Trump enters the stage

Meno2 · February 11, 2021, 3:12pm

POLITICO

IMPEACHMENT

Trump on path to acquittal despite stunning evidence
Rand Paul engineered a strategy that put all but six GOP senators on the record saying former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is unconstitutional.

Marco Rubio leaves impeachment trial
Sen. Marco Rubio leaves at the end of the second day of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump on Wednesday. | Joshua Roberts/Pool via A

Rand Paul engineered a strategy that put all but six GOP senators on the record saying former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is unconstitutional. And even after visceral new footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection rattled fellow Republicans, he’s feeling pretty good about Trump’s whip count.

“There will be at least 44. Or more. I think we might get one or two back on acquittal,” Paul (R-Ky.) said in an interview. “Everybody objects to that violence. Everybody is horrified by that violence. But the question is: Did the president incite that?”

To Paul, the answer is clearly no. And interviews on Wednesday evening revealed that the raw emotions stirred up by the day’s never-before-seen footage of violent rioters ransacking the Capitol hadn’t moved Republicans any closer to voting to convict Trump on a charge of inciting the mob.

Most Republicans are publicly unshakable from the hard line they’ve taken on their party’s process argument: How could they convict on the merits after saying the Senate shouldn’t even hold the trial?

The dug-in GOP resistance to considering conviction illustrates the same phenomenon that has torn the party asunder for years under Trump: The former president’s power over the Republican base still eclipses his political toxicity for most members of his party.

The compelling presentation by House Democratic impeachment managers, which featured images, videos and audio clips that forced senators to relive the harrowing day, even handed several GOP senators a clear argument for acquitting the ex-president. The trial tests whether Trump incited the riot, Republicans said, not the widely acknowledged calamity that Jan. 6 became.

“This is not a vote on whether what happened that day was horrifying because it most certainly was,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “This is not a vote on whether the president bears any responsibility, which I’ve said all along.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said the impeachment managers took a “pretty polished approach.” But he concluded that they’re asking the Senate to provide a “solution that we just don’t believe we have available.”

“Their focus is on the actions of the day and they have still to reckon with the fact that most of us don’t believe we have the constitutional authority to impeach a private person,” said Rounds, who was just re-elected. “I don’t think they’re going to be able to overcome that based on the direction of their discussions today, as chilling as the events of Jan. 6 were.”

GOP senators went as far as to praise the House impeachment managers for delivering an effective and compelling case on the Senate floor Wednesday. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said they had connected the dots effectively.

But many in the GOP argued that the managers have not proved their incitement charge against the former president.

“We all knew the elements of the case coming here. Putting it on video and spending the time to accentuate it,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who has all but ruled out voting to convict. “For any of us who don’t think the whole process is constitutional, it makes it difficult to go beyond that point.”

And there were moments of backlash against the impeachment managers, most notably on the presentation of a call that Trump accidentally placed to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) when he was trying to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Lee said in a brief interview that the presentation from Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) “consisted of statements that I did not make,” and they were stricken from the record.

Sen. Mike Lee objects to House Impeachment managers using a telephone call Lee reportedly fielded from former President Donald Trump on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. | congress.gov via Getty Images

In recounting Trump’s actions as the insurrection unfolded, Cicilline said that Lee answered the phone and Trump was on the other line, and referred to him as “Tommy.” According to Cicilline, Lee then handed the phone to Tuberville. Trump subsequently requested that Tuberville “make additional objections to the certification process,” Cicilline said.

Tuberville said that he wished the presentation “had been correct.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to President Trump. You don’t get many words in, but, he didn’t get a chance to say a whole lot because I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville said in an interview.

The Republican stance perplexed Senate Democrats, who praised the House impeachment managers’ case against Trump.

“Watching the footage of how they treated the police officers was so much worse than anything I personally saw that day,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) “I don’t know how you could watch that and acquit this guy."

Securing a conviction is a steep uphill battle for the House managers, especially after the vast majority of the Senate GOP conference reaffirmed its view this week that putting a former president on trial is unconstitutional. It takes 67 votes to convict the former president — requiring 17 Republicans to cross party lines and vote against Trump — and Democrats would then move to bar him from running for office again.

