;)
The Commentariat -- January 10, 2021
This is Sunday. I'm supposed to be taking the day off. But that damned SOB Trump once again won't let me. -- Marie
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here.
Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Sunday that the House plans to vote this week to impeach President Trump -- but that the chamber may wait a few months to submit the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Clyburn's comments come amid tensions in the Democratic Party on whether to press ahead with action to hold Trump accountable for last week's deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol or whether to prioritize the agenda of President-elect Joe Biden, who will be inaugurated Jan. 20.... Democrats are weighing whether to wait until after the Biden administration's first 100 days to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, to allow the new president to install key members of his team." A CNN story is here.
Ken Dilanian, et al., of NBC News: "The FBI and the New York Police Department passed information [in the form of a report] to the Capitol Police about the possibility of violence during the Jan. 6 protests against certification of the presidential election, and the FBI even visited more than a dozen extremists already under investigation to urge them not to travel to Washington, senior law enforcement officials told NBC News. Those previously unreported details undercut the assertion by a top FBI official this week that officials had no indication violence was a possibility, and add to questions of what intelligence authorities had reviewed prior to the Capitol riot.... 'Prior to this event, the FBI obtained credible and actionable information about individuals who were planning on traveling to the protests who expressed a desire to engage in violence,' the senior FBI official told NBC News. 'The FBI was able to discourage those individuals from traveling to D.C.'... The FBI official said that by dissuading some extremists from traveling to Washington, the bureau may have prevented an even more violent situation."
Arnold Goes There, and He Should Know. Kat Lonsdorf of NPR: "Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a heartfelt video to Twitter on Sunday, recounting his childhood in Austria after World War II and denouncing the violent mob that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. The video, nearly eight minutes long and set to swelling music, starts by recalling Kristallnacht -- or the Night of Broken Glass.... 'Wednesday was the day of broken glass right here in the United States,' Schwarzenegger says in the video, which by Sunday afternoon had been viewed nearly 12 million times.... Schwarzenegger's father was a member of the Nazi party -- something Schwarzenegger himself didn't know until decades later -- and in the video, he talks openly about his father's anger and the abuse he inflicted on the family after the war."
The New York Times' presidential transition live updates Sunday are here: "While sheltering in a secure location as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, House lawmakers may have been exposed to someone who was infected with the coronavirus.... In an email sent to lawmakers, Dr. Brian P. Monahan ... said that ... 'individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.'... Dozens of lawmakers, staff members and reporters took shelter in the secure room on Wednesday, but a handful of Republicans refused to wear masks, one person there said, even as Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, tried to pass out masks.... Representative Jake LaTurner of Kansas, received positive test results after voting on the House floor to overturn Arizona's results and did not return for a second vote early Thursday. It was unclear where Mr. LaTurner was sheltering in place...." Thanks to RAS for the lead. An AP story on Monahan's warning is here.
Kevin Manahan of NJ.com: "The PGA of America will strip Donald Trump of the 2022 PGA Championship, which is scheduled to be held at Trump National Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. In a blistering column that says the golf world must sever all ties with Trump, Golfweek's Eamon Lynch said the PGA has been debating for two years the need to move the major championship and, once Trump is out of office, will announce the tournament will be played elsewhere[.]"
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Whether President Trump is forced from office or serves out the remaining days of his term, he is now destined to slink out of the White House considerably diminished from the strapping, fearsome force he and his advisers imagined he would be in his post-presidency. In the wake of the mob attack on the Capitol that Trump incited, some allies have abandoned him, many in the business community have shunned him and Twitter took away his social media megaphone.... Trump had planned to retreat from Washington to plot a comeback that could return him to the White House in four years, but now he will have to contend with a possible second impeachment or perhaps even criminal charges."
Sarah Mimms of BuzzFeed News: "Republicans in Congress are demanding 'unity' after 147 of them voted to try to overturn the election, propping up the very lies that led a mob of ... Donald Trump's supporters to violently attack the US Capitol on Wednesday. The calls for unity came not in the immediate aftermath of the storming of the Capitol..., [but] as Democrats began to consider imposing consequences." MB: There is nothing that beats attack dog Jim Jordan's calling for "unity & healing." I hope every time Jordan makes a speech on the floor of the House or speaks up during a committee hearing, a Democrat will ask him what happened to his call for "unity & healing."
