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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh, Joan E Greve and Martin Belam (earlier)

Pelosi says lawmakers may be prosecuted if they 'aided and abetted' US Capitol riot – as it happened

Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill.
Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

Today’s recap, from me and Joan E Greve:

  • Nancy Pelosi announced a review of Capitol security after a violent mob stormed the building last week. The Democratic speaker said that the retired army Lt Gen Russel Honoré would lead the review. Pelosi also raised the possibility that House members could face prosecution if it were found that they had “aided and abetted” the riot.
  • Joe Biden reiterated his promise to distribute 100m coronavirus vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, despite the “dismal” vaccine rollout overseen by the Trump administration. “Truthfully, we remain in a very dark winter,” Biden said. “Things will get worse before they get better.” But the president-elect added, “You have my word, we will manage the hell out of this operation.”
  • Global coronavirus deaths surpassed 2 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The US is quickly approaching 400,000 coronavirus deaths, which represents the highest death toll of any country in the world.
  • The justice department inspector general is launching a review of the department’s role in the Capitol riot. The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said his office would “assess whether there are any weaknesses in DoJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DoJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the US Capitol on January 6”.
  • The justice department has opened 175 criminal investigations in connection with the Capitol riot. Speaking at a press conference today, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said he expected more than 300 investigations to be opened by the end of the day.
  • The NRA announced that it had filed for bankruptcy. It announced it would look to incorporate in Texas after the New York attorney general sued the gun-rights group for diverting donations to fund the lavish personal expenses of organization executives.
  • Biden elevates the White House office of science and technology a cabinet-level agency. The president-elect has tapped Eric Lander, a geneticist and pioneer in mapping the human genome, to lead the agency.

Updated

Donald Trump will fly to Florida hours before Biden inauguration, reports say

Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House as president on Wednesday morning, just hours before Joe Biden’s inauguration, flying off on Air Force One to his beachside home in Florida.

Trump’s post-presidential plans have been clouded in uncertainty. But several US news organisations reported on Friday that Trump intends to live at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach resort. His daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to join him there, at least for some of the time.

Trump has said he will not attend Biden’s inauguration. He is expected to leave Washington on the morning of 20 January, Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The Associated Press, citing a person familiar with the planning, said there would be a departure ceremony at Andrews air force base, with a military band, red carpet and 21-gun salute under discussion.

Several White House staff are likely to work for Trump and his family from their new Florida base. According to the Palm Beach Post, Melania Trump recently visited a private school in Boca Raton that the couple’s teenage son, Barron, is due to attend.

Read more:

Updated

Biden will elevate White House office of science and technology a cabinet-level agency, taps geneticist to lead

The president-elect has tapped Eric Lander, a geneticist and pioneer in mapping the human genome, to lead the agency. Lander previously served on Barack Obama’s council of science advisers.

Biden also picked Maria Zuber, a planetary scientist, and Frances Arnold, a Nobel laureate and chemist, to lead the agency. He named Alondra Nelson, the president of the Social Science Research Council and expert on social inequalities in science and technology, to serve as deputy director for science and society.

The appointments, and elevation of the agency, come as the US continues to battle a pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000, amplified structural inequities in health and healthcare, and been amplified by rampant misinformation and mistrust of medical science.

The council “will help the Biden-Harris administration confront some of the biggest crises and challenges of our time, from climate change and the impact of technology on society to pandemics, racial inequity and the current historic economic downturn”, the Biden transition team said in a statement.

Updated

National Rifle Association files for bankruptcy

The NRA announced that it has filed for bankruptcy and will look to incorporate in Texas after the New York attorney general sued the gun-rights group for diverting donations to fund the lavish personal expenses of organization executives.

“The move will enable long-term, sustainable growth and ensure the NRA’s continued success as the nation’s leading advocate for constitutional freedom – free from the toxic political environment of New York,” the NRA said in a statement.

The influential group has long weathered accusations of questionable spending. Its longtime executive Wayne LaPierre spent vast amounts on clothing, travel to the Bahamas and Italy, and other luxuries.

The New York attorney general Letitia James, a Democrat, said that her office would not allow the organization to use its bankruptcy filing to evade accountability.

NPR reporter Tim Mak, who has extensively researched the organization, explains that New York would still have jurisdiction over the NRA, so long as it continues to operate in the state, even if it incorporates elsewhere. The geographical move seems to be “a way to mask the more important story, which is that they’re filing bankruptcy”, Mak writes:

Updated

Far-right website 8kun again loses internet service protection following Capitol attack

From Kari Paul, Luke Harding and Severin Carrell:

A far-right website that was among the platforms used to organize the deadly violence at the US Capitol has again been forced to find new internet service protection after a shell company owned by two Russians and registered in Scotland cut ties with the platform’s internet host.

The website 8kun, previously known as 8chan, has long been one of the preferred platforms of the far right and followers of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon. It was used by rioters ahead of the 6 January attack to mobilize other “patriots” to “help storm the Capitol”, with some on the message board debating which politicians to kill once they got inside.

In the aftermath of the riot, users continued to post content fomenting violence, including maps of government buildings to target and combat techniques for a proposed civil war.

It wasn’t the first time the platform had been linked to acts of violence. Its predecessor site, 8chan, was linked to a series of white nationalist terrorist attacks, including the massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas.

8kun has faced significant hurdles to remain online since at least 2019, when the El Paso attack occurred. All websites are kept online by a network of services including web hosts and domain name registrars. 8kun has had a loyal internet provider in the Washington state-based VanwaTech, whose CEO has repeatedly defended its connections to the hate site in the name of freedom of speech.

8kun was used by rioters ahead of the 6 January attack to mobilize other ‘patriots’ to ‘help storm the Capitol’.Photograph: Ahmed Gaber/Reuters

But the site cannot function without platform protection services that prevent DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, and few providers have been willing to work with it.

Following its removal from the infrastructure company Cloudflare, 8kun, throughVanwaTech, worked with the Oregon-based CNServers LLC for DDoS protection. That company, too, cut ties with 8kun when it was alerted to the site’s violent history.

Since October 2020, 8kun had received DDoS protection from DDoS-Guard, a company that provides protection to a number of controversial websites, including the neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer. 8kun’s ties to DDoS-Guard were first reported by the security researcher and journalist Brian Krebs.

This week, DDoS-Guard became the latest company to cut ties with 8kun’s hosting company, VanwaTech, following inquiries from the Guardian.

Read more:

Report: New York prosecutors met with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen

Prosecutors asked Michel Cohen, the president’s former attorney and fixer, questions about his business dealings and Trump’s relationship with his longtime creditor Deutsche Bank, the Associated Press reports:

New York prosecutors conducted an hours-long interview on Thursday with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former attorney, asking a range of questions about the president’s business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest-standing creditor, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The interview, at least the second of Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump’s business dealings.

District attorney Cyrus Vance Jr has been waging a protracted legal battle to get access to the president’s tax records. The US supreme court is expected to rule on Trump’s request for a stay and a further appeal after he leaves office 20 January.

The New York investigation is one of several legal entanglements likely to intensify as Trump loses power – and any immunity from prosecution he might have as a sitting president.

The Manhattan-based grand jury has been continuing work despite the coronavirus pandemic, which has curtailed many court operations.

The Republican president also faces a civil investigation, led by New York attorney general Letitia James, a Democrat, into whether his company lied about the value of its assets to get loans or tax benefits.

Cohen is cooperating with that inquiry too. He previously told Congress Trump often inflated the value of his assets when dealing with lenders or potential partners, but deflated them when it benefited him for tax purposes.

Read more:

Under the Biden plan, pharmacies would also be “activated” to distribute vaccines through appointments. That prompted CVS, one of the largest chains in the country, to say it was ready to distribute 1 million shots per day through 10,000 locations. Biden also said states would have more transparent tools to plan for the number of doses to be delivered.

Biden’s administration also needs to approve new vaccines to solve supply shortages and improve supply chains for the personal protective equipment health workers need to safely do their jobs. Gloves, for example, have been in short supply for months.

