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      Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says

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      Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says‘No one is above the law,’ says Elaine Luria in response to whether Trump could shield himself from threat of prosecution by simply announcing run Donald Trump won’t blunt the investigation by the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol by announcing that he’s running for the Oval Office again, a member of the panel said Sunday.Elaine Luria, a Virginia congresswoman and one of seven Democrats on the committee, told CNN’s Dana Bash, “The bottom line is that no one is above the law – whether he’s a president, former president or a potential future presidential candidate, we are going to pursue the facts.”Luria’s remarks were in response to an oft-asked question about whether Trump could simply announce he is running for president again in 2024 and shield himself from the threat of prosecution posed by the evidence presented during the January 6 committee’s recent hearings.Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is toldRead moreWhile the committee itself can’t charge Trump, it can recommend that federal prosecutors do so.Federal prosecutors have historically avoided pursuing criminal cases against prominent candidates ahead of high-stakes elections. But Luria’s comments suggest the committee members won’t shelf their inquiry or avoid potentially recommending charges against Trump just because the ex-president were to announce his aspirations to seek an electoral rematch against Joe Biden.Millions of Americans have watched live as witnesses summoned by the January 6 committee have exposed the lengths to which Trump tried to keep himself in the presidency after losing to Biden in the 2020 race.Among the most alarming episodes: he is accused of trying to commandeer his armored car and turn it towards the Capitol as a mob of his supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – stormed the building on the day Congress was supposed to certify his defeat. And when his vice-president faced a mob trying to hang him for not impeding the certification, Trump allegedly told aides that Mike Pence “deserves it”.Luria and the Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the panel, are slated to lead the committee’s next hearing on 21 July.Luria on Sunday said the committee planned to call new witnesses close to Trump and air additional “minute-by-minute” evidence to establish that he sat idly by as the attack on the Capitol unfolded. A bipartisan Senate report has linked seven deaths to the riots that day.Meanwhile, Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation, Kinzinger pledged that the committee’s investigation is “not winding down”. He said he personally hoped the panel could set up an interview with Pence, though he acknowledged, “I am not sure we get a lot out of him.”New book claims Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’Read moreSimilarly, when asked on ABC’s This Week if the committee would seek to interview Pence or Trump himself, panel member Zoe Lofgren of California said: “Everything is on the table.”The committee over time has recommended criminal charges against four prominent Trump White House aides who refused to cooperate with its investigation: Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino.Federal prosecutors charged Bannon and Navarro, who face jail time and have pleaded not guilty, but it did not charge Scavino or Meadows.Bannon’s trial is set to start Monday with jury selection, though he’s recently offered to meet with the committee and provide sworn testimony.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is told

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      Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is toldExplanation for how the messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 were deleted has gone from software upgrades to device replacements The Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight requestRead moreThe inspector general also said that though the secret service opted to have his office do a review of the agency’s response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.After the inspector general raised his complaints, he then discussed the feasibility of reconstructing the texts. But the issues so alarmed the select committee that the panel moved hours later to subpoena the Secret Service, according to participants at the briefing.The string of fast-paced developments on Capitol Hill reflected how the erasure of the Secret Service texts – first disclosed in a letter to Congress by the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari – has become a top priority for the congressional inquiry into January 6.The circumstances surrounding the erasure of the Secret Service texts from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack have become central for the select committee as it investigates how it planned to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the violence unfolded.The texts are potentially significant for investigators as the Secret Service played a crucial role in preventing Donald Trump from going to the Capitol that day and wanted to remove then-vice-president Mike Pence from the complex, according to the panel.In the letter, the inspector general said that certain Secret Service texts from 5 January and 6 January 2021 were erased amid a “device replacement program” even after he had requested the messages for his internal inquiry.The Secret Service has disputed that, saying in a statement that data on some phones were lost as part of a pre-planned “system migration” in January 2021, and that Cuffari’s initial request for communications came weeks later in late February 2021.But the select committee questioned the Secret Service’s emphasis on that date, the participants said, and noted in the subpoena letter that the request for electronic communications in fact first came from Congress, ten days after the Capitol attack.The congressional request from 16 January 2021 addressed to multiple executive branch agencies – including the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secret Service – was for all materials referring or relating to the riot.Members on the select committee were