Category Archives: Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump's niece, author Mary Trump, said this week that she thought her uncle did not intervene to stop the violence on January 6 because he was "getting off on it."

Mary Trump was responding to new information revealed by Rep. Liz Cheney from the January 6 panel's investigation into the Capitol riot. Cheney told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the former president continued to watch the January 6 riot unfold on TV from a dining room next to the Oval Office, instead of intervening to stop the violence.

Mary Trump responded to the news in an appearance on SiriusXM's "The Dean Obeidallah Show" this week.

"We know his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. Obviously he didn't do that. Any of this surprise you?" Obeidallah asked Trump.

"No, and what's sort of eerie is that I thought we already knew that. Like, I had a picture in my head because it makes perfect sense of course, that's what he was doing. He was getting off on it," Trump told Obeidallah. "And there was no way he was going to stop anything because he was enjoying it too much, and he probably wanted it to get worse."

Trump added that she thought the only reason Ivanka and others in Trump's orbit were telling him to stop the violence at the Capitol was that it "got out of control."

"They really thought that they could control this monster they created and were probably hoping for a bloodless coup. If they could just get Pence to do, you know, in their view, the right thing, or delay enough or get it thrown to the Supreme Court or what have you," Trump said.

She added that Trump likely had "no interest" in telling them to stand down even after the crowd turned violent. Crowds breached the Capitol at 2:11 p.m. on January 6, and Trump waited a full hour before taking to Twitter and encouraging his followers to "remain peaceful" and "respect" authorities.

"They realized that they needed Donald to tell them to stand down, which he had no interest in doing because he probably thought, one, that it was fun to watch all these people being murderous on his behalf. But two that it would be the best way for him to stay in power," Trump added.

Trump has been an outspoken critic of her uncle. This past September, she called him a "fascist" and, on a separate occasion, a "loser."

Representatives for former President Donald Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In recent weeks, the January 6 select committee revealed panicked texts sent during the Capitol riot from Donald Trump Jr. to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. In those texts, Trump Jr. begged Meadows to get his father to give a speech to stop the insurrection.

According to the January 6 committee, Fox News hosts and other lawmakers also texted Meadows, imploring him to get Trump to stop the violence at the Capitol.

The former president continues to double down on his claims that the January 6 riot was a "completely unarmed protest of the rigged election."

Earlier this week, Trump called off a press conference initially scheduled for the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection. He blamed the abrupt cancellation of the eventon "the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6 Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media."

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Mary Trump: Donald Trump was 'getting off' on the January 6 violence - Business Insider

In hindsight, Donald Trumps intentions could not appear clearer. During the final months of the 2020 Presidential race, he systematically conducted a disinformation campaign that convinced many of his supporters the election would be stolen by Democrats. After losing, he doubled down on those false claims and repeatedly pressured state election officials, Justice Department prosecutors, federal and state judges, members of Congress, and the Vice-President to overturn the results. After those efforts failed, he appeared at a rally in Washington, D.C., where he urged thousands of his supporters to stop Congress from certifying his defeat. For hours, as they stormed the Capitol, he failed to act.

Those steps, the leaders of the congressional committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol contend, seemingly constitute a crime. But, based on the evidence made public so far, the unprecedented nature of Trumps actionstogether with the vagueness of laws regarding the certification of Presidential elections, legal loopholes, and his manipulation of otherscould allow the former President to escape being criminally charged for his role in events surrounding the attack.

A congressional staffer with knowledge of the committees investigation said that it is ongoing and too early to say what it will yield. The staffer pointed out that Trump has a history of trying to avoid explicitly implicating himself in wrongdoing over the years, as he did in the Oval Office call with Ukraines Presidentwhich, nevertheless, led to his first impeachment. Trump seems to have been very careful never to give an orderto strongly insinuate what should happen rather than giving an order, the staffer told me, comparing Trump with Henry II of England, who famously (perhaps apocryphally) engineered the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury by signalling to subordinates his desire to be free of the religious leader without explicitly ordering it. The staffer, who asked not to be named, invoked a phrase said to have been uttered by the twelfth-century king: Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?

Recent statements by the committee chair, Bennie Thompson, and the vice-chair, Liz Cheneyone of only two Republicans on the panelhave raised expectations that the panel will refer Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Such a step would increase the political pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute Trump. In a television interview on Sunday, Thompson said that the panel is examining whether Trump committed a crime: If theres any confidence on the part of our committee that something criminal we believe has occurred, well make the referral. And Cheney, in a speech last month, mentioned a specific charge: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congresss official proceeding to count electoral votes?

Federal prosecutors in Washington have charged dozens of rioters who stormed the Capitol with felony counts of obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, which carry a potential sentence of up to twenty years. But legal experts said that convicting Trump of such a charge could be difficult. Ilya Somin, a libertarian legal scholar at George Mason University and a critic of the former President, told me that Trumps lawyers would likely argue that it did not apply to him because he did not enter the Capitol on January 6th. I think it is very clear that it applies to the people who entered the building, Somin said. If Trump did enter the building and lead the attack in person, it would be much easier to convict him of this and other offenses.

