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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Chris Stein

January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes United States Kyle Young Capitol US Capitol Joe Biden Michael Fanone Police
Members of the House January 6 committee are seen as video of the US Capitol is displayed behind them during a hearing in July.
Members of the House January 6 committee are seen as video of the US Capitol is displayed behind them during a hearing in July. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Closing summary

The January 6 insurrection continued to reverberate through Washington, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, began, while another rioter was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack postponed its hearing planned for Wednesday, citing Hurricane Ian’s approach towards Florida.

Here’s what else happened today:

  • The top Senate Republican said he would support a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, greatly raising its chances of passage.

  • The Biden administration condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion laws after a university said its staff should only offer condoms for preventing STIs, not as birth control.

  • Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seek care in other states.

  • The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.

Top Senate Republican endorses changes to election law intended to stop another January 6

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has endorsed a measure to change the procedures for counting electoral votes to prevent the types of legal strategies allies of Donald Trump attempted on January 6.

“I look forward to supporting the legislation, as introduced in committee,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.

While it was already thought to have the votes to pass, McConnell’s endorsement greatly increases the bill’s chances of passing the Democratic-controlled chamber, where most legislation requires the support of at least 10 Republicans in addition to all Democrats.

The bill, called the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, clarifies the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which Trump’s allies cited loopholes in to try to convince vice-president Mike Pence to delay or overturn Joe Biden’s election win when Congress convened on January 6, 2021.

The leaders of the January 6 committee have issued a statement explaining their decision to postpone tomorrow’s hearing, citing the threat of Hurricane Ian.

“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings. We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path,” the committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”

Updated

Tomorrow’s hearing of the January 6 committee has indeed been postponed, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell confirms:

January 6 committee mulling postponement due to Hurricane Ian

The January 6 committee may reschedule its hearing set for tomorrow due to Hurricane Ian, which is expected to hit Florida’s west coast and could cause severe damage, The Washington Post reports:

The Wednesday hearing is the first since late July, and potentially the committee’s last public session before the 8 November midterms. The bipartisan committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol was expected to air a variety of new evidence, potentially touching on the actions of Trump ally Roger Stone as well as the Secret Service.

The White House has condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion law after a university cited it when warning staff that condoms could be provided to prevent sexually transmitted infections, but not as birth control.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the university’s warning is an indication that the legislation is intended to undercut rights:

Updated

The sentencing of Kyle Young, a January 6 rioter who pled guilty to a charge of assaulting the police, is underway in Washington.

Two of the Washington police officers he assaulted have spoken at the Iowa man’s sentencing, including Michael Fanone, who was shocked by another rioter with a taser as Young restrained him. He’s asked for Young to be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, much more than federal prosecutors are seeking.

Here’s more from Politico:

Secret Service turned cellphones of agents involved in January 6 over to inspector general

The Secret Service took cellphones from 24 agents involved in its response to January 6 and turned them over to the homeland security department’s inspector general as he investigates the deletion of text messages and other data from around the time of the insurrection, NBC News reports.

While it’s not clear what Joseph Cuffari has been able to obtain from the phones, NBC says the seizure of the government-supplied devices occurred in July, after the inspector general informed the Secret Service that he would launch a criminal probe into the deletion of the records.

The missing data has become a major issue for the January 6 committee, which has taken evidence from a variety of people at the Capitol and in the Trump White House around the time of the attack. Interest in what the Secret Service knew about the insurrection was raised after Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson said that agents had witnessed alarming behavior by the then-president shortly before the attack, including a physical altercation for the steering wheel of his limousine. However, the agency said data from 5 and 6 January were lost in a pre-planned upgrade of its cellphones.

Cuffari himself has also come in for criticism. Last week, staff of the homeland security watchdog called on president Joe Biden to fire him, accusing him in an anonymous letter of “poor decision-making”, the Project on Government Oversight reported. Appointed by Trump, Cuffari is a former aide to Republican Arizona governors Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer.

Thomas Zimmer writes…

As the January 6 hearings are about to resume, it is unlikely that our basic understanding of what happened between the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the Capitol will significantly change.

That is a testament to the crucial work the committee has already done and to which we owe much of our detailed knowledge of the weeks long, multi-level coup attempt and the evolving strategies of those involved in this deliberate campaign to nullify the election results, prevent the transfer of power and end constitutional government in America.

And yet, the committee’ job is far from done.

