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      Revealed: majority of people charged in Capitol attack aren’t in jail

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      At least 70% of people charged in the Capitol riot have been released as they wait for trial, according to a Guardian analysis.That high pretrial release rate stands in stark contrast with the usual detention rates in the federal system, where only 25% of defendants nationwide are typically released before their trial.Eric Munchel, known as “Zip Tie Guy”, who was allegedly photographed wearing tactical gear and carrying wrist restraints in the Senate chamber, was released in late March, along with his mother, after an appeals court questioned whether he posed any danger outside the specific context of 6 January.Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man photographed with his foot on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, was released in late April, nearly two months after screaming during a court hearing that “it’s not fair” that he was still in custody when “everybody else who did things much worse are already home”.Multiple alleged members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, two groups facing the most serious conspiracy charges related to their alleged plans for violence, have been released before trial, though some prominent leaders in these groups remain in custody.The disparity in pretrial detention rates highlights what legal experts said was a broader development in the 6 January cases: the likelihood that a substantial swathe of the alleged rioters may not serve any prison time at all, even if they are convicted or plead guilty.Many Capitol defendants are being released ahead of trial because they are facing relatively low-level charges, experts said, though other factors, including racial bias, may also play a role.“I’m both surprised and not surprised. Most of these people are white,” said Erica Zunkel, associate director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “The majority of people in the federal system are people of color.”The US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the cases, said in a statement that the alleged Capitol rioters were facing very different kinds of charges than most people in the federal system.“Comparing the per cent of January 6 defendants detained with the overall federal average is comparing apples and oranges,” a spokesperson for the office said. “The majority of federal defendants are charged with immigration or drug crimes, both of which are typically accompanied by detention. The January 6 defendants are charged with a variety of obstruction, assault, and trespassing charges. The comparison makes no sense.”Zunkel, a former federal defense attorney, argued that it was absolutely fair to ask why prosecutors and judges were making different detention decisions for drug and immigration cases than for the people charged with participating in the 6 January attack, who are more than 90% white.More than 96% of the people charged with federal immigration crimes are Hispanic, and more than 70% of those charged with federal drug crimes are Hispanic and Black, Zunkel said, citing federal sentencing data.“We have a problem with our system, something has gone wildly wrong, if we have a 75% detention rate nationwide, and we have a subset where we have a more than 70% release rate,” she said.Zunkel and a colleague, Judith P Miller, both former federal defense attorneys, said that the level of skepticism and care federal judges were bringing to the decision of whether Capitol defendants were truly dangerous enough to keep incarcerated was not at all the norm.The problem, they said, was not that judges were making the wrong call in releasing Capitol defendants, but that judges were not making similar calls for the majority of people in the federal system.“For my Black and brown clients, it feels like they have to meet such an impossibly high threshold to be released,” Miller, a University of Chicago law professor, said. “The kind of sensitivity the courts have shown to the capitol defendants’ claims for relief – I wish some of that sensitivity would be shown more broadly.”The US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined to confirm how many Capitol defendants were currently in pretrial detention, noting that the number “has the potential to fluctuate frequently based on ongoing detention decisions”.By mid-May, at least 440 people had been arrested on charges related to the 6 January Capitol breach, according to the justice department, including at least 125 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.Of 398 defendants listed on the justice department’s Capitol breach case site as of 10 May, at least 330 were listed on the site, or in federal court records, as released from custody. At least 56 of those defendants remained in detention.The precise number and percentage of Capitol defendants who are released versus in detention changes often, as new alleged rioters are arrested, others secure release, and a few risk re-arrest for violating the conditions of their release. The number and status of cases on the justice department’s Capitol breach website also lags behind court filings.But the broader trend in the cases is clear: the