Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification

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'We get our President or we die': FBI issued dire warning day before Capitol riots; 170 suspects investigated
by Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY
Published 2:57 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2021 Updated 11:30 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2021

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The FBI issued a dire warning on the day before the Capitol riots that violent extremists were planning an armed uprising in Washington, a plot the attackers described as "war" to coincide with Congress' certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, officials confirmed Tuesday.

Assistant FBI Director Steven D'Antuono said the intelligence report, prepared by the bureau's Norfolk, Virginia, office, included a "thread from a message board" that described an array of preparations for an assault, including a map of Capitol-area tunnels and staging areas in in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

During a Justice Department briefing, D'Antuono said that while the information could not be attributed to a actual suspect, the information was shared within "40 minutes" with law enforcement partners, including the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which includes the U.S. Capitol Police, the law enforcement agency that led the failed response.

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Members of Congress share chilling tales of pro-Trump riots at Capitol
Republicans and Democrats share firsthand accounts as pro-Trump supports stormed the U.S. Capitol. USA Today.

The contents of the warning, first disclosed earlier Tuesday by the Washington Post, included ominous language calling for attackers to "be ready to fight."

"Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in ... Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal," the Post reported, citing the document.

INTENTIONS: 'It could've been much, much worse' as some rioters were heavily armed, sought out Pence, Pelosi

D'Antuono said the warning was part of a cache of intelligence that the FBI shared with law enforcement partners in the run-up to the Jan. 6 riots. The prescient nature of the Norfolk warning, however, appeared to represent one of the most serious of the alarms touched off prior to the deadly assault.

"In the weeks leading up to the January 6 rally, the FBI worked internally with every FBI field office to ensure they were looking for any intelligence they may have developed about potential violence during the rally on January 6," the assistant director said. "We developed some intelligence that a number of individuals were planning to travel to the D.C. area with intentions to cause violence."

As a result, D'Antuono said some of that intelligence prompted the pre-riot arrest of Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right group Proud Boys that supports President Donald Trump.

"Other individuals were identified in other parts of the country and their travel subsequently disrupted," the assistant director said.

The actual assault, which left splintered doors and shattered windows in the mob's wake, proved eerily similar to the call to arms by Trump supporters, as outlined by the FBI Norfolk warning.


Supporters loyal to President Donald Trump clash with authorities before successfully breaching the Capitol building during a riot on the grounds, on Jan. 6, 2021.

It was still unclear, however, whether officials specifically altered security preparations to account for that warning.

Ultimately, the siege left five dead, including a Capitol police officer whom pro-Trump rioters allegedly beat with a fire extinguisher.

The assault also raised troubling questions about a clear lack of preparation to confront the mob that overwhelmed U.S. Capitol Police and laid waste to the iconic landmark.

'Only the beginning': 170 suspects

Information about the explicit advance warnings came as D'Antuono and D.C. U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin described a sprawling criminal investigation that now includes more more than 170 suspects, some of whom could be charged with sedition.

Sherwin said 70 had been charged with a range of crimes so far, including the possession of weapons and explosives.

Federal authorities have not ruled out that some in the mob, who were carrying plastic hand-restraints known as zip-ties, may have intended to take lawmakers hostage.

Sherwin cast the inquiry as "mind-blowing" in scope.

"This is only the beginning," Sherwin said, adding that some initially charged with minor trespassing charges would likely face myriad felony charges before the investigation was over.













Lawmakers, aides seek shelter as pro-Trump mob storms the US Capitol
Lawmakers, aides and legislative staff were forced to take cover and barricade themselves around the Capitol as pro-Trump rioters stormed into the Senate and House chambers.

In addition to the mayhem and violence, authorities raised the prospect that some who had riffled the offices of lawmakers may have taken sensitive national security documents.

The assistant director and the U.S. attorney said the massive investigation was being aided by 100,000 pieces of digital media submitted by the public that is aiding law enforcement in identifying suspects.

Inauguration security

Federal authorities said they also were considering a recommendation from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who urged officials to place riot suspects on no-fly lists to bar them from attempting a return to Washington to disrupt the Jan. 20 inauguration.