To solve these shortages Biden pledged to use the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to direct private suppliers to produce goods, in order to make protection gear, vaccines and vaccination supplies.

Another major challenge of the vaccination effort has been convincing Americans to take them, as Trump has sown misinformation and confusion throughout the pandemic. Biden said his administration would undertake “a massive public education campaign” and increase transparency to help Americans understand the vaccine.

Importantly, Biden also called on Americans to “mask up” for 100 days, an effort he said could save 50,000 lives if Americans universally commit to wearing face coverings. In spite of the new B117 variant, scientists believe human behavior remains the most powerful tool to bend the curve of new infections.

“Our administration will lead with science and scientists,” said Biden.

Updated

A closer look at Joe Biden's vaccine plan

To successfully roll out the most complex and logistically challenging vaccine campaign in the nation’s history, Biden’s administration seeks to confront vaccine hesitancy, a burned-out workforce, a lack of clear information on vaccine distribution and vaccine demand that far outstrips supply.

“Get more people vaccinated for free,” said Biden, listing his goals. “Create more places for them to get vaccinated. Mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people’s arms. Increase supply and get it out the door as soon as possible.

“This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts ever undertaken by our country – but you have my word, we will manage the hell out of this operation.”

Trump will leave the Biden administration with a complex, multi-layered crisis caused by the coronavirus and worsened by the Trump administration’s mishandling of it. In nearly every instance, the Trump administration sought to leave Covid-19 response to the states, distancing itself over fights for protective gear, supplies, tests and now confusion over vaccine supplies. Biden called the effort so far a “dismal failure”.

Biden’s goal to vaccinate 100 million people in his first 100 days would double the pace currently set by the Trump administration, which pledged to get 20 million people vaccinated by the end of last year. So far, only 12 million people have received shots.

President-elect Joe Biden speaks as U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris looks on during day two of laying out his plan on combating the coronavirus at the Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware. President-elect Biden is announcing his plan to administer COVID-19 vaccines to Americans.
Biden in Wilmington. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

However, even as vaccines are rolled out, many more Americans are expected to succumb to the disease, in part because a new, more transmissible variant called B117 is expected to overtake dominant strains in the US in roughly eight weeks, and further fray health resources.

“Things will get worse before they get better,” said Biden, later adding: “The policy changes we’re making will take time to show up in the Covid statistics.” It often takes weeks for infected individuals to be diagnosed, hospitalized or die from Covid-19.

Biden’s incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, said he expects Covid to claim 500,000 American lives by February, because “we haven’t fully funded the Covid response”. Already, the virus has killed more than 390,000 Americans, and left 25.7 million Americans unemployed as the economy backslides amid rising cases.

Biden laid out a more ambitious, and expensive, plan to take control of the coronavirus than any undertaken by the Trump administration. One analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress called it “a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s fend-for-yourself approach”.

Biden pledged to set up 100 federally funded vaccination sites at places like school gymnasiums and sports stadiums; to “staff up” the centers with “thousands” of workers; and to establish community vaccination centers in hard-to-reach and hard-hit places.

“We commit to making sure communities of color, rural neighborhoods, and those living with disabilities and seniors are not left behind in our vaccination plans,” said Biden. He also called the disproportionate impacts of Covid-19 on minorities and marginalized Americans, “unacceptable, unconscionable”.

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Nancy Pelosi announced a review of Capitol security after a violent mob stormed the building last week. The Democratic speaker said that the retired army Lt Gen Russel Honoré would lead the review. Pelosi also raised the possibility that House members could face prosecution if it were found that they had “aided and abetted” the riot.
  • Joe Biden reiterated his promise to distribute 100m coronavirus vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, despite the “dismal” vaccine rollout overseen by the Trump administration. “Truthfully, we remain in a very dark winter,” Biden said. “Things will get worse before they get better.” But the president-elect added, “You have my word, we will manage the hell out of this operation.”
  • Global coronavirus deaths surpassed 2 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The US is quickly approaching 400,000 coronavirus deaths, which represents the highest death toll of any country in the world.
  • The justice department inspector general is launching a review of the department’s role in the Capitol riot. The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said his office would “assess whether there are any weaknesses in DoJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DoJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the US Capitol on January 6”.
  • The justice department has opened 175 criminal investigations in connection with the Capitol riot. Speaking at a press conference today, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said he expected more than 300 investigations to be opened by the end of the day.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

A Washington Post photographer captured a picture of Mike Lindell’s notes as he met with Donald Trump, and they include some ... interesting suggestions.

The notes of Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a Trump loyalist, include phrases like “martial law if necessary” and “Move Kash Patel to CIA Acting”.

Patel, another Trump loyalist, currently serves as the chief of staff to Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense.

The White House pool reporter spotted Lindell outside the West Wing about an hour and a half ago, and he refused to answer questions about his visit with Trump.

Lindell has helped spread Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election, and he initially said the violent riot at the Capitol, which resulted in five deaths, was just “peaceful protests”.

As Joe Biden walked away from the podium after wrapping up a speech on coronavirus vaccine distribution, the president-elect responded to one shouted question from a reporter.

Biden was asked whether he felt safe about the inauguration next week based off the intelligence he has received on security concerns.

“Yes,” the president-elect responded.

The inauguration is now just five days away.

Biden condemns Republicans who did not wear masks during Capitol lockdown

Joe Biden reiterated his request for Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency, which starts on Wednesday.

“I know it’s become a partisan issue, but what a stupid, stupid thing for it to happen,” the president-elect said of mask-wearing.

Biden also criticized the Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks as they sheltered in place during the Capitol riot last week.

“Quite frankly, it was shocking to see members of the Congress, while the Capitol was under siege by a deadly mob of thugs, refuse to wear a mask while they were in secure locations,” Biden said. He added, “What the hell’s the matter with them? It’s time to grow up.”

The president-elect also offered this pledge to the American people on distributing coronavirus vaccines: “You have my word, we will manage the hell out of this operation.”

Updated

Joe Biden acknowledged that it would take time for the country to get onto better footing in the fight against coronavirus.

“It may take many months to get to where we need to be,” Biden said, adding that there will likely be “stumbles” in his administration’s pandemic response.

The president-elect asked Americans to “keep the faith and keep following what we know works,” such as wearing masks and socially distancing.

Biden noted he previously asked Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency, which could save as many as 50,000 lives.

“This is not a political issue,” Biden said of mask-wearing.

Updated

Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration for how it has handled the rollout of coronavirus vaccines so far.

“The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure thus far,” the president-elect said.

Biden previously said he wants to distribute 100 million doses of vaccines in his first 100 days in office, but some of his advisers have reportedly expressed skepticism about hitting that goal.

Biden delivers remarks on coronavirus vaccine distribution plan

Joe Biden is now speaking in Wilmington, offering details on his plans to distribute coronavirus vaccines.

The president-elect noted that the country’s coronavirus infections and deaths have reached alarmingly high rates in recent weeks.

“Truthfully, we remain in a very dark winter,” Biden said. “Things will get worse before they get better. The policy changes we are making will take time to show up in the COVID statistics.”

The president-elect also emphasized the need for the country to unify in order to effectively respond to the pandemic.

“Unity is not some pie-in-the-sky dream,” Biden said. “It’s a practical step to getting things done.”

Donald Trump has reportedly requested information about the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him for a second time on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Trump, who had feared an even larger number of defections, wanted to know who the lawmakers were and whether he had ever done anything for them, according to people familiar with the meeting. He also inquired who might run against them when they face re-election in two years, the people said.

The president has grown increasingly concerned with defections against him within his own party, aides say. Now, he must plot his defense in a second Senate trial that will hinge on his level of GOP support, with far fewer legal and political allies than the last time he was impeached. Mr. Trump has called several Republicans on Capitol Hill in recent days to seek their advice on who he should recruit, as the personal attorneys who defended him last time and White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, have made clear to associates they don’t intend to serve on his team, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Advisers have urged the president not to tap Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney who—to the chagrin of several Trump advisers—led the campaign to overturn the results of the election, telling Mr. Trump that he needs a sophisticated attorney who can stick to the facts.