overwhelming majority of Capitol defendants are not being detained ahead of trial.Based on their likelihood of flight risk or danger to their communities, some of the Capitol defendants have been required to meet more intensive release conditions, including GPS monitoring, curfews or home detention, and limitations on their access to the Internet or social media, according to court records.Many of the Capitol defendants are facing only relatively low-level federal charges, such as entering a restricted building or disorderly conduct within a restricted building. A Washington Post analysis of court documents in mid-May concluded that 44% of the Capitol defendants faced only misdemeanor charges.Some of the federal judges hearing the Capitol cases have expressed concern that certain defendants may have already spent more time in custody than they are likely to face as a punishment for their crimes.“For those who end up only charged with misdemeanors, it’s likely that they won’t serve any substantial time, or potentially no time at all,” said Mary McCord, an expert on extremism who served for nearly 20 years as a prosecutor in the US attorney’s office in Washington DC. “It’s quite possible if they were to plead guilty, they would be sentenced to whatever time was served, or 30 days.”There is a tension between the dramatic collective effect of the 6 January mob, which halted the official certification of Biden’s election as president and threatened the legitimacy of American democracy, legal experts said, and what federal prosecutors can prove that individual people did.“The irony is that we have so many laws – so many things are illegal – it’s somewhat surprising that they’re not able to find charges that are more serious,” Zunkel said.Some more serious potential charges, like conspiracy or seditious conspiracy, would require evidence of prior agreement to commit a crime that appears to be lacking for many participants in the chaotic Capitol mob, said Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor and former federal prosecutor.“When you look at each individual, what they did might amount to destruction of property or illegal entry, and that’s in all likelihood what they’ll be charged with, but the larger dimension of their participation in a massive attack falls by the wayside,” Richman said.Part of the current dynamic of the Capitol cases, Richman cautioned, was seeing the very normal limitations of the criminal justice system come up against the heightened expectations of a public who watched the shocking violence of 6 January unfold in real time.“Criminal prosecutions never end in these glorious accountability moments where everyone is satisfied that right was done,” Richman said.For many Capitol defendants facing these lower-level charges, justice department prosecutors did not even attempt to keep them detained ahead of trial, and they were quickly released on standard conditions.Federal prosecutors did fight for months to keep other defendants in custody, with federal judges eventually overruling them, particularly after the pivotal appeals court ruling questioning the detention of Munchel, the alleged “Zip Tie Guy”, and his mother, who both gave interviews talking about their willingness to engage in violence to further their beliefs but were not accused of any specific acts of violence or vandalism as they roamed the Capitol, wrist restraints in hand.“My guess is the judges who decided to release some of these folks on bond were thinking: on January 6, there were an ideal storm of conditions for these people to commit a crime, and now there aren’t those ideal conditions any more, so they’re not likely to do it again,” said Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist at the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit that focuses on the harms of mass incarceration.But the same logic could be applied to low-level crimes: “investing in people’s communities” to “create different conditions” that would make it unlikely for them to repeat the same behavior, Bertram said.“The treatment of the people who are involved in the Capitol riot should show us what is possible and what is logical in terms of how to treat people in the future.”Former prosecutors defended the justice department’s work in the Capitol cases, and said that the continuing effort to identify and arrest a large proportion of the hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol was a massive, demanding endeavor, and showed how much the government wanted to ensure that there were real consequences for participating in the attack.“They’ve been aggressive, and continue to be, in trying to find everybody who was at that riot,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “For the attorney general, numbers matter. It really matters that hundreds of people are held responsible. That’s the message to people: you don’t want to game the system.”“I think they pretty much want on everyone’s records that they were responsible for these actions,” Levenson added. “It means something that these people are going to walk away with even a federal misdemeanor record. That has an impact on their employment, on their life, on their situation in their community. Even if they just get probation, they’re going to have to watch their step.” More

