World warily watches America's postelection aftershocksPARIS (AP) — For America's allies and rivals alike, the chaos unfolding during Donald Trump's final days as president is the logical result of four years of global instability brought on by the man who promised to change the way the world viewed the United States.
From the outside, the United States has never looked so vulnerable — or unpredictable. Alliances that had held for generations frayed to a breaking point under Trump — from his decision to back out of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, to quitting the World Health Organization amid a pandemic.
And then, by seeking to overturn his loss to Joe Biden, Trump upended the bedrock principle of democratic elections that the United States has tried — and sometimes even succeeded — in exporting around the world. How long those aftershocks could endure is unclear.
“It is one of the biggest tasks of the future for America and Europe — to fight the polarization of society at its roots,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. “We will only be able to preserve the belief in togetherness, in democracy as the most humane form of statehood, and the conviction in science and reason if we do it together.”
But in many ways Europe has already moved on, forging ahead on the deal with Iran, negotiating a trade agreement with China spearheaded by Germany, and organizing global actions to protect the environment.
On the same day an angry mob stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the presidential election won by Biden, a record number of Americans died of coronavirus. One other recent event also showed U.S. vulnerability: the cyberespionage operation still working its way through an untold number of government computers and blamed on elite Russian hackers.
World leaders who saw the deadly violence in Washington “will need to consider whether these events are an outlier event — a ‘black swan’ — or whether these extremist white supremacist groups will continue to be a significant influence on the direction of U.S. foreign and domestic policy, instead of receding with the end of the Trump administration," the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm, wrote Tuesday.
People tend to think of fragile countries “in terms of war as the biggest problem, rather than violence, and thinking in terms of state collapse as the biggest problem rather than states that internally disintegrate,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of democracy and violence at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kleinfeld, like many others, said the assault on the U.S. Capitol may have come to a head in a matter of weeks but was years in the making.
And the U.S. capacity to fight for democracy was already tarnished before the mob egged on by Trump sought to overturn his election loss. For many, those events were merely confirmation. Adversaries including Russia, China and Iran used the violence to question U.S. democracy more generally.
In an internal note on the State Department's “dissent channel” obtained by The Associated Press, American diplomats said Trump’s actions had made their job harder. “It is critical that we communicate to the world that in our system, no one — not even the president — is above the law or immune from public criticism,” the note said. “This would be a first step towards repairing the damage to our international credibility.”
Trump showed no contrition, however, saying Tuesday his fiery rally remarks to supporters were “totally appropriate.” In Iraq, a country that still struggles with the controversial legacy of a U.S.-led invasion in the name of democracy, many people followed the Washington events with a mixture of shock and fascination.
Then-U.S. President George W. Bush boasted that Iraq would become a model of democracy in a region ruled by dictators. Instead, the country fell into protracted war between Sunnis and Shiites in which tens of thousands of people died. Although it has an active parliament and regular elections, it is a dysfunctional democracy based on a sectarian power sharing agreement, with corrupt parties haggling over ministries and posts so they can give jobs to supporters while lining their own pockets.
Ahmad al-Helfi, a 39-year-old Iraqi political cartoonist, said what happened at the U.S. Capitol is a blow to the democracy it tried to bring to Iraq and other countries. “By mobilizing his followers in an effort to overturn the results of the election, Trump confirmed that instead of exporting democracy to Iraq, America imported the chaos, non-peaceful transition of power, and failure to accept election results,” al-Helfi said.
Anahita Thoms, a German lawyer and trade expert who spent years living and working in the United States, said last week's events would indelibly mark America’s image abroad. Thoms is a board member of the Atlantic Bridge, a think tank promoting cooperation between Europe and the U.S. — the kind of organization founded in the aftermath of World War II when the U.S. helped to rebuild the economies of many countries in western Europe that had been destroyed by the war.
Germany was one country that benefited the most from those U.S. financial and democracy-building efforts. Looking ahead, she said American officials may have a tougher time promoting democracy abroad.
“The U.S. remains a country that lives its democratic values. But this aspiration, which is presented very strongly to the outside world, mustn’t get too many cracks," Thoms said. "I think a lot of diplomatic skill is going to be necessary to counter those pictures.”
The International Crisis Group, which normally focuses on global war zones, wrote its first assessment ever about the risk of election-related violence in the United States in October. Stephen Pomper, who helped lead the work on the report and lives in the D.C. area, said in the best of circumstances, the United States could eventually point to the decision of Congress to resume certification of Biden's election after the breach as a first step in successfully protecting its democracy.
