Capitol Police chief: ‘We’ll be ready’ for Saturday's rally
WASHINGTON — Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said his department and law enforcement partners are ready for Saturday’s “Justice for J6” protest in support of jailed rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Manger said at a press briefing Friday that D.C. National Guard troops would be available if the rally — expected to end around 1:15 p.m. in Union Square, on the west side of the Capitol — goes longer than anticipated.
“If it goes longer, for whatever reason, we could call them to help us secure the perimeter of the Capitol,” Manger said of the National Guard members who will be at the D.C. Armory. “No, we’re not asking for them to be armed,” he added.
The organization Look Ahead America — led by Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign employee — requested a permit for up to 700 people to demonstrate at noon. They are seeking to support imprisoned insurrectionists whom Braynard has described as “political prisoners.”
If any groups decide to breach the fence or attack law enforcement, Manger said, “we’ll be ready.”
A Capitol Police intelligence assessment observed that the department and other law enforcement agencies are seeing increasing violent online chatter about the protest. The far-right website 4chan has calls to “do justice” against “local jews and corrupted officials.”
Further, users on the site say the demonstration should be an avenue for violent acts against local “Jewish centers and Liberal churches” while law enforcement is distracted.
The memo from Sept. 7 identified counterprotest groups.
—CQ-Roll Call
Voter ID rule harder on those without Georgia driver’s licenses
ATLANTA — Every Georgia voter was already required to have some kind of ID to vote.
Whether they have the right kind of ID to most easily vote by mail under the state’s new voting law is another matter.
About 272,000 registered voters lack a driver’s license or state ID number on file with election officials, meaning they’d have to provide a copy of other identifying documents when requesting an absentee ballot for this fall’s local elections.
Even voter ID cards issued by county election offices are inadequate unless voters take a photo or make a copy of it, then submit it with their absentee ballot applications.
The new absentee ID requirements under Georgia’s voting law are being tested as thousands of voters have requested mail-in ballots ahead of municipal elections, including the closely watched race for Atlanta mayor. In prior elections, officials verified voters by comparing signatures with those on file.
“I think everybody should show ID, but it’s hard for some people,” said Juanita Collier, a Walmart employee who has a driver’s license, at a DeKalb County voter information stand outside the Chamblee MARTA station this week. “People should be able to vote as long as they show something for ID.”
The ID requirements are simple for the 97% of registered voters with driver’s licenses or state ID cards obtained from the Department of Driver Services. Those voters can prove their identities by filling in their nine-digit ID numbers when requesting and returning absentee ballots.
Voters who have some other kind of identification, such as a U.S. passport or military ID, would have to make a photocopy.
All voters have been required to show photo ID for in-person voting in Georgia since 2008. Most people register to vote when they get their driver’s licenses, the state’s primary form of voter ID. Anyone who registers to vote through the mail must present ID before being allowed to vote for the first time.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Robert Durst convicted of murdering Susan Berman
LOS ANGELES — A jury on Friday found Robert Durst guilty of murdering Susan Berman, finding true the prosecution’s case that the heir to one of Manhattan’s most famed real estate empires put a bullet in the back of his best friend’s head to keep her from telling the police about the death of his wife nearly two decades earlier.
Durst was not in the courtroom Friday, after it was revealed he had been exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. After a five-month trial that included an 11-week presentation from prosecutors and 15 days of testimony from Durst himself, the jurors deliberated for just eight hours over a span of three days.
To prove their theory of why Durst killed Berman, L.A. County prosecutors spent weeks trying to convince the jury that Durst also killed his wife, Kathie Durst, who disappeared in New York in 1982.
While the trial ostensibly centered around the murder of Berman, who was found in her Benedict Canyon home, blood pooling around her head, on Christmas Eve in 2000, it became a probing account of Durst’s entire life, one characterized by enormous wealth, strained relationships with family and a curious pattern of those closest to him turning up missing or dead.
For five months, jurors in an Inglewood courtroom heard testimony from prosecution witnesses, watched hours of Durst’s recorded interviews with law enforcement and filmmakers, scrutinized yellowing documents and, finally, heard from Durst, 78, himself.
—Los Angeles Times
San Francisco mayor seen at nightclub without mask, report says
San Francisco Mayor London Breed was seen at a nightclub earlier this week and was not wearing a mask, despite the city’s requirement to wear face coverings in indoor public settings, according to a published report.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Breed and most other patrons at the Black Cat nightclub, which serves food and drinks, were not wearing masks while in attendance Wednesday. The city’s health order says that attendees at live indoor performances must remain masked except when actively eating or drinking.
The Chronicle reported that Breed “had a table of drinks in front of her and was often holding one” and “spent the night dancing, singing along and posing for photographs without a face covering.”
Nightclubs in San Francisco require patrons to show proof of full vaccination. San Francisco is one of only a few local governments in California to have or which are planning such a requirement.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Most counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Los Angeles, Ventura and Sacramento counties, and many others in California, began reinstituting universal mask orders in indoor settings this summer, regardless of vaccination status.
—Los Angeles Times