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      Police records show threats to kill lawmakers in wake of Capitol attack

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      Washington’s Metropolitan police department recorded threats to lawmakers and public facilities in the wake of the 6 January attack on the Capitol, according to documents made public in a ransomware hack on their systems this month.The documents also show how, in the month following the Capitol attack, police stepped up surveillance efforts, monitoring hotel bookings, protests in other jurisdictions, and social media for signs of another attack by far-right groups on targets in the capital, including events surrounding the inauguration of Joe Biden as president.The revelation of the seriousness of the threats comes amid Republican opposition to forming a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January attack, which saw the Capitol roamed by looting mobs hunting for politicians and involved the deaths of five people.The police documents were stolen and published by the ransomware attack group Babuk, and some were redistributed by the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets, from whom they were obtained by the Guardian. Various outlets last week published stories based on the data showing intelligence indicating that far-right Boogaloo groups planned to attack various targets in the capital.But another collection of documents labeled “chiefs intelligence briefings” shows a broad, cross-agency effort in the days following the attack on the Capitol to identify suspects, monitor and apprehend far-right actors, and anticipate further attacks on Washington around events like the inauguration of Joe Biden and the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.In the aftermath of the riot, the attention of police and other law enforcement agencies was focused on far-right activity on social media platforms, and especially on a group calling itself Patriot Action for America.One 13 January bulletin said that the group had been “calling for others to join them in ‘storming’ state, local, and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event POTUS is removed as president prior to inauguration day”.The bulletin also noted that the agency was facing broader challenges in monitoring far-right actors on social media websites, saying that “with the shutdown of Parler it has been a challenge to track down how activities are being planned”, and that they continued to “see more users on Gab and Telegram following the de-platforming of many accounts on more conventional social media companies”.The bulletin mentions a “possible second suspect” in the placement of pipe bombs near the DNC and RNC, who was “observed on video scouting/taking photographs in advance of the placement”, who “took a metro to the East Falls church stop and took a Lyft from there”.On 12 January, a bulletin noted that a supreme court agent had noticed “two vehicles stopped beside each other” outside the court building, and that in one an older white male was “videotaping the Capitol fence line and the court”, and in the other a passenger was “hanging out the window in order to videotape the court”.A 22 January bulletin mentions that in Pennsylvania a man was arrested after “transmitting interstate threats to multiple US senators of the Democratic party”, having stated that he was “going to DC to kill people and wanted to be killed by the police”. When Pennsylvania state police apprehended him “he was in possession of a rifle, two handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition”.A later bulletin described an incident in which a man with an illegal firearm was arrested after asking for directions to the “Oval Office”, and another man’s van was searched after he was observed sitting in the vehicle while parked outside the supreme court justice Sonya Sotomayor’s house.The same day’s bulletin mentioned that Metropolitan police were cooperating with Capitol police in investigating “a number of threats aimed at members of Congress as the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump nears”.The threats continued for weeks after the attack.Almost a month later, a bulletin reported that “an identified militia group member” in Texas was claiming that if their “operation failed at the US Capitol”, there was a “back-up plan” involving the group “detonating bombs at the US Capitol during the State of the Union”.The group was not named but was described as “a large organization allegedly with members from every state, which included individuals who were former military and law enforcement”.The documents also reveal how law enforcement agencies secured the cooperation of private companies, from ride-share companies to hotels.A bulletin includes the claim that “FBI [is] working with Lyft and Uber to identify riders to and from the protest locations”.The same bulletin carries detailed figures on reservations in hotels across the capital leading up to the inauguration on 20 January, which was secured by an unprecedented mobilization of law enforcement and the national guard.Two days later, another bulletin said that “MPD’s intelligence division has conducted extensive outreach with security directors of area hotels”, who they asked to be “vigilant for evidence of suspicious activity and firearms possession by hotel guests”. 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      Trump Hotel raised prices to deter QAnon conspiracists, police files show