The congressional staffer with knowledge of the committees work said that the media had exaggerated Thompson and Cheneys statements. The criminal-referral stuff has gotten blown out of proportion, the staffer cautioned. It has become the shiny new object. (Another shiny new object emerged on Tuesday, when the committee asked the Fox News host Sean Hannity to voluntarily testify about text messages that hed sent which show he had advance knowledge regarding President Trumps and his legal teams planning for January 6th. Hannity warned against Republicans in Congress trying to overturn the results, writing on January 5th that he was very worried about the next 48 hours.) The staffer said that the committee is primarily focussed on creating a definitive history of events on January 6th and recommending laws and reforms that would prevent future attempts to overturn electionsgiving the American people the full picture of what happened and making recommendations to help insure that nothing like January 6th happens again.

Ultimately, the decision about whether to prosecute Trump lies with Garland, a former federal judge who has made restoring public faith in the political neutrality of the Justice Department his core goal. Despite Garlands attempts to divorce the Justice Department from politically charged prosecutions, it is increasingly clear that investigating Trump is becoming the defining issue of his tenure. The continued defiance of Trump and his allies is forcing Garland to make a decision faced by none of his predecessors: whether to prosecute a former President who tried to subvert an election and appears ready to do so again. Democrats are demanding that Garland move more aggressively, with Representative Ruben Gallego, of Arizona, declaring his effort so far weak and feckless, and contending that there are a lot more of the organizers of January 6th that should be arrested by now.

David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official, said he disagreed with criticism of the Justice Department for not having already charged Trump criminally. Notwithstanding the horrors of January 6th, D.O.J. should not be pursuing criminal investigations or prosecutions against former President Trump or others connected to the attack on the Capitol unless both the facts and the law support doing so under established policy, he said. Its the Department of Justicenot the Department of Retributionand we dont want to see the rule of law eroded just to make us feel good. But Laufman also called for prosecutors to not go easy on Trump, adding that the department shouldnt be shying away from using the full weight of its enforcement authorities against Trump or anyone else simply because doing so could be perceived as politically motivated.

On Wednesday afternoon, Garland gave a speech that was clearly designed to reassure the public and counter critics. The twenty-five-minute address was vintage Garland. He pledged political neutrality and declared that we follow the factsnot an agenda or an assumption. He promised equal justice for all: There cannot be different rules depending on ones political party or affiliation. There cannot be different rules for friends and foes. And he vowed further measures. The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last, he said, adding that the Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under lawwhether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.

In an era when the majority of Republicans falsely believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and the majority of Democrats think that it was not, Garland will be demonized no matter what action he takes regarding Trump. The Attorney General, based on his speech, continues to believe that he can restore normal ordera Justice Department term for basing decisions on whether to charge defendants strictly on the facts of a case. He continues to believe that the majority of Americans still support the principle that all people should be treated fairly under the law, including Donald Trump. And that the majority will reject political violence and trust the judicial system. At the moment, that belief, for Garland and all Americans, is an enormous political gamble.

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The January 6th Criminal Case Against Donald Trump - The New Yorker

We should be grateful for such small mercies.

In a rare moment of lucidity, Donald Trump has abandoned plans to take part in what would have amounted to a Satanic-like version of Groundhog Day, by informing his army of culpable MAGA-hat-wearing worshippers that he will not reprise his role as insurrectionist-in-chief on the first anniversary of the storming of Capitol Hill.

Trump had intended, no doubt, to launch into one of his signature diatribes to absolve himself of responsibility for the seminal role he played in what is emerging, drip by incriminating drip, to have been a coordinated but, ultimately, failed coup dtat.

Reportedly, Trump remains holed up at his gaudy version of Shangri-La the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at the urging of his circle of reliable sycophants who advised that his habit of droning on and on extemporaneously might further implicate him in the violent desecration of the United States Constitution a year ago.

Trump was also miffed that his incoherent, lie-laced remarks would not be televised, denying this preening narcissist the validation that apparently gives his vacant life the ephemeral attention a twice-impeached president and pampered brat requires like he requires oxygen in almost equal measure.

Alas, our reprieve from having to endure another spasm of Trumps lunatic tantrums will be brief since he plans to say what he proposed to say today at a rich white mans never-ending grievance-fest sorry, rally slated for later this month in Arizona.

Still, it is a relief that, for once, Trump has opted, surprisingly, to shut up largely out of self-preservation, of course particularly on a day that, given its historical import, will, I suspect, be remembered and reviled by enlightened Americans in the same vein as 9/11.

