One group pushed through crowds in a conga line of camo and Carhartt, holding on to each other as they muscled through a crush of people. “Racist, white supremacists coming through,” one line leader bellowed, laughing, like everyone should know he really isn’t racist.
Documents originating from Parnas include an email from Sekulow, revealing that he spoke to Trump about the president’s former lawyer John Dowd representing both Parnas and his co-defendant, Igor Fruman. And Bondi joined the lobbying firm Ballard Partners in 2019. The firm’s name appears in Parnas’ recently released handwritten notes. Photos have also surface of Bondi with Parnas at social events.
Some have pointed out that because these lawyers may have been involved in the conduct for which Trump has been impeached, they could be “conflicted out” of representing the president.
Of course, Trump’s impeachment “trial,” set to start on Tuesday, will be conducted differently than one in a courtroom. But under most rules of ethics, lawyers shall not try cases in which they are likely to be a necessary witness. Acting as both advocate and witness can prejudice the court and can also cause a conflict of interest. For example, if there is likely to be substantial conflict between the client’s testimony and the lawyer’s testimony, the representation presents a conflict of interest.
Determining whether there is a conflict is the responsibility of the lawyer, who must secure the client’s informed consent in writing. There are some exceptions to the rule, including when disqualification of the lawyer would result in substantial hardship tn the client.
In the case of newcomer Bondi, there is less likely to be substantial hardship if she were disqualified because Trump hasn’t had time to rely heavily on her. On the other hand, because attorneys Sekulow and Giuliani have been with Trump for a long time their disqualification could result in hardship to the president.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that disqualification of an attorney is a serious step, one which can severely affect the monetary interest and reputation of an attorney, and negate the client’s right to freely choose his counsel. Any attempt to disqualify a lawyer faces an extraordinarily high burden: Disqualification is impermissible unless the attorney’s conduct will tend to taint the trial and actually have the potential to affect its outcome.
Impeachment trials have featured lawyers as potential witnesses before.
Attorney Bruce Lindsey was part of President Bill Clinton’s legal defense team in the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky cases.
Lindsey was subpoenaed by independent counsel (and now Trump impeachment defense lawyer) Kenneth Starr to testify before a grand jury convened for the Lewinsky matter. Lindsey refused to answer certain questions about conversations he had had with Clinton. The White House invoked executive privilege and attorney-client privilege, which caused a legal skirmish with Starr’s team.
But Lindsey still served as part of Clinton’s impeachment trial defense team in the Senate, despite being a potential fact witness.
PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he had a “great discussion” with U.S. President Donald Trump over a digital tax planned by Paris and said the two countries would work together to avoid a rise in tariffs.
Macron and Trump agreed to hold off on a potential tariffs war until the end of 2020, a French diplomatic source said, and continue negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the digital tax during that period.
“They agreed to give a chance to negotiations until the end of the year,” the source said. “During that time period, there won’t be successive tariffs.”
France decided in July to apply a 3% levy on revenue from digital services earned in France by firms with revenues of more than 25 million euros ($28 million) in France and 750 million euros worldwide. Washington has threatened to impose taxes on French products in response.
French authorities have repeatedly said any international agreement on digital taxation reached within the OECD would immediately supersede the French tax.
The White House said on Monday both Trump and Macron agreed it is important to complete successful negotiations on the digital services tax.
Reporting by Michel Rose, additional reporting by Alexandra Alper in Washington; Writing by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Nick Macfie and Paul Simao
RICHMOND, Va. ─ Thousands of gun-rights activists, banned from carrying their weapons out of fear of violence, crammed into the Virginia Capitol on Monday to urge state lawmakers to reject sweeping measures to limit the spread of firearms.
The rally, planned for weeks as part of a citizen-lobbying tradition held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, has focused national attention on Virginia’s attempts to enact new gun regulations, pushed by Democrats who took control of the Statehouse for the first time in 26 years. Gun control supporters say they are acting on voters’ wishes, propelled by a mass shooting in May in Virginia Beach.