privately skeptical of the notion that the Secret Service managed to inadvertently erase key messages during a 10-day period that was among perhaps the most tumultuous for the agency, the participants said.If some of the texts were deliberately erased after the 16 January 2021 request, that could amount to obstruction of a congressional investigation, one of the select committee’s members added on Friday.A spokesperson for the Secret Service could not immediately be reached for comment.The select committee has spent recent days trying to establish whether it was all texts from 5 January and 6 January 2021 that were lost or just some, exactly how the texts came to be erased, and whether additional days’ worth of texts from that month were missing.The participants at the briefing said Cuffari was not able to provide clear answers on those questions, beyond the fact that he understood a proportion of texts from both the day before, and the day of, the Capitol attack remain unaccounted for.The unanswered questions were because of a lack of transparency from the Secret Service, the participants said Cuffari indicated. At the briefing, Cuffari said the explanation for the lost texts shifted from software upgrades to device upgrades to still other issues.Cuffari also expressed optimism to the select committee that the erased texts could be reconstructed through previous back-ups of messages or tools available to federal law enforcement, the participants said.The justice department inspector general has previously been able to retrieve lost texts, using “forensic tools” in 2018 to recover messages from two senior FBI officials who investigated former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.The controversy over the erased Secret Service texts erupted on Wednesday after Cuffari’s letter became public, and the select committee went into overdrive to asses the impact on its investigation.That prompted the select committee chairman Bennie Thompson to discuss the matter with the panel’s staff director, David Buckley, and his deputy, Kristen Amerling, and later with the full select committee, which asked Cuffari to provide a closed-door briefing.TopicsSecret ServiceUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 committee to receive deleted Secret Service texts, Democrat says

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      January 6 committee to receive deleted Secret Service texts, Democrat saysAgency’s account of how texts sent on day of Capitol attack and day before were lost has shifted several times, panel told Deleted Secret Service texts sent on January 6, the day of the insurrection at the US Capitol, and the day before will be released by Tuesday to the House committee investigating the failed attempt by supporters of Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, a panel member said.“You can imagine how shocked we were to get the letter from the [Department of Homeland Security] inspector general saying that he had been trying to get this information and that they had, in fact, been deleted after he’d asked for them,” committee member and California Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told ABC’s This Week.“We need all the texts to get the full picture,” Lofgren added.The Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight requestRead moreThe inspector general also said that though the Secret Service opted to have his office do a review of the agency’s response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.After the inspector general raised his complaints, he then discussed the feasibility of reconstructing the texts. But the issues so alarmed the select committee that the panel moved hours later to subpoena the Secret Service, according to participants at the briefing.The string of fast-paced developments on Capitol Hill reflected how the erasure of the text messages – first disclosed in a letter to Congress by the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari – has become a top priority for the congressional inquiry into January 6.The circumstances surrounding the erasure of the Secret Service texts from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack have become central for the select committee as it investigates how it planned to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the violence unfolded.The texts are potentially significant for investigators as the Secret Service played a crucial role in preventing Donald Trump from going to the Capitol that day and wanted to remove then-vice-president Mike Pence from the complex, according to the panel.In the letter, the inspector general said that certain Secret Service texts from 5 January and 6 January 2021 were erased amid a “device replacement program” even after he had requested the messages for his internal inquiry.The Secret Service has disputed that, saying in a statement that data on some phones were lost as part of a pre-planned “system migration” in January 2021, and that Cuffari’s initial request for communications came weeks later in late February 2021.But the select committee questioned the Secret Service’s emphasis on that date, the participants said, and noted in the subpoena letter that the request for electronic communications in fact first came from Congress, ten days after the Capitol attack.The congressional request from 16 January 2021 addressed to multiple executive branch agencies – including the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secret Service – was for all materials referring or relating to the riot.Members on the select committee were privately skeptical of the notion that the Secret Service managed to inadvertently erase key messages during a 10-day period that was among perhaps the most tumultuous for the agency, the participants said.If some of the texts were deliberately erased after the 16 January 2021 request, that could amount to obstruction of a congressional investigation, one of the select committee’s members added on Friday.A spokesperson for the Secret Service could not immediately be reached for comment.The select committee has spent recent days trying to establish whether it was all texts from 5 January and 6 January 2021 that were lost or just some, exactly how the texts came to be erased, and whether additional days’ worth of texts from that month were missing.The participants at the briefing said Cuffari