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      Jan 6 hearing updates: panel votes to subpoena Donald Trump – as it happened

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      The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee held what is likely to be its last public hearing, and made the case that Donald Trump, above anyone else, is to blame for the deadly attack on the US Capitol. Here are five takeaways from today’s meeting:
      In the final minutes of its two-and-a-half hour hearing, the panel subpoenaed the former president, with committee member Jamie Raskin saying they hope his testimony will clarify aspects of the attack they haven’t been able to uncover. Trump hasn’t yet responded to the summons, but don’t be surprised if he follows the practice of his most loyal former officials and fights it.
      The Secret Service is in for continued scrutiny, with committee member Pete Aguilar warning the panel may recall witnesses with knowledge of Trump’s allegedly explosive behavior on January 6, when his protective detail declined to drive him to the Capitol. Aguilar also warned “the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue,” and to expect more details about this in its forthcoming report.
      Officials in the Trump White House looked to fire up his supporters ahead of the president’s speech on January 6 – then pled ignorance as the Secret Service and other security agencies began getting reports the president’s most ardent supporters were planning violence.
      Even as he plotted to stop Joe Biden from taking over the White House, Trump acted like a man who had lost re-election, signing an order to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before his term was over, which would have been a huge undertaking.
      All along, Trump planned to declare victory even before all the ballots were counted – a fact that one of his most extreme supporters Roger Stone stated openly to a documentary crew.
      The January 6 committee wasn’t today’s only story:
      The supreme court rejected Trump’s attempt to get justices to weigh in on his attempt to complicate the federal investigation into government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
      The United States and Saudi Arabia are waging a war of words over the Opec+ oil production cut and Washington’s claim Riyadh has aligned itself with Russia.
      The New York attorney general has warned Trump and his business are taking steps to undermine her lawsuit against them, and asked a judge to step in.
      Social security recipients are getting a big increase in monthly payments – but only because inflation is so high.
      CNN has lately been tracking who comes and goes from a federal courthouse in Washington, where a grand jury investigating the January 6 attack is meeting.The latest visitors: former vice-president Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short and Kash Patel, a national security aide in the Trump White House, CNN reports.The two men had nothing to say when the network asked what brought them there, but it’s not surprising to hear that Short turned up. He was a foe of Trump’s plot to steal the 2020 election and cooperated with the January 6 committee.Patel, however, promoted various baseless lies about the election and is seen as loyal to the former president. Why subpoena Trump? Here’s what CNN was told by Jamie Raskin, a Democratic committee member:Jamie Raskin tells me 1/6 committee subpoenaed Trump because the panel has been unable to nail down some of Trump’s specific actions & conversations. Raskin said that’s because the witnesses closest to Trump, who would know these answers, have pled the 5th in committee interviews pic.twitter.com/kK6zsiXKrT— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 13, 2022
      CNN has more from the January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson about what he expects to result from lawmakers’ subpoena to Donald Trump:Talked with Bennie Thompson about the subpoena for Trump. He wouldn’t say if they would go to court to fight this. Asked if he really thought Trump would testify, he said: “Ask Donald Trump.” He says “no” subpoena for Pence pic.twitter.com/HxvhWUCfhv— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 13, 2022
      Punchbowl News says the subpoena issue may likely linger beyond the 8 November midterms:NEW – @BennieGThompson is expected to issue Trump subpoena next week. The response date probably won’t be until after Nov. 8 midterm elections, but date hasn’t been set yet— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) October 13, 2022
      And that’s it. With their vote to subpoena Donald Trump, the January 6 committee concluded what lawmakers have hinted is likely to be their last public presentation of evidence. But the group’s work is far from over. Trump may very well reject their order to testify, and head to court to fight it. Meanwhile, the lawmakers have a report to finish, and said they’re not done asking questions of the Secret Service and what it knew about Trump’s behavior and plans for that day.The committee’s mandate expires when the current Congress ends on the final day of the year, and at least two of their members will not be returning to their chamber. While they have not said definitively, the just-concluded hearing is likely the last time they will all be seen in public together – though there’s always the chance they schedule another hearing.The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee has juxtaposed gripping footage of Democratic congressional leaders pleading for help as the Capitol is stormed with Trump administration officials making clear that the president could have quickly disseminated a message to condemn the rioters – but chose not to.The footage showed insurrectionists fighting with police and overrunning the Capitol, while top lawmakers including House speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer pled for reinforcements from the department of defense and the governor of Virginia.Led by Democrat Jamie Raskin, the committee then showed previously aired testimony by top administration officials saying that Trump could have quickly made a public address to call off rioters, and showed video footage of them listening to a message sent during the insurrection where he asked them – albeit tepidly – to go home.“It was President Lincoln at the start of the civil war in 1861, who best explained why democracy rejects insurrection. Insurrection, he said, is a war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people. American democracy belongs to all the American people, not to a single man,” Raskin said, as he concluded his testimony.The supreme court has turned down an appeal from Donald Trump as he tries to frustrate the federal investigation into government secrets discovered at Mar-a-Lago.Breaking: Supreme Court denies Trump motion seeking to re-include 103 docs in the special master review— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      Earlier this month, Trump asked the supreme court to allow a special master to review 100 classified documents as part of his efforts to exclude privileged information from the investigation. If granted, the special master could have excluded some classified files from being used in the federal case, where prosecutors may level charges against Trump for unlawfully keeping government documents after his term in the White House ended.Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago special master disputeRead moreThe hearing has resumed, with Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar addressing one of the most shocking revelations from its hearings over the summer.In June, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson related hearing a story that Trump had lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle as he demanded his unwilling Secret Service agents drive him to the Capitol just as it was being attacked by his supporters. Aguilar said the committee had uncovered additional evidence corroborating this story.