Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification

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Members of Trump’s 2020 campaign helped organize rally ahead of Capitol riot, records show
by The Associated Press
Updated Jan 17, 1:03 PM; Posted Jan 17, 11:25 AM

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.

A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.

Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.

The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican party if you don’t get tougher. They want to play so straight, they want to play so, “Sir, yes, the United States, the constitution doesn’t allow me to send them back to the States.” Well, I say, “Yes, it does because the constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our constitution and you can’t vote on fraud,” and fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do...

And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore...

-- Donald Trump Speech "Save America" Rally Transcript

A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.

Women for America First, which applied for and received the Park Service permit, did not respond to messages seeking comment about how the event was financed and about the Trump campaign’s involvement. The rally drew tens of thousands of people.

In a statement, the president’s reelection campaign said it “did not organize, operate or finance the event.” No campaign staff members were involved in the organization or operation of the rally, according to the statement. It said that if any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign took part, “they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign.”

At least one was working for the Trump campaign this month. Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign’s director of operations into January 2021. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The AP’s review found at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration. They deactivated or locked down their social media profiles and removed tweets that referenced the rally. Two blocked a reporter who asked questions.

Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency. Between mid-March and mid-November, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid Wren $20,000 a month, according to Federal Election Commission records. During the campaign, she was a national finance consultant for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the president’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Wren was involved in at least one call before the pro-Trump rally with members of several groups listed as rally participants to organize credentials for VIP attendees, according to Kimberly Fletcher, the president of one of those groups, Moms for America.

Wren retweeted messages about the event ahead of time, but a cache of her account on Google shows at least eight of those tweets disappeared from her timeline. She apparently removed some herself, and others were sent from accounts that Twitter suspended.

One of the messages Wren retweeted was from “Stop the Steal,” another group identified as a rally participant on a website promoting the event. The Jan. 2 message thanked Republican senators who said they would vote to overturn Biden’s election victory, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas. She also retweeted a Jan. 1 message from the president promoting the event, as well as promotional messages from one of the president’s son, Eric Trump, and Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and a spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Wren did not return messages seeking comment, and locked her Twitter account after the AP reached out to her last Monday to ask her about her involvement in the Trump rally and the tweets she had removed. Several days later, she blocked the AP reporter.

Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. FEC records show Maggie Mulvaney was earning $5,000 every two weeks from Trump’s reelection campaign, with the most recent payment reported on November 13.

Maggie Mulvaney had taken down her Twitter account as of last Monday, although it reappeared after the AP asked her about the account’s removal.

Maggie Mulvaney retweeted several messages on Jan. 6, including one from the president that urged support for the Capitol Police. Trump’s Twitter account has been suspended, but the message could be seen in a cache of her Twitter account captured by Google. She also retweeted a message from her uncle, urging Trump to address the nation.

Maggie Mulvaney did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The insurrection at the Capitol prompted Mick Mulvaney to quit his position as Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland. He told CNBC a day after the assault that remaining in the post would prompt people to say “‘Oh yeah, you work for the guy who tried to overtake the government.’”

The leaders of Women for America First aren’t new to politics.

Amy Kremer, listed as the group’s president on records filed with Virginia’s state corporation commission, is “one of the founding mothers of the modern day tea party movement,” according to her website. Her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, is the organization’s treasurer, according to the records.

The IRS granted Women for America First tax-exempt status as a social welfare organization a year ago, with the exemption retroactive to February 2019. The AP requested that the group provide any tax records it may have filed since then, but received no response.

In a statement issued the same day rioters attacked the Capitol, Amy Kremer denounced the assault and said it was instigated after the rally by a “handful of bad actors,” while seeming to blame Democrats and news organizations for the riot.

“Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool,” she said. “They were wrong. It is not.”

The AP reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless during the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.

The review found the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals.

[Donald Trump, Jr.] That’s right, guys! That’s the message! These guys better fight for Trump, because if they’re not, guess what? I’M GOING TO BE IN YOUR BACK YARD IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS.



[Points] Guys like Scott, here.



