Live blogging the Jan 6 committee concluding presentation

[ZiprHead]

Republicans release their own US Capitol riot report focused on security failures | CNN Politics

House Republicans on Wednesday released a report focused on security failures at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, highlighting well-documented breakdowns in intelligence sharing, Capitol security and coordination between various law enforcement agencies that responded that day.

www.cnn.com

House Republicans on Wednesday released a report focused on security failures at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, highlighting well-documented breakdowns in intelligence sharing, Capitol security and coordination between various law enforcement agencies that responded that day.

Their primary recommendation centers around reforming the US Capitol Police Board and bolstering congressional oversight of the Capitol Police force – two issues that were identified by lawmakers of both parties in the wake of the January 6 attack.

What's in the House January 6 committee report summary
But the GOP report is silent on other efforts to disrupt the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election and selective in its criticism of political leaders and their culpability in the security breakdowns on January 6. The report resurfaces largely unfounded allegations to cast blame on Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while glossing over former President Donald Trump’s own role.

Republicans cast the report as a rebuttal to the House select committee’s investigation into January 6 as they are set to take control of the chamber and endeavor to take back the narrative. Republican lawmakers have said the security failures are paramount and that the select committee overstepped its mandate in its 17-month probe.

 

[lpetrich]

Seems like the Republicans are doing that as a distraction.

Jan. 6 committee releases full final report on Capitol attack - POLITICO - "It’s the product of nearly 1,200 interviews and came just days after the select panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol held its final public meeting."

“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a foreword to the 845-page report.

I've found these:

• Executive Summary | Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
• The report itself, all 845 pages

 

[ZiprHead]

Former Trump White House aide told Jan. 6 panel Mark Meadows burned documents a dozen times during the transition period

WashingtonCNN —
The January 6 committee released another batch of transcripts Tuesday, including two more of its interviews with blockbuster witness Cassidy Hutchinson and testimony from several other Trump White House officials.

The transcripts shed new light on how then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows regularly burned documents during the transition period, according to Hutchinson. She also described how Meadows occasionally told staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings “close hold” and potentially omitted from official records.

There were also additional details about Hutchinson’s dueling loyalties that led her to ultimately switch lawyers and provide damning testimony about what she saw and heard at the White House after the 2020 election.

 

[ZiprHead]

White House offers unredacted Jan. 6 transcripts to GOP — with conditions

House Republicans have pushed for the records for months as they've cast doubt on the Jan. 6 select committee’s work.

www.politico.com

The Biden administration has made its next move in an extended back-and-forth with House Republicans over Jan. 6 select committee transcripts, offering to share unredacted testimony the GOP has been seeking for months — under certain conditions.

Richard Sauber, a member of the White House Counsel’s Office, said the administration would permit Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) — who has been leading a review of the Capitol attack and the previous committee’s work in investigating it — the chance to examine, but not keep, the unredacted transcripts.

“We will make the unredacted transcripts available to you for review in camera, provided that you agree in writing to abide by the commitments made on a bipartisan basis by the Select Committee — to maintain the anonymity of the four witnesses consistent with the conditions under which the witnesses agreed to appear before the Select Committee, and to prevent the disclosure of ‘operational details and private information,’” Sauber wrote in a two-page letter to Loudermilk, which was obtained by POLITICO.

The Georgia Republican has pushed for the administration to hand over the records for months, which he has characterized as interviews with White House employees that were in or around the Oval Office during the attack. The Jan. 6 select committee publicly released the vast majority of its evidence, but withheld a handful of transcripts of White House aides and Secret Service officials. Those were sent to the White House and Department of Homeland Security for further review and redaction under the terms of an agreement struck in order to interview witnesses in the first place.

 

[ZiprHead]

Former GOP governors file brief in support of disqualifying Trump

A group of former Republican governors filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday in support of a Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot for president in that state.

scrippsnews.com

A group of former Republican governors filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday in support of a Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot for president in that state.

Former GOP governors Marc Racicot of Montana, William Weld of Massachusetts, and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey say in an amicus brief their objectives are not partisan, but patriotic.

Dozens of similar cases have been filed across the United States that aim to ban Trump from the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War to stop former Confederates from returning to office. Colorado's case is the only to survive the legal test so far, but Trump appealed the ruling.

This will be the first time in U.S. history the high court will rule on a case related to the 156-year-old clause. The court is set to hear arguments next week.

Some legal scholars, and the former governors who filed the amicus brief Tuesday, say the same amendment should apply to the former president for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6.

In the amicus brief, they argue that "The fact that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment has not previously been applied to a presidential candidate does not diminish the materiality or the clarity of the constitutional mandate."