Today's politics recap
- The House is considering a measure to refer Mark Meadows to the justice department for potential contempt charges. The vote comes one week after Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, ended his cooperation with the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
- The records that Meadows turned over to the committee before ending his cooperation include text messages from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr on 6 January. In the messages, the Trump allies urge Meadows and the president to take action to end the insurrection. In one message, Trump’s eldest son told the chief of staff, “We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
- The attorney general of the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, has announced that his office is suing the far right groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers “for conspiring to terrorize the District” in relation to the Capitol insurrection. The lawsuit refers to the Capitol attack as a “coordinated act of domestic terrorism”.
- Jim McGovern, the Democratic chair of the House rules committee, warned of potential future coups if investigators are not able to uncover all the details of 6 January. “Coups very rarely succeed the first go-around, but they oftentimes do the second time around,” McGovern said during a hearing on the contempt resolution. “If there’s ever a moment to be above politics, it’s now.”
- The Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5tn. The vote occurred via a bipartisan deal that allowed Democrats to approve the measure and Republicans to oppose it in a divided legislature. With the House expected to pass the measure as well, lawmakers will have put off a potential default until after the next election.
- A federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s latest effort to hide his tax returns from the House Ways and Means committee.“This ruling is no surprise, the law is clearly on the committee’s side. I am pleased that we’re now one step closer to being able to conduct more thorough oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program,” said Richard Neal, House Ways and Means committee chair, in a statement.
Updated
The Covid-19 death toll in the US has surpassed 800,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
It is the highest reported toll of any country. The actual death toll is likely even higher both in the US and around the world. The AP reports:
A closely watched forecasting model from the University of Washington projects a total of over 880,000 reported deaths in the U.S. by March 1.
Health experts lament that many of the deaths in the United States were especially heartbreaking because they were preventable by way of the vaccine, which became available in mid-December a year ago and was thrown open to all adults by mid-April of this year.
About 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, or just over 60% of the population. That is well short of what scientists say is needed to keep the virus in check.
“Almost all the people dying are now dying preventable deaths,” said Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “And that’s because they’re not immunized. And you know that, God, it’s a terrible tragedy.”
When the vaccine was first rolled out, the country’s death toll stood at about 300,000. It hit 600,000 in mid-June and 700,000 on Oct. 1.
A federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s latest effort to hide his tax returns from the House Ways and Means committee.
“This ruling is no surprise, the law is clearly on the committee’s side. I am pleased that we’re now one step closer to being able to conduct more thorough oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program,” said Richard Neal, House Ways and Means committee chair, in a statement.
Trevor McFadden, a federal district court judge, dismissed the case saying that Trump, who has claimed executive privilege shields him from requests from House Democrats to review his returns, does not have a case.
“Even the special solicitude accorded former presidents does not alter the outcome,” McFadden wrote.
Trump can still appeal the case.
Updated
Guardian staff and agencies:
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo has been ordered to give up about $5.1m in earnings from a book deal about his response to the coronavirus pandemic, after he was found to have contravened ethics laws by using state resources to write the book.
Cuomo was directed to turn over proceeds earned from American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic within 30 days under a resolution approved 12-1 by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), according to multiple media reports.
An attorney for Cuomo immediately called the action unconstitutional and promised a fight.
The order came a month after the commission voted to rescind the ethics approval it had given Cuomo before he entered into the $5.1m book deal.
American Crisis was published in October 2020, months before Cuomo resigned amid findings he sexually harassed 11 women.
The staff of the commission granted approval of the deal in July 2020, when his counsel told the commission that Cuomo agreed to not use any state personnel or resources to produce his book and that he would write it “entirely on his own time”. But complaints later surfaced that state property, resources and personnel were used to prepare, write, edit and publish the book.
Read more:
The Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5tn, via a bipartisan deal that allowed Democrats to approve the measure and Republicans to oppose it in a divided legislature. With the House expected to pass the measure as well, lawmakers will have put off a potential default until after the next election.
The country was at the edge of a catastrophic default several times this year, with lawmakers repeatedly clashing over efforts to suspend the borrowing cap. Republicans demanded that Democrats slash spending on social programs in exchange for support in suspending or increasing the debt ceiling.
