User Controls
THE MAGA PARTY!,,, the GOP is dead, republicans are going down with the dems,, get ready for THE MAGA PARTY lefty's
-
2021-07-26 at 4:11 PM UTC
Originally posted by aldra a 'wealth tax' is difficult on its face because with someone like Bezos, most of his fortune is tied up in companies and having to sell chunks off to pay taxes would likely cause them to fail
that said they could at least enforce existing tax law, but big companies like Amazon and Apple are used for state-level economic warfare so I'd doubt it'll happen
do you have a full list of bezos assset or are you just regurgating media talking points.
his wife had no problem dumping billions to "charities" all over, he shouldnt either. -
2021-07-26 at 4:25 PM UTC
-
2021-07-26 at 4:42 PM UTC
-
2021-07-26 at 4:52 PM UTC
-
2021-07-26 at 5:19 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
-
2021-07-26 at 6:34 PM UTCMSNBC
'They don't want the truth to come out': Why Schiff expects subpoenas in Jan. 6th investigation
Rep. Adam Schiff speaks with Hallie Jackson about why he expects the need to compel GOP witnesses during the Jan. 6 investigation. "Yes, I do," he tells Jackson. "We want to make sure, for example, when we request documents that we get all of them."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/they-don-t-want-the-truth-to-come-out-why-schiff-expects-subpoenas-in-jan-6th-investigation/vi-AAMzJcf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531 -
2021-07-26 at 6:37 PM UTC
-
2021-07-26 at 6:53 PM UTC
-
2021-07-26 at 11:34 PM UTCMake
America
Go relive Jan. 6th truthfully
At least once
The Hill
Five things to watch as Jan. 6 panel begins its work
Cristina Marcos and Rebecca Beitsch
The select committee dedicated to investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection will kick off its first hearing on Tuesday with what's expected to be emotional testimony from police officers who defended the Capitol that day.
Five things to watch as Jan. 6 panel begins its work
The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the panel, all appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), want to start the probe by hearing from some of the most sympathetic characters of Jan. 6: the police officers on the front lines.
Here are five things to watch.
How dramatic will the police testimony be?
Lawmakers will hear from four officers who defended the Capitol that day, two who serve on the U.S. Capitol force and two who serve on the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell has previously told CNN he was beaten, had his hand sliced open, and was doused in chemical spray during the attack, while Private First Class Harry Dunn told reporters he was called racist slurs and has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder.
MPD Officer Michael Fanone has previously shared that he yelled out "I have kids" as rioters suggested killing him with his own gun. Daniel Hodges, another MPD officer, was crushed in a door by rioters, his gas mask ripped off as he was beaten with his own baton, an episode captured on video.
"I think we have a good and representative sample of officers and what they confronted and who can explain what took place," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), adding that they can "also put to rest some of the revisionist history - the effort to whitewash what took place."
Roughly 140 law enforcement officers in both U.S. Capitol Police and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department forces were injured during the insurrection, leaving many furious with both their own leadership as well as Trump allies who have downplayed the day's violence. Their accounts could offer a different perspective from Capitol Police's leadership, who have largely been on the defensive about intelligence and planning failures ahead of the attack.
Capitol Police officers themselves have been highly critical of acting Chief Yogananda Pittman, who on Friday returned to her role leading USCP's intelligence services. In a February vote attended by nearly all members of the Capitol Police union, 92 percent of officers backed a no confidence vote for Pittman.
Lawmakers have also often found themselves at odds with Capitol Police leadership, criticizing them for failing to send witnesses to testify and pushing the agency to be more forthcoming about its decisionmaking.
How will Cheney and Kinzinger work with the Democrats?
The panel includes two Republicans - Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) - who were appointed by Pelosi and voted to impeach Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol.
Their presence on the panel underscores the divide in the GOP over Jan. 6 between Republicans aligned with President Trump at all costs, and those who are not above criticizing him.
Cheney just six months ago was in charge of the House GOP messaging as the No. 3 House Republican. Now, after getting the boot from fellow Republicans, Cheney is strategizing with Democrats on how to investigate Jan. 6.