was not able to provide clear answers on those questions, beyond the fact that he understood a proportion of texts from both the day before, and the day of, the Capitol attack remain unaccounted for.The unanswered questions were because of a lack of transparency from the Secret Service, the participants said Cuffari indicated. At the briefing, Cuffari said the explanation for the lost texts shifted from software upgrades to device upgrades to still other issues.Cuffari also expressed optimism to the select committee that the erased texts could be reconstructed through previous back-ups of messages or tools available to federal law enforcement, the participants said.The justice department inspector general has previously been able to retrieve lost texts, using “forensic tools” in 2018 to recover messages from two senior FBI officials who investigated former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.The controversy over the erased Secret Service texts erupted on Wednesday after Cuffari’s letter became public, and the select committee went into overdrive to assess the impact on its investigation.That prompted the select committee chairman Bennie Thompson to discuss the matter with the panel’s staff director, David Buckley, and his deputy, Kristin Amerling, and later with the full select committee, which asked Cuffari to provide a closed-door briefing.TopicsSecret ServiceUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House January 6 panel subpoenas Secret Service for allegedly deleted text messages

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      House January 6 panel subpoenas Secret Service for allegedly deleted text messagesThe subpoena is the first to an executive branch agency in investigation focused on possible erasure of communications The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued a subpoena to the US Secret Service for text messages from 5 January and 6 January 2021 understood to have been erased, pursuing what investigators suspect might be an instance of corruptly destroyed records.The subpoena issued late on Friday – the first to an executive branch agency – compelled the production of messages and after-action reports concerning the attack as part of a sweeping records demand aiming to establish the circumstances around the erasure of some communications and obtain any that remain.January 6 panel examines whether erased Secret Service texts can be revivedRead moreCongressman Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, indicated in a letter to the director of the secret service, James Murray, that the agency tasked with protecting the president and the vice president, should be able to produce the messages given its spokesperson claimed none of the texts in question were lost.The disclosure that texts among secret service agents from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased in a “device-replacement program” came in a letter to Congress from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the watchdog for the secret service.On Friday morning, the source said, the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, also complained to the select committee the secret service opted to have him do an internal review of the agency’s response to January 6 in lieu of after-action reports – only to stonewall that internal review.The select committee, at that briefing with the inspector general, also heard that the secret service’s story about how the texts were lost kept changing. Initially, the source said, Cuffari was told they were lost during software upgrades; later, he was told it was during a process to replace cellphones for staff across the agency.The subpoena for the texts and any after-action reports – which the panel suspects likely do not exist, according to the source – are aimed at obtaining any texts that might have not been lost, and to obtain any paper trails about how the texts that were lost came to be erased. January 6 investigators, in conjunction with Cuffari, are also examining whether the missing texts can be reconstructed using forensic tools available to federal law enforcement, the Guardian first reported.The texts are significant for January 6 investigators as the Secret Service played a crucial role in preventing Donald Trump from going to the Capitol on that day, and according to the panel, wanted to remove then-vice president Mike Pence from the complex.January 6 investigators believe that the texts from the day of the Capitol attack could shed light on how the Secret Service wanted to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence, while texts from the day before could provide greater clarity on how security plans developed, the sources said. Days before the Capitol attack, the Secret Service assessed that it could likely not guarantee Trump’s safety if he went to the Capitol on January 6 and, according to a person familiar with the report, conveyed that to senior staff in the White House. On the day of the Capitol attack, according to testimony by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the Secret Service played a major part in stopping Trump going to the Capitol by driving back to the West Wing after his speech at the Ellipse.The committee believes Secret Service text messages could provide a record for security plans for January 6. It was not clear whether texts from Anthony Ornato, a former agent who became a White House deputy chief of staff, and Trump’s lead agent, Bobby Engel, were among messages erased during a “device-replacement program”.TopicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel examines whether erased Secret Service texts can be revived