SECRET SERVICE: Inauguration is 'zero fail mission'

The FBI issued a bulletin to law enforcement partners, warning of the potential for additional armed demonstrations in Washington and in state capitals across the country. The bulletin cautioned that actions could begin Jan. 17 and continue through the inauguration.

Already, state authorities have taken action to fortify their capitol buildings to guard from any planned assaults.

ARMED PROTESTS: Violence feared Jan. 17-20

Public 'will be shocked'

Sherwin described the scope of the ongoing inquiry as possibly "unprecedented" and said it could see the filing of hundreds of cases before the inquiry is complete.

The chief federal prosecutor in Washington said a federal grand jury was booked for an entire day Monday to consider an array of charges against suspects. And he suggested that the public "will be shocked" when a full accounting of the siege emerges in the next few weeks and months.

Among the most prominent cases being pursued is the investigation into the murder of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

"It cuts to the core that one of our law enforcement brethren has passed away," D'Antuono said.






Pro-Trump rioters gather at US Capitol
A Trump rally in Washington turned violent as rioters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

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Republican attorneys general condemned over robocall that urged march to Capitol: Group distances itself from robocall sent by fundraising arm that encouraged Trump supporters to ‘call on Congress to stop the steal’
by Kenya Evelyn in Washington
@LiveFromKenya
theguardian.com
Mon 11 Jan 2021 12.05 EST

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The call from the Rule of Law Defense Fund said: ‘We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight to protect the integrity of our election.’ Photograph: Ardavan Roozbeh/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

Leaders from the Republican Attorneys General Association face mounting criticism after sending out a robocall that urged supporters of Donald Trump to join the 6 January march on the US Capitol that resulted in a deadly insurrection.

“At [1pm''] we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” a robocall from the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), a fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, said.

The voice then said: “We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight to protect the integrity of our election.”

The association’s chair, Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, is now among several officials who claim to have “had no knowledge or involvement in this decision”, distancing themselves from or outright condemning the call.

“The stance of the protesters was not consistent with [the attorney general’s] position on election fraud,” Carr spokesperson Katie Byrd told NBC News. “He has been saying since moments after seeing news break, the violence and destruction we saw at the US Capitol is unacceptable and un-American.”

Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall, who oversees the RLDF, said in a statement that he “was unaware of unauthorized decisions made by RLDF staff”, saying that “despite currently transitioning into [his] role” it was “unacceptable that [he] was neither consulted about nor informed of those decisions”.

Marshall added he had called for an internal review.

The Democratic Attorneys General Association has rejected the Republican defense, releasing a statement highlighting Republican leaders who they say incited the violence by taking up the president’s long-debunked claims of election fraud.

“The Republican [attorneys general] who blindly take their support have no legal or moral ground on which to stand here,” co-chairs Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Aaron Ford of Nevada wrote.

According to Documented, the watchdog group who posted the robocall online, the rally’s promotional website lists the Rule of Law Defense Fund as one of the participating organizations. As of Monday, it had been taken down.

The Democratic attorneys general also said that the Republican association’s “former chair spoke at the rally that incited the mob,” pinpointing Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, and that “former [Missouri attorney general] Josh Hawley led the effort in Congress to undermine the election”.

Paxton and now senator Hawley have championed Trump’s disproved claims of voter fraud in the form of failed lawsuits and legislative challenges.

The robocalls are the latest in mounting backlash Republican officials have encountered for their roles at Wednesday’s “March to Save America” rally, where Trump and allies urged supporters to reject his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Thousands of rioters then stormed the Capitol in a resulting insurrection that killed five people, including a Capitol police officer. A second officer who responded to the call died days later.

Although many Republicans lawmakers have sharply criticized the insurrection, several prominent allies have refused to condemn Trump and have rebuffed calls to impeach the president.

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WATCH LIVE: House debates second Trump impeachment
PBS NewsHour
1/13/21



Lawmakers in the U.S. House are gathering Jan. 13 to to debate an impeachment resolution based on a single charge against President Donald Trump— “incitement of insurrection.” The debate comes one week after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol directly following a rally held by Trump, where he urged the crowd to march as lawmakers were undertaking the counting of Electoral College votes. The impeachment debate also comes one week before Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated, Jan. 20.

