Attention to the Unseen

The Daily Beast reports: The Secret Service has issued an intelligence bulletin warning of additional armed protests in Washington before and after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden—particularly from the Boogaloo Boys—that in some cases it expects to become violent. The Secret Service bulletin, dated Jan. 11, is unclassified but marked not for distribution outside law-enforcement channels, and was obtained by The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast is declining to give specifics for these rallies to prevent insurrectionists from organizing…

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Politico reports: Rep. Mikie Sherrill said Tuesday that she witnessed colleagues escorting people through the Capitol on Jan. 5 for what she described as “reconnaissance” ahead of the next day’s violent insurrection that left five dead. In a 13-minute Facebook video billed as an address to her constituents about the House’s efforts to hold President Donald Trump accountable for inciting the riot, Sherrill (D-N.J.) included the allegation as part of a call to hold Trump’s allies in Congress accountable as…

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HuffPost reports: In the week since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in a stunning display of violence, police officers in D.C. and beyond have struggled to make sense of what happened. The Jan. 6 attack, which claimed the life of one responding officer and preceded the suicide of another, pitted law enforcement against one of its most loyal allies: Trump supporters. Gruesome footage shows rioters in MAGA hats brandishing “Stop the Steal” signs and Trump flags dragging an…

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Max Burns writes: There’s a better way to stop President Donald Trump than impeachment and the 25th Amendment — and it’s one that even has some Republican support. Though rarely used and often overlooked, the 14th Amendment could be the key to preventing a president who contributed to a domestic terrorist attack from ever receiving a position of public office again. The president of the United States meets all the criteria for being permanently barred from public office under even…

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HuffPost reports: Capitol Police briefed Democrats on Monday night about three more potentially gruesome demonstrations planned in the coming days, with one plot to encircle the U.S. Capitol and assassinate Democrats and some Republicans. On a private call Monday night, new leaders of the Capitol Police told House Democrats they were closely monitoring three separate plans that could pose serious threats to members of Congress as Washington prepares for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. The first is…

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The Washington Post reports: A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s pro-Trump protest planned to do harm. A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted…

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The New York Times reports: Scrutiny increased on Monday on how President Trump sought to foment anger at a rally of his supporters and then dispatched them to the Capitol shortly before they rioted last week, as House Democrats on Monday unveiled an article of impeachment accusing him of inciting an insurrection. Here is an overview of some of the broader forms of legal jeopardy the president may be facing. What criminal laws might apply? If a grand jury were…

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Kellie Carter Jackson writes: What Americans witnessed on their TV screens on Wednesday was not just an insurrection against American democracy—it was also an expression of white supremacy. As mobs of white Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building to ransack offices, terrorize lawmakers, and interrupt the certification of the presidential election, they were met with a notably weak show of force by the Capitol Police, who were responsible for quelling the insurrection. According to reports, more than 50 officers were…

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NPR reports: The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, says “hundreds” of people may ultimately face charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, which interrupted a session of Congress and left five people dead. Sherwin spoke with NPR’s Martin Kaste in an exclusive interview Saturday evening about the multiagency investigation, the challenges officials face and what they’ll be looking for. Sherwin says he doesn’t want to “Monday morning quarterback” the U.S. Capitol…

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Jamelle Bouie writes: The most shocking thing about Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol is that it happened. A mob of Trump supporters, some of them armed, stormed and vandalized both chambers of Congress, sending duly-elected lawmakers into hiding and interrupting the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. That this was whipped up by the president — “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: White House officials pushed Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs because President Trump was upset he wasn’t doing enough to investigate the president’s unproven claims of election fraud, people familiar with the matter said. A senior Justice Department official, at the behest of the White House, called Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak and told him he needed to step down because he wasn’t pursuing vote-fraud allegations to Mr. Trump’s…

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NBC News reports: An arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a national group representing the top law enforcement officers in their states, sent out robocalls encouraging people to march to the U.S. Capitol the day before the building was stormed by a pro-Trump mob. “At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” said the voice on the recording, which was obtained by NBC News. The calls, which did not…

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Dan Kois writes: I can’t stop thinking about the zip-tie guys. Amid the photos that flooded social media during Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol—shirtless jokers in horned helmets, dudes pointing at their nuts, dumbasses carrying away souvenirs—the images of the zip-tie guys were quieter, less exuberant, more chilling. And we’d better not forget what they almost managed to do. It’s easy to think of the siege of the U.S. Capitol as a clown show with accidentally deadly consequences. A bunch…

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BuzzFeed News reports: The FBI says there’s no evidence antifa played any role in the deadly mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday. “We have no indication of that, at this time,” said FBI Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono said at a Friday press briefing. A day earlier, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, also said investigators had not seen evidence of antifa involvement. Their comments come after Trump supporters such as Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz…

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David Priess and Jack Goldsmith write: The hours since Wednesday afternoon have seen a tidal wave of calls for Donald Trump to lose the powers and duties of the office for his role in the historic storming of the U.S. Capitol. There is a new push for impeachment. And news reports suggest that members of Trump’s Cabinet are considering invoking the 25th Amendment to take from Trump, in the words of the Amendment, “the powers and duties of the office”…

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Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump has prepared a sweeping list of individuals he’s hoping to pardon in the final days of his administration that includes senior White House officials, family members, prominent rappers — and possibly himself, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump is hoping to announce the pardons on Jan. 19 — his final full day in office — and his ideas are currently being vetted by senior advisers and the White House counsel’s office, the people…

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