It still has an important role to play in determining the meaning and role of January 6 in US history. Was the attack on the US Capitol a failed, desperate, last-ditch effort by delusional extremists? Or will it be remembered as a milestone in America’s accelerating descent into authoritarianism – an assault on the system that didn’t succeed initially but played a key role in democracy’s demise?

The answer to these questions is not decided by facts and past events. In a very real sense, January 6 isn’t over yet, and the success or failure of the Trumpian coup attempt will be decided by what happens next.

If that sounds counter-intuitive, it is helpful to examine how the meaning of another infamous historical event to which January 6 has often been compared – the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler’s failed coup attempt in November 1923 – changed significantly over time.

More:

Gloria Oladipo writes…

The Department of Justice has pushed back on the unsubstantiated claims from Donald Trump that the agency planted evidence during its search of Mar-a-Lago in August, submitting a slightly amended list of seized materials and an affidavit that the list reflects what was taken.

The FBI submitted a first version of the inventory list several weeks ago. It only had one business day to compile that list but had more time to submit the most recent version, CNN reported. The agency also said that in the updated version it filtered out potentially privileged items.

Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to review the case, requested that the FBI provide a “full and accurate” picture of what was obtained in the search.

Dearie’s request came after Trump and several allies claimed, without evidence, that the FBI planted items during its search of the Florida mansion.

Dearie has given Trump’s lawyers until Friday to provide evidence to back up the accusation that the agency is “incorrectly describing” any materials.

Updated

Donald Trump has a legal – if incremental – win to celebrate.

Earlier today, the 2nd circuit court of appeals ruled that a lower-court judge was wrong when he said Trump, as president, was not covered by a federal law that can shield federal employees from liability in incidents related to their work.

The case involved is the defamation suit brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump raped her in a New York department store changing room in the 1990s, which Trump vehemently denies.

As Politico reports today, “Under Trump, the justice department belatedly invoked that law – known as the Westfall Act – in a bid to shut down the defamation case Carroll filed in 2019 stemming from statements Trump issued denying that he raped Carroll, including a declaration that ‘She’s not my type.’

Last year, under President Joe Biden, the justice department stirred controversy by reaffirming the department’s earlier stance that Trump was essentially immune from suit because he was acting within the scope of his duties when fielding media questions about the alleged rape at the Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996.”

On Tuesday, two of three judges on the appeals court said there was “manifest uncertainty” about whether Trump was covered by the Westfall Act. The third judge said the law did not apply.

As Politico reports, any resolution is likely “many more months, if not years” away.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said: “We are extremely pleased … This decision will protect the ability of all future presidents to effectively govern without hindrance. We are confident that the DC Court of Appeals” – the next stop for the case – “will find that our client was acting within the scope of his employment when properly repudiating Ms Carroll’s allegations.”

Carroll and the justice department did not immediately comment.

Carroll has said she plans to directly accuse Trump of rape under a new New York law that allows civil claims over alleged sex crimes otherwise subject to a 20-year statute of limitations.

More:

As Hurricane Ian churns towards Florida’s west coast, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has joined the White House press briefing.

She’s talking about the preparations for the latest storm, as well as Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Fiona last week.

You can watch the briefing below:

The day so far

The January 6 insurrection continues to reverberate through Washington today, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, begins, while another rioter is sentenced after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack is preparing to hold its first public hearing in more than two months tomorrow, with Trump ally Roger Stone said to feature prominently, among other evidence.

Here’s what else happened so far today:

  • The Senate appears ready to pass a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, a Democratic lawmaker sponsoring the bill said.

  • Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seeking care in other states.

  • The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.

Opponents of Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan have cast it as expensive and potentially illegal, and the Associated Press reports that a California law firm has taken the plan to court to see whether it will hold up.

The libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation sued over the plan in Indiana, where an employee of the firm lives and where the state government said it intends to levy taxes on any canceled debt, according to the AP. The lawsuit challenges the plan on the grounds that the employee is set to get his debt erased through a federal program for civil servants, and thus he will face a tax burden under the White House program.

Here’s more from the report:

“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. He said it’s illegal for the executive branch to create the policy “by press release, and without statutory authority.”

The suit’s plaintiff is Frank Garrison, described as a public interest attorney who lives in Indiana and is employed by the libertarian group.

Garrison is on track to get his student debt erased through a separate federal program for public servants. Although most borrowers will need to apply for Biden’s plan, Garrison and many others in that program will automatically get the relief because the Education Department has their income information on file.