Kelsey Tamborrino of Politico: "'I don't think there's any doubt at all, there's none in my mind, that the president's behavior after the election was wildly different than his behavior before,' said [Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)] on CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday. 'He descended into a level of madness and engaged in activity that was absolutely unthinkable and unforgivable.'... The senator described the events of last week as 'orders of magnitude more egregious than anything we have ever seen from Donald Trump before.'... He reiterated that Trump should resign -- echoing his Republican colleague, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski." MB: IOW: All the scary things he's done before were to other people, but this time he scared me. Since Trump has been so successful at threatening & belittling individual Members of Congress into submission, it hasn't occurred to him that siccing a mob of terrorists on all of them at once might be a bridge too far.
~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Davies & Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden still plans to be sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol ... exactly two weeks after a pro-Trump mob with rioters wielding Confederate flags stormed the building to attack the very nation Biden was elected to lead.... The event was already scaled down and subdued by the coronavirus pandemic. And now, the Biden administration has the added weight of showing strength and stability to the rest of the world, which watched in horror as American democracy wavered from the exact place where he is to take the oath of office.... Plans were in progress Thursday to continue with the inauguration and swearing in of Biden on the west front of the U.S. Capitol.... Some involved in the inauguration planning ... noted that the security footprint for the event will be much larger than it was Wednesday at the Capitol. The inauguration is deemed a National Special Security Event (NSSE), which brings in a wide range of federal agencies and law enforcement officials that create a wide security perimeter, with road closures and barriers around the Capitol. The Secret Service, the agency responsible for designing and implementing a security operation plan for such events, released a statement Thursday night stressing its readiness for Inauguration Day." ~~~
~~~ The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser
Anna Schecter of NBC News: "In the wake of Wednesday's riot at the Capitol, Trump supporters with extremist views feel emboldened and are vowing to return to Washington for the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, using online platforms to rally each other. 'Many of Us will return on January 19, 2021, carrying Our weapons, in support of Our nation's resolve, towhich [sic] the world will never forget!!! We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match,' wrote a popular Parler user who frequently posts about QAnon, and is being tracked by the Anti-Defamation League.... 'Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don't even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war,' an anonymous person posted on the platform TheDonald.win, which is filled with comments posted by people who lauded those who rioted Wednesday as 'heroes.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: In answer to a reporter's question Friday, Biden said he was not concerned about safety at his inaugural event because (a) event security will be managed by an entirely different entity: the Secret Service (as opposed to the Capitol Police), and (b) the event is classified a "special security event" which Trump's January 6 insurrection was not.
Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "The sight of a violent mob inspired by President Trump smashing its way into the Capitol ... highlighted one of the most dangerous parts of Mr. Trump's legacy: the disbelief in democracy that has metastasized among many of his supporters.... In lengthy interviews with some of them this week, they expressed sympathy with what they said were the motives of the mob -- to stop the counting of Electoral College results in Congress, under the false premise that widespread fraud had deprived the president of re-election. The adherence of Mr. Trump's base to his groundless claims of a 'sacred landslide' victory, and their rejection of a routine Constitutional process -- a position abetted by 147 Congressional Republicans who objected to certifying Mr. Biden's election -- suggests that a core part of the Republican Party, both voters and some officials, is dead-set on rejecting the legitimacy of any politics or party but their own."