House Calendar No. 2
117TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION H. RES. 41
[Report No. 117–2]
Providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 24) impeaching Donald
John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 12, 2021
Mr. MCGOVERN, from the Committee on Rules, reported the following resolution; which was referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed
RESOLUTION
Providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 24)
impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United
States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
1 Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it
2 shall be in order without intervention of any point of order
3 to consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 24) im
4 peaching Donald John Trump, President of the United
5 States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. The previous
6 question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution
7 and on any amendment thereto to adoption without inter
1 vening motion or demand for division of the question ex
2 cept two hours of debate equally divided and controlled
3 by the chair and ranking minority member of the Com
4 mittee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.
5 SEC. 2. Until completion of proceedings enabled by
6 the first section of this resolution—
7 (a) the Chair may decline to entertain any inter
8 vening motion, resolution, question, or notice; and
9 (b) the Chair may decline to entertain the question
10 of consideration.
11 SEC. 3. Upon adoption of House Resolution 24—
12 (a) House Resolution 40 is hereby adopted; and
13 (b) no other resolution incidental to impeachment re
14 lating to House Resolution 24 shall be privileged during
15 the remainder of the One Hundred Seventeenth Congress.
16 SEC. 4. Section 5 of House Resolution 8, agreed to
17 January 4, 2021, is amended by striking ‘‘January 28’’
18 each place that it appears and inserting ‘‘February 11’’.


WATCH: Nancy Pelosi signs article of impeachment against Trump after House vote
1/13/21
PBS NewsHour

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Lawmaker confronts Jim Jordan for not saying election was fair
by CNN
Jan 12, 2021



During a House rules committee debate about a measure to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) refused to say that President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election fairly.

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20,000 National Guard troops will defend the Capitol amid threats of violence inauguration week
by CNBC Television
Jan 13, 2021



There are 20,000 National Guard troops in Washington to prepare for any possible threats before next week's inauguration. This comes after an angry mob stormed the Capitol last week. NBC's Washington reporter Shomari Stone reports.

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Deutsche Bank, Signature Cutting Ties With Trump After Riots
by Sophie Alexander, Sonali Basak, and Steven Arons
Bloomberg News
January 11, 2021, 6:15 PM PST Updated on January 12, 2021, 12:37 AM PST

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Deutsche Bank AG and Signature Bank, two of Donald Trump’s favored lenders, are pulling away from the billionaire president in the wake of last week’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The German lender has decided not to conduct any further business with Trump and his company, said two people with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified because the deliberations were confidential. Trump owes the Frankfurt-based lender more than $300 million.

Signature Bank, the New York lender that’s long catered to his family, is closing two personal accounts in which Trump held about $5.3 million, a spokesperson for the firm said on Monday. It’s also calling for the president to step aside before his term officially ends on Jan. 20.

“We believe the appropriate action would be the resignation of the president of the United States, which is in the best interests of our nation and the American people,” the bank said in a separate statement on Monday.

The lenders are following social media outlets and other companies in suspending ties with the president after he encouraged attendees at a rally last week to march on the Capitol, where they stormed the building and interrupted the certification of the electoral college vote. At least five people died in the mayhem and its immediate aftermath.

“Yesterday was a dark day for America and our democracy,” Deutsche Bank Americas head Christiana Riley posted on LinkedIn a day after the riot. “We are proud of our Constitution and stand by those who seek to uphold it to ensure that the will of the people is upheld and a peaceful transition of power takes place.”

Signature bank has served Trump and others in his orbit, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Michael Cohen. In 2011, the bank appointed Ivanka to its board, but she stepped down a couple of years later. The New York Times reported the cutting of ties earlier on Monday.

“We have never before commented on any political matter and hope to never do so again,” Signature said in its statement. The bank will not do business in the future with any members of Congress who voted to disregard the electoral college, the spokesperson said.

