WASHINGTON — Democrats laid the groundwork on Friday for impeaching President Trump a second time, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California threatened to bring him up on formal charges if he did not resign “immediately” over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol this week.
The threat was part of an all-out effort by furious Democrats, backed by a handful of Republicans, to pressure Mr. Trump to leave office in disgrace after the hourslong siege by his supporters on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Although he has only 12 days left in the White House, they argued he was a direct danger to the nation.
Ms. Pelosi and other top Democratic leaders continued to press Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to wrest power from Mr. Trump, though Mr. Pence was said to be against it. The speaker urged Republican lawmakers to pressure the president to resign immediately. And she took the unusual step of calling Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss how to limit Mr. Trump’s access to the nation’s nuclear codes and then publicized it.
“If the president does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues. Read more at New York Times
Twitter on Friday banned President Trump from its site, a punishment for his role in inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol this week, robbing him of the megaphone he used to communicate directly with more than 88 million supporters and critics.
The move amounted to a historic rebuke for a president who had used the social-networking site to fuel his rise to political prominence. Twitter has been Trump’s primary communication tool to push policies, drive news cycles, fire officials, spread falsehoods, savage opponents and praise allies.
A defiant Trump lashed out in response late Friday, accusing Twitter in a statement of having “coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left” to remove his account. He threatened regulation, promising a “big announcement” to come, and said he is looking “at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future!” The official account for the presidency, @POTUS, also tweeted that message, although the posts were quickly taken down by Twitter.
Twitter had resisted taking action against Trump for years, even as critics called on the company to suspend him, arguing that a world leader should be able to speak to his or her citizens unfettered. But Trump’s escalating tweets casting doubt on the 2020 election — and the riot at the U.S. Capitol his comments helped inspire — led the company to reverse course.
Twitter specifically raised the possibility that Trump’s recent tweets could mobilize his supporters to commit acts of violence around President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, an analysis that experts saw as a major expansion in the company’s approach to moderating harmful content online. Its action meant Trump’s tweets disappeared from the site, removing the catalogue of his thoughts except for those preserved by researchers and other documentarians.
The move was especially remarkable for a company that once called itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” Many observers noted that this most aggressive enforcement action in Twitter’s history came in the week that political power shifted decisively in Washington, toward Democrats who long have demanded greater policing of hate speech and violent talk on social media — and away from a president and party who long had made effective use of the more freewheeling policies of the past. Read more at Washington Post
WASHINGTON — In a sharp break with the Trump administration, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. intends to release nearly all available doses of the coronavirus vaccine soon after he is inaugurated, rather than hold back millions of vials to guarantee second doses will be available.
The decision is part of an aggressive effort to “to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,” the Biden transition team said on Friday. The vaccination plan, to be formally unveiled next week, also will include federally run vaccination sites in places like high school gyms and sports stadiums, and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.
The president-elect has vowed to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” during his first 100 days in office.
The decision to release the vast majority of vaccine doses set off a sharp debate among public health experts. The two vaccines that have received emergency approval each require two doses, and the Trump administration has so far been holding back about half of its supply to ensure that booster doses will be available for those already inoculated. Read more at New York Times
WASHINGTON — A state lawmaker from West Virginia, a 70-year-old Alabamian armed with jars of gasoline and a man who broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and posed at her desk were among those arrested after the storming of the Capitol, federal law enforcement officials announced on Friday as they promised an exhaustive investigation into the violence.
The sweeping investigation took shape after a security breakdowntwo days earlier allowed hundreds of people backing President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results to rush into the Capitol in a deadly rampage. The debacle prompted sharp recriminations and the firings of top officials who were entrusted with protecting lawmakers. Dozens have been arrested, including 13 who face federal charges.
Law enforcement officials also backed off a suggestion that Mr. Trump could face criminal charges for inciting the riot after a top prosecutor had said a day earlier that investigators were examining anyone involved, “not only” the rioters.
“Don’t expect any charges of that nature,” Ken Kohl, a top prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, told reporters in a telephone briefing on Friday.
Law enforcement officials also sought to explain the security failure, saying that they had no indication that the day would turn violent. But Trump supporters had for weeks openly discussed on social media their plans to protest Congress’s certification of the Electoral College results, a typically ceremonial affair, and in some cases pledged to fight for their cause.