“Look, we created these institutions. They did become a source of resiliency for us. They helped us get through this very difficult period. Let us help you develop the same kind of resiliency,” he said, describing a hypothetical future conversation between the U.S. and a struggling government. “That would be a positive story to be able to tell at some point, but I don’t think the pieces are quite there yet.”
Pope Francis was more optimistic, telling Italian broadcaster Mediaset: "Thank God this exploded” into the open because “we have been able to see why this is, and how it can be remedied.”
***********
Stage set for impeachment after Pence dismisses House call to invoke 25th amendmentVice-president’s refusal paves the way for the House to move forward with impeachment
Lauren Gambino in Washington
Guardian
Wed 13 Jan 2021 02.44 GMT
The US House of Representatives has voted to formally call on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and strip Donald Trump of his presidential authority after Trump incited a mob that led a deadly assault on the US Capitol last week.
Before the largely symbolic vote, Pence rejected the call to wrest Trump from power, effectively paving the way for the House to move forward with impeachment.
Nevertheless, shortly before midnight, the House voted largely along party lines to adopt the non-binding resolution that asked Pence to declare Trump “incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president”. The final vote was 223 to 205, with one Republican backing the measure.
In a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, released as the House debated the resolution, Pence said he did not believe “such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with our constitution” and warned that efforts to remove Trump from office risked “further divide and inflame the passions of the moment”.
The letter came after Pelosi gave the vice-president what amounted to an ultimatum, with a 24-hour window to respond: either strip Trump of his power or allow him to become the first president in American history to be impeached a second time.
“Who knows what he might do next?” she said in a floor speech, imploring Pence to remove a president capable of “unhinged, unstable, deranged acts of sedition”.
Moments later, Pelosi announced the team of House impeachment managers who would prosecute the case against Trump in the Senate. The team would be led by the Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional law professor who authored the resolution and helped draft the article of impeachment against him.
During a committee hearing earlier on Tuesday, Raskin sought to persuade Pence to act. “The time of a 25th amendment emergency has arrived,” he said. “It has come to our doorstep. It has invaded our chamber.”
Before the vote on Tuesday, several Republican members came out in support of impeachment, including Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, who said there had “never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States” than Trump’s encouragement of an insurrection on the seat of American government.
“The president of the United States summoned his mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in a scathing statement. “Everything that followed was his doing.”
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has reportedly told associates that he believes Trump committed impeachable offenses, though he has not voiced public support for removing the president from office.
In the days since a mob laid claim to the Capitol, which sent lawmakers scrambling under desks for safety, fear has turned to fury as details have emerged about the security failure that left them vulnerable, and the role of Trump and his allies in stoking the mayhem. Exacerbating the anger was Trump’s utter lack of remorse.
Earlier on Tuesday, the president lashed out at Democrats for leading the effort to remove him before his term ends next week, and took no responsibility for the violent uprising that left five people dead and threatened the lives of members of Congress, congressional staff, law enforcement, journalists and his own vice-president.
Instead, he claimed his inflammatory comments to loyalists at a rally in Washington before the Capitol attack, where he urged them to march to the Capitol in last-gasp attempt to overturn the results of an election he lost, were “totally appropriate” and blamed Democrats for further dividing the nation.
“The 25th amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration,” Trump said in remarks from Alamo, Texas, after he visited the barrier on the US-Mexico border.
Tuesday night’s resolution called on Pence and members of the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to the constitution, and remove Trump from power. It asked Pence to immediately assume “the powers and duties of the office as acting president”.
Such an act, the resolution stated, would “declare what is obvious to a horrified nation: that the president is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office.”
The 25th amendment allows for the vice-president, with the support of a majority of the cabinet, to remove a president deemed “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.
Trump and Pence met on Monday night for the first time since the assault, during which some rioters chanted “hang Mike Pence” because he refused Trump’s public demands to block congressional certification of Biden’s electoral victory – a power he did not have.
The two men pledged to continue working together for the remainder of their time in office, according to a senior administration official.
Three cabinet officials have resigned in the wake of Capitol invasion but none have called for Trump’s removal.
The House is expected to swiftly move forward with impeachment, beginning the debate over whether Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” on Wednesday, just one week before Biden will be sworn in.