The current resolutions come after the leaders of both parties reached a deal to adjust Senate rules so that just this once, Democrats could address the debt ceiling issue with a simple majority vote, and Republicans could all cast their votes against it.
The network of election lawyers who are making it harder for Americans to vote
Peter Stone in Washington:
A powerful network of conservative election lawyers and groups with links to Donald Trump have spent millions of dollars promoting new and onerous voting laws that many battleground states such as Georgia and Texas have enacted.
The moves have prompted election and voting rights watchdogs in the US to warn about the suppression of non-white voters aimed at providing Republicans an edge in coming elections.
The lawyers and groups spearheading self-professed election integrity measures include some figures who pushed Trump’s baseless claims of fraud after the 2020 election. Key advocates include Cleta Mitchell with the Conservative Partnership institute; J Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation; Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation; Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project; and J Kenneth Blackwell with the America First Policy Institute.
These conservative outfits tout their goal as curbing significant voter fraud, despite the fact that numerous courts, the vast majority of voting experts and even former top Trump officials, such as ex-attorney general Bill Barr, concluded the 2020 elections were without serious problems.
Watchdogs say that tightening state voting laws endanger the rights of Black voters and other communities of color who historically back Democrats by creating new rules limiting absentee voting and same day registration, while imposing other voting curbs.
Among the election lawyers and groups advocating tougher voting laws, Mitchell, a veteran conservative lawyer , boasts the highest profile and has sparked the most scrutiny. She took part in the 2 January call where Trump prodded Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” about 11,780 votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there. After details emerged about Mitchell’s role on the call, Foley & Lardner, where she had worked for nearly 20 years, mounted an internal review, and she resigned.
Read more:
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:
- The House is now debating the measure to refer Mark Meadows to the justice department for potential contempt charges. The vote comes one week after Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, ended his cooperation with the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
- The records that Meadows turned over to the committee before ending his cooperation include text messages from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr on 6 January. In the messages, the Trump allies urge Meadows and the president to take action to end the insurrection. In one message, Trump’s eldest son told the chief of staff, “We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
- The attorney general of the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, has announced that his office is suing the far right groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers “for conspiring to terrorize the District” in relation to the Capitol insurrection. The lawsuit refers to the Capitol attack as a “coordinated act of domestic terrorism”.
- Jim McGovern, the Democratic chair of the House rules committee, warned of potential future coups if investigators are not able to uncover all the details of 6 January. “Coups very rarely succeed the first go-around, but they oftentimes do the second time around,” McGovern said during a hearing on the contempt resolution. “If there’s ever a moment to be above politics, it’s now.”
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, argued that Mark Meadows’ refusal to cooperate with the panel forced investigators to advance this contempt resolution.
Meadows’ refusal to testify about the records he has already turned over to the committee amounts to not just obstruction but also an “attack on the rule of law,” Thompson said at the start of the floor debate over the measure.
We have made clear that there was a stream of communication between members of Congress and Meadows about matters central to our investigation.
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) December 14, 2021
We have questions about those communications. And we won’t let the facts be buried by a coverup. @BennieGThompson pic.twitter.com/SnMlo7QpTD
“It’s regrettable that we are back to the floor considering another criminal contempt referral, but our former colleague, Mr Meadows, has left us no choice,” the Democratic congressman said.
“The select committee is investigating an attack on our democracy, and it’s essential that witnesses cooperate with our investigation to get answers.”
House begins debate on Meadows contempt charge
The House is now beginning one hour of debate on the measure to refer Mark Meadows to the justice department for potential contempt charges.
The House is beginning 1 hour of debate on H. Res. 851 - resolution recommending that the House of Representatives find Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress (Sponsored by @BennieGThompson / @January6thCmte).
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) December 14, 2021
The House will then debate two other proposals before moving on to the full-chamber vote on the Meadows contempt resolution.
The vote on the contempt resolution is still expected to start in about an hour and a half, so stay tuned.
Pfizer says pill is effective in protecting against severe disease from Covid
A pill manufactured by the prominent Covid-19 vaccine provider Pfizer is highly effective in protecting against severe disease from coronavirus, the company said on Tuesday.
The experimental antiviral pill Paxlovid is also effective against the Omicron variant that is spreading rapidly across the world, the company announced, citing laboratory testing.
