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Chris Stein

FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

Donald Trump United States
The Capitol attack, on January 6 last year.
The Capitol attack, on January 6 last year. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Closing summary

Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.

Here’s what happened today:

  • The FBI’s No 2 was warned that a number of its agents were sympathetic to the January 6 rioters. It’s unclear what impact that has had on the investigation into the attack.

  • A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.

  • Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.

  • The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.

  • Congress may finally repeal the authorizations justifying American involvement in the Gulf war and the invasion of Iraq.

Updated

January 6 committee will 'await a serious response' from Trump: lawmaker

A Democratic member of the January 6 committee said it will continue to wait for a response from Donald Trump to the subpoena it approved yesterday, which could compel his testimony before the panel investigating the Capitol attack.

In a tweet, Adam Schiff rejected a letter Trump had sent to the committee’s chair that attacked its work and reiterated a number of baseless theories about alleged fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election:

Trump has not said if he will honor the subpoena, though reports have emerged that he is open to speaking to lawmakers. Should he choose to fight it, it’s unlikely the court battle would be resolved before the committee’s mandate runs out at the end of the year.

Trump and his allies’ attempts to interfere with the election in Georgia is the subject of yet another investigation ensnaring the ex-president, and CNN reports one of his operatives has testified as part of the inquiry.

Last week, Scott Hall spoke for more than three hours to a special grand jury empaneled by district attorney Fani Willis in Fulton county, Georgia to investigate the meddling campaign, CNN said. While it’s not known what he told the jurors, Hall, a Republican poll watcher in Fulton county, was part of a group who may have improperly accessed voter information in another county.

Here’s more from CNN:

On January 7, 2021, the day after the attack on the US Capitol, Hall and others connected to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office, where they set up computers near election equipment and appeared to access voting data.

Willis’s criminal investigation recently expanded to include the breach of voting systems in the deeply-red Coffee County by operatives working for Powell.

Hall did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

According to court documents obtained by CNN, Hall’s role investigating supposed voter fraud in Georgia is also referenced in a November 2020 email that the head of Trump’s election day operations in Georgia received from the state’s Republican Party Chairman.

“Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him,” David Shafer, the Georgia Republican Party chairman wrote on November 20, 2020, to Robert Sinners, the head of Trump’s Georgia election day operations.

Shafer, who was among the 16 individuals who served as a fake Trump elector in Georgia, has been informed he is a target in the Fulton County DA’s criminal investigation.

Trump has broadcast plans to run for president again in 2024 practically since leaving the White House last year, and many fear he would steamroll his opponents in the primaries to win the GOP nomination, as he did in 2016.

But unlike the campaign that delivered his shock victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton six years ago, Trump is a known quantity by now, and some Republicans think he’s simply unelectable, no matter how popular he may be among a segment of the party.

Republican former speaker of the house Paul Ryan made that very argument yesterday in an interview for the Teneo Insights Series:

The January 6 committee made clear in its hearing yesterday that it continued to have reservations about the Secret Service’s candor with its investigation.

The agency tasked with protecting the president and other top officials has been under scrutiny ever since it was revealed it permanently deleted all of agents’ text messages from around the time of the insurrection, citing a pre-planned technology upgrade.

MSNBC has a good rundown of the lawmakers’ comments about the Secret Service:

Today, there was pushback, of sorts, from a spokesman for the agency, Politico reports:

Speaking of books, former vice-president Mike Pence will release a memoir about his time serving under Donald Trump on 15 November.

The New York Times has obtained the book’s description included on its jacket, which pretty much lines up with what is known about his relationship with the former president:

In August, Vermont’s Democratic senator Patrick Leahy – the most senior lawmaker in all of Congress - published a memoir reflecting on his decades in Washington politics.

That included the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he opposed. Longtime Washington journalist Garrett M. Graff read Leahy’s book and noted that the senator’s opposition to the invasion had won the attention of some mysterious, like-minded individuals who sought the senator out:

Senators plan renewed push to repeal Iraq, Gulf war authorizations

A movement is gathering in the Senate to repeal Congress’ authorizations allowing the United States to attack Iraq.

