The attempted insurrection, and President Trump’s role in provoking it, was widely condemned by officials, including Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), who this weekend called for Trump to resign. House Democrats readied to impeach Trump this week, unless Vice President Pence and the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him first.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/11/police-beating-capitol-mob/

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund resigned after thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday. Sund says his requests to superiors to get the National Guard to respond to the riot at the Capitol were rebuffed.

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Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund resigned after thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday. Sund says his requests to superiors to get the National Guard to respond to the riot at the Capitol were rebuffed.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The former chief of U.S. Capitol Police says security officials at the House and Senate rebuffed his early requests to call in the National Guard ahead of a demonstration in support of President Trump that turned into a deadly attack on Congress.

Former chief Steven Sund — who resigned his post last week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for him to step down made the assertions in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday.

Sund contradicts claims made by officials after Wednesday’s assault on Capitol Hill. Sund’s superiors said previously that the National Guard and other additional security support could have been provided, but no one at the Capitol requested it.

Sund told the Post that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving was concerned with the “optics” of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests and rejected a National Guard presence. He says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that he informally request the Guard to be ready in case it was needed to maintain security.

Like Sund, Irving and Stenger have also since resigned their posts.

Sund says he requested assistance six times ahead of and during the attack on the Capitol. Each of those requests was denied or delayed, he says.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser also wanted a light police presence at the Capitol. She reportedly wanted to avoid a similar scenario as last summer, when federal forces responded to demonstrators opposed to police abuses who assembled near the White House.

During Wednesday’s violence, Bowser requested, and received, a limited force of 340 from the D.C. National Guard. Those troops were unarmed and their job was to help with traffic flow — not law enforcement, which was meant to be handled by D.C. police.

When the mob reached the Capitol complex at about 12:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday, it took about 15 minutes for the west side perimeter of the building to be breached, he says. The Capitol Police contingent, which numbered around 1,400 that day, was quickly overrun by the estimated 8,000 rioters.

“If we would have had the National Guard we could have held them at bay longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,” he says.

Sund says during a conference call with several law enforcement officials at about 2:26 p.m., he asked the Pentagon to provide backup.

Senior Army official Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff, said on the call he couldn’t recommend that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy authorize deployment, Sund and others on the call told the Post. Piatt reportedly said, “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,” the Post reported.

It would be more than three hours before any National Guard troops arrived, well after the damage at the Capitol had been done.

In the interview, Sund also issued a warning to federal officials, saying “if they don’t get their act together with physical security, it’s going to happen again.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-chief-rebuffs-claims-national-guard-was-never-called-during-ri

William J. Burns has been vocal in his belief that American diplomacy has been damaged during the Trump administration.Credit…Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

President-elect Joseph R. Biden has selected William J. Burns, a career State Department official who led the U.S. delegation in secret talks with Iran, to run the Central Intelligence Agency.

In selecting Mr. Burns, Mr. Biden is turning to an experienced diplomat with whom he has a long relationship. The two men have worked together on various foreign policy issues, not just during the Obama administration, but also while Mr. Biden led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Burns has also long worked with Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s pick for national security adviser, and has been influential in helped foster the younger man’s career.

Mr. Biden’s choice sends a message that American intelligence will not be influenced by politics.

In a statement early Monday, the president-elect said that Mr. Burns “shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals serving our nation deserve our gratitude and respect.”

Still, Mr. Burns’ experience is as a consumer of intelligence, not as a producer. C.I.A. directors are expected to put aside their policy recommendations and focus on information and prediction. Still, former agency officials have asserted the most important quality in a director is not expertise in intelligence, but a relationship with the president, which Mr. Burns has.

During his presidency, President Trump has undermined and dismissed intelligence officials and has called them “passive” and “naïve” in their analysis of national security threats posed by Iran.

Currently, Mr. Burns is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been vocal in his belief that American diplomacy has been damaged in the Trump administration.

Described as a “steady hand” and a “very effective firefighter,” by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Burns spent 32 years at the State Department, where he was the American ambassador to Moscow and Jordan, and in high-level leadership positions in Washington.

Mr. Burns has been a trusted diplomat in Republican and Democratic administrations. He has played a role in the agency’s most prominent, and painful, moments over the past two decades.

In 2012, he accompanied the bodies of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on a C-17 flight from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Washington after the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya. In 2002, Mr. Burns wrote a memo he titled “The Perfect Storm,” which highlighted the dangers of American intervention in Iraq.

Mr. Burns retired from the State Department in 2014.

For a time, Michael J. Morell, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., was considered the leading candidate for the top agency post. But some Democratic senators voiced public and private reservations. Senate liberals, including Ron Wyden of Oregon, opposed picking Mr. Morell, accusing him of defending torture. Mr. Morell’s representatives said Mr. Wyden had inaccurately portrayed his record and comments about the C.I.A. interrogation program.

Earlier, Thomas E. Donilon, a former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, withdrew his name from consideration for the post. David Cohen, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., had also been considered.