When you have a president pushing them to descend on state capitols and take them over with few consequences, the next logical step is to move from states' to the nation's capital. -- Bruce Hoffman, terrorism expert ~~~
~~~ Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post: "The problem with devotion to a prophet of falsehoods is that reality eventually intrudes. By mid-December, President Trump's fraudulent claims of a rigged election were failing in humiliating fashion. Lawsuits were being laughed out of courts. State officials, including Republicans, were refusing to bend to his will and alter the vote. And in a seemingly decisive blow on Dec. 14, the electoral college certified the win for Joe Biden. It was a disorienting sequence for legions of supporters who believed Trump's lies that the election had been stolen from him but that he would prevail and reclaim it -- especially those who had already descended into deeper, more disturbing conspiracies.... As it became clear that Pence would refuse [to alter the Electoral College results,] with the backing of most Senate Republicans, Trump's most ardent abettors began planning the siege of the Capitol.... The temporary seizure of a global seat of power was, at its core, an outgrowth of delusional and destructive forces cultivated online and unleashed by the president.... The conspiracy theories that [Trump] put forward, echoed by allies and prominent Republican lawmakers, morphed for thousands of followers into a call for action. By early January, raiding Congress had emerged as a clear objective in dozens of far-right forums." ~~~
~~~ Marie: For those who would argue that Trump could not have anticipated how his incitement of violence would play out, I would remind them that the insurrectionists plans should have been better-known to him than to almost all of us. First, it's clear from his now-defunct Twitter feed that Trump followed these groups. He often retweeted their nonsense. Second, Trump has better access than any of us to national security briefings, and briefers would have warned him of the looming dangers. If Trump refused to listen to or accept the advice of these briefings, that is his fault; wilful ignorance is no excuse.
Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two men seen in some of the most memorable images of Wednesday's assault on the Capitol have been charged and arrested, as federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia target high-profile figures from the pro-Trump riot. Jacob Anthony Chansley of Arizona, who also goes by Jake Angeli, [the horned guy pictured here last week,] is accused of trespassing on Capitol grounds, entering violently and committing disorderly conduct while there. Adam Johnson, 36, of Bradenton, Fla., faces the same charges as well as theft of government property in connection with [carrying off [Nancy Pelosi's] lectern. Prosecutors also detailed charges against a man [Cleveland Meredith] accused of threatening to kill Pelosi (D-Calif.) and against a West Virginia state lawmaker [-- Derrick Evans (R) --] who resigned his office Saturday.... While prosecutors do not allege that Meredith ever got near Pelosi, they say he was carrying a 9mm Glock 19 pistol, an Israeli army standard-issue Tavor X95 assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.... He texted a friend to say he was 'Thinking about heading over to Pelosi ... speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.'..." The Guardian's story is here.
Kim Bellware of the Washington Post: "Police officers and at least one police chief from departments across the United States are facing termination, suspension or other discipline for their proximity to or alleged involvement in a chaotic gathering in Washington on Wednesday that ended in a riot at the U.S. Capitol.... Departments in California, Washington state, and Texas are among those that have announced investigations into their officers based on tips, social media posts and other evidence...." ~~~
~~~ NBC News 4 New York City: "The New York City Fire Department has turned over information to the FBI on multiple members who were allegedly at the U.S. Capitol when rioters charged the building. A spokesperson for the FDNY confirmed that a number of its members reportedly identified as being at Wednesday's riot.... 'The Department received anonymous allegations that active or retired members were present at the events at the United States Capitol on January 6 and, as required, has provided that information to the FBI,' Frank Dwyer, a spokesperson for the FDNY, said."
Brian Stelter of CNN: "News outlets are publishing more and more videos, photos and testimonials from Wednesday's pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill. And it's becoming clear that as heinous as the attack looked in real time, on live TV and in our social feeds, it was even worse than we knew then. It was even more violent. It was even more treacherous. And Trump's behavior was even more disturbing.... There are all sorts of practical reasons why these scenes weren't shown live on Wednesday. Inside the Capitol, many correspondents were locked down and shepherded to secure locations along with lawmakers.... On the outside, some reporters had a hard time getting news out because wireless towers were overwhelmed. Additionally, some news crews were threatened by groups of Trump supporters, making the working conditions even more difficult. Some of the TV live shots on Wednesday afternoon were from a distance, by necessity, and the most important live cameras of all -- inside the House and Senate chambers -- were turned off by the respective legislative bodies.... Only later did it become clear that lawmakers feared for their lives; that some of the attackers were hunting for congressional leaders; that there could have been a massacre."