Deutsche Bank said last month that Trump’s longtime banker resigned. Rosemary Vrablic, who worked in the private banking division, helped manage Trump’s relationship with the bank as the German lender lent hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to Trump’s company over a number of years. That relationship subjected the lender to pressure from lawmakers and prosecutors for information during Trump’s presidency.

The Trump Organization currently still has three loans worth about $300 million outstanding with the bank. They come due in 2023 and 2024.

Deutsche Bank has faced scrutiny over its ties to Trump throughout his presidency. It was so concerned about its exposure after his election, it considered restructuring the loans but ultimately decided not to do new business with him during his presidency, Bloomberg has reported.

(Updates with Deutsche Bank executive’s comment in sixth paragraph, details about lender’s relationship with Trump in final two paragraphs.)

******************************

Deutsche Bank will no longer do business with Trump
Jan 13, 2021
CNN



Deutsche Bank will no longer do business with President Donald Trump, a move that will cut off his business from a major source of loans that once helped fund his golf courses and hotels.

Germany's biggest bank has decided to refrain from future business with the president and his company, a person familiar with the bank's thinking told CNN Business. The news, first reported by the New York Times, follows last week's deadly riot at the US Capitol.

A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank (DB) declined to comment to CNN Business, citing a prohibition on discussing potential client relationships.

The move is the latest example of corporate backlash against the president after his supporters vandalized the Capitol in a brazen assault that left five people dead.

According to the New York Times, Deutsche has lent Donald Trump and his organization more than 2-1/2 billion dollars over the years.

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‘Inside job’: House Dems ask if Capitol rioters had hidden help: On a 3.5-hour caucus call, lawmakers criticized Capitol Police tactics and vowed to investigate what went wrong.
by Kyle Cheney, Sarah Ferris and Laura Barron-Lopez
Politico
01/08/2021 08:37 PM EST

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A member of a pro-Trump mob bashes an entrance of the Capitol Building in an attempt to gain access on Jan. 6. | Jon Cherry/Getty Images

A growing number of House Democrats say they’re concerned that tactical decisions by some Capitol Police officers worsened Wednesday’s riots and have raised the possibility that the pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol might have had outside help.

Lawmakers have uniformly praised most Capitol Police officers for their heroic response to the riots. Many officers suffered injuries defending members, aides and journalists from the onslaught and one, Brian Sicknick, died late Thursday. But videos have also surfaced showing a small number of officers pulling down barricades for the rioters and, in another instance, stopping for a photo with one of them.

Some of those incidents were raised on a 3.5-hour caucus call by House Democrats on Friday, demanding an investigation not only into the decisions by the Capitol Police leadership but by some rank-and-file officers caught on camera. But the lawmakers also raised general concerns that the rioters had some sort of outside help not necessarily attributable to the Capitol’s police corps.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) told his colleagues he thought the riots were “an inside job,” according to two lawmakers on the call.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) mentioned that looters had found their way to his unmarked, third floor office and stole his iPad. He questioned how they could locate that office but not his clearly marked ceremonial office in Statuary Hall. Later, another Democrat on the call, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) specifically raised the question of possible collusion among some Capitol Police officers, according to several people listening.

In an interview airing Sunday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said she believes some Capitol Police officers aided the rioters and may have helped steer them once inside the building, calling it “one of the most troubling things” about the assault.

“I am very sad to say that I believe that there were people within the Capitol police and within the Capitol building that were part of helping these insurrectionists to really have a very well-coordinated plan for when they were going to come, how they were going to come,” Jayapal said on Gray TV’s “Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren.”

Pressed further on whether some Capitol Police officers were not just looking the other way but actually involved, Jayapal said, “It appears that way, both from what happened, how coordinated it was, how easy it was.”

In that vein, House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) told a radio station that Democrats didn’t know yet if the failures by Capitol Police were the result of “poor planning or whether it was because there was certain kinds of infiltration.”

A Capitol Police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some of the most acute concerns have been raised by members of color, many of whom have already faced an increase in personal threats during the Trump era and had raised early warnings that the Trump supporters’ planned Jan. 6 demonstration could turn violent. Those members also expressed outrage at the disparity in treatment of pro-Trump rioters, many of whom were allowed to walk free from the Capitol even after ransacking congressional leaders’ offices, and at the crackdown on demonstrators protesting racial inequality over the summer.