A key question will be how Mr. Burns can work with Avril D. Haines, Mr. Biden’s choice to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Biden transition team has said Ms. Haines will be the senior intelligence official in the administration and does not intend to make the C.I.A. director a formal member of the cabinet. In past administrations, there have often been tension between the director of national intelligence and the C.I.A. director.

Mr. Burns was considered a likely candidate to run the State Department in the incoming Biden administration. He could prove critical in helping Mr. Biden restart discussions with Tehran after Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/11/us/joe-biden-trump

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – A man seen carrying zip ties during riots at the US Capitol has been arrested Sunday in Tennessee.

Eric Munchel has ties to Lee County as a former employee at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grille. The restaurant confirmed he was an employee over two years ago.

The restaurant also said they have no affiliation with Munchel.

Munchel was charged with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to the Department of Justice.

It is alleged that Munchel was inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 during the riots, the DOJ said. Photos depicting his presence show a person who appears to be Munchel carrying zip ties, an item in a holster on his right hip, and a cell phone mounted on his chest with the camera facing outward.

He was charged alongside another Texas man named Larry Brock, who has the same charges, the DOJ confirmed.

The FBI is looking for people who may have incited or promoted violence of any kind. Anyone with digital material or tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit images or videos here.

Source Article from https://nbc-2.com/news/crime/2021/01/10/man-lee-county-arrested-zip-ties-us-capitol-riots/

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under battle flags bearing Donald Trump’s name, the Capitol’s attackers pinned a bloodied police officer in a doorway, his twisted face and screams captured on video. They mortally wounded another officer with a blunt weapon and body-slammed a third over a railing into the crowd.

“Hang Mike Pence!” the insurrectionists chanted as they pressed inside, beating police with pipes. They demanded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts, too. They hunted any and all lawmakers: “Where are they?” Outside, makeshift gallows stood, complete with sturdy wooden steps and the noose. Guns and pipe bombs had been stashed in the vicinity.

Only days later is the extent of the danger from one of the darkest episodes in American democracy coming into focus. The sinister nature of the assault has become evident, betraying the crowd as a force determined to occupy the inner sanctums of Congress and run down leaders — Trump’s vice president and the Democratic House speaker among them.

This was not just a collection of Trump supporters with MAGA bling caught up in a wave.

That revelation came in real time to Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who briefly took over proceedings in the House chamber as the mob closed in Wednesday and the speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was spirited to safer quarters moments before everything went haywire.

“I saw this crowd of people banging on that glass screaming,” McGovern told The Associated Press on Sunday. “Looking at their faces, it occurred to me, these aren’t protesters. These are people who want to do harm.”

“What I saw in front of me,” he said, “was basically home-grown fascism, out of control.”

Pelosi said Sunday “the evidence is that it was a well-planned, organized group with leadership and guidance and direction. And the direction was to go get people.” She did not elaborate on that point in a ”60 Minutes” interview on CBS.

The scenes of rage, violence and agony are so vast that the whole of it may still be beyond comprehension. But with countless smartphone videos emerging from the scene, much of it from gloating insurrectionists themselves, and more lawmakers recounting the chaos that was around them, contours of the uprising are increasingly coming into relief.

THE STAGING

The mob got explicit marching orders from Trump and still more encouragement from the president’s men.

“Fight like hell,” Trump exhorted his partisans at the staging rally. “Let’s have trial by combat,” implored his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whose attempt to throw out election results in trial by courtroom failed. It’s time to “start taking down names and kicking ass,” said Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama.

Criminals pardoned by Trump, among them Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, came forward at rallies on the eve of the attack to tell the crowds they were fighting a battle between good and evil and they were on the side of good. On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri gave a clenched-fist salute to the hordes outside the Capitol as he pulled up to press his challenge of the election results.

The crowd was pumped. Until a little after 2 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was at the helm for the final minutes of decorum in partnership with Pence, who was serving his ceremonial role presiding over the process.

Both men had backed Trump’s agenda and excused or ignored his provocations for four years, but now had no mechanism or will to subvert the election won by Biden. That placed them high among the insurrectionists’ targets, no different in the minds of the mob than the “socialists.”

“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” McConnell told his chamber, not long before things spiraled out of control in what lawmakers call the “People’s House.”

THE ASSAULT

Thousands had swarmed the Capitol. They charged into police and metal barricades outside the building, shoving and hitting officers in their way. The assault quickly pushed through the vastly outnumbered police line; officers ran down one man and pummeled him.

In the melee outside, near the structure built for Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, a man threw a red fire extinguisher at the helmeted head of a police officer. Then he picked up a bullhorn and threw it at officers, too.

The identity of the officer could not immediately be confirmed. But Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was wounded in the chaos, died the next night; officials say he had been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Capitol Police sent an alert telling workers in a House office building to head to underground transportation tunnels that criss-cross the complex. Minutes later, Pence was taken from the Senate chamber to a secret location and police announced the lockdown of the Capitol. “You may move throughout the building(s) but stay away from exterior windows and doors,” said the email blast. “If you are outside, seek cover.”

