Tag: capitolriots

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Biden shames Republicans for playing down Jan 6 attack

President Joe Biden.(photo:Instagram)

Republicans in the House are beginning to plot multiple probes into the 2021 Capitol attack, including looking into the Democratic-led select committee’s actions from the last Congress…reports Asian Lite News

President Joe Biden on Wednesday lambasted Republicans and said that they should be ashamed of supporting an effort by Fox News to play down the seriousness of the January 6, 2021 assault on Congress by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.

“More than 140 officers were injured on Jan 6. I’ve said before: How dare anyone diminish or deny the hell they went through?” Biden tweeted. “I hope House Republicans feel ashamed for what was done to undermine our law enforcement,” he added.

Republicans in the House are beginning to plot multiple probes into the 2021 Capitol attack, including looking into the Democratic-led select committee’s actions from the last Congress, the security failures from that day and potentially even the treatment of January 6 defendants, multiple sources familiar with the work tell CNN.

The move comes as Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy green-lit the release of January 6 security footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sought to whitewash the severity of the attack and caused a major uproar among Senate Republicans on Tuesday.

Biden expressed support for the Capitol Hill police, whose chief has accused Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson of manipulating video footage of the unprecedented assault after Trump’s election defeat.

In a statement, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said Carlson’s show aired this week was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions.”

While top Republicans had hoped when they took over the House to steer clear of re-litigating January 6, McCarthy had to reverse course when the election left his conference with a slimmer-than-expected majority. In his bid to win the speaker’s gavel, McCarthy made a number of promises to his right flank, which has been pressuring leadership to revisit the topic of January 6 under a GOP-led House.

January 6 select committee staff have been prepared for Republican-led investigations into their work and the Capitol attack, with some even getting liability insurance, reported CNN.

The Oversight Committee is expected to look into the treatment of January 6 defendants and the jail facilities where they have been detained, according to multiple sources. Far-right Republicans have long claimed that the rioters have been treated too harshly – a claim that judges have flatly rejected – and complained about the jail conditions.

However, the small subset of January 6 defendants who are currently in jail are there only because a federal judge ruled that they are either too dangerous to release or pose a flight risk.

The January 6 assault saw Trump supporters — told for weeks by Trump himself that the election was not fair — smashing their way through police lines and roaming through Congress. The assault forced a pause in the constitutional process of certifying Biden’s election victory, while scores of lawmakers fled, fearing for their lives. (ANI)

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3 active-duty Marines charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riot

The U.S. House select committee investigating the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, holds its final public session on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Dec. 19, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

No defense lawyers for the men were listed in the court docket, so it was not immediately clear whether they have attorneys to comment on their behalf….reports Asian Lite News

A Marine who said he was waiting for “Civil war 2” and two other active-duty members of the military have been charged with participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, authorities said in newly filed court papers.

Micah Coomer, Joshua Abate and Dodge Dale Hellonen were arrested this week on misdemeanor charges after their fellow Marines helped investigators identify them in footage among the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court papers.

Dozens of people charged in the riot have military backgrounds, but these three are among only a handful on active duty. A Marine Corps officer seen on camera scuffling with police and helping other members of the mob force their way into the Capitol was charged in 2021.

No defense lawyers for the men were listed in the court docket, so it was not immediately clear whether they have attorneys to comment on their behalf.

Their service records show they are all active-duty Marines. Maj. Kevin Stephensen, a spokesman for the Marine Corps, said it is aware of the allegations and “is fully cooperating with appropriate authorities in support of the investigation.”

Coomer, of Indiana, is stationed in Southern California’s Camp Pendleton; Abate, of Virginia, is at Fort Meade in Maryland; and Hellonen, of Michigan, is stationed at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune, according to the Marines.

The men spent about 52 minutes inside the Capitol, authorities say. At one point while in the rotunda, they put a red “Make American Great Again” hat on a statue to take pictures with it, according to court papers. Hellonen was carrying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, authorities said.