In clinical trials, Paxlovid showed almost 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalization and death in high-risk patients, Pfizer stated, replicating the results of a smaller-scale trial announced last month.
Those results prompted the company to seek authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the pill to become the first widely available oral medicine to combat coronavirus.
Regulators in the UK last month approved the twice-daily pill Molnupiravir, manufactured by Merck/Ridgeback, for use in elderly and at-risk patients, but its approval has stalled in the US amid safety concerns.
Pfizer hopes that Tuesday’s announcement will bolster its case with the FDA, allowing for an early US approval and infected Americans having access to the pill by early next year.
Programming note: the House is expected to vote later today on the motion to refer Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, to the justice department for potential contempt charges.
According to the latest update from House majority leader Steny Hoyer’s office, the chamber will likely start voting at about 6 pm ET, roughly two hours from now.
If the House passes the contempt resolution, the justice department will need to determine whether to prosecute Meadows over the matter. A federal grand jury has already indicted another Trump ally, Steve Bannon, for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Barber: Manchin is committing 'political policy violence'
Rev. William Barber II, the prominent North Carolina civil rights leader, accused Senator Joe Manchin of committing “political policy violence” on Tuesday over his blockade of voting rights and infrastructure legislation in the US senate.
Barber made the comments as he led a demonstration outside of Manchin’s Washington, DC office with several activists, including some who traveled from West Virginia, demanding a meeting with the senator. The group was denied entry into the office building and wound up leaving signs and 10,000 petitions at the building’s entrance.
Rev. William Barber, holding a press conference outside Sen. Manchin's office, says Manchin lied to John Lewis, saying he supported voting rights legislation and then switching his position after Lewis died and Democrats took control of the US senate
— Sam Levine (@srl) December 14, 2021
In fiery remarks, Barber accused Manchin of lying to John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died last year. Manchin, Barber said, had told Lewis he supported two sweeping pieces of voting rights legislation. But Manchin’s support for the filibuster, the senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation, has blocked Democrats from passing either bill.
“His delay on voting rights is allowing a political coup d’etat to sweep through our state legislatures,” Barber said. He added Manchin’s actions were directly harming the nation’s poor and most vulnerable communities.
The meeting came on the same day Manchin was reportedly meeting with a small group of Democratic senators to try and see if there was a path forward on the filibuster.
Barber has been among several activists who have been arrested in Washington recently as they push for voting rights legislation.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was asked about the texts that Mark Meadows received from Republican lawmakers as the Capitol insurrection unfolded on January 6.
The Republican leader told reporters on Capitol Hill that he was not in contact with Donald Trump’s chief of staff on the day of the insurrection.
.@LeaderMcConnell (R-KY): "We're all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the House side, and it will be interesting to reveal all the participants who were involved."
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 14, 2021
WATCH: https://t.co/LIqabDEJeW pic.twitter.com/yvOALfE5yx
McConnell also expressed interest in the findings of the House select committee investigating the insurrection, saying, “We’re all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the House side, and it will be interesting to reveal all the participants who were involved.”
It is worth noting that Senate Republicans blocked the bill to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the insurrection earlier this year.
One reporter asked Jen Psaki how Joe Biden plans to mark the one-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, which will occur in three weeks on January 6.
Psaki said she did not have any specific plans to share about the president honoring the day of the Capitol insurrection, which she described as “one of the darkest days in our democracy”.
But the White House press secretary added, “I think there’s no question you’ll see us commemorate that day.”
'Disappointing, not surprising': White House reacts to January 6 texts to Meadows
Jen Psaki was asked about the revelation that Republican lawmakers and multiple Fox News hosts sent texts to Mark Meadows on January 6, urging Donald Trump’s chief of staff to take action to end the Capitol insurrection.
“It’s disappointing, and unfortunately not surprising, that some of the very same individuals who were willing to warn, condemn and express horror over what happened on January 6 in private were totally silent in public or, even worse, were spreading lies and conspiracy theories and continue to since that time,” the White House press secretary said.
Psaki added, “Unfortunately we’ve seen a trend from some of the same individuals.”