In a sign of how much Democrats want to elevate her role on the panel, Cheney will deliver an opening statement at Tuesday's hearing following one from the select committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
Typically, the ranking minority member of a committee delivers a statement after the chairman at hearings. In the absence of that, Cheney will unofficially take on the role of the panel's leading Republican.
Kinzinger, the only other Republican who voted to create the select committee aside from Cheney, vowed to press forward with a "serious, clear-eyed, non-partisan approach."
"Let me be clear, I'm a Republican dedicated to conservative values, but I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution - and while this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer," Kinzinger said after Pelosi tapped him to serve on the panel.
How will the two Republicans manage the fire from their own party?
Republican leaders have already taken shots at Cheney and Kinzinger after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced a boycott.
McCarthy was responding to Pelosi rejecting two of his five panel picks, Reps. Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio), given their particularly close ties to Trump and attempts at the outset to cast doubt on the investigation.
McCarthy has not sought to conceal his disdain for Kinzinger and Cheney, acknowledging that he "couldn't tell you" the last time he spoke with either.
"Who is that? Adam and Liz? Aren't they kind of like Pelosi Republicans?" McCarthy said prior to a White House event to mark the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Both Cheney and Kinzinger called the remark "childish."
"He can call me any names he wants," Kinzinger said. "I'm a Republican. Kevin McCarthy is technically my Republican leader. And to call, you know, members of Congress by childish names like Donald Trump used to do, I guess it's just kind of par [for the course]."
"It's very serious business here with important work to do," said Cheney, who has regularly criticized McCarthy harshly.
How will Republicans outside the room react?
Republicans at large are trying to cast the select committee's work as partisan to cast blanket doubt on the proceedings.
"In the history of Congress, never has a speaker done that," McCarthy said Monday of Pelosi rejecting two of his panel picks. "She's broken Congress. Then it just makes the whole committee a sham and the outcome predetermined."
Responding to the testimony from four police officers will nevertheless present a challenge for Republicans, who routinely want to show support for law enforcement while attacking progressive calls over the last year to "defund the police."
Some Trump allies, as well as the former president himself, have opted to deny the attack's severity altogether.
Trump falsely claimed earlier this month during a Fox News interview that "there was also a lovefest between the police, the Capitol Police, and the people that walked down to the Capitol."
The new Capitol Police chief, Thomas Manger, pushed back against such a characterization in an interview with CNN, stating: "That's not the way I saw it."
How will the lack of partisan fireworks inside the room affect the tone?
Unlike most congressional hearings, members of the select committee are all on the same page.
While Cheney and Kinzinger largely vote with the GOP on most policy issues, they've found common ground with Democrats when it comes to blaming Trump for inciting the mob with his spurious claims of a stolen election on Jan. 6.
By contrast, a House Oversight and Reform hearing in May featured Republicans comparing the insurrection to a "normal tourist visit," casting a rioter shot by Capitol Police outside the House chamber as a martyr and questioning whether the people in the mob were really Trump supporters.
Jordan, a staunch ally of Trump and one of his key defenders during the impeachment, last week called his dismissal a way to "continue to attack the former president." Banks, meanwhile, initially pledged to uncover facts about the responses to Jan. 6 from Capitol leadership and the Biden administration, with no mention of the Trump administration which was still in office that day.
Trump won't have any defenders on the committee dais.
Schiff - the face of House Democrats' first impeachment effort in 2019 that ended up falling entirely along party lines in the lower chamber - said that the meetings with Cheney and Kinzinger to discuss the select committee have been "very constructive and nonpartisan."
"It's not a partisan investigation and when we meet, we meet as a group, and we share the same mission of bringing out the truth. So it's not an adversarial relationship, and it shouldn't be," Schiff said Monday. -
2021-07-26 at 11:36 PM UTC
-
2021-07-27 at 5:17 PM UTC
Originally posted by stl1 You are the one who brought him up. I didn't and you can't show that I have, you snake oil salesman.
You brought up the Washington Post.