At her press conference today, Nancy Pelosi would not provide clarity on when she will transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate. The trial of the president is expected to conclude after he leaves office.

Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a loyal supporter of Donald Trump, was spotted outside the West Wing moments ago.

Since the presidential election, Lindell has helped spread baseless claims that Joe Biden won because of widespread fraud, despite no evidence to support those accusations.

Lindell also dismissed the Capitol riot, which resulted in five deaths, as “peaceful protests” as the violence unfolded.

The leaders of the Senate intelligence committee are also sending a letter to the current director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, requesting information on how the intelligence community is preparing for the inauguration.

The acting Republican chairman, Marco Rubio, and the top Democrat on the committee, Mark Warner, said in the letter, “In light of the recent violence at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, we request that you provide the Committee with a detailed description of how the Intelligence Community (IC) is supporting relevant customers in the Congress, Executive Branch, and state and local law enforcement in preparation for the inauguration on January 20, 2021.”

The letter comes amid intensifying concerns about potential violence ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The confirmation hearing for Avril Haines, Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, will now be on Tuesday.

The Senate intelligence committee had planned to hold the hearing today, but it was postponed, reportedly because a member objected to holding the hearing virtually.

“Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Acting Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) will hold an open nomination hearing on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 10:00 AM EST for Ms. Avril Haines,” the committee said in a statement.

“The open hearing will be a WebEx Hybrid. Committee leadership and Ms. Haines will be joining in person, while some Members may join via WebEx. The open hearing will be followed immediately by a closed hearing.”

Congressman Adam Smith, the Democratic chairman of the House armed services committee, has introduced a bill to grant Lloyd Austin an exemption to run the defense department.

The bill, if passed, would “provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces.”

Austin, a retired four-star general, needs the waiver from Congress because he left the military less than seven years ago.

Austin is expected to receive the waiver, and his confirmation hearing will take place on Tuesday.

The two Republican senators of Texas, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, are both expected to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration next week.

Local NBC News affiliate KXAN reported this afternoon that Cruz planned to attend the inauguration, despite the senator’s baseless claims that Biden won the election because of widespread fraud.

Cornyn sent a tweet in response to the KXAN report, saying, “See you there.”

Cruz was one of two senators, along with Josh Hawley of Missouri, who spearheaded the Senate objections to the electoral vote certification of Biden’s victory.

Since the violent riot at the Capitol last week, several of Cruz’s Democratic colleagues have called for his resignation.

The New York Times has more details about yesterday’s call between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the first conversation between the two since the election:

The Pence-Harris conversation, relayed by two officials briefed on the call, was described as gracious and pleasant. The discussion is the first time Mr. Pence and Ms. Harris have spoken since they debated each other last fall.

It also represents the only one-on-one interaction between the dueling 2020 presidential tickets: [Donald] Trump has refused to call President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and has not even fully conceded defeat.

Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, may have Ms. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, over to the vice-presidential residence before the inauguration on Wednesday, according to one official. But those plans remain uncertain, in part because of the security threats posed to the nation’s capital have made scheduling fluid.

Reports indicate Trump will leave Washington on Wednesday morning, before Biden and Harris are sworn in.

More than 300 criminal investigations expected in Capitol riot inquiry, federal prosecutor says

The justice department has already opened 175 criminal investigations in connection to the Capitol riot, and that number is expected to surpass 300 by the end of the day, a federal prosecutor said.

Speaking at a press conference, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said his office is exploring “more significant felony charges” against those involved in the riot.

Sherwin said there are also growing indications that law enforcement officers, both current and former, participated in the riot.

“We don’t care what your profession is,” Sherwin said. “We will charge you, and you will be arrested.”

Steven D’Antuono, the FBI assistant director who leads the Washington field office, said even friends and family of the rioters are providing tips to the bureau.

D’Antuono said, “You might want to turn yourselves in instead of wondering when we’re going to knock on your door -- because we will.”

Joe Biden’s vaccine distribution plan will reportedly focus on getting doses to low-income communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Politico reports:

Two people close to the transition briefed on the plan say the Biden team plans to distribute vaccines to federally qualified health centers in disadvantaged neighborhoods and propose establishing mass vaccination sites in sports stadiums, community centers and churches. That would provide new outlets for communities that lack hospitals and pharmacies.

‘He made a reference to a massive effort to put the vaccine where it could be readily accessible,’ said one participant in a meeting Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris held Thursday with leaders of immigrant advocacy and civil rights groups.

Biden is also expected to pitch a billion-dollar national ad campaign aimed at convincing the majority of Americans to get vaccinated, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. The campaign would include a range of awareness initiatives in addition to paid media, in a bid to sell the public on the mass inoculation effort.

The president-elect is scheduled to deliver a speech on his vaccine distribution plan in a little over an hour.

Vice-president Mike Pence and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris spoke for the first time since the election yesterday, according to multiple reports.

The sitting vice-president reportedly congratulated his successor on her victory and offered assistance as she transitions into the role.

The mayor of New York said the city is on track to run out of coronavirus vaccine doses by next week unless a resupply arrives.

“At this rate, there will not be any doses available in New York,” Bill de Blasio said in an interview with WNYC.

“If we don’t get a serious supply, we’re going to have to freeze the appointment system. That would be insane, after all the progress we’ve made.”

The Trump administration announced this week that it was releasing all available vaccine doses, rather than holding some back for patients’ second doses.

But Kate Brown, the Democratic governor of Oregon, said she was informed her state would not be receiving an increased shipment of vaccines from the national stockpile next week.

“I am demanding answers from the Trump Administration. I am shocked and appalled that they have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences,” Brown said.

“This is a deception on a national scale. Oregon’s seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon’s share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us.”

Joe Biden is set to deliver a speech on his vaccine distribution plan in about two hours.

Global coronavirus death toll tops 2m

This ghastly milestone was passed moments ago, according to the data compiled by the source the Guardian follows most closely, the Johns Hopkins coronavirus research center.

A medical worker prepares to administer a Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a drive-through site at the Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds in Plant City, Florida earlier this week.
A medical worker prepares to administer a Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a drive-through site at the Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds in Plant City, Florida, earlier this week. Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

As for the US, which has the highest death toll and number of infections in the world, my colleague Jessica Glenza reports today that more Americans are dying of Covid-19 than at any time during the pandemic.

That’s amid a situation where the most complex mass vaccination campaign in history is off to a rocky start, and more transmissible strains of the coronavirus are emergent, while the outgoing president, Donald Trump, has been essentially checked out on the crisis for months.

The most pessimistic outlook published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts up to 438,000 people in the US may be killed by Covid-19 by the end of the month in a staggering upward trend.

The official number of global infections is approaching 100m.

Joe Biden has pledged to prioritize tackling the pandemic, the related economic crisis and mass vaccine administration when he takes office as the 46th US president on Wednesday.

Updated

So is Donald Trump heading to Florida on Wednesday?

We don’t know yet. What we do know is that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is facing court fines for a maskless New Year’s Eve party held at the Palm Beach club in contravention of Covid-19 regulations.

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported on Thursday that county officials issued “a stern warning” to the Palm Beach resort over the party and potential superspreader event, which Trump himself skipped out on when he cut short his winter holiday and returned to the White House to concentrate on efforts to overturn his election defeat.

“There was a breakdown in enforcement of the mask orders that led to almost the entire room of guests being without masks during the later evening activities,” Palm Beach administrators Todd Bonlarron and Patrick Rutter wrote to Mar-a-Lago’s managing director, Bernd Lembcke.

An accompanying letter from the county’s department of planning, zoning and building warns that fines of up to $15,000 per violation can be imposed for failure to adhere to facial covering and social distancing requirements.

Under an emergency county order, businesses are required to ensure visitors wear masks unless they are eating or drinking.

Guests paid $1,000 per head to attend the glitzy party, usually the highlight of the Mar-a-Lago social calendar but widely considered this year to be a flop.

After the president and first lady Melania Trump decided that morning not to attend, attendees were treated to Rudy Giuliani and 1990s rapper Vanilla Ice as the headline acts.