WH Press Sec. Jen Psaki responds to GOP lawmakers and Fox News hosts frantically texting Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during 1/6 but spreading conspiracy theories after:
— The Recount (@therecount) December 14, 2021
"Disappointing, not surprising. Unfortunately we've seen a trend." pic.twitter.com/k3MP9QigCh
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection held a hearing yesterday to vote on a recommendation that Meadows be held in criminal contempt for defying the panel’s subpoena.
At the hearing, Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, read some of the texts that Meadows received on January 6 as the insurrection unfolded. The texts were included in the documents that Meadows turned over to the committee before ending his cooperation with investigators.
In one text, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said, “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
In another, Donald Trump Jr told the chief of staff, “We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over the blog from Joanna Walters.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing, and she was asked about Joe Biden’s meeting with centrist Senator Joe Manchin yesterday to discuss the Build Back Better Act.
The press secretary said the negotiations overs the $1.75tn spending package continue, but Democrats are “not quite there yet” to get the bill passed.
Democratic leaders have been pushing to pass the final bill before the end of the year to ensure families can receive checks from the expanded child tax credit program next month, but it’s unclear whether they will be able to meet that deadline.
Interim summary
It’s been a busy morning in political news in Washington and there’s more to come. Reverend William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign led a press conference a little earlier and we’ll bring you the highlights of that shortly. Please stay tuned.
Meanwhile, here’s where things stand so far:
- The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, by the office of the attorney general of the District of Columbia, calls the Capitol attack by Trump fanatics trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory a “coordinated act of domestic terrorism”.
- The attorney general of the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, has announced that his office is suing the far right groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers “for conspiring to terrorize the District” in relation to the insurrection by extremist Donald Trump supporters at the US Capitol on January 6 this year.
- Jim McGovern, the Democratic chair of the House rules committee, warned of potential future coups if the right wing are allowed to continue to downplay and hide the truth of the attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power from Trump to Biden.
- The House rules committee met to take up the special House panel’s resolution calling for Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to be held in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena from those investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Updated
The lawsuit from the DC attorney general’s office against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers hard right groups came as the House rules committee had been discussing this morning the “frantic” texts sent by Republican lawmakers and Fox News star punditry hosts while the Capitol insurrection was underway on January 6.
These came up in the closed-door meeting of the special House panel last night over whether to recommend that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows should be criminally charged with contempt of Congress for halting his cooperation with the panel’s investigation into the Capitol attack.
Congressman Jamie Raskin read some of them out at the rules committee public hearing this morning, recounting how certain Republican lawmakers, Fox hosts and even Donald Trump’s eldest son, Don Trump Jr, contacted Meadows begging him to get the-then president to take decisive action to call on the insurrectionists to cease their riot and invasion.
It’s not clear why Don didn’t call his dad directly, nor did Sean Hannity, who has talked to Trump on the phone probably hundreds of times at this point.
Raskin cites the texts referring to: “GOP lawmakers and others sending frantic messages, saying ‘we are under siege...Mark, protesters are literally storming the Capitol, breaking windows...our doors, is Trump going to do something?”
"He's got to condemn this shit ASAP" -- Raskin just read a number of the most newsworthy messages sent from Republican lawmakers and Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr to Mark Meadows on January 6 pic.twitter.com/LTsq84HzWu
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 14, 2021
Raskin says: “Donald Trump Jr - ‘he’s got to condemn this...’ excrement [Jr wrote shit, not excrement, but Raskin is being polite on Capitol Hill] ‘asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.’ Jr saying ‘we need an Oval Office address’.”
Updated
To go back a little way, prior to today’s lawsuit by the attorney general of the District of Columbia, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack just last month issued subpoenas to the leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, with its investigation directly focusing for the first time on the instigators of the violence at the 6 January insurrection.
The chair of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, the Democratic representative from Mississippi, said in a statement those subpoenas reflected the panel’s interest in uncovering possible connections between the paramilitary groups, efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election and the Capitol attack, Hugo Lowell reported at the time.
And going a bit further back, in looking at how these groups are powerfully driven by white supremacist beliefs, the Guardian’s Lois Beckett drew a line from January 6 to the groups at the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that tried to stop the removal of the statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee (which stayed up until July this year), chanted racist slogans and violently attacked anti-racism protesters and liberal activists.
