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FBI probing whether rioters intended to harm lawmakers

InternationalJan 09. 2021A Trump supporter outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after others swarmed and invaded the building in a protest supporting the president’s claim that the Nov. 3 election was rigged against him. Washington Post photo by Matt McClain

By The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu and Matt Zapotosky

WASHINGTON – FBI agents are trying to determine whether some who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday intended to do more than cause havoc and disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and they are sifting through evidence to see whether anyone wanted to kill or capture lawmakers or their staffers, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Dozens have been arrested, and Friday, officials announced charges against an Arkansas man photographed in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office chair with a foot on her desk. But investigators also are working to determine the motivations and larger goals, if any, of those who had weapons or other gear suggesting they planned to do physical harm.

Some rioters, for instance, were photographed carrying zip ties, a plastic version of handcuffs, and one man was arrested allegedly carrying a pistol on the Capitol grounds.

“We’re not looking at this as a grand conspiracy, but we are interested in learning what people would do with things like zip ties,” said a law enforcement official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

No photos or videos that have surfaced so far suggest any of the individuals with zip ties tried to take hostages. One possibility being pursued by investigators is that some who burst into the building may be current or former law enforcement officers, or current and former military personnel, people familiar with the investigation said.

Some who participated in the larger pro-Trump protest this week do work in law enforcement.

Chris West, the sheriff of Canadian County in Oklahoma, for example, held a news conference Friday to dispute that he was the person pictured on social media who claimed he was inside the Capitol, according to a Fox affiliate there. West told reporters that though he did come to rally in the District of Columbia as an “individual” and Donald Trump supporter, he never set foot in the Capitol building and thought he was walking from Liberty Square in the direction of the Capitol when the violence began.

A sheriff in Bexar County, Texas, meanwhile, told reporters that one of his lieutenants – Roxanne Mathai – was under investigation after her Facebook posts appeared to show she was at the Capitol, according to a local ABC station. Mathai has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Many of the initial charges have been for unlawful entry, but authorities also found suspected pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, and they arrested the owner of a truck they said was spotted nearby with 11 molotov cocktails inside. The FBI is still searching for the person who left the suspected pipe bombs.

Adding to the investigation’s urgency, Twitter on Friday noted that plans for future armed protests have begun circulating online, including a proposed second attack on the U.S. Capitol and assaults on other state government buildings Jan. 17. Officials cautioned that there may be a variety of motives among those who broke into Congress, and they said that a key part of their investigation is determining whether any individuals or groups had planned in advance or were coordinating in the moment to commit violence against individual politicians. Others may simply have been caught up in the moment and committed rash, unplanned crimes, officials said.

Fresh in investigators minds is the group of men charged last year in Michigan – self-styled militia members – who are accused of plotting to kidnap that state’s governor and allegedly discussed storming their state capitol and taking lawmakers hostage. That case, however, was investigated surreptitiously for months during the planning stages, and the men were arrested before they carried out any abduction or attack. They have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. Now, the FBI is tasked with trying to discern the motives of people who have already stormed the halls of Congress.

Justice Department and FBI officials insisted Friday that they are throwing every available resource at the case, which involves hundreds of potential suspects, though the initial focus is on a smaller number of individuals who burst into the seat of the national legislature, interrupting a joint session of Congress, leaving lawmakers and staffers cowering in fear.

The attack on Congress, in which Capitol police were quickly overrun, has shaken officials throughout the federal government, and the FBI has agents in all 56 field offices nationwide pursuing leads.

“Just because you’ve left the D.C. region, you can still expect a knock on the door if we find out you were part of criminal activity in the Capitol,” said Steven D’Antuono, head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Former law enforcement officials said investigators would spend the coming days and weeks combing through social media, searching the phones and email accounts of suspects and taking other steps to determine whether the attack was coordinated. There are numerous social media posts indicating that people had talked in advance about storming the building.

“This is why you do investigations before you charge anybody,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and FBI official. “Did some number of them, maybe not all, did some number of them have an agreement that the law forbids?”

Rosenberg said it will take time for investigators to determine whether there were broader conspiracies. “Even though people act in concert, it doesn’t necessarily mean they conspired,” he said. “You could have 300 people with 100 separate conspiratorial agreements of three people each, or you could have a single conspiracy with 300.”

One person was fatally shot by Capitol police during the violence. Three others suffered medical problems that day and died. And overnight Thursday into Friday, a Capitol police officer who collapsed shortly after confronting the invading crowd died of unspecified injuries.

Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen extended condolences to the Capitol Police and the family of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of injuries sustained during the rioting, saying, “The Department of Justice will spare no resources in investigating and holding accountable those responsible.”

David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor who was a senior Justice Department official during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said Wednesday’s mayhem was uniquely scarring for the country.

“This is the greatest threat to our national security since Sept. 11, and a more dangerous, insidious threat, because unlike the attack on Sept. 11, our very democracy is now at stake,” Laufman said. “And there can be no higher priority for the Department of Justice and the FBI than to surge investigative efforts to hold accountable everyone who was responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, including any individuals who incited that attack.”

Laufman said that it was “fair to say that the intentions of every individual among the horde that invaded the Capitol like Visigoths were not uniform.”

“But it does appear, based on what’s in the public record now, that some held malignant intention to do harm to elected representatives, to the physical embodiment of our democracy, to derail the formalization of President-elect Biden’s election,” he said. “And it will take investigative work to parse out who was responsible for what and who held what intentions.”

Officials announced Friday that a recently elected state lawmaker from West Virginia, Derrick Evans, was charged with unlawfully entering restricted grounds after allegedly live-streaming a video of himself on his Facebook page.

“Bring the tear gas. We don’t care,” Evans is heard yelling. “We’re taking this country back, whether you like it or not. Today’s a test run. We’re taking this country back.”

A lawyer for Evans, John Bryan, has maintained that Evans is innocent, that he was not part of the violent mob that damaged the Capitol Building and that he had been exercising his First Amendment rights.

Prosecutors also announced that Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70, of Falkville, Ala., was charged Thursday on one federal and one local count of possessing an unregistered or unlicensed firearm, and was the registered owner of a red GMC pickup truck with Alabama plates parked near the Capitol in which officers allegedly found 11 molotov cocktails and an M4 carbine assault rifle.

Prosecutor Kenneth Kohl said police also found Coffman carrying two handguns. Federal agents discovered the truck while investigating suspected pipe bombs near the Republican National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill and its Democratic counterpart, Kohl said.

Kohl said that though the truck was investigated because of the suspected or “perceived pipe bombs,” Coffman was not charged in connection with those possible devices but with allegedly possessing the other weapons and destructive devices in his truck or on his person.

At an initial court appearance Thursday in Washington, Coffman did not enter a plea and was ordered held pending a hearing next week. In response to a U.S. magistrate’s questions over whether he wanted a court-appointed attorney, Coffman said he had earned a high school equivalency degree in the U.S. military after dropping out in the eighth grade to work on a farm.

The developments came as investigators described a sprawling inquiry that could take months. District police said they have received about 17,000 tips from the public after posting images of people of interest in the rioting. The FBI also has been inundated with leads after posting more than 40 photographs asking for assistance identifying people.

But the Justice Department also appeared to step back from remarks Thursday by Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who said President Trump’s own remarks before Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol could be investigated.

Asked about incendiary statements made by the president and other speakers at Trump’s rally shortly before a mob of his supporters breached security at the Capitol and wreaked havoc inside, Sherwin said: “Yes, we are looking at all actors here, not only the people that went into the building, but . . . were there others that maybe assisted or facilitated or played some ancillary role in this. We will look at every actor and all criminal charges.”

On Friday, asked about the possibility that Trump or other onstage speakers could face charges of inciting violence, Kohl clarified, “We don’t expect any charges of that nature.”