Still, Democrats said more Republicans may be privately reconsidering their votes. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told reporters his conversations indicate more than six GOP senators may be weighing conviction, though that might be wishful thinking.

Trump’s defense team starts presenting its rebuttals on Friday. Some Republicans expected the team to contend that Democrats offered their own encouragement of violence by cheering on last summer’s protests across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police.

“If we’re going to put into context what was happening for months before the attack on the Capitol and what all kinds of political figures on the other side were saying about that, that would be one of the ways I’d respond," said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the No. 4 GOP leader.

Several Republicans are withholding judgment until hearing both sides — even those thought to be amenable to the managers’ case. The House managers will present again on Thursday, and they appear to be making in-roads with at least one senator who first found the trial unconstitutional in January.

“It was very powerful. It was of course more complete than what I saw, because it had videos from all over,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to uphold the trial’s constitutionality this week. “I cannot comment on how it addresses conviction because we have not heard from the other side.”

Meno2 · February 14, 2021, 10:16pm

"fox8.com

Trump welcomes impeachment acquittal, says his movement ‘has only just begun’

fox8news and Associated Press
1 day ago

(WJW/AP) — Just after the Senate voted 57-43 to acquit former President Donald Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection, Trump released a statement saying his movement “has only just begun.”

Senate acquits former President Donald Trump in second impeachment trial
Read the whole statement below:

I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work upholding justice and defending truth.

My deepest thanks as well to all of the United States Senators and Members of Congress who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.

Our cherished Constitutional Republic was founded on the impartial rule of law, the indispensable safeguard for our liberties, our rights and our freedoms.

It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree. I always have, and always will, be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate.

This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago.

I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law-abiding, God-and-Country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these very difficult and challenging times.

Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!

We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.

Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

We remain one People, one family, and one glorious nation under God, and it’s our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and for generations of Americans to come.

May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America.

Donald J. Trump
His son Donald Trump Jr. also weighed in on the Senate decision saying the following:

Barely a month since the deadly Jan. 6 riot that stunned the world, the Senate convened Saturday for a rare weekend session to deliver its verdict, voting while armed National Guard troops continued to stand their posts outside the iconic building.

The quick trial, the nation’s first of a former president, showed how perilously close the invaders had come to destroying the nation’s deep tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power after Trump had refused to concede the election. Rallying outside the White House, he unleashed a mob of supporters to “fight like hell” for him at the Capitol just as Congress was certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. As hundreds stormed the building, some in tactical gear engaging in bloody combat with police, lawmakers fled for their lives. Five people died.

7 Republicans voted to convict Trump at the Senate trial. This is the most impeachment defections ever from a president’s party.

This was Donald Trump’s first statement since the impeachment trial started this week."

( the Associated Press contributed to this report)

Meno2 · February 15, 2021, 2:40am

The world watches, stunned as Trump is cleared

Updated 1:57 PM EST, Sun February 14, 2021

Editor’s Note: (David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, and executive director of The Red Lines Project, is the author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and host of its Evergreen podcast. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidAndelman. The views expressed in this commentary belong solely to the author. View more opinion at CNN.)

(CNN)The whole world watched the second impeachment of former US President Donald Trump and his acquittal. In many cases, if media coverage is an indication, the global audience paid rapt attention. The BBC was one of many outlets that carried the Senate proceedings live. France24 television broadcast much of the proceedings on their English and French services, with simultaneous translation into French, including the final vote and subsequent responses by Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and Republican Mitch McConnell – both of whom condemned Trump’s actions, but with McConnell nonetheless voting to acquit the former President.

At the onset of the proceedings, the leading Paris daily newspaper Le Monde carried an enormous photo at the top of its front page of the House impeachment managers marching across the Capitol Rotunda to the Senate floor. The French publication then followed the proceedings closely, concluding within minutes of the final vote with the headline on its website: “Donald Trump acquitté à l’issue de son second procès en destitution.” (“Donald Trump acquitted at the end of his second impeachment trial.”)

