President-elect Joe Biden will step into the White House on Wednesday facing an array of crises, from COVID-19 to nationwide tension surrounding racial justice.
Biden has already started rolling out his plans to take them on.
Over the past several weeks, Biden has laid out several things he wants to do in his first 100 days in office. The proposals include tackling the pandemic, reversing immigration policies put in place under President Donald Trump and addressing criminal justice reform.
On Thursday, Biden laid out a COVID-19 relief package that he hopes to see pass through Congress in the immediate weeks after taking office.
The $1.9 trillion plan includes $20 billion for a national vaccination program, $1,400 stimulus checks and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Biden has also pledged to provide 100 million doses of the vaccine during the first 100 days of his administration.
“This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts we have ever undertaken as a nation,” Biden said Thursday of vaccine distribution. “We’ll have to move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated, create more places for them to get vaccinated, to mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people’s arms.”
As part of his response to the pandemic, Biden also said that he wants to begin reopening schools in the first 100 days of his administration. His relief package proposes $130 billion to help schools safely reopen.
Biden has also said in the in the 100-day timeframe, he will also call for masks to be mandated in places “where he can under the law,” such as in federal buildings, planes and buses.
Here are some of the issues Biden has said he wants to address in his first 100 days in office:
Economy and taxes
Biden has said that his COVID-19 relief plan will help “stimulate the economy,” with the help of $1,400 stimulus checks, grants for small businesses and billions for schools to reopen, among other proposals. He will introduce that recovery plan next month during his address to a joint session of Congress.
Biden has also said he will propose a new tax plan that includes raising corporate income taxes to 28%. Currently, the corporate tax rate is 21%, which was set under Trump’s 2017 tax plan.
Under his tax plan, Biden said no one making less than $400,000 will see their taxes increase, but that a 12.4% Social Security payroll tax will be imposed on those who earn $400,000 or more. The president-elect, however, has not given a timeline of when that plan would be introduced.
Climate change
During his tenure, Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which focuses on goals to help mitigate climate change.
On the first day of his administration, Biden plans to rejoin the accord.
Biden has said that within the first 100 days of his administration, he wants to host a climate world summit to “directly engage the leaders of the major greenhouse gas-emitting nations of the world to persuade them to join the United States in making more ambitious national pledges, above and beyond the commitments they have already made.”
He also pledged on his first day in office he would take actions that require “aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.” He said the goal is to develop “rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions and annual improvements for heavy duty vehicles.”
Immigration
Trump took a hardline approach to immigration that led to several controversial policies, including a family separation policy along the U.S.-Mexico border, which has since been halted but continues in isolated cases.
Biden has said that he will begin undoing many of the Trump administration’s immigration policies on Day One.
Biden has previously said he will issue an executive order on the first day of his presidency to create a federal task force to reunite children with their parents who were separated at the border. As of December, 628 parents who were separated from their children at the border are still missing.
Trump also faced criticism over conditions for migrants at the border, enacted a travel ban for mostly Muslim-majority countries, and slashed the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S.
Biden has said on Day One he will send a bill to Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the United States, and will also revoke the travel ban.
Within the first 100 days of his administration, Biden has said he will stop construction on the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border by taking away funding.
Policies related to LGBTQ individuals
Biden last year vowed that in the first 100 days of his administration, he would push to pass the Equality Act, which aims to extend federal protections in the areas of housing, education, credit and services to members of the LGBTQ community.
“To help achieve our vision of equality, I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days — a priority that Donald Trump opposes,” Biden said in October. “This is essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, including when it comes to housing.”
Racial justice
Amid a nationwide reckoning with systemic racism, Biden has vowed to make racial justice and criminal justice reforms a key part of his administration.
Last year, the death of George Floyd, a Black Minnesota man who was killed in police custody, spurred protests nationwide and even across the world. Since then, there have been calls for police reform.
“I’ve long believed we need real community policing. And we need each and every police department in the country to undertake a comprehensive review of their hiring, their training and their de-escalation practices,” Biden said in a speech last summer. “And the federal government should give them the tools and resources they need to implement reforms.”
Joe Biden is planning to cancel the permit for the $9bn Keystone XL pipeline project as one of his first acts as president, perhaps as soon as his first day in office, according to a source familiar with his thinking.
Donald Trump had made building the pipeline a central promise of his presidential campaign. Biden, who will be inaugurated on Wednesday, was vice-president in the Obama administration when it rejected the project as contrary to its efforts to combat the climate crisis.
The words “rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit” appear on a list of executive actions likely to be scheduled for the first day of Biden’s presidency, according to an earlier report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Biden had previously vowed to scrap the oil pipeline’s presidential permit if he became president.
The project, which would move oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to Nebraska, had been slowed by legal issues in the US. It also faced opposition from environmentalists seeking to check the expansion of Canada’s oil sands by opposing new pipelines to move its crude to refineries.
Canada’s ambassador to the US said she would continue to promote a project that she said fitted with both countries’ environmental plans. “There is no better partner for the US on climate action than Canada as we work together for green transition,” Kirsten Hillman said in a statement.
The Alberta premier, Jason Kenney, said on Twitter that cancellation would eliminate jobs, weaken US-Canada relations and undermine American national security by making the country more dependent on Opec oil imports.
TC Energy Corp, which operates the pipeline, said it would achieve net zero emissions by 2023 when it enters service. The company also pledged to use only renewable energy sources by 2030 in an attempt to win Biden’s support.