At 2:15 p.m., the Senate recessed its Electoral College debate and a voice was heard over the chamber’s audio system: “The protesters are in the building.” The doors of the House chamber were barricaded and lawmakers inside it were told they may need to duck under their chairs or relocate to cloakrooms off the House floor because the mob has breached the Capitol Rotunda.

Even before the mob reached sealed doors of the House chamber, Capitol Police pulled Pelosi away from the podium, she told “60 Minutes.”

“I said, ‘No, I want to be here,’”she said. “And they said, ‘Well, no, you have to leave.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not leaving.’ They said, ‘No, you must leave.’” So she did.

At 2:44 p.m., as lawmakers inside the House chamber prepared to be evacuated, a gunshot was heard from right outside, in the Speaker’s Lobby on the other side of the barricaded doors. That’s when Ashli Babbit, wearing a Trump flag like a cape, was shot to death on camera as insurrectionists railed, her blood pooling on the white marble floor.

The Air Force veteran from California had climbed through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby before a police officer’s gunshot felled her.

Back in the House chamber, a woman in the balcony was seen and heard screaming. Why she was doing that only became clear later when video circulated. She was screaming a prayer.

Within about 10 minutes of the shooting, House lawmakers and staff members who had been cowering during the onslaught, terror etched into their faces, had been taken from the chamber and gallery to a secure room. The mob broke into Pelosi’s offices while members of her staff hid in one of the rooms of her suite.

“The staff went under the table barricaded the door, turned out the lights, and were silent in the dark,” she said. “Under the table for two and a half hours.”

On the Senate side, Capitol Police had circled the chamber and ordered all staff and reporters and any nearby senators into the chamber and locked it down. At one point about 200 people were inside; an officer armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon stood between McConnell and the Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Authorities then ordered an evacuation and rushed everyone inside to a secure location, the Senate parliamentary staff scooping up the boxes holding the Electoral Collage certificates.

Although the Capitol’s attackers had been sent with Trump’s exhortation to fight, they appeared in some cases to be surprised that they had actually made it in.

When they breached the abandoned Senate chamber, they milled around, rummaged through papers, sat at desks and took videos and pictures. One of them climbed to the dais and yelled, “Trump won that election!” Two others were photographed carrying flex cuffs typically used for mass arrests.

But outside the chamber, the mob’s hunt was still on for lawmakers. “Where are they?” people could be heard yelling.

That question could have also applied to reinforcements — where were they?

At about 5:30 p.m., once the National Guard had arrived to supplement the overwhelmed Capitol Police force, a full-on effort began to get the attackers out.

Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements started using tear gas in a coordinated fashion to get people moving toward the door, then combed the halls for stragglers. As darkness fell, they pushed the mob farther out onto the plaza and lawn, using officers in riot gear in full shields and clouds of tear gas, flash-bangs and percussion grenades.

At 7:23 p.m., officials announced that people hunkered down in two nearby congressional office buildings could leave “if anyone must.”

Within the hour, the Senate had resumed its work and the House followed, returning the People’s House to the control of the people’s representatives. Lawmakers affirmed Biden’s election victory early the next morning, shell-shocked by the catastrophic failure of security.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca., told AP on Sunday it was as if Capitol Police “were naked” against the attackers. “It turns out it was the worst kind of non-security anybody could ever imagine.”

Said McGovern: “I was in such disbelief this could possibly happen. These domestic terrorists were in the People’s House, desecrating the People’s House, destroying the People’s House.”

Source Article from https://myfox8.com/news/capitol-assault-a-more-sinister-attack-than-first-appeared/

WASHINGTON (AP) — They came from across America, summoned by President Donald Trump to march on Washington in support of his false claim that the November election was stolen and to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden as the victor.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted a week before Christmas. “Be there, will be wild!”

The insurrectionist mob that showed up at the president’s behest and stormed the U.S. Capitol was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals. Records show that some were heavily armed and included convicted criminals, such as a Florida man recently released from prison for attempted murder.

The Associated Press reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless amid the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.

The evidence gives lie to claims by right-wing pundits and Republican officials such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that the violence was perpetrated by left-wing antifa thugs rather than supporters of the president.

“If the reports are true,” Gaetz said on the House floor just hours after the attack, “some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”

Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, told reporters that investigators had seen “no indication” antifa activists were disguised as Trump supporters in Wednesday’s riot.

The AP found that many of the rioters had taken to social media after the November election to retweet and parrot false claims by Trump that the vote had been stolen in a vast international conspiracy. Several had openly threatened violence against Democrats and Republicans they considered insufficiently loyal to the president. During the riot, some livestreamed and posted photos of themselves at the Capitol. Afterwards, many bragged about what they had done.

As the mob smashed through doors and windows to invade the Capitol, a loud chant went up calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence, the recent target of a Trump Twitter tirade for not subverting the Constitution and overturning the legitimate vote tally. Outside, a wooden scaffold had been erected on the National Mall, a rope noose dangling at the ready.

