With only a week left in his term, the House impeached President Trump, but he will leave office before he stands trial in the Senate.
— NYT: Top Stories
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Why remove or impeach Trump now?
Author: Michelle Dryden
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A man of many genres, he still strives to pursue his long-time goals, even during a viral pandemic.
— Provided photo
For Omar Tyree, who is an established writer “extraordinaire,” from Philadelphia, with accolades of honors for his books and public speaking, and who also flirts with music and film, he says, “Money Talks Louder,” is a film that he still wants to get made.
Even though a lot has slowed down during these Covid-19 Pandemic days, with many artists, businesses, schools and other places deferring regular duties, goals, and even dreams, Tyree still wants to pursue something bigger than books.
“The big difference between me being a book writer instead of a filmmaker is all the money, time, and people it takes to make a film,” Tyree states.
“Of course, I would love for many of my books to be adapted to film, but it’s very tedious process that I don’t really have the patience or the temperament to stomach. Nevertheless, we’re now working on getting those first Omar Tyree films out there, and we’re very close now,” he discloses.
For nearly a year now, everyone has been trying to figure out what is really important and essential in their lives. Even though many have been severely impacted by the virus crisis, they still continue to be resilient by finding a way to continue doing what makes them happy.
— Provided photo
Already well-known for his most popular book, “Flyy Girl,” Tyree keeps seeking donations as fundraiser for his film, “Money Talks Louder,” which is about a “desperate college girl (who) hustles to pay for her final years of school.”
The screenplay is written, produced, and directed by Tyree under his production company called “Hot Lava Entertainment.”
He has a “micro budget of $10,000,” and wishes to fundraise more for the music soundtrack. The cameraman, writer, producer, director and the editor are all priorities of the execution for the production, he said.
Also, the “popularity of the acting talent for marketing is the priority of the investors,” he explained.
Tyree hopes to start shooting within the month of January through February.
For more information, you may reach him at
Facebook: Omar Tyree
Twitter: @OmarTyree
IG: @Only1OmarTyree
LinkedIn: Omar Tyree
FILE – This Aug. 24, 2020 file photo shows Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin at the White House in Washington. The U.S. government’s deficit in the first three months of the budget year was a record-breaking $572.9 billion. The Treasury Department reported Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021 that with three months gone in the budget year, the deficit was $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period a year ago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s deficit in the first three months of the budget year was a record-breaking $572.9 billion, 60.7% higher than the same period a year ago, as spending to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic pushed outlays up while revenue declined.
The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that with three months gone in the budget year, the deficit was $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period a year ago.
The deficit, the shortfall between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, reflects an 18.3% jump in outlays to $1.38 trillion, a record for the period, while revenues fell 0.4% to $803.37 billion. The deficit is the difference between revenue collections and outlays.
For just the month of December, the deficit totaled a record $143.6 billion.
The deficit for the 2020 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, climbed to an all-time high of $3.1 trillion. Beginning in the spring, Congress passed trillion-dollar-plus spending measures to combat the harm being done to the economy from a pandemic-induced downturn.
The recession, which has seen millions of Americans lose their jobs, has also meant a drop in tax revenues at a time when the demand on government support programs such as unemployment benefits and food stamps has risen.
— Associated Press
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., gives troops a tour in the Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House impeachment debate on Wednesday heard a distorted account of President Donald Trump’s remarks to his supporters a week ago when he exhorted them to “fight like hell” before they swarmed the Capitol.
REP. GUY RESCHENTHALER, R-Pa.: “At his rally, President Trump urged attendees to, quote, unquote, peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. There was no mention of violence, let alone calls to action.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s speech was a call to action — a call to fight and save the country.
“Our country has had enough,” he told those who went on to stage the violent siege of the Capitol.
“We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal.”
Reschenthaler accurately quoted a line from Trump, when the president told supporters “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
But throughout his remarks, Trump spoke of the need to “fight,” to be angry, to stop President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.
— “We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
— “We want to go back, and we want to get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.”
— “Nobody knows what the hell is going on. There’s never been anything like this. We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.” The crowd repeatedly chanted “Fight for Trump!” “Thank you,” Trump said.
He assailed “weak,” “pathetic” Republicans who were not standing with him in his push to overturn the election results, and said “there’d be hell all over the country” if Democrats had been robbed of an election win.