Construction is well under way in Canada, with the international border crossing complete. In the US, TC has started construction on pump stations in each of the states the line will pass through, but legal setbacks cost it much of the 2020 construction season.
Barack Obama axed the project in 2015, saying Canada would reap most of the economic benefits, while the project would add to greenhouse gas emissions.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who had a “tremendous amount of burdens he had to deal with, both politically, socially and personally,” says MLK/FBI director Sam Pollard.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who had a “tremendous amount of burdens he had to deal with, both politically, socially and personally,” says MLK/FBI director Sam Pollard.
Courtesy of IFC Films
From the March on Washington in 1963 up until his assassination in 1968, the FBI engaged in an intense campaign to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and his work. Film director Sam Pollard chronicles those efforts in the new documentary, MLK/FBI.
“The first fear that [FBI director J. Edgar Hoover] had was that King was going to align himself with the Communist Party, which … J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with destroying,” Pollard says.
Pollard’s documentary is based on newly declassified files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, along with restored archival footage. It shows the government’s extensive targeting of King and his associates in the 1960s.
The FBI campaign against King began with wiretaps, but quickly ballooned. When wiretaps revealed that King was having extramarital affairs, the FBI shifted their focus to uncover all evidence of his infidelity by bugging and taping him in his hotel rooms and by paying informants to spy on him. Eventually, the FBI penned and sent King an anonymous letter, along with some of their tapes, suggesting that he should kill himself.
Reading the letter, Pollard was struck by the fact that it was made to sound like it was written by someone close to King.
“They were trying to make it sound like it was not only a former associate but a ‘Negro’ who wrote that letter,” he says. “This is supposed to be the nation’s police, that’s supposed to be doing the right thing, and this is the lengths they’ll go to destroy a human being? It’s awful.”
Pollard is an Emmy Award winner and Oscar nominee. His first work as a director was for Eyes on the Prize, a groundbreaking documentary series about the civil rights movement. He’s also edited many of Spike Lee‘s movies, including Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues and When the Levees Broke.
Interview Highlights
On the extent to which the FBI surveilled King
They would go into these hotels before King and his associates got there and they would be let in by the management to bug those rooms and to have the rooms next door, nearby, where they could listen in to what was going on when King and his associates took those rooms. So this was an all-out assault. And as Chuck Knox says, a former FBI agent, any time King was going to go to a new city, the agenda was FBI agents were on the move to get to those places, to start to monitor and wiretap and listen to everything that was happening within the confines of those rooms between King and his associates, members of the SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
On why Hoover wanted recordings of King’s infidelity
His hope was to then pass it on to the press and that the press would publish it and it would really discredit Dr. King and his reputation as this upright Christian minister who’s leading the civil rights movement. So people would say, “Oh, how horrible his personal life is, how can we follow this man?” Now, what he didn’t bank on was back in the ’60s … the press did not take the bait. … They did not reveal the personal lives of these public figures. They didn’t do it with John Kennedy, they didn’t do it with others, and they didn’t do it with Dr. King.
On FBI informants working in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The one that’s probably the most famous is Ernest Withers, the photographer, whose pictures … of the civil rights movement are considered iconic today, specifically his “I am a Man” picture. And to know that Ernest Withers, who was well respected by members of the SCLC, the fact that he was talking to the FBI sort of saddens me. But it was a pay day for him. He wasn’t making a lot of money taking pictures, and so this was to make some extra money. … And the thing that you should be aware of is that, [civil rights leader] Andy Young and Dr. King, they knew that Withers was on the payroll of the FBI. Obviously, they didn’t feel it was so dangerous so that he was giving them information.
On why the filmmaker believes King’s assassination was part of a larger conspiracy
Any time King and his associates went to a new city, the FBI was manned up to go in and follow him and surveil him, so how is it possible … [for] agents constantly surveilling King in nearby hotel rooms not to be aware of someone like James Earl Ray with a rifle who’s going to shoot Dr. King? It just doesn’t make any sense. And Andrew Young’s answer to me was that he doesn’t believe [it] was James Earl Ray at all. Obviously, somewhere in there there was some conspiracy, [which] I personally think the FBI was involved in, to take King out. I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. … And there’s got to be someplace in some archive, in some files, some tape, where we will learn the actual truth.
On how public opinion of King and Hoover has shifted over time
In the mid ’60s, when they took a poll, … J. Edgar Hoover was more popular than Dr. King. Dr. King wasn’t so popular back then. I mean, some people thought he was destroying the fabric of American democracy. Growing up as a young man, I had watched all these movies about the FBI … and I thought they were the good guys and that they were out there to take out the bad guys, be it gangsters or be it communists. So in retrospect, in seeing and realizing how popular Hoover was, it’s interesting that King has been such an iconic figure now, but he wasn’t so beloved by many Americans back then.
Lauren Krenzel and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for the Web.
State Capitols were heavily guarded on Sunday as mostly small groups — numbering in the tens rather than the hundreds — showed up for demonstrations. Washington, D.C., turned into a fortress as the week of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration began, but President Trump remained out of sight in his final weekend in office, facing a second impeachment trial in the Senate.
Department of Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli assured “60 Minutes” that the 25,000 National Guard troops deployed to the nation’s capital “have a statutory mission we’re going to perform under all circumstances” even if Mr. Trump orders them to stand down.
“We all swore an oath to the Constitution,” Cuccinelli said when asked if troops would serve the president or the Constitution. “That is first and foremost. And we take homeland security very, very seriously. We deal with a lot of curveballs of all kinds. And yet, we march forward to keep the American people as safe as we possibly can.”