It is worth recalling that the terrorists who attacked the US on that date may have been plotting to destroy the Capitol as well. They were thwarted by brave passengers and crew on board United Flight 93 who, ironically, organised another type of insurrection to save lives (possibly) at the Capitol at the expense of their own.

So, arguably, on January 6, 2021, Trump and his band of fanatical allies in Congress and at the White House helped finish the job begun by a band of fanatics on 9/11. Instead of a plane, the MAGA mob ransacked and overwhelmed the seat of US democracy by virtue of their rampaging numbers and with any weapon at hand.

Trumps crass revisionism about what happened this time last year on Capitol Hill and why it happened has been taken up by the usual and some unusual suspects.

The usual suspects, like Trump, feed their viewers and readers a geyser of lies about what happened and why it happened for the same rank reasons as their dear, delusional leader money, notoriety and to disfigure history.

They have no shame. Hence, they cannot be shamed.

It is the unusual suspects, including several lapsed progressive writers, who should be ashamed of belittling the Trump-led insurrection simply as a gathering of aggrieved Americans gone slightly awry or giving sustenance to the crackpot claim that the FBI secretly fomented the furious mayhem as part of a false flag operation.

Like smug conspiracy-mongers, they cling to minor discrepancies to challenge the official story in their fantastical effort to dismiss the seriousness of a calculated and determined attempt to prevent the certification of a new president elected by a healthy plurality of voters.

Move over, Oliver Stone. You have ludicrous company.

Meanwhile, a gaggle of centrist columnists outside the US, has penned their de rigueur commemorative missives that contemplate with varying degrees of apocalyptic horror the lasting significance and consequences of the traumatic bedlam of 1/6.

In Canada, a number of pundits have suddenly experienced remarkable epiphanies and now recognise the existential threat that Trump and his legion of frothing, AK-47-toting disciples pose to the institutional framework of Americas constitutional republic.

It took them a while.

I remember when these realpolitik-clich-spouting types lectured those of us who warned, years ago, that Trump was a flagrant fascist whose defining autocratic nature would inevitably lead to a brutal assault on the already fragile and corroded infrastructure of US democracy.

Despite Trumps litany of outrages that confirmed, again and again, his odious character and sinister designs, these sensible centrists insisted that this crude, but capable, authoritarian should be treated with grudging deference and respect lest he scuttle lucrative cross-border commerce or, worse, trigger a trade war.

Oh, how I remember when the keyboard cavalry condemned Canadas appeasement of that other, and long forgotten, menace to Western democratic values and principles, Saddam Hussein, when then Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrtien refused to join the calamitous coalition of the willing.

Turns out, the critics of appeasement became the appeasers who, throughout Trumps egregious tenure as president, repeatedly cautioned against confronting his blatant anti-democratic modus operandi in favour of the national interest.

These days, the sensible centrists have done a stunning volte-face and lament that conditions are ripe for the imminent collapse of American democracy and that, by 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.

In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace, a Canadian political scientist wrote in a suitably centrist Canadian newspaper.

Not true.

Several astute observers, including the prescient writer and filmmaker, Michael Moore, warned, early on, that a wretched, ignorant, dangerous, part-time clown and full-time sociopath is going to be [Americas] next president.

And the horrible had become commonplace long before January 6, 2022. It is just that the sensible centrists in Canada and elsewhere chose wilfully and willingly to ignore it to mollify Trump.

They have, it appears, forgotten this, prompting a Royal Roads University professor to pen this astonishing paragraph: But now we must focus on the urgent problem of what to do about the likely unraveling of democracy in the United States. We need to start by fully recognising the magnitude of the danger.

Scores of wise, concerned people were focused on the urgent problem and recognised the magnitude of the danger prior to and immediately after Trump rode down a golden escalator to announce his candidacy for president in 2015.

They were ignored or ridiculed as nave idealists who did not understand how the real world works.

To irresponsible, habitually wrong, sensible centrists in Canada and beyond: A belated welcome to the real world.

Finally, the millions of enlightened Americans who have resisted Trump and pine, like me, to see him and his confederates paraded into a courtroom in appropriately coloured orange jumpsuits, were likely disappointed by Attorney General Merrick Garlands comments yesterday regarding the number of insurrectionists charged to date.

Hundreds of Trumps maniacal foot soldiers have been nabbed and some sentenced. Their leaders, so far, have escaped accountability and punishment.

On this score, Garland offered rather vague assurances that the Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law whether they were present that day or otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.

Garland then pleaded for patience with the course of the ongoing investigation.

[The probe will continue] as long as it takes and whatever it takes for justice to be done consistent with the facts and the law, the ponderous attorney general said.

Well, you best hurry, man, or there will be nothing left to save.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Trumps 1/6 finished the job of 9/11 - Al Jazeera English

More than 1,000 Americans in positions of public trust acted as accomplices in Donald Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election result, participating in the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January or spreading the big lie that the vote count had been rigged.