Look at – wow, okay, I can’t go through the whole list,



because I don’t have 45 minutes to go through all the patriots that have been fighting, have been on the ground, that have mobilized to put good Republicans in those positions. GUESS WHAT, FOLKS? IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE ZERO, AND NOT THE HERO, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU, AND WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME DOING IT!

-- Donald Trump, Jr. [Transcript], Save America March

Videos posted on social media in the days following the Capitol attack shows that thousands of people stormed the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer died after he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher as rioters descended on the building and many other officers were injured. A woman from California was shot to death by Capitol Police and three other people died after medical emergencies during the chaos.

Trump’s incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally culminated a two-day series of events in Washington, organized by a coalition of the president’s supporters who echoed his baseless accusations that the election had been stolen from him. A website, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, sprung up to promote the pro-Trump events and alerted followers, “At 1 PM, we protest at US Capitol.” The website has been deactivated.

Another website, TrumpMarch.com shows a fist-raised Trump pictured on the front of a red, white and blue tour bus emblazoned with the words, “Powered by Women for America First.” The logo for the bedding company “My Pillow” is also prominent. Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, is an ardent Trump supporter who’s falsely claimed Trump didn’t lose the election to Biden and will serve another four-year term as president.

“To demand transparency & protect election integrity,” the web page reads. Details of the “DC PROTEST” will be coming soon, it adds, and also lists a series of bus stops between Dec. 27 and Jan. 6 where Trump backers can “Join the caravan or show your support.”

Kimberly Fletcher, the Moms for America president, said she wasn’t aware the Trump campaign had a role in the rally at the Ellipse until around New Year’s Day. While she didn’t work directly with the campaign, Fletcher did notice a shift in who was involved in the rally and who would be speaking.

“When I got there and I saw the size of the stage and everything, I’m like, ‘Wow, we couldn’t possibly have afforded that,’” she said. “It was a big stage. It was a very professional stage. I don’t know who was in the background or who put it together or anything.”

In addition to the large stage, the rally on the Ellipse featured a sophisticated sound system and at least three Jumbotron-style screens projecting the president’s image to the crowd. Videos posted online show Trump and his family in a nearby private tent watching the rally on several monitors as music blared in the background.

Moms for America held a more modest “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 near the U.S. Capitol, an event that drew about 500 people and cost between $13,000 to $14,000, according to Fletcher.

Justin Caporale is listed on the Women for America First paperwork as the event’s project manager. He’s identified as a partner with Event Strategies Inc., a management and production company. Caporale, formerly a top aide to first lady Melania Trump, was on the Trump campaign payroll for most of 2020, according to the FEC records, and he most recently was being paid $7,500 every two weeks. Caporale didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tim Unes, the founder and president of Event Strategies, was the “stage manager” for the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit paperwork. Unes has longstanding ties to Trump, a connection he highlights on his company’s website. Trump’s presidential campaign paid Event Strategies $1.3 million in 2020 for “audio visual services,” according to the campaign finance records. The company declined to comment for this story.

Another person with close ties to the Trump administration, Hannah Salem, was the rally’s “operations manager for logistics and communications,” according to the permit paperwork. In 2017, she took a hiatus from the consulting firm she founded and spent three years as senior White House press aide, “executing the media strategy for President Trump’s most high-profile events,” according to her company bio and LinkedIn profile.

Last week, within minutes of an AP reporter sending her a LinkedIn message asking about her involvement in and understanding of what happened on Jan. 6, Salem blocked the reporter and did not respond to questions.

___

By Richard Lardner and Michelle R. Smith. Rhonda Shafner and Zeke Miller contributed.

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'I had no qualms': The people turning in loved ones for the Capitol attack: The majority of more than 140,000 tips sent to the FBI about the attack have come from friends and family of those involved
by Kari Paul
The Guardian
Sun 17 Jan 2021 06.00 EST

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A mob of Trump supporters breach the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Carol Guzy/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

When Alison Lopez discovered her uncle’s sister had been part of the mob that breached the Capitol doors on 6 January, she immediately reported her to the FBI. “I had no second thoughts,” she said.