Guess who owns the Washington Post.
All the media sources you post lose money, and are funded by billionaires.
Why do you think that is? Because billionaires care about democracy? -
2021-07-27 at 5:47 PM UTCMake
America
Get to the bottom of these
Asshole insurrectionists
The Wall Street Journal.
Capitol Police Officer Describes Fighting 'Hand to Hand, Inch by Inch' in Jan. 6 Testimony
Alexa Corse
WASHINGTON—Police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 described a harrowing confrontation with rioters, in testimony at a House select committee’s first public hearing Tuesday.
The hearing represents the beginnings of the committee’s efforts to investigate the events on Jan. 6, when then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily interrupting the certification of President Biden’s victory in the November election over Mr. Trump.
Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell said that he and fellow officers were beaten repeatedly and that he thought he would die. “We fought hand to hand, inch by inch,” he testified.
Mr. Gonell said that he is troubled by any effort to play down the severity of the attack. “There is a continuous and shocking attempt to ignore or try to destroy the truth of what truly happened that day, and to whitewash the facts,” he said.
The panel has been the subject of bitter partisan divisions. Most Republicans voted against both the formation of the panel and a previous effort to establish a bipartisan commission, pointing to existing congressional and law enforcement probes.
The Democratic-led panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), said that the committee’s work is necessary because the threat hasn’t gone away. “We know that efforts to subvert our democracy are ongoing,” Mr. Thompson said at the start of the hearing.
The panel plans to go beyond security failures to look at communications between Congress and the executive branch and examine the role of individuals in the events. Mr. Thompson has said the panel won’t hesitate to subpoena members of Congress or Mr. Trump and will try to enforce the subpoenas in court if necessary.
Four law-enforcement officers are testifying Tuesday: Mr. Gonell and Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police, and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges from Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.
The officers testifying have spoken publicly before about the Jan. 6 attack. But by bringing them before the select committee, Democrats hope to bring more attention to what rank-and-file law-enforcement officers endured and the violence of the riot.
Last week, Democratic and Republican party leaders clashed over the panel’s makeup. The panel comprises seven Democrats and two Republicans picked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.): Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both of whom had voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting insurrection.
Ms. Cheney delivered the second opening statement, signaling that she is taking a prominent role on the committee. “We cannot leave the violence of Jan. 6—and its causes—uninvestigated,” she said.
Mrs. Pelosi rejected two appointees chosen by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.): Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. McCarthy pulled his other three selections in response, and said House Republicans will conduct their own investigation.
House GOP lawmakers held a press conference before the hearing to accuse Mrs. Pelosi of being responsible for the security failures on Jan. 6, and of refusing to answer questions about it.
“Unfortunately Speaker Pelosi will only pick people onto the committee that will ask the questions she wants to ask,” Mr. McCarthy said. “That becomes a failed committee and a failed report, a sham no one can believe.”
Mrs. Pelosi’s office said that the Capitol Police Board and congressional committees are responsible for overseeing the Capitol Police, not the speaker herself.
Mr. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, was impeached in the House but acquitted in the Senate. He has slammed the select committee as highly partisan and has suggested Mrs. Pelosi should investigate herself.
About 140 Capitol and D.C. police officers were injured on Jan. 6 while defending Congress, the Capitol Police union previously said. Some officers say that months later they are still suffering physical and mental harm related to the attack.
One Capitol Police officer was assaulted during the attack and suffered a stroke. He died the day after the riot of natural causes, according to the medical examiner’s office in Washington, D.C. Two other officers died by suicide after responding to the riot, officials have said. -
2021-07-27 at 5:48 PM UTC
-
2021-07-27 at 5:55 PM UTCThe Week
'Trump sent us': Capitol police officer recounts Jan. 6 rioters' clear message
Tim O'Donnell
Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the United States Capitol Police testified during the opening Jan. 6 select committee hearing on Tuesday that "nobody else" but former President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol that day.
In response to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Gonell, who was on the frontlines, said the rioters made it clear they felt Trump had given the green light to breach the building and disrupt Congress' Electoral College certification. "All of them were telling us 'Trump sent us,'" he said.