The startling figure underlines the extent to which Trumps attempt to undermine the foundations of presidential legitimacy has metastasized across the US. Individuals who engaged in arguably the most serious attempt to subvert democracy since the civil war are now inveigling themselves into all levels of government, from Congress and state legislatures down to school boards and other local public bodies.

The finding that 1,011 individuals in the public realm played a role in election subversion around the 2020 presidential race comes from a new pro-democracy initiative that launched on Wednesday.

The Insurrection Index seeks to identify all those who supported Trump in his bid to hold on to power despite losing the election, in the hope that they can be held accountable and prevented from inflicting further damage to the democratic infrastructure of the country.

All of the more than 1,000 people recorded on the index have been invested with the publics trust, having been entrusted with official positions and funded with taxpayer dollars. Many are current or former government employees at federal, state or local levels.

Among them are 213 incumbents in elected office and 29 who are running as candidates for positions of power in upcoming elections. There are also 59 military veterans, 31 current or former law enforcement officials, and seven who sit on local school boards.

When the index goes live on Thursday, it will contain a total of 1,404 records of those who played a role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. In addition to the 1,011 individuals, it lists 393 organizations deemed to have played a part in subverting democracy.

The index is the brainchild of Public Wise, a voting rights group whose mission is to fight for government that reflects the will and the rights of voters. Christina Baal-Owens, the groups executive director, said that the index was conceived as an ongoing campaign designed to keep insurrectionists out of office.

These are folks who silenced the voices of American voters, who took a validly held election and created fraudulent information to try to silence voters. They have no business being near legislation or being able to affect the lives of American people, she said.

The project has been set up with legal advice from Marc Elias, one of the most influential election lawyers in the US who was Hillary Clintons top counsel in the 2016 presidential campaign and who successfully led Joe Bidens resistance to Trumps blitzkrieg of lawsuits contesting the 2020 results. Elias told the Guardian that the index was needed urgently to avoid history repeating itself in 2024 or beyond.

We are one, maybe two elections away from a constitutional crisis over election subversion, he said. If we dont recognize who was behind the attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, then next time we will be less prepared and it may succeed.

Elias said he saw the index as an example of the kinds of robust action progressives need to take to combat an unprecedented wave of anti-democratic legislation emanating from Republicans in the past 12 months. While Trump had reshaped the right to be laser-focused on elections and winning at all costs, Democrats are spreading their energies thinly between a number of causes of which protecting democracy was just one, he said.

The central theme of the Republican party today is undermining free and fair elections. Under Trump that has become a credential within the party, and we cant let those folks win without a fight because if we do we lose our democracy.

The individuals recorded on the index who are already in public office include the 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of the 2020 election result. The list also names many elected officials in state legislatures across the nation, including states like Arizona that were ground zero for Trumps efforts to steal the election from Biden.

Jake Hoffman, a lawmaker who represents Arizonas 12th district, wrote to fellow Republicans a day before the Capitol insurrection urging them to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence into blocking Bidens victory. Vice-President Pence has the power to delay congressional certification and seek clarification from state legislatures in contested states as to which slate of electors are proper and accurate, Hoffman wrote, reflecting a theory embraced by Trump that has been thoroughly rebutted.

The week before the insurrection, 17 Arizona state lawmakers wrote to Pence urging him to block the use of any Electors from Arizona despite multiple counts by then establishing that Biden had won the state by more than 10,000 votes. Among the signatories was Mark Finchem, a member of the Arizona House of representatives who was present at Trumps stop the steal rally in Washington on 6 January and who is now vying to become Arizona secretary of state the top election official who oversees the presidential count.

Among the 59 individuals on the index with military backgrounds is Christopher Warnagiris, who in June became the first active-duty member of the armed forces to be charged in relation with the Capitol assault. Despite facing nine counts of assault and violent entry, he has been permitted to continue serving within the training and education section at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.

Public Wise has drawn on a number of public information sources to compile the index, working in partnership with other pro-democracy groups who have added specialist skills. The partners include American Oversight, a non-partisan organisation that has used freedom of information laws to extract information from government agencies that exposes participants in the big lie.

The goal is to build up a holistic picture so that nothing can fall through the cracks and no one can slip away, said Austin Evers, the executive director of American Oversight. We ask: who is this ccd on this email? What handle is this on a social media account? If we can connect the dots we can ensure accountability can be brought to bear.

Evers said that the most chilling revelation of the research was that the 6 January insurrection was inspired by an ideology that was supported by people in power. State legislators in Arizona were involved in the run-up to January 6 and after January 6 used their positions to drive the big lie. That feels cancerous the attack on democracy has the backing of political, and even governmental, infrastructure.

One likely charge leveled at the new index by rightwing individuals and groups is that it is a form of cancel culture, designed to silence anyone airing uncomfortable views. Baal-Owens dismisses any such criticism.

