In alarming testimony to a House subcommittee, the acting chief of Capitol police, Yogananda Pittman, said threats were circulating that directly targeted Joe Biden's first formal speech to a joint session of Congress – the date of which has not yet been announced.
Militia groups involved in the 6 January insurrection want to stage another attack aiming to 'blow up' the complex and kill lawmakers, Pittman has warned
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The White House briefing has now concluded. Here’s where the day stands so far:
White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not say when specifically Joe Biden will address a joint session of Congress for the first time as president.
Biden said last month that he would lay out his Build Back Better plan in a February address to Congress.
Continue reading...Calls to investigate attack followed Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said on Monday that the US Congress will move to establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.
Pelosi said in a letter to members of Congress that the commission would be modeled on a similar one convened after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attack on Washington and New York.
Continue reading...Former president celebrates second impeachment acquittal as supporters and moderates prepare to contest party direction
Donald Trump emerged from his second impeachment trial almost completely politically intact. But amid widespread laments (or celebrations, depending on the affiliation of the speaker) about the former president’s grip on the Republican party, some prominent voices suggested a changing of the guard may still be due.
Related: Mitch McConnell's impeachment speech was just a hostage video | Lloyd Green
Continue reading...Calls of ‘guilty’ and ‘not guilty’ pinged back and forth in the chamber but once McConnell said no the die was cast
If the denouement of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial had been a Hollywood film, stirring music would have struck up around the time Congressman Joe Neguse explained why he thinks the floor of the US Senate is “sacred”.
Related: Trump’s acquittal seals his grasp on the Republican party
Continue reading...Five Senate Republicans voted with the Democrats on Saturday, that the Senate should call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Before the 55-45 vote, Trump’s impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen warned senators that if Democrats wished to call a witness, he would ask for at least 100 witnesses and insist they give depositions in person in his office in Philadelphia – a threat that prompted laughter from the chamber.
Continue reading...Lawyers claim Trump’s ‘fight like hell’ rhetoric on 6 January was no different than the language politicians frequently use
Impeachment lawyers for Donald Trump accused the prosecution of waging a “politically motivated witch-hunt” against the former president, vehemently denying the charge that his words and actions incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol as they concluded their sharply partisan defense and prepared for a swift conclusion to the trial.
Confident that Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial would again result in acquittal, the defense lawyers channeled the former president’s bombastic style – and his loose relationship with the facts – to denounce the case against him as an “unconstitutional act of political vengeance” fueled by Democrats’ longstanding “hatred” of their client. They claimed the House managers had grievously mischaracterized Trump’s remarks to his followers at a rally on 6 January, when he exhorted them to “fight like hell” during a rally just before they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and attacked the US Capitol.
Continue reading...Republicans Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and others unabashedly endorsed the former president’s assault on democracy
A desk in the US Senate was notably empty for chunks of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Wednesday.
Continue reading...House impeachment managers rested their case against Donald Trump on Thursday, concluding that the deadly Capitol assault he stands accused of inciting was the culmination of a presidency beset by lies and violent rhetoric, and warning gravely that he would remain a threat to American democracy if not convicted and barred from holding future office.
Continue reading...Police bodycam footage showing officers under attack at the US Capitol attack has been released during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump. Democrat congressman Eric Swalell played footage captured from the officer's perspective showing the crowd attacking police with whatever items were at hand, including crutches and a Trump flag. Swalell also revealed vision showing the evacuation of representatives including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer being ushered away by security
Continue reading...New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence.
Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney's close call as well as Pence and his family's escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’
Analysis: faith in the US has been shaken and the impeachment trial is a test of accountability before a global audience
The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin stood at the lectern, faced 100 senators and removed his black face mask to begin the historic second impeachment trial of former president Donald John Trump.
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The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.
The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.
Related: 'Jim Crow relic': Senate filibuster stands in way of Democratic voting rights push
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...Democrats hope harrowing audio and video from Capitol attack will make plain what no legal argument might deny
The lethal Capitol invasion by Donald Trump supporters that is at the heart of the former president’s second impeachment trial happened more than a month ago. But Democrats leading the prosecution of Trump are counting on an element of surprise.
Surprise, the impeachment prosecutors are calculating, because while most Americans understand the broad outlines of what happened during the 6 January attack on the Capitol, relatively few have come to grips with the shocking audio and video footage from that day – portraying a cauldron of violence, vandalism, bloodlust and fear.
Continue reading...Impeachment managers will present scene in harrowing detail using video and audio recordings
House impeachment managers will open their prosecution of Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” by recounting the deadly assault on the US Capitol in harrowing and cinematic detail, rekindling for senators the chaos and trauma they experienced on 6 January.
Related: Donald Trump impeachment trial: what you need to know
Continue reading...Cheney, the third ranking member of the House Republican leadership, was censured in a vote Saturday by her state’s Republican party
Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, was censured by the Wyoming Republican party on Saturday for voting to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.
The overwhelming censure vote was the latest blowback for Cheney for joining nine Republican representatives and all Democrats in the US House in the 13 January impeachment vote.
Continue reading...Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Rosa DeLauro first introduced the Family Act in 2013, but it has failed to gain sufficient support
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has said US Congress is in a “unique moment” and “better poised than ever” to pass a paid family and medical leave bill that would make the benefit permanently accessible to all American workers for the first time, as she and congresswoman Rosa DeLauro reintroduced the legislation on Friday.
Currently, the US is the only industrialised nation in the world not to have a national paid family and medical leave policy.
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The House has just passed the Senate-approved budget resolution, paving the way for the chamber to take up Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal in the coming weeks.
The House voted 219-209 along mostly partly lines to approve the resolution as amended by the Senate. Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.
The rule for S.Con.Res. 5 – Setting forth the congressional budget for the US Gov't for FY 2021 & setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for FY 2022-2030 was adopted by a vote of 219-209.
S.Con.Res. 5 is hereby passed.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh from being stripped of her committee assignments, seemed unrepentant on Friday morning, as she used a press conference to sum up the intertwining of the Republican party and Donald Trump.
“The party is his – it doesn’t belong to anyone else,” Greene told reporters in Washington this morning.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Trump and the GOP Party:
"The party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else." pic.twitter.com/XOL8VzRicW
The congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have delivered powerful testimonies about the 6 January US Capitol breach on the House floor. Ocasio-Cortez called for the House to avoid quickly moving on from the insurrection, saying it would diminish the impact on survivors and avoid accountability for those killed. Tlaib referenced the death threats she had received before she was sworn in and pleaded for the rhetoric that led to the attack to be taken seriously
Continue reading...Vote largely along party lines serves as rebuke of congresswoman’s incendiary and racist statements
The US House of Representatives has voted to strip the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from the committees she was assigned to, in a stark rebuke of her incendiary and racist statements.
Related: Republicans take no action against Cheney or extremist Greene after vote
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