So far, at least 90 people have been arrested on charges ranging from misdemeanor curfew violations to felonies related to assaults on police officers, possessing illegal weapons and making death threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Among them was Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70, an Alabama grandfather who drove to Washington to attend Trump’s “Save America Rally” in a red GMC Sierra pickup packed with an M4 assault rifle, multiple loaded magazines, three handguns and 11 Mason jars filled with homemade napalm, according to court filings.

The truck was found during a security sweep involving explosives-sniffing dogs after two pipe bombs were found and disarmed Wednesday near the national headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties. Coffman was arrested that evening when he returned to the truck carrying a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun and a .22-caliber derringer pistol in his pockets. Federal officials said Coffman is not suspected of planting the pipe bombs, though he was charged with having Molotov cocktails in the bed of his truck.

His grandson, Brandon Coffman, told the AP on Friday his grandfather was a Republican who had expressed admiration for Trump at holiday gatherings. He said he had no idea why Coffman would show up in the nation’s capital armed for civil war.

Also facing federal charges is Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., a Georgia man who in the wake of the election had protested outside the home of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump had publicly blamed for his loss in the state. Meredith drove to Washington last week for the “Save America” rally but arrived late because of a problem with the lights on his trailer, according to court filings that include expletive-laden texts.

“Headed to DC with a (s—-) ton of 5.56 armor-piercing ammo,” he texted friends and relatives on Jan. 6, adding a purple devil emoji, according to court filings. The following day, he texted to the group: “Thinking about heading over to Pelosi (C——’s) speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.” He once again added a purple devil emoji, and wrote he might hit her with his truck instead. “I’m gonna run that (C—-) Pelosi over while she chews on her gums. … Dead (B——) Walking. I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die.”

Meredith, who is white, then texted a photo of himself in blackface. “I’m gonna walk around DC FKG with people by yelling ‘Allahu ak Bar’ randomly.”

A participant in the text exchange provided screenshots to the FBI, who tracked Meredith to a Holiday Inn a short walk from the Capitol. They found a compact Tavor X95 assault rifle, a 9mm Glock 19 handgun and about 100 rounds of ammunition, according to court filings. The agents also seized a stash of THC edibles and a vial of injectable testosterone.

Meredith is charged with transmitting a threat, as well as felony counts for possession of firearms and ammunition.

Michael Thomas Curzio was arrested in relation to the riots less than two years after he was released from a Florida prison in 2019 after serving an eight-year sentence for attempted murder. Court records from Florida show that he shot the boyfriend of his former girlfriend in a fight at her home.

Federal law enforcement officials vowed Friday to bring additional charges against those who carried out the attack on the Capitol, launching a nationwide manhunt for dozens of suspects identified from photographic evidence

The FBI has opened a murder probe into the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly. He died at a hospital.

The Trump supporters who died in the riot were Kevin D. Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama; Benjamin Philips, 50, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania; Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego; and Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia.

Boyland’s sister told the AP on Friday she was an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory that holds Trump is America’s savior. Her Facebook page featured photos and videos praising Trump and promoting fantasies, including one theory that a shadowy group was using the coronavirus to steal elections. Boyland’s final post on Twitter — a retweet of a post by White House social media director Dan Scavino — was a picture of thousands of people surrounding the Washington Monument on Wednesday.

“She would text me some things, and I would be like, ‘Let me fact-check that.’ And I’d sit there and I’d be like, ‘Well, I don’t think that’s actually right,’” Lonna Cave, Boyland’s sister, said. “We got in fights about it, arguments.”

The AP’s review found that QAnon beliefs were common among those who heeded Trump’s call to come to Washington.

Doug Jensen, 41, was arrested by the FBI on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, after returning home from the riot. An AP photographer captured images of him confronting Capitol Police officers outside of the Senate chamber on Wednesday.

Jensen was wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a large Q and the phrase “Trust The Plan,” a reference to QAnon. Video posted online during the storming of the Capitol also appears to show Jensen, who is white, pursuing a Black police officer up an interior flight of stairs as a mob of people trails several steps behind. At several points, the officer says “get back,” but to no avail.

Jensen’s older brother, William Routh, told the AP on Saturday that Jensen believed that the person posting as Q was either Trump or someone very close to the president.

“I feel like he had a lot of influence from the internet that confused or obscured his views on certain things,” said Routh, of Clarksville, Arkansas, who described himself as a Republican Trump supporter. “When I talked to him, he thought that maybe this was Trump telling him what to do.”

Jensen’s employer, Forrest & Associate Masonry in Des Moines, announced Friday that he had been fired.

Tara Coleman, a 40-year-old mother who lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was arrested at the Capitol for a curfew violation and for unlawful entry. On her Facebook page, Coleman re-posted articles supporting the QAnon beliefs about a “deep state” conspiracy to target children. The AP could not find a working phone number for Coleman and her attorney, Peter Cooper, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

And Jake Chansley, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman” and has long been a fixture at Trump rallies, surrendered to the FBI field office in Phoenix on Saturday. News photos show him at the riot shirtless, with his face painted and wearing a fur hat with horns, carrying a U.S. flag attached to a wooden pole topped with a spear.