The German national daily paper Süddeutsche Zeitung carried a headline, “Trump also acquitted in second impeachment proceedings,” on its website above a large photo of a grimly smiling Trump holding up a USA Today frontpage from his first impeachment, last year, with the headline, “Acquitted”. In Nigeria, the Tribune quickly led its website with the headline: “Breaking: With 57-43 Votes, US Senate Quashes Impeachment, Acquits Ex-President Donald Trump.”

It’s likely that much (but not all) of the world has watched not out of pure curiosity or voyeurism but out of horror and fear, that Trump’s actions and the fact that only seven of the 50 Republican senators were willing to vote for his conviction – too few to cross the two-thirds majority threshold needed to convict – have only accelerated the dimming of democracy and freedom America represented. Indeed, just as President Joe Biden was announcing he would sanction Myanmar’s military leaders for seizing power by force of arms, the House impeachment managers were describing in brutal detail how then-President Trump sought to strongarm himself into a second term he’d failed to win at the ballot box.

The one thing impeachment accomplished
The one thing impeachment accomplished
The great fear in many quarters abroad is that Trump’s budding autocracy was not simply a brutal interregnum, and that Biden’s administration is but a brief interlude before America plunges again into the deep spiral that has marked the last four years. Although UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed Sunday that US democracy remains “strong” in spite of the impeachment “kerfuffle,” Biden himself has warned that democracy is “fragile.”

And as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas pointed out on Jan. 6, “The enemies of democracy will rejoice at these inconceivable images from Washington DC. Seditious words turn to violent actions…Contempt for democratic institutions has devastating effects.” In some even quite liberal quarters abroad Trump’s acquittal now simply reinforces a fundamental belief that America has strayed off course.

The Senate’s vote “speaks to something increasingly problematic about the American political system’s ultimate ability to curtail presidential abuses of power: for many the impeachment process no longer presents much of a threat or deterrent to bad, or even illegal, behavior by the most powerful figure in the land,” noted The Guardian newspaper.

This was no triumph for Trump
This was no triumph for Trump
Certainly, the Biden administration is doing its best to reassure the world that the American system can and will be made to work. As House Democrats were presenting images that were horrifying much of the world, President Biden was dialing up China’s Xi Jinping, reading him the riot act as Trump never did – warning him that America would no longer ignore gross human rights abuses from Xinjiang to Hong Kong, nor its military’s threats from the South China Sea to Taiwan.

Still, Patrice de Beer, a former editor of Le Monde, said he believes that the world’s view of America has only been reinforced by the chilling images displayed by House managers in the impeachment trial. “I don’t think that this has changed our vision of the US as an unpredictable and violent country,” he told me via email from Paris. “But we hope Biden has put a stop to this. For now.”

At the same time, Claude Corpechot, a consultant in “big data” and professor of global management at the Paris Dauphine and Paris V universities, observed that while “Trump did not change my perception of America and Americans, he showed all of us the two faces of America, while many until now had seen only one.”

Throughout the week, the world’s press has been fixed on the vivid images streaming across televisions on every continent. In Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post led with the news, quoting Trump saying that the trial had been “the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.” And Saudi Arabia’s Arab News reported the acquittal, adding Trump’s comment that “his movement had ‘only just begun.’”

The conclusion from French journalist de Beer was the kind of deeply felt plea that seems to be all but universal across broad swaths of the world. “Good luck [now] muzzling Trump and his Trumpets.”

Meno2 · February 15, 2021, 2:50am

As it appears world wide, as a schizophrenic country with two faces:

youtu.be/w05w1XbZTG8

Meno2 · February 15, 2021, 6:14pm

Opinion, Analysis, Essays

POLITICS & POLICY

Trump’s impeachment trial shows why Presidents Day should only honor Washington
The Senate spectacle is the latest reason why we should return this holiday to a celebration of the father of our country, not his mostly middling successors.

Image: President Donald J. Trump
President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks in front of a painting of George Washington during a “Pledge to America’s Workers” event in the East Room of the White House on July 19, 2018.Jabin Botsford / The Washington

Feb. 15, 2021, 11:12 AM EST
By Robert Schlesinger, author, “White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters”
We interrupt your regularly scheduled Presidents Day weekend sales for the impeachment trial of our newest ex-president.