“If the ‘protesters’ were Black they would have been shot with rubber bullets, tear gassed, and killed,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

“Police do not take white, right-wing protesters as seriously and they don't treat them as a threat in the way they treat African Americans, Latinos and other groups,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said in an interview. “And I think we saw the consequence of that this week.”

Since Wednesday’s attack, many Democrats have publicly and privately raised alarms about the ease with which rioters were able to not only enter the building but also quickly find their targets in a complex that is difficult for even members of Congress to navigate.

“Somebody must get to the bottom of how they, with such efficiency and such alacrity, moved themselves in mobs into [Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s] office. Into the whip’s third-floor office,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), one of the dozen or so Democrats who was locked inside the House chamber as rioters attempted to break in.

“We all joke about the fact that it's so hard to find some of these offices, and we work in the building,” Dean said in an interview.

One of the pro-Trump rioters told The New York Times that a Capitol Police officer directed them to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s office.

Democrats have vowed to investigate all aspects of the assault on the Capitol — Clyburn said on the call that it would take a 9/11 Commission-style investigation — including about the actions of Capitol Police captured on video.

“I saw those videos,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told reporters Friday. “You had people fighting their hearts out and getting hit over the head with a lead pipe … and you had people taking selfies with these terrorists. So there are all of these different levels and we will be examining all of the footage.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) chair of the House committee that oversees Capitol security matters, similarly noted that at least some officers may have “taken selfies with these seditionists or even let them in.”

“We need to thoroughly investigate that,” she said.

Democrats are already enraged at the leadership of the Capitol Police for their handling of the security situation. Lofgren said Thursday that the USCP’s chief, Steven Sund, misled her about the resources it had available to protect lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence, who was in the Capitol for the ceremony to count Electoral College votes. Sund resigned from his post Thursday.

Lofgren said she had pressed Sund about the National Guard’s readiness for possible protests and he assured her they were activated should they be needed.

“What they told me about the National Guard was just not true. The Guard was not even activated,” she said.

Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) said an independent oversight board needed to be put in place for the Capitol Police force.

“The Capitol Police are probably the only law enforcement agency I can think of that does not have non-uniform civilian oversight,” Brown, who was sheltering in his office during the breach, said in an interview Friday. “That's a problem.”

Heather Caygle and Caitlin Emma contributed.

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Trump Is Now the Only President To Be Impeached Twice: A Closer Look
by Seth Meyers
Jan 13, 2021



Seth takes a closer look at the House voting to impeach President Trump for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, making him the first and only president in history to be impeached twice.

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Donald Trump Is Still a Danger to Our National Security
by John Bellinger
Lawfare
Sunday, January 10, 2021, 1:04 PM

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In December 2015, I wrote a post for Lawfare entitled “Donald Trump Is a Danger to Our National Security,” in which I argued that Trump not only lacked “the qualifications to be president, he is actually endangering our national security right now by his hate-filled and divisive rhetoric.” I concluded “Donald Trump not only would be a dangerous president, he is making us less safe as a candidate.” At the time, I may have been the first national security official to write publicly that Trump was and would be a threat to the United States. Tragically, more than five years later, Trump is still a danger to our national security.

Eight months after my Lawfare post, in August 2016, I joined with 49 other former Republican administration national security officials to issue a statement arguing that “Trump would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.” We said: “Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary.” We concluded that if Trump were elected, “he would be the most reckless President in American history.” My former colleague Bob Blackwill persuaded me to add the statement that Trump’s erratic behavior, impetuousness and lack of self-control were “dangerous qualities in an individual who aspires to be President and Commander-in-Chief, with command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.” At the time, I resisted this statement, which I thought was melodramatic. I could not imagine that any president would brag about the size of his “nuclear button.”