The number of arrests is likely to grow quickly as investigators pore over social media to identify the rioters. And some could face more serious charges, including in the death of Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who was overpowered by rioters who, according to two law enforcement officials, struck his head with a fire extinguisher. He was rushed to the hospital and died on Thursday.
Hundreds of prosecutors and F.B.I. agents have been assigned to work the investigation and were pursuing dozens of cases, Mr. Kohl said.
“We are far from done,” added Steven M. D’Antuono, who runs the F.B.I.’s Washington field office.
He also rebutted the notion of any involvement in the violence by left-wing antifascist agitators, whom Mr. Trump’s supporters have falsely tried to blame.
The investigation is likely to span weeks and stretch across the country as the F.B.I. seeks to identify those who were involved in the melee. U.S. attorneys and the F.B.I. were pursuing conspiracy charges against people who might have traveled together and then broken into the Capitol, and some already charged were from Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere Read more at New York Times
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California on Friday took the unprecedented step of asking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about “available precautions” to prevent President Trump from initiating military action abroad or using his sole authority to launch nuclear weapons in the last days of his term.
In a phone call to the chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, Ms. Pelosi appeared to be seeking to have the Pentagon leadership essentially remove Mr. Trump from his authorities as the commander in chief. That could be accomplished by ignoring the president’s orders or slowing them by questioning whether they were issued legally.
But General Milley appears to have made no commitments. Short of the cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment or removing Mr. Trump through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, it is unconstitutional to defy legal orders from the commander in chief.
Ms. Pelosi’s request, which she announced to the Democratic caucus as an effort to prevent “an unhinged president” from using the nuclear codes, was wrapped in the politics of seeking a second impeachment of Mr. Trump. Read more at New York Times
A search and rescue operation is underway Saturday after a Boeing passenger jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers after taking off from Indonesia’s capital on a domestic flight, officials said.
Sriwijaya Air flight #SJ182, a Boeing 737-500, took off from Jakarta at about 1:56 p.m. local time and lost contact with the control tower at 2:40 p.m., said Indonesian Transportation Ministry spokesperson Adita Irawati.
The plane's route was estimated to be a 90-minute flight to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s Borneo island. There were 56 passengers and six crew members on board. Read at USA Today
WASHINGTON — By skipping President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, President Donald Trump will break from White House tradition, but won't make history, when he misses the ceremonial peaceful transfer of power.
Trump will become the first outgoing president to refuse to attend the inauguration of his successor since 1869 when President Andrew Johnson stayed in the White House as Ulysses S. Grant was sworn in as the 18th president.
Presidents John Adams in 1801 and John Quincy Adams in 1829 also chose not to attend the inaugurations of the presidents who replaced them, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, respectively. Both left Washington before the ceremonies.
"It's crucial for the peaceful transfer of power. It's about respect," said presidential historian Kate Andersen Brower. She pointed to the nation's last two one-term presidents, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who both attended inaugurations after losing elections. Brower said they took their losses "very personally, but there's always an understanding that the country is more important than your ego. That's obviously not the case here." Read more at USA Today
On the cusp of the second impeachment battle in just over a year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is circulating a memo to Republican senators that outlines how a potential Senate trial would work for President Trump — proceedings that would all but certainly occur after he leaves the White House.
In the memo, obtained by The Washington Post, McConnell’s office notes that the Senate will not reconvene for substantive business until Jan. 19, which means the earliest possible date that impeachment trial proceedings can begin in the Senate is the day before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.
Although the Senate will hold two pro forma sessions next week, on Jan. 12 and Jan. 15, it is barred from conducting any kind of business during those days — including “beginning to act on received articles of impeachment from the House” — without agreement from all 100 senators. With a cadre of Trump-allied senators in the Republican conference, that unanimous consent is highly unlikely. Read more at Washington Post
Two rheumatoid arthritis drugs that suppress the immune system may help critically ill patients survive covid-19, providing a benefit even on top of the steroids that have been doctors’ main tools in treating the most serious cases of illness, according to a new study released Thursday before peer review.
British regulators cited the new results as they promptly approved the two drugs, tocilizumab and sarilumab, for use in patients in intensive care units. The relative risk of death was reduced by 24 percent when given to people within 24 hours of admission, the data showed.
