting in Boston, and denying any knowledge of Brown’s plot. Other witnesses were subpoenaed and warrants were issued for the arrest of those who failed to appear. Howe testified that he knew nothing in advance of the raid.The Senate committee concluded its report citing the fourth section of article four of the constitution: “The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on the application of the legislature or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence.”The martyrdom of Mike Pence | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreEight months after submitting the report, Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy, assuming command of the greatest insurrection against the United States in its history. His legacy as a senator before the civil war, however, established the precedent of a congressional committee calling members of Congress to testify about their knowledge of or participation in an insurrection: a precedent that can be used to investigate one in which for the first time the Confederate flag was carried through the Capitol.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More

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      Covid is facing a resurgence in the US, and so is Trumpian politics | Robert Reich

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      OpinionUS politicsCovid is facing a resurgence in the US, and so is Trumpian politicsRobert ReichAfter a moment of hope, much is sliding backwards. It’s not Biden’s fault; it’s Trump’s legacy Thu 29 Jul 2021 06.14 EDTLast modified on Thu 29 Jul 2021 14.52 EDTDespair is worse after hope is briefly ignited. I don’t know about you, but I was elated earlier this spring when it seemed as if Trump and Covid were gone, and Biden seemed surprisingly able and willing to get the nation rapidly back on track.‘I went to hell and back’: officer condemns Republican lawmakers who spurned Capitol attack hearingRead moreNow much is sliding backwards. It’s not Biden’s fault; it’s Trump’s legacy.The new Delta strain of the virus requires, according to the CDC, that we go back to wearing masks inside in public places where the virus is surging, even if we’re fully inoculated.This would be nothing more than a small disappointment and inconvenience were it not for Republicans using it as another opportunity to politicize public health.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded to the new CDC recommendation with the kind of unhinged hyperbole Trumpers have perfected. “The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” he said.Republican politicizing of public health will get worse if the Delta variant continues to surge. At some point vaccines will have to be mandated because being inoculated is not solely a matter of personal choice. Herd immunity is a common good. If infections mount, that common good can be achieved only if nearly everyone is vaccinated.But those eager to exploit the virus’s resurgence – the know-nothings, Trump wannabes, vilely ambitious political upcomers, Tucker Carlsons and similarly cynical entertainers – are already howling about “personal freedom” threatened by “socialism.”The investigation into the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January is further evidence of how far the Republican party has descended into opportunistic treachery.We need to know what happened and why if we are to have half a chance of avoiding a repeat. Just as with the history of systemic discrimination and brutality against Black people in America – which Republicans are calling “critical race theory” and trying to ban from classrooms – the truth shapes our responses to the future.Here again, the dispiriting aspect of the present moment is Republican denial and obfuscation.As Officer Michael Fanone – who suffered traumatic brain injury when rioters attacked him during the assault on the Capitol – testified yesterday at the start of the hearings: “What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens – including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend – are downplaying or outright denying what happened.”With the exception of Representative Liz Cheney – whom I never expected to hold up as a model of integrity – Republicans are eager to divert the public’s attention. Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik declared at a press conference on Tuesday that “Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on January 6.”This is absurd on its face. The Speaker of the House shares responsibility for Capitol security with the Senate majority leader, who at the time of the attack was Mitch McConnell. If Pelosi was negligent – and there’s zero evidence she was – McConnell was as well.Stefanik and other Republican leaders don’t want the public to know about Republican members of Congress who were almost certainly involved in the travesty, either directly or indirectly. The list includes Representatives Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Biggs and McCarthy himself. Senator Josh Hawley also seems to have been in the know, given his fist-salute to the rioters.And then there’s Trump himself, cheerleader and ringleader.All should be subpoenaed. All, presumably, will fight the subpoenas in court.Meanwhile, Trump continues to stage rallies for his avid followers as he did last weekend in Phoenix, where he declared, “Our nation is up against the most sinister forces … This nation does not belong to them, this nation belongs to you.”Wrong. America belongs to all of us. And we all have a responsibility to protect its public health and its democratic institutions. The real sinister force is the Trump Republicans’ cynical exploitation of lies and anti-scientific rubbish to divide and divert us.Months ago, it seemed as if this darkness was behind us. It is not.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US.
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionCoronavirusUS Capitol attackcommentReuse this content More

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      Protesters disrupt Republican politicians' press conference in support of Capitol rioters – video

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      Protesters shut down a press conference by Congress members Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar about the arrests and investigation of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.
      The far-right Republican members of Congress stood outside the US Department of Justice and said they were demanding answers on the treatment and status of the prisoners jailed in connection with the 6 January riot. Gaetz, Greene, Gohmert and Gosar have staunchly defended former president Donald Trump and his supporters.
      The news conference comes as police officers testified to a Democratic-led House of Representatives investigatory committee in its first session probing the incident