Democratic senator Tim Kaine and Republican senator Todd Young are backing a renewed effort to pass a bill repealing the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force enacted in 2002 and 1991, which gave legal justification for America’s involvement in the Iraq and Gulf wars, respectively.

A similar attempt passed the House last year and had Joe Biden’s support, but ultimately didn’t make it through the Senate. The latest effort is expected to be included in a defense spending bill that will be a top priority when both houses of Congress reconvene next month.

Few have embraced the baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election like Donald Trump, and he’s widely expected to run again for the presidency in 2024.

The big question is: when will he announce it? Democrats hope he does so before the midterm elections, so they can refocus voters’ attention on all that went on during his administration.

Politico reports that the former president is keeping it vague:

Meanwhile, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Tim Scott have both taken steps indicating they are contemplating a 2024 run, according to Politico.

More than two-thirds of Republicans seeking office this November have cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, reported the New York Times.

They include candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, and the state offices of governor, secretary of state and attorney general — many with clear shots to victory, and some without a chance. They are united by at least one issue: They have all expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And they are the new normal of the Republican Party.

More than 370 people — a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November — have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a monthslong New York Times investigation. These candidates represent a sentiment that is spreading in the Republican Party, rupturing a bedrock principle of democracy: that voters decide elections and candidates accept results.

Read the full article here.

Updated

Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden released a statement on a Thursday shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, where five people were killed and two were injured.

The suspect, a 15-year old white male, is in custody and in critical condition.

From the White house press office:

Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer.

As we mourn with the people of Raleigh, we are grateful for the law enforcement and other first responders, including federal law enforcement who were on the scene last night and into this morning. My Administration is working closely with Governor Cooper to assist local authorities in this investigation to the fullest extent needed.

Enough. We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever. This year, and even in just the five months since Buffalo and Uvalde, there are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that don’t even make the national news.

For the lives we’ve lost and the lives we can save, I took historic action to stop gun violence in our nation, including signing the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years. But we must do more. We must pass an assault weapons ban. The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets. House Democrats have already passed it. The Senate should do the same. Send it to my desk and I’ll sign it.

May God bless our fellow Americans we lost and their families and may He grant the wounded the strength to recover in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Updated

FBI was warned agents were sympathetic to Capitol rioters – report

A top FBI official was warned that a large number of bureau employees were sympathetic to Capitol rioters who threatened the lives of law makers.

NBC News reported that Paul Abbate, number two at the FBI, was warned about agents within the bureau showing sympathy to 6 January participants.

The email, sent from an unnamed person, read:

There’s no good way to say it, so I’ll just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol… Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of ‘political correctness.

The email also added that several agents felt that the Capitol riots were no different than racial justice protests that happened in summer 2020.

Abbate responded to the email with: “Thank you [redacted] for sharing everything below.”

The FBI declined to comment on the email, reported NBC.

Updated

The day so far

Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.

Here’s what has happened today so far:

  • A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.

  • Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.

  • The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.

Many people testified to the January 6 committee. Doing so did not come without costs.

Here’s what Alyssa Farah, a former communications director in the Trump White House, said on “The View” about happened after the panel aired her testimony:

And here is what she told the committee:

Did the January 6 committee’s hearings change your mind about what happened that day?

Were you surprised by the evidence presented? Or are you wondering what the big deal is?

Whatever your answers to these questions, the Guardian’s community team is looking for readers’ input, and has a survey you can fill out at the link below:

The Oath Keepers were mentioned repeatedly at yesterday’s January 6 hearing, and Politico reports their lawyers have attempted to make that an issue as they stand trial for seditious conspiracy – without success:

January 6 committee investigating connection between Secret Service agent, Oath Keepers: media

Investigators with the January 6 committee are looking into communications between a Secret Service agent and the Oath Keepers militia group, one of the most violent actors during the attack on the Capitol, NBC News reports:

Several Oath Keepers are currently on trial in a Washington federal court on seditious conspiracy charges.