Coomer posted photos on Instagram that appeared to be taken inside the Capitol with the caption “Glad to be apart of history,” according to court documents. Days after the 2020 election, he and another person discussed over Instagram message how he believed the election was rigged.

And in late January 2021, he told another person in a message that “everything in this country is corrupt.”

“We honestly need a fresh restart. I’m waiting for the boogaloo,” Coomer wrote in a message detailed in court documents. When asked by the person what’s “a boogaloo,” Coomer responded “Civil war 2,” authorities said.

The boogaloo is an anti-government, pro-gun extremist movement. Its name is a reference to a slang term for a sequel — in this case, a second U.S. civil war. The movement is named after “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” a 1984 sequel to a movie about breakdancing.

Supporters have shown up at protests over COVID-19 lockdown orders and protests over racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear over Hawaiian shirts. The shirts are a reference to “big luau,” a riff on the term “boogaloo” sometimes favored by group members.

During an interview related to his security clearance in June, Abate acknowledged walking through the Capitol with two “buddies,” investigators said. Abate said they “walked around and tried not to get hit with tear gas.”

The Pentagon said Abate was assigned to the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion, which supports the National Security Agency. One of the largest U.S. intelligence agencies, the NSA spies on electronic communications around the world and has a critical role in deterring cyberattacks and foreign influence operations.

A spokesperson for the NSA declined to answer questions about when the agency learned of Abate’s statement that he had entered the Capitol or if it took action prior to his arrest to restrict his access to classified information.

The trio face charges including illegal entry and disorderly conduct.

Among Jan. 6 defendants with military backgrounds are members of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers, accused of plotting to violently keep President Donald Trump in power. The group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper, was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November.

A Navy reservist from Virginia accused of storming the Capitol was convicted this week on charges that he illegally possessed silencers disguised to look like innocuous cleaning supplies. Hatchet Speed is scheduled to go on trial in his Jan. 6 case later this year.

And a former U.S. Army reservist described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer was convicted of storming the Capitol to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was employed as a security contractor at a Navy base, was sentenced to four years in prison in September.

Nearly 1,000 people have been charged so far in the riot and the tally increases by the week. Almost 500 people have pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and more than three dozen have been convicted at trial.

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Members of US far-right group found guilty in Capitol riot case

File photo taken on Jan. 6, 2021 shows supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gathering near the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie/IANS)

Three additional defendants, who were leaders and associates of the organisation, were also found guilty on Tuesday of related felony charges….reports Asian Lite News

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the US far-right group Oath Keepers, and his associate Kelly Meggs were found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy and other charges for crimes related to the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.

Their actions disrupted a joint session of Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election, reports Xinhua news agency.

Three additional defendants, who were leaders and associates of the organisation, were also found guilty on Tuesday of related felony charges.

The verdicts followed an eight-week trial and three days of deliberations.

No sentencing date was set.

Rhodes, 57, of Granbury, Texas, was found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding and tampering with documents and proceedings.

Meggs, 53, of Dunnellon, Florida, was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging duties, and tampering with documents or proceedings.

According to the Department of Justice, the Oath Keepers is a large but loosely organised collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias.

Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, Rhodes, Meggs, and others began plotting to oppose by force the transfer of presidential power, court documents showed.

In the 22 months since the riot, over 900 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of theCapitol, including over 275 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

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USA

Two key White House aides to testify on Thursday

The two aides in question are Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor, and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, according to media reports trickling in from Washington….writes Ashok Nilakantan

The Congressional Committee investigating the Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6, 2021 has lined up for Thursday two key witnesses, both then US President Donald Trump’s top aides, to testify on what happened in the ex-President’s Oval office and the West Wing on the fateful day of the mob attack on the Congress building.

Scheduled to appear on Thursday before the committee’s next public hearing are reportedly two former White House aides — a press aide and a deputy NSC advisor — who are expected to testify as to what Trump was doing when a mob comprising his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol.