“Today’s results are yet another landmark development in finding a way out of this pandemic and, when added to the armory of vaccines and treatments already being rolled out, will play a significant role in defeating this virus,” Matt Hancock, health secretary for the United Kingdom, said in a statement. Read more at Washington Post
WASHINGTON—Dominion Voting Systems on Friday sued pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation, seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages over what the voting-machine company said were “wild” and “demonstrably false” accusations, including her allegation that it had rigged November’s election in President-elect Joe Biden’s favor.
“As a result of the defamatory falsehoods peddled by Powell—in concert with like-minded allies and media outlets who were determined to promote a false preconceived narrative—Dominion’s founder, Dominion’s employees, Georgia’s governor, and Georgia’s secretary of state have been harassed and have received death threats, and Dominion has suffered enormous harm,” the Denver-based company said in a 124-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Among other claims, Ms. Powell accused Dominion of fraudulently deleting or changing votes, and said the company’s software was created in Venezuela to rig elections. The suit said Ms. Powell spread false accusations about election fraud “to financially enrich herself, to raise her public profile, and to ingratiate herself to Donald Trump. ” Read more at Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—In a secure room where stunned senators were hiding from an angry mob on Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley stood in a corner, mostly alone.
“It was extremely striking,” said a person who was in the room on that chaotic day. “For most of the time, he was in a corner of the room by himself with no one talking to him or acknowledging him.”
The Missouri Republican’s Senate colleagues were furious with him, according to GOP aides. Minutes before, pro-Trump rioters had overrun the U.S. Capitol, forcing senators to halt the ratification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory and flee their chamber in terror, some running, some while holding hands.
Mr. Hawley, an ambitious 41-year-old former Missouri attorney general, last week became the first senator to say he would object to the results of the 2020 presidential election, bucking GOP leaders and sending shock waves through his conference. By law, an objection requires the backing of at least one House member and one senator to trigger a debate and vote on whether to disqualify a state’s electoral results. Once Mr. Hawley had signed on, there was enormous pressure on other Republican senators to follow suit or risk being seen as betraying President Trump.
Now he has become a pariah among Senate Republicans, many of whom blame him for what they see as his role instigating a riot that overwhelmed the Capitol and resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer.
Mr. Hawley also is contending with fallout beyond the Capitol: The former Missouri senator who recruited him to run for Senate has denounced him, Simon & Schuster canceled publication of his upcoming book on big tech, the president of his Jesuit high school called on him to reflect and atone, and a multimillion-dollar donor has said the Senate should censure him. Some Democrats are demanding his resignation.
“There can be no normalizing or looking away from what played out before our eyes this week,” Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) said in a statement Friday.
Mr. Hawley has condemned Wednesday’s violence, but says he has no plans to resign.
“I will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections,” he said in a statement. “That’s my job, and I will keep doing it.”
Other Republicans are piling on. Mr. Hawley’s mentor, former GOP Sen. John Danforth, told Missouri newspapers after the riot that recruiting him to run for Senate in 2017 was the biggest mistake of his political career. Read more at Wall Street Journal
Holding five pairs of zip-tie handcuffs, a man in head-to-toe paramilitary gear coursed through the upper level of the U.S. Senate Chamber Wednesday, captured by a Getty photographer as a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the nation's Capitol.
The man was not with security, who'd recently evacuated U.S. Senators and Vice President Mike Pence from the floor below. Experts say he was among the rioters who disrupted U.S. Congress's certification of Trump's election loss with violence, resulting in five fatalities to date.
With his identity unconfirmed by officials as of Thursday evening, the motives of the man whose tactical gear is adorned with symbols indicating support for military and police — including a "thin blue line" in the shape of Tennessee — cannot be verified.
But for two counter-terrorism experts, the photographs bring to mind a recent plot hatched by Michigan extremist group the Wolverine Watchmen — to take politicians hostage after storming the state capitol and subduing law enforcement with Molotov cocktails, according to sworn Federal Bureau of Investigation statements in court documents.
'Incited violence':Several House Democrats call for Trump to be impeached over DC riots
Extremists recently plotted to storm a state Capitol, take hostages
The Michigan extremists eventually shifted their focus, from a siege on the state capitol to kidnapping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from her home. The FBI announced the arrest of 13 people, on federal and state charges, in October.