Last week, the FBI sent a bulletin to all 50 state governments warning that extremists were planning violence at Capitols across the country starting on January 16.
At the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on Sunday, where legislators canceled the upcoming legislative sessions due to threats, only about 20 armed protesters showed up. In Austin, Texas, demonstrators at the Capitol told CBS affiliate KEYE that they didn’t want to be associated with the mob of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
“I think if January 6 hadn’t happened, we’d see a lot bigger crowd out here,” one demonstrator told KEYE.
With Mr. Trump holed up at the White House all weekend, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Fort Drum, New York, to give his final scheduled speech as vice president. He spoke of the current “challenging times,” but only mentioned Mr. Trump’s name once.
The Senate is set to reconvene on Tuesday, less than one week after the House impeached Mr. Trump for the second time. Mr. Trump’s allies are urging Democrats, who will take the majority in the Senate this week, to turn the page and oppose impeachment.
In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies, accused the New York Democrat of seeking “vengeance and political retaliation” by moving forward with a trial for the president.
Michigan State Police troopers stand guard outside the state capitol in Lansing, Mich., Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021.
(CNN)Demonstrations in state capitols across the United States were muted this weekend after warnings of armed protests, but officials have indicated they’ll remain vigilant in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Jamie Crawford, Lauren Fox, Omar Jimenez, Lucy Kafanov, Bill Kirkos, Jason Kravarik, Eric Levenson, Ross Levitt, Christina Maxouris, Artemis Moshtaghian, Jon Passantino, Conor Powell, Manu Raju, Raja Razek, Rebekah Riess, Hollie Silverman, Dan Simon, Greg Wallace and Whitney Wild contributed to this report.
By Jeremy Diamond, Kevin Liptak, Jamie Gangel and Pamela Brown, CNN
CNN — President Donald Trump is preparing to issue around 100 pardons and commutations on his final full day in office Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter, a major batch of clemency actions that includes white collar criminals, high-profile rappers and others but — as of now — is not expected to include Trump himself.
The White House held a meeting on Sunday to finalize the list of pardons, two sources said.
Trump, who had been rolling out pardons and commutations at a steady clip ahead of Christmas, had put a pause on them in the days leading up to and directly after the January 6 riots at the US Capitol, according to officials.
Aides said Trump was singularly focused on the Electoral College count in the days ahead of time, precluding him for making final decisions on pardons. White House officials had expected them to resume after January 6, but Trump retreated after he was blamed for inciting the riots.
RELATED: Trump’s ‘pro-law enforcement’ image crumbles in his final days
Initially, two major batches had been ready to roll out, one at the end of last week and one on Tuesday. Now, officials expect the last batch to be the only one — unless Trump decides at the last minute to grant pardons to controversial allies, members of his family or himself.
The final batch of clemency actions is expected to include a mix of criminal justice reform-minded pardons and more controversial ones secured or doled out to political allies.
The pardons are one of several items Trump must complete before his presidency ends in days. White House officials also still have executive orders prepared, and the President is still hopeful to declassify information related to the Russia probe before he leaves office. But with a waning number of administration officials still in jobs, the likelihood that any of it gets done seemed to be shrinking.
The January 6 riots that led to Trump’s second impeachment have complicated his desire to pardon himself, his kids and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. At this point, aides do not think he will do so, but caution only Trump knows what he will do with his last bit of presidential power before he is officially out of office at noon on January 20.
After the riots, advisers encouraged Trump to forgo a self-pardon because it would appear like he was guilty of something, according to one person familiar with the conversations. Several of Trump’s closest advisers have also urged him not to grant clemency to anyone involved in the siege on the US Capitol, despite Trump’s initial stance that those involved had done nothing wrong.
“There are a lot of people urging the President to pardon the folks” involved in the insurrection, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on Fox News. “To seek a pardon of these people would be wrong.”
One White House official said paperwork had not yet been drawn up for a self-pardon.
Still, Trump is expected to leave the White House on January 20 and could issue pardons up until noon on Inauguration Day.
Other attention-grabbing names, like Julian Assange, are also not currently believed to among the people receiving pardons, but the list is still fluid and that could change, too.
It’s also not certain whether Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon will receive a pardon.
RELATED: Wikileaks asks reporters for help in desperate bid to score Julian Assange last-minute pardon
Trump is still receiving multiple streams of recommendations on pardons from those advisers who remain at the White House, as well as people outside the building who have been lobbying for months for themselves or their clients.
The expectation among allies is that Trump will issue pardons that he could benefit from post presidency.
“Everything is a transaction. He likes pardons because it is unilateral. And he likes doing favors for people he thinks will owe him,” one source familiar with the matter said.
Inside the White House, there has been a scramble to petition for pardons on behalf of allies and advocacy groups and names could be added and taken off up until the last minute, sources say.
CNN previously reported there has been a crush of pardon requests during Trump’s final days in office from allies, lobbyists and others hoping to cash in on their loyalty to Trump. The New York Times reported Sunday some of those people were getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of felons hoping for pardons.
The FBI is screening all 25,000 National Guard troops heading to D.C. as fears mount among defense officials that those responsible for security at the inauguration could participate in an insider attack, The Associated Press reported Sunday.
But the Army secretary said the FBI’s vetting has not surfaced any problems, and there has not been any evidence of insider attacks after attending a three-hour security drill for the inauguration.
”We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” McCarthy told the AP.
“The question is, is that all of them? Are there others?” said McCarthy. “We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this.”
The military regularly checks if its members have links to extremism, but the FBI is screening those slated to guard the Capitol and Biden as an additional precaution.