Managers at Mar-a-Lago did not respond to a request for comment.

Updated

Trump to leave Washington Wednesday morning – report

Donald Trump plans to depart the White House and Washington DC on Wednesday morning – before the president-elect, Joe Biden, is sworn in, according to a latest report.

An unnamed senior administration official has told the Washington Post this fascinating tidbit. We await further details.

Trump announced via Twitter last week that he would not attend the inauguration, before his account was canceled by the social media company and not long after the deadly insurrection by a mob of his most diehard and violent supporters/conspiracy theorists at the US Capitol.

Barack and Michelle Obama had Donald and Melania Trump in for tea at the White House on Trump’s inauguration day in 2017, when Trump was sworn in and pledged to end the “American carnage”, conjuring, as my colleague Ed Pilkington wrote at the time “an image of inner cities he said were afflicted by crime, a political elite that had forgotten ordinary people, and a landscape of rusted factories like tombstones”.

No plans for tea this year. It’s not known yet what mode of transportation or route the Trump’s will take from the seat of power, or where they will head.

Latest notes from inside the White House today are that moving crates are arriving and some pictures have already been taken down.

The Obamas greet the Trumps for tea before the inauguration at the White House in Washington, January 20, 2017.
The Obamas greet the Trumps for tea before the inauguration at the White House in Washington, 20 January 2017. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Updated

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Nancy Pelosi announced a review of Capitol security after a violent mob stormed the building last week. The Democratic speaker said that retired army Lt Gen Russel Honore would lead the review. Pelosi also raised the possibility that members could face prosecution if it is found that they “aided and abetted” the riot.
  • The justice department inspector general is launching a review of the department’s role in the riot. The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said his office would “assess whether there are any weaknesses in DoJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DoJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the US Capitol on January 6”.
  • Joe Biden will deliver a speech on his vaccine distribution plan this afternoon. The speech comes one day after the president-elect outlined his proposed coronavirus relief package, which would provide $1.9tn in funding to boost the US economy and aid American families who have been financially affected by the pandemic.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Pelosi: lawmakers may be prosecuted if they 'aided and abetted' Capitol riot

Nancy Pelosi said it was possible that members of Congress could face prosecution if it is found they “aided and abetted” the violent attack on the Capitol.

“If in fact it is found that members of Congress were accomplices to this insurrection,” the Democratic speaker said, “if they aided and abetted the crime, there may have to be actions taken beyond the Congress in terms of prosecution for that.”

Pelosi’s comments came after Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman of New Jersey, said she saw colleagues leading groups on “reconnaissance” tours of the Capitol a day before the riot.

More than 30 Democrats have signed on to a letter, spearheaded by Sherrill, seeking more information about the tours that took place at the Capitol on 5 January.

Pelosi has now wrapped up her press conference.

Updated

Nancy Pelosi would not provide specific details on when she would transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate.

“They’re now working on taking this to trial,” the speaker said of the impeachment managers. “You’ll be the first to know when we announce that we’re going over there.”

Once the Senate receives the article, the chamber must begin a trial to determine whether the president should be convicted and removed from office.

The trial will probably conclude after Joe Biden has taken the oath of office, but a conviction would prevent Donald Trump from running for president again.

Updated

Nancy Pelosi denounced the rioters who attacked the Capitol last week, singling out the man who was photographed wearing a shirt that said “Camp Auschwitz”.

“To see this punk with that shirt on and his anti-Semitism that he has bragged about to be part of a white supremacist raid on this Capitol requires us to have an after-action review,” Pelosi said.

The man wearing the shirt, identified as Robert Keith Packer of Virginia, was arrested on Wednesday.

Pelosi announces review of Capitol security after violent riot

Nancy Pelosi is now holding a press conference on Capitol Hill, her first presser since the House impeached Donald Trump for a second time on Wednesday.

“Justice is called for as we address insurrection perpetrated against the Capitol last week,” the Democratic speaker told reporters.

Pelosi did not initially provide any clarity on when she would transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate, but she noted the impeachment managers are “solemnly and prayerfully preparing for the trial”.

The speaker then announced she has tapped retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore to lead a review of Capitol security after the violent riot.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, told a CBS affiliate that Donald Trump should face “consequences” for having “violated his oath of office” by inciting a violent mob to attack the Capitol.

“I have asked that he should resign. He apparently is not taking steps to do that,” Murkowski said. “I have felt that the country would be in a safer place if he were just to leave the White House and turn things over to Vice-President Mike Pence for the duration of this administration.”

Murkowski said last week that Trump should resign from office, but she has not yet said whether she would vote to convict him in a Senate impeachment trial.

In a statement yesterday, Murkowski said the House acted “appropriately” by impeaching the president. She added, “When the Article of Impeachment comes to the Senate, I will follow the oath I made when sworn as a U.S. Senator. I will listen carefully and consider the arguments of both sides, and will then announce how I will vote.”

Congressman Cedric Richmond has officially resigned from the House to join Joe Biden’s administration as the director of the White House office of public engagement.

Richmond, a Democrat of Louisiana, delivered his final speech in the House chamber on Wednesday, offering an impassioned argument in support of impeaching Donald Trump.

The congressman noted that Democrats warned during Trump’s first impeachment that he would carry out more attacks on American democracy if he were not removed from office.

“Simply put, we told you so,” Richmond said. He then added, “Richmond out.”

A leading group of CEOs endorsed Joe Biden’s proposed coronavirus relief package, which the president-elect outlined in a speech yesterday.

“Business Roundtable welcomes the announcement of President-elect Biden’s ‘American Rescue Plan’ and looks forward to working with the new Administration to defeat COVID-19 and restore jobs and economic growth,” the group said of Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal in a new statement.

“Business leaders applaud the incoming Administration on developing a strong national plan to scale up vaccination and testing, to protect vulnerable populations from infection, to improve vaccine surveillance and to address health disparities.”

Biden is expected to provide more details on his vaccination distribution plans in another speech this afternoon.

The statement goes on to say, “Business Roundtable welcomes especially the new Administration’s focus on additional support for small businesses and additional support to allow schools to safely reopen, and we share their concern about finding ways to help individuals and families who continue to struggle during this time.

“We look forward to working with the Administration and congressional leaders on a bipartisan package to defeat the virus and ensure a strong economic recovery.”

In the lightest sign of the competency of the president’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani has just tweeted out a screenshot of a text focused on blaming Antifa for the Capitol riot (which was carried out by Trump supporters).

The screenshot also included the phone number of the person Giuliani was texting, James Sullivan.

Giuliani has since deleted the tweet.

New details about the Capitol riot demonstrate just how close the violent mob got to the vice-president, who was overseeing the electoral vote certification of Joe Biden’s victory when the Capitol was breached.

The Washington Post has the details:

The violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 came perilously close to Vice President Pence, who was not evacuated from the Senate chamber for about 14 minutes after the Capitol Police reported an initial attempted breach of the complex — enough time for the marauders to rush inside the building and approach his location, according to law enforcement officials and video footage from that day.

Secret Service officers eventually spirited Pence to a room off the Senate floor with his wife and daughter after rioters began to pour into the Capitol, many loudly denouncing the vice president as a traitor as they marched through the first floor below the Senate chamber.

About one minute after Pence was hustled out of the chamber, a group charged up the stairs to a second-floor landing in the Senate, chasing a Capitol Police officer who drew them away from the Senate.

Pence and his family had just ducked into a hideaway less than 100 feet from that landing, according to three people familiar with his whereabouts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. If the pro-Trump mob had arrived seconds earlier, they would have been in eyesight of the vice president as he was rushed across a reception hall into the office.

As more videos of the riot have emerged, many have commented that the mob could have attacked and possibly killed dozens of lawmakers if they were just a bit more familiar with the layout of the Capitol.

A new poll found Donald Trump’s approval rating has slipped to 29% after he incited a violent mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol last week.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, Trump is leaving the White House with the lowest approval rating of his presidency.