While there have been conspiratorial claims stating that at least some members of the crowd were Antifa or even undercover FBI agents, Gonell dismissed that idea and suggested Trump was primarily responsible for the events that unfolded. "Nobody else, there was nobody else," he testified. "It was not Antifa. It was not Black Lives Matter. It was not the FBI. It was [Trump's] supporters that he sent ... over to the Capitol that day." -
2021-07-27 at 6:06 PM UTCPOLITICO
‘This is how I’m going to die’: Officers describe horrors of Jan. 6 riot
By Nicholas Wu
Four police officers who defended the Capitol from a Jan. 6 riot by Donald Trump supporters spoke out Tuesday during the first hearing of the select committee investigating the attack, sharing harrowing details of their physical and mental trauma.
As the riot fades from public memory amid a new wave of Republican revisionism, select panel members aimed to cast the hearing — the first time Congress has heard publicly from law enforcement on the front lines of the response to Jan. 6 — as a vivid reminder of what happened.
"Some people are trying to deny what happened — to whitewash it, to turn the insurrectionists into martyrs," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the panel, said in his opening statement. "But the whole world saw the reality of what happened on January 6. The hangman’s gallows sitting out there on our National Mall. The flag of that first failed and disgraced rebellion against our union, being paraded through the Capitol."
Thompson was followed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), appointed to the panel alongside Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) after top House Republicans shunned the committee.
Cheney said the panel should pursue every facet of the facts about Jan. 6 but also dig into "every minute of that day in the White House," a subtle but unmistakable shot at the former president who she lost her GOP leadership spot for criticizing.
"I have been a conservative Republican since 1984," Cheney said, and has "disagreed sharply on policy and politics" with all Democratic members of the select panel, but "in the end we are one nation under God."
"Every one of us on the dais voted for and would have preferred that these matters be investigated" by an independent, bipartisan commission, she added. While 35 House Republicans supported legislation to create such an inquiry into the riot, Senate Republicans blocked it from passage.
Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, said he was “more afraid” on Jan. 6 than he was during his entire deployment in Iraq. He “didn’t recognize” the rioters on Jan. 6 and was “shocked” to see rioters use the American flag that “they claimed they sought to protect," he said, wiping away tears from his face.
What officers were subjected to resembled "a medieval battle," Gonell said. “I could feel myself losing oxygen” and “thinking to myself this is how I’m going to die” as he was crushed by rioters, he added.
Hearing the former president call Jan. 6 a "lovefest," Gonell later told lawmakers, is "upsetting, it's a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create, this monstrosity."
“it was an attempted coup” Gonell said. “if it had been another country the united states would have sent help”
D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who suffered a mild heart attack and was electrocuted with a taser during the riot, “thought I’d seen it all” during his past work but what he saw on 1/6 was “unlike anything I had ever seen,” describing in stark details his fear that rioters might kill him. His voice briefly climbed to a shout and he slammed a fist on the table before him as he described GOP lawmakers' "disgraceful" attempt to downplay the siege.
"I remain grateful that no member of Congress had to go through the violent assault" he suffered on Jan. 6, Fanone said, describing the heroism of his fellow officers as "the most inspirational moment" of his life.
Fanone said he thought about using his firearm on attackers, "but I knew that if I did, I would be quickly overwhelmed. And that in their minds would provide them with the justification for killing me, so I instead decided to appeal to any humanity they might have."
D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges, who was crushed in a Capitol doorway by rioters he was attempting to repel, told lawmakers that he feared being "lynched" at one point.
“To my perpetual confusion, I saw the thin blue line flag — a symbol of support for law enforcement — more than once being carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands an continued to assault us," Hodges said.
The final law enforcement witness, Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, started his testimony by seeking a moment of silence for the late Brian Sicknick, a fellow officer who died after responding to the insurrection. Lawmakers all bowed their heads in response.