Chansley’s unusual headwear is visible in a Nov. 7 AP photo at a rally of Trump supporters protesting election results outside of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix. In that photo, Chansley, who also has gone by the last name Angeli, held a sign that read, “HOLD THE LINE PATRIOTS GOD WINS.” He also expressed his support for the president in an interview with the AP that day.

The FBI identified Chansley by his distinctive tattoos, which include bricks circling his biceps in an apparent reference to Trump’s border wall. Chansley didn’t respond last week to messages seeking comment to one of his social media accounts.

There were also current and former members of the U.S. military in the crowd.

Army commanders at Fort Bragg in North Carolina are investigating Capt. Emily Rainey’s involvement in the Wednesday rally. The 30-year-old psychological operations officer told the AP she led 100 members of Moore County Citizens for Freedom who traveled to Washington to “stand against election fraud” and support Trump. She insisted she acted within Army regulations and that no one in her group entered the Capitol or broke the law.

“I was a private citizen and doing everything right and within my rights,” Rainey told the AP.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. of Texas was charged in federal court on Sunday after he was identified in photos showing him standing in the well of the Senate, wearing a military-style helmet and body armor while holding a pair of zip-tie handcuffs.

The insurrectionist mob also included members of the neofascist group known as the Proud Boys, whom Trump urged to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn them by a moderator during a presidential debate in September.

Nicholas R. Ochs, 34, was arrested Saturday after returning home to Hawaii, where he is the founder of the local Proud Boys chapter. On Wednesday, Ochs posted a photo of himself on Twitter inside the Capitol, grinning broadly and smoking a cigarette. According to court filings, the FBI matched photos of Ochs taken during the riot to photos taken when Ochs campaigned unsuccessfully last year as the Republican nominee for a seat in the Hawaii statehouse.

Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was arrested Monday in Washington on weapons charges and ordered to stay out of the nation’s capital. Tarrio is accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church last month.

Jay Robert Thaxton, 46, was arrested near the Capitol for curfew violations on Wednesday. A North Carolina man with the same name has also been linked to the Proud Boys. He told The Stanly News & Press in 2019 that he was a Proud Boys supporter but wouldn’t say if he was an official member of the group. Another North Carolina newspaper, The Jacksonville Daily News, published a photo of Thaxton wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at a 2019 protest over the removal of Confederate statues.

A man who answered a telephone number associated with Thaxton hung up on an AP reporter. The recipient of a text message to the same number responded with an expletive.

Also arrested at the Capitol was William Arthur Leary, who owns a manufactured housing business in Utica, New York. In an interview Friday, Leary told the AP that he strongly believes the election was stolen from Trump and that he went to Washington to show his support.

Leary said he doesn’t trust information reported by the mainstream media and that one of his main sources of information was Infowars, the far-right conspiracy site run by Alex Jones. He denied he ever set foot in the Capitol and complained that he was held for more than 24 hours and had his cell phone seized.

“They treated us like animals,” he complained. “They took all our phones. I didn’t get to make a phone call to tell anybody where I was.”

Leary said he remembers seeing a woman, Kristina Malimon, 28, sobbing at the detention center because she had been separated and not allowed to translate for her mother, who primarily speaks Russian. Both women had been charged with curfew violation and unlawful entry. According to a video posted on her Instagram account, the younger Malimon says she was born in Moldova, where her family had faced persecution under the Soviet-era regime for their Christian beliefs.

Malimon, who traveled to D.C. from Portland, Oregon, is vice chairwoman of the Young Republicans of Oregon, according to the group’s website and is also listed as an “ambassador” for the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA. Her social media feeds are full of photos taken at Trump events, including the earlier “Million MAGA March” held in Washington last month. She also posted photos of herself posing with Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes including obstruction of justice and pardoned by Trump on Christmas Eve.

Media reports from Oregon quoted Malimon in August as the primary organizer of a Trump boat parade on the Willamette River, where big waves created by speeding boats flying Trump flags swamped and sank a smaller boat that was not participating, throwing a family into the water to be rescued by the sheriff’s department.

“Oregon, today you came out and showed your love and support for our wonderful President, Donald J. Trump thank you!” Kristina Malimon wrote on Facebook following the parade.

Malimon also served as a Republican poll watcher in Georgia and spoke at an event organized by the Trump campaign in December, claiming to have seen voting machines and tabulation computers in Savannah, Georgia, with suspiciously blinking green lights she interpreted as a sign they were being secretly controlled by outside hackers — a claim debunked as false by GOP election officials in the state.

A phone number listed for Kristina Malimon rang without being answered on Friday. At the address listed for her in southeast Portland on Friday night, her teenage brother answered the door as other family members, including young children, ran around.

The family spoke Russian to each other and the brother, Nick Malimon, translated. He said his sister was still in Washington but had called the family following her release from jail and didn’t seem upset about her arrest.

Others are facing consequences even beyond arrest.