“After concluding its review of the voluminous additional Secret Service communications from January 5, and January 6, the committee will be recalling witnesses and conducting further investigative depositions based on that material. Following that activity, we will provide even greater detail in our final report,” he said. “And I will also note this, the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue, including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic. We will address this matter in our report.”The Secret Service has come under scrutiny for what it knew about the attack, particularly after it was revealed that the agency erased all its text messages from around the time of the insurrection in what it says was a pre-planned technology upgrade.The January 6 committee is now on a 10-minute recess after Democratic congressman Adam Schiff finished presenting evidence, which showed how the Secret Service documented numerous threats before January 6 – some of which were encouraged by Trump’s White House staff.“I got the based FIRED up,” White House adviser Jason Miller wrote in a text message to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. Miller included a link to a website where supporters of the president wrote comments like, “Gallows don’t require electricity”, “If the filthy commie maggots try to push their fraud through, there will be hell to pay”, and “Our lawmakers in Congress can leave one of two ways: one, in a body bag, two after rightfully certifying Trump the winner.”“If I had seen something of that nature I would have said, we got to flag this for Secret Service or something of that nature,” Miller told the committee’s investigators when they asked him about the texts. Schiff said that despite testimony from some White House staffers and Secret Service agents that they had no warnings of violence before January 6, “evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.” He went on to detail how the Secret Service was monitoring online threats ahead of the joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s election win, including against vice-president Mike Pence. One threatening post said would be “a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing”.Schiff said Trump was able to hear how angry his supporters were the night before the insurrection, when he opened the door in the White House’s Oval Office and heard them gathering a few blocks away.“The president knew the crowd was angry because he had stoked that anger. He knew that they believe that the election had been rigged and stolen because he had told them falsely that it had been rigged and stolen,” Schiff said. “And by the time he incited that angry mob to march on the Capitol, he knew they were armed and dangerous. All the better to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has confirmed that once the January 6 committee finishes publicly presenting evidence today, it will vote to subpoena Donald Trump:New: Confirming NBC that the Jan. 6 committee plans to subpoena Trump today after the end of presentations @GuardianUS— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      Now led by Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, the committee is shifting into records newly obtained from the Secret Service, which show agents were receiving tips about plans for violence on January 6.According to one tip detailed by Schiff, “the Proud Boys plan to march armed into DC. They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed, the source reported, and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped. The source went on to say their plan is to literally kill people. Please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”“The Secret Service had advance information more than 10 days beforehand regarding the Proud Boys planning for January 6. We know now, of course, that the Proud Boys and others did lead the assault on our Capitol building,” Schiff said. At its hearing, the January 6 committee plans to vote to subpoena Donald Trump, NBC News reports:SCOOP: J6 Cmte currently plans to vote to subpoena fmr Pres Trump during today’s hearing, sources familiar w/ their plans tell @NBCNews. Members want to put the move in the public record despite acknowledging how unlikely it’d be for him to comply – w/ @haleytalbotnbc— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) October 13, 2022
      The hearing is ongoing, with lawmakers outlining various ways Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden won the White House.Despite all his bluster and scheming, the committee, now led by Republican Adam Kinzinger, is arguing that Trump was well aware he had lost.Case in point: eight days after the 3 November election, he issued an order for the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia and Afghanistan before Joe Biden was to take office in late January. The task would have been a huge, potentially unfeasible logistical undertaking, and the committee played testimony showing several defense staffers viewed it as a dangerous move that would have undercut allies globally.“Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business,” Kinzinger said. “Keep in mind, the order was for an immediate withdrawal. It would have been catastrophic, and yet President Trump signed the order. These are the highly consequential actions of a president who knows his term will shortly end.”Biden ended up ordering the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed later in 2021. As for Somalia, Trump did order a withdrawal, but Biden reversed it last year.Biden reverses Trump withdrawal of US army trainers from SomaliaRead moreRoger Stone has made an appearance. The Trump ally and Richard Nixon fan is shown, in footage obtained from a documentary team, advocating for Trump to declare victory before the ballots had been counted.“The key thing to do is to claim victory,” Stone says. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. No, we won, fuck you. Sorry, over. You’re wrong, fuck you.”The committee then showed footage of his deposition before lawmakers, where he refused to answer questions.“Do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?” an investigator asks. “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer your question on the basis of the Fifth Amendment,” Stone replies.The committee then went on to outline Stone’s ties to people who violently attacked the Capitol, including members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, both groups facing seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the insurrection.Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has now taken over, and is airing evidence showing how Trump ignored the advice of his advisers to encourage more mail-in voting, and planned well in advance to declare victory even before all the ballots had been counted.“We now know more about President Trump’s intention for election night. The evidence shows that his false victory speech was planned well in advance before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was. He made a plan to stay in office before election day,” Lofgren said.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that this hearing will be different from previous sessions, in that the committee could vote on how to proceed further:New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson says today is actually a “business meeting” — meaning the panel may take votes on next investigative steps— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      From its start in June, the January 6 committee has distinguished itself from other congressional proceedings through its tight scripting and lack of votes or back-and-forth between lawmakers. The former has allowed it to clearly present evidence and testimony to a viewing audience, but it seems today could be different. Liz Cheney, the Republican co-chair of the committee, just made clear what the message of today’s hearing will be: “The central cause of January 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed.”“None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it,” Cheney continued. “Today we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding. And how another January 6 could happen again, if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.”Other things Trump was a central cause of: Cheney losing the Republican primary in Wyoming two months ago, ensuring she will not return to Congress next year.The January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson has started off the hearing by making the case that its work is not politically motivated, but rather a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of a shocking act of violence targeting a pillar of America’s democracy.“Over the course of these hearings, the evidence has proven that there was a multi-part plan led by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election,” the Mississippi lawmaker said.He appealed to the public to view the committee’s work as separate from politics.“We understood that some people watching those proceedings would wrongly assume that the committee’s investigation was a partisan exercise. That’s why we asked those who was skeptical of our work, to simply to listen, to listen to the evidence, to hear the testimony with an open minded and to let the facts speak for themselves before reaching any judgment,” Thompson said.He noted that much of the committee’s most revealing testimony has come from former officials in Trump’s Republican administration, campaign workers, or GOP officials at the state level.“When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence come almost entirely from Republicans,” Thompson said. More

