Officials testify that Capitol riot was 'coordinated attack' in first Senate hearing – live

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/feb/23/joe-biden-donald-trump-capitol-riot-senate-hearing-covid-coronavirus-live-updates

Version 25 of 27.

Capitol police captain recounts horror of 6 January while Senate confirms US ambassador to UN and agriculture secretary

Here’s a recap, from Joan E Greve:

Two Senate committees held a joint hearing on the security failures that occurred during the Capitol insurrection. Several law enforcement officials, including the former chief of the US Capitol police and the acting chief of the Metropolitan police department of Washington, testified before the Senate homeland security committee and the Senate rules committee. Former USCP chief Steven Sund said of the insurrectionists: “These criminals came prepared for war.”

A Capitol police captain recounted the horror of 6 January and described the injuries she sustained. Capt Carneysha Mendoza said Capitol police officers were outnumbered by the insurrectionists, who deployed dangerous weapons against the officers. “I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day,” Mendoza said.

Joe and Jill Biden will travel to Texas on Friday, as the state grapples with the fallout from last week’s winter storm that left dozens dead. Millions of Texans still do not have access to clean water.

The Senate confirmed Linda Thomas-Greenfield as the next US ambassador to the United Nations. The Senate voted 78-20 to approve the nomination of Thomas-Greenfield, a longtime diplomat who served in the Obama administration.

The Senate also confirmed Tom Vilsack as the secretary of agriculture, in a vote of 92-7. This will mark the second time that Vilsack has led the agriculture department, after the former Iowa governor served as the secretary of agriculture under Barack Obama.

Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland testified at a confirmation hearing. Haaland, who would be the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, received pointed questions from Republican senators about her past tweets and her views on oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

Liz Cheney, the representative of Wyoming and third-highest ranking House Republican, said her party needed to distance itself from white supremacy and Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Speaking at a virtual event with the Reagan Institute, Cheney - who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump – said, “These ideas are just as dangerous today as they were in 1940, when isolationists launched the America First movement to appease Hitler and prevent America from aiding Britain in the fight against the Nazis.”

On the Capitol Hill riot, she said it was important not to “look away”.

“It’s very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren’t the party of white supremacy,” she said.“You saw the symbols of Holocaust denial, for example, at the Capitol that day; you saw the Confederate flag being carried through the rotunda, and I think we as Republicans in particular, have a duty and an obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection.”

The ultra-conservative daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney has found herself in the odd position of being in opposition to many in her own party. Trump allies were furious that Cheney voted to impeach, and the Wyoming GOP called on her to resign. But Cheney showed no sign of backing away from her criticisms of Trump and Trumpism.

The most populous US state has passed a bill that would send Californians making less than $30,000 a year a $600 stimulus check. The stimulus package also includes $2.1m in grants and fee waivers for small businesses and an additional $2bn in tax breaks for businesses.

Those who qualify for the $600 could receive the money as soon as a month after they file their 2020 tax returns. People earning less than $75,000 who weren’t eligible for the federal stimulus payment, including some undocumented immigrants, will also receive the one-time $600 payment. “Regardless of your [immigration] status, those that have been left behind in that federal stimulus, California’s not going to leave you behind,” Newsom said. “I don’t know many other states — any other state — that does what this state is doing.”

The bill comes as lawmakers in Washington, DC discuss a much larger stimulus plan for the US.

The two leaders were on a first name basis - they have worked together before, when Biden was vice president.

But Biden’s recent decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, which Canada had backed had led to some concerns. In the statements after the bilateral meeting, Trudeau praised Biden’s willingness to boost the middle class and maintain jobs, while tackling climate change.

“Canadian energy workers power homes on both sides of the border,” Trudeau said. Energy is an important sector in Canada, the prime minister said and added that the two countries would work together to create “good, well-paying jobs”, creating new opportunities for workers even as the countries fight climate change.

After their virtual meeting, Joe Biden and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, both emphasized the importance of working together to tackle the pandemic and Covid-19.

The two discussed an “ambitious new partnership roadmap”, Trudeau said.

Pharmacy workers helping maskless customers. Uber drivers transporting coughing passengers. Janitors cleaning contaminated workspaces.

Amid California’s slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout, millions of essential workers in high-exposure jobs are still waiting to get the life-saving doses, with many uncertain when or how they will get access.

“We’re risking our lives so that the community can have what they need, and it feels like they don’t really care about us,” said Lauren Alcala, a clerk at a CVS store in South Los Angeles.

Alcala, 26, was was hospitalized with Covid last summer. She lives with her mother, grandmother and other older relatives – and is petrified of getting infected again and bringing Covid home. “I don’t think it’s fair,” she said of her wait for the vaccine. “Many of us deal with so much anxiety and stress at work.”

California, the largest state in the US, has administered more than 7.3m vaccine doses but is lagging behind other states in vaccinations. Eligibility is due to dramatically expand in March, but with supplies limited and many doses being used for second shots, essential workers could be waiting weeks or longer to get appointments.