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      Police intelligence documents show that Washington’s Trump Hotel raised its rates “as a security tactic”, in the hope of deterring Trump-supporting QAnon supporters from staying there in early March, on a day which some believed would see Trump restored to office.The information, which police gleaned from a Business Insider version of a story published in Forbes on 6 February, was confirmed in an 8 February intelligence briefing stolen by ransomware hackers from Washington’s Metropolitan police department (MPD).The hackers from the Babuk group subsequently published those documents online, and transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets redistributed them to news outlets including the Guardian.As Forbes reported in February, Trump International hotel in Washington raised its rates to 180% of the normal seasonal charge for 3 and 4 March this year.That was a date upon which some adherents to the QAnon conspiracy movement believed would see Trump once again sworn in as president, based on an interpretation of the US constitution influenced by a belief held by many “sovereign citizens” that the US government was secretly usurped by a foreign corporation in 1871, and all legal and constitutional changes since that date are illegitimate.The swearing-in date of US presidents was 4 March until the passage of the 20th amendment in 1933, and believers thought that Trump would restore his presidency and constitutional government on that date in Washington.While Forbes suggested that the rate hike might be “price gouging or simply opportunistic marketing”, the internal police document said “MPD’s intelligence division confirmed with Trump Hotel management that they raised their rates as a security tactic to prevent protesters from booking rooms at their hotel should anyone travel to DC”.However, the document also noted that the hotel was “not aware of any credible information regarding an event actually taking place on that date”, and that “none of the hotels in [Washington] are showing any noticeable increase in hotel reservations for this timeframe”.Trump International was one of a number of hotels in the region whose occupancy was closely monitored by the MPD and other agencies as they looked for signs of an attack on Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump’s impeachment hearings, and other hot button events, according to other intelligence documents made public in the ransomware hack.The hotel, along with the Trump Organization and Trump’s inauguration committee are co-defendants in a case brought by the District of Columbia attorney general, which alleges that the hotel was used to funnel money spent on the inauguration to the former president and his family.The use of Trump International to house government employees has also been a focus of scrutiny from congressional committees and the Government Oversight Office. More

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      Democrats propose quick reaction force in $2.1bn Capitol security bill

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      House Democrats plan on Wednesday to unveil a $2.1bn supplemental bill to enhance security at the Capitol that will propose creating a quick reaction force to guard against future threats in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter.The proposed bill will also include the construction of a retractable fencing system around the Capitol, the sources said.Rose DeLauro, chair of the House appropriations committee, is expected to unveil the proposal to House Democrats on a caucus call on Wednesday, amid growing calls urging the adoption of recommendations made by a taskforce in the wake of the 6 January insurrection in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.No lawmakers were injured during the attack, but several, such as Senator Mitt Romney and former vice-president Mike Pence had only a narrow escape from attackers looking for them. Meanwhile, nearly 140 officers suffered injuries and one, Brian Sicknick, later died after being assaulted.The proposed bill largely tracks recommendations made by retired Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who was appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to examine security shortcomings, as well as critical flaws identified by the US Capitol police inspector general, the sources said.In the report released to House Democratic leaders last month, Honoré made a series of recommendations, including hiring more than 800 US Capitol police officers, the construction of mobile fencing around the Capitol, and an overhaul of the US Capitol police board.“We are trying to take into consideration understanding what happened, how do we account for that and what we need to do to prevent this from happening again,” DeLauro said of the taskforce recommendations after its release last month.The proposed bill, which could be brought to the House floor as early as next week, will also include a provision to reimburse the national guard deployed around the Capitol. The national guard and other security measures post-6 January is costing nearly $2m a week.Its prospects are still uncertain on Capitol Hill, with House Democrats largely going ahead with the security review alone and Republicans yet to indicate what measures, if any, they are willing to embrace.Lawmakers in both parties largely agree on the need for enhanced security but some – Republicans in particular – have been agitating to scale back the barriers encircling the area and troops patrolling the grounds despite lingering threats.“While there may be some worthy recommendations forthcoming, Gen Honoré’s notorious partisan bias calls into question the rationality of appointing him to lead this important security review,” Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said of the taskforce in March.“It also raises the unacceptable possibility that the speaker desired a certain result: turning the Capitol into a fortress.”The issue has exposed the divide between members of Congress who want the Capitol to return to a sense of normalcy, and the concerns of US Capitol police and a raft of law enforcement agencies tasked with their protection. More

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      ‘Our moment is now’: can Washington DC statehood finally become a reality?