There’s something ludicrous about celebrating our chief executives after the world’s greatest deliberative body just pondered whether to ban Donald Trump from ever again becoming president, over a charge that he incited a riot in order to stay in that office.

That “Presidents Day” is not actually the name of the federal holiday we observe on the third Monday in February only makes the situation more bizarre. As the Christian Science Monitor has observed, the proper answer to the query “When is Presidents Day this year?” is “never.”

Within a couple of decades, “Washington’s Birthday” morphed into the featureless holiday-that-launched-a-thousand-sales, Presidents Day.

In fact, on Monday we technically only commemorate George Washington’s birthday — which is Feb. 22, a week after the 2021 federal holiday for Washington’s Birthday. If you don’t believe me, you can check the Office of Personnel Management’s official listing of federal holidays, which denotes that it is designated such in no less than “section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code.”

“Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names,” the site adds rather punctiliously, “it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.”

But perhaps OPM is on to something, and the sad spectacle just concluded in the Senate is just the latest reason why we should return this holiday to its roots and celebrate the father of our country rather than his mostly middling successors.

The first president’s birthday was observed as a federal holiday starting in the 1880s with a law signed by the immortal Rutherford B. Hayes, whose victory in a contested Electoral College vote many Americans likely heard about in great detail last November. Just shy of a century later — as the historian C.L. Arbelbide has recounted in exhaustive detail — Congress enacted a law designating that certain federal holidays would be observed exclusively on Mondays so as to create long weekends. It was a boon to retailers who could build sales around them and also to manufacturers, who no longer needed to worry about floating days off interrupting production.

The celebration of Washington’s birth was thus moved to the third Monday in February — which, as it happens, can never fall on the 22nd of the month because of math. The sponsor of the Mondays-only holiday bill was from Illinois and thus undoubtedly didn’t mind that the presidential holiday would fall closer to the Feb. 12 birthdate of the Prairie State’s favorite adopted son, Abraham Lincoln (an anniversary then widely celebrated in Northern states).

Here’s what the founders actually thought about masks and quarantines
The same august member had unsuccessfully pushed to formally change the holiday’s name from Washington’s Birthday to “President’s Day.”

He failed in part because critics of separating Washington’s birthday from his birthdate presciently foresaw that the two great presidents’ celebrations would merge in the public consciousness, diminishing both men.

They were right: Within a couple of decades, “Washington’s Birthday” morphed into the featureless holiday-that-launched-a-thousand-sales, Presidents Day, while Lincoln’s is now largely neglected. A comparison of how often people search Google for “Presidents Day” vs. “Washington’s Birthday” illustrates how completely our first president has been subsumed into the humdrum whole. The third Monday in February has become the holiday equivalent of a presidential participation trophy.

Republicans don’t want to work with Biden. They don’t even want to work in a democracy.
(A popular misconception has Richard Nixon proclaiming “Presidents Day” as a “holiday set aside to honor all presidents, even myself” — but while Washington allegedly could not tell a lie, the internet can and, in this case, does.)

It is no mistake that presidents generally became the presumed object of celebration during an era in which the office has grown largely without check or balance both in terms of public perception and actual power.

“It speaks to is the extent to which the presidency has become such a dominant political institution in our country,” the distinguished presidential historian Robert Dallek told me. “Anyone who becomes president can be folded into that name and association with it. … It speaks volumes about our political culture.”

OPINION
Only one Founding Father would be worth listening to about the coronavirus
That trend of a more imperious presidency, and the American people’s acceptance of it, has dramatically accelerated in recent decades. The road from a disgraced Nixon preposterously telling David Frost that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” to Trump’s lawyers essentially making that case in court has been harrowing. And a polarized and tribalized Congress has done little to check or balance its own slow slide into irrelevance, either abdicating responsibility through gridlock or, when the president’s party is in charge, supinely acceding to its own marginalization. (See, again, Trump and congressional Republicans — even now.)

Both the office of the president and the holiday of the presidents need to be right-sized. One small way to start doing both would be to put Washington back at the center of his own birthday party. A renewed focus on his life might serve as a useful reminder that the presidency was not intended to be the dominant, nigh-monarchical office it has become.