The Secret Service has become one of the agencies most scrutinized by the congressional committee investigating the attack, after it was revealed it deleted all of its agents’ text messages from around the time of the insurrection during what it said was a pre-planned technology upgrade. The House lawmakers recently obtained more than one million communications from the Secret Service, portions of which were used as evidence in yesterday’s hearing.

While sitting and former presidents have testified before Congress in the past, Politico reports that subpoenaing a former commander in chief is far more contentious.

In 1953, former president Harry Truman defied a subpoena from the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. “It is just as important to the independence of the Executive that the actions of the President should not be subjected to questioning by the Congress after he has completed his term of office as that his actions should not be questioned while he is serving as President,” he said in a lengthy speech explaining his refusal to attend.

The January 6 committee could, of course, go to court to force Trump to comply, assuming a judge – or more likely judges – agrees. But they simply don’t have the time. Their mandate expires at the end of the year, at the same time as this Congress terms out, and any court challenge would likely take months to resolve.

Not all Trump administration scandals involve the former president. Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports a Senate committee leaders wants answers about a real estate property deal involving Jared Kushner, a top aide to the former president:

A financial firm that operates billions of dollars in real estate properties around the world is facing new questions from the powerful chairman of the Senate finance committee about whether Qatar was secretly involved in the $1.2bn (£1bn) rescue of a Fifth Avenue property owned by Jared Kushner’s family while Kushner was serving in the White House.

Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who leads the finance committee, has given the chief executive of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management until 24 October to answer a series of detailed questions about a 2018 deal in which Brookfield paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year lease on the family’s marquee 666 Fifth Avenue property.

When the deal was announced in August 2018, it was seen as the end of a drawn-out saga surrounding the property. The rescue, it was said in media reports, generated enough money for the Kushner family to pay $1.1bn (£970m) of debt on the building and buy out a partner.

In a statement on Thursday, Wyden accused Brookfield of stonewalling his committee and refusing to answer questions about the transaction, including whether Brookfield “intentionally misled” the public when it said that “no Qatar-linked entity” had been involved in the deal. In fact, it has since been alleged by Wyden that Brookfield used a Qatari-backed fund – called Brookfield Property Partners – to fund the transaction. At the time of the deal, Wyden said, the Qatari Investment Authority was the fund’s second largest investor.

Footage shows congressional leaders scrambling for help on January 6

One of the most gripping moments of the January 6 committee’s hearing yesterday came when the panel aired footage of congressional leaders scrambling for help after the Capitol was overrun. Here’s what the video showed:

New footage of the January 6 riots at the US Capitol shows House speaker Nancy Pelosi calmly trying to take charge of the situation as she sheltered at Fort McNair, two miles south of the Capitol.

“There has to be some way,” she told colleagues, “we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function and that you can elect the president of the United States.”

Then an unidentified voice interjected with alarming news: lawmakers on the House floor had begun putting on teargas masks in preparation for a breach. Pelosi asked the woman to repeat what she said.

Updated

While Trump twice escaped conviction by Congress, The Guardian’s Sam Levine finds the evidence laid out by the January 6 committee could form the backbone of a criminal case against the former president:

After more than a year of work that consisted of interviewing 1,000-plus witnesses and reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol chose a simple message for its final public hearing: Donald Trump was singularly responsible for the attack.

Since its first hearing in June, the committee’s work has been aimed at two audiences. One of those has been the broad American public. Tactfully using video, the committee has told a disciplined, clear story of what happened on January 6, and the days leading up to it, filled with jaw-dropping soundbites from Trump’s closest aides.

But the committee’s public coda on Thursday appeared more directed at its second audience: an audience of one, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.

Garland will ultimately decide whether to bring criminal charges against Trump over January 6, and the committee’s work, which has run parallel to the justice department’s investigation, has made a public case for bringing charges, attempting to bring along public support for doing so.