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      January 6 panel examines whether erased Secret Service texts can be revivedSources say committee investigating whether watchdog can use forensic tools to reconstruct messages from 5 and 6 January The House committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Secret Service text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 that were erased around the time of an internal review can be reconstructed, according to sources familiar with the matter.Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight requestRead moreThe panel was perturbed that texts between agents on perhaps two of the most important days in the history of the Secret Service – the day before the Capitol attack and the day itself – could be lost in such an abrupt manner, the sources said.The committee is now examining whether the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, the watchdog for the Secret Service which disclosed the erasure in a letter to Congress, can use forensic tools to reconstruct the messages, the sources said.The texts are potentially significant for January 6 investigators as the Secret Service played a crucial role in preventing Donald Trump from going to the Capitol on that day, and according to the panel, wanted to remove then-vice president Mike Pence from the complex.January 6 investigators believe that the texts from the day of the Capitol attack could shed light on how the Secret Service wanted to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence, while texts from the day before could provide greater clarity on how security plans developed, the sources said.Days before the Capitol attack, the Secret Service assessed that it could likely not guarantee Trump’s safety if he went to the Capitol on January 6 and, according to a person familiar with the report, conveyed that to senior staff in the White House.On the day of the Capitol attack, according to testimony by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the Secret Service played a major part in stopping Trump going to the Capitol by driving back to the West Wing after his speech at the Ellipse.The committee believes Secret Service text messages could provide a record for security plans for January 6. It was not clear whether texts from Anthony Ornato, a former agent who became a White House deputy chief of staff, and Trump’s lead agent, Bobby Engel, were among messages erased during a “device-replacement program”.But the committee is understood to have asked the DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, on Friday morning if the texts can be reconstructed using forensic tools available to federal law enforcement.The meeting with Cuffari came after the committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, met his staff director, David Buckley, and deputy staff director, Kristin Amerling, before convening the full committee which decided to call Cuffari, the sources said.In the letter to Congress, reviewed by the Guardian, Cuffari said the erasure of the text messages appeared to come after his office requested the communications as part of an internal review into the Secret Service response to the Capitol attack.The Secret Service has pushed back at that characterization, saying the texts were lost during a pre-planned, agency-wide cellphone upgrade scheme in January 2021 because some agents apparently had not backed up messages as required.Zero Fail review: US Secret Service as presidential protectors – and drunken frat boysRead moreThe Secret Service has a history of abruptly losing crucial records sought by investigations, and personnel declining to cooperate or turn over materials directly to investigators, a complaint raised in Cuffari’s letter.By the time Cuffari requested internal agency communications, memorandums, emails and telephonic records such as text messages, according to a person familiar with the matter, around a third of personnel had been given new phones.The question from the committee appears to be whether the inspector general’s office could reconstruct the lost texts using messages that were backed up or not erased. Cuffari’s response was not immediately clear on Friday.The justice department inspector general has previously been able to retrieve lost texts, using “forensic tools” in 2018 to recover texts from two senior FBI officials who investigated Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight request

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      Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight requestOffice of Inspector General revealed that messages from 5 and 6 January were destroyed only after the request was made Texts sent between US Secret Service agents on 5 and 6 January 2021 were erased after the agency’s oversight body sought the communications in a review into the Capitol attack, according to a letter from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).The disclosure in the letter, sent on Thursday to the House homeland security and Senate homeland security and government affairs committees, marked the latest failure for the Secret Service amid increasing scrutiny for their actions over the attack.‘Game over’: Steve Bannon audio reveals Trump planned to claim early victoryRead moreAppearing to rebuke the erasure of the messages, the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, decried the move and noted that the destruction came only after the body sought the communications as part of an internal investigation into the agency’s response to the January 6 events.“The USSS erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS,” Cuffari said, including the emphasis on the sequencing of when the records destruction occurred.Cuffari also noted in the letter that the Department of Homeland Security staff told investigators that they were not permitted to directly turn over records to the oversight body, and that they first needed to be vetted by its lawyers.“This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced,” Cuffari added.The timing of the message destruction raised in the letter, earlier reported by the Intercept and also reviewed by the Guardian, raised the prospect that senior leadership at the Secret Service, tasked with protecting the president, tampered with records.The letter indicated that the erasure came as part of a “device-replacement program”. But it was not clear on Thursday as to why that would involve the loss of communications just as they were being investigated by the agency’s independent oversight body.A spokesperson for the Secret Service could not immediately be reached Thursday evening.Asked about the disclosure, Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack who is also the chair of the House homeland security committee, told reporters that he was disturbed about the incident.“It’s concerning, obviously, and if there’s a way we can reconstruct the texts or what have you, we will,” Thompson said. The chairman also left open the possibility of calling in Secret Service agents to testify about the matter, and the Capitol attack more generally.The revelation was the latest damaging incident surrounding the Secret Service in recent weeks, after former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the select committee that Donald Trump initiated an altercation with an agent on 6 January.Hutchinson testified that Trump tried to wrestle control of the presidential SUV because he wanted to go to the Capitol, over his security detail’s objections, and reportedly had his hands around the neck of the agent driving the vehicle.TopicsSecret ServiceUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countries

