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sabra's JournalNew video shows Romney running to safety as rioters breach security
Source: The Hill
House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a chilling new video at former President Trump’s impeachment trial showing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman redirecting Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in the halls of the Senate to protect him from the mob storming the Capitol.
Democrat Stacey Plaskett, a delegate from the Virgin Islands, narrated the never-before-seen footage.
In the video, Romney can be seen striding toward the Senate chamber. Goodman is running toward him and can be seen shouting orders at him as he passes, causing Romney to quickly turn around and run for safety.
“Officer Goodman passes Sen. Mitt Romney and directs him to turn around in order to get to safety,” Plaskett said.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/538309-new-video-shows-romney-running-to-safety-as-rioters-breach-security
Graham assures Trump of acquittal after rocky start to trial
Source: The Hill
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of former President Trump’s closest Senate allies, reassured Trump Tuesday evening that he will be acquitted on a charge of inciting an insurrection, even though his lawyers received bad reviews after opening arguments.
“I think his team will do better, can do better,” Graham told reporters, summarizing his conversation with Trump. “I reinforced to the president, the case is over. It’s just a matter of getting the final verdict now.”
Graham made his confident prediction after 44 Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), voted against proceeding with a trial that Trump’s defense team argued was unconstitutional.
Graham said Trump didn’t appear to be frustrated with the opening arguments, even though CNN reported Tuesday that he was close to screaming at the television while watching his lawyer Bruce Castor deliver a meandering opening statement.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/538244-graham-assures-trump-of-acquittal-after-rocky-start-to-trial
New York DJ who appears to have smoked pot during Capitol riot arrested after tip
Source: CNBC
A New York DJ was arrested Tuesday after the FBI said he was seen on a Snapchat video smoking what appears to be marijuana in the U.S. Capitol rotunda during the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
“Holy s---! This is history! We took the Capitol!” a man believed to be that DJ, Greg Rubenacker, said on a Snapchat video posted by Rubenacker’s account during the invasion, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors.
“Smoke out the Capitol, baby,” Rubenacker is seen saying while facing a camera on a subsequent video, while “smoking what appears to be a marijuana cigarette (or ‘joint’)” as he and other people who occupied the rotunda mill around, an FBI agent wrote in that complaint.
“Hell yeah,” Rubenacker is seen saying before exhaling smoke into the rotunda after one of his fellow rioters says, “How many joints we have?” the complaint says.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/09/capitol-riot-trump-fan-greg-rubenacker-busted-after-smoking-pot-in-rotunda.html
House Managers To Present New Evidence At Trump Impeachment Trial
Source: NPR
The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump will feature evidence "that nobody has seen before," House Democrats say.
The trial gets under way Tuesday with up to four hours of arguments about the constitutionality of the Senate weighing whether to convict a former president no longer in office.
In a briefing for reporters ahead of the trial, senior aides on the House impeachment managers team said they plan to use "all the evidence available in all the forms, including evidence that nobody has seen before."
"It's not about politics," one aide said. "This is about the very serious issue of holding President Trump accountable."
Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/09/965816733/house-managers-to-present-new-evidence-at-trump-impeachment-trial?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Fox asks court to drop $2.7 billion Smartmatic defamation suit, citing press protections
Source: CNBC
Fox Corporation is asking a New York state court to drop a $2.7 billion defamation suit brought against it by voting technology firm Smartmatic, saying its broadcasts after the Nov. 3 election were protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
Smartmatic, which supplied voting systems used in Los Angeles County, brought its suit on Thursday, alleging the Fox News, a subsidiary of Fox Corporation, spread then-President Donald Trump’s lies about the election, including conspiracy theories related to its voting machines, in order to turn a profit and curry favor with Trump.
Surrogates of the president baselessly claimed that Smartmatic machines were used to steal votes for Trump and count them for President Joe Biden as part of a multiyear conspiracy, including outlandish theories about sending votes overseas.
In a response filed late Monday, Fox responded that Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election was “objectively newsworthy” and that Fox was serving in its role as a news provider by allowing the then-president’s attorneys and surrogates to make their case on television.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/09/fox-asks-court-to-drop-smartmatic-suit-saying-claims-were-newsworthy.html
Biden to announce purchase of 200M more doses of Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 vaccines
Source: ABC News
President Joe Biden will announce Tuesday that his administration has secured commitments from coronavirus vaccine makers to buy another 200 million doses to arrive this summer, raising the total to 600 million and ensuring the U.S. will eventually have two shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for nearly every American.