Our call to action is about voting, not doxing, she said, pointing out that no private information is included on the index. The call to action is not to show up at this persons house or chase their child to school, but to allow every registered voter to have an educated way to cast their vote.

The groups behind the index hope that it will alert voters to the anti-democratic actions of people running for elected office. The value of such a record, they believe, would increase exponentially were the Republicans to take back control of Congress in this years midterm elections, leading almost certainly to an abrupt halt in congressional investigations into the events of 6 January.

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More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trumps effort to overturn election - The Guardian

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Its as good a time as any to check in with Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of former president Donald Trump. What do you think Don Jr. is up to? For one thing, he was subpoenaed on Monday as part of New York States investigation into his fathers business practice. What else? Aside from texting his dad and filming a video inside what may or may not be a gun-lined bunker, it turns out Don Jr. has also spent the past year enjoying life as an engaged man.

According to Page Six, the former presidents oldest son has been engaged to his long-time girlfriend, former Fox News correspondent Kimberly Guilfoyle, for almost a year. The Daily Mail reports that Junior proposed on New Years Eve 2020, and that the couple has kept it hidden from the public since. Maybe he didnt want to outshine his sister Tiffanys iconic decision to get engaged the day before her father left the White House.

Don Jr.s engagement went public thanks to Guilfoyle, who broadcast it not through her impressive vocal athleticism but via an Instagram post in which the diamond ring was featured prominently on her engagement finger. According to one source, the ring is almost 8 carats, which is a very Trumpian way of describing a 7-carat ring. While its not clear if a wedding date has been set, there is no telling what horrors await us during this union. A rehearsal dinner at Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Haunted teddy bears at all the guests tables? Will Guilfoyle make a toast that raises Satan himself from the depths of hell? Maybe marrying one of his fathers top fund-raisers will finally get Don Jr. a kiss from daddy.

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Donald Trump Jr. Was Secretly Engaged for a Year? - The Cut

If Donald Trump runs for president again in 2024, Robert Palmer, a 54-year-old Florida man, will still be in prison for assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officers during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Palmer, who was sentenced to 63 months, has received the longest sentence of the more than 150 defendants who have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the storming of the U.S. Capitol. He was just one of the hundreds of Trump supporters who rushed law enforcement in an attempt to overturn a free and fair election.

After losing to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020, Trump spent weeks promoting the lie that the election was stolen from him, culminating in the attack the following January.

Trump incited the riot that left five people dead and dozens of law enforcement officers injured. But while countless people are facing consequences for what they did that day, Trump still hasnt.

Instead, in a darkly ironic twist, Palmer and countless others will watch behind bars should Trump launch his next presidential bid.

The punishments for the insurrection have ranged widely. Texas real estate agent Jenna Ryan, who famously said she definitely wasnt going to jail because she has blond hair and white skin, received 60 days. Paul Hodgkins, a Floridian, was sentenced to eight months in prison for entering the Senate chamber. Hundreds of people have been charged with various crimes, so there are more sentences for defendants on the way. But one year later, its becoming increasingly likely that Trump will not be held accountable.

Ive heard this question from Democrats in my life and seen tweets from large public interest groups: Why isnt Donald Trump in prison?

The answer is simple: People like him rarely end up behind bars.

As his supporters languish, incarcerated, Trumps inner circle will continue plotting to finish destroying whats left of American democracy.

It seems as if the worst thing thats happened to Trump as a result of the insurrection is that hes been banned from Twitter. Although its still early, Trump is still leading among Republicans as a choice for the 2024 presidential nominee. And, more important, according to an AP/NORC poll, only 30% of Republicans believe the U.S. Capitol insurrection was somewhat violent, despite the multitude of videos depicting just how much violence occurred that day. Republican lawmakers are either busy promoting the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, keeping quiet out of a desire to keep their office or, in the case of Rep. Liz Cheney, being ostracized for embracing reality. Are these the conditions under which Trump is supposed to face consequences for his actions?

Heres how the criminal justice system really functions in this country. Marginalized people, such as people of color, poor people, and religious and gender minorities, are more likely to be swept up in the system. Black people are more likely to receive life in prison and death sentences. Those with fewer resources often face harsher punishments due to insufficient counsel. Meanwhile, whiter and wealthier people often receive more lenient sentences if they are charged at all.

Many of the people facing charges in the insurrection are awaiting their day in court at the federal jail in the District of Columbia, known for its harsh conditions. Trump supporters see the insurrectionists as political prisoners, but nonetheless they dont seem too concerned about the conditions under which they are held. Aside from some camera-ready moments from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), when they inexplicably linked horrific conditions of the jail to critical race theory, conservatives have paid scant attention to their actual state of incarceration. Instead, the GOP machine is working to change voting laws to circumvent that pesky problem of not having enough votes to win an election outright.

