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      Highest-profile January 6 trial begins with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio

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      Highest-profile January 6 trial begins with Proud Boys leader Enrique TarrioChairman of militia group and four others are charged with seditious conspiracy related to Capitol insurrection The January 6 committee investigating the attack on the Capitol may have issued its huge final report, but the wheels of the justice system in the US are grinding on and one of the most high-profile trials emerging from the insurrection is about to begin in earnest.Jury selection began last week with the seditious conspiracy trial against ex-Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four others involved in the far-right, often violent militia group.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreTarrio and his co-defendants in the Washington DC federal court trial – Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola and Proud Boy organizer Joe Biggs – are charged with seditious conspiracy and other counts related to the attack that delayed congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, injured dozens of police officers and is linked to multiple deaths. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.A fifth man charged in this case, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to attack the Capitol. Under Donohoe’s plea deal, he agreed to cooperate against his co-defendants. Approximately 900 people have now been arrested in the Capitol attack, with prosecutors securing convictions against hundreds.The start of the trial comes amid a wider reckoning with those responsible for the January 6 attack.Several hours after jury selection started on Monday in the Proud Boys trial, the House committee probing the deadly insurrection issued some of its findings – and made a criminal referral against Trump to the US Department of Justice, recommending charges. The trial also comes several weeks after two leaders of the Oath Keepers – another far-right group – were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the insurrection.Federal prosecutors allege that Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Pezzola were among the 100 Proud Boys who convened alongside the Washington Monument at 10am on 6 January. They met around the time that Trump was addressing thousands of supporters in a park called the Ellipse.These soon-to-be rioters in that group then made their way to the Capitol. Around 1pm, one of them broke through police, spurring the violence that would consume Capitol Hill, court documents allege.Nordean, Rehl, Biggs and Pezzola allegedly led the mob and were among the first people to push past police. Biggs allegedly recorded a video where he observed the mob and said: “We’ve taken the Capitol,” per court documents.Tarrio was not in Washington DC during the insurrection, as he had been arrested two days prior for allegedly vandalizing a Black Lives Matter sign at a historical Black church during a December 2020 demonstration. Prosecutors contend that Tarrio was among the leaders of this conspiracy to thwart election certification.Several days before the riot, Tarrio posted about “revolution” on social media, prosecutors said in court papers. In an encrypted messaging group which prosecutors maintain was created by Tarrio, one member purportedly said: “Time to stack those bodies in front of Capitol Hill,” per the Associated Press.Despite being arrested several days prior, Tarrio heralded the rioters’ attack, writing “don’t [expletive] leave” on social media and later posting “we did this…” prosecutors said.While there appears to be extensive evidence against these men, much of which has long been in the public record, prosecutors must show more than their in-person or social media presence that day to prove seditious conspiracy.“They’re going to have to show an agreement between two people or more, they’re going to have to show a common scheme or a common plan,” said Los Angeles criminal defense and appellate attorney Matthew Barhoma, founder of Barhoma Law.“Showing up on January 6 at the same time doesn’t mean that a conspiracy indeed existed. They’re going to have to go a little bit beyond that to show there is a common agreement – basically a smoking gun in the sense that they intended to overthrow the government,” he added. “They’re going to have to show that they wanted to act in a common plan in furtherance of that plan to overthrow the government or to delay or hinder the United States government.”‘These are conditions ripe for political violence’: how close is the US to civil war?Read moreThat said, “seditious conspiracy is actually in some ways, much easier to prove than regular criminal conspiracy,” explained longtime attorney Ron Kuby, a longtime criminal defense attorney with a focus on civil rights.“Seditious conspiracy is the only conspiracy that does not require proof of an overt act on the part of participants,” Kuby said. “Generally speaking, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to do something unlawful, and in all other conspiracy cases, at least one of the participants has to take a substantial step toward that unlawful purpose.”“Here, it’s really a sidenote, footnote, endnote and asterisk. They don’t have to prove an overt act, what they they have to prove there was an agreement to oppose the lawful authority of the United States of America by force.“There’s a tsunami of evidence, both in terms of what was said among the participants, which the FBI has obtained and decrypted as well as what they did, which is all well-documented on video.”Although evidence appears to abound, one possible defense strategy would be to portray the alleged plotters as buffoons. “These guys were angry knuckleheads but you know, they’re not planning to overthrow the government,” Kuby said of this possible approach.It’s unclear whether these Proud Boys members would go along with that, even if this could help their cases.“The natural impulse of every defense lawyer is to portray their clients in a fashion which is most likely to result in acquittal, but that’s not necessarily the way most defendants want to be portrayed,” Kuby said. “The Proud Boys may not want to be portrayed as loud-mouthed knuckleheads who were just egging each other on to say dumber and dumber things because they’re not that bright.”Tarrio’s attorneys have contended that he didn’t tell or encourage anyone to storm the Capitol or act violently, while Nordean’s lawyer alleged that justice department prosecutors were singling him out because of his political beliefs, the AP reported.In an email to the Guardian, Tarrio’s attorney, Nayib Hassan, said: “Mr Tarrio is looking forward to the start of the trial. We look forward to making our presentation of the evidence and acquitting Mr Tarrio of the governments allegations.”Rehl’s lawyer reportedly wanted the judge to dismiss the indictment on First amendment grounds, claiming the charges were rooted in free speech issues. Asked for comment, Biggs’s attorney, Norm Pattis, said in an email: “We look forward to the presentation of evidence in this case. We stand by his plea of not guilty.”TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsLaw (US)The far rightUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers?