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      John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countriesFormer national security adviser to Donald Trump says US Capitol attack was not a coup because it was not carefully planned John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump and before that ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush, said on Tuesday he helped plan coup attempts in other countries.January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a threadRead moreSpeaking to CNN after the day’s January 6 committee hearing, Bolton said it was wrong to describe Trump’s attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election as a coup.He said: “While nothing Donald Trump did after the election, in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible, it’s also a mistake as some people have said including on the committee, the commentators that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d’etat to the constitution.“That’s not the way Donald Trump does things. It’s rambling from one half-vast idea to another plan that falls through and another comes up.”His host, Jake Tapper, said: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”Bolton said: “I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but you know, other places. It takes a lot of work and that’s not what [Trump] did. It was just stumbling around from one idea to another.“Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol, as to that there’s no doubt, but not to overthrow the constitution, to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try and redo the issue.“And if you don’t believe that you’re going to overreact, and I think that’s a real risk for the committee, which has done a lot of good work.”Jake Tapper: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”John Bolton: “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work.” pic.twitter.com/REyqh3KtHi— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 12, 2022
      Tapper returned to Bolton’s remark about having helped plan coups.Bolton said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics.”Tapper asked: “Successful coups?”Bolton said: “Well, I wrote about Venezuela in in the book and it turned out not to be successful.“Not that we had all that much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable.”Bolton devotes considerable space to Venezuela policy in The Room Where It Happened, his 2020 memoir of his work for Trump.In 2019, the US supported the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his ultimately failed attempt to oust the socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, arguing Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate.Before Bolton joined the Trump administration, it was widely reported that Trump wanted to use the US military to oust Maduro. In August 2017, Trump told reporters: “We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour.”Among other gambits, Bolton’s book describes work with the British government to freeze Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England.In his newsletter, The Racket, Jonathan M Katz, author of the book Gangsters of Capitalism, said: “The United States has indeed sponsored and participated in lots of coups and foreign government overthrows, dating back to the turn of the 20th century [and] Bolton was personally involved in many of the recent efforts – in Nicaragua, Iraq, Haiti and others”.But, Katz added: “Generally, officials do not admit that sort of thing on camera.”The Room Where It Happened review: John Bolton fires broadside that could sink TrumpRead moreKatz wrote: “Keep in mind that throughout the 2019 crisis, Bolton insisted that the Trump administration’s support for … Guaidó … was anything but a coup. He literally stood in front of the White House at the height of the affair and told reporters: “This is clearly not a coup!”In those remarks, in April 2019, Bolton said: “We recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela.“And just as it’s not a coup when the president of the United States gives an order to the Department of Defense, it’s not a coup for Juan Guaidó to try and take command of the Venezuelan military.“We want as our principal objective the peaceful transfer of power but I will say again, as [Trump] has said from the outset, and Nicolas Maduro and those supporting him, particularly those who are not Venezuelan, should know, all options are on the table.”On CNN, Tapper said: “I feel like there’s like this other stuff you’re not telling me.”Bolton said: “I think I’m sure there is.”TopicsJohn BoltonDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsVenezuelaAmericasnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a thread

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      January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a thread Analysis: Viewers learned of an ‘unhinged’ White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.Trump allies ‘screamed’ at aides who resisted seizing voting machines, January 6 panel hearsRead moreBut what followed was a three-hour story about how American democracy, like a rickety old house, creaked and bent and struggled to hold itself together during a thunderstorm of political violence.There was the tale of an Oval Office meeting that almost ended in fisticuffs. There was testimony from a former true believer in the “big lie” who joined the rampage at the Capitol. There were predictions that if Trump runs again, no one will be safe.It was a chilling reminder that in a nation that has the genocide of Indigenous Americans, slavery, civil war and relentless gun violence in its cultural DNA, bloodshed is never far from the surface. Since white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been