Afterward, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi elaborated, “Our focus is on the events at the Capitol. As of now, we have not charged anyone with incitement or insurrection. This is an extremely complex and ongoing investigation, and we will continue to follow the facts and the law.”

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House Democrats move rapidly toward impeaching Trump a second time

InternationalJan 09. 2021The day after hundreds of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Md.) said that Vice President Pence should invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office or she will begin impeachment proceedings against the president. She is seen during a Jan. 7 news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara

By The Washington Post · Mike DeBonis · NATIONAL, POLITICS, CONGRESS, WHITEHOUSE 

WASHINGTON – A growing corps of House Democrats, furious over the invasion of the Capitol on Wednesday by a mob inspired and encouraged by President Donald Trump, is pushing to rapidly impeach the president a second time – hoping to force Trump from office even a few days early rather than allow him to leave on his own terms.

Removing Trump by constitutional means is a tall order for the 12 days remaining in his presidency, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has not made a formal determination to move forward with a second impeachment, even as she consulted Friday with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about curbing Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. 

“With great respect, our deliberations will continue,” Pelosi said in a statement Friday evening that laid out several options including impeachment. She expressed hope that Trump would “immediately resign” instead.

President-elect Joe Biden declined to say Friday whether he supported Trump’s impeachment, giving space for the effort in the House to proceed: “I’m focused on the virus, on the vaccine and economic growth. What the Congress decides to do is for them to decide.”

Outrage over Wednesday’s events grew to a fever pitch Friday, making it difficult for Pelosi to ignore. But rushing into an impeachment proceeding could have serious ramifications for the opening weeks of the Biden administration – prompting a Senate trial that could prevent Cabinet nominees from being confirmed for weeks.

That is the point being subtly made in a fresh memo from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who sent a document to GOP senators that outlines how a potential Senate trial would work for Trump – proceedings that would all but certainly occur after he leaves the White House. 

In the memo, obtained by The Washington Post, McConnell’s office notes that the Senate will not reconvene for substantive business until Jan. 19, which means the earliest possible date that impeachment trial proceedings can begin in the Senate is the day before Biden is inaugurated.

Although the Senate will hold two pro forma sessions next week, on Jan. 12 and Jan. 15, it is barred from conducting any kind of business during those days – including “beginning to act on received articles of impeachment from the House” – without agreement from all 100 senators. With a cadre of Trump-allied senators in the Republican conference, that unanimous consent is highly unlikely.

In effect, that makes the matter of an impeachment trial an issue that will need to be taken up by incoming Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in the first days of the Biden presidency. McConnell and Schumer have not spoken about any impeachment proceedings, aides said. 

Pelosi and Schumer spoke Friday afternoon with Biden, but an account of the call provided by the Biden transition did not mention a discussion of impeachment. Aides to Pelosi and Schumer declined to comment on the confab.

Multiple House Democratic members and aides, however, said they hoped an impeachment vote could be scheduled by early next week. Virtually all of them said it was a matter of civic obligation.

“We have a great sense of unity that we have a moral obligation to act,” said Rep. Daniel Kildee of Michigan, a Democratic deputy whip. “If we can shave any number of days of the threat this president represents off the calendar, we will have done public good, but there’s also another important aspect of this. . . . It would be a more accurate view of history if this president suffered the ultimate penalty for his crimes against his country, no matter how many days are removed from his tenure.”

Trump acknowledged Thursday that there will be a new administration Jan. 20 but has not shown any indication that he will resign before then.

Pelosi said Friday in a letter to Democratic lawmakers: “If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action.” She did not specify what that action would be. 

In the letter, she also described speaking to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, “to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.” She further described Trump as “unhinged” and said lawmakers “must do everything that we can” to protect the nation from him.

The top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, warned Democrats against proceeding: “Impeaching the President with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more,” he said in a statement, adding that he had reached out to Biden to speak about how “to lower the temperature and unite the country to solve America’s challenges.”

The White House also spoke out. “A politically motivated impeachment against a President with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country,” said spokesman Judd Deere.

One key Senate Democrat also warned against proceeding with impeachment – saying that he preferred that Trump resign or be removed through the 25th Amendment, out of concern that an impeachment trial could hamstring the Biden administration.

“We have to put our government together quickly – that’s the most important thing we should do,” said Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va. “We don’t need any more political theater.”

In a three-and-a-half-hour conference call with Democratic lawmakers Friday in which the vast majority of those who spoke signaled support for impeachment, Pelosi did not tip her hand further about next steps, according to participants who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private call.

But other top Democrats were more forthright about proceeding quickly with impeachment, and some lawmakers said Friday that an impeachment vote could come together as soon as Monday or Tuesday if the decision is made to move forward.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said on the call that Trump “must be held accountable for his actions,” calling the Wednesday riot “an attack on the caucus, the Congress, the country and the Constitution that was incited and facilitated by Donald Trump.” Jeffries had called for Trump’s immediate impeachment in a tweet Thursday.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said in an MSNBC interview after the conference call Friday that “the sentiment of the caucus is moving toward impeachment: The American people have seen enough, and they are ready for us to do the job of impeaching this man.”

In a signal of the deep support for further action, more than 60 House Democrats signed a letter late Thursday asking top Democratic leaders to reconvene the House as soon as possible to “show the American people that Congress is continuing to meet its responsibilities in the face of extraordinary threats” and take action, including a possible impeachment. 

“We are the only branch of government that is capable of governing this country and led by sane and competent people,” reads the letter, led by Reps. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. “Going home and staying home until the eve of President Biden’s inauguration should not be an option.”

Two draft articles of impeachment have been circulated among House Democrats that cite Trump’s incitement of the mob and his delayed decision to encourage it to disperse as high crimes and misdemeanors necessitating removal.

One four-page draft that had 131 co-sponsors as of noon Friday impeaches Trump on the grounds of “Incitement of Insurrection” and accuses him of having “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government.” 

“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coordinate branch of government,” it reads. “He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., an author of that draft, said it was “unthinkable” that Congress would treat Wednesday’s events as just “one more unfortunate faux pas by the president.”

“We just suffered the most massive, violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol in American history since the War of 1812,” he said. “He has counseled and invited an attack on the Congress of the United States itself.”

No Republican House members have indicated that they would back impeachment. One, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump. Others have suggested that they would welcome Trump’s resignation or his removal under those circumstances.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., told “CBS This Morning” on Friday that he would “consider” any impeachment articles forwarded by the House. 

“He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” Sasse said. “He acted against that. What he did was wicked.”

While House Democrats could impeach Trump in the House on their own, removing him would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate – meaning 17 Republicans would have to join with the 50 Democrats that will be seated once Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are certified as the winners of last Tuesday’s Georgia runoffs. 

Senate impeachment trials are governed by an intricate and lengthy set of procedures that could be difficult to waive. Trump’s first impeachment trial, which concluded in February, lasted 20 days.

Trump could still be impeached after he leaves office, most constitutional scholars say, which would have the effect of barring him from the presidency again. But there is a political barrier to proceeding with a Senate trial: the impending inauguration of Biden, and his need to rapidly confirm a Cabinet.

A lengthy impeachment trial could obstruct efforts to staff Biden’s administration and prepare to govern amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as well as dire circumstances abroad, including a simmering threat from Iran. 

At a news conference Friday, Biden suggested those concerns were on his mind even as he chose not to dissuade lawmakers from impeaching Trump.

Were it six months from the end of Trump’s term, Biden said, “we should be moving everything to get him out of office – impeaching him again, trying to invoke the 25th Amendment, whatever it took.” 

“But I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and get our agenda moving as quickly as we can,” he said.

The House could have other options to take action in the coming days. Raskin has written a bill to create a commission on presidential disabilities to prepare for action under the 25th Amendment, and other House Democrats have called for censure of GOP lawmakers for inciting violence.

