Category: US House

‘We got to hold this door’

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How battered D.C. police made a stand against the Capitol mob

Blinded by smoke and choking on gas and bear spray, stripped of his radio and badge, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone and his battered colleagues fought to push back rioters trying to force their way into an entrance to the U.S. Capitol.

The officers had been at it for hours, unaware that others in the mob had already breached the building through different entrances. For them, the West Terrace doors — which open into a tunnel-like hallway allowing access to an area under the Rotunda — represented the last stand before the Capitol fell.

“Dig in!” Fanone yelled, his voice cracking, as he and others were being struck with their own clubs and shields, ripped from their hands by rioters. “We got to get these doors shut.” Continue reading.

Trump brought leadership turmoil to security agencies in run-up to Capitol riot

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The three top federal agencies responsible for protecting the nation — the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security — are all being run by acting officials, as the United States endures one of its most sensitive national security crises.

The leadership vacuum is the product of President Trump’s tempestuous relationships with his Cabinet secretaries and tendency to replace them for long periods of time with acting officials who lack Senate confirmation — a pattern that has led to turmoil atop critical federal agencies for much of his presidency.

Never has the absence of confirmed leaders seemed more pronounced than now. All three agencies were being led by acting officials in the run-up to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, where extremist Trump supporters who embrace the president’s false claims of election fraud stormed the building to demand that lawmakers dispute President-elect Joe Biden’s victory during a pro forma certification of the electoral college vote. Continue reading.

Lawmakers warned police of possible attack ahead of siege

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Democratic lawmakers warned U.S. Capitol Police one week before the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that thousands of fervent Trump supporters could storm the complex and try to “kill half of Congress” to stop them from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.

One of them also warned that Vice President Pence’s life was in danger.

On Dec. 30, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) spoke with a police captain, informing the officer that — based on past death threats made against her by Trump supporters and the violent language she saw used in online forums — people might attack the Capitol and physically harm lawmakers counting the Electoral College votes. Continue reading.

Is impeaching President Trump ‘pointless revenge’? Not if it sends a message to future presidents

A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted on Jan. 13 to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The vote will initiate a trial in the Senate – but that trial will likely not be finished before Trump’s term of office comes to an end on Jan. 20.

There is an open constitutional question about whether a president can be impeached after he has left office. A more basic question asks about the point of impeaching Trump. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, writing in The Washington Post, described the entire exercise as “pointless revenge.” 

“It isn’t principled, it isn’t concerned with justice and it isn’t concerned with the future,” he stated. Continue reading.

Bankrolling the Disenfranchisers

Since 2016, Corporate and Trade Association PACs Have Given $170 Million to Lawmakers Who Voted to Challenge the Presidential Election

Many in corporate America have signaled their disgust over the insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol last week, as well as with President Trump and the congressional ringleaders who incited the rioters.

But many of these same corporate scolds have acted as reliable funders of the members of Congress who sought last week to void the results of the 2020 presidential election. By Public Citizen’s count, political action committees have contributed a staggering $170 million since the 2016 election cycle to the 147 members of Congress who voted last week to challenge the electoral college slates of at least one state.[1]

Our analysis reveals that 19 of these PACs have contributed at least $1 million each to the disenfranchisers over the past three election cycles. Meanwhile, 46 of these PACs have supported at least 50 percent of the members of Congress who voted to throw out at least part of the 2020 election results. Continue reading.

Even GOP lawmakers’ best sycophantic yelling couldn’t stop Trump from getting impeached again

Despite the best efforts of some of the Republican Party’s brightest stars, on Wednesday, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to be impeached twice. And just one week after Trump incited a coup attempt on the Capitol building that left multiple people dead and launched this second, historic impeachment effort, a group of congressional Republicans have apparently coalesced a unifying message in these closing days of the Trump administration.

That message is: Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

To be fair, not all the House Republicans have chosen to publicly throw a temper tantrum over Trump’s impending impeachment. Some were too damn scared to do much of anything, and at least 10 actually crossed party lines to vote in favor of sending the articles of impeachment up to the Senate. But as representative after representative rose Wednesday to address the House during the impeachment proceedings, it was clear that within the GOP caucus was a sizable number of lawmakers who, absent anything even resembling the normal human capacity for shame, were eager to use their time to whine, bloviate, and above all else, play the victim. Continue reading.

Behind the targeting of Nancy Pelosi by the Capitol insurrectionists

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Among the various forms of violence on display during the U.S. Capitol insurrection, one has been largely overlooked: misogyny, or hatred toward women. Yet behaviors and symbols of white male power were striking and persistent features of the riots.

Members of the overwhelmingly male crowds defending a president well-known for his sexist attacks, embraced male supremacist ideologies, wore military gearand bared their chests in shows of masculine bravado. They even destroyed display cabinets holding historical books on women in politics.

Actions targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi give the clearest illustration. Members of the mob broke into her office and vandalized it. Items like mail, signs and even her lectern proved to be particularly popular trophies – symbolizing an attack on Democrats and the House Speaker, but also against one of the most powerful women in American politics. Continue reading.

Harvard removes Republican Elise Stefanik from advisory committee

Stefanik was among the 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

BOSTON — The Harvard Institute of Politics removed Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) from its Senior Advisory Committee in the wake of last week’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, pointing to her unfounded claims of voter fraud in the November election. 

“Elise has made public assertions about voter fraud in November’s presidential election that have no basis in evidence, and she has made public statements about court actions related to the election that are incorrect,” Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter released Tuesday. “Moreover, these assertions and statements do not reflect policy disagreements but bear on the foundations of the electoral process through which this country’s leaders are chosen.”

The school initially asked Stefanik to step aside, according to Elmendorf. When the New York lawmaker declined, the school removed her. Stefanik was among the 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Continue reading.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s call to action distorted in debate

WASHINGTON — The House impeachment debate on Wednesday heard a distorted account of President Donald Trump’s remarks to his supporters a week ago when he exhorted them to “fight like hell” before they swarmed the Capitol.

REP. GUY RESCHENTHALER, R-Pa.: “At his rally, President Trump urged attendees to, quote, unquote, peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. There was no mention of violence, let alone calls to action.”

THE FACTS: Trump’s speech was a call to action — a call to fight and save the country.

“Our country has had enough,” he told those who went on to stage the violent siege of the Capitol. Continue reading.

Why Remove Trump Now? A Guide to the Second Impeachment of a President

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With only a week left in his term, the House impeached President Trump, but he will leave office before he stands trial in the Senate. Here’s how the process works.

WASHINGTON — The second impeachment of President Trump, coming a week after he egged on a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol, is taking place with extraordinary speed and testing the bounds of the process itself while also raising questions never contemplated before. Here’s what we know.

Impeachment is one of the weightiest tools the Constitution gives Congress to hold government officials, including the president, accountable for misconduct and abuse of power.

Members of the House consider whether to impeach the president — the equivalent of an indictment in a criminal case — and members of the Senate consider whether to remove him, holding a trial in which senators act as the jury. The test, as set by the Constitution, is whether the president has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”