Lopez found out about her in-law’s participation when the woman in question called her aunt from inside the Capitol to brag about “taking back the election”. Lopez, who is 42, said she had known the relative her whole life but had “no qualms” about reporting her.

“If I saw my grandmother making bombs in her basement, or my aunt breaking into a home, I would have to intervene as well – it’s just about doing what’s right,” she said.

In the week after the attacks on the Capitol, there has been a concerted effort to “unmask” rioters online, with self-styled detectives investigating who’s who in videos and photos posted from the attack. Outing family members – either online or to authorities – has marked a new frontier of the rift Trumpism has created in the US.

Lopez said she was horrified but not surprised to see a loved one participate in the riot. Over the last four years she has watched helplessly as members of her family became increasingly entrenched in the world of hateful rightwing conspiracy theories.

“These are people who never really identified with politics before, and now they have just let this consume their lives,” Lopez said, adding she does not consider herself a Democrat and has voted for Republican candidates in the past.

If I saw my grandmother making bombs in her basement … I would have to intervene as well – it’s about doing what’s right
-- Alison Lopez

More than 140,000 people have sent tips to the FBI reporting participants in the attack on the Capitol, resulting in at least 200 arrests. The vast majority of those, according to the Department of Justice, come from friends, family and other acquaintances of those involved in the attacks.

The Massachusetts teen Helena Duke received a flood of support this week when she posted a video outing her own mother, aunt and uncle as having attended the Capitol protests.

The 18-year-old said her mother, who appears to be harassing a Black woman in the video shared, previously condemned her for attending Black Lives Matter protests. “If I did nothing, I felt I was as bad as them,” Duke told Good Morning America.

The decision to report a family member or publicly out them as espousing dangerous views can make a huge impact in stopping the spread of hate speech, said Talia Lavin, an expert in extremism and white supremacist groups and the author of Culture Warlords.

“I applaud the bravery of people who have called out people in their own families for this kind of radicalization,” she said. “When people experience ostracization or disavowal from one’s own family, it can lead to a kind of cooling of extremist sentiment, because individuals are for the very first time experiencing a consequence for what they have so proudly engaged in for so long.”

Online sleuthing is not new, especially among hate speech and extremism investigators, who have for years hunted down and outed racists and fascist agitators to employers in hopes to foster accountability. But in the aftermath of the insurrection, the practice has gone more mainstream, with journalists, activists and the FBI tweeting out photos and videos of the riot and encouraging followers to investigate them.

Online sleuthing has its drawbacks: a Chicago firefighter faced harassment after being falsely identified as the killer of a Capitol police officer through a blurry video image. Another photo was falsely traced to a man pictured on an antifa website, a tie that has been definitively disproven.

But the chance of mistaken identity is much lower when the accusation comes from a family member or loved one. Leslie, a woman in the midwest who asked that her last name not be used in this story, said she and her sister had both submitted screenshots of images their mother posted on social media from the steps of the Capitol during the riots to the FBI.


More than 140,000 people have sent tips to the FBI reporting participants in the riots on the Capitol on 6 January. Photograph: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock

Leslie, who considers herself far left politically, said she had watched in horror as vigilantes stormed the Capitol, only to learn days later that her estranged mother was one of them.

“I almost passed out,” she said of the moment she saw the images. “I was really shocked. She was in front of the scaffolding we saw people climbing on TV. It was such a helpless, horrifying feeling.”

Leslie said she and her siblings stopped speaking to their parents after they got sucked into QAnon, a movement surrounding a false conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is saving the world from a secret cabal of child abusers. She said she watched her evangelical mother go from being a devout Christian to posting hate speech on Facebook and aligning herself with the far right.

“I am really, really angry that I have essentially lost my family to a cult,” she said. “I am angry that people were not taking the rise of QAnon more seriously. People kept saying, ‘nobody is actually going to do anything, it is just a bunch of idiots online’.

“Well, the people at the Capitol are the people who were looking at this online,” she said. “This is what happens when you don’t do anything.”

Leslie is not alone: support groups have emerged in recent years for the countless Americans who have lost loved ones to the conspiracy theory.

Leslie said she is hoping a call from the FBI could serve as “kind of wake-up call for them”, she said.