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers? Major imprints are racing to sell the committee’s work to the reading public, with help from reporters, panel members, David Remnick and even a former speechwriter to TrumpThe release of the final report of the House January 6 committee has sparked a deluge of publishing activity: seven editions of the 200,000 word document from six imprints, featuring contributions from the New Yorker editor, David Remnick, the House intelligence chair, Adam Schiff, plus six other journalists, another committee member, a former congresswoman and a former speechwriter to Donald Trump.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThere are two reasons for this hyperactivity: the belief that the completion of the report is a significant historical event, and the conviction that here is a big chance to do well by doing good.The Mueller report sold 475,000 copies in various editions, according to NPD BookScan, so the book business is hoping it can do at least that well with the latest copy provided for free by the federal government.Harper Perennial says it is printing 250,000 copies of its version, which features a powerful introduction by Ari Melber, an MSNBC host, that reads like a smart prosecutor’s multi-part indictment. It helps that Melber’s marketing power is at least as great as his brain power. Pushing it on his nightly show, he has already gotten the book to the top of one Amazon bestseller list, long before it has reached any store.The lawyer turned TV personality does the best job of delineating the eight plots Trump and his allies pursued to try to overthrow the election, seven of which were clearly illegal or unconstitutional.“They attempted a coup,” Melber declares. “That is the most important fact about what happened.”Remnick and Jamie Raskin, like Schiff a committee member, teamed up to write an introduction and an afterword for the version being published by an imprint of Macmillan.Remnick gets straight to the heart of the matter: “Trump does little to conceal his most distinctive characteristics: his racism, misogyny, dishonesty, narcissism, incompetence, cruelty, instability, and corruption. And yet what has kept Trump afloat for so long, what has helped him evade ruin and prosecution, is perhaps his most salient quality: he is shameless.”Because so many of us have nearly lost our “ability to experience outrage”, Remnick concedes that “the prospect of engaging with this congressional inquiry … is sometimes a challenge to the spirit … And yet a citizenry that can no longer bring itself to pay attention to such an investigation or to absorb its astonishing findings risks moving even farther toward a disturbing ‘new normal’: a post-truth, post-democratic America.”Raskin sees the assault on the Capitol as the latest in a series of “systematic threats” to US democracy, including “massive voter suppression, gerrymandering of state and federal legislative districts, the use of the filibuster to block protection of voting rights, and right-wing judicial activism to undermine the Voting Rights Act”.His biggest goal is the elimination of electoral college, without any amendment to the constitution. That can be done through “the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among participating states that gives electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the nationwide popular vote, and which has already been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia with 195 electoral votes, or 72% of the 270 votes needed” to put it into effect.Writing for Random House, Schiff excoriates Republicans for trying so hard to block certification of Biden’s victory even after the Capitol invasion – 147 Republicans including eight senators lodged objections early on the morning of January 7. But he is also careful to give credit to Republican witnesses who did so much to burnish the committee’s credibility.“These officials, Republicans all, not only held fast against enormous pressure from a president of their party but were willing to stand before the country and testify under oath,” Schiff writes.Schiff argues that the report is an undeniable brief for prosecution of Trump: “Bringing to justice a former president who, even now, advocates the suspension of our constitution is a perilous endeavor. Not doing so is far more dangerous.”For Skyhorse, the former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, the only contributor old enough to have voted to impeach Richard Nixon, echoes Schiff on this point.“Having had to vote to impeach a president when I was in Congress, I am certain that [the January 6 committee] did not make its criminal referrals to the justice department lightly. In the same vein, the DoJ should not treat it lightly – and I hope and believe the American people will not let that happen.”The Hachette book has the largest amount of additional material, including a first-person account of the Capitol attack by a New York Times reporter, Luke Broadwater. After making it to a secure area, Broadwater found he was “much more angry” than “afraid”. So were other more conservative reporters, disgusted by senators who encouraged the myth of election theft. Broadwater recalls “one shouting to a Republican as he passed by, ‘Are you proud of yourself, Senator?’”All of these books are serious efforts to put the committee’s exhaustive findings in a larger political and historical context, including the one published by Skyhorse with an introduction by Holtzman. But Skyhorse also maintains its maverick reputation as a publisher famous for picking up books others have spurned (Woody Allen’s memoir, for example) by publishing two versions of the new report, one with Holtzman’s foreword and another featuring Darren Beattie, a former speechwriter for Trump and Steven Miller.Tony Lyons, the US publisher who picks up books ‘cancelled’ by other pressesRead moreBeattie was fired by the Trump White House after it was reported that he attended a conference with Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigrant website VDare, a “white nationalist” who “regularly publishes works by white supremacists, antisemites, and others on the radical right”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Beattie is horrified that the January 6 committee describes the assault on the Capitol as an outgrowth of white supremacy.