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      Thousands of miles from the US capital, a group of progressive protesters recently marched to the office of their senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, to demand that she support statehood for Washington DC.The protest was notable because of its setting of Anchorage, Alaska, and similar demonstrations have recently been popping up all across America. Progressives from Arizona to New York have taken pictures with 51-star flags to show their support for making DC the first new state to join the union since Hawaii in 1959.Previously dismissed by its critics as a regional issue, DC statehood has gained national prominence in recent years, and that increased attention has now translated into legislative action. Late last month, the House passed a DC statehood bill with a record number of co-sponsors, and Joe Biden has offered a full-throated endorsement of the proposal.This momentum has given activists hope that now – with Democrats controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress – DC statehood may finally become a reality. However, numerous challenges remain in the evenly divided Senate, and Republicans are determined to keep just 50 stars on the American flag.For statehood advocates, this moment feels like an opportunity to correct a 200-year-old injustice. The District’s population of 700,000 is more than that of Wyoming and Vermont, and DC residents pay more in federal taxes than their counterparts in 22 states, yet they do not have congressional representation. Perhaps even more infuriating for statehood supporters is the fact that DC laws are subject to congressional review, meaning lawmakers from around the country have an effective veto on local proposals.The issue of race if also front and center, given that DC’s citizens are predominantly people of color and their full rights as Americans are being curtailed mostly by Republicans in the Senate, who skew heavily white.DC residents themselves largely support statehood. In 2016, the District held a referendum on the issue, and 86% of voters backed statehood.“This fight is the most pressing voting rights fight and the most pressing civil rights fight of our lifetime,” said Jamal Holtz, a leader of 51 for 51, which advocates for statehood. “We should not be okay with American citizens not having voter representation.”The lack of representation for DC residents has been the subject of international condemnation. The United Nations human rights committee has repeatedly said DC’s current political status is a human rights violation that flies in the face of America’s international treaty obligations.Arturo Carrillo, the director of the International Human Rights Clinic at George Washington University law school, said the injustice of the situation is somewhat ironic. In the capital of one of the oldest democracies in the world, citizens are not represented at the federal level.“The paradox is so profound that you almost don’t believe it,” Carrillo said. “It can’t really be like that, can it? But it is. It is exactly as bad as it looks. And all you’ve got to do is drive around Washington DC, and look at our license plates. You’ll see they say, ‘End taxation without representation.’”But for Republicans, the true injustice would be if DC, a city of just 68 sq miles, were granted statehood and the two US senators that come with it. Republican leaders have criticized the statehood push as a Democratic “power grab” that contradicts the founders’ wishes for the capital district to be completely under federal control.“If DC were to become a state, Democrats would gain two reliably liberal seats in the US Senate,” said Emma Vaughn, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “They cite various reasons for why they want DC statehood, but the truth is that these extra Senate seats would be a rubber stamp for their radical, far-left agenda.”Statehood advocates acknowledge DC would probably elect two Democratic senators if it becomes a state. In 2020, just 5% of DC voters backed Donald Trump, while 92% supported Biden. But activists say DC residents should not be deprived of basic democratic rights because of their political leanings.Republicans are afraid of admitting DC as the first plurality Black state in the nation“It is a much larger power grab to deny representation to people because you don’t think that they would vote for you. That’s the power grab,” said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, the director of democracy policy for the progressive group Indivisible.Holtz also described Republican arguments against statehood as “racist dog whistles”, given that the majority of DC residents are people of color.“Republicans are afraid of admitting DC as the first plurality Black state in the nation,” Holtz said. “Regardless of occupation and political party, all Americans deserve representation.”Holtz’s organization is urging Senate Democrats to end the filibuster to get statehood passed, hence the group’s name of 51 for 51, meaning 51 votes for the 51st state. (With the filibuster mechanism in place, Democrats need 60 votes to advance the statehood bill, which is considered an impossible task given Republicans’ fervent opposition.)But even if Democrats do end the filibuster, it may not be enough to get the statehood bill to Biden’s desk. Senator Joe Manchin said on Friday that he does not support the legislation, and four other Senate Democrats have not taken a stance on the bill.Without the filibuster, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, would still need all five of them on board to pass the proposal. Those five holdouts are probably why Schumer has not committed to a timeline for voting on a bill, instead simply saying the Senate is “working to make [statehood] a reality”.Hatcher-Mays urged Democratic senators to move quickly on statehood, noting that the party’s hold on the White House and both chambers of Congress is unlikely to last long.“History does tell us that trifectas are pretty rare, and they’re pretty fleeting,” Hatcher-Mays said. “We really need Democrats in the Senate to understand that this is what we gave you this majority for, so it’s really urgent to take this up and get this passed as soon as possible.”For Holtz and many other District residents, the wait for statehood has already been long enough.“Our moment is now,” Holtz said. “We cannot continue to count our days where there are people disenfranchised in our nation’s capital.” More

