1/ House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the riots at the Capitol that left five people dead last week. The four-page impeachment article charges Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” Nancy Pelosi said the House will vote to impeach Trump on Wednesday if Pence doesn’t seek to remove him under the 25th Amendment or Trump doesn’t resign first. The impeachment resolution has at least 218 co-sponsors – enough to ensure passage – which would make Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. While it’s unlikely that the Senate will hold a trial before Trump leaves office on Jan. 20, a conviction after his term ends would prevent Trump from federal office again. Earlier, during a pro forma session, Democrats attempted to pass a measure by unanimous consent calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, but House Republicans blocked the request. Pence reportedly hasn’t ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment, but wants to preserve the option in case Trump becomes more unstable. (New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / CNN / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / NBC News / ABC News / The Guardian / CNBC)
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Live Updates: New York Times / Washington Post / The Guardian / NBC News / CBS News -
A 75-year-old congresswoman tested positive for the coronavirus after sheltering in a room with lawmakers who refused to wear masks during the takeover of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a cancer survivor, tested positive after maskless Republicans — including Reps. Andy Biggs, Michael Cloud, Markwayne Mullin, and Scott Perry — refused masks offered by Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester while in the room. (Washington Post / Washington Post) | | |
2/ White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former Attorney General William Barr warned Trump against pardoning himself. Trump was advised that he could potentially face civil liability for his role in inciting the attack by encouraging his supporters to storm Congress. The federal investigation into the insurrection has put the entire pardon process “on hold,” meaning people who have been lobbying Trump for pardons, including Rudy Giuliani, may not receive one. (CNN / ABC News)
3/ The FBI warned law enforcement agencies of possible “armed protests” at all 50 state Capitols and at the U.S. Capitol starting Jan. 16. The FBI has also received information about a group calling for “storming” state, local, and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings if Trump is removed from office prior to Biden’s inauguration. “They have warned that if Congress attempts to remove POTUS via the 25th Amendment,” the bulletin read, “a huge uprising will occur.” (ABC News / NBC News / CNN)
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The National Guard will increase the number of troops in Washington, D.C., to at least 10,000 in advance of the presidential inauguration. Troop levels could rise to 15,000. About 6,200 Guardsmen have already deployed to D.C. (Politico / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Axios) -
House and Senate security officials declined Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s request that the D.C. National Guard be placed on standby two days before pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. The FBI and the New York City Police Department also passed information to Capitol Police about the possibility of violence before the rally last week (Washington Post / NBC News) -
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf resigned, days after criticizing Trump over the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Wolf joins Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as the the third Cabinet-level official to quit. (CNBC / Associated Press / Axios / CNN / Washington Post) | | |
4/ Twitter permanently banned Trump “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” The decision came after Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, and other platforms made similar decisions. Twitter said two tweets that Trump had posted — one calling his supporters “patriots” and another saying he would not go to Biden’s inauguration — “were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” Trump then tried to evade the ban by using the @POTUS Twitter account to send four tweets complaining that “Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech,” accusing Twitter employees of coordinating with Democrats “to silence me.” The Trump campaign’s Twitter account was also permanently banned after it shared the same four-tweet thread that Trump had attempted to post from the @POTUS account. Twitter also removed the accounts of Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and other supporters of Trump who promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory. Trump reportedly went “ballistic” after getting banned and losing direct access to more than 88 million followers. (New York Times / CNN / NBC News / NPR / CNBC / Axios / CBS News)
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Amazon, Apple, and Google removed Parler – an app popular with Trump supporters, conservatives, and extremists – from their platforms. Parler, meanwhile, sued Amazon, alleging that the decision was “motivated by political animus” and anti-competitive reasons. Amazon Web Services cut off service to Parler, saying the platform violated Amazon’s terms of service by not doing enough to combat death threats and other risks to public safety. (New York Times / BuzzFeed News / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNBC / Politico) -
Stripe will no longer process credit card payments for Trump’s campaign website following last week’s riot at the Capitol. (Wall Street Journal) -
The PGA Championship will no longer be held at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., next year. The organizers canceled plans to hold the event at Trump’s golf club in 2022 in the wake of last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, saying “It’s become clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand.” The Trump Organization responded, saying: “This is a breach of a binding contract, and they have no right to terminate the agreement.” (Associated Press / Washington Post / ABC News / NJ.com / New York Times) | | |
5/ Trump urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to “find the fraud” in a December phone call, saying the official would be a “national hero.” The call was separate from another Trump call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s presidential election results. On Dec. 23, Trump called the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state’s office and attempted to intervene in Raffensperger’s ongoing investigation into allegations that Cobb election officials had accepted mail ballots with signatures that didn’t match those on file. State officials ultimately concluded that the allegation had no merit. Since Election Day, Trump has made at least three calls to government officials in Georgia in an attempt to overturn Biden’s victory. (Washington Post)
- White House officials forced Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign because Trump was upset he wasn’t doing enough to investigate baseless claims of election fraud. (Wall Street Journal)
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6/ About 2% of the U.S. population has been vaccinated since the FDA approved the first two vaccine candidates a month ago. The U.S. seven-day average of coronavirus-related deaths, meanwhile, now exceeds 3,000 a day. In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Senate Democrats demanded that the Trump administration correct its “significant failures” in the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, saying the U.S. “cannot afford for this vaccination campaign to continue to be hindered by the lack of planning, communication, and leadership we have seen so far.” The Trump administration set a goal of inoculating 20 million Americans by the end of December, but only 9 million have received their first dose despite nearly 25.5 million doses have been distributed. Biden has promised 100 million shots in his first 100 days. (Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / CNN)
poll/ 74% of voters say democracy in the United States is under threat. 56% say they hold Trump responsible for the mob that stormed the Capitol. (Quinnipiac / New York Times)
poll/ 57% of Americans want Trump to be immediately removed from office after he encouraged his supporters to riot inside the Capitol. (Reuters / ABC News)
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