“Far from serving as an objective fact-finding body, the January 6 committee functioned as such an egregiously performative, partisan kangaroo display as to make propagandists in North Korea blush,” he writes – with characteristic understatement.Beattie provides more comic relief with his approach to the alleged election fraud which is one of the main subjects of the report.“It would take us too far afield to consider the election fraud allegations in detail on the merits,” Beattie writes.Then he gives a long explanation of why no one should think Trump really believed he lost the election, just because that’s what his attorney general and so many others told him.“For all of the committee’s fixation on the term ‘Big Lie’, the committee presents precious little if any evidence that Donald Trump didn’t genuinely believe that election fraud ultimately tipped the balance against him.“… The committee’s first televised hearing repeated ad nauseam a video clip of Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr referring to Trump’s election fraud theories as ‘bullshit’.“Apart from Barr, the committee referenced numerous Trump associates who claim to have told the former president his election fraud theories were wrong. The simple fact that some of Trump’s senior staffers may have disagreed with Trump on the election issue is hardly proof that Trump was persuaded by them, and that therefore Trump’s efforts to ‘stop the steal’ amounted to a deliberate lie and malicious attempt to prevent the legitimate and peaceful transition of power.Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report saysRead more“Barr’s additional remark that Trump was ‘completely detached from reality’ when it came to the 2020 election unwittingly undermines the committee’s suggestion that Trump was lying about the matter.”Primetime hearings sometimes reached as many 18 million viewers, a number Remnick notes was “comparable to Sunday Night Football on NBC”. In the midterm elections, many exit polls found that the preservation of democracy was a key factor in the decision of many swing voters to vote against Republicans. It seems clear the investigation bolstered American democracy in more ways than one.While a hearty minority obviously remain as far down a rabbit hole as Trump’s former speechwriter, the results of the recent election bolster my conviction that sane Americans still constitute a small majority of American voters.So, like most of the contributors to these volumes, I think there is much to be grateful for in the work of the most successful congressional investigators since the Senate Watergate committee of 50 years ago. Or, as Remnick puts it, “If you are reaching for optimism – and despair is not an option – the existence and the depth of the committee’s project represents a kind of hope. It represents an insistence on truth and democratic principle.”TopicsBooksJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesPolitics booksfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report says

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      Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report saysMike Lee of Utah made comment in text message to Trump aide on evening after the Capitol attack A senator who received a voice message meant for another Republican on January 6 described the caller, Rudy Giuliani, as “walking malpractice”.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThe piquant characterisation of the former New York mayor, then Donald Trump’s attorney and a leading proponent of his election fraud lie, was made in a text message sent by Mike Lee of Utah.The text was included in the final report of the House January 6 committee, which was released late on Thursday. Reporters immediately scoured its 845 pages for new details of Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat, leading to the attack on the Capitol.Lee’s comment is contained in a footnote to page 631. It says: “6 January 2021, text message from Senator Mike Lee to [national security adviser] Robert O’Brien at 10.55pm EST reading, ‘You can’t make this up. I just got this voice message [from] Rudy Giuliani, who apparently thought he was calling Senator Tuberville.“‘You’ve got to listen to that message. Rudy is walking malpractice.’”Giuliani was trying to contact Tommy Tuberville, from Alabama, before Congress reconvened to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, the process the rioters tried to stop.Biden’s win was certified, though not before 147 Republicans in the House and Senate objected to results in key states, shortly after rioters sought lawmakers to capture and perhaps kill, some chanting that they wanted to hang the vice-president, Mike Pence.The attack is now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.Giuliani’s message was reported at the time. Referring to the Trump team’s efforts in key states, he said: “I’m calling you because I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you.“And I know they’re reconvening at eight tonight, but … the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow – ideally until the end of tomorrow.“I know [Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell is doing everything he can to rush it, which is kind of a kick in the head because it’s one thing to oppose us, it’s another thing not to give us a fair opportunity to contest it.”McConnell would later vote to acquit Trump, in an impeachment trial arising from the Capitol attack, when conviction would have barred the former president from holding federal office again.In contrast, legal authorities now seem inclined to agree with Lee’s assessment of Giuliani’s unsuitability to practice as an attorney.Earlier this month, a preliminary disciplinary hearing of the Washington DC bar saw counsel argue that Giuliani, 78, should lose his license because of his attempt to undermine the election.Defending himself, Giuliani said: “I believe that I’ve been persecuted for three or four years, including false charges brought against me by the federal government.”Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackeyRead moreThough his activities in support of Trump’s election subversion are the subject of numerous investigations, Giuliani has not been charged with any crime.His license to practise law in New York, the city he once led, was however suspended in June last year.Numerous reports and books have described Giuliani’s increasingly bizarre behaviour in his role as Trump’s attorney.His biographer, Andrew Kirtzman, concluded that while Trump remains a political player, running for the Republican nomination in 2024, “Giuliani … [is] finished in every conceivable way.”TopicsRudy GiulianiJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Transcripts reveal Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured to protect Trump: ‘I was scared’