“We need every tool in our constitutional tool kit on the table to deal with the crisis,” Raskin said. “I believe we should work on parallel tracks to defend the government and the people of the United States.”

Pelosi on Thursday did not raise the disruption a Senate trial could cause but said that impeachment represented “the overwhelming sentiment of my caucus and the American people.”

“My phone is exploding with impeach, impeach, impeach,” she said. “The president must be held accountable again.”

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Twitter bans permanently Trump’s account, citing risk of further violence

InternationalJan 09. 2021

By The Washington Post · Nitasha Tiku, Tony Romm, Craig Timberg · NATIONAL, TECHNOLOGY, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE, MEDIA 

Twitter on Friday banned President Donald Trump from its site, a punishment for his role in inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol this week, robbing him of the megaphone he used to communicate directly with more than 88 million supporters and critics.

The move amounted to a historic rebuke for a president who had used the social-networking site to fuel his rise to political prominence. Twitter has been Trump’s primary communication tool to push policies, drive news cycles, fire officials, dispense falsehoods, savage opponents and praise allies. It also means his tweets disappeared from Twitter, removing the catalog of his thoughts except for those preserved by researchers and other documentarians.

A defiant Trump lashed out in response late Friday, accusing Twitter in a statement of having “coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left” to remove his account. He threatened regulation, promised a “big announcement” to come and said he is looking “at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future!” The official account for the presidency, @POTUS, also tweeted that message, although the posts were quickly taken down by Twitter.

Twitter had resisted taking action against Trump for years, even as critics called on the company to suspend him, arguing that a world leader should be able to speak to his or her citizens unfettered. But Trump’s escalating tweets casting doubt on the 2020 election – and the riot at the U.S. Capitol his comments helped inspire – led the company to reverse course.

Twitter specifically raised the potential that Trump’s recent tweets could mobilize his supporters to commit acts of violence around President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, an analysis that experts saw as a major expansion in the company’s approach to moderating harmful content online.

The move was especially remarkable for a company that once called itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” Many observers noted that this most aggressive enforcement action in Twitter’s history came in the week that political power shifted decisively in Washington, toward Democrats who long have demanded greater policing of hate speech and violent talk on social media – and away from a president and party who long had made effective use of the more free-wheeling policies of the past.

“It took blood and glass in the halls of Congress – and a change in the political winds – for the most powerful tech companies in the world to recognize, at the last possible moment, the profound threat of Donald Trump,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a longtime critic of tech company policies.

Twitter cited two Trump tweets. One stated that the 75 million who voted for him were “American Patriots” who will “not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” He then announced he would not go to Biden’s swearing-in ceremony later this month.

In a blog post, the company argued the two messages violated its glorification of violence policy since they “could inspire others to replicate violent acts” that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. According to Twitter, his second tweet could be read by followers as an encouragement to commit violence during the inauguration, which “would be a ‘safe,’ target as he will not be attending.”

In doing so, Twitter joined Facebook in punishing the president in the waning hours of his first term. Facebook said Thursday its suspension is indefinite, lasting at least the next two weeks, citing a similar belief that the risks are “simply too great” at a moment of transition for the country. Both tech giants previously joined Google-owned YouTube in removing or limiting access to Trump’s posts, including a video he shared earlier this week that once against advanced widely disproved falsehoods about the validity of the 2020 vote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Trump appeared to try to defy Twitter’s ban at one point by using @POTUS.

“We will not be SILENCED!” the president later charged in a statement.

Twitter’s punishment is the harshest judgment the site has at its disposal. It appeared to be the first time the company had ever taken such an action since instituting a broad policy around world leaders last year, illustrating the slow shift in Silicon Valley as the country’s most popular, prominent platforms grew more comfortable in taking on Trump.

Facebook, for example, had its first of many furious internal debates over how to handle Trump in December 2015, when as a presidential candidate he posted a video in which he said he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Many employees called it obvious hate speech, but top executives chose to defer, by creating an exemption for content they deemed “newsworthy.”

The challenges kept coming as Trump’s presidency and rhetoric brought mainstream attention right-wing ideas once considered beyond the fringe of appropriate political rhetoric. A particularly explosive flash point for both Twitter and Facebook came in May, when Trump made a social media post calling protesters after the killing of unarmed Black motorist George Floyd “THUGS.” Even then, though, Twitter opted to label Trump’s tweet as harmful and hide it from public view – and Facebook petitioned for Trump to change his tone in private. Neither suspended his account indefinitely.

But a shift within Silicon Valley began as the coronavirus swept through the world last winter, and the stakes of the rampant lies and misinformation on social media platforms were underscored by a rising body count as Trump and others denied the severity of the pandemic. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others all took action against viral falsehoods that were clearly contrary to science. Not long after, they dramatically stiffened policies against conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, and the rise of dangerous armed groups, such as the Boogaloo, born of largely unrestricted online worlds.

As the national election approached last fall, disinformation researchers, Democrats and civil rights activists demanded tougher action from tech companies whose platforms hosted and spread falsehoods. They gained some traction, but at a time when Trump and other Republicans were loudly claiming that they were being discriminated against by Silicon Valley, critics said it was not nearly enough.

Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, a civil rights group that has been pushing social media companies to police Trump’s behavior more aggressively, fretted on Friday that it took so long for Twitter and its peers to act given the president’s past missteps – and their potential to have touched off real-world violence.

“But kicking him off of Twitter, so he can’t spread disinformation and incite the public, is huge,” he said. “This is way too late, but I do not underestimate or undersell the significance of what this means moving forward without him having a direct line to reach an audience any time that he wanted to.”

Twitter said it delivered its final banishment out of a concern that Trump’s tweets essentially amounted to a “glorification of violence.” The company said his stated intention to skip the inauguration essentially served as “further confirmation that the election was not legitimate.” And Twitter found Trump’s rallying cry to his supporters served as “encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts”- partly because the president made clear he would not be in attendance personally.

In considering how his supporters might read and interpret his messages, Twitter also potentially opened the door for the company to take a more aggressive approach on other content, including tweets from political leaders in the future experts said.

“That’s a standard that’s never existed,” said Alex Stamos, a former Facebook chief security officer, now head of Stanford Internet Observatory, a disinformation research group. “The ‘impact’ standard has never existed.”

Stamos added that Twitter’s action – and Facebook’s recent enforcement efforts – meant that “the right-wing social media ecosystem in America has been shattered.”

The move comes amid a wave of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and Twitter’s own employees, who demanded in a letter written this week that the company’s leaders permanently suspend Trump’s account. In an internal letter addressed to chief executive Jack Dorsey and his top executives viewed by The Washington Post, roughly 350 Twitter employees requested an investigation into the past several years of corporate actions that led to Twitter’s role in the insurrection.

“Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump’s megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th,” the employees wrote. “We request an investigation into how our public policy decisions led to the amplification of serious anti-democratic threats. We must learn from our mistakes in order to avoid causing future harm.”

“We play an unprecedented role in civil society and the world’s eyes are upon us. Our decisions this week will cement our place in history, for better or worse,” the employees added.

In a statement, Twitter spokesperson Brandon Borrman wrote, “Twitter encourages an open dialogue between our leadership and employees, and we welcome our employees expressing their thoughts and concerns in whichever manner feels right to them.”

Twitter on Wednesday initially labeled Trump’s tweets about the election as disputed. But a subsequent video from the president – calling for calm while continuing to peddle disinformation – prompted the company to step up its enforcement actions. Twitter ultimately locked the president out of his account for the first time, requiring him to delete his offending tweets – then wait 12 hours – in order to regain access. That came Thursday morning, and Trump issued his first public comments on the site later that night. Twitter said it would suspend Trump permanently if he continues to break its rules, putting users at risk.