The hearing, according to committee member Jamie Raskin, would be a “moment of reckoning” for the US, and is set to focus on Trump’s inaction during the attack.

The two aides in question are Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor, and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, according to media reports trickling in from Washington.

Both Pottinger and Matthews were among a group of Trump administration staffers who resigned immediately after January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 Presidential election results.

They will join a parade of witnesses — including Trump family members, former administration staffers and Republican state officials — who have testified publicly before the panel or sat for previously recorded depositions.

Matthews, who was first deposed by the committee in February, came to the defence of Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who testified last month about how a frantic Trump ordered Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol following his January 6 speech on the Ellipse rallying his supporters, according to the New York Post.

The panel has interviewed over 1,000 witnesses, including star witnesses Pat Cipollone, White House counsel to Trump, and Cassidy Hutchinson, top aide to Mark Meadows, white house chief of staff, already over the former President’s behaviour during the riots, during which Hutchinson disclosed in an explosive testimony that Trump had refused to send a tweet calling the crowd off and that he may have suggested they were right to call for Mike Pence to be hanged as she overheard conversations in the West Wing. Cipollone did not deny Hutchinson’s testimony or witnesses prior to that.

Trump ally Steve Bannon was scheduled to stand trial on Monday on contempt charges for his involvement as he had advance knowledge of the insurrection since he had said in messages prior to January 6 that “all hell is about to break loose (tomorrow) on Jan 6”.

File photo taken on Jan. 6, 2021 shows supporters of then U.S. President Donald Trump gathering near the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua_Liu Jie_IANS)

A former Trump strategist had reportedly been in touch with Trump all through, though not physically present in the White House on the fateful day.

Bannon, the former President’s longtime lieutenant and hardcore right-wing agitator, had refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena, and his various last-ditch efforts to head off or delay the trial had failed.

The committee had said he was not entitled to executive privilege of the ex-President as he was not physically present in the White House on that day, though Trump had said he was willing to waive that.

The Secret Service is facing the deadline on Tuesday to hand over text messages from January 5-6, 2021, some of which the agency said it deleted as part of a “device-replacement programme” and secret service periodical protocols.

The committee had subpoenaed the Secret Service for “relevant” text messages and any action reports “pertaining or relating in any way to the events” of January 6 on last Friday after the agency disputed claims that it had erased the messages before an electronic communication request was made, according to a report in the Washington Examiner.

It’s not clear whether data that were “lost” on mobile phones when they were reverted to their factory settings as part of a “pre-planned” system migration could be recovered. The tapes are crucial exhibits to corroborate the events of attacks on Capitol Hill.

The subpoena was issued after Joseph Cuffari, the inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Secret Service, met with the committee behind closed doors on Friday.

The Secret Service denied any “insinuation” that it had “maliciously deleted text messages” and said it has been cooperative with the office of the inspector general’s evaluation of the events of January 6, 2021.

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USA

Jan 6 panel exposes Trump’s lies

This was the bombshell revelation from the 7th hearing of the House January 6 Committee, which detailed how Trump wanted the mob descending on the Capitol to look spontaneous…writes Ashok Nilakantan

 The US Congressional committee probing the January 6 Capitol Hill “Insurrection” virtually dropped a bombshell on former president Donald Trump claiming evidence that he planned to lead a march of his supporters to the US Capitol as Congress was voting to certify the 2020 election, but did not want anybody outside of a few in his inner circle to know.

This was the bombshell revelation from the 7th hearing of the House January 6 Committee, which detailed how Trump wanted the mob descending on the Capitol to look spontaneous. The hearing also saw star witness white counsel Pat Cipollone recording testifying that he did his best to dissuade Trump from his “unconstitutional acts” besides corroborating all evidence before the committee on Trump’s action including the explosive statement of top White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and not denying at all any of the testimonies of the witnesses earlier on.

The committee disclosed an email from Katrina Pierson, a rally organizer, who informed fellow organizers after a January 2 phone call with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that Trump was planning to “call on everyone to march to the Capitol”, news reports from major US media outlets revealed.