The Constitutional Convention, over which Washington presided, produced an executive whose power was to be deliberately circumscribed by the other two coequal branches, while doing the same to them. Finding that balance was considered critical. “The first man put at the helm would be a good one,” Benjamin Franklin said, referring to Washington. “Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards.”

Well, we now do know: forgettable mediocrities occasionally distinguished by greatness (Lincoln, for example) and malevolence (Trump). We are fortunate that the first man “at the helm” was conscious of the standard he set in office, whether in abjuring fancy titles (Vice President John Adams floated “His Elective Majesty” and “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and the Protector of Their Liberties”) or voluntarily returning to private life after two terms in office, for example. He was aware that he “walk[ed] on untrodden ground,” as he often put it.

A renewed focus on his life might serve as a useful reminder that the presidency was not intended to be the dominant, nigh-monarchical office it has become.

We would do well to study his steps.

The Senate’s sad spectacle is one more reason to change our current ‘Presidents Day’
It’s worth noting, too, that we can do so while acknowledging that pre-eminence is not the same as perfection. A man of his times, Washington is tainted by our country’s original sin: slavery. He owned other human beings as chattel. But we can celebrate him in all of his dimensions, acknowledging both his greatness and his great flaws. Even our best Americans can exhibit some of our worst national traits. That contrast can serve as a reminder of both how far we have had to come as a country and the magnificence to which we should all aspire.

And no — contrary to right-wing hysteria — we’re not going to impeach Washington. Let’s just wish him a happy birthday.

Meno2 · February 16, 2021, 3:23pm

What you could see and hear in the Senate as Republicans broke wi…
OPINION
Block Trump from office with the 14th Amendment’s aiding an insurrection exclusion
Republicans subscribed to Trump like he was a cable package, and paid an extraordinary price to be the governing party. They can bring an end to this soon.

CHRIS DEATON | OPINION CONTRIBUTOR | 34 minutes ago

False rumors swirled that President Trump invoked the Insurrection Act after riots at the U.S. Capitol. Here’s what you should know about the act.
USA TODAY
Taking Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at his word, the buck for former President Donald Trump’s incitement of the U.S. Capitol mob should stop somewhere — just not in his house.

“He didn’t get away with anything yet,” McConnell said on Saturday evening, after enough Republican senators voted to acquit the former president of an impeachment charge. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation.”

Stipulated. But we still have a Congress, too.

McConnell made the case that Trump was guilty of an offense punishable by more than a Senate floor speech. The upshot of the top Senate Republican’s remarks is that he believes Trump is the but-for cause of the Jan. 6 insurrection, whose participants assaulted the Capitol “in his name,” carried “his banners,” hung “his flags” and screamed “their loyalty — to him.” His assessment was plain: “There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

Options beyond censure, conviction
The question was left open, though, of who is responsible for penalizing the provocation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the idea of a congressional censure: “We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose. We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol.”

McConnell’s suggestion that district attorneys’ offices could take it from here if they choose is accurate — but it also reveals his perspective that Congress’ work is finished in the meantime.

It shouldn’t be. By the GOP’s timid standards, McConnell’s comments and the surprising seven Republican votes for conviction were an authorization for use of political force against the former president. Now, more than at any point in the previous four years, there appears to be a window for bipartisan accountability on Capitol Hill.

If Congress lacked accountability mechanisms other than impeachment or censure, it’d be one thing. But it’s not wanting for options.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with leading Senate Republicans in 2019 at the U.S. Capitol.
ALEX BRANDON/AP
One of them is enforcement of Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which states that no state or federal office holder “who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

In other words: No second chance to place your hand on the Bible and repeat after the judge if you were an insurrectionist the first go-round. This novel idea was floated by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tim Kaine, D-Va. It merits widespread consideration now, given how it meshes with the emerging Republican position on Trump’s culpability for Jan. 6 and Congress’ capability for responding to it.

The idea moots three Republican concerns: procedural, constitutional and political.

First, is there a procedural problem? No. Forty-four Senate Republicans voted that Trump’s most recent impeachment trial was unconstitutional, but a Section Three vote is entirely different. There is no constitutional roadblock to taking up congressional enforcement of a constitutional provision itself.

