Report: Lawmakers Were Not Informed About Police Request For Backup Ahead Of Capitol Attack

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Capitol security officials failed to inform House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ahead of last week’s attack that the Capitol Police had warned they might need reinforcement from the National Guard, according to a report from The New York Times.

The police request, made to the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and calling for the National Guard be put on standby, arrived as intelligence revealed Trump supporters were planning to target the Capitol on Jan. 6, a congressional official told the Times.

But the sergeants-at-arms, Michael Stenger of the Senate and Paul Irving of the House, who have since resigned, rejected the request without raising the issue with either McConnell or Pelosi,  the aide and another person familiar with the matter told the publication.

Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, and a person close to McConnell told the Times that the leaders had not been informed of any request for the National Guard before Jan. 6.

The development is particularly significant as the sergeants-at-arms would likely have needed to ask both leaders whether or not to approve the request.

The sergeants-at-arms and the chief of the Capitol Police had reassured lawmakers ahead of the joint congressional meeting that was disrupted by rioters last week that security was prepared for the day’s events.

Former Capitol Police chief Steven Sund previously told the Washington Post that Irving has been opposed to putting the National Guard on standby over concerns about the “optics” of an effort that involved their presence.

Sund, who also resigned in the aftermath of the attack, said that the Senate sergeant-at-arms had told him to informally reach out to the National Guard.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) who was briefed on the security matter by Army secretary Ryan McCarthy also told the publication that the Defense Department’s additional attempts to bolster security with National Guard support were rebuffed as both the Metropolitan Police and the Capitol Police said no additional resources were needed.

NYT: Atlanta Prosecutor Weighs Criminal Investigation Into Trump For Election Interference

Posted on by Zoe Richards

Prosecutors in Georgia appear to be closely weighing a criminal investigation into President Trump over his efforts to overturn election results in the state, The New York Times reported late Friday.

The inquiry would be the second known criminal investigation of the President that falls outside of any potential protection from a federal pardon.

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Capitol Police Are Investigating Whether Lawmakers Gave Tours To Rioters Before Capitol Attack

Posted on by Zoe Richards

The Capitol Police said on Friday that they are investigating whether members of Congress had inappropriately provided visitors access to the U.S. Capitol before last week’s insurrection, responding to concerns raised by several lawmakers that some of their colleagues may have given rioters in Trump’s mob an inside look at the building ahead of its attack. 

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MyPillow CEO Spotted Bringing Notes To WH That Appear To Reference ‘Martial Law,’ Installing New CIA Director

Posted on by Kate Riga

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell brought notes with him to a meeting in the West Wing Friday that zoomed-in photographs appear to show contained the phrases “martial law,” “Insurrection Act” and “foreign interference in the election.” 

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Vaccine Skepticism And A Failed Coup: How Disinformation Is Striking Back

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

“Well that was a weird week.” 

That’s been the general sentiment among my friends and family. Few of us even know how to talk about presidential sedition, Capitol Hill mobs and the worst pandemic America has faced in a century. But I think there’s a general source for all these things: our social media disinformation complex is poisoning our health, politics, and the ability to act like a rational society.

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A Common Line Keeps Emerging From Capitol Rioters: Trump Asked Us To Be Here

Posted on by Matt Shuham

Faced with arrest and detention for their alleged crimes at the Capitol riot last week, some of the President’s supporters blurted out a bracing dose of reality, according to news reports and court documents: Donald Trump asked me to be there.

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ICYMI: Your TPM Weekend News Roundup

Posted on by David Taintor

Impeachment 2.0

  • President Trump loves the unprecedented. And this week, he became the only American president to be impeached twice.
  • Ten Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues to impeach Trump. Almost exactly a year ago, no House Republicans voted for Trump’s first impeachment.
  • A Republican congressman who backed impeachment told MSNBC that he and his colleagues are altering their routines and looking into purchasing body armor, as Congress and the nation reels from the deadly insurrectionist violence last week.
  • Trump apparently had to be dissuaded from dropping in on the impeachment proceedings, according to the New York Times.
  • In a surreal scene at the Capitol, National Guard troops have been stationed inside the building and sleeping on marble floors.
  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has not specified when she will send the impeachment article over to the Senate for a trial, but a couple of Republican senators have already indicated they will not vote to convict the President. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he doesn’t believe a former president can be convicted. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of Trump’s biggest enablers over the past four years, warned that impeachment would further divide the country.

The Capitol Riot Comes Into Focus

An Active Threat

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DOJ Quietly Closes Investigation Into PA Ballots That Captured Trumpworld’s Imagination

Posted on by Kate Riga

The Justice Department closed a case involving nine military ballots found in a dumpster in Pennsylvania without fanfare on Friday, an incident that once set Trumpworld ablaze.

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DOJ: Hundreds Of Capitol Insurrection Cases Opened, Months Of Investigation Ahead

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

Federal law enforcement officials investigating the Capitol insurrection warned on Friday that it could take months before “the full puzzle” of what happened on Jan. 6 is put together.

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Beyond Trump’s Dismal Approval Rating, Polls Show Some Troubling Republican Trends

Posted on by Kate Riga

The toplines of a tranche of new polls released since the Capitol insurrection show general themes: that Americans do not support the takeover of their government seat, and that President Donald Trump’s approval rating is steadily dropping. 

But the crosstabs reveal a much darker picture. Majorities of Republican voters do not hold Trump or GOP lawmakers responsible for the violence their election fraud lies helped incite, and in some cases are even inclined to be sympathetic to the rioters themselves. 

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