“But just remember this,” he went on. “You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody, and they try and demean everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation.”
—”We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe over the past several weeks.”
He told his refuted stories of “ballot harvesting” and thousands of dead people voting.
—”And we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world, we got to get rid of them. We got to get rid of them.”
He perhaps meant challenging Republicans like Rep. Cheney of Wyoming in primaries, telling the crowd “in a year from now, you’re going to start working on Congress.” But he did not say exactly what he meant by getting rid of people.
“So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he concluded after more than an hour.
He didn’t walk, but they did, bearing Trump flags, overwhelming police and occupying the Capitol in an hours-long melee that left five people dead and exposed Trump to the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.
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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck
Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck
— Associated Press
FILE – In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol in Washington. As rioters converged on the U.S. Capitol building, the grounds normally hailed as the seat of American democracy became a melting pot of extremist groups. Militia members, white supremacists, paramilitary organizations and fervent supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stood shoulder to shoulder, unified in rage. Experts say years of increasing partisanship and a growing fascination of paramilitary groups combined with the coronavirus pandemic to create a conveyor belt of radicalization. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — As rioters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, the seat of American democracy became a melting pot of extremist groups: militia members, white supremacists, paramilitary organizations, anti-maskers and fanatical supporters of President Donald Trump, standing shoulder to shoulder in rage.
Experts say it was the culmination of years of increasing radicalization and partisanship, combined with a growing fascination with paramilitary groups and a global pandemic. And they warn that the armed insurrection that left five people dead and shook the country could be just the beginning.
“We look at it like a conveyor belt of radicalization,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights. “Once they step on that conveyor belt, they’re inundated with propaganda that moves them along that path until they’re willing to take up arms.”
Photographs and video of the Capitol siege showed people wearing attire with symbols associated with the anti-government Three Percenters movement and the Oath Keepers, a loosely organized group of right-wing extremists.
Many of those who stormed the Capitol were wearing clothes or holding signs adorned with symbols of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the baseless belief that Trump is waging a secret campaign against the “deep state” and a cabal of sex-trafficking cannibals. One of the intruders was wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, a reference to the Nazi death camp.
Those who monitor online chatter say the threat of more violence by far-right fringe groups hasn’t abated, though it has been tougher to track since the social media platform Parler, a haven for right-wing extremists, was booted off the internet.
“We’re certainly not out of the woods yet. I’m afraid that we’re going to have to be prepared for some worst-case scenarios for a while,” said Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University who studies U.S. militia groups.
The FBI is warning of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday. Cooter believes smaller gatherings at state capitals are a greater threat than a large, centrally organized event in Washington, given the heightened security there.
How many extremists are out there is unclear. Individual fringe groups tend to be small, with the largest claiming hundreds of members, but countless others have been swept up in the fury of late.
To understand the mix of extremists in the Capitol melee, it helps to look at history.
Much of the modern militia movement was a reaction to the push for tougher gun control laws in the 1990s. An 11-day standoff that left three people dead on Idaho’s Ruby Ridge in 1992 galvanized the movement, as did the disaster in Waco, Texas, the following year, when 76 people died in a fire after a 51-day standoff at the Branch Davidian cult compound.
A decade later, Cliven Bundy and his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy engaged in armed standoffs with the federal government, first in a fight over grazing rights on federal land in Nevada in 2014, then in a 40-day occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016. Those standoffs drew the sympathies of some Western ranchers and farmers who feared they were losing the ability to prosper financially.
Meanwhile, America’s white supremacy movement — as old as the country itself and energized by the civil rights movement of the 1960s — used every opportunity to stoke racism and increase recruitment. Within the last two decades, nationalists and white supremacists were especially successful in leveraging anti-immigration sentiment and the backlash over Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president in 2008.
Some who follow such movements say the coronavirus pandemic provided the perfect recruitment opportunity.
Militias helped distribute surplus farm produce to the unemployed. Neo-Nazis pushed conspiracy claims that the government was trying to limit “herd immunity.” An anti-government group launched by Ammon Bundy last spring called People’s Rights held an Easter church service in defiance of a lockdown order in Idaho.
“That was the moment that sent a message nationwide that it was OK to take an insurrectionist posture toward COVID guidelines — and from that moment you saw this take hold across the country,” said Burghart, whose organization published an October report on the People’s Rights network.