Biden’s plan would automatically cancel $20,000 of Garrison’s debt, which in turn would trigger an “immediate tax liability” from the state of Indiana, according to the suit. Under the debt forgiveness program he’s enrolled in now, canceled debt cannot be taxed.

“Mr. Garrison and millions of others similarly situated in the six relevant states will receive no additional benefit from the cancellation — just a one-time additional penalty,” the suit argues.

Any student debt forgiven under Biden’s plan would also be subject to state taxes in Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina and Wisconsin, unless lawmakers in those states change their current laws.

Biden’s plan promises to cancel $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers with incomes of less than $125,000 per year or households making less than $250,000. Those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college would get an additional $10,000 erased.

An application to receive the benefit is expected by early October.

The United States is one of the world’s richest countries, but many people struggle to put enough food on the table. Nina Lakhani reports on a new White House plan to change that:

The Biden government has launched a new strategy to end hunger in the US by 2030 through the expansion of benefits such as free school meals and food stamps.

One in 10 households struggled to feed their families in 2021 due to poverty – an extraordinary level of food insecurity in the richest country in the world which has barely budged in the past two decades amid deepening economic inequalities and welfare cuts.

The plan, published on Tuesday, also aims to cut diet-related diseases by increasing access to healthy food and exercise as new data shows that more than 35% of people in 19 states and two territories are obese – more the double the number of states in 2018 – while one in 10 Americans have diabetes. It includes proposals to reform food packaging and voluntary salt and sugar reduction targets for the food industry, as well as working to expand Medicaid and Medicare access to obesity counselling and nutrition.

As the January 6 committee enters what is likely to be the home stretch of its investigation, a new poll has found it hasn’t meaningfully shifted beliefs about what happened that day.

Monmouth University finds that around four in 10 Americans hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, slightly less than in late June, while three in 10 believe the election was stolen from him, a figure that’s moved little since November 2020.

People are also divided over the hearings’ impacts on democracy, with about 25% saying it strengthens it, 34% saying it weakens the system of government and 35% saying it has no impact. However, the poll did find opinions of America’s system of government have rebounded in recent months:

Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute Patrick Murray tied the hearings’ ebb and flow to Americans’ perceptions of the system of government.

“There’s certainly a correlation between the hearings kicking off and a decreased faith in the American system’s resilience, but it is not clear what caused the rebound,” he said. “It may be that Americans feel confident in our democratic processes after withstanding the test of Jan. 6, or it could simply be they are no longer thinking about those dangers without the weekly presence of televised hearings.”

January 6 committee set to focus on Roger Stone's role in lead-up to attack

When it holds its next public hearing on Wednesday, the January 6 committee will likely show footage of Trump ally Roger Stone discussing violence against left-wing protesters, and predicting that the 2020 election would be overturned by force, The Washington Post reports.

The video was obtained from Danish filmmakers who followed Stone around from 2019 through 2021, and decided to cooperate with a subpoena from a congressional panel. “Being with Roger Stone and people around him for nearly three years, we realized what we saw after the 2020 election and Jan. 6 was not the culmination but the beginning of an antidemocratic movement in the United States,” Christoffer Guldbrandsen, director of the documentary titled “A Storm Foretold,” told the Post.

Footage reported earlier this year shows Stone advocating for Trump to reject the official results and use federal judges allied with him to ensure his victory. In July 2020, he predicted that Democrats would try to steal the election, and said, “It’s going to be really nasty… If the electors show up at the electoral college, armed guards will throw them out.”

“‘I’m the president. F--- you… You’re not stealing Florida, you’re not stealing Ohio. I’m challenging all of it, and the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed.’ ” Stone says, mimicking what Trump would say.

He also advocates for violence against antifascist protesters and other left-wing groups, saying “F--- the voting, let’s get right to the violence. Shoot to kill, see an antifa, shoot to kill. F--- ’em. Done with this bulls---.”

Stone later added a caveat: “I am of course only kidding. We renounce violence completely. We totally renounce violence. The left is the only ones who engage in violence.”

Congress is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to pass a short-term funding measure, or risk shutting down the government – which neither party wants. But as the Senate convenes today, it is also considering legislation that would tweak America’s election laws to stop the sort of plot attempted on January 6.

The legislation, a version of which has also been introduced in the House of Representatives, needs the votes of all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to pass. Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told MSNBC today she believes it has that support:

The Oath Keepers trial is kicking off today with jury selection, as well as some last-minute moves by the group’s attorneys to delay the proceedings, which Politico reports have not panned out.

