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US SenateUS Senate to hold infrastructure vote after bipartisan breakthroughAgreement, which follows months of talks between Democrats and Republicans, expected to gain strong support from lawmakers Joan E Greve in Washington and agency@ More
Protesters shut down a press conference by Congress members Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar about the arrests and investigation of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.
The far-right Republican members of Congress stood outside the US Department of Justice and said they were demanding answers on the treatment and status of the prisoners jailed in connection with the 6 January riot. Gaetz, Greene, Gohmert and Gosar have staunchly defended former president Donald Trump and his supporters.
The news conference comes as police officers testified to a Democratic-led House of Representatives investigatory committee in its first session probing the incident
‘This is how I’m going to die’: police tell panel of trauma of Capitol attack More
US Capitol attackTrump officials can testify to Congress about his role in Capitol attack, DoJ saysMove declines to assert executive privilege for then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, clearing path for others to testify Hugo Lowell in WashingtonTue 27 Jul 2021 15.50 EDTLast modified on Tue 27 Jul 2021 17.26 EDTFormer Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Donald Trump’s role in the deadly January attack on the Capitol and his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, the justice department (DoJ) has said in a letter obtained by the Guardian.The move by the justice department declined to assert executive privilege for Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, clearing the path for other top former officials to also testify to congressional committees investigating the Capitol attack without fear of repercussions.The justice department authorised witnesses to appear specifically before the two committees. But a DoJ official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they expected that approval to extend to the 6 January select committee that began proceedings on Tuesday.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee, told the Guardian in a recent interview that he would investigate both Trump and anyone who communicated with the former president on 6 January, raising the prospect of depositions with an array of Trump officials.Rosen and Trump administration witnesses can give “unrestricted testimony” to the Senate judiciary and House oversight committees, which are scrutinising the attempt by the Trump White House to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, the letter said.The justice department’s decision marks a sharp departure from the Trump era, when the department repeatedly intervened on behalf of top White House officials to assert executive privilege and shield them from congressional investigations into the former president.It also represents a significant move by the White House Office of Legal Counsel under Biden, which in authorising the decision, pointedly noted that executive privilege protections exist to benefit the country, rather than a single individual.Trump has argued that conversations and deliberations involving the president are always protected by executive privilege. He can sue to block any testimony, which would force the courts to decide the extent of such protections.But the justice department said in the letter that Rosen and Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election because of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances.In his last weeks in office, Trump pressured justice department officials to use the vast powers of the federal government to undo his defeat, asking them to investigate baseless conspiracies of voter fraud and tampering that they had already determined to be false.“The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress,” Bradley Weinsheimer, a senior career official in the office of the deputy attorney general, said in the letter.The justice department told Rosen and Trump administration officials that they could appear before Congress as long as their testimony was confined to the scope set forth by the committees and did not reveal grand jury or classified information, or pending criminal cases.Rosen’s approval letter, which was sent on Monday night according to a source familiar with the matter, comes after the Senate judiciary committee asked to interview several Trump administration officials as part of their oversight efforts started in January.Negotiations for their testimony were stalled as the justice department weighed how much information former officials could reveal, concerned that many of the conversations were covered by executive privilege, which keeps executive branch deliberations confidential.The justice department ultimately relented after consulting with the White House Office of Legal Counsel, which said it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege over the specific topics in question, according to the letter.“It is the executive branch’s view that this presents an exceptional situation in which the congressional need for information outweighs the Executive Branch’s interest in maintaining confidentiality,” wrote Weinsheimer, citing Richard Nixon and Watergate.The Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, said on Twitter that he was working to now schedule interviews with the officials. The panel is also still receiving materials and documents from the justice department, the source said.The 6 January special committee – everything you need to knowRead moreThe House oversight committee chairwoman, Carolyn Maloney, said in a statement that she was pleased with the decision: “I am committed to getting to the bottom of the previous administration’s attempts to subvert the justice department and reverse a free and fair election.”Trump exerted significant pressure on the justice department to help him remain president. In one instance, Trump schemed with Jeffrey Clark, the former head of the DoJ’s civil division, to force Georgia to overturn their election results, the New York Times reported.The Senate judiciary and House oversight committees opened wide-ranging investigations into Trump and the justice department shortly after, with Durbin also demanding materials from the National Archives for records and communications concerning those efforts.TopicsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Key events
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CDC to recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors – sometimes
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‘This is how I’m going to die’: USCP officer recounts January 6
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Committee must uncover what happened at the White House on January 6, Cheney says
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Thompson plays graphic footage of insurrection in opening statement
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January 6 select committee begins first hearing
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January 6 select committee to hold first hearing
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Thompson is using his questions to hit key emotional points in the testimony of the four officers. Such committee hearings are about TV too, remember – which is why Donald Trump may be unhappy that thanks to Kevin McCarthy’s choice to withdraw Republicans from the panel, he has no defenders here, beaming to screens around the country.