Dunn, who shared the racial slurs rioters hurled at him as a Black man, asked the select panel to review resources available to officers and "consider whether they are sufficient enough" as they recover from Jan. 6. Hodges, who is white, recalled rioters attempting to recruit him and asking if he was their brother.
During his questioning, Kinzinger's voice frayed with tears as he told the officers that “you guys won" in their battle with the rioters.
“We’re defined by how we come back from bad days," said Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran. "How we take accountability for that.”
Most House Republicans, having shunned participation in the committee, tried to counter-program the hearing instead.
Standing outside the Capitol, Minority Whip Steve Scalise said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had “canceled” the Republicans she rejected from the committee. House Republicans are trying to take pains to criticize Democrats rather than the officers who responded that day. But other Republicans could derail their efforts.
A group of more firebrand House Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), were set to hold a press conference outside the Justice Department later Tuesday to protest the treatment of insurrection suspects.
Meanwhile, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, told GOP colleagues during a Tuesday conference meeting that he has introduced two resolutions that target Pelosi as well as Cheney and Kinzinger.
The first proposal Biggs introduced would institute a rules change that would expel any member of the GOP conference if a House Republican accepted a committee assignment from Democrats. That language is geared toward Cheney and Kinzinger, who agreed to serve on the select panel at Pelosi's request.
The other Biggs proposal would dislodge Pelosi from the speakership, a move the Freedom Caucus telegraphed last week. Under conference rules, the resolutions will be sent to committee unless they are offered by the GOP leader of a designee of the leader — and both are expected to fail without the support of Republican leadership.
Back inside the select panel hearing room, a few House Democrats not serving on the roster were seen in attendance. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) watched the opening statements, and Reps. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.) and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) took seats for the end.
Panel members are still weighing their next course of investigative action. Thompson warned they might return for a hearing during the August recess that's scheduled to begin next week for House members, though witnesses are still to be decided.
But they will still have to resolve thorny questions like whether to call Trump or former Trump officials as witnesses, let alone other members of Congress who are seen as as potential material witnesses to the events of Jan. 6.
Democrats fought bruising court battles with the Trump administration over their ability to enforce congressional subpoenas of administration officials, but the Biden-era Department of Justice notified former Trump administration officials Tuesday they could testify before the various committees investigating the attack. -
2021-07-27 at 6:13 PM UTCMake
America
Go back to a democracy
Again
The New York Times
Liz Cheney Urges Inquiry Into Trump's Actions on Jan. 6
Catie Edmondson
Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, issued a defiant challenge to her own party on Tuesday as a special House committee began its inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, saying that the riot would remain a “cancer on our constitutional republic” if Congress failed to hold accountable those who were responsible.
Representative Liz Cheney delivered stern opening remarks for the first hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Tuesday.
In stern opening remarks, Ms. Cheney, one of just two House Republicans willing to serve on the panel, dared her colleagues to support a full investigation into the worst attack on Congress in centuries.
“Will we be so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?” Ms. Cheney asked. “Do we hate our political adversaries more than we love our country and revere our Constitution?”
Her remarks underscored just how isolated she has become in her own party as one of the few Republicans willing to speak out against President Donald J. Trump and his role in inspiring the attack on the Capitol. Ms. Cheney, the daughter of a powerful conservative family, has already been ousted from Republican leadership for her insistence on calling out the former president and his election lies, and her participation in the inquiry has drawn scorn from party leaders.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, thanked the officers on Tuesday for their work on Jan. 6 facing the mob.
Ms. Cheney focused her remarks on Tuesday on the former president’s role, urging lawmakers to find out “what happened every minute of that day in the White House.”
“Every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during and after the attack,” Ms. Cheney said.
Hoping to move past horrific political optics and fearful of invoking Mr. Trump’s wrath, just 35 Republicans in the House supported the creation of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. Only Ms. Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who is also serving on the select committee in defiance of his party, supported the creation of the panel led by lawmakers.
Mr. Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran and lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, grew visibly emotional during his remarks on Tuesday, choking back tears as he angrily condemned conservative “counter narratives” and conspiracy theories designed to undercut the gravity of the Jan. 6 attack.