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      Transcripts reveal Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured to protect Trump: ‘I was scared’According to transcripts, Cassidy was conflicted ahead of the hearing: ‘I felt like Trump was looking over my shoulder’ “I’m about to be fucking nuked,” former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly told a January 6 committee staff member after meeting with investigators before her bombshell testimony to the committee in June. Her prediction turned out to be accurate.Within hours of Hutchinson’s surprise appearance, where she testified about a furious president who encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol, tried to grab the steering wheel of a presidential SUV and hurled his lunch against an Oval Office wall, the backlash began.Hutchinson had instantly become one of the star witnesses of the panel. Her testimony had been devastating to her former boss. But she was attacked by Donald Trump as a “total phony”. The Secret Service, through media back-channels, rejected her second-hand account of an altercation. Indiana Republican Jim Banks accused Hutchinson of being a “sham” star witness who had offered “hearsay” to the committee. “This is the Russia hoax playbook,” he said.According to additional transcripts of her closed-door testimony released last week, Cassidy had been conflicted ahead of the hearing and how much she had wrestled with the concept of effectively becoming a whistleblower. She’d already given two depositions in the months earlier, in which she’s played along with the Trumpworld narrative.They also reveal how much pressure Hutchinson was placed under to remain “loyal” and “in the family” ahead of testimony that established to many that the hearings were a telling and horrific examination of the events on or around January 6.Her lawyer had told her, “we just want to focus on protecting the president” and she was told, she informed the panel in testimony in September – two months after her public appearance – that she would be “taken care of” if only she followed their desired script.“I was scared,” she told investigators. “I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder.”Out-of-work, Hutchinson said she’d been unable to afford counsel. She’d asked for, and been refused, money from her estranged biological father. A request to her aunt and uncle also fell through.In her testimony, she said she’d accepted the help of former Trump White House ethics counsel Stefan Passantino who, Hutchinson claims, encouraged her to fail to recall some events during the interviews. That claim, made under oath, could provide federal investigators with evidence of witness tampering.“The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her. “Don’t read anything to try to jog your memory. Don’t try to put together timelines … Especially if you put together timelines, we have to give those over to the committee.”In a statement to the Washington Post this week, Passantino denied any wrongdoing. “As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me,” he said.Hutchinson also testified that an array of Trump officials, including her former boss and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had promised that loyalty would be beneficial to her. “We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world,” Passantino told her, Cassidy testified. “We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family”.““Look, we want to get you in, get you out,” Hutchinson said Passantino told her. “We’re going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role.”According to transcripts, Hutchinson has felt uneasy about Passantino’s advice to downplay what she knew and that she had struggled between repeating testimony she had offered in February and March, replete with “I cannot recall” statements.Without telling Passantino, Hutchinson contacted former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin to ask to act as a backchannel to the committee so they could call her back in a third time and know what questions to ask her. “If I’m going to pass the mirror test for the rest of my life, I need to try to fix some of this,” she testified in September, referring to wanting to be able to look at her own reflection without feeing shame.But, she said, she “knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything he would find disloyal,” she testified. “And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers.”She drove home to New Jersey where she read up on Nixon White House whistleblowers, including former Counsel John Dean and Alex Butterfield, who co-authored The Last of the President’s Men with journalist Bob Woodward.“I read it once. Then I read it again, underlined. And then I read it a third time, and I went through and tabbed it,” she said. “He talked about a lot of the same things that I felt like I was experiencing … but he ended up doing the right thing.”After the second session, Hutchinson said her testimony was shared with others in the Trump orbit. It was, she said, “the first clear indicator for me of he doesn’t care about what I want, he doesn’t care about what I think is best for me, he’s doing what he thinks is best for Trump and the people in Trump’s orbit”.When the panel indicated it might want to recall her a third time, Passadino told her: “We really think this is what’s best for you, Cass. Like, this needs to end at some point, and I think it just needs to end now”.Hutchinson later testified that she became unwilling “to let this moment completely destroy my reputation, my character, and my integrity for a cause that I was starkly opposed to”.Hutchinson changed attorneys to Jody Hunt, a longtime confidant of Jeff Sessions, the former Republican senator from Alabama who had served as Trump’s first attorney general.Speaking with CNN on Thursday, Griffin described Hutchinson as “a patriot who bravely upheld the oath she swore when she took a job in the White House. I’m grateful for her willingness to share the unvarnished truth with the American public”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did it