During his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden vowed to combat right-wing extremism, music to the ears of the people who had just witnessed the horror of Jan. 6. But, of course, thats easier said than done. Congress, for its part, has been engaged in an investigation of the insurrection, and though many more details have been brought to light, its unlikely to end in the imprisonment of the former president.

The issue at hand is that there isnt a precedent for this type of crisis. Before Trump, every outgoing president graciously accepted a loss and peacefully handed over power because that was simply the norm; its what every president did before him. As a result, were ill-equipped to handle norm-breakers. I guess the Founding Fathers, beloved as they are to many in the U.S., forgot to write into the Constitution what to do when a president incites an insurrection.

Its important to remember that Trump going to prison would be a long way from solving the countrys current problem. A prison sentence may not even stop him from running for president, and there are plenty of Trumps-in-training waiting in the wings who would be more than thrilled to carry the mantle.

The damage he and his ilk wrought on our democracy is here to stay. Its better to embrace the obvious. Donald Trump is not going to prison. But at least he cant tweet.

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Donald Trump Is Not Going To Prison - HuffPost

Donald J. Trump and his allies are scheduling events and raising money for initiatives intended to make the former president a central player in the midterm elections, and possibly to set the stage for another run for the White House.

He and groups allied with him are planning policy summits, more rallies and an elaborate forum next month at his Mar-a-Lago resort for candidates he has endorsed and donors who give as much as $125,000 per person to a pro-Trump super PAC.

The efforts seem intended to reinforce the former presidents grip on the Republican Party and its donors amid questions about whether Mr. Trump will seek the partys nomination again or settle into a role as a kingmaker.

Taken together, the pro-Trump groups form a sort of shadow political party that could help start another presidential campaign and, if that were successful, shape his administration. They include Mr. Trumps own PACs, which amassed more than $100 million by last summer, employ an overlapping roster of former top officials from his administration and have signaled that they intend to embrace policies and candidates supported by Mr. Trump.

The groups have also helped reinforce his properties as a center of Republican power, holding events at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., and at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Trump has welcomed to the clubs a stream of Republicans seeking his political blessing, issuing nearly 100 endorsements to aligned candidates, including challengers to G.O.P. incumbents who voted for Mr. Trumps impeachment or supported the certification of his defeat to President Biden in the 2020 election.

The candidate forum at Mar-a-Lago is being planned for Feb. 23 by a super PAC run by some of Mr. Trumps closest allies called Make America Great Again, Again! Inc., according to an email to donors from Roy W. Bailey, a Texas businessman and Republican fund-raiser.

There will be an all-day candidate forum with back-to-back speeches from the endorsed candidates and familiar faces in the Trump orbit, wrote Mr. Bailey, who was a leading fund-raiser for Mr. Trumps campaigns and inaugural committee, then registered to lobby his administration. We want those who attend to leave thinking that it was the best political event they have ever attended, he wrote.

Donors who raise $375,000 will be invited to a private dinner with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bailey noted that the PACs national finance director was Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is dating Mr. Trumps son Donald Trump Jr., and that its board included Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who advised Mr. Trump during his first impeachment; Richard Grenell, who was Mr. Trumps ambassador to Germany and acting head of national intelligence; and Matthew G. Whitaker, who was acting attorney general.

The forum is for federal candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump. It is not clear how many of them intend to attend. But some, including Harriet Hageman, who is mounting a primary challenge against Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of Mr. Trumps harshest Republican critics, and Kelly Tshibaka, who is running in the primary against Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, have been asked to hold the date, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to discuss it.

Still, Mr. Trumps political activities have generated some grumbling within his circle of supporters.

One donor who had supported Mr. Trumps campaigns said he was leery about donating to Make America Great Again, Again! because of concerns that the money would be wasted. Citing events at the former presidents properties as an example, the donor, who insisted on anonymity to avoid antagonizing Mr. Trump and his allies, said he declined invitations to the February candidate forum and to a $125,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner with Mr. Trump held by the super PAC last month at Mar-a-Lago.

Other donors and party leaders worry about the damage that could be done by Mr. Trumps backing of primary challenges to Republicans who pushed back against his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Mr. Trump was impeached twice, including after his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to disrupt the certification of Mr. Bidens victory. Since then, he has been banned from the social media accounts he had wielded so effectively to generate attention and punish enemies without spending any money.

While Mr. Trump has announced the formation of his own media company, including a new social network to reinsert himself into the conversation, it has yet to launch and its financing has come under scrutiny from securities regulators.

Mr. Trumps team also has continued fund-raising voraciously online for various PACs that he directly controls, which had compiled a war chest of more than $100 million last summer, and his team has continued financing campaign-style rallies. He has plans for one in Arizona this month, and more to follow, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Many of Mr. Trumps rallies in 2021 were paired with private donor round tables to raise money for his super PAC. He is planning more rallies in 2022 at locations chosen to help the candidates he has endorsed, according to people familiar with the plans.