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      ‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violence

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      ‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violenceVideo footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker shows Trump ally discussing violence after 2020 election The House January 6 committee on Thursday played as promised video footage of the Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone discussing the need for violence after the 2020 election, before 6 January 2021, the day of the deadly Capitol attack.“Let’s just hope we’re celebrating,” Stone said, in footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker.“I really do suspect that [the election result] will still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of law. ‘No we won, fuck you. Sorry, you’re wrong, fuck you.’”In another clip, Stone said: “I say fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”To laughter, an associate with Stone said: “Start smashing pumpkins, if you know what I mean.”In her opening statement at a hearing officially designated as a business meeting, to set up votes on further investigations, the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren laid out the committee’s interest in Stone.Stone, she said, “is a political operative with a reputation for dirty tricks. In November 2019 he was convicted of lying to Congress and other crimes and sentenced to more than three years in prison. He’s also a longtime adviser to President Trump, and was in communication with President Trump throughout 2020. Mr Trump pardoned Roger Stone on 23 December 2020.”Stone, she said, “apparently knew of Mr Trump’s intentions” to reject the election result long before election day.The congresswoman said: “Although we don’t yet have all the relevant records of Roger Stone’s communications, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Donald Trump on 27 December as preparations for January 6 were under way.”Stone, Lofgren showed, discussed the idea of appointing a special counsel to “ensure those who are attempting to steal the 2020 election through voter fraud are charged and convicted and to ensure Donald Trump continues as our president” – an idea the president is known to have discussed with allies and advisers.Lofgren mentioned links between Stone and the Capitol attack, including his attendance at the Willard hotel the night before January 6, as Trump allies planned their actions the next day, and his links with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, extremist rightwing groups who led the Capitol riot.“Individuals from both of these organisations have been charged with a crime of seditious conspiracy,” Lofgren said. “… Multiple associates of Roger Stone from both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have been charged with this crime.”Lofgren also played footage of Stone refusing to answer questions from the committee, invoking his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.The committee also played footage of Steve Bannon, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair who became a White House strategist, discussing what would happen on January 6, and revealed a hitherto unseen memo from Tom Fitton, another pro-Trump activist.“The select committee got this pre-prepared statement from the National Archives,” Lofgren said, displaying and describing the draft statement sent by Fitton on 31 October, three days before election day.According to Fitton’s proposed memo, Trump would simply “declare we had an election today and I won”.TopicsUS Capitol attackRoger StoneUS politicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      New York attorney general files motion to stop Trump’s ‘continued fraudulent practices’ – live

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      New York attorney general Letitia James today accused Donald Trump and the Trump organization of trying to evade her investigation into their business practices by taking steps to move assets out of her reach and avoiding her attempts to serve court documents.James last month announced a civil fraud suit against the former president and three of his children over accusations they falsely inflated Trump’s net worth to enrich themselves and secure loans on better terms. The suit added to the mounting legal threats against the former president, who is also under federal investigation for his role in the January 6 insurrection and the government secrets founds at his Mar-a-Lago resort.In a just-released statement, James said she has asked a judge to approve several steps “to stop Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization’s ongoing fraudulent scheme and ensure funds are available to satisfy any disgorgement award.”“Since we filed this sweeping lawsuit last month, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have continued those same fraudulent practices and taken measures to evade responsibility. Today, we are seeking an immediate stop to these actions because Mr. Trump should not get to play by different rules,” James said.Among the measures James said Trump and his business have taken is incorporating a new company in Delaware on the day the lawsuit was filed. The district attorney said the Trumps could move their assets to that business from New York, in a bid to stymie her case. James wants the court to block any such transfers, as well as appoint an independent monitor that would track Trump’s financial disclosures.She also asked for permission to serve court documents to Donald and Eric Trump electronically “as both defendants and their counsels have refused to accept service of the complaints for almost a month.”New York civil fraud suit could bring down the Trump OrganizationRead moreThe Guardian’s David Smith has a look at what to expect today during what is likely to be the last public hearing of the January 6 committee, which will focus squarely on Trump’s actions as the Capitol was attacked:The ninth and possibly final hearing of the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will focus on Donald Trump’s “state of mind” as the insurrection unfolded.The House of Representatives select committee will reconvene in Washington at 1pm on Thursday after a two-and-a-half month break, and is expected to present new video footage showing efforts to respond to the violence as it was unfolding.“There is going to be some discussion of events that took place prior to election day and there’s going to be some looking at events that took place after January 6,” said an aide to the committee, who did not wish to be named. “We’re going to bring a particular focus on the president’s state of mind and his involvement in these events as they unfold.“So what you’re going to see is a synthesis of some evidence we’ve already presented with that new, never-before-seen information to illustrate Donald Trump’s centrality to the scheme from the time prior to the election.”January 6 panel’s next hearing will focus on Trump’s ‘state of mind’ during attack Read moreNew York attorney general Letitia James today accused Donald Trump and the Trump organization of trying to evade her investigation into their business practices by taking steps to move assets out of her reach and avoiding her attempts to serve court documents.James last month announced a civil fraud suit against the former president and three of his children over accusations they falsely inflated Trump’s net worth to enrich themselves and secure loans on better terms. The suit added to the mounting legal threats against the former president, who is also under federal investigation for his role in the January 6 insurrection and the government secrets founds at his Mar-a-Lago resort.In a just-released statement, James said she has asked a judge to approve several steps “to stop Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization’s ongoing fraudulent scheme and ensure funds are available to satisfy any disgorgement award.”