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      ReviewJanuary 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did it The House committee has done its work. The result is a riveting read, utterly damning of the former president and his followersWhether fomenting insurrection, standing accused of rape or stiffing the IRS, Donald Trump remains in the news. On Monday, the House select committee voted to issue its final report. Three days later, after releasing witness transcripts, the committee delivered the full monty. Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney and the rest of committee name names and flash receipts. At 845 pages, the report is damning – and monumental.January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportRead moreTrumpworld is a crime scene, a tableau lifted from Goodfellas. Joshua Green of Bloomberg nailed that in The Devil’s Bargain, his 2017 take on Trump’s winning campaign. The gang was always transgressive, fear and violence part of its repertoire.Brian Sicknick, the Capitol police officer who died after the riot. E Jean Carroll, who alleges sexual assault. Shaye Moss, the Georgia elections worker targeted by Rudy Giuliani and other minions. Each bears witness.The January 6 report laments that “thuggish behavior from President Trump’s team, including efforts to intimidate described elsewhere … gave rise to many concerns about [Cassidy] Hutchinson’s security, both in advance of and since her public testimony”.Hutchinson is the former aide to Trump and his final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, whose testimony may have been the most dramatic and impactful.In the same vein, the committee chronicles Trump’s demand that Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state in Georgia, “find 11,780 votes”. Trump reminded Raffensperger of the possible consequences if his directive went unheeded: “That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen.”Now, a Fulton county grand jury weighs Trump’s fate. Jack Smith, a federal prosecutor newly appointed special counsel, may prove Trump’s match too.Transcripts released by the committee show Stefan Passantino, Hutchinson’s initial lawyer, engaging in conduct that markedly resembles witness tampering.“Stefan said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to talk about that.’” According to Hutchinson, Passantino was talking about Trump’s fabled post-rally meltdown on January 6, when told he couldn’t go to the Capitol too.Hutchinson understood that disloyalty would mean repercussions. It took immense courage and conscience to speak as she did. Trump’s supporting cast was retribution-ready. She knew she would be “fucking nuked”.In a woeful prebuttal, Passantino claimed to have behaved “honorably” and “ethically”. He blamed Hutchinson. His advice, he said, was “fully consistent” with the “sole interests” of his client. He is now on leave from his law firm.To quote the final report, “certain witnesses from the Trump White House displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues”. Meadows, for one, is shown to have an allergy to the truth. The committee singles out The Chief’s Chief, his memoir, as an exercise in fabulism. Trump gave Meadows a blurb for his cover: “We will have a big future together”. In so many ways, Donald. In so many ways.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreThe book “made the categorical claim that the president never intended to travel to the Capitol” on 6 January, the committee now says, adding that the “evidence demonstrates that Meadows’s claim is categorically false”.He had needlessly cast a spotlight on himself and others. The report: “Because the Meadows book conflicted sharply with information that was being received by the select committee, the committee became increasingly wary that other witnesses might intentionally conceal what happened.”Then again, no one ever accused Meadows, a former congressman, of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Reptilian calculation is not prudence or prescience. Last year, Trump trashed Meadows as “fucking stupid”. He may have a point. After all, Meadows confessed to Trump of possibly putting Joe Biden’s life in jeopardy at the September 2020 debate, after positive and negative Covid tests that were covered up.Trump himself derided the Chief’s Chief as “fake news”. The committee referred Meadows to the justice department.“It’s easy to imagine Meadows has flipped and is cooperating with the justice department,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former Pentagon special counsel. The vicious cycle rolls on.The committee also gives Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s final press secretary, her own moment in the sun. She too attempted to cover the tracks of her boss.“A segment of McEnany’s testimony seemed evasive,” the committee concludes. “In multiple instances, McEnany’s testimony did not seem nearly as forthright as that of her press office staff, who testified about what McEnany said.”We saw this movie before – when McEnany stood at the West Wing lectern.“McEnany disputed suggestions that President Trump was resistant to condemning the violence and urging the crowd at the Capitol to act peacefully when they crafted his tweet at 2.38pm on January 6,” the report says. “Yet one of her deputies, Sarah Matthews, told the select committee that McEnany informed her otherwise.”Last year, McEnany delivered a book of her own, namely For Such a Time as This. The title riffs off the Book of Esther. McEnany repeatedly thanks the deity, touts her academic credentials and vouches for her honesty. She claims she never lied to reporters. After all, her education at “Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown” meant she always relied on “truthful, well-sourced, well-researched information”.She lauds Trump for standing for “faith, conservatism and freedom” and delivers a bouquet to Meadows. “You were a constant reminder of faith. Thank you for being an inspiring leader for the entire West Wing.”Whether Trump retains the loyalty of evangelicals in 2024 remains to be seen.The January 6 report often kills with understatement. For example, it repeatedly mocks Giuliani and his posse. The committee notes: “On 7 November, Rudy Giuliani headlined a Philadelphia press conference in front of a landscaping business called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, near a crematorium and down the street from a sex shop.”Like Giuliani’s three ex-wives, the members of the committee loathe him.