Dan Barry, et al., of the New York Times: "... the insurrection ... had been the culmination of a sustained assault by the president and his enablers on fact-based reality, one that began long before the November election but took on a fevered urgency as the certainty of Mr. Trump's defeat solidified. For years, he had demonized political opponents and the media and egged on thuggish behavior at his rallies. Since losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr., he had mounted a campaign of lies that the presidency was being stolen from him, and that marching on the Capitol was the last chance to stop it.... Some of his supporters heard ... a battle cry. Now, dozens of them have been arrested -- including an armed Alabama man who had Molotov cocktails in his car and a West Virginia lawmaker ... -- and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asking for help in identifying those who 'actively instigated violence.' Many participants in the march are frantically working to erase digital evidence of their presence for fear of losing a job or being harassed online." The story goes on to describe the moods & remarks of some of the terrorists, like this: "Couy Griffin, 47, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico, spoke of organizing another Capitol rally soon -- one that could result in 'blood running out of that building' -- in a video he later posted to the Facebook page of his group, Cowboys for Trump." MB: The photos accompanying the story remind us that the siege on the Capitol was, among its other atrocities, a Covid-19 superspreader event.
Cori Bush, in a Washington Post op-ed: "My skin burned for 22 hours after I was pepper-sprayed [in July 2020]. The memory of that burn stung with a new kind of pain on Wednesday as I, now a newly sworn-in member of Congress, watched in horror and disbelief as an insurrectionist mob overran the Capitol. Back in July, we had been protesting at the police station in Florissant, Mo., where a police officer had recently run over a Black man with his car. The police had been beating protesters for weeks. They tear-gassed us to the point of suffocation for painting 'Black Lives Matter' on a road, arrested us for putting our fists in the air and beat those who they'd taken into custody.... Watching [the Jan. 6 terrorist attack] on TV [from my House office], we saw white supremacists stroll past Capitol Police, untouched and unscathed.... It's clear to me that top law enforcement leaders on Capitol Hill had little interest in preventing this attempted insurrection.... This is the America that Black people know.... Justice starts at removing each and every representative who incited this insurrection. I've unveiled my first piece of legislation that would do just that." ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Traister of New York interviews Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal: "We could hear the insurrectionists coming in. Then we saw the Speaker and the leadership being taken off the floor; there was a brief suspension of proceedings, but by then we were seeing all the social-media posts of what was happening outside.... Before we knew it, everyone on the floor below us had been removed, and ... we were still there. And it didn't look like anyone was coming to get us.... I don't know how long it was, maybe an hour and a half, until we were finally ushered out and taken down the stairs to a secure location.... I'm quarantining now because I am convinced that where we ended up, in the secured room -- where there were over 100 people and many were Republicans not wearing masks -- was a superspreader event.... The lack of security at the Capitol is not an accident. It is very clear to me that there were breaches of our law-enforcement agencies. The fact that there were no barriers, that they were essentially allowed in." --s MB: Emphasis added. Firewalled. (Also linked yesterday.)
Haley Talbot of NBC News reports on what happened inside the House chamber as the terrorists overtook the building: "I was sure we would proceed with the floor debate and continue with the certification until an announcement was made that rioters had breached the Capitol.... An announcement was made that there was tear gas in the Rotunda. 'Grab the gas masks under your seats and be ready to put them on.' That is when the panic was really palpable. Everyone was shuffling, yelling, no one knew what to do or where to go.... I kept thinking that even though we were all sheltering under our chairs, we weren't under any real threat. And then the glass shattered.... [Eventually, we were evacuated, but didn't know where we were going.] When we finally made it to our secure location..., I tried to walk in [and] was told 'members only' by an officer guarding the entrance. [Rep. Abigail] Spanberger [D-Va.] refused to go in the hearing room until she knew [members of the press] were safe.... As the confrontation with the guard ensued, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., [took] us down the hall to his office."
"Don't Tread on Me". Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "A woman who was reportedly trampled to death [link fixed] during a riot inside the U.S. Capitol was reportedly obsessed with the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to her friends and family. A photo shows that she carried a Gadsden 'don't tread on me' flag at a protest before the violent siege.... Rosanne Boyland, 34, was among four of ... Donald Trump's supporters who died Wednesday inside the Capitol" --s (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Hmm. Ever since Wednesday night, news reports have cited three of the deaths that occurred during the Capitol insurrection as the results of "medical emergencies." I would not describe "trampled to death" as a "medical emergency" situation. Rather, I'd call it a homicide. BTW, I was going to get after safari for mocking the circumstances of the woman's death with that "Don't Tread on Me" headline -- till I read the second sentence he excerpted. Her death, it seems was both tragically & comically ironic.