Another rally organizer, Kylie Jane Kremer, wrote in a January 4 text message that it was important to keep the plan secret to avoid alerting the National Park Service. “This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse,” Kremer wrote.



“POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol. It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly’.”

Not only would keeping the planned mob march on the Capitol a secret prevent a counter-demonstration, the secrecy would also, critically, keep the US Capitol Police in the dark as to what to expect in terms of its planning for security needs.

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was privy to what was going on. Bannon predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that “all hell will break loose” the next day, and it was revealed by the committee Tuesday that Bannon had talked twice that day with Trump.

“It’s all converging,” Bannon said on the podcast, “and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack, right, the point of attack tomorrow. I’ll tell you this, it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is, strap in.”



Bannon, who is facing contempt charges for refusing to testify before the January 6 committee, agreed over the weekend to finally appear before the committee. He stands trial on July 18 but the senate committee made it clear that his testimony does not absolve him of any charges that will be pressed against him during the trial as he was not part of the January 6 people in white house or entitled to any executive privilege one enjoys in relationship with the president.

The judge in his pending trial ruled on Monday that the trial will go on as scheduled next week nonetheless.

ALSO READ: Trump should have conceded elections, says Cipollone

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Capitol riots hearing to focus on extremism

In a surprise move, another star witness Stephen Bannon, White House strategist, media executive and banker, has come forward to testify if Trump waived his executive privilege…writes Ashok Nilakantan

Tuesday will be a crucial day for the nearly yearlong Congress Senate committee probing the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol Hills insurrection and the alleged involvement of ex-President Donald Trump to incite a riotous mob to attack the building and overturn the election verdict of 2020, with key witness and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone scheduled to testify on the events.

Cipollone’s statement under oath will not be a deposition, but hours long testimony going into the minutest details of the events at the Oval and West wing on Jan 6 and is expected to corroborate the testimony of top White House aide to Trump, Cassidy Hutchinson.

She has already charged that Trump was furious over the 2020 verdict and overheard aides saying he wanted Vice President Mike Pence to annul the verdict against their advice as being extreme and unconstitutional. That he wanted to lead the mob at Capitol Hill, grabbed the steering wheel and tried to ring the neck of the security detail of the presidential limo, Beast.

In a surprise move, another star witness Stephen Bannon, White House strategist, media executive and banker, has come forward to testify if Trump waived his executive privilege, which, surprisingly, the ex-President has done to tell what happened.

Bannon had earlier defended Trump citing EP but after being criminally charged to stand trial on July 18 offered a deal to testify apparently to save himself. The Senate committee has made it clear that there was no executive privilege for him to be waived as he was not part of the West wing team on January 6.

The committee also said his testimony will not absolve him of any guilt of criminal charges for which he stands trial on July 18. Bannon had sent a message on January 5, 2021 saying “all hell is going to break loose on January 6”, indicating he had advanced knowledge.

According to CNN TV news network, members of the White House select committee investigating the attacks on the US Capitol say the panel’s public hearing on July 12 will focus on how the violent mob came together and the role of extremist groups in the deadly insurrection.

“We are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who were trying — in government circles — to overturn the election.”

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday the hearings will focus on connections between the Trump administration and militia groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Florida Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy, who also sits on the committee, told NBC on Sunday that the panel could present evidence that members of Congress encouraged extremist groups to come to Washington on January 6, echoing Trump’s tweet the previous month that January 6 would “be wild”.

She called that tweet a “siren call” for those groups.

Meanwhile, a Trump documentary titled “Unprecedented” has been released prior to the July 12 hearing. The three-part documentary, which follows Trump in the lead-up to and the aftermath of the 2020 elections, was released on Sunday.

Filmmaker Alex Holder and his team were granted access to Trump and his family members during the final weeks of the campaign and the weeks surrounding the attack on January 6, 2021, for their series “Unprecedented”.