While previously those upset about COVID-19 rules would complain online, suddenly individuals were defying authorities by opening their gyms or refusing to wear masks in very confrontational ways. For these individuals, social media accelerated a radicalization process that normally takes years into just a few months, fueled by the powerlessness many felt amid COVID-19 shutdowns.
“You had all of these kind of small interventions to try to fight against any kind of common-sense health restrictions,” Burghart said. “And in that moment you saw, simultaneously, militia activists getting involved in the COVID struggle and COVID insurrectionists taking up the militia posture and wanting to get involved with militia groups.”
The danger could intensify. The Capitol insurrection both further normalized the idea of violent government overthrow and allowed extremist groups to network with a broader population, said Lindsay Schubiner, an expert in extremism with the Western States Center.
As those groups continue to train and expand — many already offer instruction in weapons, first aid, food storage and ham radios — the risk of “lone wolf” actions also increases, she said, with members taking matters into their own hands when they feel their group has not gone far enough.
Stewart Rhodes, an Army veteran who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009, had been saying for weeks around the election that his group was preparing for a civil war and was ready to take orders from Trump. The group recruits current and former law enforcement officers and military personnel.
During a Nov. 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars show, Rhodes said he had “good men on the ground already” in the Washington area who were “armed, prepared to go in if the president calls us up.”
“In case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it,” he said.
Users on militia forums cheered on the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol and hailed them as patriots, according to a review of social media posts by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. Many saw the attack as a call to arms.
Authorities have arrested more than 100 people on charges linked to the Capitol siege, but court documents don’t publicly identify any of them as members of a militia-style group, according to an Associated Press review of records.
Less than a week after the riot, several armed men in tactical gear with “Texas Militia” labels on their combat fatigues greeted Trump as he arrived in Texas on Tuesday. Texas GOP chairman Allen West, a former Florida congressman, posed with the group for a photo.
Stopping extremist groups may be impossible, but pushing those groups further to the political margins is possible, Schubiner said.
“Everyone who believes in inclusive democracy and does not believe in political violence needs to come out and say so strongly, and then back that up with actions,” she said.
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Flaccus reported from Portland, Oregon and Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland. Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Austin, Texas contributed to this report.
— Associated Press
A senior is vaccinated against COVID-19 at a New York State vaccination site in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021, in New York. New York state expanded COVID-19 vaccine distribution Tuesday to people 65 and over, increasing access to an already short supply of doses being distributed. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
More Americans are now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine but they may still face a wait for their first shot even as supplies increase.
Drugstore pharmacists are now doling out the shots in many states, and sports arenas and fairgrounds are planning big clinics. This latest push is focused for now on people deemed most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
The government this week announced it will no longer hold back the required second doses of vaccines, boosting supplies for first shots.
A closer look:
WHEN IS MY TURN?
It all depends on your age, your health and where you work or live. States ultimately determine the order in which people qualify for the vaccine, although the federal government is offering guidance.
First up: Front-line health care workers and nursing home residents, who started receiving shots last month. States are now expanding to other categories to include others deemed at high risk from COVID-19, like people age 75 and older, firefighters and teachers.
This week, federal health officials urged states to speed things up even more and lower the threshold to age 65 and up. Florida and Georgia and Washington, D.C., had already started doing this.
Federal officials also suggested including people under 65 who have certain health problems that make them more vulnerable if they get sick.
The vaccine is likely months away for most younger people. The two vaccines available in the U.S. haven’t been authorized for children.
WHERE CAN I GET THE VACCINE?
The options are expanding and vary depending on where you live.
Pharmacies are already doling out vaccines to eligible customers in states like Alaska, California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas. That list will grow and it will include grocers and retailers like Walmart that have pharmacies, aside from just drugstores like CVS or Walgreens.
Football stadiums, major league ballparks and fairgrounds are being turned into vaccination sites around the country so health officials can ramp up shots while allowing people to maintain social distance.
A vaccination site opened Wednesday at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which was used as a field hospital after the coronavirus pandemic first struck last spring.
Check with your state or local health department for information on open sites near you. T he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’s website offers links to state health departments and their vaccination plans.
Some states like Arizona, California and Virginia have allowed counties to determine who is eligible to receive the vaccine next, said Jennifer Tolbert of the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation.