A single article of impeachment charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection” and directly quotes the president’s speech to supporters at the rally near the White House on 6 January. “If you don’t fight like hell,” Trump implored, “you’re not going to have a country any more.”
Members of Congress gathered before the vote on Tuesday for the first time since the attack, amid heightened security both inside and outside the building. Cracked glass and newly installed metal detectors were reminders of the breach – and of the continued threat of violence ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Before the vote, lawmakers observed a moment of silence for the two Capitol police officers who died after defending the building during the bloody siege.
********
Riots, effigies and a guillotine: Capitol attack could be a glimpse of violence to comeFresh calls for extreme action circulate on social media forums as the FBI warns of planned protests leading up to the inauguration
Guardian
Wed 13 Jan 2021 11.00 GMT
A guillotine outside the state capitol in Arizona. A Democratic governor burned in effigy in Oregon. Lawmakers evacuated as pro-Trump crowds gathered at state capitols in Georgia and New Mexico. Cheers in Idaho as a crowd was told fellow citizens were “taking the capitol” and “taking out” Vice-president Mike Pence.
As a mob of thousands invaded the US capitol on 6 January, Trump supporters threatened lawmakers and fellow citizens in cities across the country. Compared with the violent mob in Washington, the pro-Trump crowds elsewhere in the country were much smaller, attracting dozens to hundreds of people. But they used the same extreme rhetoric, labeling both Democratic politicians and Republicans perceived as disloyal to Trump as “traitors”.
As the FBI warns of plans for new armed protests in Washington and all 50 state capitols in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration, and fresh calls for extreme violence circulate on social media forums, the intensity of the nationwide pro-Trump demonstrations and attacks last week offer evidence of what might be coming next.
Not everyday you see a guillotine at the Arizona State Capitol. pic.twitter.com/tYjGjou04Y
— Jerod MacDonald-Evoy (@JerodMacEvoy) January 6, 2021
Some of the pro-Trump demonstrations on Wednesday did not turn violent. The dozens of Trump supporters who entered the Kansas state capitol remained peaceful, according to multiple news reports. In Carson City, Nevada, hundreds of Trump supporters drank beer and listened to rock music while denouncing the election results, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.
But in Los Angeles, white Trump supporters assaulted and ripped the wig off the head of a young black woman who happened to pass their 6 January protest, the Los Angeles Times reported. A white woman was captured on video holding the wig and shouting, “Fuck BLM!” and, “I did the first scalping of the new civil war.”
In Ohio and Oregon, fights broke out between counter-protesters and members of the Proud Boys, the neo-fascist group Trump directed in September to “stand back and stand by”. Proud Boys also reportedly demonstrated in Utah, California, Florida, and South Carolina.
And in Washington state, Trump supporters, some armed, pushed through the gate of the governor’s mansion and stormed onto the lawn of Democrat Jay Inslee’s house. In Georgia, where lawmakers were evacuated from the state capitol, members of the III% Security Force militia, a group known for its anti-Muslim activism, had gathered outside.
An effigy of Gov. Kate Brown is tarred and feathered by pro-Trump Supporters and anti-lockdown protesters at the Oregon State Capitol. pic.twitter.com/XSmHI82cXD
— Brian Hayes (@_Brian_ICT) January 6, 2021
Militia members, neo-Nazis, and other rightwing extremists have discussed multiple potential dates for armed protests in the coming days, researchers who monitor extremist groups say, with proposals ranging from rallies or attacks on state capitols to a “million militia march” in Washington.
The FBI’s intelligence bulletin has warned of potential armed protests from 16 January “at least” through inauguration day on 20 January, but researchers say that energy had not yet coalesced around a single event. Public social media forums where Trump supporters have gathered to discuss plans are full of dramatic, contradictory rumors, but experts say that more concrete plans are likely being made in private and in smaller forums that are more difficult to infiltrate.
The United States has no shortage of heavily armed extremists who have been openly calling for a new civil war, from members of the Boogaloo Bois – a nascent domestic terrorism group that has been linked to the murders of two law enforcement officers – to militia leaders such as Stewart Rhodes, the Yale-educated founder of an anti-government group that recruits policy and military officers, who was photographed outside the capitol during the mob invasion last week.
Accusations at public protests that Democratic politicians are dictators, tyrants and “traitors” and suggestions that white Americans need to seize power back from their elected officials, have been intensifying for more than a year, fueled in part by furious demonstrations against public health measures that forced businesses to close to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has disproportionately killed Black and Latino residents.