The lack of access is particularly frustrating for workers who have faced increasing risks over the last month, as California has moved to reopen parts of the economy and remove restrictions. While infection rates are significantly improving after a catastrophic winter surge, an average of more than 6,000 new cases and 320 deaths are still reported each day.

Facing severe economic strain eleven months into the pandemic, low-wage workers across the state say they can’t afford to stay home from dangerous jobs – and can’t afford to lose income if they get infected. They are exhausted with stressful work conditions and customers who refuse to comply with Covid rules, and are struggling to get basic information on when they might get vaccines.

Read more:

Donald Trump used to promise his supporters that they would be winning so much, they would get sick and tired of winning. But the former US president is now on a seemingly endless losing streak.

He lost the presidential election, lost more than 60 legal challenges to the result, lost his bid to overturn the electoral college, lost control of the Senate and lost an impeachment trial 43-57, though he was spared conviction on a technicality. On Monday, Trump lost yet again – with potentially far-reaching consequences.

The supreme court rejected an attempt by his lawyers to block Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) in New York, from enforcing a subpoena to obtain eight years of his personal and corporate tax records.

The ruling did not mean the public will get to see Trump’s tax returns, which have gained near mythical status due to him being the first recent president to conceal them, any time soon.

But it did remove an important obstacle from Vance’s dogged investigation. The DA has said little about why he wants Trump’s records but, in a court filing last year, prosecutors said they were justified in seeking them because of public reports of “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” – Trump’s family business empire – thought to include bank, tax and insurance fraud.

Now that investigation is gathering momentum. Vance, who earlier this month hired a lawyer with extensive experience in white-collar and organised crime cases, will be able to find out whether the public reports were accurate by studying actual financial records, spreadsheets and email correspondence between the Trump Organization and accounting firm Mazars USA.

If wrongdoing is established, it raises the spectre of Trump some day in the future standing in the dock in a New York courtroom and even facing a potential prison term. No wonder he fought so hard to cling to power and the immunity from prosecution that it conferred.

The threat, however real or remote, casts a shadow over Trump’s chances of making a political comeback. On Sunday he is due to make his first speech since leaving office at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, reasserting his command of the Republican party and teasing a new run for president in 2024.

Read more:

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

Two Senate committees held a joint hearing on the security failures that occurred during the Capitol insurrection. Several law enforcement officials, including the former chief of the US Capitol police and the acting chief of the Metropolitan police department of Washington, testified before the Senate homeland security committee and the Senate rules committee. Former USCP chief Steven Sund said of the insurrectionists: “These criminals came prepared for war.”

A Capitol police captain recounted the horror of 6 January and described the injuries she sustained. Capt Carneysha Mendoza said Capitol police officers were outnumbered by the insurrectionists, who deployed dangerous weapons against the officers. “I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day,” Mendoza said.

Joe and Jill Biden will travel to Texas on Friday, as the state grapples with the fallout from last week’s winter storm that left dozens dead. Millions of Texans still do not have access to clean water.

The Senate confirmed Linda Thomas-Greenfield as the next US ambassador to the United Nations. The Senate voted 78-20 to approve the nomination of Thomas-Greenfield, a longtime diplomat who served in the Obama administration.

The Senate also confirmed Tom Vilsack as the secretary of agriculture, in a vote of 92-7. This will mark the second time that Vilsack has led the agriculture department, after the former Iowa governor served as the secretary of agriculture under Barack Obama.

Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland testified at a confirmation hearing. Haaland, who would be the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, received pointed questions from Republican senators about her past tweets and her views on oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Joe Biden is now holding his virtual meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at the White House.

“I look forward to seeing you in person in the future,” Biden told Trudeau. “The United States has no closer friend than Canada.”

Trudeau said it was a relief to be working with a US president who takes climate change seriously, adding that American leadership “has been sorely missed over the past years”.

Joe Biden will soon participate in a virtual meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, marking his first bilateral meeting as president.

“The United States and Canada share a unique bond and close friendship – and I’m committed to strengthening our partnership in the years ahead,” Biden said in a tweet before the meeting.

After Biden took office last month, his first call to a foreign leader was to Trudeau, and the two leaders discussed the importance of the US-Canadian alliance.

According to the White House readout of that call, Biden also “acknowledged Prime Minister Trudeau’s disappointment regarding the decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline”.

The pipeline will likely come up during today’s meeting as well.

The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

Google will again be accepting political ads on its platforms, the company announced on Tuesday, after a brief ban it began in January.

The self-imposed suspension began following the riot at the Capitol on 6 January and followed similar decisions from other social platforms, most notably Facebook, which changed its policy on political ads in November ahead of the 2020 elections.

In an email to political clients on Monday, Google said it would now allow advertising from campaigns and political topics, which according to Poitico has made more than $750m in advertising money since the spring of 2018.Facebook has not announced if and when it will lift the policy, which currently remains in place. It said in an earnings call in January it will reduce political content on the platform in general, including no longer recommending political Facebook groups.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic chairwoman of the House rules committee, condemned disinformation about the Capitol insurrection after one of her Republican colleagues questioned who carried out the 6 January attack.