Gun-rights proponents warn that the measures ─ including universal background checks, a ban on military-style rifles and a bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns from people deemed dangerous to themselves or to others ─ will snowball into attempts to disarm the public.
“We will not comply,” activists chanted from both sides of a security fence ringing the Capitol grounds. The crowd was largely white and diverse in age, with most wearing orange stickers saying “Guns save lives.” Many rode chartered buses from all over the state, then waited hours in line to get into the Capitol grounds before passing through airport-style security. On the other side of the fence, large crowds formed and many activists openly carried firearms, including long guns. Many also wore camouflage and military gear.
About 22,000 people attended the rally, 6,000 on Capitol Square and 16,000 outside the security gates, authorities said.
People who are part of an armed militia group arrive near the Virginia State Capitol building to advocate for gun rights in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 20, 2020.Stephanie Keith / Reuters
In the days leading up to the rally, there were fears that it would be a repeat of the violent 2017 protest in Charlottesville that ended in a woman’s death. Gun safety groups canceled a MLK Day vigil at the Capitol that was supposed to begin after the gun rights rally.
But the rally was largely peaceful, with no reported violence, despite the presence of some extremist groups. Their potential participation had been cited as a reason for Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, to declare a state of emergency last week, banning guns and other weapons from the Capitol grounds.
Police announced one arrest: a 21-year-old Richmond woman charged with wearing a mask in public after she allegedly ignored an officer’s warnings to remove a bandanna covering her face.
Nicholas Freitas, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, spoke to supporters, many of whom were armed, outside the Capitol cordon. Freitas, who represents three counties in northern Virginia, said the threat of violence from outside groups was overblown, and that Northam had been wrong to issue the weapons ban. He said he felt safer there than “inside those cages” where the gun ban was being enforced.
“I’m not going to tell one of my constituents who is a law-abiding gun owner who has never broken the law, I’m not going to tell them you have to choose between lobbying me or having the means to defend yourself,” Freitas told reporters. “That shouldn’t be an either-or proposition.”
Jay Lowe, who was in the crowd on the Capitol grounds, said gun-control supporters were wrong to think that people were safer where firearms were restricted. “So many people are misinformed and think you are safer because you take my guns away,” Lowe, who lives in Chesterfield County, south of Richmond, said. “My guns have never killed anybody. And I carry a lot.”
Lowe also said he was angry that the rally had been tainted by links to hate groups.
“They are not the right. Conservatives are the right. We are not like those people,” Lowe said. “If there are Nazis here, white supremacists, they are not welcome by me. I do not want them on my side ever.”
Northam’s declaration of a state of emergency last week cited “credible intelligence” from law enforcement that armed militias and hate groups were threatening violence. Gun-rights groups, led by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which organized the rally, tried unsuccessfully to get a court to overturn the ban.
A day after Northam’s announcement, federal authorities said they had arrested three members of a neo-Nazi group called The Base, who law enforcement officials said had been planning to attend the rally. More alleged members of the group were arrested Friday.
Gun rights advocates attend a rally organized by The Virginia Citizens Defense League on Capitol Square near the state capitol building on Jan. 20, 2020 in Richmond, Va.Zach Gibson / Getty Images
There were some signs of militia members in the crowd Monday, but the rally seemed made up largely of ordinary gun-rights supporters, including many sporting shirts and hats proclaiming their support of President Donald Trump. There were chants calling on Northam to resign and shouts calling journalists “fake news.”
The prevailing concern among participants was that the Virginia measures would mark a slow erosion of rights that would expand beyond guns. Many said they saw an imbalance in the way gun owners were being targeted by the laws while other policies sought to protect undocumented immigrants or reduce the number of people in prison.
“Why are you going after the people that don’t commit crimes?” said Sue Ferrick, a nurse from Salem, Virginia. “We see that the people who commit crimes are getting more favors and we’re getting more stripped away from us.”
Warren Baker, who traveled from Hanover, Connecticut, to attend the rally, added: “Criminals are not going to give up their guns. So they will have guns and we won’t.”
At the rally podium, speakers railed against the gun control measures, accusing Democrats of disregarding the Constitution and abusing citizens’ rights. Some vowed to seek ways around the laws.