“Maybe if she gets a call from the authorities she will realize this is not just a game, this is not just something playing out on Facebook. This is real and people got killed,” she said.

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100 Trump Pardons: What Does the Supreme Court Say About the Implications of Accepting a Pardon?
by Glenn Kirschner
Jan 18, 2021



It's being reported that Trump is preparing to issue as many as 100 pardons. This surprises exactly no one, as it's a fitting last act of a president who has been largely lawless during his four years in office.

But what are the consequences for the people who decide to accept a pardon from Trump? The Supreme Court answered that question in 1915 in the case of George Burdick v. The United States. Mr. Burdick was the editor of the New York Tribune who refused to accept a pardon from President Woodrow Wilson. The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Burdick was well within his right to refuse the pardon because accepting a pardon carries with it "an imputation of guilt and a confession" that you committed the crime for which you are pardoned. This is an important doctrine because those "confessions" by individuals who accept Trump's pardons can actually come back to haunt them in a number of ways. Here's how . . .

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Trump Is Leaving Behind a Legacy of Insurrection, Corruption and Chaos
Late Night with Seth Meyers
A Closer Look
Jan 18, 2021

Seth takes a closer look at the damage President Trump will leave behind as we learn more about the insurrection he incited, his premeditated plan to steal the election and the Republican Party’s complicity.

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Trump's influential supporters spoke of what was coming before riot
by CNN
Jan 18, 2021



Some of President Donald Trump's most influential supporters -- among them members of his inner circle who were in direct contact with the President -- spoke in ominous and violent terms about what was coming on January 6. CNN's Drew Griffin takes a look. #CNN #News

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Roger Stone Addresses Pro-Trump Rally in Washington, D.C.
by Roger Stone
Jan 5, 2021

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Democratic lawmaker accuses Boebert of giving tours prior to insurrection
by Jim Sciutto, Ryan Nobles and Annie Grayer
CNN
Updated 7:21 PM ET, Mon January 18, 2021

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(CNN) Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said that he and a fellow lawmaker personally saw Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado guiding a group of people through the Cannon House Office Building tunnel in the days leading up the Capitol insurrection on January 6.

Cohen's accusation is significant because it is the first time a member of Congress has specifically accused another member of giving a tour of the Capitol complex prior to the riot. It comes after several Democratic members have suggested that their Republican colleagues may have been providing the tours as an opportunity for the would-be rioters to get the lay of the land ahead of a planned insurrection.

"Only thing that I've seen, Congressman Yarmuth refreshed my recollection yesterday. We saw (Rep.) Boebert taking a group of people for a tour sometime after the 3rd and before the 6th. I don't remember the day we were walking in a tunnel and we saw her and commented who she was and she had a large group with her. Now whether these people were people that were involved in the insurrection or not, I do not know," Cohen told CNN's Jim Sciutto on "CNN Newsroom."

Cohen continued, "She was a freshman, she might have had a large number of people coming to be with her on this historic occasion and just wanting to give them the opportunity to have a tour. But it is pretty clear that her team is the team -- she's not on the home team. She was with the visitors."

Boebert sent a letter to Cohen responding to the allegations he made on CNN, disputing the congressman's characterization and saying his comments "repeat irresponsible lies in order to elevate his own political relevance and to further fuel the division of our country."

"Let me be clear—all of your claims and implications are categorically false," Boebert wrote. "I have never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to any outside group. As I previously stated, I brought my family to the Capitol on January 2nd for a tour and on the 3rd for pictures to commemorate the day I was sworn in as a Member of the U.S. Congress. Again, the only people I have ever had in the Capitol with me during the 117th Congress are my young children, husband, mom, aunt and uncle."

Cohen has not reported his observation to the FBI or Capitol Police, a spokesperson for the congressman told CNN.

"He was only reminded of it when he talked to Mr. Yarmuth yesterday," the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson for Yarmuth confirmed that the congressman recalled seeing a group of people with Boebert earlier this month but would not comment on who those people were.