Both sides have also given estimates of how long the trial will take:

When a process server turned up at his house with a subpoena related to a case filed by abortion rights groups, Texas’s top law enforcement officer did what any reasonable person would do: fled the scene in a truck driven by his wife.

The Texas Tribune reports that process server Ernesto Martin Herrera had a hard time getting legal documents to the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton, which would have compelled his testimony today in a lawsuit from abortion groups aimed at blocking Texas’s efforts to retaliate against them for facilitating access to the procedure out of state. Here’s how the encounter played out, according to the Tribune:

When Herrera arrived at Paxton’s home in McKinney on Monday morning, he told a woman who identified herself as Angela that he was trying to deliver legal documents to the attorney general. She told him that Paxton was on the phone and unable to come to the door. Herrera said he would wait.

Nearly an hour later, a black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled into the driveway, and 20 minutes after that, Ken Paxton exited the house.

“I walked up the driveway approaching Mr. Paxton and called him by his name. As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.

Angela Paxton then exited the house, got inside a Chevrolet truck in the driveway, started it and opened the doors.

“A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote. “I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck.”

Herrera eventually placed the subpoenas on the ground near the truck and told him he was serving him with a subpoena. Both cars drove away, leaving the documents on the ground.

Paxton attacked the report on Twitter, saying he worried he was in danger:

Denver Riggleman’s book about his time serving as a staffer on the January 6 committee and in Congress comes out today, and while his revelations about the investigation have made headlines, the former lawmaker has plenty to say about his former Republican colleagues, Martin Pengelly reports:

The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack, that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may have had serious cognitive issues”.

Denver Riggleman, once a US representative from Virginia, reports his impression of his former colleagues from Texas and Arizona in a new book.

The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th is published in the US on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained an early copy.

Riggleman is a former US air force intelligence officer who lost his seat in Congress after he officiated a same-sex marriage. In his book, he describes fallout beyond his primary defeat, including someone tampering with the wheels of his truck, endangering the life of his daughter.

Besides the Capitol itself, Mark Meadows’ cellphone is turning into perhaps the most important place for understanding the events around the January 6 attack, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, was at the center of hundreds of incoming messages about ways to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee that have been published in a new book.

The texts included previously unreported messages, including a group chat with Trump administration cabinet officials and plans to object to Joe Biden’s election certification on January 6 by Republican members of Congress and one former US attorney, as well as other Trump allies.

The book, The Breach, was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its scheduled publication on Tuesday. Written by the former Republican congressman and senior adviser to the investigation Denver Riggleman, the work has already become controversial after being condemned by the panel as “unauthorized”.

Inflation is high in America, but one accused rioter in the January 6 insurrection has a plan to cut costs: go hunting.

The Washington Post reports that Jon Mott, an Arkansas man facing charges over unlawfully breaching the Capitol’s rotunda, has been granted permission by a federal judge to uses firearms for hunting, though he can’t keep them in his home or office. Mott was arrested in May 2021 after being identified as part of the mob that attacked the Capitol, and his conditions of release prohibited him from possessing weapons. He’s charged with “entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building and two counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” according to the Post, and has pled not guilty.

More than 2,000 people may face charges related to January 6, but the report notes this isn’t the first time gun possession issues have popped up. A Georgia defendant has asked for two of his firearms back so he can kill snakes on his property, while a Texas woman who had already been sentenced had her right to own a weapon restored by a judge who found she had a credible safety concern.

Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.

Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”

A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out.

Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:

On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.

What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.

Oath Keepers leader Rhodes to stand trial on seditious conspiracy charges over January 6 insurrection

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The trial of one of the most notorious groups involved in the January 6 insurrection begins today in Washington, as five members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for allegedly plotting to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Separately, a judge will sentence Kyle Young, who pleaded guilty to charges related to violently assaulting a police officer during the attack. More than a year and a half after the insurrection, the cases could bring justice to some of its most high-profile participants.

Here’s what else is happening today:

  • The Senate is getting to work on two important bills, one to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month, and the other to reform America’s election laws to prevent another January 6.

  • As Hurricane Ian moves towards Florida, Federal Emergency Management Agency head Deanne Criswell will appear at the White House press briefing beginning at 12pm ET.

  • Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s efforts to lower healthcare costs and preserve social security at 11.30am ET.

Updated

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