A Texas sheriff announced Thursday that he had reported one of his lieutenants to the FBI after she posted photos of herself on social media with a crowd outside the Capitol. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Lt. Roxanne Mathai, a 46-year-old jailer, had the right to attend the rally but he’s investigating whether she may have broken the law.

One of the posts Mathai shared was a photo that appeared to be taken Wednesday from among the mass of Trump supporters outside the Capitol, “Not gonna lie……aside from my kids, this was, indeed, the best day of my life. And it’s not over yet.”

A lawyer for Mathai, a mother and longtime San Antonio resident, said she attended the Trump rally but never entered the Capitol.

Attorney Hector Cortes said Mathai’s contract bars her from speaking directly with the press but that she welcomes an FBI investigation and that her actions were squarely within the bounds of the First Amendment.

Brad Rukstales, a Republican political donor and CEO of Cogensia, a Chicago-based data analytics firm, was arrested with a group of a half-dozen Trump supporters who clashed with officers Wednesday inside the Capitol. Campaign finance reports show Rukstales contributed more than $25,000 to Trump’s campaign and other GOP committees during to 2020 election cycle.

He told a local CBS news channel last week that he had entered the Capitol and apologized. He was fired Friday and did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Derrick Evans, a Republican recently sworn in as a delegate to the West Virginia House, resigned Saturday following his arrest on two charges related to the Capitol riot. He had streamed video of himself charging into the building with the mob.

“They’re making an announcement now saying if Pence betrays us you better get your mind right because we’re storming the building,” Evans, 35, says in the video, as the door to the Capitol building is smashed and rioters rush through. “The door is cracked! … We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”

On Saturday he issued a statement saying he regretted taking part.

“I take full responsibility for my actions, and deeply regret any hurt, pain or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents and fellow West Virginians,” the statement said.

___

Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland, Flaccus from Portland, Oregon, and Mustian from New York. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Michael R. Sisak in New York; Michael Balsamo in Washington; Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; James LaPorta in Delray Beach, Florida; and Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Associated Press investigative reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-ap-top-news-8edfd3bb994568b7cdcd2243ad769101

At one point, Mr. Trump told the vice president that he had spoken with Mark Martin, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who he said had told him that Mr. Pence had that power. Mr. Pence had assured Mr. Trump that he did not. Mr. Trump made the vice president defend his rationale in a meeting with lawyers that Rudolph W. Giuliani had helped line up.

Both parties conceded they had no clear picture of how many senators in the party might ultimately vote to convict Mr. Trump.

Mr. Toomey said Mr. Trump had “spiraled down into a kind of madness” since the election and had effectively “disqualified himself” from ever running for office again. But a day after he called Mr. Trump’s conduct “impeachable,” Mr. Toomey argued an impeachment would be impractical with Mr. Trump already headed for the exit.

“I think the best way for our country, Chuck, is for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible,” he told the host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I acknowledge that may not be likely, but I think that would be best.”

In speaking with associates about the prospect of another impeachment, Mr. Trump was hit with the reality that few people from his defense team in last year’s Senate trial would be part of any new proceeding.

Jay Sekulow, who has served as his lead personal lawyer, and two other private lawyers, Marty Raskin and Jane Raskin, will not participate in a future impeachment defense, according to a person briefed on the planning, nor will Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, or Patrick F. Philbin, his deputy.

This time, only a few of his allies on Capitol Hill have offered to speak up in defense as well. Among those who have, many have used calls for “unity” to argue against impeachment or calling for Mr. Trump’s resignation. In most cases, the lawmakers adamant that Democrats should let the country “move on” were among those who, even after Wednesday’s violence, voted to toss out electoral results in key swing states Mr. Biden won based on claims of widespread voter fraud that courts and the states themselves said were bogus.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/trump-impeachment.html

Silicon Valley’s moves to eject President Trump from social media represent a display of power the companies have avoided making for nearly four years. Now Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and others must reckon with what comes next.

In a span of a couple of days, Twitter and Facebook—Mr. Trump’s main social-media megaphones—took action to silence the president’s personal accounts or online communities devoted to him, citing rules prohibiting content that incites violence. They were joined by companies such as Snap Inc. and Reddit Inc.

Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google also took steps to boot Parler, a social-media app and website that has grown in popularity among conservatives—and which some rioters had used to promote Wednesday’s attack at the U.S. Capitol, according to screenshots viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The actions against Mr. Trump and Parler illustrate more starkly than ever the companies’ influence over conversation online—and the political nature of their decisions. While lauded by many, ejecting the president and some of his supporters also infuriated others who said it amounts to censorship, and the moves risked driving off some users in a way that, especially for Twitter, could reshape their businesses. It also illustrates the political nature of how they determine what content to remove, what content to allow and what to amplify.

“Right or wrong, they made a political decision,” said Jonathon Hauenschild, director of the communications and technology task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative nonprofit group, regarding the companies’ moves. Attention on the tech giants “was there to begin with. Now the spotlight is fully on,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-facebook-and-others-silenced-trump-now-they-learn-whats-next-11610320064

A man who police say killed three people and wounded four others during a series of shootings in and around Chicago posted nonsensical and expletive-laced videos in the days and hours leading up to the attacks.