“I will choose to deputize thousands of my citizens to see they’re able to keep their lawfully owned firearms and not be disarmed,” Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins said.
On Sunday night, as activists prepared for the rally, there were tense exchanges around the Capitol. A group of men interrupted a television reporter who referred to “extremist groups from out of town,” saying they were “freedom lovers, patriots.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filmed a video at the top of the Capitol steps. A group of people identified themselves as members of the Proud Boys, a far-right organization designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, that has clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators in other parts of the country.
As the rally ended, Vanessa Dallas of Virginia Beach said she thought the day had been peaceful. On a street right outside the Capitol, she figured she was standing in the safest place in the state.
“We’re the good guys. We’re not the ones out committing the crimes,” Dallas said. “We just want to have our guns to protect ourselves, to go to target practice, go to the range.”
Ben Kesslen reported from Richmond, Jon Schuppe from New York.
There’s some indication that Warren and Sanders suffered fallout from their recent spat — including during and after last week’s debate — over whether a woman could beat President Donald Trump. Warren contended Sanders told her in a private 2018 conversation that he did not believe a woman could win, which Sanders denied.
When asked if there was a candidate they would not support based on the debate, 12 percent of those surveyed said Warren and 11 percent said Sanders. The next highest was billionaire Tom Steyer at 4 percent.
When asked who would best represent the interests of rural Iowa, Klobuchar was the clear favorite with 29 percent.
Also in the survey, Democrats were asked what they would do if their first choice in the caucuses were not viable. While 75 percent said they would realign with another candidate, 17 percent said they would remain uncommitted and 4 percent said they would go home.
“It is significant the 17% [who] say they will remain uncommitted and may indicate that uncommitted will be viable in several precincts,” a statement from the group says.
Of those who choose another candidate, Biden received 24 percent support, Buttigieg received 21 percent, Warren received 16 percent, Klobuchar received 7 percent, and Sanders received 6 percent.
McManus said police are searching for a suspect after someone began shooting during an altercation inside the bar. One of the deceased victims, later identified by police as Robert Martinez, was 21 years old, McManus said. Another victim, identified as 25-year-old Alejandro Robles, died on the way to a hospital, he said.
“We have a president who embraces white supremacists, who rips families away at the border,” Mr. Biden said. “We have to work together twice as hard to get out of the situation we find ourselves in.”
“God willing, we can turn four years of Donald Trump into an historical aberration,” he added.
After the South Carolina events, most of the candidates planned to fly quickly to Iowa to attend the 2020 Iowa Brown & Black Democratic Presidential Forum on Monday afternoon.
At a breakfast honoring Dr. King in Washington, D.C., former President Bill Clinton delivered a message casting the diversity of America as one of the country’s biggest strengths. But he also noted that a diverse nation functions well only if everyone follows “the same set of rules,” making an oblique nod to Mr. Trump as well as to Republican efforts to make it harder for some communities of color to cast their ballots.
“America, at its best, is a country of inclusive tribalism,” he told an audience of black leaders, public officials and activists. “Our churches, our synagogues, our mosques or temples, we like diversity but it only works if you think our common humanity matters more.”
“There are 15 issues we should be fighting about, but at the core is universal easy access to vote where the votes count,” he said. “And a vigorous attempt to stop foreign influence.”
Mr. Clinton was in Washington to accept an award at a breakfast hosted by the National Action Network, the organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Jonathan Martin contributed reporting from Columbia, S.C., and Lisa Lerer from Washington.
The lawyers rejected the notion that doing so was an abuse of power, as outlined in the first article of impeachment, calling that a “novel theory” and a “newly invented” offense that would allow Congress to second-guess presidents for legitimate policy decisions.
They argued that the second article, accusing him of obstructing Congress by blocking testimony and refusing to turn over documents during the House impeachment inquiry, would violate separation of powers by invalidating a president’s right to confidential deliberations.