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "A web of pro-Trump dark money groups helped organize the rally that led to a deadly riot on Capitol Hill.... The rally, officially known as the 'March to Save America,' was largely organized by a 501(c)(4) group known as Women for America First.... Women for America First is chaired by Amy Kremer, a longtime political operative that was once the head of the Tea Party Express, an organization that was created to support the conservative Tea Party movement. Kylie Jane Kremer, the executive director of Women for Trump [MB: and Women for America First], is named on the rally's permit as the person in charge.... Women for America First's Facebook pages show they were calling on supporters to be part of what they described as a 'caravan' to Washington for the event.... Women for America First's executive director [Kylie Jane] promoted the rally through a Twitter post that has been retweeted over 16,000 times and, she notes that it was shared by the president himself.... Women for Trump were involved with setting up a backstage area [which Trump's family & staff used]." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The message Kylie Jane wrote in her tweet promoting the rally, which Trump retweeted, was, "The calvary is coming, Mr. President!" Inasmuch as it's nearly as difficult to move hills as it is mountains, I think Kylie Jane means "cavalry," don't you? And that description of rally-goers as members of powerful military fighting units makes her tweet -- and Trump's retweet -- explicitly violent.
~~~ Laura Strickler & Lisa Cavazuti of NBC: "An arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a national group representing the top law enforcement officers in their states, sent out robocalls encouraging people to march to the U.S. Capitol the day before the building was stormed by a pro-Trump mob. 'At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,' said the voice on the recording, which was obtained by NBC News." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times remembers when her father, "Captain Mike" Dowd led the Senate's security team: "At least Trump put my conservative siblings and me on the same page for once. We agreed -- seeing the mob crash in; seeing lawmakers fearing for their lives, crouching and hiding and making calls to plead for the cavalry to come from any of the myriad federal and local police forces here, as Confederate flags waved -- that this was a heartbreaking disgrace. It would have enraged my father." (Also linked yesterday.)
David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Barely hours after Twitter permanently banned ... Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump account, Trump accessed a U.S. government account, posted tweets attacking the social media company, and threatened to create a start-up competitor platform. 'As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me,' Trump tweeted from the @POTUS account, which some might say is an unlawful use of government resources and assets.... 'We will not be SILENCED!' Trump threatened." Twitter immediately deleted the tweets. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. Adolfo Flores & John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed News: "Apple on Saturday expelled Parler, the social network favored by conservatives and right-wing extremists, from the App Store after it failed to implement a full moderation plan following criticism that the platform was used to plan the riot at the US Capitol. 'Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people's safety,' Apple said in a statement. 'We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.'"
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who has played a leading role in opposing efforts to throw out the results of the 2020 election, on Saturday said President Trump has 'committed impeachable offenses.'... Toomey ... plans to retire from Congress at the end of 2022 to return to the private sector. Toomey said [in a Fox 'News' interview] he did not know whether the Senate would act on any articles of impeachment passed by the House during the final 11 days of Trump's term in office and voiced concern that Democrats may try to 'politicize' the process."
Melanie Zanona & Olivia Beavers of Politico: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise are facing backlash from their Republican colleagues for standing by ... Donald Trump after he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol this week, fueling a bitter divide in the GOP conference at a perilous moment for the party.... A cohort of House Republicans ... say McCarthy and Scalise failed to show leadership in a time of crisis and should have done more to call out Trump for his role in the riots that left five people dead.... Some lawmakers were also upset that McCarthy and Scalise -- along with over 120 House Republicans, easily a majority of the conference -- still supported objecting to the electors from several states after the riots ensued.... McCarthy appeared to do some damage control on Friday, putting out a statement acknowledging Joe Biden as the president-elect for the first time and saying he had reached out to Biden.... Scalise, meanwhile, acknowledged Friday night on Fox News that Trump's words 'didn't help and in fact caused a lot of real division.' He also said the president's initial response 'should have been an unequivocal, just complete, unequivocal calling out of what was going on at the time when people were storming the Capitol.'"