Trump’s inner circle was interviewed about the key moments, including when Trump found out the election had been called for Joe Biden and when he tested positive for Covid.

Holder’s team was also filming at the Capitol on January 6, and the series shows footage of Trump supporters crawling through broken windows to get inside the building.

The Jan 6 committee subpoenaed the raw footage of the interviews Holder conducted with Trump, then Vice President Mike Pence, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Jared Kushner, as well as footage of the attack on the Capitol.

The committee also asked for any footage in which election fraud or election integrity was discussed.

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Biden orders release of Trump’s White House visitor logs

According to reports, the records being released to Congress are visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were allowed to enter the White House on the day of the insurrection….reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has ordered the National Archives to handover Trump White House visitor logs to the House committee probing the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, once again rejecting former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege, media reported.

According to reports, the records being released to Congress are visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were allowed to enter the White House on the day of the insurrection.

In a letter sent on Monday to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had considered Trump’s claim that because he was president at the time of the attack on the US Capitol, the records should remain private, but decided that it was “not in the best interest of the United States” to do so, it was reported.

Last month, Trump had assured that he would pardon rioters charged with deadly assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, if the former president decides to run in the 2024 presidential election and wins.

“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly, we will treat them fairly, and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly,” Trump said at a Saturday rally in Texas.

The ex-president, however, did not elaborate again on whether he plans to join the presidential race.

Also, Trump will launch his own social media network by the end of March, Fox Business said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The network, named TRUTH Social, will be fully operational by the expected launch date at the end of the current quarter, the report said on Wednesday.

The Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) currently conducts beta testing, and Americans will be able to download its app or create an account by the same time, the report said.

Trump’s new network is not public yet, but is already available for pre-order in the Apple App Store, the report added.

TRUTH Social will cooperate with Rumble – a platform, which is positioning itself as an alternative to YouTube and Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to the report.

Trump promised last week that his network will fight back against Big Tech censorship and will protect the right to free speech and expression.

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Ivanka urged to cooperate with Capitol attack inquiry

The committee has been seeking over 700 pages worth of documents as it tries to find out what role Trump played during the riot….reports Asian Lite News

The House committee probing the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has asked the Ivanka Trump, daughter of former president Donald Trump, to cooperate voluntarily with its inquiry, media reported.

This was after the US Supreme Court ruled that the Congressional committee can access records related to the deadly attack, dealing a blow to Donald Trump’s effort to withhold the documents.

In a letter marking a major step for the investigation inside Trump’s inner circle, the House select committee told Ivanka Trump — then a senior advisor to her father — it had evidence that she had pleaded with him to call off the violence as his supporters stormed Congress.

“The committee would like to discuss any other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding the president’s plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes,” chairman Bennie Thompson wrote.

The committee has been seeking over 700 pages worth of documents as it tries to find out what role Trump played during the riot.

The former President disputed the transfer of the files on the grounds that they are under protection by his executive privilege.

President Joe Biden has refused to grant his predecessor the executive privilege, and subsequent lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team have failed in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court acknowledged there are “serious and substantial concerns” over whether a former president can win a court ruling to prevent the disclosure of certain records from his time in the White House in such a situation.

Meanwhile, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has filed a motion to compel Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump to testify in an investigation on the financial dealings of the Trump Organization.

According to preliminary investigation results issued on Wednesday by James’ office, the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain economic benefits, reports Xinhua news agency.

Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump have refused to provide sworn testimony by filing a motion on January 3 to quash interviews requested by James’ office.

Each of the three individuals was directly involved in one or more transactions under review, according to papers filed to the Supreme Court of the State of New York by James’ office.

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One year after “Capitol Chaos”

President Joe Biden will turn the screws on Donald Trump by calling him out Thursday for “singular responsibility” in provoking the mayhem on January 6 last year, when the outgoing Republican leader’s supporters stormed Congress, reports Asian Lite News

President Joe Biden’s decision to use his speech on the anniversary to squarely blame Trump and Republican allies for their role in the unprecedented attack on US democracy will mark a sharp escalation in his approach to Trump and the riot.