Officer Dunn is asked about his experience enduring racist abuse, seeing Confederate flags among the rioters and other such issues.
“It’s so overwhelming and disappointing and disheartening,” he says, that America contains people who would “attack you because of the colour of your skin”.
“My blood is red, I’m an American citizen, I’m a police officer and a peace officer,” he says. “I’m here to defend everybody.”
Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and pariah in her own party, is next up. She asks Sgt Gonell about Trump’s claims that the crowd was full of “loving” people. He is not impressed.
“I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses,” Gonell says, adding: “If that was hugs and kisses I wish you all go to his house and do the same to him.”
“All of them were telling us Trump sent us,” Gonell adds, dismissing Trump’s claim leftwing demonstrators or the FBI were behind the riot.
Officer Fanone is next to receive a question from Cheney. “The politics of that day didn’t play into my response at all,” he says.
Officer Hodges is asked to describe his experience in seeing protesters in military and tactical gear at the Capitol. Cheney asks Officer Dunn about what police expected on 6 January. “A couple arrests, name-calling, unfriendly people,” he says – but not close to what actually happened.
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CDC to recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors – sometimes
The Washington Post reports that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will this afternoon recommend that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in certain circumstances. The paper, which tends to turn out to be reasonably well connected in the capital, says the announcement is coming at 3pm ET.
The CDC will revise guidance issued on 13 May, which said vaccinated individuals did not need to wear masks indoors.
As is the way of things, the administration’s view on whether mask advisories or mandates might return, as with the question of whether vaccinations should be made mandatory in any circumstances, has been a little opaque. But as press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday, Joe Biden regards his scientific and medical advisers as his “North Star” on such matters, so here we are. Or will be, when the announcement comes later.
The highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has fuelled steep rises in case numbers, particularly among unvaccinated Americans and amid struggles with disinformation and resistance, particularly on the political right.
Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, discussed the possible need to return to advising mask-wearing over the weekend. Report here.
Speaking to the Post, Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said: “Nobody wants to go backward but you have to deal with the facts on the ground, and the facts on the ground are that it’s a pretty scary time and there are a lot of vulnerable people.
“I think the biggest thing we got wrong was not anticipating that 30% of the country would choose not to be vaccinated.
“In June we were in this virtuous cycle, where cases were going down, people were getting vaccinated, everyone said happy days are here again, and let their guard down.”
Some further reading, from Jessica Glenza:
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This is Martin Pengelly, taking over the controls from Joanie Greve for a while. In response to questions from Bennie Thompson, the committee chair, Sgt Gonell is currently describing his experiences in Iraq: “We could run over an IED and that’s it but at least we knew we were in a combat zone. Here, in our nation’s capital, we were attacked multiple times.”
He adds that police officers were “fighting for our lives” during the assault by the Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election result.
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US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, said he was repeatedly called the “n” word as he sought to protect the Capitol from pro-Trump insurrectionists on January 6.
“Nobody had ever, ever called me a [‘n’ word] while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn said, actually saying the racial slur.
Dunn closed his testimony by expressing pride in his fellow USCP officers and encouraging them to protect their mental health as they deal with the fallout of the insurrection.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking professional counseling,” Dunn said.
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US Capitol Police officers are closely watching the January 6 select committee’s hearing as some of their colleagues testify.