Ari Weil, deputy research director for the University of Chicago's Militant Propaganda Analysis team, said the zip ties seen at the Capitol Wednesday are "reminiscent" of the Michigan plot — and suggest a desire to "conduct vigilante justice against members of Congress".
Malcolm Nance, a retired Navy counter-terrorism intelligence officer of 35 years and New York Times bestselling author of multiple books on national security, said he had the same thought as Weil when the zip-ties and tactical gear appeared on social media in the aftermath of the first breach of the building in more than 200 years.
"My greatest fear is that they use this mass of people to push through to breach the building — then what we call a Capture and Kill team," Nance said.
As the executive director of the Terror Asymmetrics Project, a small think tank studying the strategies and tactics of radical ideologies, Nance said he watched the mob escalate in real-time as his team tracked four different live streams from separate sides of the Capitol Wednesday.
'A direct attack on democracy': World leaders react with shock after Trump supporters riot at US Capitol
"Someone hung a noose out on the Mall. What makes you think they wouldn't have tried this," he said of the possibility of taking hostages. Nance said his team also observed the use of flag poles and baseball bats as weapons Wednesday. "These guys came for action, to do damage," he said.
'He's hunting for people'
As for the man with the Tennessee patch photographed walking through the Senate Chamber: "He's hunting for people," Nance said.
He doesn't think he acted alone. The size of the restraints; the man's lack of a backpack; and the unlikelihood he was walking around with them in the open prior to Nance means, "They came from someone else.. someone else is there cooperating."
Images shared on Twitter by John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher for the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which studies the intersection of cyberspace, global security and human rights, show a second rioter donning a helmet, holding similar zip ties.
Douglas Korneski, the special agent in charge of the Memphis Field Office, coordinates FBI counter-terrorism efforts in Tennessee. He said Thursday evening the agency was working to identify the man with the Tennessee patch.
Capitol riot:Dozens charged in capitol siege, including man behind Pelosi's desk
Friday evening, Korneski said the FBI was still working to identify him.
"I can confirm we are aware of that photo and are working with our state counterparts in any way we can to identify him," Korneski said Thursday. The agency has opened a tip line to receive information, photos and/or video at www.fbi.gov/USCapitol and 1-800-CALL-FBI.
"The FBI is aggressively working to identify any of the individuals who were involved in yesterday's events and is working very closely with the Department of Justice in any way we can to prosecute those individuals," Korneski said.
Despite all of the man's tactical gear and emblems, Nance said the man's appearance does not convey military experience to him, as he says the body armor and other gear documented in the photograph is not what a veteran with combat experience would be likely to select.
"He's got all the cool guy stuff. But he's not real," Nance said.
Nance also noted the man had pepper spray; and said Friday the weapon in a holster on the man's hip was a Taser, after ongoing research determined it was not a pistol as he initially thought Thursday. Read at USA Today
Tommy Lasorda, the irrepressible baseball lifer who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to four National League pennants and two World Series championships in a Hall of Fame career that spanned eight decades of bleeding Dodger blue, died on Thursday in Fullerton, Calif. He was 93 and had been the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
His death was announced by the Dodgers in a statement. The team said Lasorda suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest at his home in Fullerton and was pronounced dead after being transported to a nearby hospital.
Willie Mays, at 89, is now the oldest living Hall of Famer. Read more at New York Times
Lenders who specialize in working with Black- and minority-owned small businesses will have a head start in tapping Paycheck Protection Program funds when the program reopens next week, a move meant to address complaints that the aid was not distributed equitably the last time around.
Starting on Monday, borrowers will be able to apply for new loans through the P.P.P., but only through a small group of community lenders, government officials said on Friday. Community lenders are specially designated institutions that focus on underserved borrowers, including women-led businesses and those run by Black, Latino and Asian owners and other minorities.
Government officials did not set a timeline for when larger banks and lenders will be allowed to start processing loans, saying only that it would happen “shortly.”
The decision is certain to frustrate many borrowers eager to seek aid through the relief program, which offers small businesses forgivable loans to help them retain and pay their workers. The program closed in August after distributing $523 billion to more than 5 million businesses, but last month’s stimulus package included $284 billion in new funding to restart the relief effort. Read more at New York Times Small Business Program Will Restart Monday, But Not for All
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