WILL I NEED AN APPOINTMENT?
Yes. At least initially, sites will require people to sign up ahead of time and verify that they are eligible for a shot.
Appointments can usually be scheduled online and also by phone. But expect some delays in signing up and finding a free slot.
The registration system in Washington, D.C., was quickly overwhelmed after the city opened up vaccines to residents 65 and older on Monday. People reported problems with the website and hours-long waits to register by phone.
WILL I WAIT IN LINE?
You may have to sit in your car or stand in line depending on where you get the vaccine. But appointments are designed to minimize those waits and allow people to maintain a safe social distance while in line.
Georgia pharmacist Jonathan Marquess said Tuesday that he has given out about 1,000 shots so far, and his customers haven’t had to wait long. The independent drugstore owner said he’s spaced appointments 10 minutes apart to avoid lines and keep people apart.
“Be patient, we will get to you,” he said.
HOW WILL THE VACCINATIONS WORK?
The process is fairly simple, like getting a flu shot. People may have to show their identification or verify their eligibility before they get jabbed in the arm. Shots will be recorded in state and local vaccine registries.
Those with a history of severe allergic reactions may be asked to wait 30 minutes after the shot before leaving, while most others will only have to wait 15 minutes. This will be required even for people who use drive-through clinics.
Pharmacists and nurses are trained to handle the rare allergic reactions that can occur, said Kathleen Jaeger, an executive with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
“This is not new to the COVID vaccine,” she said, noting that some sort of waiting period is recommended for all vaccines.
There are two vaccines available in the U.S. made by Pfizer and Moderna. Both require two doses three or four weeks apart for full coverage. Recipients can expect to receive a card and phone or email reminders to return for their second shot of the same vaccine.
WHAT’S THE COST?
It should be free. The government is paying for the vaccine itself. And you shouldn’t be charged a copay or other fee to get it.
The cost for giving the shot will be covered by private and government insurance. If you don’t have insurance, providers can tap a government fund to cover costs.
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AP Reporter Candice Choi contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
— Associated Press
FILE – This March 19, 2020, file photo, shows an envelope containing a 2020 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident. The U.S. Census Bureau has denied any attempts to systemically falsify information during the 2020 head count used to determine the allocation of congressional seats and federal spending. The Census Bureau statement was issued Monday night, Nov. 9, in response to reports by The Associated Press of census workers who said they were told by supervisors to enter fake answers on the head-count forms in order to close cases in the waning days of the census. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
U.S. Census Bureau statisticians are under significant pressure from Trump political appointees to figure out who in the U.S. is in the country illegally, and they’re worried that any such report they produce in the waning days of the Trump administration will be inaccurate, according to the bureau’s watchdog agency.
Two Trump appointees to top positions at the Census Bureau, Nathaniel Cogley and Benjamin Overholt, are the driving force behind the effort, according to a memo from the Office of Inspector General posted Tuesday. The appointments of Cogley and Overholt last year were highly criticized by statisticians, academics and Democratic lawmakers, who worried they would politicize the once-a-decade head count.
Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham has set a Friday deadline for bureau statisticians to provide him a technical report on the effort, whistleblowers told the Office of Inspector General.
“Bureau officials are concerned that incomplete data could be misinterpreted, misused, or otherwise tarnish the Bureau’s reputation,” said Inspector General Peggy Gustafson in the memo to Dillingham.
Gustafson’s memo asked Dillingham to answer what he intends to use the information for and why he was making it a top priority. The Census Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
President Donald Trump two years ago ordered the Census Bureau to use administrative records to figure out who is in the country illegally after the Supreme Court blocked his administration’s effort to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census questionnaire. The statistical agency has not publicly said what method it’s utilizing to do that.
Information about the citizenship status of every U.S. resident could be used to implement another Trump order seeking to exclude people in the country illegally from the count used for divvying up congressional seats and Electoral College votes, as well as the annual distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending, among the states.
An influential GOP adviser had advocated excluding them from the apportionment process in order to favor Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. Trump’s unprecedented order on apportionment was challenged in more than a half-dozen lawsuits around the U.S., but the Supreme Court ruled last month that any challenge was premature.
However, the ability to implement Trump’s apportionment order is in jeopardy since the processing of the data is not scheduled to be done until early March, many weeks after Trump leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in Jan. 20. Biden has said he opposes the effort.