“Many in my party have treated this as just another partisan fight,” Mr. Kinzinger said. “It’s toxic and it’s a disservice to the officers and their families.”
Republican leaders are boycotting the proceedings, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two of the five lawmakers they had recommended, citing their statements backing Mr. Trump’s false election claims, equating the riot to racial justice protests and disparaging the investigation.
“I’m here to investigate January 6 not in spite of my membership in the Republican Party, but because of it,” Mr. Kinzinger said. “Not to win a political fight, but to learn the facts and defend our democracy.” -
2021-07-27 at 6:26 PM UTCIT'S ALL NANCY'S FAULT ! ! !
The Washington Post
House Republican leaders have found the real culprit for Jan. 6: Nancy Pelosi
Philip Bump
There is no actual question about the person primarily responsible for the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Had President Donald Trump simply acknowledged his loss on Nov. 7 when it became obvious that he had no path to victory, had he recognized the reality of his defeat, the next few weeks would have been fairly quiet. States would have certified their votes without fanfare. Electors would have participated in the traditional formality of casting their votes with the same sort of model-U.N. nerdiness that usually accompanies the act. And on Jan. 6, Congress would have met, counted those votes and adjourned with barely any notice.
But Trump didn’t acknowledge his loss. He’d spent months laying a foundation of doubt with his base about the reliability of the votes that were cast in November and, through some combination of stubbornness, pride and delusion, insisted for weeks that the election had been somehow stolen (which, of course, it wasn’t) and, more important, that there was some mechanism available to steal it back. He encouraged people to believe these false claims and, as Jan. 6 approached, encouraged his supporters to come to Washington to manifest their anger. (“It will be wild!” he promised on Twitter.) That morning, he repeatedly told the thousands of people at his rally near the White House that they needed to fight and that they should go to the Capitol. And they did.
None of this is in dispute or disputable. The Jan. 6 riot happened because of Trump’s words and actions. Without his encouragement, without his recruitment, without his dishonesty, there’s no mob at the Capitol and no tidal wave of people able to push past the Capitol Police and the D.C. police to get into the building. But because Trump is still the star around which the Republican Party orbits, his party has had to try to figure out a way to cast blame for the insurrection elsewhere.
On Tuesday morning, shortly before the first hearing of the House committee formed to investigate the violence on Jan. 6, Republican leaders held a brief news conference outside the Capitol in which they identified another culprit for what occurred: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
As Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the party’s former conference chair, prepared to participate in the hearing, the woman now holding that leadership position — after Cheney’s ouster for criticizing Trump’s role in the riot — attacked Pelosi in hyperbolic terms.
“There is a reason that Nancy Pelosi is the most disliked elected official in America,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). “She always puts her own partisan politics over what’s best for the American people. She’s an authoritarian who has broken the people’s house.”
Stefanik later added: “The American people deserve to know the truth, that Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that occurred on January 6.”
This assertion is unfounded, if not absurd, both in the abstract and the specifics.
The theory of the case is that Pelosi failed to take steps to ensure security at the Capitol that day. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the lawmakers nominated to serve on the committee by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who was rejected by Pelosi, put it as follows during the news conference: “Why don’t they want to answer the fundamental question, which is why wasn’t there a better security posture on that day?”
“When you spend a year talking about defunding the police and actually defund the police,” Jordan later added, “it’s kind of hard to have more police here on January 6 like they should have done.”
This argument, though, has been adjudicated repeatedly, including by The Washington Post’s fact-checking team. Jordan has repeatedly claimed that Pelosi declined to authorize sufficient levels of protection at the Capitol, an assertion that depends on the idea that there was a shared sense of danger that led to Pelosi being presented with a request for action. But there’s no evidence that this is what happened.
It is very much the case that a number of warning signs about the threat that day were missed. As early as mid-December, there were indications that disruptions were possible. The number of external threats being tracked increased as the day itself approached, but none seem to have registered as representing the actual threat that emerged that day.