The letter is addressed to “Staff,” company lingo for C-suite executives who report directly to Dorsey, including Vijaya Gadde, who leads the company’s legal, policy, and trust and safety divisions. During a virtual meeting on Friday afternoon, Dorsey and Gadde shared their thoughts on Twitter’s response, according to an employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

After Twitter’s first-ever blockade of Trump’s account, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday morning that Facebook would also escalate its response to Trump. For the first time, Zuckerberg said Trump would be blocked from posting to his Facebook and Instagram accounts “for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

Zuckerberg’s response also followed internal pressure, including questions from employees posted on an internal message board.

Twitter’s move did cause unease in one quarter: Researchers have long complained that when the company suspends a user, valuable records of online conversations essentially vanish into thin air, making it nearly impossible to later reconstruct them – something particularly consequential when a platform is the primary means of communication for a U.S. president.

“It has implications from a historical point of view,” said Darren Linvill, lead researcher for the Clemson University Media Forensics Hub. “If you are the national conversation, they just sucked a big part of the national conversation away.”

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Amsterdam wants to restrict tourists from its marijuana shops

InternationalJan 08. 2021Customers wait to enter a coffee shop to purchase marijuana ahead of a new lockdown in Amsterdam on Dec. 14, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Peter Boer. Photo by: Peter Boer — Bloomberg Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

By Syndication The Washington Post, Bloomberg · Ellen Proper 

In an effort to clean up its image, Amsterdam aims to restrict a key tourist attraction: its coffee shops.

Only Dutch residents would be allowed to enter the cannabis-dealing outlets under a proposal by Mayor Femke Halsema. The plan, backed by local police and prosecutors, is aimed at tackling the flow of hard drugs and organized crime linked to the marijuana trade.

“The cannabis market is too big and overheated,” Halsema said in emailed comments. “I want to shrink the cannabis market and make it manageable. The residence condition is far-reaching, but I see no alternative.”

Halsema submitted the plan to the Amsterdam council on Friday, kicking off a political debate, including discussions over a transitional agreement with shop owners. She expects the policy to go into force next year at the earliest.

The initiative is the latest move by Amsterdam to actively reduce the flow of visitors and improve the quality of life for residents. Crowds have flocked to the city since cheaper flights made its historic center a popular weekend destination.

Before coronavirus lockdowns, its renowned red-light district, marijuana shops and picturesque canals attracted over 1 million visitors a month — more than its permanent population.

“Coffee shops, especially in the center, largely run on tourists,” Halsema said. “The increase in tourism has only increased demand” and attracted hard-drug criminality in the process.

While the tourism standstill from the pandemic has hit the city’s budget, Amsterdam’s first female mayor is determined to reshape the sector once the crisis eases. Being shutout of the freewheeling marijuana trade could turn off a large number of revelers.

A trip to a coffee shop was a “very important” reason for 57% of foreign visitors to the area that includes the red-light district, according to research commissioned by the city’s government.

Amsterdam is home to 166 coffee shops, and most wouldn’t be needed if the plan were in effect. Local cannabis demand would support only 68, according to the government study.

Similar restrictions have already been applied in Maastricht and Den Bosch, which reacted to coffee shops getting overloaded by visitors from Germany, France and Belgium. The efforts are underpinned by a 2013 Dutch law aimed at favoring the local cannabis market and reducing drug tourism.

Halsema says she expects support from the business community, with many entrepreneurs in the city center no longer in favor of Amsterdam’s reputation for unrestricted access to sex and drugs.

“We can be an open, hospitable and tolerant city, but also a city that makes life difficult for criminals and slows down mass tourism,” she said.

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UNESCO nod first step to protecting crafts

InternationalJan 08. 2021Techniques to restore thatched roofs are one of the 17 skills approved for addition to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.MUST CREDIT: Japan News-Yomiuri Photo by: Japan News-Yomiuri — Japan News-Yomiuri

By Syndication The Washington Post, The Japan News-Yomiuri · Yasuo Hayakawa, Masafumi Taga 

Traditional Japanese craftsmanship used in wooden architecture has been approved for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list by an intergovernmental committee of the Paris-based international body.

The committee approved the registration of “traditional skills, techniques and knowledge for the conservation and transmission of wooden architecture in Japan” at an online meeting last month.

The government and related organizations intend to promote Japanese craftsmanship worldwide, but there are still many tasks to be tackled when it comes to handing down skills and expertise.

The UNESCO registration covers 17 types of skills related to the preservation, repair and decoration of historical wooden structures. The government selected the 17 from a list of “chosen preservation skills” necessary for the conservation and repair of cultural properties and recommended that they be registered on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

In approving the registration, the UNESCO panel recognized skilled craftspeople’s fostering of successors and the activities of preservation organizations in conserving cultural assets, including timber-framed structures, of which the prime example is Horyuji temple in Nara Prefecture, the oldest wooden building in the world.

The panel emphasized that the registration is significant because it is in line with sustainable development.

Behind the government’s aim for registration was a sense of crisis over the passing down of technical skills. Wooden structures that require conservation are primarily national treasures and important cultural properties, and their repair cycles are said to come at intervals of several decades or every few hundred years. This fiscal year, there have been about 180 government-financed repair projects for such treasures and assets.

If skills are not passed on, it may affect the conservation of traditional buildings. These skills were predominantly used in the construction and maintenance of general housing, but demand has decreased due to the spread of modern construction methods, causing a serious shortage of craftspeople who belong to the 14 organizations responsible for passing down such techniques.

In the city of Ninohe, Iwate Prefecture, which is an urushi lacquer production center, there were reportedly about 200 craftsmen in the period immediately after World War II who specialized in harvesting the unrefined sap of lacquer trees. But the number of such tappers has declined to 30 today. In Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, there are only 20 craftsmen in the association for the preservation of the traditional technique used to produce entsuke gold leaf 10,000 times thinner than a millimeter.

The Association for Conservation of National Treasures in the city of Kyoto has 12 member companies and the number of craftspeople is barely holding at about 130. The ACNT is an assembly of experts involved in repairing artwork on paper sliding doors and walls. It takes 10 years for such skills to be fully acquired. But it is said that the member companies cannot afford to hire and foster craftspeople because they face financial difficulties.

The selected conservation skills, which include the 17 types registered on the UNESCO list, have already received government support for projects such as training successors. The registration does not mean that international conservation measures will be taken and is unlikely to lead to boosting consumption and attracting customers, unlike washoku Japanese cuisine and traditional performing arts like kabuki and noh, which have already earned Intangible Cultural Heritage status.

In fiscal 2019, the Cultural Affairs Agency launched a support program for intangible cultural properties. An official said the agency wants to “take advantage of the UNESCO registration to accelerate the momentum for conservation by promoting the spread of information.”

The national association in Kyoto for the preservation of techniques for roofing at shrines, temples and other facilities began to foster more craftspeople in 1974 after receiving government subsidies.

The number of craftspeople with expertise in cypress bark roofing, shingling and thatching had declined to critically low levels, but the association managed to expand it to about 170. The number of young craftspeople has been rising as a result of aggressive public relations activities. An association official hopes that the UNESCO registration will “provide further momentum.”

The Amanosan Cultural Heritages Research Institute in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture, which is a member of the Shrine and Temple Architectural Decoration Heritage Skill Association in Kyoto, successfully produced nikawa animal glue in 2012 after conducting repeated studies on the constituents of animal hides and other materials. This was prompted by a shortage of traditional nikawa adhesives used for the conservation and repair of buildings. The institute has been expanding its sales channels of the glue to entities within the same trade and foreign countries. “[Nikawa] is an indispensable material for conservation and repair techniques. But there is a limit to what can be done singlehandedly,” the representative director of the institute said, emphasizing the need for government support.

Karoku Miwa, head of Japan Conservation Project, who is also former executive director of the Kyushu National Museum, proposed making cultural property restoration a profession in which craftspeople can play an active role.