The whistleblowers told the Office of Inspector General that the Census Bureau has not set rules for categorizing the citizenship status of U.S. residents. Bureau statisticians also do not fully understand the data since portions came from outside the bureau and they are worried incomplete data could be misinterpreted.
“One senior Bureau employee went as far to say that this work is statistically indefensible,” the Inspector General’s memo said.
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP.
— Associated Press
Hundreds of National Guard troops hold inside the Capitol Visitor’s Center to reinforce security at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021. The House of Representatives is pursuing an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his role in inciting an angry mob to storm the Capitol last week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the fallout from the attack of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump loyalists (all times local):
10:05 a.m.
Democratic lawmakers have opened the historic impeachment effort in the House by saying that every moment Donald Trump is in the White House the nation is in danger.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., says the debate is taking place at an “actual crime scene and we wouldn’t be here if it were not for the president of the United States.”
The House is considering impeaching Trump for the second time after last week’s riots at the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify the election results. McGovern says it was Trump and his allies who were stoking the anger of the violent mob.
He says Trump told the crowd to march to the Capitol and “the signal was unmistakable.”
Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said Jan. 6th would live in his memory as the darkest day of his service in the House. But Cole says the Senate could not even begin to consider impeachment until after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.
He says he can think of no action the House can take that would further divide the American people than the actions being taken Wednesday. He says “it’s unfortunate that a path to support healing is not the path the majority has chosen today.”
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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE FALLOUT FROM THE RIOTING AT THE CAPITOL:
The U.S. House plans the unprecedented vote Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time. The move comes one week after he encouraged a mob of loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results and the U.S. Capitol became the target of a deadly siege.
Read more:
— House on verge of 2nd impeachment of Trump
—FBI says it warned of prospect of violence ahead of riots
—Trump’s GOP wall erodes ahead of impeachment vote
—Safest place in Washington no more: A reporter’s disbelief
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON:
9:50 a.m.
As the House opens its impeachment hearing, the District of Columbia National Guard says it has been authorized to arm troops assigned to security duty on the U.S. Capitol grounds.
The Guard said in a statement that the authority was requested by federal authorities and approved by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy as of approximately 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Up to 15,000 Guard members are expected to be on duty in coming days in the district to support law enforcement in connection with the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Authorities are concerned about threats of violence, following the insurrection at the Capitol last week.
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9:25 a.m.
The House has opened its proceedings Wednesday, poised to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time exactly a week after his supporters stormed the Capitol to protest his election defeat.
At least five Republicans have said they will join Democrats in voting to remove Trump from office. The article of impeachment charges the president with “incitement of insurrection.”
The House chaplain opened the session with a prayer for “seizing the scales of justice from the jaws of mob-ocracy.”
A vote is expected by the end of the day.
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8:15 a.m.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is predicting more Republicans will join him in voting to impeach President Donald Trump.
The House is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on impeaching Trump for a second time, accusing him of rallying a violent mob of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol last week. If that isn’t an impeachable offense, Kinzinger said, “I don’t know what is.”
Several other Republicans are backing impeachment, including No. 3 GOP leader Liz Cheney.
“This is one of these moments that transcends politics,” the Illinois lawmaker told “CBS This Morning” in an interview ahead of the vote.
Besides Kinzinger and Cheney, other Republicans backing impeachment are John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington.
Kinzinger wouldn’t say how many more GOP lawmakers might vote to impeach, but said, “there’ll be more than the five you’ve seen so far.”
— Associated Press
President Donald Trump tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, in Alamo, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republicans offered only modest reproach when President Donald Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a white supremacist rally. They stayed in line when Trump was caught pressuring a foreign leader and later defended his handling of a deadly pandemic.
But with a sudden force, the wall of Republican support that has enabled Trump to weather a seemingly endless series of crises is beginning to erode.
Trump’s weakened standing among his own party will come into sharper focus on Wednesday when the House is expected to impeach the president for inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol last week. A handful of Republicans have already said they’ll join the effort, a number that could grow as the vote nears.
The choice facing Republicans isn’t just about the immediate fate of Trump, who has just seven days left in his presidency. It’s about whether the party’s elected leaders are ready to move on from Trump, who remains popular with many GOP voters but is now toxic in much of Washington.
How they proceed could determine whether the party remains viable in upcoming elections or splinters in a way that could limit their relevance.