To vet Guard members, the FBI would run names through the bureau’s databases and watchlists to find any concerning associations, including involvement in investigations or terrorism-related issues, David Gomez, a former FBI national security supervisor in Seattle, told the AP.
The FBI deferred to the Secret Service for comment, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, the Army said it is working with the Secret Service “to determine which service members supporting the national special security event for the Inauguration require additional background screening.”
“The D.C. National Guard is also providing additional training to service members as they arrive in D.C. that if they see or hear something that is not appropriate, they should report it to their chain of command,” the statement said. “There is no place for extremism in the military and we will investigate each report individually and take appropriate action.”
“The Army is committed to working closely with the F.B.I. as they identify people who participated in the violent attack on the Capitol to determine if the individuals have any connection to the Army,” the statement continued.
About 25,000 National Guard troops are expected to be in D.C. for inauguration, amounting to at least two and a half times the number at previous inaugurations. The major security concerns, according to McCarthy, are any riots by armed groups or explosives being set up.
The Army secretary called the inauguration a “national priority,” saying “We want to send the message to everyone in the United States and for the rest of the world that we can do this safely and peacefully.”
The preparation comes after a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol last week in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election win. The riots, which resulted in five deaths and at least 125 arrests, forced lawmakers to flee to secure locations until they reconvened hours later and certified the Electoral College vote.
McCarthy told the AP that service members from across the military were present at the riots, but it’s unknown how many were there and how many took part in the raid on the Capitol. As of Sunday evening, only a couple of current active-duty or National Guard members had been arrested due to their actions at the riots.
Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan weighs in on changing immigration policy under President-elect Joe Biden.
A migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border called on the incoming Biden administration to honor their “commitments” to the migrants moving north, citing the incoming administration’s vow to ease Trump’s restrictions on asylum.
But on Sunday, an unnamed Biden transition official said that migrants hoping to claim asylum in the U.S. during the first few weeks of the new administration “need to understand they’re not going to be able to come into the United States immediately,” NBC News reports.
More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering as part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.
The Associated Press reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.
The Biden transition official, however, warned migrants against coming to the U.S. during the early days of the new administration, telling NBC that while “there’s help on the way,” now “is not the time to make the journey.”
“The situation at the border isn’t going to be transformed overnight,” the official told the outlet.
“We have to provide a message that health and hope is on the way, but coming right now does not make sense for their own safety…while we put into place processes that they may be able to access in the future,” the official said.
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump’s policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their political asylum hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts them at risk.
Biden has also promised a pathway to legal permanent residency for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants’ group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.
President Trump warned last week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to “a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you’ve never seen before,” claiming that there were already signs of increased flows.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
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The FBI says in an arrest warrant filed late Sunday that a woman who was part of the mob that penetrated the U.S. Capitol earlier this month may have stolen a laptop computer or hard drive from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with the intent of funneling the device to Russia’s foreign intelligence agency.
The bureau is seeking Riley June Williams, a Pennsylvania woman, on charges related to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, including entering a restricted building, disrupting the orderly conduct of government and engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct.
However, the complaint/arrest warrant filed by the FBI’s Manassas, Va., office, says it is investigating a claim that Williams stole a laptop or hard drive from the speaker’s office. According to one witness, described as a former romantic partner of Williams, the accused “intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.”
Richard Barnett, a supporter of President Trump, holds a piece of mail as he sits inside the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after protesters breached the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6.
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Richard Barnett, a supporter of President Trump, holds a piece of mail as he sits inside the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after protesters breached the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6.
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The unidentified witness said “for unknown reasons” the plan fell through and that Williams “still has the computer device or destroyed it.”
“This matter remains under investigation,” the FBI said.
In the days following the attack — in which rioters ransacked the speaker’s office and ripped a name plate from above her door — Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s chief of staff, confirmed in a tweet that a laptop “only used for presentations” had been taken from a conference room in the speaker’s office.
The speaker’s office could not immediately be reached early Monday for further comment on the FBI filing.
The affidavit provides a link to a documentary filmed and produced by the London-based ITV News that includes footage shot inside the Capitol as the rioters streamlined in. At about 20:40 into the video, a woman in glasses, wearing a green shirt and brown trench coat and carrying a black-and-white bag over her shoulder, identified as Williams, can be seen yelling “upstairs, upstairs, upstairs,” pushing and urging people in the general direction of Pelosi’s office.
The documentary singles out the woman, saying she was “disciplined, focused, with a sense of urgency, directing people up a staircase.”
The same woman can be seen in other video taken outside the Capitol building on Jan. 6, according to the affidavit.
The FBI says Williams’ mother filed a report with police in Harrisburg about a suspicious person on Jan. 11 but that when officers interviewed her, Williams herself was not present. The suspicious person “was assumed” to be the same witness who had alleged Williams intended to sell the stolen laptop or hard drive, the bureau says.
“According to the Harrisburg officers, on January 16, 2021, they again spoke with WILLIAMS’ mother who told them that a British media crew had come to her home the night before, asking to speak with WILLIAMS, who was not present. The news crew presented WILLIAMS’ mother with one or more images taken at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Her mother acknowledged that it was WILLIAMS in the image,” the affidavit says.
“It appears that WILLIAMS has fled,” it says.
In a separate ITV News segment posted Jan. 16, the documentary crew interviews Wendy Williams, who identified herself as the mother of the woman in the video and confirmed that the video showed her daughter. In the segment, the mother says that her daughter is not home.