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      White House investigating ‘unexplained health incidents’ similar to Havana syndrome

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      The White House has said it is investigating “unexplained health incidents” after a report that two US officials in the Washington area experienced sudden symptoms similar to the “Havana syndrome” symptoms suffered by American diplomats and spies abroad.The wave of mysterious brain injuries, beginning in Cuba in 2016, are deemed by the National Academy of Scientists to be most likely the result of some form of directed energy device, and the CIA, state department and Pentagon have all launched investigations.CNN reported on Thursday that two possible incidents on US soil are part of the investigation. One took place in November last year near the Ellipse, the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House, in which an official from the national security council suddenly fell sick.The other was in 2019 and involved a White House official walking her dog in a Arlington suburb of Washington. That incident was reported in GQ magazine last year.That account said the incident happened after the staffer went past a parked van and a man got out and walked past her.“Her dog started seizing up. Then she felt it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face,” the report said.Officials cautioned that the investigations into these and other incidents have not reached a conclusion.“The health and wellbeing of American public servants is a paramount priority for the Biden administration. We take all reports of health incidents by our personnel extremely seriously,” a White House spokesperson said.“The White House is working closely with departments and agencies to address unexplained health incidents and ensure the safety and security of Americans serving around the world. Given that we are still evaluating reported incidents and that we need to protect the privacy of individuals reporting incidents, we cannot provide or confirm specific details at this time.”The symptoms of the Havana syndrome attacks include hearing strange sounds followed by dizziness, nausea, severe headaches and loss of memory which in some case can go on for years. There are dozens of victims, most of whom were stationed in Cuba and China with a handful of cases elsewhere.Most of those affected, as well as many officials and experts, believed they were attacked by a foreign power with some form of microwave energy device. But they fought an uphill struggle, before the National Academy of Sciences study in December, convincing their employers that their brain injuries were the result of an attack while they were on assignment.The CIA set up a taskforce in December, and the new CIA director, William Burns, has appointed a senior official to coordinate both care of those affected and to investigate the origins of the attacks.While the inquiries are continuing, the administration has not confirmed whether the injuries suffered were the result of a weapon, the national security council senior director for the western hemisphere, Juan Gonzalez, referred to microwave attacks in Cuba, in an interview with CNN Spanish language service earlier this month. More

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      US officer beaten by rioters condemns effort to ‘whitewash’ Capitol attack