“We’re at the moment now where we’re seeing a fracturing, a breaking, because of the unprecedented situation — the sedition, the violence, the death,” said Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party because of Trump.
The stunning nature of the deadly insurrection — and Trump’s role in fueling it — has shaken many lawmakers. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, gave rank-and-file conservatives the green light to abandon Trump in a scathing statement Tuesday evening.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she charged.
More ominously for Trump, The New York Times reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks Trump committed an impeachable offense and is glad Democrats are moving against him.
Citing unidentified people familiar with the influential Kentucky Republican’s thinking, the Times reported McConnell believes moving against Trump will help the GOP forge a future independent of the divisive, chaotic president.
While stunning, the fast-moving developments do not ensure Trump will be forced from office before Democrat Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The timing of a Senate trial is unclear and could spill into Biden’s presidency.
But for the first time, there are real signs that a significant faction of Republicans want to purge Trump from their party.
Already, three Trump Cabinet members have resigned in protest. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who left the White House less than a month ago, accused his former boss of a “betrayal of his office.”
It took almost a week for Vice President Mike Pence, whose relationship with Trump has soured considerably since he and his family were forced into hiding during the Capitol siege, to publicly declare he would not invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to remove Trump from office.
Despite the defections, Trump remains popular with a significant portion of his political base. The president’s remaining allies warn that Republicans who cross him publicly risk a conservative backlash in their next elections.
“Public and private polling shows Republican grassroots voters strongly oppose impeachment,” said Jason Miller, a Trump senior adviser. “Any Republican senator or congressman voting for impeachment will be held accountable in their next primary election.”
Trump emerged from his White House fortress for the first time since the riots for a trip to the wall his administration built along the Texas border. As he left Washington, he was careful to insist “we want no violence,” but denied any responsibility for the insurrection.
Once he reached the border, his remarks to a small crowd were fairly muted. In the end, he spoke for just 21 minutes and spent less than 45 minutes on the ground in what was expected to be the final trip of his presidency.
Before leaving, he offered an ominous warning to Democrats leading the charge to remove him from office: “Be careful what you wish for.”
That veiled threat came as the nation — and members of Congress — braced for the potential of more violence ahead of Biden’s inauguration. The FBI warned this week of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington.
Capitol security officials made the extraordinary decision to require members of Congress to pass through metal detectors to enter the House chamber beginning on Tuesday, although some Republicans resisted the new rule.
It’s unclear whether the chaos in Washington represents an existential threat to the party, but it almost certainly threatens to undermine the GOP’s short-term political goals.
Several major corporations, many of them reliably Republican donors, have promised to stop sending political donations to any of the 147 Republicans who perpetuated Trump’s false claims of election fraud by voting to reject Biden’s victory last week.
The fundraising challenge comes at a bad time for the GOP. History suggests that the Republican Party, as the minority party in Washington, should regain control of the House or Senate in 2022.
At the same time, a collection of ambitious Republicans are trying to position themselves to run for the White House in 2024. They are also contending with Trump’s legacy.
One of them, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, reminded reporters on Tuesday that he’s condemned the Trump presidency from the very beginning.
“I’ve been in the same place I’ve been for the whole four years. A lot of people have just changed their position,” Hogan said, while vowing not to leave the GOP. “I don’t want to leave the party and let these people who did a hostile takeover four years ago take over.”
Despite Hogan’s confidence, he is far less popular among Trump’s loyal base — a group likely to hold great sway in the selection of the party’s next presidential nominee — than the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, two other 2024 prospects who voted to reject Biden’s victory last week, even after the uprising.
“Republican leaders do not know how to move forward,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said. “Everybody’s afraid that Donald Trump will tell people to come after them, but they also realize they’re losing the center of America. They’re trapped.”
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Alamo, Texas, and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
— Associated Press
A view of a specially constructed bunker for the first hearing of a maxi-trial against more than 300 defendants of the ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate, near the Calabrian town of Lamezia Terme, southern Italy, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021. A maxi-trial opened Wednesday in southern Italy against the ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate, arguably the world’s richest criminal organization that quietly amassed power in Italy as the Sicilian Mafia lost its influence. (Valeria Ferraro/LaPresse via AP)
LAMEZIA TERME, Italy (AP) — A trial with more than 320 defendants began Wednesday in southern Italy against the ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate, arguably the world’s richest criminal organization that quietly amassed power as the Sicilian Mafia lost influence.