Biden also was expected to tell the nation to expect a modest uptick in production in the near term -- from 8.6 million doses a week to 10 million a week for the next three weeks, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
The announcement does not resolve the major shortages the nation is experiencing now, and does not suggest the Biden administration has found a novel way to ramp up production quickly.
The slight uptick to 10 million in the next three weeks had been expected, as vaccine makers slowly expand supply.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-announce-purchase-200m-doses-pfizer-moderna-covid/story?id=75497450&cid=clicksource_4380645_5_heads_hero_live_hero_hed
DC National Guard commander says Pentagon restricted his authority before riot
Source: The Hill
Pentagon officials restricted the commander of D.C. National Guard’s authorities ahead of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the commander told The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday.
Normally, a local commander would be able to make decisions on taking military action in an emergency when headquarters approval could take too much time.
But Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, told the Post the Pentagon took that power away from him ahead of the Capitol riot, which meant he could not immediately deploy troops when the Capitol Police chief called asking for help as rioters were about to breach the building.
“All military commanders normally have immediate response authority to protect property, life, and in my case, federal functions — federal property and life,” Walker told the Post. “But in this instance, I did not have that authority.”
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/535888-dc-national-guard-commander-says-pentagon-restricted-his-authority-before-riot
Capitol rioter Garret Miller says he was following Trump's orders, apologizes to AOC for threat
Source: CNBC
A Texas man charged with invading the Capitol and threatening Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Monday that he was effectively following then-President Donald Trump’s orders when he joined a mob that stormed Congress on Jan. 6.
Garret Miller also apologized to Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for writing “Assassinate AOC” in a Twitter post. He said he would be willing to testify to Congress or in a trial about the riot.
Miller, 34, had on a social media account also threatened a Capitol Police officer who fatally shot a fellow rioter, saying he planned to “hug his neck with a nice rope,” authorities have said.
The Richardson resident’s apology came as a federal judge in Dallas ordered him detained without bail pending trial, after finding he was both a danger to the community and a flight risk, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/25/capitol-riots-garret-miller-says-he-was-following-trumps-orders-apologizes-to-aoc.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=Main&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1611605519
Sen. Leahy, not Supreme Court chief justice, expected to preside over impeachment trial
Source: USA Today
House Democrats will carry today their article of impeachment against Donald Trump across the Capitol to the Senate. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the president pro tempore of the Senate, is expected to preside over the trial, which will start Feb. 9.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/25/politics-live-updates-trump-impeachment-article-goes-senate/6698416002/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/politics/patrick-leahy-trump-impeachment.html
Senator Patrick Leahy, the longest-serving Democrat, will preside over Trump’s impeachment trial.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Senate president pro tempore, is expected to preside over former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial when it formally begins on Tuesday, assuming a role filled last year by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., aides and other officials said on Monday.
The Constitution states that the chief justice of the United States presides over any impeachment trial of the president or vice president. But it does not explicitly give guidance on who should oversee the proceeding for others, including former presidents, and it appeared that Chief Justice Roberts was uninterested in reprising a time consuming role that would insert him and the Supreme Court directly into the fractious political fight over Mr. Trump.
Mr. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, recently reclaimed the mantle of president pro tempore — the position reserved for the longest-serving member of the majority party — when Democrats took control of the Senate. Mr. Leahy, 80, has been in office since 1974.
The role was largely ceremonial in the first impeachment trial of Mr. Trump a year ago. But as the presiding officer, Mr. Leahy could issue rulings on key questions around the admissibility of evidence and whether a trial of a former president is even allowed under the Constitution.
AP source: Lawmakers threatened ahead of impeachment trial
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal law enforcement officials are examining a number of threats aimed at members of Congress as the second trial of former President Donald Trump nears, including ominous chatter about killing legislators or attacking them outside of the U.S. Capitol, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The threats, and concerns that armed protesters could return to sack the Capitol anew, have prompted the U.S. Capitol Police and other federal law enforcement to insist thousands of National Guard troops remain in Washington as the Senate moves forward with plans for Trump’s trial, the official said Sunday.
The shocking insurrection at the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob prompted federal officials to rethink security in and around its landmarks, resulting in an unprecedented lockdown for Biden’s inauguration. Though the event went off without any problems and armed protests around the country did not materialize, the threats to lawmakers ahead of Trump’s trial exemplified the continued potential for danger.
Similar to those intercepted by investigators ahead of Biden’s inauguration, the threats that law enforcement agents are tracking vary in specificity and credibility, said the official, who had been briefed on the matter. Mainly posted online and in chat groups, the messages have included plots to attack members of Congress during travel to and from the Capitol complex during the trial, according to the official.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/lawmakers-trump-impeachment-trial-b9a44a269d6cfeee28e79b46572d28a6
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