More than 125 people have been arrested so far in connection with the attack on the Capitol, on charges from curfew violations to federal felonies, according to The Associated Press.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer in a letter Sunday to hold a vote in the Senate to dismiss the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Graham, a close ally of Trump, briefly broke with the president after the January 6 insurrection but has since returned to defending him.
In the letter to Schumer, Graham argued that if the trial were not dismissed, “we will be delaying indefinitely, if not forever, the healing of this great nation.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Sen. Chuck Schumer in a letter Sunday to hold a Senate vote rejecting the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“The Senate should vote to dismiss the article of impeachment once it is received in the Senate,” Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said in the letter. “We will be delaying indefinitely, if not forever, the healing of this great nation if we do otherwise.”
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives last week on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” over his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, where his supporters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. The attack left five people dead.
The Senate is set to hold a trial in which it will vote on whether to convict the president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, has indicated the trial will not start until after Inauguration Day, by which time Schumer, a Democrat from New York, will be the new majority leader.
Graham, a frequent ally of the president, briefly broke from Trump after the Capitol siege and acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden had won the 2020 US election.
In the letter to Schumer, however, he argued that it would be “unconstitutional” to hold an impeachment trial for Trump after he’s left office. Though such a trial has never been attempted for a former US president, several legal scholars have argued it would be allowed under the Constitution.
Graham also praised Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to heed calls, including from the president, to break from the Constitution by attempting to overturn the election results. Graham compared that decision to Schumer’s.
“But now, in your first act as Majority Leader, rather than begin the national healing that the country so desperately yearns for, you seek vengeance and political retaliation instead,” he wrote.
Graham said Senate Republicans “rejected unconstitutional actions” regarding the election certification.
“Virtually all of us rejected further challenges to the 2020 election,” he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.
The massive undertaking reflects the extraordinary security concerns that have gripped Washington following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. And it underscores fears that some of the very people assigned to protect the city over the next several days could present a threat to the incoming president and other VIPs in attendance.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press on Sunday that officials are conscious of the potential threat, and he warned commanders to be on the lookout for any problems within their ranks as the inauguration approaches. So far, however, he and other leaders say they have seen no evidence of any threats, and officials said the vetting hadn’t flagged any issues that they were aware of.
”We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” McCarthy said in an interview after he and other military leaders went through an exhaustive, three-hour security drill in preparation for Wednesday’s inauguration. He said Guard members are also getting training on how to identify potential insider threats.
About 25,000 members of the National Guard are streaming into Washington from across the country — at least two and a half times the number for previous inaugurals. And while the military routinely reviews service members for extremist connections, the FBI screening is in addition to any previous monitoring.
Multiple officials said the process began as the first Guard troops began deploying to D.C. more than a week ago. And they said it is slated to be complete by Wednesday. Several officials discussed military planning on condition of anonymity.
“The question is, is that all of them? Are there others?” said McCarthy. “We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this.”
In a situation like this one, FBI vetting would involve running peoples’ names through databases and watchlists maintained by the bureau to see if anything alarming comes up. That could include involvement in prior investigations or terrorism-related concerns, said David Gomez, a former FBI national security supervisor in Seattle.
Insider threats have been a persistent law enforcement priority in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But in most cases, the threats are from homegrown insurgents radicalized by al-Qaida, the Islamic State group or similar groups. In contrast, the threats against Biden’s inauguration have been fueled by supporters of President Donald Trump, far-right militants, white supremacists and other radical groups. Many believe Trump’s baseless accusations that the election was stolen from him, a claim that has been refuted by many courts, the Justice Department and Republican officials in key battleground states.
The insurrection at the Capitol began after Trump made incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally. According to McCarthy, service members from across the military were at that rally, but it’s not clear how many were there or who may have participated in the breach at the Capitol. So far only a couple of current active-duty or National Guard members have been arrested in connection with the Capitol assault, which left five people dead. The dead included a Capitol Police officer and a woman shot by police as she climbed through a window in a door near the House chamber.
Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, has been meeting with Guard troops as they arrive in D.C. and as they gather downtown. He said he believes there are good processes in place to identify any potential threats.
“If there’s any indication that any of our soldiers or airmen are expressing things that are extremist views, it’s either handed over to law enforcement or dealt with the chain of command immediately,” he said.
The insider threat, however, was just one of the security concerns voiced by officials on Sunday, as dozens of military, National Guard, law enforcement and Washington, D.C., officials and commanders went through a security rehearsal in northern Virginia. As many as three dozen leaders lined tables that ringed a massive color-coded map of D.C. reflected onto the floor. Behind them were dozens more National Guard officers and staff, with their eyes trained on additional maps and charts displayed on the wall.
The Secret Service is in charge of event security, but there is a wide variety of military and law enforcement personnel involved, ranging from the National Guard and the FBI to Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Capitol Police and U.S. Park Police.
Commanders went over every aspect of the city’s complicated security lockdown, with McCarthy and others peppering them with questions about how the troops will respond in any scenario and how well they can communicate with the other enforcement agencies scattered around the city.
Hokanson said he believes his troops have been adequately equipped and prepared, and that they are rehearsing as much as they can to be prepared for any contingency.
The major security concern is an attack by armed groups of individuals, as well as planted explosives and other devices. McCarthy said intelligence reports suggest that groups are organizing armed rallies leading up to Inauguration Day, and possibly after that.
The bulk of the Guard members will be armed. And McCarthy said units are going through repeated drills to practice when and how to use force and how to work quickly with law enforcement partners. Law enforcement officers would make any arrests.