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      A Washington police officer who was attacked by Trump-supporting rioters during the Capitol attack on 6 January has decried the efforts of some politicians and other public figures to “whitewash” and downplay the insurrection.Michael Fanone, 40, gave an emotional interview with CNN on Tuesday night in which he laid bare the personal impact of having been engulfed in the baying crowd.He was beaten with sticks and stun-gunned, and in the aftermath has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and what he called “psychological injuries”.Fanone said that since the riot, it had been “very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened. Some of the terminology that has been used, like ‘hugs and kisses’ and ‘very fine people’ – very different from what I experienced and what my co-workers experienced on the 6th.”Though he did not mention the former president by name, Fanone was making a clear reference to Trump’s interview with Fox News last month in which he said the conflagration posed “zero threat”. Attempting an extreme makeover of history, Trump said of the rioters that “some of them went in, and they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards, you know? They had great relationships.”Asked what he thought of Trump’s remarks, Fanone said: “I think it’s dangerous. It’s very much not the experience I had on the 6th. I experienced a group of individuals that were trying to kill me to accomplish their goals.”More than three months on, the Capitol insurrection still casts a shadow over Washington. Joe Biden is expected to discuss the attack and its lasting impact when he addresses a joint session of Congress for the first time as president on Wednesday, standing at the same podium in the House of Representatives that was defiled by rioters.The assault, and Trump’s efforts to diminish its anti-democratic and violent nature, where he encouraged supporters at a rally immediately prior to “fight” to stop Congress certifying Biden’s election victory, also continue to distort American politics.Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, this week clung to his support for Trump and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him – rhetoric that directly instigated the insurrection.Adam Kinzinger, a congressman from Illinois who was one of only 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in February for “incitement of insurrection”, challenged McCarthy. Kinzinger posted on Twitter a clip of Fanone on CNN, along with the barbed comment that he was curious whether the Republican leader had “an opinion about this interview”.Fanone was among a cordon of District of Columbia and Capitol police who were defending the edifice, where members of Congress were in session in both chambers, when Trump supporters ran amok.Photos from 6 January show the officer entirely surrounded by protesters lunging at him with wooden clubs.A video also captured him being pulled out of the building by the rioters and dragged down stairs.“I thought it was a distinct possibility I would die,” he told Lemon. “They started attacking me from all directions. Guys ripped my badge off, ripped my radio off, started grabbing at my firearm. It was overwhelming.” More

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      Capitol police officer injured in attack died of natural causes, examiner says

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      Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer injured while confronting rioters during the 6 January insurrection, suffered a stroke and died of natural causes, the Washington DC medical examiner’s office ruled Monday, a finding that lessens the chances that anyone will be charged in his death.Investigators initially believed the officer had been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, based on statements collected early in the investigation, according to two people familiar with the case. And they later thought the 42-year-old Sicknick might have ingested a chemical substance – possibly bear spray – that could have contributed to his death.But the determination of a natural cause of death means the medical examiner found that a medical condition alone caused his death – it was not brought on by an injury. The determination is likely to significantly inhibit the ability of federal prosecutors to bring homicide charges in Sicknick’s death.US Capitol police said that the agency accepted the medical examiner’s findings but that the ruling didn’t change the fact that Sicknick had died in the line of duty, “courageously defending Congress and the Capitol”.“The attack on our officers, including Brian, was an attack on our democracy,” police officials said in a statement. “The United States Capitol Police will never forget Officer Sicknick’s bravery, nor the bravery of any officer on January 6, who risked their lives to defend our democracy.”Federal prosecutors have charged two men with using bear spray on Sicknick during the riot. The arrests of George Tanios, 39, of Morgantown, West Virginia, and Julian Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, were the closest federal prosecutors have come to identifying and charging anyone associated with the five deaths that happened during and after the riot.Lawyers for the two men had no immediate comment Monday.Sicknick died after defending the Capitol against the mob that stormed the building as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s electoral win over Donald Trump. It came after Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Sicknick was standing guard with other officers behind metal bicycle racks as the mob descended on the Capitol.“Give me that bear shit,” Khater said before he reached into Tanios’ backpack, according to court papers. Tanios told Khater “not yet” because it was “still early”, but Khater responded that “they just fucking sprayed me”. Khater was then seen holding a can of chemical spray, prosecutors say.As the rioters began pulling on one of the racks, Khater was seen with his arm in the air and the canister in his hand while standing just 5ft to 8ft from the officers, authorities said.In February, Sicknick became only the fifth person in history to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, a designation for those who are not elected officials, judges or military leaders. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. More