Five moments from the Capitol riot that I’ll never forget
Donald Trump has called for the “MAGA nation” to “rise up” against the Biden administration over vaccine mandates on the eve of the 6 January Capitol riot.
The former president, in a statement released by the Save America PAC on Wednesday, slammed Joe Biden for “talk” that his administration would enforce a vaccine mandate for school children and force schools to shut amid a surge in Covid-19 cases.
“Now, there’s talk by the Biden Administration again about closing schools and even vaccine mandates for school children,” Mr Trump said in the statement.
There has been no suggestion of any such decision from the Biden administration so far. “This is an outrage, and MAGA nation should rise up and oppose this egregious federal government overreach,” Mr Trump said.
Meanwhile, some Democrats are said to be quietly exploring how they could potentially ban Mr Trump from holding office again, following the deadly riot last year in which five people lost their lives.
What Donald Trump said in his ‘MAGA Nation’ statement
Issuing a statement on Wednesday night, the former president said “The Biden administration’s response to COVID is getting worse every day,” and accused the Democrat of giving “red states the short end of the stick.”
“Our administration did what they said could not be done — vaccines in record time, but we never issued mandates, and I never would!,” said Mr Trump in a statement.
“The federal government must be reined in and give the people back the freedom to decide whether they want to be vaccinated or not,” he continued, in an apparent attempt at balancing his pro-vaccine stance.
The criticism of Mr Biden comes after the Democrat admitted recently that there was no federal solution to solving the Covid pandemic in the US, and fears on the right of further mandates being introduced at the federal level – although there are no such plans to order school children to be vaccinated nationally, as Mr Trump suggested.
Gino Spocchia6 January 2022 12:15
Dems explore how to ban Trump from entering White House again
Democrats are exploring how to ban Donald Trump from entering the White House again, it is reported.
According to an analysis by The Hill, around a dozen Democrat lawmakers are looking at how Section 3 of the 14th Amendment might apply to those who engaged in insurrection on 6 Jan.
Rep Jamie Raskin (D-Md), who sits on the 6 Jan House Select Committee; Rep Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee; and Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla) are among those looking at the move.
“I continue to explore all legal paths to ensure that the people who tried to subvert our democracy are not in charge of it,” Wasserman Schultz told The Hill.
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 11:47
Trump calls for ‘MAGA nation to rise up’ on eve of 6 Jan anniversary
Donald Trump has called for the “MAGA nation” to “rise up” against the Biden administration over vaccine mandates on the eve of the 6 January Capitol riot.
My colleague Shweta Sharma reports:
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 11:40
‘More toxic, more difficult’: How January 6 broke the House
The Capitol riot wasn’t just an assault on democracy; it turned Congress into a hostile work environment, writes Eric Garcia
Read Eric’s full analysis piece here:
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 10:47
What is happening later?
Marking the one-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats will start Thursday in Statuary Hall, one of several spots where rioters swarmed a year ago and interrupted the electoral count.
Mr Biden is expected to speak to the truth of what happened, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and draw a contrast between that and “the lies some have spread since” – a reference to the continued refusal by many Republicans to affirm that Mr Biden won the 2020 election.
“I would expect that President Biden will lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility president Trump has for the chaos and carnage that we saw,” Ms Psaki said during a press briefing.
A series of remembrance events during the day will be widely attended by Democrats, in person and virtually, but almost every Republican on Capitol Hill will be absent.
The division is a stark reminder of the divide between the two parties, worsening ever since hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters violently pushed past police, used their fists and flagpoles to break through the windows of the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Mr Biden’s victory.
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 10:21
Capitol riot: What happened on 6 January 2021?
The botched assault on the cradle of American democracy by misguided Trump supporters is remembered as a deeply shameful climax to his chaotic and divisive reign, my colleague Joe Sommerland writes.
Joe’s piece below sets out the details of exactly what happened at the Capitol exactly one year ago.
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 09:59
One-year anniversary of Capitol riot
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the deadly Capitol attack, when rioters breached the heart of American democracy, sparking headlines across the US and around the world.
Some five people lost their leaves as the mob, many of them Donald Trump fanatics, clashed with police inside and outside the building as lawmakers took shelter, fearing for their lives.
Democrats blame the former president for the carnage, claiming that he and his supporters conspired to plan an insurrection attempt to keep the ex-reality TV star in power, sparking an ongoing inquiry.
We’ll be taking a look at how the events on 6 January unfolded and everything that has happened since. Stay tuned for updates.
Matt Mathers6 January 2022 09:47
Capitol riots: Officers sue Trump over lasting trauma from broken limbs, concussion and chemical attacks
At least three law enforcement officers have decided to file a lawsuit against former president Donald Trump seeking damages for physical and emotional injuries sustained during the attack.
The officers, in the lawsuit filed on 4 January, said the deadly insurrection attack left them with broken limbs, a concussion, ringing ears, night terrors and depression.
They have alleged that a mob supporting the former president sprayed them with chemicals, hit them with flagpoles and shouted racial slurs as they pushed past the crowd into the halls of Congress last year.
US Capitol Police Officer Marcus Moore and a separate suit from Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department officers DeDevine Carter and Bobby Tabron have filed the lawsuit, alleging that Mr Trump “inflamed, encouraged, incited, directed, and aided and abetted” an assault against the officers.
This was fulled by his baseless voter fraud narrative, they said.
Alex Woodward has the full story here
Arpan Rai6 January 2022 06:56
One year after the Capitol riots, FBI’s hunt for hundreds of suspects still on
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s task to find who planted the pipe bombs and if there is a connection between the pipe bombs and the riots that gripped the Capitol exactly a year back is still on.
Officials are yet to comb the suspect among hundreds of people being probed by the FBI after last year’s deadly riots. The investigators are yet to fully identify and apprehend 250 people seen on video assaulting the police on the day of insurrection. At least another 100 need to be held for other crimes tied to the riots.
More than 700 people have already been charged with federal crimes linked to the Capitol riots and arrests are being constantly made, underlining how the investigation of the deadly insurrection has been a massive undertaking for the FBI.
Investigators and agents working on the case have been looking at thousands of hours of surveillance video and tracking movements from that time, second by second in every video, to understand who all are behind the attack on officers.
Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s field office in Washington explained: “This investigation takes time because it is a lot of lot of work, a lot of painstaking work that they look at the video kind of frame by frame.”
Arpan Rai6 January 2022 06:17
QAnon Shaman expresses regret, says he tried to calm down the crowd
Jacob Chansley, one of the famous Donald Trump loyalists who participated in the riot last year outside the US Capitol building, and is also known as QAnon Shaman said he wished he could have done things differently on the tragic day.
“In retrospect, one thing I can say that I regret is not working to make sure there was far more peace on that day,” Chansley said, according to a report.
He added: “If I had known that was going to happen, I would have stepped in before the barricades were breached. I actually tried to calm down the crowd on more than one occasion.”
It just didn’t work, QAnon Shaman said.
The insurrector is serving a 41-month prison sentence after being found guilty of obstructing the proceedings of Congress and was speaking over a phone call with his mother.
He went on to become the most immediately recognisable member of the riot groups in a bare-chested, face-painted and horn-headed outfit.
A picture of him posing on the rostrum of the Senate chamber with a spear became one of the most iconic images from that day, and his case soon became one of its most-watched.
He is currently lodged in a federal prison in Oklahoma.
Arpan Rai6 January 2022 05:45