      ‘This is how I’m going to die’: police tell panel of trauma of Capitol attack More

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      Trump officials can testify to Congress about his role in Capitol attack, DoJ says

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      US Capitol attackTrump officials can testify to Congress about his role in Capitol attack, DoJ saysMove declines to assert executive privilege for then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, clearing path for others to testify Hugo Lowell in WashingtonTue 27 Jul 2021 15.50 EDTLast modified on Tue 27 Jul 2021 17.26 EDTFormer Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Donald Trump’s role in the deadly January attack on the Capitol and his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, the justice department (DoJ) has said in a letter obtained by the Guardian.The move by the justice department declined to assert executive privilege for Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, clearing the path for other top former officials to also testify to congressional committees investigating the Capitol attack without fear of repercussions.The justice department authorised witnesses to appear specifically before the two committees. But a DoJ official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they expected that approval to extend to the 6 January select committee that began proceedings on Tuesday.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee, told the Guardian in a recent interview that he would investigate both Trump and anyone who communicated with the former president on 6 January, raising the prospect of depositions with an array of Trump officials.Rosen and Trump administration witnesses can give “unrestricted testimony” to the Senate judiciary and House oversight committees, which are scrutinising the attempt by the Trump White House to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, the letter said.The justice department’s decision marks a sharp departure from the Trump era, when the department repeatedly intervened on behalf of top White House officials to assert executive privilege and shield them from congressional investigations into the former president.It also represents a significant move by the White House Office of Legal Counsel under Biden, which in authorising the decision, pointedly noted that executive privilege protections exist to benefit the country, rather than a single individual.Trump has argued that conversations and deliberations involving the president are always protected by executive privilege. He can sue to block any testimony, which would force the courts to decide the extent of such protections.But the justice department said in the letter that Rosen and Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election because of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances.In his last weeks in office, Trump pressured justice department officials to use the vast powers of the federal government to undo his defeat, asking them to investigate baseless conspiracies of voter fraud and tampering that they had already determined to be false.“The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress,” Bradley Weinsheimer, a senior career official in the office of the deputy attorney general, said in the letter.The justice department told Rosen and Trump administration officials that they could appear before Congress as long as their testimony was confined to the scope set forth by the committees and did not reveal grand jury or classified information, or pending criminal cases.Rosen’s approval letter, which was sent on Monday night according to a source familiar with the matter, comes after the Senate judiciary committee asked to interview several Trump administration officials as part of their oversight efforts started in January.Negotiations for their testimony were stalled as the justice department weighed how much information former officials could reveal, concerned that many of the conversations were covered by executive privilege, which keeps executive branch deliberations confidential.The justice department ultimately relented after consulting with the White House Office of Legal Counsel, which said it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege over the specific topics in question, according to the letter.“It is the executive branch’s view that this presents an exceptional situation in which the congressional need for information outweighs the Executive Branch’s interest in maintaining confidentiality,” wrote Weinsheimer, citing Richard Nixon and Watergate.The Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, said on Twitter that he was working to now schedule interviews with the officials. The panel is also still receiving materials and documents from the justice department, the source said.The 6 January special committee – everything you need to knowRead moreThe House oversight committee chairwoman, Carolyn Maloney, said in a statement that she was pleased with the decision: “I am committed to getting to the bottom of the previous administration’s attempts to subvert the justice department and reverse a free and fair election.”Trump exerted significant pressure on the justice department to help him remain president. In one instance, Trump schemed with Jeffrey Clark, the former head of the DoJ’s civil division, to force Georgia to overturn their election results, the New York Times reported.The Senate judiciary and House oversight committees opened wide-ranging investigations into Trump and the justice department shortly after, with Durbin also demanding materials from the National Archives for records and communications concerning those efforts.TopicsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol riot police officer: 'I was at risk of being killed with my own firearm' – video

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      Metropolitan police department officer Michael Fanone told the select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol how pro-Trump insurrectionists attacked him. ‘I was grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I heard chants of “kill him with his own gun”,’ Fanone said.
      He went on to say that a fellow officer later took him to a nearby hospital, where he was told he had suffered a mild heart attack.