Klobuchar said in a tweet, “As our hearing concludes, I want to make one thing clear: ‘provocateurs’ did not storm the Capitol. They were not ‘fake Trump protestors.’ The mood on January 6th was not ‘festive.’ That is disinformation.”

Klobuchar’s statement came after Republican Senator Ron Johnson used his questioning period during today’s Senate hearing to read from this Federalist piece, which argues that “agents-provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters” were responsible for the insurrection.

“Not one appeared angry or incited to riot,” Johnson said, reading from the Federalist story. “Many of the marchers were families with small children; many were elderly, overweight, or just plain tired or frail – traits not typically attributed to the riot-prone.”

In reality, the Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob who was incited by the then-president. During the 6 January rally in Washington, Donald Trump explicitly told his supporters to march to the Capitol as lawmakers certified Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. The Capitol was breached shortly after Trump spoke.

The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani reports:

A group of influential Democratic senators have introduced legislation which would sanction the president of Honduras – an alleged drug trafficker and key US ally – and cut off financial aid and ammunition sales to the country’s security forces which are implicated in widespread human rights abuses and criminal activities.

The Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Van Hollen, would suspend certain US assistance to the Central American country until corruption and human rights violations are no longer systemic, and the perpetrators of these crimes start facing justice.

Joe Biden has vowed to tackle the root causes of migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle – Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador – the most violent region in the world outside an official war zone, which accounts for most migrants and refugees seeking safety and economic opportunities in the US.

This bill makes clear that tackling the misery driving migration from Honduras will be impossible if the US continues to prop up the president, Juan Orlando Hernández, and the security forces.

It lays bare the systematic violence and abuses perpetrated against civilians and activists since the 2009 military-backed coup, as a result of widespread collusion between government officials, state and private security forces, organized crime, and business leaders.

“The United States cannot remain silent in the face of deeply alarming corruption and human rights abuses being committed at the highest levels of the Honduran government,” said Merkley, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee.

“A failure to hold President Hernández, national officials and the police and military accountable for these crimes will fuel widespread poverty and violence and force more families to flee their communities in search of safety.”

This is the first time the Senate has proposed legislation which could genuinely threaten the regime which has been in power since the 2009 coup.

The Senate has confirmed Tom Vilsack to be the next secretary of agriculture, in a vote of 92 to 7.

Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, previously ran the agriculture department during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Despite his experience, Vilsack’s nomination was met with disappointment among progressives, many of whom had hoped congresswoman Marcia Fudge would be nominated for the role. (Fudge was instead nominated to lead the department of housing and urban development.)

Given that criticism, it is perhaps unsurprising that Bernie Sanders voted against Vilsack’s nomination, marking the first time a member of the Senate Democratic caucus has opposed one of Joe Biden’s cabinet nominations.

Deb Haaland, seeking to make history as the first Native American to hold a cabinet secretary position in the US, weathered a torrent of hostile questioning from Republicans during her confirmation hearing as secretary of the interior.

In a striking opening statement, Haaland, a member of Congress for New Mexico, said “the historic nature of my confirmation is not lost on me, but I will say that it is not about me”, adding that she hoped her elevation would “be an inspiration for Americans, moving forward together as one nation and creating opportunities for all of us”.

Haaland is considered a progressive on the climate crisis and has previously spoken out on the impact of fossil fuel development upon the environment and Native American tribes, positions that Senate Republicans were keen to attack during a sometimes contentious confirmation hearing.

John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, criticized Haaland for a tweet from October 2020 in which she stated that “Republicans don’t believe in science”. Barrasso, who has previously incorrectly said the role of human activity in climate change is “not known” and that ambitious climate action in the form of the Green New Deal would mean “cheeseburgers and milkshake would become a thing of the past”, said the tweet was “concerning to those of us who have gone through training, believe in science, and yet with a broad brush, we’re all disbelievers”.

Haaland responded to Barrasso, a surgeon, saying that “if you’re a doctor, I would assume that you believe in science”. Scientists have repeatedly said that the US, and the rest of the world, needs to rapidly reduce planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels in order to prevent disastrous heatwaves, flooding and societal unrest associated with runaway climate change.

The early exchange set the tone for more than two hours of questioning where Republicans repeatedly assailed Joe Biden’s decision to pause oil and gas drilling on federal lands as calamitous for jobs. As interior secretary, Haaland would oversee the management of lands that make up nearly a third of America’s landmass, including tribal lands.

At the roundtable with Black essential workers, Joe Biden was asked about Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Tanden’s path to confirmation is unclear, now that the Democratic senator Joe Manchin has said he will not support her nomination over some of her past tweets.

But the president said he still believed there was a chance that Tanden could be confirmed as OMB director.

“We’re going to push,” Biden said. “We still think there’s a shot, a good shot.”