Expected to take at least a year, the trial is taking place in a specially constructed high-security bunker on the sprawling grounds of an industrial park in Calabria, the “toe” of the Italian peninsula.
Prosecutors hope the trial will deliver a harsh blow to the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabria-based mob organization that has exploited tens of billions of dollars in cocaine revenues over decades to extend its criminal reach across Europe and into several continents.
Anti-mafia Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told reporters as he arrived at the bunker that the trial, targeting alleged members of a dozen crime clans as well as local officials, businessmen and politicians who were allegedly in cahoots with mobsters, marked a turning point.
“Decades ago, people would tremble when talking about Cosa Nostra or when using the word ’ndrangheta, something they would say only in a hidden room, around the fireplace, whispering,” said Gratteri, who was born in Calabria and who has recalled how he played and attended school with boys who later grew up to become ‘ndranghetisti, as the syndicate’s ranks are known. “Today we are beginning to speak out in the open sunlight.”
Heartening to him and others in Italy who are tackling the ‘ndrangheta as well as other Italian crime syndicates are the growing departures from the past, when few dared to provoke mobsters’ retaliation by reporting attempts to demand “protection” money from businesses large and small and other forms of intimidation.
“We have been seeing a spike in complaints by businessmen, bullied citizens, victims of usury, people who for years have been under the pall of the ’ndrangheta,” Gratteri said.
Investigators say the ’ndrangheta has established bases in much of western, northern and central Europe, Australia, North and South America and is active as well in Africa.
The first three hours of the trial’s opening day were consumed by the court’s formal rollcall of the defendants and their lawyers. Defendants who are jailed, due to convictions in other cases, could follow the proceedings by a video conference.
The trial grew out of an investigation of 12 clans linked to a convicted ‘ndrangheta boss. That figure is Luigi Mancuso, who served 19 years in Italian prison for his role in leading what investigators allege is one of the ‘ndrangheta’s most powerful crime families, based in the town of Vibo Valentia.
The prosecution has indicated it hopes to call more than 900 witnesses.
Among the accusations being considered by the court are drug and arms trafficking, extortion and Mafia association, a term used in Italy’s penal code for members of organized crime groups. Others are charged with complicity with the ’ndrangheta without actually being a member.
Some 325 defendants were ordered to be tried in the court at Lamezia Terme, while some 90 more defendants in the investigation chose to have a fast-track trial, which begins later this month in Calabria. In yet another outgrowth of the same probe, a trial involving five murders begins in February elsewhere in Calabria.
The Lamezia Terme bunker is so vast that a score of video screens has been anchored to the ceiling so participants view the proceedings. There is a sea of tables for 600 lawyers to work on, with microphones and chairs safely distanced to respect COVID-19 health rules.
While the numbers are impressive, this week’s trial isn’t Italy’s largest one against mobsters.
In 1986, in Palermo, in a similarly specially constructed bunker, 475 alleged members of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, went on trial, resulting in more than 300 convictions and 19 life sentences. That trial helped reveal much of the brutal methods and murderous strategies of the top mob bosses on the island, including sensational killings that bloodied the Palermo area during years of power struggles.
In contrast, this trial against the ‘ndrangheta aims to get convictions for alleged connivance among mobsters and local politicians, public officials, businessmen and members of secret lodges in an indication of how deeply rooted the syndicate is in the territory.
Based almost entirely on blood ties, the ‘ndrangheta for decades was practically immune to turncoats. But their ranks are starting to become more substantial. Among those turning state’s evidence in the Lamezia Terme trial is a relative of Mancuso. Several dozen informants in the case come from the ‘ndrangheta, but others are from the former ranks of Cosa Nostra in Sicily and could be called to testify.
Awash in cocaine trafficking revenues, the ‘ndrangheta has gobbled up hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, car dealerships and other businesses throughout Italy, especially in Rome and the affluent north, criminal investigations have revealed.
The buying spree in past years spread heavily across Europe, as the ’ndrangheta sought to launder illicit revenues but also to make ’’clean” money by running legitimate businesses, including in the tourism and hospitality sectors, according to investigators.
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Frances D’Emilio reported from Rome.
— Associated Press