The claim that Pelosi bears responsibility hinges on two assertions: that the Capitol Police asked the House sergeant-at-arms to request National Guard backup for the day, without assent, and that the sergeant-at-arms reports to Pelosi’s office. At the time, the sergeant-at-arms was Paul D. Irving, who claimed that he was concerned about the “optics” of such a presence.
As The Post’s fact-checkers explain, though, it was not Irving’s decision alone whether the National Guard should be stationed at the Capitol, nor is there evidence that Pelosi was involved in evaluating that question. (“We are not involved in the day-to-day operations of that office at all,” a representative of Pelosi’s office said. “We expect security professionals to make security decisions.”) Some critics of Pelosi have claimed that Irving believed that Pelosi would object to the visual message sent by having troops at the Capitol, but, in congressional testimony, Irving denied that.
In other words, even in the specific effort to pin security failures on Pelosi, there’s not much to work with. But in the abstract, blaming Jan. 6 on Pelosi is far more ridiculous. It’s like saying that the reason a wildfire burned down 500 homes and destroyed 50,000 acres is because the town’s mayor failed to intervene and demand that the fire department call up additional volunteers — and that this failure was more important than the gender-reveal party that set off pink-colored fireworks in a desiccated forest.
In politics, you work with what you’ve got. And what Republicans have is a former president who still has a stranglehold on their voters and who continues to promote baseless claims of voter fraud that have gone unchallenged for more than half a year. So House leaders try to redirect blame to Pelosi, knowing that, often, a bit of whataboutism goes a long way.
But, of course, the party does have other tools: It has complaints about socialism and cancel culture, as House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) used in disparaging Pelosi’s decision to reject two of McCarthy’s proposed committee nominees.
“Maybe because they were raising those questions,” Scalise said of Jordan and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), “they got canceled by this new cancel culture that we see moving throughout the country, led by Speaker Pelosi and a lot of our socialist allies here in Congress where they want to shut out voices that raise tough questions that they don’t want to be asked or answered.”
A clip that will no doubt find some favor on Fox News. -
2021-07-27 at 6:29 PM UTCThe Hill
Officers offer harrowing accounts at first Jan. 6 committee hearing
Cristina Marcos and Rebecca Beitsch
Officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection offered powerful and often emotional testimony before lawmakers on Tuesday, recounting scenes of chaos, violence and destruction as the House select committee kicked off its investigation into the insurrection.
The civil and somber hearing marked the first meeting of the select committee to investigate the day's events, a panel with just two Republicans after the party's leaders - allied with former President Trump - decided to boycott the investigation altogether.
The four police officers on the stand described fearing for their lives as they were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the pro-Trump mob - and how many of them are still suffering from physical and emotional trauma more than six months later.
Aquilino Gonell, a Capitol Police sergeant and Army veteran, recounted how he and other officers trying to fight off the rioters were punched, kicked, sprayed with chemical irritants and beaten with flagpoles.
"On Jan. 6, for the first time, I was more afraid working at the Capitol than during my entire Army deployment to Iraq. In Iraq, we expected armed violence, because we were in a war zone. But nothing in my experience in the Army, or as a law enforcement officer, prepared me for what we confronted on Jan. 6," Gonell said.
The officers seethed at the GOP lawmakers and Trump defenders who have tried to minimize the severity of the day's violence, with one House Republican comparing it to a "normal tourist visit."
"The indifference being shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!" said Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone as he slammed his fist on the table.
"My law enforcement career prepared me to cope with some of the aspects of this experience," Fanone said. "Nothing has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so, betray their oath of office." -
2021-07-27 at 6:32 PM UTCMSNBC
Officer Gonell slams Trump's comments on rioters: 'I'm still recovering from those hugs and kisses'
When asked by Rep. Liz Cheney on his experiences during the January 6 riot, Capitol Police Officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonnell criticizes Former President Trump for calling the rioters “a loving crowd,” saying “I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses.” -
2021-07-27 at 8:56 PM UTCUSA TODAY
Fact check: Nancy Pelosi wasn't ‘in charge’ of Capitol Police on Jan. 6
Ella Lee, USA TODAY
As Capitol Hill geared up for the first hearing of a special committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, some conservatives claimed Nancy Pelosi has a conflict of interest.