Restoration of the Daigokuden hall at the site of Heijokyo Palace remains in the city of Nara was completed by the Cultural Affairs Agency in 2010. The hall is in the style of the ancient Nara period. If historical timber-framed structures can be restored with traditional craftsmanship and materials, it will become possible to maintain skills and for craftspeople to promote their abilities. “In addition to continued assistance and the development of techniques to produce materials in short supply, it is necessary to provide opportunities for craftsmen to display their skills in various forms,” Miwa said.

To help preserve traditional techniques, the government has been striving to secure the materials needed to produce and maintain traditional crafts.

One thing that proved successful in recent years is a project to expand forests capable of ensuring a stable supply of timber, lacquer and rushes, which are necessary materials for the repair of cultural properties.

Started in fiscal 2006, the project was prompted by a considerable delay in the restoration of the five-story pagoda of Murouji temple in the city of Uda, Nara Prefecture, due to a shortage of cypress bark for roofing when the national treasure was damaged by a typhoon in 1998.

The number of designated forests, which initially stood at eight, has now increased to more than 80. These forests are used also to train craftspeople for cypress bark harvesting and lacquer tapping.

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Storming of Capitol was textbook potential covid-19 superspreader, experts say

InternationalJan 08. 2021Supporters of President Trump stand outside the east side of the Capitol. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Marissa J. Lang Photo by: Marissa J. Lang — The Washington Post

By The Washington Post · Paulina Villegas, Rachel Chason, Hannah Knowles 

Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol did not just overshadow one of the deadliest days of the coronavirus pandemic – it could have contributed to the crisis as a textbook potential superspreader, health experts warn.

Thousands of Trump supporters dismissive of the virus’s threat packed together with few face coverings – shouting, jostling and forcing their way indoors to halt certification of the election results, many converging from out of town at the president’s urging. Police rushed hundreds of members of Congress to crowded quarters where legislators say some of their colleagues refused to wear masks as well.

“This was in some many ways an extraordinarily dangerous event yesterday, not only from the security aspects but from the public health aspects, and there will be a fair amount of disease that comes from it,” said Eric Toner, senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Experts said that resulting infections will be near-impossible to track, with massive crowds fanning out around the country and few rioters detained and identified. They also wondered if even a significant number of cases would register in a nation overwhelmed by covid-19. As Americans shared their shock and anger at the Capitol breach Thursday, the United States reported more than 132,000 people currently hospitalized with the virus and more than 4,000 covid-19 deaths, the highest single-day tally yet.

“It is a very real possibility that this will lead to a major outbreak but one that we may or may not be able to recognize,” said Toner. “All the cases to likely derive from this event will likely be lost in the huge number of cases we have in the country right now.”

Trump devotees who flocked to the capital this week said they were unconcerned by the virus, belittling common precautions known to slow its spread and echoing the president’s dismissive attitude toward rising case counts. Trump had encouraged them to gather in defiance of his election loss: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he tweeted last month. “Be there, will be wild!”

Mike Hebert, 73, drove two days from Kansas to participate. Marching toward the Capitol Wednesday with an American flag, he said he did not feel the need to wear a face covering.

“I am as scared of the virus as I am of a butterfly,” said Herbert, adding that he is a veteran who was shot twice in Vietnam.

Sisters Courtney and Haley Stone left New York at 11 p.m. to make it to the Capitol by morning so they could quietly counterprotest, draped in Biden gear. “Do you want a mask? I have one,” Haley, 22, asked a Trump supporter, only to be rebuffed.

“Oh, you believe in the mask hoax?” the woman replied.

Health experts predicted Wednesday’s events will contribute to an ongoing case surge in the greater Washington region. The average number of daily new infections in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia reached a record high Thursday, and current covid-19 hospitalizations in the District have risen 19 percent in the past week.

They also noted differences with other large gatherings such as Black Lives Matter protests. Fewer people wore masks during the Capitol protests and riot, they said, and crowds were indoors.

“If you wanted to organize an event to maximize the spread of covid it would be difficult to find one better than the one we witnessed yesterday,” said Jonathan Fielding, a professor at the schools of Public Health and Medicine at UCLA.

“You have the drivers of spreading at a time when we are bearing the heaviest burden of this terrible virus and terrible pandemic,” he said.

Calling in to CBS News Wednesday, Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild (D) described her evacuation to a “crowded” undisclosed location with 300 to 400 other people.

“It’s what I would call a covid superspreader event,” she said. “About half the people in the room are not wearing masks, even though they’ve been offered surgical masks. They’ve refused to wear them.”

She did not identify the lawmakers forgoing face coverings beyond saying they were Republicans, including some freshmen. The Committee on House Administration says it is a “critical necessity” to mask up while indoors at the Capitol, and the District has a strict mask mandate.

“It’s certainly exactly the kind of situation that we’ve been told by the medical doctors not to be in,” Wild said.

“We weren’t even allowed to get together with our families for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” she said, “and now we’re in a room with people who are flaunting the rules.”

At least one member of Congress has tested positive since the mob spurred an hours-long lockdown. Newly elected Kansas Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R) tested positive for the coronavirus late Wednesday evening, according to a statement posted on his Twitter account. It said he is not experiencing symptoms.

“LaTurner is following the advice of the House physician and CDC guidelines and, therefore, does not plan to return to the House floor for votes until he is cleared to do so,” the statement said.

Luke Letlow, a 41-year-old congressman-elect from Louisiana, died of covid-19 last month.

Any infections among members of Congress and their staff will be far easier to contact-trace than those among rioters, said Angela Rasmussen, an affiliate at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.

“It certainly would have been easier if they were detained by Capitol police and identified, but testing suspects may be something to consider as law enforcement begins to identify them,” Rasmussen said in an email.

She noted that some may try to evade identification and criminal charges, and said she is deeply concerned for the households and communities they might expose.

“I think really rigorous contact tracing of people who are not identified as being present on Capitol grounds will not be possible,” she said.

– – –

The Washington Post’s Avi Selk and Rebecca Tan contributed to this report.

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Biden says race bias plain in handling of White mob

InternationalJan 08. 2021President-elect Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. “Totally unacceptable,” he said. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman

By The Washington Post · Annie Linskey, Chelsea Janes, Amy B Wang

President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday denounced what he described as an unequal justice system reflected in the lenient response to the mostly White rioters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol this week, suggesting a stark contrast with the treatment of racial justice demonstrators across the country last summer.

“You can’t tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said in Wilmington, before beginning to hammer his fist against the lectern. “We all know that is true. And it is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view.”

In some of his most pointed remarks to date on racial inequity, a topic he sometimes struggles to discuss despite his support from many Black voters, Biden pledged that the disparities would be addressed as he announced his Justice Department leadership team, including federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as attorney general.

A central goal of his presidency, Biden said, would be to restore the department’s independence and reputation after four years of politicization under President Donald Trump, noting that he had chosen people with years of experience at the agency.

“I want to be clear to those who lead this department who you will serve – you won’t work for me,” Biden said. “You are not the president or the vice president’s lawyer. Their loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, the Constitution, the people of this nation.”

Biden’s condemnation of racial injustice came after a year when police killings and street protests brought the issue vividly to the fore. Black activists have long cited a difference in the police handling of Black and White protesters, and the relatively hands-off treatment of Wednesday’s mob reinforced that impression for many.

Biden on Thursday related that his granddaughter Finnegan had sent him a photo of law enforcement officers lined up grimly at the Lincoln Memorial during a Black Lives Matter protest, highlighting a contrast with the handling of the Capitol mob, a disparity that many online commenters pointed out.

Biden takes control over the government in just two weeks, and he faces the additional complication of dealing with a Congress and a country reeling from Wednesday’s violence. Though some Republicans voiced disgust in the hours after rioters were cleared from the House and Senate chambers, the culture of division that led to the assault has been festering for years and is unlikely to dissipate quickly.