An NBC News reporter shared a photo of two USCP officers watching C-SPAN as it streamed the hearing:
Haley Talbot
(@haleytalbotnbc)
As we hear the powerful stories from officers on Jan 6 can’t help but think of the entire USCP force, including those that lost their lives as a result of that day. As you walk around the Capitol today officers are glued to the hearing, watching their colleagues testify. pic.twitter.com/ljw2Br7tk3
July 27, 2021
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Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, who was nearly crushed against a door on January 6 as pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, delivered his opening statement to the select committee. More
Political strategists have long known that they can manipulate the electoral redistricting process.
In 1991, Republican mapmaker Thomas Hofeller said: “I define redistricting as the only legalized form of vote-stealing left in the United States today.” In the following decades, he drew gerrymandered maps that gave Republicans electoral advantages across the country.
What Hofeller knew was that the rules around redistricting are flexible. The constitution requires states to draw new electoral districts every 10 years, but there are few other hard and fast rules.
The US constitution gives state lawmakers the authority to draw electoral districts. So when state legislatures are controlled by one party and in charge of drawing new maps, they often draw districts that overwhelmingly favor their party, locking in victories for the next 10 years.
Party control map
It’s an advantage that can be quite severe – shutting the opposing party out from ever winning certain districts. It’s such a significant problem that a handful of states have chosen to strip lawmakers of their redistricting power, giving the power instead to commissions.
What are the map-making rules? And how can partisan lawmakers exploit the process to benefit their party?
How many shapes do you draw?
There are 435 representatives in Congress. Every 10 years, the US counts the number of people in each state and assigns a proportional number of representatives. Within their states, lawmakers also have to redraw state legislative districts – the same districts that they’re elected from.
So in 2021 states that have grown at a pace – Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona, among others – will gain congressional seats, so they’ll get to draw more shapes for congressional districts than they did 10 years ago. New York, California and Illinois, among others, will draw one fewer district because they lost population. Regardless of whether they gain a seat or not, states will have to redraw all of their districts to account for population shifts within the state.
Map
For state legislators, the number of districts depends on your state.
And there is one rule that applies to every state: There has to be about the same number of people in each district.
How to take advantage of this process: You can apportion representation based on just the subset of the population eligible to vote, rather than every person in the state, including kids and undocumented people.
Some Republicans think they can get an advantage by only counting the voting-eligible population. It’s unclear if it would actually help them. But some Republicans believe it would reduce representation for minority groups that tend to skew toward Democrats. It would also reduce representation for areas with more families with children. Any attempt to only count people eligible to vote would lead to many lawsuits.
Map
Another way lawmakers distort this process is through so-called prison gerrymandering. Some states choose to count people in prison as part of the population of the area where they are incarcerated, instead of at their last home address. This allows lawmakers to pad the population total to justify drawing a district in areas that are often rural and sparsely populated at the expense of urban areas.
What kind of shapes are allowed?
The one rule that every state follows is that the shapes have to be contiguous. This isn’t a written rule in every state, but in the past every map states have drawn have contiguous shapes:
Map
A rule many states have on the books is that shapes must be compact, which helps ensure districts are drawn to group together communities that are geographically near each other.
Map
Another common rule is that shapes must follow political boundaries (like county lines) and that they must try to group together “communities of interest” which essentially means groups that have common political desires. This might be a community lobbying to keep a fossil fuel pipeline out of their neighborhood, or a community that shares a language or history. That said, only a handful of states have these rules.
Map
How to take advantage of this process: Draw shapes that look fair, but actually favor your party.
We often assume it requires awkward shapes to gerrymander a map. But there are plenty of ways to draw shapes that are contiguous, compact and follow political boundaries – yet still heavily favoring one party. The emergence of powerful computers in the process only makes it easier to create these “stealth” gerrymanders.
Map
Can I gerrymander to benefit my party?
In 2019, for the first time, the supreme court said that federal courts could do nothing to stop excessive partisan gerrymandering. That was a huge blow to reform advocates who hoped that the federal courts might step in.
But some state courts have stepped in to ban partisan gerrymandering.