BUT. Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Three days after a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol carried out in President Trump's name, Republican leaders have yet to outline plans to hold anyone accountable or to alter a platform and priorities lashed to the outgoing Republican president. Trump and some congressional Republicans, meanwhile, stepped up their efforts Saturday to head off Democratic efforts to impeach Trump.... Behind closed doors, Trump and ... Jared Kushner have encouraged allies to fight against a potential impeachment by issuing statements on social media or elsewhere that discourage or condemn the move, people familiar with the calls said.... [But] Republican allies of the president were mainly muted Saturday, as pressure continued to mount among Democrats to try to force Trump from office before his term expires Jan. 20....
"Trump spent much of the day Saturday railing about Twitter taking his account, according to two officials. The president has not said anything about the five people who died in the attack.... He ... complained to advisers that he is being treated unfairly.... Trump has not spoken to Pence since before the assault, when he urged Pence to try to block congressional certification of Biden's victory.... Trump remains angry at Pence for refusing to do as Trump wished." MB: According to an on-air CNN report, pence & his family could hear Trump-inspired terrorists inside the Capitol building calling for pence's head; yet Trump is mad at pence.
** Jim Acosta of CNN: "Vice President Mike Pence has not ruled out an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and wants to preserve the option in case ... Donald Trump becomes more unstable, a source close to the vice president says. The source said there is some concern inside Pence's team that there are risks to invoking the 25th Amendment or even to an impeachment process, as Trump could take some sort of rash action putting the nation at risk.... The source cautioned, it has become clear this week that it is necessary to keep the 25th Amendment option on the table based on Trump's actions." This is a breaking story. MB: This is a clever move on pence's part, as it may work to enforce a sort of "pocket removal" of Trump; that is, it could cause Trump to decide against doing crazy things for fear his own Veep & Cabinet would remove him for pulling or attempting to pull such stunts. ~~~
~~~ NEVERTHELESS. Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: Donald Trump is "determined to remain in office and make himself look good -- body count aside. According to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, the president at one point in the White House on Friday 'literally yelled' the words, 'I'M NOT GOING TO RESIGN,' before launching into a tirade about how Democratic lawmakers will regret their push to impeach him a second time, and that they are hurting 'the country' by doing so.... According to two sources..., the president and several close advisers are now discussing the possibility of Trump sitting for multiple media interviews in the coming days, in an attempt to boast about his time in office...."
Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "President Trump urged Georgia's lead elections investigator to 'find the fraud' in a lengthy December phone call, saying the official would be a 'national hero,' according to an individual familiar with the call.... Trump placed the call to the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state's office shortly before Christmas -- while the individual was leading an inquiry into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County.... In late December, [Trump's chief-of-staff Mark] Meadows traveled to Cobb County to see for himself how the ballot-signature audit was proceeding.... Meadows was not allowed in the room where the audit was occurring..., but he was able to peer through the window of the door. Trump called the chief investigator the following day." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Reuters: "The White House pushed the top federal prosecutor in Atlanta to resign before Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff because ... Donald Trump was unhappy that he wasn't doing enough to investigate Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The Justice Department on Tuesday tapped a new federal prosecutor to lead the Atlanta office, a day after the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. 'BJay' Pak, abruptly resigned.... The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said that at the behest of the White House, a senior Justice Department official called and told Pak he needed to step down because he was not pursuing the voter-fraud allegations to Trump's satisfaction.... [In his phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger], Trump appeared to complain during the call about Pak without naming him, saying there was a 'Never Trumper U.S. attorney' in Georgia." MB: We thought Pak's sudden resignation smelled fishy, and it was. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here's something I still don't get. Why was Trump devoting so much attention to Georgia's election results when overturning that state's results alone would not give him nearly enough Electoral College votes to overtake Biden's advantage?
Emily Jane Fox of Vanity Fair: "Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have spent the past five years performing a mincing dance around reality, spinning their own parallel universe instead.... The weight of Wednesday's insurrection ... stopped that dance cold.... Wednesday's depravity and the couple's role in it officially made them radioactive.... Having any association with them suddenly became the more difficult option. 'People used to fear Trump's wrath,' another former friend of Ivanka's told me. 'Now they fear his affiliation. The stink of his family is nearly impossible to get off. How do you associate yourself with the worst, most toxic people in U.S. history?'" --s Firewalled. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Molly Jong-Fast writes a column in the Daily Beast titled, "The One Good Thing the MAGA Mobs Smashed? The Trump Kids' Futures." It's a members-only feature, so if you happen to be a "member," you can read more than the first two grafs. (Also linked yesterday.)