“Since we filed this sweeping lawsuit last month, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have continued those same fraudulent practices and taken measures to evade responsibility. Today, we are seeking an immediate stop to these actions because Mr. Trump should not get to play by different rules,” James said.Among the measures James said Trump and his business have taken is incorporating a new company in Delaware on the day the lawsuit was filed. The district attorney said the Trumps could move their assets to that business from New York, in a bid to stymie her case. James wants the court to block any such transfers, as well as appoint an independent monitor that would track Trump’s financial disclosures.She also asked for permission to serve court documents to Donald and Eric Trump electronically “as both defendants and their counsels have refused to accept service of the complaints for almost a month.”New York civil fraud suit could bring down the Trump OrganizationRead moreA big increase in monthly social security payments might sound like a good thing, but keep in mind, the government is doing it only because inflation is so high.And today began with word that the consumer price wave didn’t subside much in September. Year-on-year, prices rose 8.2%, below the high of 9.1% in June but not much of a change from the 8.3% level in August. Monthly price growth actually accelerated in September, led by costs for food and, more worryingly, housing, one of the most potent contributors to inflation overall.There will be a few consequences to this report. First of all, it will likely reinforce the Federal Reserve’s conviction that it needs to continue raising interest rates to quell demand and stop prices from rising so much. But it takes time to know the impact of rate increases, and the worry is that the central bank will overdo it and tighten conditions so much that the economy heads into a recession. Indeed, the head of the largest US investment bank warned as much earlier this week, though the Fed is far from the only threat to the economy right now.Then there’s the impact on president Joe Biden and the Democratic party at large. As the saying goes, the buck stops with him, and polls have made clear voters care deeply about the state of the economy – and aren’t a huge fan of his handling of it. Consider this one from Monmouth University released earlier this month, which found inflation to be the top priority among voters surveyed, and Biden getting low marks for his handling of it.If the 8 November midterms result in a wipeout for Democrats in Congress and statehouses nationwide, don’t be surprised if that dynamic turns out to be the reason why. US is headed for a recession, says head of JP Morgan Chase bank: ‘This is serious’Read moreGood morning, US politics blog readers. Americans don’t have many nice things to say about the record streak of inflation that has beset the economy since the start of last year, but for retirees, it’s come with one benefit: larger social security payments. The government announced today it would raise monthly payments from the retirement program by 8.7%, its largest increase in 40 years, to offset rising prices for food, gasoline and other essentials. Older people tend to be reliable voters, so this may have knock-on effects for the midterms, where inflation is seen as a liability for president Joe Biden and the Democrats running nationwide to help him carry out his agenda.Today is going to be a busy one!
      The January 6 committee will hold its ninth and potentially last public hearing at 1 pm eastern time today, focusing on what Donald Trump knew before and during the deadly insurrection at the Capitol.
      Consumer price data just released shows inflation remaining stubbornly high in September, bad news for the US economy and for Wall Street especially.
      Biden is in Los Angeles, where he will promote his infrastructure law announced last year and fundraise for Democrats. More

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      January 6 panel’s next hearing will focus on Trump’s ‘state of mind’ during attack

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      January 6 panel’s next hearing will focus on Trump’s ‘state of mind’ during attack House select committee will reconvene Thursday with new video footage showing measures to respond during violence at Capitol The ninth and possibly final hearing of the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will focus on Donald Trump’s “state of mind” as the insurrection unfolded.The House of Representatives select committee will reconvene in Washington at 1pm on Thursday after a two-and-a-half month break, and is expected to present new video footage showing efforts to respond to the violence as it was unfolding.House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane IanRead more“There is going to be some discussion of events that took place prior to election day and there’s going to be some looking at events that took place after January 6,” said an aide to the committee, who did not wish to be named. “We’re going to bring a particular focus on the president’s state of mind and his involvement in these events as they unfold.“So what you’re going to see is a synthesis of some evidence we’ve already presented with that new, never-before-seen information to illustrate Donald Trump’s centrality to the scheme from the time prior to the election.”The committee surpassed many observers’ expectations over the summer with a series of televised hearings that put Trump at the heart of an attempted coup – a premeditated assault on American democracy that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.On Thursday it will seek to reclaim the spotlight less than a month before congressional midterm elections, in which hundreds of Republicans who back Trump’s false claim of election fraud are running for office.The committee will present documentary evidence that includes information from hundreds of thousands of pages that the Secret Service handed over in response to a subpoena. The records will show how Trump – who encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” in a speech on the morning of January 6 – was repeatedly alerted to danger yet still tried to stoke the violence, the Washington Post reported.Unlike previous hearings there will be no live witnesses, the aide said, but there will be new witness testimony, including from individuals who have not been heard from before. It is unclear whether that will include Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. Her interview by the panel last month was transcribed but not videotaped.Thursday’s hearing is expected to last about two and half hours and include statements from the panel’s chair, Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Liz Cheney – nearing the end of her tenure in Congress after losing a Republican primary race in Wyoming – as well as all seven other members of the committee, each presenting different elements of the evidence.Whereas past hearings concentrated on a particular topic, earning comparisons with TV crime dramas or podcasts, this one will take “a step back” and examine “the entire plan”. But in a background briefing with reporters, the aide denied it amounted to a closing argument, saying it was difficult to know the select committee’s schedule going forward.“The investigation is ongoing and, of course, at some point there will be a comprehensive report released which will present the committee’s findings in a more complete manner. That work goes on. I would resist any characterisation that makes this seem like the final time you’re going to hear from the committee.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Who is Roger Stone, the Trump ally in the January 6 panel’s crosshairs?