Through the first year of his presidency, Biden has preferred mostly to ignore Trump, who still refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and continues to spread conspiracy theories to his millions of followers about being the true winner.

But in a speech from inside the Capitol’s Statuary Hall — where exactly a year ago a Trump mob rampaged through to try and stop certification of Biden’s election win — the Democratic president will firmly blame his predecessor, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

“I would expect President Biden to lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage,” she said.

“President Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy,” she said.

Asked if Biden would use Trump’s name, Psaki said “we’re finalizing the speech, but I think people will know whom he’s referring to.”

Earlier Wednesday, the Capitol police chief, Thomas Manger, said his forces would not be caught unprepared again, as they were last year.

And Attorney General Merrick Garland also promised that justice was being done, saying he was “committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

Senior Republican skips anniversary

However, in the political sphere, the country remains dangerously divided.

Underlining the stunning partisan split, senior Republicans appear set to skip commemorations organized by the Democratic-led Congress on Thursday, including Biden’s speech and a prayer vigil.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others from his party were set to be away in Atlanta, Georgia, attending the funeral of the late senator Johnny Isakson.

In an opinion piece on Fox News, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, a leading supporter of false claims that Biden’s 2020 victory was suspect, referred to January 6 as a “demonstration” that “some demonstrators” marred.

“Gathering for a political demonstration is not a crime. On the contrary, it is a right expressly protected by the US Constitution,” he wrote.

Trump himself continues to push the lie that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden — a conspiracy theory dismantled in multiple court findings and vote recounts.

He had been planning a press conference at his Florida home to steal the limelight on Thursday, but abruptly abandoned the plan in a statement Tuesday that nevertheless continued to claim that the 2020 election was a “crime.”

Writing in The New York Times, former Democratic president Jimmy Carter said the United States “now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late.”

Undermining of democracy

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also called for a profound look at the state of the nation in the wake of the ugly episode. “Without addressing the root causes of the violence on January 6, the insurrection will not be an aberration it could well become the norm,” he warned.

In his speech, Garland said the authorities had so far arrested and charged about 725 people across the country in connection with the attack.

However, after criticism that the Justice Department has moved too slowly to tackle the leaders and address accusations of a deeper dangerous plot to overthrow the election, Garland pleaded for patience, suggesting that investigators are moving up the chain.

“We resolve more straightforward cases first because they provide the evidentiary foundation for more complex cases,” he said.

And echoing widespread fears that radicalized Americans are turning on their institutions, he promised to “address the rising violence and criminal threats of violence against election workers, against flight crews, against school personnel, against journalists, against members of Congress, and against federal agents, prosecutors, and judges.”

“Such conduct disrupts the peace of our public spaces and undermines our democracy. We are all Americans. We must protect each other,” he said.

ALSO READ: Biden, Trump to address nation separately on Capitol riot anniversary

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Biden, Trump to address nation separately on Capitol riot anniversary

The president and vice president will deliver remarks during their appearance at the Capitol for the anniversary of January 6th….reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to observe Capitol Hill Anniversary separately.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S. Capitol Thursday to mark the anniversary of last year’s riot, according to Fox News.

The president and vice president will deliver remarks during their appearance at the Capitol for the anniversary of January 6th.

Capitol protests, which saw thousands of former President Donald Trump’s supporters breach the entrance and flood into the building while Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election results, according to Fox News.

Former President Donald Trump plans to hold a press conference on the anniversary of the Capitol riot.

Earlier, on January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C They sought to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election by disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes that would formalize then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Donald Trump will hold the press conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort on January 6.

Trump, despite losing by more than seven million votes to Biden, and despite losing multiple court challenges around the country, continues to tout wild claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Further, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that her office is planning a series of events to commemorate the one year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building, including a “prayerful vigil”(ANI)

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