"On either January 3 or 4, Congressman Yarmuth was in the Cannon Tunnel going back to his office and saw Congresswoman Boebert walking in the direction of the Capitol," Yarmuth spokesman Christopher Schuler said in a statement. "While Congressman Yarmuth remembers there was a group of people around Congresswoman Boebert, he has no knowledge of who they were or if they were with her."

While Cohen is the first to specifically name Boebert as someone who may have given the tours, the rumors surrounding her role in the days leading up to January 6 were so heated that the congresswoman preemptively denied any wrongdoing. Boebert sent Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York a letter denying that she gave tours to insurrectionists after an interview on MSNBC in which Maloney accused Republican members of doing so. Maloney never mentioned Boebert by name.

"The only people I have ever had in the Capitol with me are my young children, husband, mom, aunt and uncle," Boebert wrote in the letter to Maloney. "My mother was the only one of those family members in Washington D.C. on the 6th. During the riots, my mother was locked in a secure location, not in the U.S. Capitol, with my staff and never left their sight."

Prior to the pandemic, the public had wide-ranging access to the Capitol complex, including the tunnels connecting the member office buildings to the Capitol itself. The Sergeant at Arms banned all tours of the Capitol Grounds at the start of the pandemic, but members of Congress were able to ignore the guidance. Lawmakers or staff led tours have never had to register visitors with Capitol Police, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of overall protocols told CNN.

Capitol Police and the FBI would not say on the record if they are investigating any members of Congress for their role in the planning leading up to the insurrection. USCP has not responded to CNN's request for comment about whether a tour led by Boebert is something they are looking into.

Still the activity of GOP members during that week, was enough for Democratic members to raise concerns to Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms. Their concerns were loud enough that the Capitol Police sent out a memo on January 4 reiterating the Capitol Hill policy that banned tours from the spring and completely shut down the Capitol Building on January 6 to only members and those who had offices there.

This story has been updated with additional developments Monday including a new statement from Boebert's office. CNN's Dana Bash and Sarah Westwood contributed to this report.

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34 House Democrats call for investigation into Jan. 5 tours by fellow members ahead of attack
Capitol is supposed to be closed to tours
by Katherine Tully-McManus
Roll Call
Posted January 13,2021 at 4:37pm

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Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., walks up the House steps for a vote in the Capitol on Sept. 17, 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Rep. Mikie Sherrill and 33 other House members want an investigation into access given by fellow House lawmakers to visitors to the Capitol on Jan. 5 before the violent attacks on Congress the next day.

The New Jersey Democrat alleged Tuesday night that members of Congress led guests on what she described as “reconnaissance” ahead of the insurrection on Jan. 6.

A letter issued Wednesday asks the acting House sergeant-at-arms, acting Senate sergeant-at-arms, and United States Capitol Police to investigate “suspicious behavior” on Jan. 5 and changes to visitor access.

“The visitors encountered by some of the Members of Congress on this letter appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day,” Sherrill wrote.

The New Jersey Democrat and former Navy pilot first made public her concerns about House members preparing rioters for their siege of the Capitol in a video on Facebook on Tuesday night.

The letter notes that she and other signatories, including former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, have served in military and intelligence roles and are trained to recognize suspicious activity.

“Members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout of the Capitol Complex. The presence of these groups within the Capitol Complex was indeed suspicious. Given the events of January 6, the ties between these groups inside the Capitol Complex and the attacks on the Capitol need to be investigated,” wrote the lawmakers.

Visitors, official tour groups and almost anyone without a congressional ID have been barred from the Capitol since mid-March, when the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic led congressional leaders to partially close the usually public building.

But members of Congress have been disregarding those strictures to bring in families and friends for small private tours for months, and Capitol Police stationed at entrances typically don’t challenge lawmakers to enforce rules.

The letter asks if there is a database of guests to the Capitol and if SAA staff and Capitol Police require lawmakers to sign in guests upon entry. They also want to know if facial recognition software is in use for visitors entering the Capitol complex.

“The tours being conducted on Tuesday, January 5, were a noticeable and concerning departure from the procedures in place as of March 2020 that limited the number of visitors to the Capitol. These tours were so concerning that they were reported to the Sergeant at Arms on January 5,” Sherrill and others wrote.