      ‘This is how I’m going to die’: officers recount Capitol attack ordeal – live More

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      ‘This is how I’m going to die’: officers recount Capitol attack ordeal – live

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      Key events

      Show

      11.13am EDT
      11:13

      CDC to recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors – sometimes

      10.15am EDT
      10:15

      ‘This is how I’m going to die’: USCP officer recounts January 6

      9.56am EDT
      09:56

      Committee must uncover what happened at the White House on January 6, Cheney says

      9.48am EDT
      09:48

      Thompson plays graphic footage of insurrection in opening statement

      9.32am EDT
      09:32

      January 6 select committee begins first hearing

      9.13am EDT
      09:13

      January 6 select committee to hold first hearing

      Live feed

      Show

      11.21am EDT
      11:21

      Thompson is using his questions to hit key emotional points in the testimony of the four officers. Such committee hearings are about TV too, remember – which is why Donald Trump may be unhappy that thanks to Kevin McCarthy’s choice to withdraw Republicans from the panel, he has no defenders here, beaming to screens around the country.
      Officer Dunn is asked about his experience enduring racist abuse, seeing Confederate flags among the rioters and other such issues.
      “It’s so overwhelming and disappointing and disheartening,” he says, that America contains people who would “attack you because of the colour of your skin”.
      “My blood is red, I’m an American citizen, I’m a police officer and a peace officer,” he says. “I’m here to defend everybody.”
      Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and pariah in her own party, is next up. She asks Sgt Gonell about Trump’s claims that the crowd was full of “loving” people. He is not impressed.
      “I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses,” Gonell says, adding: “If that was hugs and kisses I wish you all go to his house and do the same to him.”
      “All of them were telling us Trump sent us,” Gonell adds, dismissing Trump’s claim leftwing demonstrators or the FBI were behind the riot.
      Officer Fanone is next to receive a question from Cheney. “The politics of that day didn’t play into my response at all,” he says.
      Officer Hodges is asked to describe his experience in seeing protesters in military and tactical gear at the Capitol. Cheney asks Officer Dunn about what police expected on 6 January. “A couple arrests, name-calling, unfriendly people,” he says – but not close to what actually happened.

      11.13am EDT
      11:13

      CDC to recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors – sometimes

      The Washington Post reports that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will this afternoon recommend that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in certain circumstances. The paper, which tends to turn out to be reasonably well connected in the capital, says the announcement is coming at 3pm ET.
      The CDC will revise guidance issued on 13 May, which said vaccinated individuals did not need to wear masks indoors.
      As is the way of things, the administration’s view on whether mask advisories or mandates might return, as with the question of whether vaccinations should be made mandatory in any circumstances, has been a little opaque. But as press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday, Joe Biden regards his scientific and medical advisers as his “North Star” on such matters, so here we are. Or will be, when the announcement comes later.
      The highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has fuelled steep rises in case numbers, particularly among unvaccinated Americans and amid struggles with disinformation and resistance, particularly on the political right.
      Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, discussed the possible need to return to advising mask-wearing over the weekend. Report here.
      Speaking to the Post, Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said: “Nobody wants to go backward but you have to deal with the facts on the ground, and the facts on the ground are that it’s a pretty scary time and there are a lot of vulnerable people.
      “I think the biggest thing we got wrong was not anticipating that 30% of the country would choose not to be vaccinated.
      “In June we were in this virtuous cycle, where cases were going down, people were getting vaccinated, everyone said happy days are here again, and let their guard down.”
      Some further reading, from Jessica Glenza:

      11.10am EDT
      11:10

      This is Martin Pengelly, taking over the controls from Joanie Greve for a while. In response to questions from Bennie Thompson, the committee chair, Sgt Gonell is currently describing his experiences in Iraq: “We could run over an IED and that’s it but at least we knew we were in a combat zone. Here, in our nation’s capital, we were attacked multiple times.”
      He adds that police officers were “fighting for our lives” during the assault by the Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election result.

      Updated
      at 11.10am EDT

      11.04am EDT
      11:04

      US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, said he was repeatedly called the “n” word as he sought to protect the Capitol from pro-Trump insurrectionists on January 6.
      “Nobody had ever, ever called me a [‘n’ word] while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn said, actually saying the racial slur.
      Dunn closed his testimony by expressing pride in his fellow USCP officers and encouraging them to protect their mental health as they deal with the fallout of the insurrection.
      “There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking professional counseling,” Dunn said.

      Updated
      at 11.04am EDT

      10.50am EDT
      10:50

      US Capitol Police officers are closely watching the January 6 select committee’s hearing as some of their colleagues testify.
      An NBC News reporter shared a photo of two USCP officers watching C-SPAN as it streamed the hearing:

      Haley Talbot
      (@haleytalbotnbc)
      As we hear the powerful stories from officers on Jan 6 can’t help but think of the entire USCP force, including those that lost their lives as a result of that day. As you walk around the Capitol today officers are glued to the hearing, watching their colleagues testify. pic.twitter.com/ljw2Br7tk3

      July 27, 2021

      10.42am EDT
      10:42

      Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, who was nearly crushed against a door on January 6 as pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, delivered his opening statement to the select committee. More