Attention to the Unseen

HuffPost reports: Should former President Donald Trump run for the White House again, an obscure Reconstruction-era law could keep him off the ballot in six southern states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, because of his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The third section of the 14th Amendment prohibits people who swore to defend the Constitution, but who subsequently took part in an insurrection against the United States, from holding state or federal office. Other language in that post-Civil…

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Grid reports: In the lead-up to the Capitol siege, the FBI received at least a dozen warnings about the possibility of violence that day. When the day came and the Capitol barricades fell, it became evident the FBI largely ignored them all. The warnings came from all sides: regional law enforcement, social media platforms, Congress (specifically the House and Senate intelligence committees), a top defense official, extremist watchdogs, right-wing experts, journalists and even three different components within the FBI itself….

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The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, testifying just days after the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the spring of…

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CNN reports: A federal judge in Washington, DC, is questioning former President Donald Trump’s actions during his speech on January 6, 2021, as he considers for the first time whether Trump is immune from liability related to his supporters attacking the US Capitol. During a court hearing Monday, Judge Amit Mehta pointed out repeatedly that Trump on January 6 asked the crowd to march to the Capitol, but that he didn’t speak up for two hours asking people to stop…

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Jeff Asher and Rob Arthur write: After murders in the United States soared to more than 21,000 in 2020, researchers began searching for a definitive explanation why. Many factors may have contributed, such as a pandemic-driven loss of social programs and societal and policing changes after George Floyd’s murder. But one hypothesis is simpler, and perhaps has significant explanatory power: A massive increase in gun sales in early 2020 led to additional murders. New data from the Bureau of Alcohol,…

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David Rohde writes: In hindsight, Donald Trump’s 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…

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Elaine Godfrey writes: The security-camera footage is grainy and gray with no sound, like an old silent film. Night has fallen in Washington, and a person wearing a light-colored hoodie, a face mask, and Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers strides down the sidewalk along South Capitol Street carrying a backpack. The person stops and stands idly in front of a house while someone passes, walking their dog on a leash. The person continues on, sitting for a while on…

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Kimberly Atkins Stohr writes: The insurrectionists were inside the US Capitol building, waving flags, shouting demands and targeting lawmakers with deadly threats in a politically-motivated revolt. The damage from the siege, which shocked the nation, is still visible in the House chamber. The perpetrators of that attack and their accomplices were charged and convicted of, among other crimes, seditious conspiracy. That federal statute criminalizes plots to overthrow the government or to forcefully “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any…

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Laurence H. Tribe, Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut write: In his nine months in office, Attorney General Merrick Garland has done a great deal to restore integrity and evenhanded enforcement of the law to an agency that was badly misused for political reasons under his predecessor. But his place in history will be assessed against the challenges that confronted him. And the overriding test that he and the rest of the government face is the threat to our democracy from…

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The New York Times reports: When the House formed a special committee this summer to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, its stated goal was to compile the most authoritative account of what occurred and make recommendations to ensure it never happens again. But as investigators sifted through troves of documents, metadata and interview transcripts, they started considering whether the inquiry could yield something potentially more consequential: evidence of criminal conduct by President Donald J. Trump or others that they…

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Politico reports: Members of the Jan. 6 select committee are homing in on a politically explosive question: Did Donald Trump’s actions amid the Capitol attack amount to criminal obstruction of Congress? Twice this week, committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has raised the possibility that Trump’s conduct while a mob of his supporters overtook the Capitol could qualify as an effort to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Cheney described that as a “key” topic facing the panel,…

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The New York Times reports: Two days after Christmas last year, Richard P. Donoghue, a top Justice Department official in the waning days of the Trump administration, saw an unknown number appear on his phone. Mr. Donoghue had spent weeks fielding calls, emails and in-person requests from President Donald J. Trump and his allies, all of whom asked the Justice Department to declare, falsely, that the election was corrupt. The lame-duck president had surrounded himself with a crew of unscrupulous…

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The Daily Beast reports: It turns out Mark Meadows may have good reason to not want to turn over all of the communications on two personal phones and two Gmail accounts. After the Jan. 6 Committee disclosed just a few choice text messages between Meadows and Fox News hosts, an anonymous lawmaker, and Donald Trump Jr. about the insurrection, the battle for all of Meadows’ communications has taken on new meaning. And Meadows’ assertions of executive privilege are undermined by…

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Rolling Stone reports: Two key organizers of the main Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C. are coming in from the cold. Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence are set to testify next week before the House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The pair will deliver testimony and turn over documents, including text messages, that indicate the extensive involvement members of Congress and the Trump administration had in planning the House challenge to certifying Biden’s election and…

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Anne Applebaum writes: In 2010, things started going wrong at the steel plant in Warren, Ohio, a Rust Belt town that went on to cast its votes twice for Donald Trump. A cooling panel started leaking, and the furnace operator didn’t see the leak in time; the water hit molten steel, leading to an explosion that sent workers to the hospital with burns and severe injuries. A year later, another explosion caused another round of destruction. A federal regulatory investigation…

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