A July 22 Facebook post asserts Pelosi, who created the committee, is using her role as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to skirt responsibility for security failures on Jan. 6.
“So let me get this straight…Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on Jan. 6. They were understaffed and underprepared. But now she gets to be in charge of the investigation of...herself?!” reads text in the post from Dan Carr, a Mississippi pastor with more than 30,000 followers on Facebook.
The post is a screenshot of a post originally published July 21 by Rogan O’Handley, a conservative influencer, on Gettr. The social media site was recently launched by Jason Miller, previously an adviser to former President Donald Trump
The claim that Pelosi was in charge of the U.S. Capitol Police during the insurrection has circulated both online and offline for months. On July 21 , U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, floated the claim after Pelosi rejected his appointment to the Jan. 6 special committee.
"Why wasn't there a proper security presence at the Capitol that day?" Jordan asked at a news conference. "Only one person can answer that question. Only one. The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives."
But a look at the Capitol Police’s chain of command shows that Pelosi wasn't in charge of the law enforcement agency on Jan. 6. USA TODAY previously rated a similar claim false, and other independent fact-checking organizations have reached similar conclusions.
Pelosi not ‘in charge’ of Capitol Police
In response to USA TODAY's request for comment, Carr reiterated the claim in his Facebook post.
"The Speaker Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the police officers on Capitol Hill!!" Carr said in an email. "On January 6th they was understaffed due to her lack of over site (sic). With the lack of personnel, the United States capitol was breached which should have never happened. Now she is in charge of the investigation of what happened on January 6th."
But that's wrong. The Capitol Police are overseen by a number of entities and individuals, none of whom are Pelosi.
In March, Capitol Police spokesperson John Stolnis told USA TODAY that the agency is overseen by the Capitol Police Board. Several congressional committees also oversee the agency, including the House and Senate appropriations committees, the House administration commitee and the Senate rules committee.
The Capitol Police Board is made up of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, as well as the Capitol architect. The Capitol Police chief serves in a non-voting capacity on the board, according to the Capitol Police website.
Pelosi was not a chair or administrator of any committee supervising the Capitol Police at the time of the insurrection. She's not listed on any of those committees' websites today, either.
Jane L. Campbell, president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, told CNN "the Speaker of the House does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol, nor does this official oversee the Capitol Police Board."
Commission not only about Capitol Police
In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters, Pelosi called for a 9/11-style special committee to investigate the day's events.
In May, Senate Republicans blocked a House bill aimed at creating a bipartisan committee to investigate the insurrection. In response, Pelosi announced June 24 the creation of a select committee. Republicans have called the effort unnecessary and political.
While the select committee will likely investigate the Capitol Police’s role in the days leading up to Jan. 6, that isn’t the sole focus.
The committee’s first hearing began on July 27.
What about Pelosi’s appointment powers?
O’Handley told USA TODAY there are questions about Pelosi's objectivity since she has the ability to appoint or control members of both the Capitol Police and the Jan. 6 investigation .
But Pelosi does not appoint members to the Capitol Police Board.
Both the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms are elected and confirmed by their respective chambers. They report to the heads of those chambers – on Jan. 6, that was Pelosi and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The president appoints the Capitol architect for a 10-year term “with the advice and consent of the Senate," according to a Congressional Research Service report. Trump nominated Brett Blanton to that position in December.
As speaker, Pelosi can appoint members of the House to committees, some of which have a hand in overseeing the Capitol Police. McConnell has the same power in the Senate.
O’Handley is correct to say that Pelosi has the power to appoint members of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
Our rating: False
The claim that Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on Jan. 6 is FALSE, based on our research. While the House speaker has some ties to Capitol Police oversight, saying Pelosi is “in charge” of the agency isn't accurate. The agency is overseen by a three-member board, none of whom are appointed by Pelosi. Additionally, the Jan. 6 select committee will investigate more than the Capitol Police, and there's no evidence Pelosi herself will be investigated.
