Category: Trump Administration

‘I want him out:’ Murkowski becomes first Senate Republican to call for Trump to resign

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) became the first Senate Republican to call for President Trump to resign, telling the Anchorage Daily News: “I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage.”

Her comments Friday came on the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues in a letter that she has spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, about keeping an “unstable president” from accessing the nuclear codes. Pelosi also threatened impeachment if Trump didn’t resign “immediately.”

Her letter came shortly after Trump tweeted that he would not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20, breaking with a long-standing tradition of outgoing presidents attending the swearing-in ceremony of their successors. Biden told reporters that he agreed with Trump’s decision to skip the ceremony, though he would welcome Vice President Pence. Continue reading.

Trump will skip Biden inauguration

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President Trump tweeted on Friday that he will not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Why it matters: It’s a break from tradition that comes as Trump faces massive backlash over the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters.

The big picture: Trump released a video Thursday night acknowledging that a “new administration will be inaugurated on Jan. 20,” and stating that he will focus on a “seamless transition of power” — one day after his continued and baseless claims of a “rigged” election led to the violent insurrection at the Capitol. Continue reading.

‘It’s time to get violent’: Far-right extremists are promising more violence after the U.S. Capitol invasion

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When both branches of Congress met during a joint session on Wednesday to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, many journalists, law enforcement officials and national security experts feared that violence would occur in the streets of Washington, D.C. But it came as a major shock when a violent mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol, a disturbing series of events recounted by reporters Andrew Egger and Audrey Fahlberg in an article published by The Dispatch the following day.

On January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies — including Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle (Trump, Jr.’s girlfriend and the ex-wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — spoke at a demonstration on the National Mall. They called their event the “Save America March,” and Trump, Sr. continued to promote his debunked claims that widespread voter fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election. Extremists who showed up in support of Trump included the Proud Boys, militia members, neo-Confederates and supporters of the conspiracy cult QAnon.

“The people most determined to start a riot at the Capitol were the ones who were there first,” Egger and Fahlberg explain. “As Trump’s speech dragged on, first a trickle, then a stream of rally-goers peeled off and started to march down the Mall. But by the time the first of them arrived, the mayhem was already underway. Protesters who had forgone the speech had pushed through a series of police barriers onto the lawn and had even scaled a tall scaffold near the steps of the Capitol itself.” Continue reading.

Dominion sues Sidney Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3 billion in damages

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Dominion Voting Systems on Friday filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $1.3 billion in damages against Sidney Powell, a pro-Trump lawyer who has pushed unfounded conspiracy theories alleging that the company was involved in an international communist plot to rig the election against President Trump.

The big picture: Dominion alleges that Powell acted “in concert with allies and media outlets determined to promote a false preconceived narrative about the 2020 election—caused unprecedented harm.” In an interview with the Axios Re:Cap podcast last week, Dominion CEO John Poulos did not rule out suing Trump himself.

What they’re saying: “As a result of the defamatory falsehoods peddled by Powell … Dominion’s founder, Dominion’s employees, Georgia’s governor, and Georgia’s secretary of state have been harassed and have received death threats, and Dominion has suffered enormous harm,” the lawsuit reads. Continue reading.

Mental health expert predicted Trump-fueled ‘violence in the streets of Washington — in an interview last week

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On Wednesday, hundreds or perhaps thousands of Donald Trump’s terrorists assaulted and overran the U.S. Capitol building. The FBI reports that at least two improvised explosive devices were found in the area.

Trump’s mob committed these treasonous and seditious acts of terrorism while the Electoral College votes that would formally make Joe Biden the next president of the United States were being counted.

Some of the pro-Trump political thugs were armed. Others displayed white supremacist regalia and symbols, including the Confederate flag and Nazi slogans. At least one member of Trump’s terrorist mob was photographed with plastic zip ties, and may have intended to abduct or “arrest” members of Congress. Trump’s mob also placed nooses on mannequins and constructed a mock gallows near the Capitol entrance. Continue reading.

Arkansas man who posed in Pelosi’s office and West Virginia delegate among those charged in Capitol breach

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The U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced charges Friday against a freshman West Virginia lawmaker, an Arkansas man who told the media he posed for photos on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and an Alabama man whose truck allegedly carried 11 molotov cocktails and a semiautomatic rifle to this week’s U.S. Capitol riots.

The cases come as authorities in Washington continue working to identify members of the mob who stormed the Capitol — many of whom posted images of themselves on social media amid the mayhem.

A nationwide dragnet involving hundreds of prosecutors and agents from all 56 FBI field offices is involved in the effort, which “has the highest priority” of the DOJ, said Kenneth C. Kohl, a top official in the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington. Continue reading.

Fox News Justifies Riotous Mob, Ensuring They Will Strike Again

“If you don’t bother to pause and learn a single thing from it, from your citizens storming your Capitol building, then you’re a fool,” Fox News prime-time star Tucker Carlson said Wednesday night. 

While his comments were a typical bad-faith jab at elites, he’s absolutely right. But there’s been no soul-searching on his network after violent insurrectionists tried to prevent the U.S. Congress from confirming President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump, no on-air consideration of the role Carlson and his colleagues played in inciting that mob.

The pro-Trump insurrectionists, egged on by the president, invaded the Capitol because they had been lied to. Trump, his congressional allies, and his propagandists at Fox and elsewhere had all spent weeks whipping them up with conspiracy theories about massive election fraud that had “rigged” the election in favor of Biden and stolen it from Trump. They bear responsibility for the horrific, lethal results. Continue reading.

White House finally tells thousands of political appointees they have to step down

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The White House on Thursday told thousands of political appointees — from ambassadors to schedulers — to resign on Inauguration Day, a formality the Trump administration had stalled for weeks as President Trump disputed the election outcome.

A directive was emailed to agency heads that political appointees must resign effective Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden takes office, a White House spokesman confirmed. The order was issued by Chris Liddell, the deputy White House chief of staff who has been leading transition arrangements with the Biden team, and was first reported by Politico.

The call for resignations came within hours of Trump’s statement early Thursday that there would be an orderly transfer of power, and as a wave of senior political appointees quit in protest over Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. They include Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and several senior-level national security officials and press aides. Continue reading.

Biden denounces racial inequities in blasting Capitol riot

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President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday denounced what he described as an unequal justice system reflected in the lenient response to the mostly White rioters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, suggesting a stark contrast with the treatment of racial justice demonstrators across the country last summer.

“You can’t tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said in Wilmington, before beginning to hammer his fist against the lectern. “We all know that is true. And it is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view.”

In some of his most pointed remarks to date on racial inequity, a topic he sometimes struggles to discuss despite his support from many Black voters, Biden pledged that the disparities would be addressed as he announced his Justice Department leadership team, including federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as attorney general. Continue reading.

Bipartisan Disgust Could Save the Republic

The frightening reality check lawmakers and the public got on Jan. 6 is likely to make things a bit easier for the incoming president.

IT WAS, PRESIDENT-ELECT Joe Biden said solemnly, “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation,” a day when pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and occupied the chamber where both defenders and detractors of the president found themselves jointly threatened by a marauding mob.

But if that day was a low point in a tumultuous five years of a campaign and presidency that served to further divide an already partisan Congress, it may also have been just the jolt lawmakers needed to remember why they were sent to Washington in the first place.

Republicans who just hours before had been defiantly challenging an Electoral College vote count to make Biden the next president backed down, looking shell-shocked as they said this was no longer the best way to go. Trump’s golf pal, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called on his colleagues to accept the election results and on Thursday tweeted laudatory comments about Biden’s response to what lawmakers called an attempted coup. Continue reading.