“Standing in front of former New York police commissioner and recently pardoned convicted felon Bernard Kerik, Giuliani gave opening remarks and handed the podium over to his first supposed eyewitness to election fraud, who turned out to be a convicted sex offender.”If the debacle surrounding George Santos, the newly-elected New York congressman, teaches us anything, it is that you can never do enough background-checking.Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel saysRead moreGiuliani’s law license is suspended, on account of “false claims” in post-election hearings. A panel of the DC bar has recommended disbarment.Nick Fuentes, Trump’s infamous neo-Nazi dinner guest, also appears in the January 6 report, regarding his part in the insurrection. He is quoted: “Capitol siege was fucking awesome.” Recently, Fuentes reaffirmed his admiration for Hitler. Trump still refuses to disavow him.Trumpworld is a tangled web. Ultimately, though, the January 6 report is chillingly clear about the spider at its center.“The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”True.
      The Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol is available here.
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      Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel says

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      Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel saysCommittee says Trump’s conduct on January 6 warrants implementation of constitutional ban on him holding office again The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has recommended in its final report that Donald Trump should be barred from holding office again.January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportRead moreThe former US president is again running for the White House and is seen as the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 nomination. However, his campaign has been a damp squib so far and his political fortunes battered by the poor performance of Trump-backed candidates in the November midterms and the emergence of rival figures within the party, notably Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Across 814 pages of the report, published late Thursday night, the Democrat-led committee laid out findings that placed blame squarely on “one man” for the violent events that engulfed the legislative seat of the US government for several hours in 2020.“The central cause of Jan 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” said the report, released overnight, in a punchy two-sentence summary. “None of the events of Jan 6 would have happened without him.”In extensive detail, the committee accused the former president of “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election”. Trump’s conduct on that day, it says, warrants implementation of a constitutional ban on the New York real estate developer from holding elected office again.Prior to Jan 6, it continued, Trump and his inner circle engaged in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation”, between Election Day and January 6.On Monday, the committee voted to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges, including insurrection and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress.The committee also placed blame on domestic law enforcement agencies.“Federal and local law enforcement authorities were in possession of multiple streams of intelligence predicting violence directed at the Capitol prior to January 6th,” the report says. “Although some of that intelligence was fragmentary, it should have been sufficient to warrant far more vigorous preparations for the security of the joint session.”Among the evidence presented in the panel’s final report was that there had been 68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls, or text messages aimed at pressuring state or local officials toward the goal of overturning the election’s results.“President Trump’s decision to declare victory falsely on election night and, unlawfully, to call for the vote counting to stop, was not a spontaneous decision. It was premeditated,” the report states.The committee also described how Trump, his campaign and Republican National Committee used claims that the election was stolen to collect more than $250m in political fundraising.In a bombshell video deposition released earlier this week, former White House communications director Hope Hicks said that Trump knew the claims were false and had dismissed lawyer Sidney Powell’s theories of foreign interference in the election as “crazy”.The committee, which conducted 1,000 interviews over nearly 18 months, cost taxpayers $3m to September this year, employed around 57 people, and spent hundreds of thousands more on outside consultants and services.After the findings were published, Trump hit back on his own social media platform with a typically mis-spelt message. “The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the ‘Peacefully and Patrioticly’ words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud”, Trump posted on Truth Social.Trump concluded his appraisal of the committee’s work with a question: “WITCH HUNT?”The January 6 committee’s report offers a clear analysis of the events leading up to that day and a path toward using the 14th amendment against insurrection to bar Trump and his allies from future office.“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” said Mississippi Democratic congressman and committee chair Bennie Thompson in the foreword.The findings, published days before Republicans take control of the lower legislative house, automatically dissolving the panel, offers the department of justice a comparative text to its own investigation.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final report