Before they stormed the US Capitol last week, angry crowds of white Americans, some armed with rifles, had staged chaotic demonstrations at state capitols in Michigan, Idaho, California and elsewhere, often calling law enforcement officers “traitors” when they would not let them pass.
On 6 January, the news that Trump supporters were forcing their way into the capitol was greeted with cheers at pro-Trump protests in other states. “Patriots have stormed the Capitol,” a protest organizer in Arizona announced, prompting chants of “USA!” according to the Arizona Republic.
“Supposedly, they’re taking the Capitol and taking out Pence,” the organizer of an Idaho protest told a crowd of about 300 people, according to the Spokesman-Review. The crowd cheered.
In Washington DC, part of the mob at the capitol had been captured on video shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” after the vice-president refused to give in to Trump’s repeated demands to deny the results of the election and name him the winner.
Signs and rhetoric linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that Trump is fighting a secret war against a powerful network of elite pedophiles, were present at multiple state events last week.
In Salem, Oregon, where an effigy of Democratic governor Kate Brown was tarred and feathered before being burned, the protest outside the statehouse turned violent, as Proud Boys clashed with counter-protesters. In Colorado, an estimated 700 people gathered at the state capitol to protest, many of them not wearing masks, and Denver’s mayor announced he was closing municipal buildings early as a precaution.
In Arizona, where 1,000 Trump supporters gathered to protest the certification of Biden’s victory, the guillotine outside the state capitol had a Trump flag on it, and the Trump supporters who had brought it gave an Arizona Republic reporter a written statement, which included a list of baseless allegations of election fraud, and demands for new fraud audits and investigations.
“Why do we have a guillotine with us? The answer is simple,” the statement read. “For six weeks Americans have written emails, gathered peacefully, made phone calls and begged their elected officials to listen to their concerns. We have been ignored, ridiculed, scorned, dismissed, lied to, laughed at and essentially told, no one cares.
“We pray for peace,” the statement concluded, “but we do not fear war.”
**********
There are enough votes in the Senate to remove Trump from office -- but only if McConnell agreesRaw Story
1/13/2021
There are enough votes in the Senate to remove Trump from office -- but only if McConnell agrees
The story from CNN's Jim Acosta on Tuesday was that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is "furious" with President Donald Trump and actually "hates" him. It's a similar tale New York Times reporter Maggie Habermann reported, noting that McConnell is secretly grateful that Donald Trump is being impeached again.
But the full CNN report revealed something even more significant. There are 67 votes to remove Trump from office among the Democratic and Republican Senators.
"Several GOP sources said on Tuesday that if McConnell supports conviction, Trump almost certainly will be convicted by 67 senators in the impeachment trial," said CNN.
Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
"If Mitch is a yes, he's done," CNN cited one Senate GOP source who didn't want to be named.
That leaves one man between Trump being removed from office and Trump holding power and possibly running again in 2024.
If Trump is convicted and removed from office, even mere days ahead of being ousted from office, it isn't entirely toothless. Trump loses the presidential salary he gets for life, funds for his post-presidential office, and a slew of other presidential perks that total up to $1 million annually for security and travel.
Members could also decide whether Trump can run again in 2024. Even if those like Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) who want to run for president, vote against removing Trump from office, getting him out of the way would certainly increase their chances of winning. It certainly would position other Senators to run without having to deal with their pro-Trump impeachment vote in 2020.
It all comes down to whether Sen. Mitch McConnell will tell Senators to come back to vote and allow them to vote their conscience over the party.
*********
Trump didn't suffer from 'paralysis' -- he failed to stop the Capitol siege because he loved the showJanuary 13, 2021
Amanda Marcotte, Salon
After four years of nonstop abuse from Donald Trump, it should be beyond a shadow of a doubt that, while Trump is indeed an ignoramus, his ugly behavior is largely motivated by malice, not stupidity. Yet, as we've seen through the years of Trump's presidency, mainstream media outlets have continued to cast his actions as the choices of a man too numpty-headed to know right from wrong, instead of the behavior of a shameless villain who does vicious and cruel things out of a deeply felt sadism. Since Trump sent an unruly mob to ransack the Capitol, however, mainstream journalists have woken up, describing Trump's actions accurately as incitement, instead of using euphemisms or casting around for an "innocent" explanation.
They are now showing signs of slippage back to old habits.