About two-thirds of Americans, 68%, say Trump should not remain a major political figure in the years to come. (Trump has toyed with the idea of a 2024 run for the White House.)

And a narrow majority of Americans, 54%, say it would be better for the country if Trump were removed from office and Mike Pence served out the final days of his term.

In a stark contrast, Joe Biden received generally positive marks from survey respondents, with 64% saying they approve of the president-elect’s conduct since the election.

DoJ inspector general launches review of Capitol riot

The justice department inspector general announced his office is launching a review of the violent events at the Capitol last week.

Michael Horowitz said in a statement that his office would coordinate its review with those already underway by the inspector generals of the defense department, homeland security department and interior department.

“The DoJ OIG review will include examining information relevant to the January 6 events that was available to DoJ and its components in advance of January 6; the extent to which such information was shared by DoJ and its components with the US Capitol Police and other federal, state and local agencies; and the role of DoJ personnel in responding to the events at the US Capitol on January 6,” Horowitz said in a statement.

“The DoJ OIG also will assess whether there are any weaknesses in DoJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DoJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the US Capitol on January 6.”

Reports indicate a field office at the FBI, an agency that falls under the justice department’s command, warned of “war” at the Capitol a day before the violent riot took place.

Updated

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

Here’s what the blog is keeping an eye on today: Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks on his plans to distribute coronavirus vaccines at 3.15pm ET.

The speech comes one day after Biden laid out his proposal for another massive coronavirus relief package to help American families who are financially struggling as a result of the pandemic.

The proposal would cost $1.9tn, and it includes $1,400 in direct payment checks for all Americans. The bill would also increase weekly supplemental unemployment insurance to $400 a week.

In terms of vaccines, Biden has previously said he wants to distribute 100m doses during his first 100 days in office, but his team has reportedly expressed some skepticism about achieving that because of how the Trump administration has handled the vaccine rollout so far.

Biden’s speech is still coming up later today, so stay tuned.

Updated

Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins at CNN this morning have a look at what Donald Trump has been up to in his final days in office, finding that contrary to the repeated White House mantra that the president “will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” instead:

On Thursday, it was Mike Pence carrying out tasks ordinarily left to a president, like visiting national guardsmen posted at the US Capitol or visiting White House operators to say farewell.

Liptak and Collins report that:

Aides have pleaded with Trump to deliver some type of farewell address, either live or taped, that would tick through his accomplishments in office. But he has appeared disinterested and noncommittal.

Trump has been consumed by the unraveling of his presidency. And he has made clear to aides in separate conversations that mere mention of president Richard Nixon, the last president to resign, was banned.

He told one adviser during an expletive-laden conversation recently never to bring up the ex-president ever again. During the passing mention of resigning this week, Trump told people he couldn’t count on Pence to pardon him like Gerald Ford did Nixon, anyway.

And there’s this …

Eager for a final taste of the pomp of being president, Trump has asked for a major send-off on inauguration day next week

Read more here: CNN – Trump explodes at Nixon comparisons as he prepares to leave office

Updated

US retail sales dropped 0.7% last month

Some more grim Covid-impacted economic news this morning, as retail sales declined further in December as measures to slow the pandemic undercut spending at restaurants and reduced traffic to shopping malls.

Retail sales dropped 0.7% last month, the commerce department said. Data for November was revised down to show sales declining 1.4% instead of 1.1% as previously reported.

The figures are concerning because they represent a period when the Covid infection rate was not as high as it currently is – the last 10 consecutive days have seen the country record over 200,000 new cases daily. The holiday season is also traditionally an important period for retail sales.

Reuters report that excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales tumbled 1.9% last month. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

The report followed in the wake of news last week that the economy shed jobs in December – the first time the number had dipped in eight months. Further job losses are likely in January as new applications for unemployment benefits surged in the first week of the month. The data are in line with economists’ expectations for a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Updated

Bloomberg has a piece this morning with a bit more on the shenanigans behind-the-scenes over the presidential social media accounts, with Jennifer Epstein reporting on the clashes between Joe Biden’s transition team and the social media giants.

Though Trump used his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, as his primary social media mouthpiece, Biden’s aides think it’s unfair Twitter isn’t handing over followers along with the official accounts.

“They are advantaging Trump’s first days of the administration over ours,” Rob Flaherty, the transition’s digital director said. “If we don’t end the day with the 12 million followers that Trump inherited from Obama, then they have given us less than they gave him, and that is a failure.”

Twitter views the new @PresElectBiden as an accommodation that helps resolve the dispute over the official accounts. A Twitter spokesperson said the company’s goal was to support the archiving and transition of accounts across administrations.

There’s a contrast at Twitter with the way that other companies are managing the change, as Epstein elaborates:

Both Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram will duplicate the millions of followers currently following the Trump White House accounts to follow new Biden White House accounts.

“We’re following the same procedures we used during the transfer between the Obama and Trump administration,” Facebook spokeswoman Dani Lever said.

The copying of followers means that Biden’s administration will start off with a large, built-in audience for the president-elect that will include many people who aren’t Biden supporters – people his team are eager to reach.

Epstein notes that the incoming administration will also inherit the followers of the Trump White House’s official YouTube channel.

Read more here: Bloomberg – Biden team starts @PresElectBiden while clashing with Twitter

When he’s not tweeting about himself, the secretary of state still has a job to do until the Biden administration takes power next week. Reuters have a quick snap just now that the US plans to announce additional Iran sanctions today, related to conventional arms and to the metals industry.

Sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not provide details on the sanctions, the latest in a series that Donald Trump has imposed on the Iranian economy to try to force Tehran into a new negotiation on curbing its nuclear program.

The US president in 2018 abandoned the Iran nuclear agreement that Tehran struck with six major powers in 2015 to rein in its nuclear program in return for relief from US and international sanctions that had crippled its economy.

When he walked away from the deal, Trump said he was open to negotiating a much wider pact that would seek more extensive constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. He has not secured such a pact. Joe Biden has said he will return to the 2015 agreement if Iran resumes strict compliance with it.

Updated

Talking of Twitter, oh no …

Regular readers of this blog will know how much I have been enjoying secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s near constant me-me-me tweet storms since the start of the year, all on an official US government account.

As my colleague Julian Borger put it in his excellent “last days of Pompeo” piece yesterday:

The last days of Pompeo have been played out in a blizzard of self-congratulatory tweets, at the rate of two dozen a day, as he seeks to write his own first draft of history.

The former Kansas congressman, with evident ambitions for a presidential run in 2024, has accented his claims of success by frequent derogatory references to the previous administration, portrayed as hapless appeasers. The political point-scoring and aggrandizement have made the use of the megaphone provided by a government Twitter account, with 3 million followers.

It is not the first time Pompeo has used government resources for personal ends. The state department inspector general was investigating him for using state department staff to run private errands, like picking up dry cleaning and walking the dog, when Pompeo had him fired last May.

Updated

It seems an awful long time ago now, but do you remember back in December when there was dismay that Donald Trump was intending to break with (a fairly new) convention and refuse to hand over the official @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter accounts with their followers intact?

That was before this happened, obviously…

Trump’s permanently suspended Twitter account.
Trump’s permanently suspended Twitter account. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Anyway, nevertheless overnight Joe Biden’s team have opened the new account that will become @POTUS – it is currently @PresElectBiden. I’m sure we can expect the first Breitbart/Fox article gloatingly comparing their respective follower numbers by Wednesday afternoon.

Updated

Also pondering the future for the Republican party is Alex Isenstadt at Politico, who today writes that a diminished Trump leaves a vacuum for 2024 Republican hopefuls.

While some are gradually separating themselves from the president, others are publicizing plans to bolster the party as it heads into the post-Trump era. Some are even sparring with other potential 2024 rivals in plain sight, marking a strikingly early start to public presidential maneuvering.

“While President Trump is likely to remain the most influential voice in the GOP for the foreseeable future, the events of the last week could provide more running room and potentially open the door to more candidates in 2024,” said Phil Cox, a former Republican Governors Association executive director.