He said Guard units are going through “constant mental repetitions of looking at the map and talking through scenarios with leaders so they understand their task and purpose, they know their routes, they know where they’re friendly, adjacent units are, they have the appropriate frequencies to communicate with their law enforcement partners.”
The key goal, he said, is for America’s transfer of power to happen without incident.
“This is a national priority. We have to be successful as an institution,” said McCarthy. “We want to send the message to everyone in the United States and for the rest of the world that we can do this safely and peacefully.”
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
MOSCOW—Russian security forces detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny on his return to the country, heightening a confrontation between the Kremlin and its most vocal critic after he recovered in Germany from a near-fatal poisoning attack last summer.
Russian authorities went to lengths to prevent his return from becoming a media spectacle by diverting his plane to Sheremetyevo airport, nearly an hour’s drive from his original destination. His followers, who had congregated at a different airport west of Moscow, were barred from entering the arrival area by dozens of security officials, many in riot gear, who swarmed the area.
Mr. Navalny was confronted by law-enforcement officials inside the terminal, who took him away from his wife, lawyer and other supporters traveling with him, video from his YouTube channel showed. Aides said he wasn’t allowed access to a lawyer and was currently at an undisclosed location.
Russia’s federal prison service said in a statement that Mr. Navalny, who has been on the agency’s “wanted list” since Dec. 29, was detained for repeated violations of his probation. Further measures would be determined by a court, the agency said. Until then, Mr. Navalny would remain in custody, officials said.
The opposition politician has said the legal moves authorities have initiated against him were meant to deter him from returning.
Shocking footage released on Sunday offers a new glimpse inside the deadly US Capitol riot, — following the invaders as they search for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers, sit in Vice President Mike Pence’s seat and rifle through lawmakers’ documents.
The nearly 13 edited minutes of footage were shot by war correspondent Luke Mogelson and published Sunday by The New Yorker, for which Mogelson is a contributing writer.
The video opens with scenes of hordes of pro-Trump rioters overpowering US Capitol Police and streaming into the seat of American democracy through doors and shattered windows.
“You’re outnumbered!” one rioter can be heard telling a small contingent of cops trying to hold the line inside a Capitol hallway. “There’s a f–king million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump, your boss!”
The contingent of rioters backed the overwhelmed cops down a hallway through the sheer size of their group and headed up a stairway, with one invader yelling in parting, “We love you guys! Take it easy!”
One group of dozens chanted, “Treason! Treason! Treason!” as they stalked the halls, the video shows.
“Knock knock!” one man taunted as the doors to the Senate gallery were slammed open, sending rioters streaming inside. “We’re here!”
Members of that group can be heard wondering about the whereabouts of Congressional lawmakers, who had been attempting to certify the results of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory when the riot broke out following a rally in which Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” against the process.
“Where the f–k are they?” one man yelled upon seeing the deserted Senate floor.
“Where the f–k is Nancy?” was another call.
As rioters clad in combat gear made their way onto the Senate floor, a debate broke out about the optics of the takeover.
A rioter sitting in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair.YouTube
The spat centered around one intruder taking a seat in the chair reserved for the president of the Senate, Pence — who was accused by Trump of not doing enough to fight the election results and was among those forced to evacuate when the riot hit.
“Hey, get out of that chair!” Larry Brock, a zip tie-carrying retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from Texas can be heard telling the unidentified man occupying Pence’s seat.
“No, this is our chair!” a third man yelled back.
“It’s not our chair,” countered Brock. “I love you guys, you’re brothers, but we can’t be disrespectful.”
A rioter challenged Brock further, invoking a conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump.
“They can steal an election, but we can’t sit in their chairs?” the man asked.
“No, we’re not putting up with that either!” insisted Brock. “Look, it’s a PR war. … We’re better than that.”
While the group bickered, others rifled through lawmakers’ desks, apparently in search of documents to back their claim that the election was rigged.
A handful of intruders stumbled upon papers detailing what one identified as Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s “objection to the Arizona” election results.
Rioters reading Sen. Ted Cruz’s notes.YouTube
The discovery left some confused over exactly what the papers purportedly showed.
“His objection! He was gonna sell us out all along!” fumed one man.
“Wait, no, that’s a good thing!” chimed in another huddled around the document.
One of Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, Cruz was among those who questioned the legitimacy of Biden’s win in Arizona, lodging an unsuccessful protest even in the hours after the riot.
Two others flipped through a binder, apparently also in search of evidence or otherwise incriminating material, the video shows.
“There’s gotta be something in here we can f–king use against these scumbags,” muttered one man, haphazardly leafing through pages.
“[Republican Missouri Sen. Josh] Hawley, Cruz. I think Cruz would want us to do this,” another man intoned. “I think we’re good.”
Above them in the gallery, “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley — done up in a horned helmet and red, white and blue face paint — chanted unintelligibly, rhythmically stomping his feet and the pole of an American flag.
Jake Angeli in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair inside of the chamber.YouTube
In a later segment, Chansley — also known as Jake Angeli — made his way down onto the Senate floor, closely followed by a lone cop, the video shows.
“You guys are f–king patriots,” said Angeli to the group. “Look at this guy. He’s covered in blood. God bless you.”
The man to whom Angeli was referring, splayed out on the floor with a small smear of blood on his t-shirt, said that he “got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet,” but declined an offer of medical help.
As Angeli ascended the dais and prepared to sit in Pence’s seat, the cop took his best shot at dispersing the crowd.
“Is there any chance I can get you guys to leave the Senate wing?” he asked.