Groups allied with him have stepped up their fund-raising in recent months, indicating they intend to spend funds to promote his causes and endorsements.

A nonprofit group called America First Policy Institute, which was started last year to serve as a think tank for Trump world, has the look of a Trump administration in waiting. It raised more than $20 million last year and has 110 employees, including Ms. Bondi, Mr. Whitaker and a number of former Trump cabinet members, such as David Bernhardt (who ran the Interior Department), Rick Perry (Energy Department) and Andrew Wheeler (Environmental Protection Agency).

The group held two events with Mr. Trump at his properties a fund-raising gala at Mar-a-Lago in November, and an event at Bedminster in July with Ms. Bondi to promote a lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump against tech companies that barred or limited his use of their platforms and it is planning twice-a-year policy summits around the country.

The next summit, planned for April in Atlanta, could feature Mr. Trump, according to the groups president, Brooke Rollins, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Mr. Trump and says she remains in contact with Mr. Trump about her groups efforts.

She said her groups goal was to persuade Americans to support policies like those Mr. Trump pursued as president, and not about getting anyone re-elected, though she said she hoped the groups efforts would shape the debates around the midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

The metric of a successful policy organization is how much those policies are part of the debate, she said.

A linked nonprofit group called America First Works is promoting policies that comport with Mr. Trumps agenda. They include voting rules that make it hard to cheat, according to a fact sheet that seems to echo Mr. Trumps false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which his allies have been relying on to reshape election laws in a manner that could favor Republicans.

But the raft of new groups has brought with it some of the drama and infighting that marked Mr. Trumps campaigns and presidency.

A previous iteration of the super PAC behind the Mar-a-Lago forum was replaced after one of its founders, the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, was accused of sexual misconduct by a donor.

That super PAC, which reported $5.6 million in the bank in mid-August, was supplanted by the new PAC, according to a statement announcing the shift in October that said the assets of the old PAC would be transferred to the new one.

The statement called the new group the ONLY Trump-approved super PAC.

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As Midterms and 2024 Loom, Trump Political Operation Revs Up - The New York Times

It has been one year since supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election. Still, the former president is pressing several untrue claims that widespread fraud cost him the election. However, his claims did not stand up to scrutiny then or now. An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by the former president has found fewer than 475, a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 election. Watch the video above to learn more about this story.The map below shows some of the arrests made after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

It has been one year since supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election.

Still, the former president is pressing several untrue claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.

However, his claims did not stand up to scrutiny then or now.

An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by the former president has found fewer than 475, a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 election.

Watch the video above to learn more about this story.

The map below shows some of the arrests made after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

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Get the Facts: Is there evidence to back up Donald Trump's claims of a 'stolen' election? - WGAL Lancaster

Based on demonstrated public behavior, of course Jan. 6 was a step toward authoritarianism, Mr. Meijer said. But he has tempered such statements with criticism of Democrats, saying, authoritarian populism is alive and well in both parties.

The system is not providing the recourse that we need, Mr. Meijer said, tying together Jan. 6 and racial justice protests in 2020 that sometimes turned violent. Thats the through line between the riots of last summer, Jan. 6 and now. The system itself has been delegitimized.

Ms. Cheney, by contrast, laid the responsibility with Republicans alone.

Our party has to choose, she said. We can either be loyal to Donald Trump, or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And right now, there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president, look the other way and hope that the former president goes away.

For now, he is very much present. Senate Republicans had an opportunity to banish Mr. Trump permanently from politics; if 17 of them had joined Democrats in voting to convict him at this impeachment trial, it would have yielded the two-thirds majority needed to remove him and paved the way for a separate vote to bar him from office. But only seven Republicans voted to convict.

One of them, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, lamented that in her partys haste to get this behind us, Republicans lost the opportunity to do just that.

Like so many of her House Republican counterparts, Ms. Murkowski is facing a primary challenge this year from a Trump-endorsed candidate.

I am ever the optimist when it comes to the greatness of our country, and I want to continue to have that level of optimism, that when we get too close to the brink, we have the ability to pull ourselves back, she said. Thats one of the reasons that Im signing up to run again because I feel its important to be one of those voices that hopefully can pull us back.

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10 Republicans Voted to Impeach Trump. What's Become of Them? - The New York Times

Lawmakers, meanwhile, are barreling toward the midterms with sharply contrasting political narratives about last years violence: Democrats want online companies to do more to stamp out election-related misinformation, while Republicans allege these platforms are seizing on the riot to censor right-wing voices.

"One of the most alarming developments of 2021 since the insurrection has been an effort, especially among influencers and politicians, to normalize conspiracy theories around election denial," said Mary McCord, a former national security official and executive director of Georgetown University's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

"They've mainstreamed ideologically driven violence," she added. "An alarming number of Americans now believe that violence may be necessary to 'save the country.'"