As she wrote on January 8: The playbook for the Maga [the Make America Great Again Trump campaign slogan] invasion of the nation’s Capitol building has been developing for years in plain sight, at far-right rallies in cities like Charlottesville, Berkeley and Portland, and then, in the past year, at state capitols across the country, where heavily armed white protesters have forced their way into legislative chambers to accuse politicians of tyranny and treason.
“No one should be surprised,” said Sarah Anthony to the Guardian back in January, a Black state lawmaker who was on the legislative floor in Michigan’s Capitol on 30 April 2020, when hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters, including white militia members with guns, tried to force their way inside. “This has been escalating in every corner of our country for months.”
Read the report here on: From Charlottesville to the Capitol: how rightwing impunity fueled the pro-Trump mob.
Updated
The DC lawsuit adds: “In the weeks leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, their leadership, and certain members and affiliates of both groups openly advertised their willingness to use violence to support their political agenda, including their efforts to reelect then-President Trump.
It also reminds us of Donald Trump’s instruction from the debate podium in the fall of 2020, during the peak final months of the election campaign, that the Proud Boys should “stand by” and notes that: “During and following the debate, the Proud Boys leadership immediately took to the social media application Parler to show support for a violent response following President Trump’s statement.”
The Oath Keepers group, the lawsuit notes sought to preserve Trump’s power after he lost the White House by saying: “All he has to do is call us up. We WILL answer the call” and the DC attorney general’s office pointing out that: “Based on past behavior, Oath Keepers members were willing to uphold that pledge using violence” and part of a plan of action should Joe Biden win the 2020 election would be “looking down the sights of a rifle at our fellow Americans.”
“Oath Keepers publicly trumpeted the idea that members were standing ready to engage in a civil war, tweeting from the group’s account: ‘We ARE on the verge of a HOT civil war. Like in 1859. That’s where we are’,” the lawsuit states.
DC lawsuit calls Capitol attack 'coordinated act of domestic terrorism'
The lawsuit filed against the far right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups says that as a result of those groups’ actions:
The January 6th Attack on the Capitol, was not a protest or a rally. It was a coordinated act of domestic terrorism.
Would-be insurgents from across the country came to the District, marched through its streets, and ultimately gathered at the United States Capitol, ready and eager to carry out a violent attack on the lawful operation of government.
Then, as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, their leadership, and certain of their members and affiliates had planned, Defendants and others rioted, broke through police barricades, and physically forced their way into the Capitol. In doing so, they threatened, assaulted, and injured those who tried to stop them, including officers of the District’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), and incited terror among those inside and around the building, including members of Congress who were discharging the official duties of their offices.
In the wake of this assault, the Capitol was left in shambles, with the District left to deal with the aftermath of the violent disruption to what should have been the peaceful transition of presidential power.
The lawsuit says Proud Boys International “is a US-based group that promotes and engages in political violence, including in service of its hate-motivated agenda”. And it describes the Oath Keepers as “a militia movement group united by baseless conspiracy theories arising from the idea that the federal government has been coopted by a nefarious group that is trying to strip United States citizens of their rights.”
It further notes that: “Violence is an inextricable part of both organizations and a common link between them.”
Updated
Karl Racine, the attorney general of the District of Columbia, in filing federal suit against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, states that: “The District seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive relief and, by filing this action, intends to make clear that it will not countenance the use of violence against the District, including its police officers.
The lawsuit filed in federal court moments ago lists as defendants not only the far right, white nationalist groups the Proud Boys (of Aubrey, Texas, per the suit) and Oathkeepers (of Las Vegas, Nevada), but also lists 32 individuals deemed to have associations to those groups, as well as noting there are 50 other unnamed defendants collectively referred to as “John and Jane Does 1 - 50”.
Individuals include Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a Proud Boys leader who is currently in jail in Washington, DC, for stealing a Black Lives Matter flag from a historic Black church in the city, after violently protesting against racial justice demonstrations. he was arrested on January 4 on his way to DC.
The list also includes some individuals, such as Ryan Ashlock and William Chrestman, both of Kansas, who were indicted by a grand jury in February over the Capitol attack and cited by the Department of Justice as being members of the self-declared “western chauvinist” Proud Boys organization that has been declared a dangerous hate group by the federal authorities.