Replied the bloodied man on the floor, “We will. I’ve been making sure they ain’t disrespecting the place.”
Angeli, however, decided to make himself at home.
“I’m gonna take a sit in this chair because Mike Pence is a f–king traitor,” he said.
As the cop looked on, Angeli asked another rioter to use his phone to snap a photo of him seated in Pence’s chair.
Once Angeli had his photo, the cop took another crack.
“Now that you’ve done that, can I get you guys to walk out of this room, please?” he asked.
The group appeared to be complying, but not before Angeli scrawled a message on a sheet of paper before Pence’s seat: “It’s only a matter of time[,] justice is coming!”
In a later segment, however, Angeli and others were back on the dais, using a megaphone to shout a “prayer.”
The group prayer inside of the chamber.YouTube
“Thank you, heavenly father, for being the inspiration needed to these police officers to allow us into the building, to allow us to exercise our rights, to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists,” said Angeli.
In the hall outside the Senate chamber, cops were doing what they could to direct rioters out of the building.
“We support you guys, OK?” one rioter could be heard telling an officer. “We know you’re doing your job.”
Back outside the Capitol, however, it was a different scene as another contingent of rioters clashed with cops attempting to restore order.
“F–k the blue! F–k the blue!” some in the mob chanted, the video shows, in an apparent reference to police.
One of the many security checkpoints in Washington, D.C., ahead of Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
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One of the many security checkpoints in Washington, D.C., ahead of Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony.
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
Police have arrested two more people near security checkpoints in Washington, D.C., where security is heightened over concerns about potential violence on fast-approaching Inauguration Day.
Early Sunday morning, a 22-year-old Virginia man carrying a firearm, three high-capacity magazines and 37 rounds of unregistered ammunition was arrested near Capitol Hill.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Guy Berry of Gordonsville, Va., was walking in the 200 block of Massachusetts Avenue NE with a Glock 22 “clearly visible in a holster.” Officers who stopped him “concluded” that he was not allowed to carry a handgun in D.C., said the police report provided to NPR.
Berry was arrested for carrying a pistol without a license, possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device and unregistered ammunition. He remains in custody as of Sunday early afternoon, police said.
A voicemail message left at a phone number listed for Berry was not immediately returned.
Security measures continue to be heightened around Washington, D.C., following the Capitol riot.
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Security measures continue to be heightened around Washington, D.C., following the Capitol riot.
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And on Saturday, a woman claiming to be a law enforcement officer and part of the presidential Cabinet was stopped at an inauguration checkpoint, where U.S. Capitol Police say they arrested her for impersonating an officer as well as failing to obey and fleeing from law enforcement.
In an email to NPR, the MPD identified the woman as 63-year-old Linda MaGovern of Stratford, Conn.
MaGovern approached a security checkpoint near Union Station around 8:45 a.m. in her vehicle, according to the police report. She said she was a law enforcement officer and presidential Cabinet member, and she “was displaying a round metallic object later identified as a Military Police Challenge Coin.”
The report says officers asked MaGovern to put her vehicle in park three times and she complied, but fled northbound when asked for her driver’s license.
“As the USCP officers questioned the Suspect, she drove off in the vehicle, and again was stopped at 50 Massachusetts Avenue,” USCP said in a press release.
Following her arrest, police said MaGovern was transported to the D.C. Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program for evaluation before being processed at USCP headquarters and taken to the D.C. jail.
Reached by phone, MaGovern’s husband, Keith MaGovern, declined to comment.
A total of three people have been arrested near security checkpoints, which were set up following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and ahead of Wednesday’s presidential inauguration. On Friday, a truck driver was arrested near the Capitol with a loaded handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., argued pursuing impeachment of President Trump after he leaves office will ‘further divide the country.’
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., argued on Sunday that pursuing the “Scarlet Letter” impeachment of President Trump after he leaves office will ruin the start of Joe Biden’s presidency and urged the president-elect to “stand down.”
Speaking during an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” the South Carolina Republican senator pressed Biden to oppose the impeachment push.
“You talk about unifying the country, if you do not stand up against the impeachment of President Trump after he leaves office, you’re an incredibly weak figure in American history,” Graham said.
Graham stressed that he believes pursuing impeachment after Trump leaves office “will further divide the country.”
He went on to urge Biden to “stand up to the radical left” and tell Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to dismiss what he believes is “an unconstitutional attempt to impeach president Trump out of office.”
On Sunday, Graham tweeted the letter he sent to Schumer saying, “The Senate should vote to dismiss the article of impeachment once it is received in the Senate,” stressing that “we will be delaying indefinitely, if not forever, the healing of this great Nation if we do otherwise.”
Graham told host Maria Bartiromo he has not yet heard back from the Democratic senator. Fox News did not immediately hear back from Schumer’s office.
Graham said impeaching a president after he leaves office is “insane at every level” and stressed that it “will create further division in this country.”
“This is a Scarlet Letter impeachment where the Democrats are trying openly to disqualify President Trump from ever holding office again after he leaves office,” Graham said. “This has never been done in the history of our country.”
He went on to say that he believes “it is blatantly unconstitutional.”
“It’s being driven by the radical left and what is Joe Biden doing? He’s sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing,” Graham said. “One phone call from President-elect Biden would stop this.”
Graham added that “Joe Biden is off to a lousy start,” saying that “it would be so easy for him in the name of healing this country to tell Schumer to stand down impeachment.”
Graham went on to say that because Biden is not doing that he is “really worried that he’s [not] going to stand up to the radical left on anything.”