The House Democratic managers had their own noon deadline to produce a response to a shorter filing by Mr. Trump’s team on Saturday that responded to the impeachment charges against him. Democrats will argue that Mr. Trump’s behavior was not only adequately proven during the course of their inquiry but clearly meets the standard laid out by the framers of the Constitution for impeachable offenses.
The president weighed in himself from Florida, where he was spending the holiday weekend, complaining that he had not been treated fairly and dismissing demands by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and other Democrats for a trial that would include witnesses and testimony that the president has so far blocked.
Demonstrators stand outside a security zone in Richmond, Va., on Monday. Thousands of activists and gun enthusiasts converged on the city to urge the state not to pass new gun laws.
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Demonstrators stand outside a security zone in Richmond, Va., on Monday. Thousands of activists and gun enthusiasts converged on the city to urge the state not to pass new gun laws.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
Updated at 11:50 a.m. ET
The city of Richmond, Va., is under a state of emergency Monday morning as thousands of gun ownership enthusiasts and armed militia members gather at the Virginia State Capitol for a large rally aimed at quashing new gun laws. Gov. Ralph Northam has temporarily banned firearms from Capitol grounds, and some of Richmond’s streets are barricaded as officials try to ensure the demonstration takes place peacefully.
The Richmond gun rally is expected to draw a wide range of people, from staunch believers that the Second Amendment guarantees wide access to guns to religious leaders calling for peace.
“This is about losing one of the base freedoms that we have. Without it, all the others fall right behind it,” gun rights supporter Todd McManus of Shepherdstown, W.Va., told member station VPM’s Ben Paviour.
The rally includes a slate of speeches that started at 11 a.m., for those gathered on the lawn below the white-columned Capitol. The speakers include an official from Gun Owners of America, along with state politicians. Two law enforcement officials also spoke.
“At least two county sheriffs have spoken at this gun rights rally in Richmond,” NPR’s Sarah McCammon reports via Twitter. She adds that Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpeper County “says he will deputize ‘thousands’ of gun owners” if Virginia enacts new gun restrictions.
David Agee of Henrico County, Virginia, prepares for the gun rally front of the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Monday.
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David Agee of Henrico County, Virginia, prepares for the gun rally front of the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Monday.
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At least two county sheriffs have spoken at this gun rights rally in Richmond. One, Scott Jenkins of Culpepper County, says he will deputize “thousands” of gun owners if gun restrictions pass the Dem-controlled legislature in an effort to get around those laws.
While people were blocked from carrying weapons within a rectangle-shaped vicinity of the Capitol, many rally attendees walked with their guns in plain sight on Richmond’s nearby streets.
Some people wore camouflage and helmets, while a few dressed in Revolutionary War costumes. Others wore jeans or suits, but with rifles slung across their chests. And many people simply bundled up against the cold — it was several degrees below freezing in Richmond early Monday. In the streets near the Capitol, there were chants against Virginia’s Democratic governor as well as shouts of “USA! USA!”
Rally attendees walked with their firearms in plain sight on streets around the state Capitol in Richmond, even though event organizers asked supporters to show up unarmed.
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Rally attendees walked with their firearms in plain sight on streets around the state Capitol in Richmond, even though event organizers asked supporters to show up unarmed.
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Faith leaders are holding a prayer vigil for peace near the Capitol to invoke a spirit of fellowship on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
“We wanted to provide a counter-witness to potential strife, and certainly some of the conflicted relationship that’s going to be seen today,” Rev. Drew Willson tells VPM’s Roberto Roldan.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has temporarily banned firearms from Capitol grounds, and some of Richmond’s streets are barricaded as officials try to ensure the demonstration takes place peacefully.
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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has temporarily banned firearms from Capitol grounds, and some of Richmond’s streets are barricaded as officials try to ensure the demonstration takes place peacefully.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
Right-wing media outlets were also a notable presence. Breitbart produced a livestream of video from the event, and InfoWars’ Alex Jones rode parade-style in a Terradyne armored vehicle, popping out of the top hatch to address the crowd through a microphone.
Vendors also descended on the city, setting up tables and portable racks to sell pro-Trump T-shirts and pro-gun paraphernalia.