Republicans note that without the threat of Trump’s Twitter feed, candidates are freer to separate themselves from him without fear of reprisals. The president used the account as his primary tool of imposing discipline on the party.

Part of the willingness to break with Trump also reflects a calculation that Trump’s once iron-like grip on the party has loosened. According to a POLITICO/Morning Consult survey released Wednesday, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans is 75 percent, down from 83 percent in December. The same poll found that just 40 percent of Republicans would support Trump in a 2024 primary — still in first place, but with a majority saying they’d prefer someone else.

Read more here: Politico – Diminished Trump leaves a vacuum for 2024 hopefuls

Director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, Geoffrey Kabaservice, writes for us this morning, arguing that Republicans must repudiate Trump or live with the consequences for ever:

In the view of many party strategists, Republicans might be better off if Trump were prevented from running again. The possibility of a 2024 Trump campaign freezes out potential successors and prevents the party from moving in new and more positive directions. The president arguably cost his party its Senate majority with his lies and conspiracy theories about the election, which depressed Republican turnout in the pivotal Georgia senatorial races. His role in inciting the Capitol riot disgraced his party as well as his legacy. Tellingly, almost no Republicans attempted to defend him during the impeachment hearings. Instead, many warned that impeachment would further enrage Trump’s followers when what’s needed is national unity and healing.

Of course, this come-together plea is rank hypocrisy from those who encouraged Trump’s shredding of the social fabric, believing that his attempt to tear the country apart would leave them with the bigger half. The claim that lions would lie down with lambs if Democrats would drop their vindictive harassment of the outgoing president conveniently overlooks the fact that the Capitol invasion happened only because Trump pushed the Big Lie that Democrats, the media, and the Deep State stole the election. And nearly two-thirds of Republicans in Congress made themselves complicit in Trump’s lie by voting to overturn the election results, even in the wake of that deluded, destructive and deadly riot.

Representative Peter Meijer, a newly elected Republican from Michigan who was one of the 10 Republicans to vote for impeachment, observed that many of his party colleagues argued that since millions of Americans believe the election was stolen, therefore Congress would be justified in preventing Biden from taking the presidency. But, he pointed out, most of the voters who believe in this false reality do so precisely because they have heard it from Trump and his congressional enablers. “That doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it accurate. It means that you lied to them, and they trusted you and they believed your lies.”

Read more here: Geoffrey Kabaservice – Republicans must repudiate Trump or live with the consequences for ever

We’ve already had the news in the last few hours that Joe Biden is planning to appoint David Cohen as deputy director of the CIA and that David Kessler will join his team to help lead the Operation Warp Speed Covid vaccination effort. Axios have what they have labelled a scoop on another appointment – Anita Dunn.

Veteran communications and campaign strategist Anita Dunn will join Joe Biden’s White House on a temporary basis, helping him to advance his opening agenda from inside the West Wing.

Dunn, a former communications director to president Barack Obama, took on an expanded role in Biden’s campaign when it faltered last winter, helping guide it through a party nomination and general election victory.

She’ll work closely with Kate Bedingfield, who’ll be White House communications director, and press secretary Jen Psaki. As a senior adviser, Dunn also will play a key role in coordinating issues across the White House, much as she did during the campaign and as co-chair of Biden’s transition.

Read more here: Axios – Anita Dunn to join Biden White House as senior adviser

Avril Haines confirmation hearing at Senate postponed

One thing we were expecting, but won’t now be seeing, is Avril Haines up before a Senate committee. CNN report that the first confirmation hearing for a crucial position in the Biden administration has been postponed. Haines is the president-elect’s pick to be the next director of national intelligence.

A source said the timeline for confirmation is not expected to be altered significantly, and the reason for the delay was a senator wanted the hearing in person, and Friday’s session was slated to be remote. The committee had been seeking to expedite the hearing with a virtual session but needed consent from all the senators on the panel to do so. Biden transition team spokesman Ned Price said the team was “disappointed” by the delay. Acting intelligence chair Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, and vice chair Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said last night the committee is working “as fast as possible.”

Read more here: CNN – Senate postpones first confirmation hearing for crucial position in Biden administration

Here’s some of what we have in the diary so far for today…

President-elect Joe Biden will delivers remarks on his plan to administer Covid-19 vaccines to the US population in Wilmington, Delaware, at 3.15pm ET (which is 8:15pm if, like me, you are in London) and he will also attend a finance event for the presidential inaugural committee later on.

Also on that front, Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, will be discussing the goals of the new administration and the battle against the coronavirus pandemic at an event hosted by Washington Post at noon.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a briefing, two days after the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for inciting an attack on the US Capitol, at 11.30am. You’ll be able to watch a live feed of that right here on the blog.

Kellyanne Conway, former White House counselor, is interviewed on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO at 10pm, likely becoming the latest member of Trump’s circle to explain why she found it unconscionable to carry on working in the White House at the very last moment.

As for the president himself, Donald Trump has no official public engagement scheduled. For what seems like the umpteenth day in a row, the White House has instead cut’n’pasted the same phrase, claiming that Trump will “work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.”

Barry Eichengreen writes for us this morning, warning that the $2,000 stimulus checks alone won’t work – the US needs better infrastructure:

We know that living through a large economic shock, especially in young adulthood, can have an enduring impact on people’s beliefs. For those parents unable to put food on the table during the pandemic, the experience will establish a heuristic that will be hard to forget.

Moreover, neurological research shows that economic stress, including from large shocks, increases anabolic steroid hormone levels in the blood, which renders individuals more risk-averse.

The upshot is that we can’t count on a burst of US consumer spending to fuel the recovery once the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines is complete. And if private spending remains subdued, continued support from public spending will be necessary to sustain the recovery.

But putting $2,000 checks in people’s bank accounts won’t solve this problem because unspent money doesn’t stimulate demand. With interest rates already near zero, the availability of additional funding won’t even encourage investment. Sending out $2,000 checks to everyone thus would be the fiscal equivalent of pushing on a string.

Fortunately, there is an alternative: the president-elect Joe Biden’s $2tn infrastructure plan would mean additional jobs and spending, which is what the post-pandemic economy really needs. Better still, under the prevailing low interest rates, this option would stimulate job creation without crowding out private investment.

Read more here: Barry Eichengreen – The $2,000 stimulus checks alone won’t work – the US needs better infrastructure

Our Health reporter Jessica Glenza has this latest update on the Covid pandemic in the US:

More Americans are dying of Covid-19 than at any time during the pandemic, the most complex mass vaccination campaign in history is off to a rocky start, and more transmissible strains of the coronavirus are emergent. January is going to be a bleak month.

The most pessimistic outlook published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts up to 438,000 people may be killed by Covid-19 by the end of the month in a staggering upward trend.

“My hope is this month will be the peak and things will start to look better in February,” said Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University whose work focuses on pandemic response. “I don’t think it will be vaccination that will bend the curve. It will be washing your hands and staying home.”

A mass vaccination campaign now underway holds the promise of altering the pandemic, though it has stumbled. The vaccination campaign is not likely reflected in existing forecasts, because only about 3% of the population has been vaccinated.

Experts attribute this failure to hit early vaccination targets to a disengaged White House which pushed vaccine planning to states, a lack of timely federal funds, and failure to conduct public education campaigns to combat vaccine hesitancy. These failures have led to wide discrepancies between states.

The differences are, “not a red versus blue state thing,” Dr Ashish K Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said on Twitter. “It’s a lack of federal leadership thing.”

Herd immunity, likely requiring near-universal vaccine uptake among US adults, is seen as the ultimate goal of the vaccination campaign. But a tipping point, when the vaccine has observable positive effect, is likely to come earlier. If the Biden-Harris administration can successfully speed up vaccinations, it is possible a reduction in deaths could be the first positive outcome of the vaccination campaign.

“We will likely see the positive effects of the vaccination campaign in deaths before new cases,” said Rivers. That is because, “we are specifically targeting people who are at highest risk of severe illness” for vaccination.