“I think we’re going to have in the first hundred days by the Biden administration the most aggressive socialized policy effort in the history of the country,” he continued.
Ten House Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, joined Democrats to impeach President Trump on charges of “incitement of an insurrection,” making him the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, faced blowback from other GOP leaders for her high-profile condemnation of the president.
On Sunday, Graham also had a message for his Republican colleagues in the Senate saying, “If we embrace an unconstitutional impeachment of Donald Trump after he’s out of office, it will destroy the party.”
“President Trump’s going to be the most important voice in the Republican Party for a long time to come,” Graham said, adding that Trump will “accept responsibility for his part on January the 6th.”
He went on to say that impeaching Trump after he leaves office is “not only unconstitutional,” but it will “destroy” the Republican Party.
“I hope the Republican senators know that because it is a reality and it will not help the country,” Graham said, adding that impeaching Trump after he leaves office “will be disastrous for this country and our party.”
Graham did, however, acknowledge that the violence at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month “was one of the low points in my time in office.”
“It was horrendous to see people come and take over the capitol, the House and the Senate, beat officers, defile the seat of government,” Graham said, adding that Congress will “get to the bottom” of how that could have happened.
He then urged his Republican colleagues not to “legitimize an unconstitutional effort to impeach President Trump” because it will become “the model for the future.”
“What you’ve done here is you impeached the president without one witness being called and not even having a lawyer,” he added, noting that the “bad, rushed [and] emotional” move is “dangerous to the presidency.”
“I hope every Republican will reject the second impeachment of President Trump,” he stressed.
“I don’t care if you went there and spread flowers on the floor, you breached the security of the Capitol, you interrupted a joint session of Congress, you tried to intimidate us all, you should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and to seek a pardon of these people would be wrong,” Graham said, adding that he thinks “it would destroy President Trump, and I hope we don’t go down that road.”
Among those requesting a pardon from President Trump before he leaves office this week is the attorney representing the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” who stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bizarre getup, The New York Post reported.
Graham noted that rioters chose to storm the U.S. Capitol and that “President Trump never said go into the Capitol and try to interrupt a joint session of Congress.”
A few people demonstrated in some capital cities, with crowds of only a dozen or two, while streets in many other places remained empty. Some protesters said they supported President Donald Trump. But others said they weren’t backing Trump and had instead come to voice their support for gun rights or oppose government overreach.
Some statehouses were surrounded by new protective fences, had boarded-up windows and were patrolled by extra police. Legislatures generally were not in session over the weekend.
Tall fences also surrounded the U.S. Capitol. The National Mall was closed to the public, and the mayor of Washington asked people not to visit. Some 25,000 National Guard troops from around the country are expected to arrive in the city in the coming days.
The security measures were intended to safeguard seats of government from the type of violence that broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when far-right Trump supporters galvanized by his false claims that the election had been stolen from him stormed the building while Congress was certifying the Electoral College vote.
At the Ohio Statehouse on Sunday, about two dozen people, including several carrying long guns, protested outside under the watchful eyes of state troopers before dispersing as it began to snow.
Kathy Sherman, who was wearing a visor with “Trump” printed on it, said she supports the president but distanced herself from the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol.
“I’m here to support the right to voice a political view or opinion without fear of censorship, harassment or the threat of losing my job or being physically assaulted,” she said.
The roughly 20 protesters who showed up at Michigan’s Capitol, including some who were armed, were significantly outnumbered by law enforcement officers and media.
At Oregon’s Capitol, fewer than a dozen men wearing military-style outfits, black ski masks and helmets stood nearby with semiautomatic weapons slung across their bodies. Some had upside-down American flags and signs reading such things as “Disarm the government.”
At the Texas Capitol, Ben Hawk walked with about a dozen demonstrators up to the locked gates carrying a bullhorn and an AR-15 rifle hanging at the side of his camouflage pants. He condemned the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and said he did not support Trump.
“All we came down here to do today was to discuss, gather, network and hang out. And it got blown and twisted completely out of proportion,” Hawk said.
At Nevada’s Capitol, where demonstrators supporting Trump have flocked most weekends in recent months, all was quiet except for a lone protester with a sign.
“Trump Lost. Be Adults. Go Home,” it read.
Authorities in some states said they had no specific indication that demonstrations would occur, much less turn violent. Yet many state officials vowed to be prepared.
One counter-protester came early to greet any demonstrators at the Pennsylvania Capitol, saying he had heard about the possibility of a meet-up of a far-right militant group. But no one else was there.
“I’m fundamentally against the potential protesters coming here to delegitimize the election, and I don’t want to be passive in expressing my disapproval of them coming into this city,” Stephen Rzonca said.
More than a third of governors had called out the National Guard to help protect their capitols and assist local law enforcement. Several governors declared states of emergency, and others closed their capitols to the public until after Biden’s inauguration.
Some legislatures also canceled sessions or pared back their work for the coming week.
Even before the violence at the Capitol, some statehouses had been the target of vandals and angry protesters during the past year.
Last spring, armed protesters entered the Michigan Capitol to object to coronavirus lockdowns. People angry over the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes, vandalized capitols in several states, including Colorado, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.
Last last month, crowds in Oregon forced their way into the state Capitol in Salem to protest its closure to the public during a special legislative session on coronavirus measures.
Anticipating the potential for violence in the coming week, the building’s first-floor windows were boarded up and the National Guard was deployed.
“The state Capitol has become a fortress,” said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, a Democrat. “I never thought I’d see that. It breaks my heart.”
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