In fact, Trump’s presidency was even worse than many of us had feared, both from a domestic and national security perspective. To the delight of his authoritarian soul mate Vladimir Putin, Trump devoted four years to destroying the social fabric of the United States, fomenting division along political, religious, and geographic lines, and undermining trust in governmental institutions and the press. It should have been abundantly clear from early in his presidency that he would incite his supporters to riot and mayhem. At a discussion sponsored by the Atlantic magazine and the French Embassy in May 2017 on the rise of populism, I publicly expressed grave concern that Trump would encourage his supporters to come to Washington and engage in violent acts against the government if he were required to leave office. I am sure that the other participants thought I was suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome at the time. In a subsequent exchange with Steve Clemons, who had moderated the discussion, in which I apologized if I sounded alarmist, Clemons responded, “What you sketched out is not fearmongering but rather what I fear will really happen. I think there is a thuggishness brewing in America that Trump is calling forward. These are very bad times, and I do fear that violence could be part of the equation.”

Concerned that our democracy could not withstand four more years of a Trump presidency, in August 2020, an even larger group of former national security officials who had served in Republican administrations paid for full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal and numerous regional newspapers arguing that Trump should not be reelected and that we would vote for Joe Biden. Listing 10 reasons how Trump had failed as president, we said that he had “demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as President.” Ken Wainstein (who organized the statement with me) and I were heartened that so many former senior officials joined the statement condemning Trump’s actions and were willing to place country over party. I was especially pleased that two of my own former bosses—former Senator and Secretary of the Navy John Warner and former FBI and CIA Director Bill Webster—both of whom I admire greatly, joined the statement, as did Chuck Hagel, Mike Hayden, John Negroponte, Rich Armitage and many others. All of us were dismayed, however, that the vast majority of elected Republican members of Congress remained silent in the face of Trump’s assault on the federal government and our democracy.

With 10 more days left in his presidency, Donald Trump remains a clear and very present danger to our national security. It’s regrettable that the vice president and the Cabinet will apparently refuse to act under the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, although I acknowledge that the issue is legally complicated. It would certainly be appropriate for the House of Representatives to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors, although this step would unfortunately saddle the incoming Senate with a trial of a departed president. The Senate’s time would be better spent confirming President-elect Biden’s national security team. Although it would be a much lesser punishment than Trump deserves, the House should also pass a strong resolution of censure, which the Senate should be asked to endorse before Trump leaves office. All Republicans in the House and the Senate should be required to vote for or against a censure of the president for his role in inciting a violent assault on our government. In the meantime, senior White House and senior agency officials have a responsibility to ensure that Trump takes no further executive actions to endanger our national security.

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Removal of panic buttons from Ayanna Pressley’s office being reviewed by House committee
by Jazmine Ulloa and Jess Bidgood
Globe Staff
Updated January 14, 2021

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WASHINGTON — The removal of panic buttons from Representative Ayanna Pressley’s Capitol Hill office before an armed insurrection overran the complex is under review by the House Administration Committee, as Congressional Democrats push to determine whether the mob had inside help.

“The American people do deserve to know if these assailants were at all enabled by the very people who are responsible for stopping them and how we can ensure that attack like this will never happen again,” Pressley said in an interview.

“Congress needs to immediately launch comprehensive, transparent investigations into what happened, and how our law enforcement agencies failed to protect the Capitol and members of Congress,” she said.

In the days since last week’s deadly attack, House Democrats have called for investigations into security breaches and raised increasingly pointed questions about whether Capitol police officers and and Republican members of Congress played any role in advising or encouraging the mob.

“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do to find out how things went so wrong, and one part of that is going to have to be, how organized was this and who participated in it?” asked Representative Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania. “There’s going to have to be a massive reckoning.”

Since the attacks, an atmosphere of distrust and unease has settled over the Capitol. Metal detectors were installed outside the House chambers before Wednesday’s impeachment vote — a measure intended to protect lawmakers not from the public, but from each other — while the National Guard, Secret Service, and Capitol Police have established an enormous security perimeter that stretches for blocks around the People’s House.

Inside, lawmakers have been grappling with the question of how the rioters — armed with racist symbols like the Confederate flag as well as zip-ties and weapons — were able to access the Capitol and to find their way through the byzantine building so easily once they were inside.