The gun rights event, held on a holiday that honors a civil rights leader who himself became a victim of gun violence, has generated anxiety that it could draw white supremacists and violent extremists.
When Northam declared an emergency, he noted the possibility that some attendees might try to use the rally as an excuse to launch “insurrection” and violent attacks. A large counter-protest was called off, with several leaders saying the chance of violence was too high.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies made high-profile arrests of suspected members of neo-Nazi group The Base in three states last week, including one group that allegedly had built a functioning assault rifle. Law enforcement officials told NPR that some of those members had discussed attending the gun rally in Richmond.
The Richmond rally is part of Lobby Day, a push against gun control laws that the Virginia Citizens Defense League organizes annually. But this year’s event gained new importance after a wave of Democrats took control of the state’s legislature — and promised to make gun control a priority. Lawmakers opened their legislative session on Jan. 8 and were in session Monday.
“Virginia Democrats are following through with an election-year pledge to pass new gun laws following a mass shooting in Virginia Beach last spring,” Whittney Evans of VPM reports from Richmond. “This has prompted a groundswell of grassroots activism from gun owners who say their constitutional rights are under attack.”
Speakers at the Lobby Day event include Stephen Willeford — who is credited with stopping a mass shooting at a church in Texas — and Dick Heller, the defendant in the landmark Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down the district’s ban on gun ownership.
The Richmond gun rally is expected to draw a wide range of people, from staunch believers that the Second Amendment guarantees wide access to guns to religious leaders calling for peace.
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The Richmond gun rally is expected to draw a wide range of people, from staunch believers that the Second Amendment guarantees wide access to guns to religious leaders calling for peace.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
Northam and other law enforcement officials hope to avoid the deadly violence that flared up at another controversial rally in Virginia. Clashes between white nationalists who gathered for the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and anti-racism protesters left protester Heather Heyer dead and 19 others injured. Two state troopers also died when their helicopter crashed.
When Northam banned weapons from the Capitol area, he cited “credible intelligence” that tens of thousands of people were planning to converge on Richmond’s Capitol Square. Seeming to refer to The Base and other groups, Northam added, “a substantial number of these demonstrators are expected to come from outside the Commonwealth, may be armed, and have as their purpose not peaceful assembly but violence, rioting, and insurrection.”
The Richmond rally is part of Lobby Day, a push against gun control laws that the Virginia Citizens Defense League organizes annually.
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The Richmond rally is part of Lobby Day, a push against gun control laws that the Virginia Citizens Defense League organizes annually.
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The ban is broad, including not only pistols and rifles, but “sticks, torches, poles, bats, shields, helmets” along with pepper spray, laser pointers, drones, and “any item that can inflict bodily harm that is visible, other than firearms.”
Northam’s emergency order took effect at the start of the weekend and is to remain in effect until Tuesday afternoon.
People line up outside the capitol before a pro gun rally.
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People line up outside the capitol before a pro gun rally.
Four days later, he returned to the pulpit for a Palm Sunday service. He preached to his congregants about Gandhi’s life and martyrdom, comparing him to Jesus and Abraham Lincoln. He told them — six years before the march from Selma to Montgomery — about the Salt March in 1930, when Gandhi led millions on a 218-mile nonviolent protest of an unjust law. Hundreds were beaten by British authorities and more than 60,000 arrested, but, “the British Empire knew, then, that this little man had mobilized the people of India to the point that they could never defeat them,” King said.
Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks during a campaign event Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa. President Trump’s impeachment trial will pull her and three other candidates off the trail at a critical juncture.
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Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks during a campaign event Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa. President Trump’s impeachment trial will pull her and three other candidates off the trail at a critical juncture.
Patrick Semansky/AP
How confident are Iowa Democrats in their choices, now two weeks out from the caucuses?
The response Renee Kleinpeter gave NPR when asked which candidates she’s narrowed her choice down to could sum it up: four seconds of laughter.
“I’ll go with anybody who could beat [President] Trump,” she said after laughing. “I wish somebody could tell me.”
Lacking any reliable electoral crystal balls, Iowans are instead keeping their options open. The most recent Iowa Poll, out earlier this month, showed that more than half of likely Democratic caucus-goers were either undecided, or could still change their top choice before Feb. 3.