Rioters storm the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. | John Minchillo/AP Photo

One major reason policymakers and social media companies still struggle to contain Jan. 6 falsehoods is that the Capitol assault itself has become contested territory.

In the days following the riots, both Republicans and Democrats condemned the deadly violence, with longstanding Trump allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) calling for an end to hostilities. Trump himself faced revulsion from many of his supporters and even some of his own appointees immediately after Jan. 6.

That initial bipartisanship gave the social media giants political cover to remove reams of election misinformation and hand over data to law enforcement agencies investigating the attack. The bans of Trump though Googles YouTube platform and Facebook reserved the right to reinstate him before the 2024 presidential election also marked a watershed moment.

"Trump being deplatformed was when the companies crossed a line into a new type of enforcement," said Katie Harbath, a former senior Facebook public policy executive who previously worked for the Senate Republicans' national campaign arm. "After that, they've felt more comfortable about taking down content posted by politicians."

That comfort did not last long.

Instead, GOP voters and politicians have increasingly embraced the falsehoods about the 2020 election that helped stoke the attack, while Congress and many in the country is split along party lines about what really happened on Jan. 6. That has left social media companies vulnerable to partisan attacks for any action they take or fail to take linked to last year's riots.

To Democrats, the companies simply havent done enough.

Its clear that some social media companies have chosen profits over peoples safety, said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has brought the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google to testify about their role leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. These corporations have no intention of making their platforms safer, and instead have taken actions to amplify content that endangers our communities and incites violence.

Republicans, though, have increasingly recast the rioters as freedom fighters raising valid questions about the outcome of the election. Lawmakers including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have portrayed the Democratic-led investigation into the insurrection as a political witch hunt on Republicans and Trump supporters. (Greene, who made that accusation in a Facebook video that has received 309,000 views since early December, had her personal Twitter account permanently suspended this week for posting Covid misinformation.)

Theyre also rallying around the people who have been kicked off of social media.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has threatened reprisals against the liability protections that online companies enjoy under a law known as Section 230 which shields companies from lawsuits for most user-posted content and allows them to moderate or remove material they find objectionable.

McCarthy warned in a series of tweets on Tuesday, after Greenes suspension, that a future Republican House majority would work to ensure that if Twitter and other social media companies remove constitutionally protected speech (not lewd and obscene), they will lose 230 protection.

Acting as publisher and censorship regime should mean shutting down the business model you rely on today, and I will work to make that happen, he added.

To Democrats, the platforms' failure to stop all Jan. 6 hate speech from circulating online highlights the need for new laws. They hoped to gain momentum from last falls disclosures by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who released internal documents showing the tech giant had struggled to contain insurrectionists' posts in the run-up to Jan. 6.

A Democratic-led bill introduced after Haugens Senate appearance seeks to remove online platforms Section 230 protections if they knowingly or recklessly" use algorithms to recommend content that can lead to severe offline emotional or physical harm. The bill has no Republican backing and has drawn criticism for potentially infringing on free speech.

In multiple briefings, lawmakers and staffers of both parties confronted the large social media companies with accusations that they had played a role in attacks, according to two tech executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door meetings. The discussions have often turned personal, with policymakers accusing the companies of playing fast and loose with American democracy.

With little bipartisan agreement, one of the tech executives added, the social networks are increasingly cautious in how they handle Jan. 6-related content that does not categorically violate their terms of service.

Congress has struggled to find an appropriate path forward, Coons conceded when asked about lawmakers role in handling Jan. 6 and election misinformation. We have different views of what's the harm that most needs to be stopped based on our politics and because as a society we're committed to free speech.

Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. | (Jose Luis Magana, File/AP Photo)

Since the Capitol Hill riots, the major social networks have removed countless accounts associated with white supremacists and domestic extremists. They've tweaked algorithms to hide Jan. 6 conspiracy videos from popping into people's feeds. The companies have championed investments in fact-checking partnerships and election-related online information centers.

Yet scratch the surface, and it is still relatively easy to find widely shared posts denying the election results, politicians promoting Jan. 6 falsehoods to millions of followers and, in the murkier parts of the internet, coordinated campaigns to stoke distrust about Biden's 2020 victory and to coordinate potential violent responses.

POLITICO discovered reams of posts related to 2020 election and Jan. 6 misinformation, across six separate social media networks, over a four-week period ending on Jan. 4, 2022. The findings were based on data collected via CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool owned by Facebook that reviews posts on the platform and on Twitter, as well as separate analyses via YouTube and three fringe social networks, Gettr, Telegram and Gab.

The content included partisan attacks from elected officials and online influencers peddling mistruths about Jan. 6 to large online audiences. Within niche online communities on alternative social networks, domestic extremists shared violent imagery and openly discussed attacking election officials.

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The online world still cant quit the Big Lie - POLITICO