How to take advantage of this process: There are two main strategies for gerrymandering: packing and cracking.
In a packed district, the party in power packs as many of the opposition’s voters into as few districts as possible.
Map
Then they crack the rest, spreading thin the rest of the opposition’s voters into districts where they can never get a majority.
Map
Can I gerrymander based on racial demographics?
No. Lawmakers are not allowed to “crack” districts where minority voters make up a significant enough portion of the population.
For example, if a Black community was cracked into several districts, it might be difficult for them to elect the candidate they want.
Map
But if they are packed into a single district, that gives them a chance to elect their preferred candidates.
That’s why the Voting Rights Act says minority voters can argue for a district that packs them together for electoral power.
Map
How to take advantage of this process: In the past, jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination had to get their maps “precleared” by the Department of Justice or federal courts. That meant maps that made it harder for racial and ethnic minorities to pick their preferred candidate were struck down before they took effect.
But a 2013 supreme court ruling means that states no longer have to preclear their maps.
Ultimately this means that if a state draws a map that looks like a racial gerrymander, it will require litigation to prove that it does indeed make it harder for minority communities to elect their preferred candidate. More
US Capitol attackHouse begins Capitol attack inquiry as Republicans set to boycott proceedingsCommittee established by Pelosi features two Republicans, Cheney and Kinzinger, after McCarthy withdrew his nominees Tue 27 Jul 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 27 Jul 2021 03.02 EDTThe much-anticipated House investigation into the January attack on the US Capitol begins on Tuesday, with Republicans set to boycott proceedings in an attempt to undermine any findings.A special committee established by the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will convene to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deadly insurrection in Washington DC, when hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to interrupt the certification of Joe Biden as president.Capitol attack committee chair vows to investigate Trump: ‘Nothing is off limits’Read moreThe committee, which will feature just two Republicans after the GOP leadership refused to participate, will hear this week from police officers who battled rioters during the attack.The investigation into the 6 January attack has become a fiercely partisan issue in Washington. The House voted in May for an independent investigation that would have been evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but the Senate blocked the move.That left Pelosi to create a select committee to conduct the investigation. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader, picked five Republicans to sit on the committee, but Pelosi rejected Jim Jordan and Jim Banks’ nominations, prompting McCarthy to withdraw all five nominees. Both Jordan and Banks are staunch Trump allies who deny his role in the attack and objected to the certification of Biden’s win.Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, had already been named to the panel by Pelosi, and on Sunday Pelosi went around McCarthy again to appoint Representative Adam Kinzinger, who like Cheney is a critic of Trump, to the committee.Pelosi said Kinzinger “and other Republicans have expressed an interest to serve on the select committee. And I wanted to appoint three of them that Leader McCarthy suggested. But he withdrew their names. The two that I would not appoint are people who would jeopardise the integrity of the investigation, and there’s no way I would tolerate their antics as we seek the truth.”Kinzinger and Cheney were among the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment, and the pair were the only Republicans who voted to form the special committee. Both have cited Trump’s false claims of election fraud as a factor in the insurrection.“For months, lies and conspiracy theories have been spread, threatening our self-governance,” Kinzinger said on Sunday.“For months, I have said that the American people deserve transparency and truth on how and why thousands showed up to attack our democracy. I will work diligently to ensure we get to the truth and hold those responsible for the attack fully accountable.”Democrat Bennie Thompson will chair the committee, which on Tuesday will hear from four police officers who were on duty on 6 January. They are expected to testify about their experiences that day, including the physical and verbal abuse they were subjected to as hundreds of people swarmed the Capitol.“We have to get it right,” Thompson said on Monday. He said if the committee could find ways to prevent anything like it from happening again, “then I would have made what I think is the most valuable contribution to this great democracy”.Last week a Florida man became the first person to be sentenced to prison for his role in the January attack. More than 570 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, during and after which seven people died.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesNancy PelosiUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
Democrats‘We use what tools we have’: Democrats take drastic action in bid to resist Republican rule Across the US, in Republican-controlled states Democrats are being forced to get creative to oppose a conservative agendaJoan E Greve in Washington@ More