Now, in the midst of all that fluidity, the four U.S. senators still in the race will be disappearing from the campaign trail. Starting Tuesday, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet will sit on the Senate floor six days a week as impeachment jurors.
The looming trial — and the uncertainty it adds to the final days before the first primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire — added some urgency to this weekend’s campaigning. Snowstorms in both states did too.
“Thank you for understanding that I’m not going to be able to be here every day, and so you show up on this snowy day,” Klobuchar told a crowd in Coralville, Iowa.
Like the three other senator-candidates, Klobuchar insists she’s not particularly worried about missing campaign events, and is stressing her constitutional obligations as a juror.
And, she quipped to the crowd: “I’m a mom and I can balance things really well.”
Her campaign is also planning remote events over Skype, along with deploying family members and surrogates to meet with potential supporters. And seeing the trial looming, Klobuchar sped up her schedule for visiting every one of Iowa’s 99 counties.
“I’m just cramming everything I can do into every waking hour,” she said.
Still, some supporters aren’t quite as sanguine about how the trial could affect Klobuchar’s chances. (She’s currently polling in fifth in Iowa.) “To not be able to get out there and meet more people … I can’t see how that wouldn’t hurt somewhat,” said Tim Behlke, moments after signing a commit-to-caucus card.
Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a town hall on Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa.
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Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a town hall on Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa.
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Of course, impeachment won’t completely end campaigning for the senators in the race. Sanders has already announced a rally this Wednesday night in Iowa. He’ll fly there after the trial has wrapped for the day, and be back in Washington, D.C., the next morning.
And the proceedings won’t have any effect on the other hallmarks of campaigns in the closing days of a race: volunteers and organizers knocking on doors, and calling and texting potential caucus-goers; and ads on television, radio and online.
Still, the weekend of campaigning carried a whiff of premature nostalgia for some of the candidates who have spent most of the past year in Iowa.
“I’ll miss all the questions I get from people, the unfiltered questions, folks who get to stand up and say, ‘This is what matters to me. Talk to me about it,’ ” Warren told reporters after a Sunday rally in Des Moines.
“I truly have loved this part of the campaign, and I hope I’ll be able to come more to Iowa,” she said, “because the good people of Iowa have really taught me core parts of democracy.”
Two people were killed in a mass shooting outside a nightclub in Kansas City, Missouri. More than a dozen others were injured. Savannah Rudicel reports that the Nine Ultra Lounge was hosting a celebration party for the Kansas City Chiefs’ win Sunday night.
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In Guayanilla, where a large percentage of the island’s electricity is produced, the main government building can’t be used and bridges are on the verge of collapse. Though projects to fix them have preliminary approval, repair work has not begun because the money has not been guaranteed, said Carlos Jirau, who manages the municipality’s public works portfolio. Guayanilla, hit hard during Hurricane Maria, also suffered some of the greatest damage in this month’s earthquakes because of its proximity to the epicenter, off the southwestern coast.
“And on the issue of Social Security, time and time again, Joe Biden has been clear in supporting cuts to Social Security,” Mr. Sanders argued, citing Mr. Biden’s support for a balanced-budget amendment in the 1990s that the Vermont senator said would have harmed the program.
And in Concord, N.H., on Sunday, Mr. Sanders addressed questions about gender during a New Hampshire Public Radio forum, noting that age and other factors could also sway voters’ decisions.
“If you’re looking at Buttigieg, he’s a young guy, people will say, ‘Well, he’s too young to be president,’” Mr. Sanders said, referring to Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. “‘Look at this one, she’s a woman.’”
“So everybody brings some negatives, if you like,” he went on. “I would just hope, very much, that the American people look at the totality of a candidate, not at their gender, not at their sexuality, not at their age, but at everything. Nobody is perfect. There ain’t no perfect candidate out there.”
Patrick Healy contributed reporting from New York.
RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) – A pro-gun rally expected to draw thousands around Virginia’s capitol building on Monday has authorities bracing for violence, but it also marks shifting battle lines in the U.S. gun debate.