Today’s lawsuit from DC accuses all of the defendants of conspiracy to terrorize “by planning, promoting and participating in the violent January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol...with the express purpose of preventing members of Congress and then Vice President Michael Pence from discharging their official constitutional duties and declaring Joseph Biden the winner of the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Updated
DC AG sues Proud Boys, Oathkeepers over Capitol attack
The attorney general of the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, has announced that his office is suing the far right groups the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers “for conspiring to terrorize the District” in relation to the insurrection by extremist Donald Trump supporters at the US Capitol on January 6 this year.
NEW: D.C. has sued the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers "for conspiring to terrorize the District" in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol Building. Seeks damages and more.
— Todd Ruger (@ToddRuger) December 14, 2021
Complaint: https://t.co/gVyv9vpO58 pic.twitter.com/VPkJvqcJQh
The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Washington, DC, adapts a law used after the US Civil War and known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, chiefly to protect government officials and people’s rights.
Top Democrat on rules committee warns of potential future coups
Jim McGovern, the Democratic chair of the House rules committee, lamented that Fox News hosts privately pushed for an end to the Capitol insurrection on January 6 while publicly downplaying the violence of that day.
McGovern noted that Fox News has not mentioned the texts that some of the network’s hosts sent to Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, since they were revealed last night.
“This would be a good time for these hosts to use their platforms to tell the American people the truth, just like they were privately texting Mark Meadows the truth on that terrible day,” McGovern said. “But I have to say that their silence is deafening.”
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA): “There has been zero mentions on Fox News of their hosts’ texts to Mark Meadows.” pic.twitter.com/iGwd8iDIVO
— The Recount (@therecount) December 14, 2021
The Massachusetts congressman expressed concern that Donald Trump and his allies are trying to “run out the clock” to keep the facts of January 6 from coming to light.
“The lack of curiosity, the lack of outrage, the rationalizations why we shouldn’t be compelling people to testify -- it’s just stunning to me,” McGovern said. “We’re at a crossroads. Our democracy is being threatened, and this is serious.”
McGovern also warned that America may see future attempts to overturn election results if lawmakers do not uncover all the details of January 6.
“Coups very rarely succeed the first go-around, but they oftentimes do the second time around,” McGovern said. “If there’s ever a moment to be above politics, it’s now.”
During the hearing aimed at taking up the contempt resolution against Mark Meadows, a Republican on the House rules committee, Michael Burgess, attempted to compare the January 6 insurrection to past protests held on Capitol Hill.
“We’ve had bad protests here at the Capitol before. I was here when the Affordable Care Act went through the legislative process,” Burgess said.
“You don’t think we had some really upset people outside the Capitol during those days? Of course we did. ... It’s what we do here.”
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) compares participants in the January 6th attack to 2010 protests against Obamacare:
— The Recount (@therecount) December 14, 2021
"We've had bad protests here before ... It's what we do here." pic.twitter.com/OLUlDkVP9r
Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, vehemently rejected Burgess’ comparison.
“I don’t know how you can draw a comparison between the Affordable Care demonstration and what occurred on January 6,” Thompson said.
“People broke into this institution. They harmed people. They did all kinds of things. ... This is not the America that we live in.”
Jim McGovern, the Democratic chair of the House rules committee, said the texts that Mark Meadows received from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr on January 6 were “nothing short of a bombshell”.
“The top personalities on Fox News, who are today trying to cover up the gravity of what happened on January 6, knew who to go to to stop the insurrection that day,” McGovern said at the start of the rules committee hearing to take up the contempt resolution against Meadows.
.@RepMcGovern: "The texts sent to Mark Meadows that were released by the select committee last night were nothing short of a bombshell. The top personalities on Fox News, [...] knew who to go to, to stop the insurrection that day. The president's son knew who to go to." pic.twitter.com/TAR08vRdR9
— The Hill (@thehill) December 14, 2021
McGovern added, “The president’s son knew who to go to. When Don Jr texted that ‘it has gone too far and gotten out of hand,’ what was ‘it’ that he was referring to?
“The ‘it’ was the attempt to overthrow the election. The ‘it’ was the attempted coup in the United States of America. Yet the president did nothing in those critical moments.”