ascendent.Jamie Raskin, another member of the panel, observed: “The problem of politicians whipping up mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest domestic enemy of constitutional democracy in America.”He quoted Abraham Lincoln: “Mobs and demagogues will put us on a path to political tyranny.”The problem has returned with “ferocity”, Raskin said. “The creation of the internet and social media has given today’s tyrants tools that yesteryear’s despots could have only dreamed of.”The kindling is always there. The politician who lit it this time was Donald Trump, desperate to cling on to power after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.With options running out, he wanted to mobilise a crowd. Raskin asked: “And how do you mobilise a crowd in 2020? With millions of followers on Twitter, President Trump knew exactly how to do it.”At 1.42am on 19 December 2020, Trump sent a tweet encouraging supporters to come to Washington on 6 January 2021.“Be there.. will be wild,” he wrote.At Tuesday’s seventh hearing on Capitol Hill, the committee laid out what led up to the tweet – and what came in its aftermath.First, Trump tweeted almost immediately after what has been described as the craziest Oval Office meeting of his administration – a claim that puts it up against some pretty stiff competition. As the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson put it in a succinct text message: “The West Wing is UNHINGED.”The meeting lasted until after midnight with coup plotters including Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell pushing for the seizure of state election machines by the military, an idea rejected by relatively professional White House staff. Raskin noted a “heated and profane clash” and even threats of a physical fight.In video depositions, Powell – whom, frighteningly, Trump verbally agreed to appoint special counsel – took a giant swig of Dr Pepper. Giuliani recalled telling Trump’s advisers: “You’re a bunch of pussies.”It was as if the aggression in the hallowed Oval Office radiated outwards across the country, activating a Trump army ready to wage war on democracy. His post-meeting tweet was, the committee member Stephanie Murphy noted, “a call to arms”.The hearing saw videos and social media posts from Trump supporters: “Is the 6th D-Day? Is that why Trump wants everyone there?”“Trump just told us all to come armed. Fucking A, this is happening.”“It ‘will be wild’ means we need volunteers for the firing squad.”One Trump supporter promised there would be “a red wedding going down January 6” – a reference to a Game of Thrones scene where many attendees are slaughtered.Slowly but surely, as in previous hearings, the committee joined dots that always lead back to Trump. They cited his infamous presidential debate advice to the Proud Boys: “Stand back and stand by.”In a video deposition, a Twitter employee testified that there had not been such direct communication between the president and far-right groups before, and they saw this as asking to join in fighting for his case on January 6. One user responded to the tweet: “Locked and loaded and ready for Civil War Part Two.”Raskin noted how the tweet motivated the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, groups which had not historically worked together, to coordinate their activities.The committee obtained thousands of messages that showed strategic and tactical planning. It displayed photos of Flynn palling around with the Oath Keepers and the pro-Trump dirty trickster Roger Stone communicating with both groups.It also displayed a draft tweet to allege Trump was planning well in advance to tell supporters to march on the Capitol. It was damning and at times sickening, even before the vice-chair Liz Cheney’s sting in the tail, revealing Trump had personally tried to call an unidentified committee witness.But did this hearing close the case against the former president? There are echoes of the Russia investigation, with plenty of suspicious contacts and common goals but not the direct evidence of collusion that might, in a simple headline, persuade Trump supporters he issued orders to militia groups.Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff, tweeted: “I’m sorry, but if a bunch of nut jobs think Trump was calling them to riot, that doesn’t mean he was. Using that theory, the Beatles were responsible for Charles Manson. This is sensational (is that the purpose?), but without some connection to the [White House], it is only that.”The convergence of interests between Trump and the extremists was inescapable, however. The witness Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, cut to the chase: “I think we need to stop mincing words and just talk about truths … What it was gonna be was an armed revolution … This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.“I think we’ve gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen … I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring.”It is a valid fear in a political climate where in recent weeks a former judge was killed in Wisconsin, a man was charged with attempting to murder the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh and a Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, Eric Greitens, ran a campaign ad in which he storms a building with a gun to hunt moderates of his own party.Ex-campaign chief texted ally Trump’s January 6 rhetoric ‘killed someone’Read moreThompson and others have cause to worry about whether differences will be settled at the ballot box next time, especially if Trump avoids prosecution and runs for president again.In a closing speech for the ages, Raskin argued that Trump is dragging the Republican party into an authoritarianism that thrives on political violence. Alluding to Trump’s inaugural address, Raskin said: “American carnage. That’s Donald Trump’s true legacy … The Watergate break-in was like a Cub Scout meeting compared to this assault on our people and our institutions.”Describing American democracy as a “precious inheritance”, Raskin concluded: “We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare that this American carnage ends here and now.“In a world of resurgent authoritarianism, racism and antisemitism, let’s all hang tough for American democracy.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansRudy GiulianiUS CongressanalysisReuse this content More