On Monday night, the Washington Post published a report detailing Trump's refusal to do anything to discourage the insurrectionist mob after they penetrated the Capitol. The headline: "Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump's failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol."
Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
This headline is wildly misleading. Trump did not suffer from "paralysis," nor was his inaction due to "failure." Both words imply that there was a desire to act, but that Trump was somehow incapable. The reality: Trump refused to act.
He had incited the mob and delighted in their actions. He may very well have believed it was going to work to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden's win, especially if the insurrectionists had successfully captured or killed members of Congress or Vice President Mike Pence. But one thing that should be beyond all shadow of a doubt is that Trump refused to do anything to stop the riot because he was loving every minute of it.
This framing is all the more aggravating because the details provided by Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker make the ill will behind Trump's behavior crystal clear. They report that Trump refused to take calls from the various congressional members who called for help. They describe a situation where aides and family members pleaded with Trump for hours, yet he refused to listen, and instead was glued to his TV and soaking in every delicious moment of the chaos he caused. When he finally caved and released a message telling his followers to "go home in peace," he only did so "begrudgingly," the Post reporters write.
"Trump watched with interest, buoyed to see that his supporters were fighting so hard on his behalf, one close adviser said," they write.
The reporters describe a situation where aides are begging Trump to tell the insurrectionists to stand down, but he would only agree to ask for vague "support" for law enforcement, writing, "They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!"
But Trump "had not wanted to include the final instruction to 'stay peaceful,'" they report. Hours later, Trump reluctantly agreed to release a video telling rioters to go home, but only on the condition that he continue to tell lies about the election, resulting in a video that was less a call for peace and more further incitement. Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a reliable Trump sycophant, admitted, "The president saw these people as allies in his journey and sympathetic to the idea that the election was stolen."
These details matter because Trump's behavior is not ambiguous. He incited an insurrection, and once it was underway, he reacted with excitement and delight. His actions were purposeful and malevolent. He wanted all this to happen and got grumpy at anyone who wanted it to stop.
This has been backed up by other reporting showing that Trump's inner circle is quite clear that he was over the moon about the insurrection. Nebraska's Republican Sen. Ben Sasse reported that he called the White House during the siege and not only was Trump "delighted" about the melee, but he was also "confused about why other people on his team weren't as excited as he was."
Last week, the New York Times reported that Trump only taped a video reluctantly conceding defeat after "he appeared to suddenly realize he could face legal risk for prodding the mob." This was after counsel from his lawyer, Pat Cipollone, and a statement from the D.C. federal prosecutor indicating that charging Trump was a possibility. He obviously didn't mean a word of it and was only trying to save himself from prison.
Trump's support for the insurrection and hatred of anyone who fought back continues to manifest in actions such as refusing to lower the flags for the Capitol police officer who was beaten to death by the mob and only giving in reluctantly after being badgered about it by his aides for days
And yet, the latest Washington Post story, while bristling with examples of how Trump acts out of malice and not ignorance, keeps framing his actions in a more innocent light, describing Trump as "a president paralyzed" and "more passive viewer than resolute leader".
This is flatly false. Trump was not being passive at all. He actively incited the mob and he willfully refused to do anything to call them off. He did this deliberately, having exhausted every other avenue he pursued to steal the election. These were not the actions of a man too stupid to act. These were the actions of a man knowingly trying to overthrow a legal election.
On the opinion page of the Washington Post, Greg Sargent describes the events recounted more accurately, describing it as "President Trump's depraved and malevolent response to the violent siege of the Capitol" and noting Trump's "solipsistic, even sadistic pleasure in watching a mob lay siege to our seat of government in his name."
On Wednesday, House Democratic leadership will almost certainly impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection." Trump's state of mind and intentionality is crucial to making the case for impeachment and removal. In addition, if Trump is to be prosecuted when he leaves office — and he absolutely should be — it's important that the strong evidence he acted intentionally not be muddied by cowardly reporting.
The good news is that there's no real confusion about Trump's state of mind. He wanted this riot, he wallowed in it, and he lashed out like a whiny child to anyone who suggested that armed insurrection is a bad look.
The bad news is that there's a massive campaign, from right-wing pundits and Republican politicians, to muddy the waters and downplay the seriousness of what happened. And that campaign is directly aimed at the mainstream media, to discourage honesty about last week's events and bully journalists into using minimizing or excusing language. Language like "paralysis" and "failure," instead of more accurate descriptions capturing the intentionality of Trump's actions.