The events also hardened anti-GOP views among leaders of Biden’s own party – with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., now calling for Trump to be removed from office.

As he walked into the Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Biden brushed off a question from a reporter about whether he supports invoking the 25th Amendment to end Trump’s term. Standing onstage later, he referred to the question, saying, “I’m not going to speak to that today.”

Biden did make a point of connecting Trump’s long history of divisive rhetoric to the White rioters trashing the Capitol, at least one of them hoisting a Confederate flag.

“I wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming, but that isn’t true. We could see it coming,” Biden said. “For the past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, for rule of law, clear.”

It was an unusually harsh denunciation of an outgoing president by his successor. With less than two weeks remaining until Biden’s inauguration, the hostility between Trump and Biden is increasingly evident, as Trump continues to claim baselessly that he won the election.

With Thursday’s nominations, Biden has nearly finished filling out his Cabinet. In addition to Garland, his Justice Department team will include Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general, longtime civil rights advocate Vanita Gupta as the department’s No. 3, and Kristen Clarke as head of its civil rights division. All face Senate confirmation.

Biden and his allies stressed that Garland, Monaco and Gupta have deep experience combating domestic terrorism and systemic racism, remarks that came as some lawmakers were calling for Wednesday’s riot to be classified as terrorism.

Garland spoke about his experience prosecuting in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Biden noted that Monaco helped coordinate the federal investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing and that Gupta was part of the investigation into racial disparities in the police department in Ferguson, Mo., after the killing of a Black man by police led to widespread unrest.

Also Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said Biden has tapped Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to be commerce secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to be labor secretary.

In the fraught atmosphere after Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol, some leaders in the Democratic coalition wondered whether Biden’s pledge to be a “unifier” was enough, and whether they could or should come together with a Republican Party that for four years has supported Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and dubious actions.

“The posture here is going to have to shift from compromise and negotiation to setting the tone and setting the path,” said Alicia Garza, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. “This is complicated, because Biden really was selected in a lot of ways as a caretaker president.”

The moment also laid bare nuanced differences in how Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris view racial and social strife. In brief remarks Wednesday, Biden said the scenes at the Capitol “do not represent who we are” as a country, a sentiment he has regularly repeated.

Harris put it differently Thursday, saying, “We know we should be better than this,” suggesting that violence and racism are not an aberration but a tangible part of the country’s makeup that needs to be conquered.

“Sadly, yesterday was a big old mirror,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist with ties to Biden’s team. “Biden is trying to call to our better angels. Perhaps what he could say is, ‘This doesn’t have to be who we are.’ “

During the presidential primary, Harris sometimes voiced frustration at questions about whether Trump was a racist or white supremacist, saying such queries sidestepped deeper questions about the country.

“I will not take part in a conversation that simplifies this issue,” Harris said at one point. “It happened before this guy was in the White House, it will continue after this guy was in this White House. He is certainly fanning the flames of hate; there’s no question about that. But if we’re going to have this conversation, let’s have it in a meaningful way.”

Harris, a former prosecutor, also took a more explicit stance than many of her fellow Democratic candidates in suggesting that Trump should face legal consequences for his actions, suggesting months before he was impeached that some form of penalty was warranted. Biden was less willing to call for impeachment or other consequences.

“I’ve seen prosecution of cases on much less evidence,” Harris said after the publication of special counsel Robert Mueller III’s report, arguing that it provided enough evidence for charges of obstruction of justice against Trump.

More broadly, the question of disparate legal consequences for different individuals and groups has become a heated topic in the riot’s aftermath. Former first lady Michelle Obama was among those weighing in Thursday.

“There’s one question I just can’t shake: What if these rioters had looked like the folks who go to Ebenezer Baptist Church every Sunday?” she wrote, referring to a prominent Black church in Atlanta. “What would have been different? I think we all know the answer.”

Amid the swirling discussion of justice, race and equality, Biden’s choice of Garland as attorney general has not been welcomed by leading civil rights groups, which had hoped he would pick an attorney general with a stronger record on racial justice.

About a month ago, Biden and Harris had met with the heads of seven civil rights organizations, and they pushed him to choose an attorney general – preferably a person of color – with a clear track record of fighting for civil rights.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Biden confidant, said Thursday that he was disappointed in the selection of Garland and wanted to meet with the nominee. Sharpton said he was unclear on where Garland stood on some questions, such as whether it should be illegal for police to turn off their body cameras, as many civil rights activists want.

“Where will Garland stand on that? At least to me, I’m not clear at all where his divisions are,” Sharpton said. “I call on Garland to meet with civil rights leadership.”

By contrast, Sharpton said he was well acquainted with the rest of Biden’s nominees – including Gupta and Clarke – and hoped they would prioritize reviving the Justice Department’s civil rights division and aggressively protecting voting rights.

“I want to hear from them that they are going to investigate to the fullest degree of the law the attempted coup d’etat yesterday,” Sharpton said.

Biden has been careful to avoid talking about prosecuting the current president. But on Thursday, he offered harsh word on that front, too.

“Our president is not above the law,” Biden said. “Justice serves the people. It doesn’t protect the powerful. Justice is blind.”

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Fresh details emerge about woman’s shooting by Capitol Police

InternationalJan 08. 2021Melody Black cries on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021, at a memorial for Ashli Babbitt outside the Capitol, where she was shot and killed in a riot the day before. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain

By The Washington Post · Justin Jouvenal, Carol D. Leonnig

WASHINGTON – Shortly after a mob breached the Capitol on Wednesday, some in the group penetrated all the way to the Speaker’s Lobby, the hallway outside the House chamber, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the incident.

The rioters tried to break through the lobby’s elaborate glass and wood doors, which had been hastily barricaded with chairs and other furniture, the officials said. Ashli Babbitt, wearing a Trump flag as a cape, tried to climb through a smashed glass pane in one of the doors.

In the chaotic scene, a U.S. Capitol Police officer in a suit and surgical mask pointed a gun in her direction and fired a single shot, the officials said. Babbitt, a 35-year-old California native and Air Force veteran, was struck in the neck and later died. The two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because an investigation is ongoing, said she was unarmed.

It was unclear whether the officer, who works in the division that guards the House chamber, could see that, directly behind Babbitt and the cluster of trespassers with her, were other officers, with rifles in hand and in tactical gear, the officials said. They said a Capitol Hill staffer tried to help Babbitt after she fell.

During a day of rioting inside the Capitol that left offices vandalized and smoke wafting through hallways, the shooting was the most violent moment amid hours of unrest by a mob that overran security.

The circumstances surrounding the incident became clearer Thursday, as did the life of Babbitt, an ardent Trump supporter who traveled across the country from her home in the San Diego area to take part in the mayhem. Babbitt on Twitter referenced QAnon conspiracy theories and pushed baseless assertions that the November election was stolen from President Donald Trump.

“Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!” Babbitt tweeted the day before she died.

The Capitol Police announced Thursday that the officer involved in Babbitt’s killing had been placed on administrative leave as the department and District of Columbia police investigate the shooting. D.C. police probe all police shootings that occur in the city, even on federal grounds.

“The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.,” Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said in a statement that came hours before it was announced he would resign later this month.

The statement was the first Capitol Police had made since the rioting. The statement did not say when the name of the officer involved in the shooting would be released, and a spokeswoman for the department declined to answer additional questions. Capitol Police do not have body-worn cameras.

House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, Sund’s boss, also stepped down after sharp criticism of the handling of the violence at the Capitol.

D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee did not offer additional details about the shooting at a news conference Thursday. Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attorney for D.C., said his office is investigating.

“This is a tragic incident, and I send my condolences to the victim’s family and friends,” Contee said.