Investigators on Sunday were trying to determine a motive for the Saturday afternoon attacks in which police say 32-year-old Jason Nightengale apparently chose his victims at random. Police killed Nightengale in a shootout just north of the city about four hours after authorities say he shot his first victim in the head in a South Side parking garage.

Those killed included a 30-year-old University of Chicago student from China named Yiran Fan, Anthony Faukner, 20, and Aisha Nevell, 46, a security guard. Wounded were a 77-year-old woman, 81-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl, according to Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown. Another woman was shot in the neck in Evanston, police in the suburb said.

Authorities didn’t release many details about Nightengale, a Chicago man whose LinkedIn page listed work over the years as a janitor, security guard and forklift operator. But a series of disturbing videos posted to Facebook over two years under Nightengale’s middle name, Oliver, offered clues as to his state of mind.

In one posted Thursday, Nightengale held a gun to the camera and muttered unintelligible statements as he appeared to be driving. A police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation confirmed it was Nightengale in the video.

“No music. No. No music,” Nightengale says in the video, his speech slurred. “I don’t need no seat belt. I’m coming, girl.”

He posted dozens of other short videos, including several in the hours before the first attack, which were viewable until the page was taken down Sunday. In one, he says, “I’m going to blow up the whole community.” In another, Nightengale appears to groove to the Bee Gee’s “Staying Alive” while laughing.

The shootings began shortly before 2 p.m. Saturday with the killing of Fan, who was shot in the head while sitting in his car in a parking garage in the Hyde Park neighborhood, Brown said.

After that, Nightengale “just randomly” walked into an apartment building a block away, where he shot the female security guard and the 77-year-old woman, who was getting her mail, Brown said. The guard was pronounced dead at a hospital and the other woman was hospitalized in critical condition.

From there, Nightengale went to another nearby building and stole a car from a man he knew. He then opened fire at a convenience store, killing the 20-year-old man and wounding the 81-year-old woman in the head and neck. The woman was in critical condition.

After leaving the store, Nightengale shot a 15-year-old girl who was riding in a car with her mother, leaving the girl in critical condition, police said. He then went back to the convenience store and fired on officers who were investigating the earlier shooting. None of them were injured, Brown said.

Nightengale then drove about 25 miles north to Evanston, where police responded to a report of shots that had been fired inside a CVS. Nightengale had apparently walked into the pharmacy, announced that he was robbing it and fired off shots that didn’t hit anyone, authorities said. He then went across the street to an IHOP restaurant, where he shot a woman in the neck. She was in critical condition, Evanston police Chief Demitrous Cook told reporters.

Nightengale left the restaurant and was confronted by officers in a parking lot, leading to a shootout in which he was shot and killed, Cook said.

Evanston police Sgt. Ken Carter said Nightengale appeared to have a connection to Evanston, but he did not have further details. Carter said Sunday that an outside agency would take over the investigation since Evanston police were involved in the fatal shooting.

Chicago police released an October 2018 booking photo of Nightengale that was taken after he was charged with multiple driving-related offenses, including driving on a suspended license. His criminal record started in 2005 and included arrests for gun and drug violations, aggravated assault, and a 2019 domestic battery case, according to WLS-TV.

A police blotter from the local news site Evanston Now shows that Nightengale was arrested in 2018 in Evanston on charges of domestic battery.

An attorney for Nightengale couldn’t be located Sunday.

Friends were shocked to hear of the shootings, describing Nightengale as a devoted father to twin girls who had a charismatic personality and a sense of humor but who had been through tough times.

Tommy Taylor remembered meeting Nightengale at a movies in the park event in Rogers Park, a Chicago neighborhood that borders Evanston. They hung out over the years.

“From all the years I knew him, he had always been a good guy and funny guy,” Taylor said. “Something had to happen in order for him to break him like that.”

University of Chicago officials said Fan was working toward a doctorate in a joint program between the university’s schools of business and economics, and that his family in China had been notified of his death.

“We know that this shocking incident brings grief to our entire community and concern for the wellbeing and safety of others,” the university said in a news release. “In the days ahead we will come together as a community to mourn, and to lift up fellow members of our community in this difficult and very sad time. Please join us in wishing consolation and healing for our student’s loved ones.”

Associated Press writer Herbert G. McCann contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.wbez.org/stories/cops-say-chicago-shooter-who-killed-3-people-posted-social-media-rants/2fe45e86-ac7a-41a4-910d-f36342a020dd

Until recently, Gugger’s Facebook profile photo was a reference to the QAnon conspiracy movement that the FBI has described as a domestic terror threat. It showed lightning bolts striking the Washington Monument behind the letter “Q.” Underneath the photo were the words, “The storm has arrived,” an apparent reference, according to QAnon believers, to the day when Trump would overthrow an elitist global cabal working against him.