It’s also worth noting that the texts messages were among the records that Meadows voluntarily turned over to the select committee before ending his cooperation with investigators, so there are likely even more bombshells in the records he has withheld.
House rules committee meets to take up Meadows contempt resolution
The House rules committee is now meeting to take up the resolution calling for Mark Meadows to be held in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena from the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
The meeting comes one day after the select committee voted to recommend criminal contempt charges against Meadows, who said last week he would no longer cooperate with investigators.
The rules committee meeting will set up a full House vote on the contempt resolution, and the Democratic-controlled chamber is expected to vote to refer the matter to the justice department.
The justice department will then determine whether to prosecute Meadows over the matter. A federal grand jury has already indicted former Trump aide Steve Bannon on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying his subpoena.
Over the course of a near-hour-long business meeting, the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection outlined in detail the materials Mark Meadows had turned over to the panel – and how Meadows then promptly refused to testify about those very records.
Meadows turned over about 9,000 documents as part of a cooperation deal, the House select committee said, in his effort to engage with the inquiry to a degree in order to avoid an immediate criminal referral that befell other Trump administration aides who defied subpoenas.
Among the materials Meadows turned over to the select committee was a PowerPoint presentation titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference and Options for 6 JAN”, which recommended Donald Trump declare a national security emergency to unilaterally return himself to office.
But his cooperation with the select committee ended with the document production and Meadows informed the panel last week that he would not answer questions because he had learned that House investigators had subpoenaed call detail records for his personal phone.
The select committee said Meadows’ refusal to testify constituted noncompliance with his subpoena, which was first issued in September, and initiated proceedings to recommend that the House hold him in contempt of Congress.
Trump Jr and Fox News hosts urged Meadows to act on January 6
During the hearing yesterday, Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, read text messages that Mark Meadows received on January 6.
The texts, which Meadows turned over to the committee before ending his cooperation with investigators, include pleas from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr urging the chief of staff to take action.
Full @RepLizCheney statement on holding Mark Meadows in contempt, including texts from Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade and others:
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 14, 2021
"These text messages leave no doubt...multiple Fox News hosts knew the president needed to act immediately. They texted Mr. Meadows." pic.twitter.com/KxrVMS4CTZ
“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham wrote in one message to Meadows.
“We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now,” Trump’s eldest son told Meadows. “It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
Multiple people inside the Capitol also pleaded with Meadows to convince Trump to deliver a message to his supporters, saying they were “helpless” as the insurrectionists stormed the building.
“These text messages leave no doubt,” Cheney said. “The White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol.”
Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, said in an opening statement before the panel recommended Mark Meadows’ referral to the justice department that Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff displayed willful noncompliance in his defiance of his subpoena.
“It comes down to this,” Thompson said. “Mr Meadows started by doing the right thing: cooperating. He handed over records that he didn’t try to shield behind some excuse. But in an investigation like ours, that’s just a first step.
“When the records raise questions – as these most certainly do – you have to come in and answer those questions. And when it was time for him to follow the law, come in, and testify on those questions, he changed his mind and told us to pound sand. He didn’t even show up.”
The select committee said in the contempt report they were seeking charges against Meadows after he attempted to obstruct the investigation in myriad ways, from refusing to testify to frustrating their efforts to locate and discover documents relevant to the Capitol attack.
The select committee also said Meadows should be prosecuted since he refused to testify even about information he voluntarily provided to the panel through his own document production and conceded were not covered by claims of executive privilege advanced by Trump.
Capitol attack committee recommends holding Meadows in criminal contempt
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection voted last night to recommend holding Mark Meadows in criminal contempt for defying the panel’s subpoena.
The vote came one week after Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, said he would no longer cooperate with investigators, despite already having turned over some of his personal records to the committee.
The recommendation sets up a full House vote on the matter, and the Democratic-controlled chamber is expected to refer the matter to the justice department.
The justice department will then have to determine whether to prosecute Meadows over the matter. A federal grand jury has already indicted another former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, on two counts of contempt of Congress.
The Meadows vote raises the stakes for other Trump allies who may be considering defying their subpoenas, and it carries significant implications for how much investigators will ultimately be able to learn about what unfolded on January 6.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