Read more of Jessica Glenza’s report here: US suffers bleak January as Covid rages and vaccination campaign falters

At current rates, US Covid deaths will hit 400,000 before Biden inauguration

According to the Johns Hopkins university figures, yesterday there were 229,386 new coronavirus cases confirmed, with 3,769 further deaths in the US. 128,947 infected people are currently in America’s hospitals.

At the current rate of daily fatalities, the US death toll from the pandemic – currently at 388,377 – is on course to surpass 400,000 before Joe Biden is sworn in next week.

A New York Times survey has shown that “At least 28 states and Washington DC, have begun vaccinating older people, in many cases marking a shift in earlier plans that put medical workers and nursing home residents at the front of the line for the inoculations.”

These changes have come about as a result of pressure and changed guidelines from the Trump administration, which has seen the US fail to meet their initial targets for getting vaccination doses administered.

CDC data says that 9.6 million people have received their first dose of vaccine, and 1.3 million of those have also received a second dose. However, the Operation Warp Speed target was 20 million by the end of 2020. Biden has said his administration will aim for 100 million doses administered in his first 100 days as president.

With the news that overnight the Trump administration carried out another federal execution, our award-winning podcast Today in Focus features our chief reporter Ed Pilkington talking to Anushka Asthana about its history.

Lisa Montgomery, who was killed by lethal injection earlier this week, was a particularly high-profile case. Subjected to torture and sexual violence as a child, she was suffering from extreme mental illness when she committed a horrific crime. The state of her mental health was not taken into account at her original trial. So why is Trump carrying out so many executions?

Ed tells Anushka that although use of the death penalty is shrinking in the US, it is still employed in many of the former confederate states. You cannot talk about the use of the death penalty, says Ed, without looking at America’s relationship with its racist history and the impact it still has today.

You can listen to it here: Today in Focus – Trump, the death penalty and its links with America’s racist history

Lois Beckett has this special report for us this morning – inside the Boogaloo killings of US law enforcement:

One hundred days before Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered on 29 May, a group of analysts who monitor online extremism concluded that an attack like the one that killed him was coming.

An anti-government movement intent on killing law enforcement officers had been growing rapidly on social media, the analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute warned.

Building on the work of other analysts, the researchers had identified Facebook groups where thousands of members obsessed over the idea of an imminent American civil war called “the Boogaloo”, displaying photographs of rifles and combat equipment, sharing advice for making weapons and posting memes about killing police and federal officials. The Facebook groups were particularly dangerous, the researchers concluded, because they were helping to build local connections between nascent domestic extremists. The movement appeared to be successfully recruiting members of the US military.

Facebook responded to findings that it was “studying trends” around the use of the word “Boogaloo” on its platforms, and that it would remove any content that violated its rules against inciting hatred or violence. Over the next few months, a spokesperson said, it would remove 800 individual Boogaloo-related posts that violated its policies. But it did not ban the Boogaloo movement from its platform, or take the majority of the Boogaloo groups down.

Two months later, another report warned of the Boogaloo movement’s “explicit threats of violence to government authorities”. There were now at least 125 Boogaloo groups on Facebook, the Tech Transparency Project said. The groups had added tens of thousands of members in the last 30 days alone, as coronavirus lockdown measures made some Americans furious about what they perceived as government “tyranny”. More than half of these Facebook groups had been created since February.

This time, Facebook said it had removed some groups and pages that used Boogaloo-related terms for violating Facebook policies. But none of the Facebook groups explicitly mentioned in the Tech Transparency report had been taken down, HuffPost reported, even though the online rhetoric was already translating into action: earlier in April, Texas police arrested Aaron Swenson, a man who had reportedly “liked” more than a dozen Boogaloo-related pages, and who police said had been livestreaming himself on Facebook as he drove around looking for a cop to execute.

Read more of Lois Beckett’s worrying report here: 100 days of warning – inside the Boogaloo killings of US law enforcement

Biden will appoint David Cohen as deputy CIA director

NBC News are reporting this morning that president-elect Joe Biden will appoint lawyer David Cohen as deputy director of the CIA. He can go straight into the job, as it does not require Senate confirmation. He previously held the role in the Obama administration. Ken Dilanian reports:

The choice may signal that Biden wants the perspective of someone who isn’t a career CIA official. Cohen was a top national security official at the Treasury Department before he joined the spy agency in 2015, and before that he was a lawyer in private practice for two decades.

After he left the CIA in 2017, Cohen rejoined his law firm, WilmerHale — the firm that employs former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller — and he spent time as an NBC News national security contributor.

Biden’s decision to appoint Cohen after having named William Burns, who would be the first career diplomat to run the CIA, is likely to ruffle a few feathers at the spy agency, CIA veterans said, because usually one of the people in those jobs has long experience at the CIA.

Read more here: NBC News – Biden to name David Cohen deputy director of CIA

It’s not just the past activities of the pro-Trump would-be insurrectionists that are concerning authorities – there are worries about what the weekend might hold. Overnight the Washington Post reports:

Officials have warned authorities nationwide to be on alert for potential acts of violence at state capitols, as well as a possible second attack on the Capitol or on the White House. Law enforcement authorities have said extremists might use firearms and explosives and are monitoring online calls to rally in cities nationwide beginning Sunday.

At the center of the amorphous but increasingly motivated extremist movement sits the current president, now twice impeached, deprived of his social media megaphones but still exerting a powerful influence over his followers who take his baseless claims of election fraud as an article of faith.

It remains unclear when and where groups might launch follow-up attacks, but even if they do pull back in the days to come — and experts say there is some reason to think they might — the threat from Trump-inspired extremism is likely to remain and grow.

“It has begun to shift from ‘We are going to win this’ to ‘This fight is going to be a long one,’ ” said Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups. “The prevalent consensus across the movements involved in or supporting the Capitol siege is that they will keep pushing forward.”

“There are people in our country who want to turn peaceful protests into opportunities for violence,” Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said at a news conference announcing he would call up more than 400 National Guard troops and close state offices in Columbus.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters that officials were monitoring “an extensive amount of concerning online chatter” about events surrounding the inauguration. “Right now, we’re tracking calls for potential armed protests and activity leading up to the inauguration,” Wray said, noting that it was a challenge “to distinguish what’s aspirational versus what’s intentional.”

Read more here: Washington Post – Far-right groups make plans for protests and assaults before and after Inauguration Day

Capitol rioters planned to capture and kill officials, say prosecutors

Federal prosecutors have offered an ominous new assessment of last week’s siege of the US Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters, saying in a court filing that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials”.

Prosecutors offered that view in a filing asking a judge to detain Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man and QAnon conspiracy theorist who was photographed wearing horns as he stood at the desk of the vice-president, Mike Pence, in the chamber of the US Senate.

The detention memo, written by justice department lawyers in Arizona, goes into greater detail about the FBI’s investigation into Chansley, revealing that he left a note for Pence warning that “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming”.

“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors and federal agents have begun bringing more serious charges tied to violence at the Capitol, including against a retired firefighter, Robert Sanford, that he hurled a fire extinguisher at the head of one police officer and another, Peter Stager, accused of beating a different officer with a pole bearing an American flag.

In Chansley’s case, prosecutors said the charges “involve active participation in an insurrection attempting to violently overthrow the United States government”, and warned that “the insurrection is still in progress” as law enforcement prepares for more demonstrations in Washington and state capitals.

The justice department has brought more than 80 criminal cases in connection with the violent riots at the US Capitol last week, in which Trump’s supporters stormed the building, ransacked offices, and in some cases attacked police.

Many of the people charged so far were easily tracked down by the FBI, which has more than 200 suspects, thanks in large part to videos and photos posted on social media.

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but after seven long years there is finally the prospect for some justice for the residents of Flint. Overnight it was confirmed that nine people have been charged following a new investigation, including the former Michigan governor Rick Snyder and key members of his administration.

Snyder and others have been accused of various crimes in a calamitous plan that released lead into the water and contributed to a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.

Years after the decision to use the Flint River’s water, pipes at more than 9,700 Flint homes have been replaced and water quality has greatly improved. But prosecutors said it was not too late to pursue people responsible for one of the worst human-made environmental disasters in US history, a case that has been held up as a symbol of environmental injustice and racism.