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      Who is Roger Stone, the Trump ally in the January 6 panel’s crosshairs?Flamboyant rightwing strategist and self-confessed dirty trickster expected to be a focus of committee’s latest session At its hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, the House January 6 committee is expected to show footage of Roger Stone, shot by Danish film-makers.‘It’s a sham’: fears over Trump loyalists’ ‘election integrity’ driveRead moreAccording to the Washington Post, the clips will show that Stone “predicted violent clashes with leftwing activists and forecast months before the 2020 vote that [Donald Trump] would use armed guards and loyal judges to stay in power”.CNN said footage also showed Stone the day before election day saying: “Fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”So who is Roger Stone?A Republican strategist, consultant and author, he is most often described as a self-confessed political dirty trickster and longtime Trump adviser, given to flamboyance in tailoring and swinging as well as campaign stunts.Now 70, Stone started out as a student volunteer on Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972, “pulling … penny-ante tricks” against Democrats or, in the Nixonian vernacular, “ratfucking” the president’s opponents.Before Nixon’s downfall in 1974, amid the Watergate scandal, Stone worked for the Committee to Re-elect the President, or Creep.After Nixon, Stone – who has a tattoo of the 37th president on his back – worked with Paul Manafort and Charles Black to build a Washington lobbying firm that flourished in the 1980s, often representing clients other firms might have found unsavoury.Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire, was one. Donald Trump was another.Stone advised Trump during his flirtation with a presidential run in 2000. In the presidential election the same year, Stone played a prominent role in stopping a recount in Florida, thereby securing the White House for George W Bush. In the mid-2000s, Stone was involved in the downfall of Eliot Spitzer, a Democratic New York governor who used prostitutes.Stone was back at Trump’s side in 2015, when he finally ran for president. Stone was fired or resigned but remained in Trump’s orbit, an erratic asteroid endangering anyone in his path, during the billionaire’s campaign and time in power.In 2019, Stone was indicted by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Stone was convicted on seven counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, in relation to his links to Trump’s campaign and to WikiLeaks, which released Democratic emails obtained by Russian hackers.In February 2020, prosecutors recommended Stone be sentenced to between seven and nine years in prison. After Trump complained by tweet, the Department of Justice intervened, saying the recommendation was too harsh. Four prosecutors resigned in protest.Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison but never went to jail. In December 2020, in the midst of Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, Trump granted Stone clemency.In Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, Stone denies working with far-right groups including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys around the Capitol attack. But last week, such links came up at the start of the trial of the Oath Keepers leader, Stewart Rhodes, on seditious conspiracy charges.Trump ally Roger Stone: Americans can now choose ‘alternative’ truthsRead moreRandall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at George Washington University, told the Washington Post: “It seems like the prosecution is treating Stone as an un-indicted co-conspirator.”Stone’s decision to allow documentary film-makers to follow him in his efforts to “Stop the Steal” was characteristic – and landed him in characteristic trouble, in the sights of the January 6 committee and the justice department. Summoned to appear before January 6 investigators, Stone repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.Stone has recently teamed up with Michael Flynn, a retired general, ex-national security adviser and leading pro-Trump plotter.In July, Sean Morales-Doyle, a Brennan Center expert on voting rights and elections, told the Guardian Stone and Flynn’s attempts to train Republican canvassers and poll watchers were “a sham, aimed … at undermining public faith in our elections and setting the stage for future attempts to subvert the will of the people”.TopicsRoger StoneUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansprofilesReuse this content More

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      ‘We must defeat them’: new evidence details Oath Keepers’ ‘civil war’ timeline

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      ‘We must defeat them’: new evidence details Oath Keepers’ ‘civil war’ timelineTestimony from government’s first witness showed militia group’s leader had planned resistance well before election results were out It was just two days after the presidential election that his preferred candidate Donald Trump lost, and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes fired off a text to members of his extremist group.“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” the text read.Now, Rhodes and four others charged with seditious conspiracy stemming from the deadly 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol staged by Trump supporters are coming off the first week of their trial in federal court in Washington DC.Capitol attack: Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to seditious conspiracyRead moreSeven other Oath Keepers pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges before the trial, which saw the prosecution reveal troubling new information about how long ago Rhodes’ group had resolved to keep Trump in the Oval Office at any cost.Testimony on Tuesday from the government’s first witness – FBI agent Michael Palian – established that Rhodes had been encouraging resistance to a potential Joe Biden electoral college victory in the early hours of 4 November 2020, days before the major news networks had called the race in his favor.“The left, including the Democratic party … seek our destruction,” Rhodes said through text messages. “We must defeat them … Even if one of them occupies the White House.”By 7 November, the day news stations projected Biden had defeated Trump, Rhodes sent a group chat through the encrypted private messenger app, Signal, “What’s the plan? We need to roll,” the Washington Post reported.He added: “I’m on my way to [D.C.] now, with my Oath Keepers tactical leaders for a possible DC op to do a leaders recon and make plans. I’m available to meet face to face.”The group chat, Friends of Stone, included Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio and former Trump adviser Roger Stone, though the latter has denied any prior knowledge of the Capitol attack which a bipartisan Senate report linked to at least seven deaths and has not been charged with any crime connected to the insurrection.In arguably the most consequential reveal of the trial thus far, an Oath Keepers insider who testified Thursday claimed the group had begun plotting what he understood to be a coup during a virtual meeting with more than 100 members on 9 November, which took two hours.The Oath Keepers West Virginia chapter leader Abdullah Rashid, a heavy equipment mechanic and US marine corps veteran, started recording the session because it sounded to him like the extremist group planned to go to war with the US government, the loosely affiliated antifascist movement known as “Antifa” for short, and the racial justice movement Black Lives Matter.NOW: We are moving onto the next witness for the prosecution. His name is Abdullah Rashid. We learn now he was responsible for recording the Nov 9 GoTo Meeting.He recorded it because it sounded like Oath Keepers were planning to “go to war with the US govt”— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) October 6, 2022