A new books argues that the way Democrats handled Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 laid the groundwork for the lawless streak he exhibited when he tried to overturn the following year’s elections, Politico reports.

In “Unchecked,” written by Politico reporter Rachael Bade and Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian, House speaker Nancy Pelosi is shown as being caught between two wings of the Democratic party as it weighs how to respond to Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine’s government to investigate Joe Biden. One group, composed mostly of progressives, wanted a sprawling inquiry into all of the then-president’s alleged misdeeds, while another, made up of Democrats in vulnerable seats, wanted a narrowly tailored investigation into the Ukraine affair that wouldn’t take too long.

The latter group won out, but according to the book, Pelosi missed opportunities to wrangle some Republicans into supporting Trump’s impeachment – though the book concedes the effort may well have been a long shot, even if she tried.

The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump, and the book finds that decision emboldened Trump to attempt further schemes – like his plot to overturn the 2020 election. Here’s how Politico puts it:

In the end, one political truism superseded all the others: What happens in January of an election year will be ancient history by the time voters cast ballots. This was especially true in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic seemed to emerge just as Democrats were licking their wounds from the impeachment trial acquittal.

Soon after, Trump would begin sowing the seeds of what would become his effort to overturn defeat in the presidential election, and by November, impeachment seemed an asterisk in a year that had become chaotic for many other reasons.

Ultimately, Democrats took the White House, even though Pelosi’s House majority shrank slightly after 2020. House managers of Trump’s first impeachment have insisted to this day that their existential warnings played a role in voters deeming him unfit for a second term.

His actions to subvert his 2020 loss, they argue, were evidence that Republicans’ decision to acquit him had left him feeling unchecked.

Trump hasn’t yet publicly said if he’d testify before the January 6 committee, as their subpoena compels him to.

But his political action committee has today distributed to reporters this letter, dated yesterday and addressed to the committee’s chair. The 14-page epistle is mostly a rehash of his baseless theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and a defense of his conduct on January 6. It opens with this line: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”

It’s unclear if Trump himself wrote it, but based on the prose, it’s difficult not to imagine his voice when reading it. Consider the second sentence:

The same group of Radical Left Democrats who utilized their Majority position in Congress to create the fiction of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the $48 Million Mueller Report (which ended in No Collusion!), Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the atrocious and illegal Spying on my Campaign, and so much more, are the people who created this Committee of highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.

Updated

There are plenty of instances of former presidents testifying before congress, and in fact, even sitting presidents have done so, according to the US Senate.

But such an appearance hasn’t been made in a while. The last former president to answer questions on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee on the constitution in 1983. He was also the last president in office to testify, during a 1974 House subcommittee hearing about his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon for various charges related to the Watergate scandal.

Up until January 6, historians viewed Watergate as perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But the insurrection at the Capitol may well have eclipsed that – and Trump could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and appear before lawmakers to discuss his role in it.

Testify before January 6 committee? Trump would do it, reports say

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday’s big news was that the January 6 committee had issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, in an attempt to compel the testimony of a man they say was responsible above all others for the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. You’d be right not to get your hopes up that the former president would honor their summons – he’s stymied various attempts to compel his behavior or hold him accountable over the years with lengthy court challenges, and the congressional subpoena seems like it could meet the same fate. But media outlets including the New York Times and Fox News report that Trump actually would like to speak to lawmakers – assuming he can do so live. We may hear from him today on what course of action he’s decided to take.

Here’s a look at what else is happening today:

  • Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, will talk about defending democracy at Notre Dame University at 2.30pm eastern time.

  • Washington’s fury towards Saudi Arabia will be the subject when Democratic representative Ro Khanna, an advocate of cracking down on Riyadh over its backing of the recent Opec+ oil production cut, speaks with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft at 12pm eastern time.

  • Joe Biden is continuing his trip out west with a speech in Orange county, California, about “lowering costs for American families” and a stop in Oregon. There, the president will campaign for the state’s Democratic candidate for governor, who appears to be struggling polls.

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