Those backing tougher curbs see Democrats taking control of the Virginia legislature for the first time in a generation on campaign promises of tougher access to arms as offering a model for other traditionally gun-friendly states.
Facing off against them are gun enthusiasts.
They argue Virginia is stomping on their constitutional right to bear arms and vow that Monday’s rally will help citizens understand how quickly they can lose the ability to carry guns, based on who wins at the ballot box.
“The Virginia election last November was an indictment of guns, and it was not an outlier,” said Christian Heyne, who leads legislative efforts at the gun violence prevention group Brady.
“Virginia candidates flipped things on their head when they won because of the gun issue, not despite it. That is a fundamental shift.”
Tension rose ahead of the rally after the FBI arrested three members of a small neo-Nazi group last week, who authorities said had hoped to ignite a race war through violence at the gathering, reminiscent of a 2017 white supremacist rally in nearby Charlottesville.
People across the United States were focused on the Virginia gun issue, said Philip Van Cleave, leader of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which is organizing Monday’s rally.
“People are looking at this and saying, ‘This is a canary in the coal mine. If they’re coming after rights in Virginia, then they’ll be coming for ours as well,’” Van Cleave said on Sunday.
“They don’t want us to fail in stopping this. We’ve gotten huge donations from other states.”
Van Cleave has rejected calls for violence, but he has urged tens of thousands of armed militia leaders from across the United States to be in Richmond’s streets to provide security for his group.
A spokesman for the Capitol police said Van Cleave had worked closely with law enforcement officers on rally plans.
High-profile national militia figures gathered for a meeting on Sunday near Richmond said they wanted Monday’s event to be peaceful, but feared the worst, with most saying any “lone wolf” could unleash bitter fighting with a single shot.
“The buildup is probably one of the most intense I’ve seen,” said Tammy Lee, a right-wing Internet personality from Oklahoma, who was a figurehead in Charlottesville.
Christian Yingling, head of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia and a leader at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, said none of his men would carry long guns and they wanted to avoid skirmishes, but forecast they would come.
“With somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people possibly coming out, this thing has enormous potential to go bad,” he said.
FANNING THE FIRE
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has vowed to push through new gun control laws. He is backing a package of eight bills, including universal background checks, a “red flag” law, a ban on assault rifles and a limit of one handgun-a-month purchase.
The state’s gun owners responded with a movement to create “sanctuary cities” for gun rights, with local government bodies passing declarations not to enforce new gun laws.
Since the November election, nearly all of Virginia’s 95 counties have some form of “sanctuary”, a term first used by localities opposed to harsh treatment of illegal immigrants.
The idea has quickly spread across the United States, with over 200 local governments in 16 states passing such measures.
Despite the pushback, proponents of stronger gun laws say they are clearly winning the argument with the public, based on who got voted into office, and blame the tension on gun supporters.
“We’re in this situation because the gun lobby has been pushing their message that we’re going to take all guns away – they’ve been fanning this fire for years,” said Michelle Sandler, a Virginia state leader for Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety.
It is not Northam’s first bid to tighten state gun laws. He called a special legislative session last summer after the massacre of 12 people in Virginia Beach, but the Republicans who then controlled it refused to vote on his proposals.
‘SERIOUS ATTACK’
President Donald Trump fanned the flames on Friday when he said the U.S. Constitution was being attacked in Virginia, where he was soundly defeated in 2016 by Hilary Clinton.
“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the great commonwealth of Virginia,” Trump posted on Twitter, referring to the provision that gives Americans the right to keep and bear firearms.
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The NRA, which is not involved in organizing Monday’s rally, also blasted Virginia’s Democrats, who received campaign contributions last year of more than $2.5 million from Everytown for Gun Safety, started by former New York mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
“Anti-gun billionaires who invested millions in the 2019 Virginia elections expect a return on that investment,” said NRA official D. J. Spiker.
“The NRA is fully prepared to work to defeat Governor Northam’s gun grab – but also work to find compromise.”
Reporting by Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Jonathan Drake in Richmond; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Clarence Fernandez
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