John Sullivan, a liberal activist, said in an interview broadcast on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that rioters were using flagpoles and other items to smash glass windows in the Capitol shortly before the shooting. Sullivan said Babbitt tried to make it through one of the windows in the barricaded doors into a part of the Capitol that had not been breached when the officer with the gun came out of a doorway.

“The second that she climbed through the window, she got shot right in the neck area, fell backwards,” Sullivan said in the interview. “I just remember the sense of shock and sorrow that somebody just died and did not need to die.”

In videos posted on social media, the Capitol Police officer is seen using a doorway as cover before he opens fire.

Babbitt is seen falling from the window frame to the floor as she is surrounded by Trump supporters and law enforcement officers with guns. In one video, officers shout at rioters to get back so Babbitt can be treated as she lies, sprawled out.

Timothy McEntee, Babbitt’s ex-husband, said she owned a pool-cleaning business and was outspoken. She listed herself as a libertarian on Twitter.

In one video posted to Twitter, Babbitt talks about liberal politicians and what she viewed as the negative impact of immigration on the U.S. economy. In another tweet, she called for Vice President Mike Pence to resign and to be prosecuted for treason, presumably for not being supportive enough of Trump’s calls to overturn the election.

“She’s a small-business owner in California and felt (much like others) that she was being wronged,” McEntee wrote in a text message.

In the days before the shooting, Babbitt retweeted a number of messages from demonstrators headed to D.C. for the protests on Wednesday. One read: “It will be 1776 all over again…. only bigger and better.”

McEntee said Babbitt loved the United States. She served on active duty for four years, with nearly six years in the Air National Guard, according to her service record provided to The Washington Post. Her last active-duty position was akin to a base police officer. She served in Iraq at least once.

Experts on police shootings said it will require more investigation to determine whether the shooting was justified. Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired New York City Police Department detective sergeant, said the chaotic nature of the incident will make a probe tricky.

“It’s going to be a very difficult justification investigation for sure,” Giacalone said. “You have a situation where the entire Capitol building is overrun and officers are severely outnumbered. Did he fear for his life?”

Ron Martinelli, a forensic criminologist and retired police officer, said that it was too soon to come to a conclusion about the shooting, but that it appeared “problematic.” He said the fact that Babbitt was crawling through a window pane was not reason enough to open fire.

“Entry alone does not constitute an imminent threat to apply deadly force,” Martinelli said.

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Pelosi demands Trump’s removal through 25th Amendment, threatens impeachment

InternationalJan 08. 2021

By The Washington Post · Felicia Sonmez, Colby Itkowitz, Mike DeBonis, Marisa Iati

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/09656dd0-da94-45f4-b17f-6ee113b9fe26?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

“By inciting sedition as he did yesterday he must be removed for office. While there’s only 13 days left any day could be a horror show for America,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Trump “invited an armed insurrection against the United States of America,” Pelosi said Thursday, a day after a pro-Trump mob incited by the president stormed the Capitol, vandalizing the building and forcing lawmakers to be evacuated.

Pelosi left open the possibility of impeaching Trump a second time.

Under the 25th Amendment, the president can be removed from office by the vice president plus a majority of the Cabinet, or by the vice president and a body established by Congress, if they determine that he “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

It would be an extraordinary step before the end of Trump’s term on Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, Pelosi called on Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to step down over criticism of his staff’s handling of the insurrection, and she said House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving had submitted his resignation.

Pelosi praised the actions of individual Capitol Police officers, but she said there was a failure of leaders who had not contacted her after the attack on the Capitol.

“Many of our Capitol Police just acted so bravely and with such concern for the staff, for the members, for the Capitol, for the Capitol of the United States, many of them, and they deserve our gratitude,” Pelosi said Thursday. “But there was a failure of leadership at the top of the Capitol Police. And I think Mr. Sund, he hasn’t even called us since this had, you know, [occurred], so I had made him aware that I would be saying that we’re calling for his resignation now.”

Sund has been the chief of the Capitol Police since 2019. Irving has been the House Sergeant of Arms since 2012.

Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Senate Sergeant of Arms Michael Stenger to resign.

Pelosi said there also needs to be a full review of the security failures at the executive branch level, such as the FBI’s intelligence, and how long it took the Pentagon to mobilize the National Guard.

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Chinese censorship invades the U.S. via WeChat

InternationalJan 08. 2021Zhou Fengsuo’s colleague, Ouyang Ruoyu, left, has also had his posts censored on the app WeChat and supports a U.S. ban. MUST CREDIT: photo for The Washington Post by Bryan Anselm.

By The Washington Post · Jeanne Whalen

NEWARK, N.J. – Zhou Fengsuo, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, hoped to leave Chinese censorship behind when he fled to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. But Chinese censors have caught up with him, through the social-networking service WeChat.

The mobile app, born in China and used by Mandarin speakers around the globe, has long blocked Zhou’s friends in China from seeing the political posts he shares from the WeChat account he created in the United States, Zhou says. Then about a year ago, the problem got worse, he says – friends with both U.S. and Chinese accounts said they couldn’t see his timeline posts, whether the material was political or mundane.

On a recent morning at Zhou’s third-floor walk-up apartment, he and his colleague, Ouyang Ruoyu, took out their phones to demonstrate the blockade. On Zhou’s phone, his recent WeChat posts were visible – pictures of fall foliage in the Catskills, a message celebrating the memory of the dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. But viewed from the U.S.-registered account on Ouyang’s phone, the space beneath Zhou’s profile photo was an empty white screen.

Two of Zhou’s other friends living in the United States, also using accounts created in the United States, said they couldn’t see Zhou’s posts either.

Seeing this kind of censorship leak into the United States is why Zhou says he supports the Trump administration’s push to ban WeChat.

“WeChat is a prison. It’s a gulag,” said Zhou, who runs the nonprofit group Humanitarian China. “For the United States, it’s a Trojan horse to influence society at every level. . . . That’s why it must be banned here.”

A dozen WeChat users in the United States and Canada shared censorship stories with The Washington Post, ticking off cases of messages that they sent from their North American phones disappearing before reaching friends – at times when those friends were also located in the United States and Canada. Some users also spoke about being unable to log into their accounts after sharing information critical of China.

Several of these users said they, too, support the White House’s aim of banning the app. Others said they don’t support a ban, but want the United States to pressure WeChat’s owner, the Chinese tech giant Tencent, to stop censoring content.

“Sue it, punish it, fine it,” said Yang Jianli, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre who now runs a nonprofit organization in Washington. The group, Citizen Power Initiatives for China, is attempting to organize a class-action lawsuit against Tencent, recruiting U.S.-based plaintiffs who have experienced censorship or other problems on WeChat.

In an emailed statement, Tencent spokesman Sean Durkin said the company “operates in a complex regulatory environment, both in China and elsewhere.”

A “core” tenet of the global company, he said, “is that we comply with local laws and regulations in the markets where we operate.”

WeChat has millions of users in the United States, who use it to keep in touch with family in China, where most Western communication apps, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, are banned. WeChat is known as Weixin inside China, where it is an enormously popular tool for connecting with friends, ordering food, reading news and shopping online.

Durkin said Tencent considers WeChat and Weixin to be “sister apps” that are “separate but interoperable,” with “each addressing different users groups and offering different content and features,” as well as being subject to “different regulatory environments.”

The Trump administration tried to ban WeChat from U.S. app stores in September, saying it posed threats to national security because it collects “vast swaths” of data on Americans and other users, and offers the Chinese Communist Party an avenue for censoring or distorting information.

But in September, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily halted the ban in response to a lawsuit from WeChat users in the United States, saying the plaintiffs had raised “serious questions” about a ban harming their First Amendment rights.