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      January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportHouse committee publishes report two days after recommending criminal charges against ex-president The congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has published its final report, accusing Donald Trump of a “multi-part conspiracy” to thwart the will of the people and subvert democracy.Divided into eight chapters, the report includes findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations and represents one of the most damning official portraits of a president in American history.A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for powerRead moreIts release comes just three days after the select committee recommended criminal charges against Trump and follows media reports that it is cooperating and sharing crucial evidence with the justice department.The panel, which will dissolve on 3 January when Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 public hearings – some televised in prime time – and collected more than a million documents since forming in July last year.Its report presents an in-depth and detailed account of Trump’s effort to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and what the panel says was his culpability for a violent insurrection by his supporters.It makes the case that Trump knew he lost but still pressured both state officials and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, then “was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob” and refused repeated entreaties from his aides to condemn the rioters or to encourage them to leave.“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the document’s executive summary says. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”The report adds to political pressure already on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who is conducting an investigation into the insurrection and Trump’s actions.The Punchbowl News website reported that the committee has begun “extensively cooperating” with the special counsel, sharing documents and transcripts including text messages sent by Mark Meadows, the then White House chief of staff.On Monday, at its final public session, the panel unanimously made four criminal referrals to the justice department against Trump for his role in the insurrection that started with his false claims of a stolen election and ended in the mob siege of the US Capitol. It was the first time in American history that Congress had taken such action against a former president.In unanimously adopting the report, the committee also recommended a congressional ethics investigations for the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, and other House members over defying congressional subpoenas for information about their interactions with Trump before, during and after the bloody assault.The members “should be questioned in a public forum about their advance knowledge of and role in President Trump’s plan to prevent the peaceful transition of power”, the report contends.While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the justice department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it was another blow to the former president’s already faltering 2024 election campaign.The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurrection. When that effort failed, the Democratic-controlled House formed an investigative committee of its own, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans: Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.During an 18-month investigation, the panel laid out evidence that the January 6 attack at the US Capitol was not a spontaneous protest, but an orchestrated “scheme” by Trump to subvert democracy and overturn the election.He urged supporters to come to Washington for a “big rally” on January 6. He whipped up supporters in a speech outside the White House. Knowing that some were armed, he sent the mob to the Capitol and encouraged them to “fight like hell” for his presidency as Congress was counting the vote. He tried to join them on Capitol Hill.All the while Trump stoked theories from conservative lawyer John Eastman to create alternative slates of electors, switching certain states that voted for Biden to Trump, that could be presented to Congress for the tally. Eastman also faces criminal referral by the committee to the justice department.Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, on federal officials and Mike Pence to object to Biden’s win. The committee has also described how Trump riled up the crowd at a rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television.Once they were inside the building, the committee notes, Trump showed no concern when they chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and for hours the then president resisted the pleas of advisers who told him to tell the rioters to disperse. “The final words of that tweet leave little doubt about President Trump’s sentiments toward those who invaded the Capitol: ‘Remember this day forever!’” the report states.More than 800 people have been charged in relation to the attack. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates were convicted of am obstruction charge last month. Rhodes, who was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, did not go inside the Capitol but was accused of leading a violent plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power.At Monday’s meeting, chairman Bennie Thompson said: “The committee is nearing the end of its work, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters. Nearly two years later this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”He added: “We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.”Cheney, the vice-chairwoman of the committee, said in her opening remarks that every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power “except one”.After that session, Trump remained defiant. “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me,” he said in a statement. “It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”The report includes recommendations for legislative changes, including proposals for updating the 19th century Electoral Count Act that was strained by Trump’s attempt to challenge the way Congress tallies the votes.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel releases transcript of key witness ahead of 800-page report