Source Article from https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/philly-detective-reassigned-trump-insurrection-capitol-20210111.html

The federal charges he now faces after being arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, are one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

ExploreGeorgia man among those facing federal charges following Capitol riot

Also facing the same charges Sunday was Larry Rendell Brock of Texas, who the FBI said was “wearing a green helmet, green tactical vest with patches, black and camo jacket, and beige pants holding a white flex cuff, which is used by law enforcement to restrain and/or detain subjects.”

Source Article from https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/ex-georgia-resident-charged-as-zip-tie-guy-in-capitol-riot/YB55ZC2CBZHTJNVAZJHIZNJB3U/

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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/top-republican-says-trump-committed-impeachable-offenses-kjqohvm3

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social media companies decided this past week they had finally seen enough from President Donald Trump.

Facebook and Instagram suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also disabled Trump’s accounts. To top it all off, Twitter ended a nearly 12-year run and shuttered his account, severing an instant line of communication to his 89 million followers.

Conservatives are crying foul.

“Free Speech Is Under Attack! Censorship is happening like NEVER before! Don’t let them silence us. Sign up at http://DONJR.COM to stay connected!” his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted Friday.

CAN TWITTER AND FACEBOOK LEGALLY TAKE SUCH ACTION?

The short answer is yes.

As the Congressional Research Service has explained in a report for federal lawmakers and their staffs, lawsuits predicated on a website’s decision to remove content largely fail. That’s because the free speech protections set out in the First Amendment generally apply only to when a person is harmed by an action of the government.

“The First Amendment doesn’t apply to private sector organizations. That’s not how this works,” said Chris Krebs, when asked Sunday whether censorship by social media companies violated freedom of speech protections.

Krebs oversaw election cybersecurity efforts at the Department of Homeland Security until Trump fired him when he disputed election fraud claims. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, he explained that companies enforce their own standards and policies for users.

That’s what happened at Twitter on Friday.

WHAT RATIONALE DID TWITTER TAKE FOR ITS ACTIONS?

The company said after reviewing Trump’s account in the context of the riot at the Capitol on Wednesday, it was concerned about two tweets he sent Friday that Twitter said could incite violence. They were:

— “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

— “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

The first tweet, the company said, was received by some supporters as further confirmation that the Nov. 3 election was not legitimate — but in fact, the notion of widespread voter fraud is a baseless claim. The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters was also interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the Capitol.

The company said the second tweet could serve as encouragement to those considering violent acts that the inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 20 would be a “safe” target since he would not be attending.

“Our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so,” Twitter wrote.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-inaugurations-media-social-media-censorship-a4a02aca8341a844c011d4e165d8d61b

Aisha Nevell, 46, who had long worked the door of Lawrie’s building, was among those killed. Yiran Fan, 30, a resident of China and doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and Anthony Faulkner, 20, who had been in a convenience store when he was shot, were also killed. The 77-year-old woman, Shirley Hinton, was shot in the head and listed in critical condition, according to police and neighbors.

Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-evanston-shooting-spree-victims-20210110-fywreqlt4jactlytfg6xnbddey-htmlstory.html

  • Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said in no uncertain terms that President Donald Trump’s recent conduct was grounds for impeachment.
  • But Manchin cautioned Congress “to be practical” before going to trial.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said in no uncertain terms that President Donald Trump’s recent conduct was grounds for impeachment; however, cautioned Congress “to be practical” before going to trial.

“There is no doubt about it he should be impeached,” Manchin said during a CNN interview on Sunday. “But if we can’t, you have to be practical about what we are doing now.”

Manchin, who has been critical of Trump’s rhetoric about contesting the results of the US presidential election, stressed that the timing of an impeachment did not “make any common sense whatsoever,” given that the Senate is scheduled to come back from recess and resume regular business on January 19, one day before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration date.

“We are ready to install a new government,” Manchin said. “If I was Joe Biden, I’d want to be able to put my government together.”

Democrats in the House have threatened to bring forth articles of impeachment against Trump, the second during his presidency, as early as Monday.

In a memo first reported by The Washington Post, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell outlined his plan in case Democrats begin the proceedings before Biden’s inauguration date. McConnell wrote that the earliest the Senate would take up the matter would be January 19, given that any decision made before coming back from recess would require a unanimous decision from a Republican-majority Senate — an unlikely scenario.

“I hope people would look at two paths: you got a political path and you got a judicial path,” Manchin said. “I think the judicial path could be the one to give us the best results to stop this silliness within politics, this dangerous insidious type of speech that you have.”

Manchin, a moderate voice in the Senate, is a key vote for Democrats during a deadlock. Manchin’s vote is still essential in the upcoming year, despite Democrats having the majority of members in both chambers of Congress. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaker in the event of a 50-50 split.

An increasing number of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for impeaching Trump, following the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill. Prior to the rioters storming Congress, Trump hosted an event near the White House to galvanize supporters to “never concede” in disputing the results of the presidential election.

The subsequent riot claimed the lives of at least five people, including one Capitol Hill police officer.

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-manchin-impeach-trump-joe-biden-2021-1

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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/mayor-demands-tighter-security-in-d-c-for-biden-inauguration