“Certainly the government’s overarching national-security interest is significant. But on this record – while the government has established that China’s activities raise significant national security concerns – it has put in scant little evidence that its effective ban of WeChat for all U.S. users addresses those concerns,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler wrote in a Sept. 19 order granting a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

One of the plaintiffs, Elaine Peng, a U.S. citizen in California who runs a nonprofit providing mental health care, told the court that she relies on WeChat to communicate with elderly Chinese American patients and their families. “Since many of the Chinese community members we serve are not fluent in English, WeChat is the only online tool that they rely on,” Peng said in a declaration filed in court. WeChat has 2.3 million weekly active users in the U.S., according to analytics provider App Annie.

An appeals-court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14 to consider the government’s motion to lift the preliminary injunction. President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment on the ban effort.

George Shen, a Chinese American technology executive in the Boston area, said he understands the judge’s concerns, but thinks the court should consider that WeChat “restricts freedom, rights and speech in this country.”

Shen said he has experienced censorship several times on the WeChat accounts he created in the United States. First, a photo he posted of Liu, the late dissident who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while serving a prison sentence for “inciting subversion,” was deleted from his timeline, Shen said. Then months later, in March 2019, his account was blocked with no explanation – Shen couldn’t log in for about a year. Soon after he created an online petition, calling for Tencent to “stop illegal censorship . . . or face sanctions.”

Shen created two additional U.S. accounts, and used them in June 2019 to share photos of Hong Kongers commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. “Both accounts, within a couple of hours, were immediately blocked,” he said, adding that he was unable to log in for a week or two.

Eventually he regained access to all of his accounts, but now nothing he shares from his original account – not even mundane, nonpolitical information – is visible to his friends in China, said Shen, who wrote a blog post recommending ways to avoid WeChat when communicating with people in China.

Chinese authorities require Tencent to heavily censor the app inside China. Posts about Chinese politics – and many other topics – disappear when they are sent to or from a China-registered account. Chinese authorities have used the app to monitor political dissidents and other critics, some of whom have been detained by police or sentenced to prison for their communications.

That censorship doesn’t remain in China, however. If a Chinese student or worker moves abroad and continues using an account created in China, the censorship will remain, according to Jeffrey Knockel, a research associate at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which studies information technology and human rights.

“Even if you move to the U.S. and switch your account to a U.S. number and U.S. device, you are still under Chinese political censorship,” he said, adding that many people like to keep their Chinese accounts to retain their contact lists and digital-payment details.

Tencent spokesman Durkin confirmed that an account created in China will always be treated as a Chinese Weixin account, even if the user moves abroad and accesses it from an overseas device.

“If a WeChat user sends a message to a friend using Weixin, China law applies to the Weixin user and certain content may be blocked,” he said in his emailed statement.

In a 2016 report, Citizen Lab said the number of users potentially affected by this cross-border censorship was “vast,” including “students studying abroad, tourists, business travelers, academics attending international conferences, and anyone who has recently emigrated out of China.”

Knockel said Citizen Lab hasn’t documented any automated political censorship of communications traveling only between WeChat accounts created outside of China. But Zhou’s case shows that some U.S.-registered accounts are indeed blocked for other U.S.-registered users. Durkin declined to comment on Zhou or other individual cases.

Earlier this year, Citizen Lab researchers reported another disturbing phenomenon: WeChat was subjecting overseas accounts to surveillance to train algorithms used to censor information in China.

“We show that files and images shared by WeChat users with accounts outside of China are subject to political surveillance, and this content is used to train and build up the censorship system that WeChat uses to censor China-registered users,” Citizen Lab researchers wrote.

If the United States had stronger data protection laws, Tencent might have had to disclose this surveillance to users, Knockel said. “If that sort of transparency were necessary and people understood the risks of using the app, then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about whether to ban it,” he said.

Asked about the report, Tencent said: “With regard to the suggestion that we engage in content surveillance of international users, we can confirm that all content shared among international users of WeChat is private.”

Zhou left China for the United States in 1995, after serving a prison sentence for his leadership role in the Tiananmen protests. He went to business school at the University of Chicago, spent 19 years working in finance and then gave up gainful employment to work for Humanitarian China, which he co-founded in 2007 to provide aid to families of political prisoners in China.

He said he created a WeChat account in the United States about six years ago. It was a useful way to contact people back home, but he experienced censorship early on, hearing from friends in China that they couldn’t see his political posts.

Then about a year ago, friends with U.S. accounts started telling him they couldn’t see his timeline. His colleague at Humanitarian China, Ouyang Ruoyu, has two accounts – one that he created in China and another that he created after moving to the United States because Tencent kept suspending his Chinese account over his criticism of China, he said. On both accounts, Zhou’s timeline is blank, Ouyang demonstrated for The Post, toggling between his accounts on his U.S. phone.

Ouyang came to the United States as an asylum seeker in 2019, after running into trouble with Chinese authorities over his and his father, Ouyang Yi’s, political activism, he said. He kept using the WeChat account he created in China, logging into it via a username and password on his U.S. phone, because he wanted to keep in touch with his contact list. But at times his friends can’t see what he’s sharing.

In early December, Ouyang wrote a post on his Chinese account expressing support for Zhang Zhan, a Chinese journalist sentenced to four years in prison for her coverage of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. On Ouyang’s phone, the post successfully appeared on the timeline of his Chinese account.

But several days later, a friend in China said he couldn’t see the message. And when Ouyang logged into his own U.S. account to check whether he could see the post on his Chinese account, he couldn’t.

“I just read ‘1984.’ There is a sign, ‘Big Brother is watching you.’ That is what I feel,” Ouyang said about WeChat, adding that he supports a U.S. ban.

Jiabao “Jack” Ji, a Chinese law student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, also maintains two WeChat accounts. He mostly uses his original account, which he registered in China, but he also created one in the United States.

Ji said he treats the censorship almost like a game, drumming up new ways to try to trick the WeChat algorithms that block content.

In summer 2019, when Ji was trying to share photos on his Chinese account of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, his posts weren’t visible to others.

“If you want to post a picture of a kid in Hong Kong who got shot by police, the algorithm doesn’t allow you to,” he said. “You have to do a lot of tweaking to un-censor it.”

From his Madison apartment, he found a workaround, realizing that the photos would be visible if he posted them upside down. Later, when that technique stopped working, he started using Photoshop to draw random yellow lines on sensitive pictures, which allowed the photos to escape censorship.

Ji said he continues using WeChat “for sheer convenience,” to keep in touch with Chinese friends. He said human rights activists in China often use the encrypted messaging app Signal, one of the few Western apps that isn’t blocked, or Telegram, another encrypted app that Chinese users can access through a virtual private network.

But “if you want to connect to normal people in China, you have to have a WeChat account,” Ji said.

Asked about the proposed ban, Ji initially said he supported it, because it would force Chinese speakers to find a different communication tool that the Chinese authorities have less ability to control. Later, he said he had “mixed feelings” because as a libertarian, he has concerns about the U.S. government using its power to ban a messaging tool.

A short drive from Princeton, N.J., Teng Biao and his family have grown accustomed to grappling with WeChat censorship.

Early last year, Teng opened his U.S.-registered account to praise Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor silenced by authorities for sounding an early alarm about coronavirus. But Teng’s family member, who lives under the same New Jersey roof, couldn’t see the post on his China-registered account, which he logs into on his U.S. phone.

And when Teng’s wife, Lynn Wang, tried to post an item to her China-registered WeChat timeline in December, she had to delete several politically sensitive words and names before anyone could see the item.

Teng, a dissident who fled China after clashing with the authorities over his human rights work, said he often censors himself on WeChat, avoiding political posts and mostly sticking to personal photos and news so his friends back home “might know I am still alive.”

He agrees that banning WeChat would “bring a lot of inconvenience” to Chinese speakers. But ultimately Teng said he supports the idea.

“I think WeChat should be banned because it is a censorship tool and also a propaganda and misinformation tool,” he said. “WeChat is controlled by the Chinese authorities. It’s not like another Twitter or Facebook.”