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      January 6 panel releases transcript of key witness ahead of 800-page report Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump, gave some of the most dramatic testimony during live hearings last summer Ahead of the release of its full report, the House January 6 committee published transcripts of witness testimony including that of Cassidy Hutchinson, a central figure in the investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion and the Capitol attack.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreOn Wednesday night, the committee released 34 transcripts from 1,000 interviews conducted over 18 months. Most interviewees invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. But Adam Schiff of California, a Democratic member of the committee, told CBS: “I guarantee there’ll be some very interesting new information in the report and even more so in the transcripts.”Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, gave some of the most dramatic testimony during live hearings last summer. Then, she described how Trump accosted a secret service agent and lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle when he was told he would not be driven to the Capitol himself.Further testimony, given by Hutchinson behind closed doors on 14 and 15 September, was released on Thursday. The first session lasted five-and-a-half hours, the second two-and-a-half. Early readings of more than 200 pages revealed a hitherto unknown episode aboard Air Force One early on 5 January 2021, as Trump was flying back to Washington after attending rallies in Georgia.The testimony would appear to allude to attempts to persuade the vice-president, Mike Pence, to deny certification of Joe Biden’s victory the following day.In a meeting attended by, among others, the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, allies talked up the scheme and assured Trump it would succeed, Hutchinson says. But she says she then saw Meadows take Trump aside and caution him: “In case we didn’t win this [the election] sir, and in case, like, tomorrow doesn’t go as planned, we’re gonna have to have a plan in place.”According to Hutchinson, Trump replied: “There’s always that chance we didn’t win, but tomorrow’s gonna go well.”The remark is potentially crucial evidence that Trump knew his defeat was not the result of fraud.Hutchinson also says she felt she had “Trump himself looking over my shoulder” as she discussed with her attorney her testimony earlier this year. The former White House aide outlines what she saw as sustained campaign of pressure by lawyers paid by Trump to get her to mislead the panel.CNN reported on Wednesday that Stefan Passantino, the top ethics attorney in the Trump White House, allegedly advised Hutchinson to tell the committee she did not recall details that in fact she did.According to the new transcript, Hutchinson said: “It wasn’t just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder. Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal.“And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be.”Hutchinson, then 26, said she thought she was “fucked” because she couldn’t afford a lawyer, but was hooked up with Passantino through White House contacts. It turned out Passantino was paid by a Trump-aligned political action committee.Hutchinson added: “I want to make this clear to you: Stefan never told me to lie. He specifically told me, ‘I don’t want you to perjure yourself, but ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury. They don’t know want you can and can’t recall’.That said, Hutchinson felt pressured into misleading the panel. The relationship with Passantino soured and ended, she said.Subjects of other transcripts included Jeffrey Clark, an official in the justice department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s attempt to stay in office. Each invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Also included in the release was testimony from members of extremist groups involved in the attack. The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, convicted last month of seditious conspiracy, and the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both testified. Tarrio and four other Proud Boys will appear in court this month.Committee members hope for criminal charges against Trump and key allies. Only the justice department has the power to prosecute, so the panel recommended investigation of Trump for four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.On Wednesday the Democratic committee chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, was asked if he had confidence charges would be pursued.He told MSNBC: “I am more comfortable with the fact that the special counsel” – Jack Smith, appointed last month – “has been actively engaged in pursuing any and all the information available. They have been in contact, asking us to provide various transcripts and what have you.”Thompson was asked if the committee was cooperating with the justice department. He said: “Yes … we made the decision [in] consultation with other members that we will cooperate.”He added: “There were people that we deposed that justice had not deposed. There were electors in various states that justice couldn’t find. We found them. We deposed them. And so we had a lot of information, but now we make all that information available. And if they come back and want to interview staff or any members, ask [for] any additional information, we’ll be more than happy to do it.”Trump is running again for the presidency but faces investigations including into the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate and his tax affairs. He has been blamed by Republicans for a poor showing in the midterm elections, leaving him politically vulnerable.Trump has slammed the House committee as “thugs and scoundrels”. In response to the criminal referrals, he said: “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.”Republicans take over the House on 3 January. The committee will be dissolved.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More