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times reports Little Lord FloutTheLaw Josh Hawley's response to becoming the Most Unpopular Senator (R-Kansas). "His fellow Republicans in the Senate lined up to blame Mr. Hawley for the riot. The editorial boards of major newspapers in Missouri accused him of having 'blood on his hands' and called on him to resign. His publisher canceled his book deal and his erstwhile mentor [-- former GOP Sen. John Danforth --] called his efforts to get Mr. Hawley elected to the Senate 'the biggest mistake I've ever made.'" My favorite part of Hawley's response: "The publisher Simon & Schuster said it was canceling publication of his book 'The Tyranny of Big Tech,' citing 'his role in what became a dangerous threat." Mr. Hawley responded with an angry statement that called his former publisher a 'woke mob' and described their decision as 'a direct assault on the First Amendment.'" Hawley has a law degree from Yale & was secretary of the state of Kansas. He knows damned well that a private publishing company cannot "assault the First Amendment." (Also linked yesterday.)
Henry Farrell & Elizabeth Saunders in a Washington Post op-ed: "Washington generally shrugs at cynical theatrical gestures like the GOP Senate effort, led by Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.), to object to the election results.... But this time, the prop revolvers were loaded with live bullets, and half the audience thought the drama was real.... The two main protagonists knew they were playacting. Hawley and Cruz graduated from top universities and law schools and clerkships. They know what the Constitution says and how elections work. Even before Wednesday, they understood that their maneuvers wouldn't actually overturn the 2020 results, so there would be no real consequences.... Democracy is built upon the notion that politicians who lose elections will admit defeat and move on. By challenging this idea -- however insincerely -- Hawley and Cruz are helping unravel the core political bargains of American politics."
Norman Eisen, in a Washington Post op-ed: "There was a terrible paradox in the images of Republican members of Congress driven into safe rooms by insurrectionists whom President Trump had whipped into a frenzy. As a lawyer for the Democratic House managers at Trump's impeachment and trial, I [watched] ... as these same lawmakers refused to hold him accountable, knowingly unleashing the storm ... on Wednesday. Impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) ... had warned them: 'President Trump has made clear in word and deed that he will persist in such conduct if he is not removed from power. He poses a continuing threat to our nation, to the integrity of our elections and to our democratic order. He must not remain in power one moment longer.' This last week's events -- and indeed all the president's abuses during this election cycle and the last year -- are a consequence of their refusal to convict him in his impeachment trial.... [After Trump, in one high crime, failed to coerce Georgia secretary of state Brad] Raffensperger ... [to 'find' just enough votes to give him a victory in the state], Trump turned to his last refuge and his latest high crime and misdemeanor: inciting his mob. They were his hardest-core supporters, urged by his Twitter feed to come to Washington. He urged them, 'Be there, will be wild!' And when they gathered, he exhorted them to march on the Capitol and said, 'If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore.'"
David Folkenflik of NPR: "Fresh crises and fresh challenges confront the Trump-appointed CEO of the parent of Voice of America, even with less than two weeks left of the Trump presidency. To start, the Attorney General of the District of Columbia this week accused U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack of illegally funneling more than $4 million to his private documentary company through a not-for-profit that he also controls. Then, five recent chiefs of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - appointed under Democratic and Republican administrations - jointly warned President-elect Joe Biden that Pack poses 'a long-term threat to the credibility and professionalism of the five networks' he oversees. And now Pack is now being accused of trying to propagandize the Voice of America by a group of whistleblowers.... [MB: worst sentence ever published on NPR site] [Pack] has sought to outlast his time in office by burrowing himself and conservative allies into boards[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Oregon. Sarah Polus of The Hill: "A video surfaced Friday night of Republican Oregon Rep. Mike Nearman pushing a door open as he exited the state Capitol, allowing protesters to enter the building as a legislative session was underway.... A stream of protesters are then seen entering the building before State Police force them out, resulting in a scuffle.... At the time of the breach, a coronavirus special session was underway inside the Capitol. Those who entered the building illegally, some carrying rifles, had been protesting the state's COVID-19 restrictions outside at the time[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)
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