Majority Whip James E. Clyburn is not a signatory on the letter, but he has raised questions about how rioters knew some of the most hidden, obscure destinations in the Capitol to target and loot.

Clyburn’s second-floor office, with his name above the door, remained untouched during the destruction and violence last week. But a more private office, which is unmarked on the third floor, was targeted.

“There are many members of the United States Congress right now who could not tell you where that office is and could not find that office if they needed to,” the South Carolina Democrat told MSNBC.

“Yeah, but they found it. Nobody touched the door where my name is,” he said.

He said a thorough investigation is needed, and he questioned how the insurrectionists knew how to find an unmarked office of one of the top members of the House.

The Capitol Police Inspector General has already opened an investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, including officer conduct and potential failures of planning and leadership.

Many questions have been raised about how rioters got so deep into the Capitol without being stopped or apprehended, including looting the Senate chamber and breaking into and posing for pictures in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

There is also a sprawling federal investigation into the mob that stormed the Capitol. Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, stressed Tuesday that the scope and scale of the probe means it would take months to uncover what happened when thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump surrounded the building and flooded the halls of Congress.

Chris Marquette and Todd Ruger contributed to this report.

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Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’
by Christal Hayes
USA TODAY
Published 1:03 p.m. ET Jan. 19 2021 Updated 3:34 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2021

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“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., issued his most striking condemnation of President Donald Trump after the attack at the U.S. Capitol, saying the mob of protesters were “provoked by the president.”

“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, casting a clear shot not only at Trump but fellow Republicans who backed the president’s efforts to overturn election results in several swing states.

McConnell publicly split with Trump after the attack, which happened as the House and Senate counted Electoral College votes this month. The Kentucky Republican left open the possibility of convicting Trump at his second impeachment trial, a departure from McConnell's role during Trump's first impeachment in which he worked in concert with the White House to ensure the president was acquitted.

The Senate continues to prepare for Trump's second impeachment trial even though his term will officially end Wednesday when Joe Biden is sworn into office. Constitutional scholars debate whether a former president can be convicted once he has left office.

The House passed one article of impeachment Jan. 13, charging Trump with inciting an insurrection at the Capitol. It passed with the support of 10 Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who will lead the chamber after Democrats take control Wednesday, said the Senate must move forward on a trial to ensure that the "severest offense ever committed by a president would be met by the severest remedy provided by the Constitution."

"The Senate has the solemn responsibility to try and hold Donald Trump accountable for the most serious charge ever levied against a president: the incitement of an insurrection against the United States of America," Schumer said.

Schumer vowed that the chamber would vote to bar Trump from holding office again, something allowed during an impeachment trial.

Both Senate leaders said Wednesday would usher in a new start in Washington. Schumer noted the chamber would take on COVID-19 relief and address immigration changes in the coming days.

McConnell highlighted the close margins in the House and Senate as a sign that the American people want their leaders to work together.

“There are serious challenges that our nation needs to continue confronting,” McConnell said. “Our marching orders from the American people are clear – we’re to have a robust discussion and seek common ground.”

He said, “We must always keep in mind that we’re all Americans. We all love this country. And we’re all in this together.”

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U.S. Senate Press Gallery
Room S-316 of the U.S. Capitol
(202)224-0241
Tuesday, January 19, 2021

1:07 p.m. Senator Booker paid tribute to USCP Officer Sicknick.

12:51 p.m. Senator Durbin spoke on the attack on the Capitol and paid tribute to his departing chief of staff.

12:39 p.m. Senator Loeffler gave her farewell speech.

12:21 p.m. Senator Schumer spoke on the Inauguration and upcoming Biden Administration nominations.

12:03 p.m. ML McConnell spoke on the attack on the Capitol.

12:02 p.m. Senator Grassley spoke on constituent meetings.

The Senate will convene at 12:00 noon and be in a period of morning business. Votes are not expected today but are still possible.

[admin]

Need A Domestic Terrorist? Dial 9-1-1
by Michael Moore
Rumble podcast, Ep. 156
Premiered Jan 17, 2021