One group of Democrats wrote to the acting House Sergeant at Arms to say they saw groups of people who appeared to be associated with the rally touring the Capitol the day before.

“We haven’t seen tour groups in the Capitol for months,” Scanlon said. “That’s why it was noticeable.”

New Jersey Representative Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, said on Facebook Live that those tours appeared to be for the purpose of “reconnaissance.” Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina said rioters somehow found his unmarked office, indicating “that something untoward may have been going on.”

And Pressley’s office raised a new series of questions about the run-up to the attack with its revelation that panic buttons, which they had tested and used previously, had been torn out before the attack.

When Pressley learned the buttons were gone, she “found it immediately disturbing,” she said in an interview. “Not wanting to rush to any sort of judgment or conclusion.... my chief [of staff] began the necessary running it through the proper channels to better understand why that was the case, and again, now the matter is being investigated by the relevant agencies.”

Representative Jamaal Bowman, a new member of Congress from New York, said his office also lacked panic buttons during the attack. They weren’t installed until Wednesday.

Multiple requests for comment from Capitol Police and the House Sergeant of Arms since Wednesday have gone unanswered. The FBI directed all questions about the security breaches to Capitol Police.

An aide with the House Administration Committee could provide no further information on the removed panic buttons in Pressley’s office except to say that it was under review.

“The breach today at the U.S. Capitol raises grave security concerns,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, the committee’s chairwoman, said in a statement on the day of the attack. “I intend to have the Committee on House Administration work with the bipartisan House and Senate leadership to address these concerns and review the response in coming days.”

Capitol Hill has remained on edge since the attack and some members have reported an increase in threats. An e-mail sent from the House Administration Committee to members on Monday, and obtained by the Globe, listed the various options they could use to pay for any security-related expenses and upgrades to their offices.

Lawmakers are also pushing for probes into the incident by the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general of the Capitol Police. In a letter to the GAO, Representative Jason Crow of Colorado and more than 100 members requested a wide-ranging investigation, including inappropriate conduct by law enforcement; the impact of elected officials’ rhetoric on inciting the mob; and efforts by government and congressional leaders to limit police preparation, coordination, and response.

“In the aftermath of one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, we are forced to reconcile with difficult truths about failures of leadership and preparation,” the letter states. “The failures of security are far more easily corrected than the failure to lead and the abuse of the public trust.”

A spokesman with the GAO said it would need to go through a formal review process to determine what exactly the probe will cover.

Several members of the Massachusetts delegation told the Globe that they had received multiple assurances from Capitol police that they would have the crowds of Trump protesters under control ahead of the electoral vote count certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. But Representative Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran, has emerged as one the harshest critics of officers’ unprepared response, saying, “My platoon of 18-year-olds showed more professionalism every day than the Capitol police do.”

Among those who faced the most harrowing experiences were members of Congress who have been the direct targets of vitriol from President Trump and his supporters, including Pressley, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, faced calls for her to resign after she tweeted out Pelosi’s location as security agents rushed her away to a secure location.

On Instagram Live late Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez told viewers she had feared her colleagues would give away her location and that she had “a close encounter where I thought I was going to die.” But she said she didn’t know yet whether she could disclose the full details of the traumatizing event.

“I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive,” she said. “Not just in a general sense, but also in a very, very specific sense.”

Pressley spent part of the siege on the floor of her darkened office, gas mask in hand, with her husband and her chief of staff. They had barricaded her door with office furniture and water jugs, and as the time ticked by, they began to realize they could face threats from more than just the rioters.

When they arrived in a space that had been designated as a safe room, Pressley noticed some of the members in there weren’t wearing masks.

“I turned to my husband, and I said, I want to leave,” Pressley said. “I learned later that my chief was told ...when we exited that room, ‘You’re on your own. If there’s an evacuation, you know, we’re not, we’re not coming for you.’”

A person familiar with the situation said a member of her staff stayed in touch with security officials, but decided to limit her communication as the day progressed—just in case they were part of the danger, too.

Globe Columnist Yvonne Abraham contributed to this report.