It’s the second time that six of the nine people have faced charges; their previous cases were dropped in 2019 when a new prosecution team took over. Snyder is the biggest new name in the bunch, though his alleged crimes are not as serious as others: two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty.

Snyder’s former health director, Nick Lyon, and ex-chief medical executive, Dr Eden Wells, were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 deaths of nine people with Legionnaires’. Authorities said they had failed to alert the public about a regional spike in Legionnaires’ when the water system might have lacked enough chlorine to combat bacteria in the river water.

“The Flint water crisis is not some relic of the past,” Fadwa Hammoud, of the state attorney general’s office, told reporters. “At this very moment, the people of Flint continue to suffer from the categorical failure of public officials at all levels of government who trampled upon their trust and evaded accountability for far too long.”

Read more here: Flint water crisis – ex-governor and eight others charged after new inquiry

Biden picks David Kessler to lead Operation Warp Speed with Gustave Perna

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner David Kessler to help lead the US Covid-19 vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, the New York Times is reporting.

The report comes after Moncef Slaoui, the program’s chief adviser, resigned at the request of the incoming Biden team, in a plan that would see him stay in the role for a month to help with the transition.

Reuters say that Kessler, who led the FDA after being appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the top position in 1990 and served till 1997, will share top responsibilities for the initiative with Gustave Perna.

Kessler’s move comes as the program is at a critical juncture. Trump’s administration had aimed to give vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by the end of 2020, but fell far short of that target. Only 11.1 million coronavirus shots had been administered as of yesterday, out of more than 30 million doses distributed to states.

Also approving is Sen. Bernie Sanders. With one aspect of Biden’s presidency likely to be whether he is able to keep the left of his party on-board, the president-elect will surely have welcomed Sander’s endorsement of the plan last night.

However, the fact that Sanders describes it as a “very strong first installment” might not go down so well with colleagues and Republican opponents concerned about the level of government spending that Biden’s plan already implies.

One group who have been instantly impressed with Joe Biden’s Covid stimulus plan are the National Nurses United union. They’ve issued a statement from executive director Bonnie Castillo overnight saying:

NNU leaders have been regularly meeting with the Biden transition team for the last two months and we are very pleased that this plan contains so many of the items we proposed. Nurses have been urging that the federal government implement these proposals since the start of the pandemic, but were ignored by the Trump administration. As a result, the pandemic has spread out of control, millions have gotten sick and hundreds of thousands have died needlessly, including registered nurses who were exposed to Covid on the job due to the refusal of the government and the hospital industry to protect them. We urge Congress to take this plan up immediately after the inauguration, and we look forward to working with the incoming administration on implementing this plan with the urgency that is required to confront this pandemic.

Here’s a recap on what Joe Biden announced last night from Maanvi Singh:

Joe Biden has unveiled a $1.9tn coronavirus relief proposal, aimed at urgently combating the pandemic and the economic crisis it has triggered. As the US faces its deadliest stage of the pandemic, Biden described the moment as “a crisis of deep human suffering”.

The ambitious, wide-ranging plan includes $160bn to bolster vaccination and testing efforts, and other health programs and $350bn for state and local governments, as well as $1tn in relief to families, via direct payments and unemployment insurance.

“There’s no time to waste,” Biden said. “We have to act and we have to act now.”

Details of the aid package had been released by Biden’s transition team earlier on Thursday.

If adopted, the proposal would tack on $1,400 to the $600 in direct payments for individuals that Congress approved most recently. “We will finish the job of getting a total of $2,000 in relief to people who need it the most,” Biden said.

Supplemental unemployment insurance would also increase to $400 a week from $300 a week and would be extended to September.

“During this pandemic, millions of Americans, through no fault of their own, have lost the dignity and respect that comes with a job and a paycheck,” Biden said on Thursday, speaking from Wilmington, Delaware. “There is real pain overwhelming the real economy.”

Biden ran on the promise that he would deliver Americans through the coronavirus crisis, and more recently has pledged to ramp up vaccination efforts, and oversee the administering of 100m covid-19 jabs during his first 100 days.

Read more of Maanvi Singh’s report here: ‘No time to waste’: Biden unveils $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus package

US carries out latest federal execution after court overturns stay

Overnight the US government carried out its latest execution, ordered by the Trump administration just days before Joe Biden is inaugurated as president.

52 year old Corey Johnson’s execution went ahead after his lawyers scrambled to stop it on grounds that the lethal injection of pentobarbital would cause him excruciating pain due to lung damage from his coronavirus infection last month.

He was the 12th inmate executed at the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, since Trump restarted federal executions following a 17-year hiatus. The execution of Dustin Higgs is set for later today. Both Higgs and Johnson contracted Covid-19 and won temporary stays of execution this week for that reason, only for higher courts to vacate those stays.

Johnson, whose lawyers say was severely mentally disabled, was pronounced dead at 11:34pm. After the execution, his lawyers released Johnson’s last statement. In it, he said the pizza and strawberry shake he ate and drank before the execution “were wonderful” but he didn’t get the jelly-filled doughnuts he wanted. He added: “This should be fixed.”

“I want to say that I am sorry for my crimes,” he also said. “I wanted to say that to the families who were victimized by my actions.” He also said he wanted his victims’ names to be remembered.

Johnson was implicated with playing a role in one of the worst bursts of gang violence Richmond had ever seen, with 11 people killed in a 45-day period. He and two other members of the Newtowne gang were sentenced to death under a federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers.

Associated Press report Johnson’s lawyers described a traumatic childhood in which he was physically abused by his drug-addicted mother and her boyfriends, abandoned at age 13, then shuffled between residential and institutional facilities. They cited numerous childhood IQ tests discovered after he was sentenced that place him in the mentally disabled category. He could only read and write at an elementary school level.

In a statement, Johnson’s lawyers said the government executed a person “with an intellectual disability, in stark violation of the Constitution and federal law” and vehemently denied he had the mental capacity to be a so-called drug kingpin.

“We wish also to say that the fact Cory Johnson should never have been executed cannot diminish the pain and loss experienced by the families of the victims in this case,” the statement said. “We wish them peace and healing.”

It took a little more than 20 minutes for him to die. Reporters could not see into into the witness rooms reserved for his family and for relatives of his victims. But it was clear that clapping came from the latter as an official pronounced Johnson dead. Someone also could be heard whistling.

Biden opposes the federal death penalty and has signaled he’ll end its use.

Last night Joe Biden unveiled his $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus package to tackle the virus and the economic crisis it has triggered. Vaccination and testing efforts in the US will be sustained with $160bn, a further $350bn will be issued for state and local government health programmes, and $1tn is to go families.

Welcome to our live coverage of US politcs at the end of what has been a busy week. President-elect Joe Biden last night tried to wrest attention away from Donald Trump’s second impeachment with an eye-catching announcement of his Covid vaccination and economic stimulus plans for when he takes office next week. Here’s where we are…

  • Joe Biden unveiled his $1.9tn coronavirus relief plan. The plan seeks to send Americans $1,400 checks in direct relief, increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, and provide schools with $130bn in aid to help them reopen, among other provisions.
  • It’s much needed. Weekly initial jobless claims soared to 965,000 last week, according to data released by the labor department.
  • There were 229,386 new cases of coronavirus recorded yesterday, with 3,769 further deaths. For the 44th day running more than 100,000 people are hospitalized in the US with Covid.
  • Federal prosecutors have said on a court filing that Trump supporters in last week’s siege of the US Capitol intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials”.
  • Donald Trump appears to have fallen out with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and reports say he is refusing to pay the former New York mayor’s legal bills.
  • The New York attorney general announced a lawsuit against the NYPD, in response to officers’ treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters last year. “There is no question that the NYPD engaged in a pattern of excessive, brutal, and unlawful force against peaceful protesters,” said Letitia James.
  • Nine people have been charged following a new investigation of the Flint water disaster, including the former Michigan governor Rick Snyder and key members of his administration, nearly seven years after the deadly crisis that contaminated an entire community.
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