      As Brandi Buchman of the Daily Kos noted, Rashid testified that – after he recorded the meeting – he reached out to Washington DC’s attorney general, Karl Racine, and the US Capitol police. In a November 2020 email to the Capitol police force, he called Rhodes a “wacko,” and on Thursday he told prosecutors that he thought what Rhodes was proposing was “crazy.”Responding to questions about what he suspected were Rhodes’ aims for the January 6 attack, Rashid said, “It sounded like we were going to overthrow the US government and start shooting everybody, and beating up Antifa and beating up [Black Lives Matter]. That’s what I understood it to be.”Rashid also provided a tip to the FBI, which he even resubmitted in March 2021, CNN reported. No one followed up his tip until after the Capitol attack, raising questions about whether authorities had blown a chance to prevent the uprising from happening.In the recording, which was played in court on Tuesday, Rhodes repeatedly discussed putting pressure on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, a federal law that allows the president to deploy military forces domestically to perform the duties of civilian law enforcement. CNN reported that Rhodes also declared his willingness to die in a fight against Antifa protesters in order to facilitate Trump’s invocation of the Insurrection Act, CNN reported.“I’m not going to micromanage you,” Rhodes said during the call, the Daily Kos reports. “The official position is if we’re going to go in complying with DC bullshit gun laws, we are not vulnerable to being charged with felonies.”One of Rhodes’ co-defendants, Kelly Meggs, was heard on the call mentioning weapons that could skirt Washington DC’s stringent gun laws.“Pepper spray is legal. Tasers are legal. And stun guns are legal,” Meggs said, adding it doesn’t hurt to have lead pipes.The defense has argued that Rashid’s video recording doesn’t explicitly mention January 6, CNN reported, but rather refers to members attending the Million Maga March on 14 November in Washington DC. The prosecution countered that the Million Maga March – which refers to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan – hadn’t been scheduled by 9 November, the Daily Kos reported.Attorneys for Oath Keepers members have argued their clients were simply developing a “quick reaction force” in response to fears about being met with violence by Antifa.Palian testified that the FBI has not come across a person who unequivocally admitted they were planning to attack the Capitol on January 6.A former leader of the Oath Keepers’ North Carolina chapter, army veteran John Zimmerman, testified Thursday that group members did form a quick reaction force for the Million Maga March at Arlington Cemetery, the New York Times reports, hiding in a van with at least a dozen assault-style rifles, sawed-off pool cues, and handguns. The group deployed quick reaction force teams to lie in wait at another December rally and again – from hotels in northern Virginia – on January 6.Zimmerman’s testimony shed light on Rhodes’ fixation with Antifa, which allegedly drove his push to create private security details for his group at rallies before and during the Capitol attack. Zimmerman said he became alarmed over this fixation when Rhodes suggested dressing members up as elderly people or parents with children to see if Antifa would attack them without provocation after the Million Maga March, the New York Times reportedPalian also testified that another defendant, Thomas Caldwell, had talked with Rhodes about getting a boat, sitting in it during the Capitol attack, and serving with the group’s “quick reaction force,” the Daily Kos reported.The prosecution produced photos and a receipt of a $670 double-barrel pistol made to look like a cellphone that Caldwell had. Palian also testified that Caldwell had planned to use his Berryville, Virginia, home as a basecamp for out-of-town Oath Keepers descending on Washington DC for the Capitol attack, even complaining to Rhodes that he’d have to get portable toilets.Caldwell was not at the Capitol for January 6. His attorney has attempted to argue his role in the insurrection was insignificant and that he never paid dues as an official Oath Keepers member.Meanwhile, prosecutors unsuccessfully asked Thursday for permission to introduce evidence about a “death list” written by Caldwell that named Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Freeman and her daughter Moss were subjects of a baseless voter fraud conspiracy circulated among Trump supporters.The trial was expected to last several weeks more.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘It’s good to think strategically’: Thomas E Ricks on civil rights and January 6

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      Interview‘It’s good to think strategically’: Thomas E Ricks on civil rights and January 6Martin Pengelly in Washington In his new book, the historian considers the work of Martin Luther King and others through the lens of military thoughtThere is a direct connection from Freedom Summer to the January 6 committee,” says Thomas E Ricks as he discusses his new book, Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968.‘Now is a continuation of then’: America’s civil rights era – in picturesRead moreFreedom Summer was a 1964 campaign to draw attention to violence faced by Black people in Mississippi when they tried to vote. The House January 6 committee will soon conclude its hearings on the Capitol riot of 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump attacked American democracy itself.But the committee is chaired by Bennie Thompson. In his opening statement, in June, the Democrat said: “I was born, raised, and still live in Bolton, Mississippi … I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, Ku Klux Klan and lynching. I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021.”Ricks is reminded of the insurrectionists as he retells that grim history. Watching the January 6 hearings, he says, he “was looking at Bennie Thompson. And I realised, his career follows right on.“Summer ’64, you start getting Black people registered in Mississippi. A tiny minority, about 7%, are able to vote in ’64 but it rises to I think 59% by ’68. Bennie Thompson gets elected alderman [of Bolton, in 1969], mayor [1973] and eventually to Congress [1993]. And then as a senior member of Congress, chairs this January 6 committee.“Well, there is a direct connection from Freedom Summer, and [civil rights leaders] Amzie Moore, Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer and Dave Dennis, to the January 6 committee. And I think that’s a wonderful thing.”Under Thompson, Ricks says, the January 6 committee is acting strategically, “establishing an indisputable factual record of what happened”, a bulwark against attempts to rewrite history.“It’s always good to think strategically,” Ricks says. Which brings him back to his book.As a reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, Ricks was twice part of teams that won a Pulitzer prize. His bestselling books include Fiasco (2006) and The Gamble (2009), lacerating accounts of the Iraq disaster, and The Generals (2012), on the decline of US military leadership. In Waging a Good War, he applies the precepts of military strategy to the civil rights campaigns.He says: “This book, I wrote because I had to. I had to get it out of my head. The inspiration was I married a woman who had been active in civil rights.”Mary Kay Ricks is the author of Escape on the Pearl (2008), about slavery and the Underground Railroad. In the 1960s, she was “president of High School Friends of the SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee], Washington DC chapter.“She would pick people up at Union Station and drive them wherever they needed to be. So her memory of [the late Georgia congressman] John Lewis is him arriving, saying, ‘I’m hungry, take me to McDonald’s.’ All our lives we would be driving along, and somebody would be on the radio, and she’d say, ‘Oh, I knew that guy’ or ‘I dated that guy. Oh, I thought he was crazy.’“So I was reading about the civil rights movement to understand my wife and the stories she told me. And the more I read, the more it struck me: ‘Wow. This is an area that can really be illuminated by military thinking.’ That a lot of what they were doing was what in military operations is called logistics, or a classic defensive operation, or a holding action, or a raid behind enemy lines. And the more I looked at it, the more I thought each of the major civil rights campaigns could be depicted in that light.”In 1961, campaigners launched the Freedom Rides, activists riding buses across the south, seeking to draw attention and thereby end illegal segregation onboard and in stations. It was dangerous work, daring and remote. Ricks compares the Freedom Rides to cavalry raids, most strikingly to civil war operations by the Confederate “Gray Ghost”, John Singleton Mosby.“The Freedom Rides as raids behind enemy lines. What does that mean? Well, it struck me again and again how military-like the civil rights movement was in careful preparation. What is the task at hand? How do we prepare? What sort of people do we need to carry out this mission? What kind of training do they need?“Before the Freedom Rides they sent a young man, Tom Gaither, on a reconnaissance trip, where he drew maps of each bus station so they would know where the segregated waiting rooms were. He reported back: ‘The two cities where you’re going to have trouble are Anniston, Alabama, and Montgomery, Alabama.’ There are real race tensions in those cities.”Activists faced horrendous violence. They met it with non-violence.“They did months of training. First of all, how to capture and prevent the impulse to fight or flee. Somebody slugs you, spits on you, puts out a cigarette on your back. They knew how to react: non-violent.“But this is a really militant form of non-violence. Gandhi denounced the term passive resistance. And these people, many of them followers of God, devoted readers of Gandhi, understood this was very confrontational.”In 1965, Selma, Alabama, was the scene of Bloody Sunday, when white authorities attacked a march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and southern racism stood exposed.Ricks says: “A line I love comes from Selma. People said, ‘What are we doing when the sheriff comes after us?’ The organisers said, ‘No, you’re going after the sheriff.’ A good example: CT Vivian, one of my heroes, a stalwart of civil rights, is thrown down the steps of the county courthouse at Selma by Jim Clark, the county sheriff. And Vivian looks up and yells, ‘Who are you people? What do you tell your wives and children?’“It is such a human question. And in this confrontational form of non-violence, I think they flummoxed the existing system, of white supremacism, which the world saw was a system built on violence inherited from slavery.”Bloody Sunday remembered: civil rights marchers tell story of their iconic photosRead moreRicks has written about his time in Iraq and post-traumatic stress disorder. At the end of Waging a Good War, he considers how those who campaigned for civil rights, who were beaten, shot and imprisoned, struggled to cope with the toll.“If you want to understand the full cost, it’s important to write about the effect on the activists and their families, their children. Dave Dennis Jr, the son of one of the people who ran Freedom Summer, he and I have talked about this a bit. We believe the Veterans Administration should be open to veterans of the civil rights movement. There aren’t a lot of veterans still alive. Nonetheless, it would be a meaningful gesture that could help some people who have had a hard time in life.”In a passage that could fuel a whole book, Ricks considers how Martin Luther King Jr, the greatest civil rights leader, struggled in the years before his assassination, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.Like many PTSD sufferers, King sought refuge in drink and sex. But for Ricks, “the moment that captures it for me is he’s sitting in a rocking chair in Atlanta, with his friend Dorothy Cotton. And he says, ‘I think I should take a sabbatical.’ This is about 1967. This guy had been under daily threat for 13 years. I compare him to [Dwight] Eisenhower and the pressures he was under as a top commander in world war two … yet King does this for well over a decade. The stress was enormous. I only wish he had been able to take that sabbatical.”The campaign took its toll on others, among them James Bevel, a “tactically innovative, strategically brilliant” activist who abused women and children, moved far right and died in disgrace.Ricks hopes his book might help make other activists better known, among them Pauli Murray, Diane Nash – a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom – and Fred Shuttlesworth, “a powerful character, a moonshiner turned minister”.Shuttlesworth lived in Birmingham, Alabama, scene of some of the worst attacks on the civil rights movement, most of all the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963, in which four young girls were killed.To Ricks, “If there’s a real moment of despair in Martin Luther King’s life, it’s the Birmingham church bombing. He says, ‘At times, life is hard, as hard as crucible steel.’ That was the focal point for how I think about what King went through.”But there is light in Birmingham too. Ricks recounts the time “the white establishment calls Fred Shuttlesworth up and says, ‘We hear Martin Luther King might be coming to town. What can we do to stop that?’ And he leans back and smiles and says, ‘You know, I’ve been bombed twice in this town. Nobody called me then. But now you want to talk?’“Shuttlesworth threw himself into things. He believed in non-violence as an occasional tactic, not as a way of life. He sent a carloads of guys carrying shotguns to rescue the Freedom Riders from the KKK in Anniston.“Then there’s Amzie Moore. I wish I could have written more about him. He came home from world war two, worked at a federal post office so he would not be under control of local government. He starts his own gas station and refuses to have whites-only bathrooms. ‘Nope, not gonna do it.’ To me, he’s like a member of the French Resistance but he does it for 20 years. When Bob Moses and other civil rights workers go to Mississippi, he’s the guy they look up. ‘How do I survive in Mississippi?’ And he tells them and helps them.”Waging a Good War also considers how campaigners today might learn from those who went before. Ricks says: “Some of the people in the Black Lives Matter era have reached back. I talked to one person who went to James Lawson, the trainer of the Nashville sit-ins in 1960, and asked, ‘How do you go about this? How do you think about this? What about losses? Instructions?’“A demonstration is only the end product, the tip of an iceberg. There has to be careful preparation, consideration of, ‘What message are we trying to send? How are we going to send it? How are we going to follow up?’ So James Lawson conveys that message. Similarly, Bob Moses, who recently died, attended a Black Lives Matter meeting. There are roots by which today’s movements reach back down to the movements of the forefathers.”Democrats see hope in Stacey Abrams (again) in a crucial US election – if she can get voters to show upRead moreHe also sees echoes in two major strands of activism today.“Stacey Abrams’ work on voting rights is very similar to a lot of the work Martin Luther King did with the SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference]. Fighting voter suppression, finding ways to encourage minorities to register and to vote, looking to expand the franchise.“Black Lives Matter reminds me of SNCC, if somewhat more radical, more focused not on gaining power through the vote but on abuses of power, especially police brutality.“It’s sad that the problems the movement tried to address in the 1950s and 60s still need to be addressed. We have moments of despair. Nonetheless, one of things about writing the book was to show people who went through difficult times, and usually found ways to succeed.“The more I learned, the more I enjoyed it. It was a real contrast. Writing about the Iraq war? It’s hard. This felt good. I was hauled to my writing desk every morning. I loved writing this book.”
      Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 is published in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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      The Breach review: ex-January 6 staffer on how Republicans lurched into madness

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      The Breach review: ex-January 6 staffer on how Republicans lurched into madness Denver Riggleman offers an inside track on the Capitol attack, the House committee and Donald Trump’s great GOP hijackDenver Riggleman is a US air force veteran who became a one-term Republican congressman from Virginia. In the House from 2019, he was a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus and voted with Donald Trump more than 90% of the time. Yet according to his new book, Riggleman “began to understand that some of my colleagues had fully bought into even the more unhinged conspiracy theories” he had witnessed while campaigning.Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down TrumpRead moreIn 2020, Riggleman lost his Republican nomination – after he officiated a same-sex wedding. In retaliation, someone tampered with the wheels of his truck, endangering the life of his daughter. “If I ever find the individual responsible, God help that person,” the former congressman writes now.Out of office, Riggleman became a senior staffer to the House January 6 committee. Last spring, he resigned. The Breach is an account of what he learned, his decision to publish reportedly angering some on the panel.The book is also a memoir, in which Riggleman describes growing up in a tumultuous home and his bouts with religion and his parents as well as the metamorphosis of the GOP into the party of Trump, and the events and people of January 6.“The rift between Trump’s wing of the Republican party and objective reality didn’t begin with the election,” Riggleman writes.He omits specific mention of birtherism, the Trump-fueled false contention that Barack Obama was not born a US citizen. He does acknowledge the “explosion of conspiracy theories during the Trump years”.As a former intelligence officer and contractor, Riggleman places the blame on social media, algorithms and the religious divide. Together, such factors took a toll on the nation, democracy and the lives of the Republican base.Hostility to Covid vaccines exacted an explosion in excess deaths among Republicans, 76% higher than for Democrats. In Florida, the Covid death rate eventually surpassed that of New York, to rank among the highest in the US. Owning the libs can kill you – literally. Tens of thousands died on Trump’s altar of Maga. For what?Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, actively encouraged vaccine skepticism. He refused to say whether he received the vaccine, and attempted to stop young children getting the shots. He is in the hunt for the Republican presidential nomination in two years’ time, second only to Trump.The divine injunction against bearing false witness? It has elasticity.Bob Good, a self-described “biblical conservative” who successfully challenged Riggleman for his Virginia seat, said Covid was a hoax. Jerry Falwell Jr, Good’s boss at Liberty University, left that fundamentalist powerhouse in August 2020, amid a scandal ensnaring him, his wife and a pool boy.Falwell was also one of Trump’s most prominent supporters. Riggleman laments: “It was stunning to see true born-again holy rollers lining up behind Trump, a man who shunned church and had already been caught on camera bragging about grabbing women” by the crotch.Likewise, he voices disgust for what has become of the party of Lincoln: “As a kid the people I knew respected a line between church and state. Trump’s party was veering more and more into Christian nationalism, where they demonized Democrats for having an unholy agenda.”Riggleman is also horrified by the involvement of ex-servicemen in the Capitol attack. “There’s no denying it,” he writes. “The political challenge to the election was, at least on some level, linked to a military operation.”He reserves some of his harshest criticism for those closest to Trump. Mark Meadows, his last chief of staff; Mike Flynn, his first national security adviser; Roger Stone, his longtime political aide. Each played a major role in the insurrection.As Riggleman recounts, Meadows defied the committee and refused to appear for deposition. But he did turn over 2,319 texts and messages, avoiding prosecution for contempt of Congress. Some of those texts came from 39 House Republicans and five senators.“Meadows gave us the keys to the kingdom,” Riggleman writes, also describing the Meadows texts as the committee’s “crown jewels”.As for Stone, the Republican dirty trickster was an apparent link between the brains and brawn of the Capitol attack.On 7 November 2020, hours after the networks called the election for Joe Biden, Stuart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers militia, messaged: “What’s the plan … We need to roll.” Stone was part of the chat group. Rhodes now sits before a federal jury, charged with seditious conspiracy.The final chapter of The Breach is devoted to Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. Its title: “The Better Half”. Riggleman raises Thomas’s past membership in Lifespring, a personal development program and purported cult. He says he “found Thomas in Mark Meadows’ text messages after a hot tip and a case of mistaken identity”. She wrote of “watermarked ballots” and a “military whitehat sting operation”. She mentioned “TRUMP STING w CIA director Steve Pieczenik” [actually a former state department official and conspiracy theorist]. She condemned “the Biden crime family and ballot fraud conspirators”.Liz Cheney, the House committee vice-chair, asked Riggleman to pull back. The Wyoming Republican worried about exposing the Thomases as election deniers, QAnon followers, or both.We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turnRead more“I think we need to remove that briefing,” Cheney said, according to Riggleman’s telling. “It’s going to be a political sideshow.”Months later, Cheney and the committee reversed course. On 29 September 2022, Thomas testified for more than four hours behind closed doors. She continued to claim the election was stolen.In The Breach, Riggleman looks to the future.“We have a new enemy in this country,” he writes, “a domestic extremist movement that is growing online at fiber-optic speed. Is there a road back? To be honest, I’m not quite sure.”
      The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th is published in the US by Macmillan
      TopicsBooksUS Capitol attackUS politicsPolitics booksDonald TrumpRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More