It is critical that outlets like the Washington Post not go further down this path of placating right-wing radicals — even if that term describes most Republicans these days — by swaddling the insurrection in euphemism and falsely ascribing innocent motives to Trump when his enmity is as obvious as his combover.
Holding firm to the truth is crucial if we want to save our democracy. Yes, even if that truth involves hurting the snowflake-delicate feelings of the American right.
************
Capitol insurrectionists probably had inside help from GOP staff: MSNBC analystRaw Story
1/13/2021
On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," analyst Jason Johnson speculated that the perpetrators of the Capitol invasion could have had inside help from Republican legislative staff.
"Every single local judiciary that can find cases or crimes committed by Trump or any member of his family needs to sue them and make this country so unpleasant that they want to leave," said Johnson. "And then with Congress, this Parler cache, that's going to be the liberal's version of WikiLeaks, because I promise we're going to end up finding out that some low-level staffer or member of Congress was probably giving this kind of inside information and anyone, anyone who has been connected to this kind of work should be purged."
"I also want to say this, because I think there's a difference in responsibility here," said Johnson. "If you're some guy who flew out from Lorraine, Ohio, a public schoolteacher from Cleveland that I just read about, fine. Local, you know, cops and FBI can deal with you. But if you were a former member of the military, if you were a retired lieutenant colonel, if you were someone who took an oath to protect this country, and you showed up and brought arms against the Capitol, jail forever. And I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but this is getting pretty close."
Watch:
https://youtu.be/zTH359Bq7no***********
'Terrorists' Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley should be on no-fly list: House homeland security chairJanuary 13, 2021
Igor Derysh, Salon
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS, suggested that, if found liable for inciting the violent unrest at the Capitol last week, Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Josh Hawley, R-MO, could be put on a no-fly list.
Cruz and Hawley, who were arguably the most vocal congressional opponents of Biden's electoral victory, have faced a tidal wave of condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans following last week's chaos on Capitol Hill. Calls for Hawley and Cruz to be censured and even expelled have surfaced in the House, placing the two Senators on thin ice with their Congressional foes and allies alike.
Rep. Bennie Thompson –– the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee –– joined the chorus of condemnation on Monday in a SiriusXM interview, pointing out that, if found guilty of encouraging last week's uprising, Hawley and Cruz should be formally ousted from government.
Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
"Even a member of Congress that commits a crime…they expel from the body," the Congressman explained, "There are ethics charges that can be brought against those individuals. And people are looking at all this. What Hawley did and what Cruz did was horrible."
Regarding the rioters, Thompson thought there was "no question" about whether they should be labeled as terrorists. "These folks, in my opinion, can be classified as domestic terrorists," he said, "A terrorist is a terrorist, no matter who you are."
Thompson also outlined the "protocols" in place to work jointly with the TSA and the FBI –– whom he urged into action last Thursday –– on identifying high-risk individuals and barring them from air travel. Several airlines have already begun imposing lifetime travel bans on participants of the violent mob. According to ABC News, United Airlines banned sixty participants last week, while Alaska Airlines has banned fourteen.
The Congressman also revealed that the Congressional Black Caucus –– of which he is a key member –– is set to hold its own investigation of the weak police presence and response at the Capitol.
"Somebody's going to have to tell us why it occurred," he demanded, "Other than the fact that there white people involved and you treat white protesters with kid gloves, and black and white protesters you threw the full faith and power of the government on them to suppress them. It ought to be one policy."
"There's suspicion that some of the sympathizers were also employees of the Capitol Police," the Congressman added, alluding to the officers seen letting rioters simply waltz into the Capitol and even taking selfies with them. In a separate probe from the CBC's, two Capitol Police officers have already been suspended, and over ten officers, according to CNN, are currently being investigated.
Thompson has been steadfast in his commitment to punish everyone responsible for the insurrection, making no exception for elected officials. One Twitter user criticized him for publicly indicting Cruz and Hawley, saying he should be "ashamed." Thompson rebutted, "I am not ashamed. However, they should be."
Expelling Senators Cruz and Hawley would require a two-thirds vote in the upper chamber of Congress, and is therefore unlikely, given the GOP's penchant for unconditional tribalism, even in the face of complete moral bankruptcy. However, a censure –– which necessitates just a majority vote in the Senate –– is much more likely since the Democrats managed to eke out a newly won Senate majority following the Georgia State runoffs.