Acquitted: Shared identity and fear of Trump kept most Republicans in line

Second, is the idea constitutionally unassailable? Yes. Section Three, about aiding an insurrection, relates to a judgment of Congress, not a criminal court. The House and Senate could pass a resolution that states the facts about Trump’s conduct leading up to and on Jan. 6, for example, and concludes that Section Three disqualifies him from holding office in the future.

The implications of this would be political, not criminal. It would allow state officials to call into question the legitimacy of a hypothetical Trump campaign or complicate his ballot access. Congress could approve a similar measure that permits the attorney general to render an opinion about an office seeker’s eligibility under Section Three. These are not judicial branch judgments originating from the legislative branch, and do not create constitutional problems.

Trump is not a cable package
And finally, is this politically feasible? It is. Congress already voted on language to bar Trump from future office. Such a section was included in the House’s impeachment article.

Seventeen Republicans voted in favor of it: 10 in the House; seven in the Senate. That should represent a floor, not a ceiling, for Section Three legislation. Only three more Senate Republicans would need to support the measure for the chamber to surpass a required 60-vote threshold to consider legislation of this type.

Congressional action on Section Three is the natural endpoint of Republicans’ distinguishing between Trump’s legacy and Trump the person. For the entirety of his presidential term, most Republicans subscribed to him as if he were a cable package. Many just wanted the tax reform. But to remain in his good graces, they supported him not only for signing legislation.

Trump’s two impeachments: Republicans can’t be trusted with our democracy

They also signed up for the international and science bundle. They defended him through the Russia investigation and Ukraine impeachment, the bullying of governors and pushing of pseudo-medicine during the coronavirus pandemic, “the tweets” and “very fine people” and, ultimately, “stop the steal.” This was the extraordinary price for Republican governance.

Those days can end soon. As presidential hopeful and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said to Politico: “Take the good that he built, leave the bad that he did, and get back to a place where we can be a good, valuable, effective party.”

Congressional Republicans should make the distinction now — and not just “leave” the bad but punish it. “Good” political parties keep their houses in order.

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The Guardian - Back to home

Supporters wait for Donald Trump to drive by in West Palm Beach, Florida on 15 February 2021.
Show caption

Trump remains 2024 candidate of choice for most Republicans, poll shows
59% of Republican voters said they wanted Trump to play prominent role in party, but tens of thousands left after Capitol riot

Tue 16 Feb 2021 10.01 EST

If the 2024 Republican presidential primary were held today, Donald Trump would be the clear favorite to win big. That was the message from a Politico-Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday, three days after Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.

Wall Street Journal warns Republicans: ‘Trump won’t win another election’
Among Republican voters, 59% said they wanted Trump to play a prominent role in their party, up a whopping 18 points from the last such poll, taken in the aftermath of the Capitol riot. A slightly lower number, 54%, said they would back Trump in the primary.

Tens of thousands of Republicans left the party after the Capitol insurrection, and a majority of Americans have told other pollsters they would like to see Trump banished from politics.

Though the 45th president will be 78 by election day 2024, he will be able to run again if he chooses, having escaped being barred from office after a 57-43 Senate vote to convict – with seven Republican defections but 10 votes short of the majority needed.

Mike Pence’s life was threatened by Trump supporters at the Capitol, as the vice-president presided over the ratification of electoral college results confirming Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden. He placed second in the Politico-Morning Consult poll, with 12%.

Name recognition is a powerful force so far out from the contest concerned. Donald Trump Jr shared third place, with 6%, with Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador has tried to distance herself from Trump since the Capitol riot.

“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley told Politico shortly after the attack. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

She also said Trump was “not going to run for federal office again”. Trump has not committed either way. After his acquittal, he told supporters: “Soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant and limitless American future.”

In a message seen by the Guardian on Monday, one former Trump White House insider said a run was “gonna happen … or he will be drafted”.

Mitt Romney, a figure from the Republican past as the 2012 nominee but now a Utah senator who has twice voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges, scored 4% in the new poll. Ted Cruz of Texas, one of the senators who backed Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat, scored 3%. Josh Hawley of Missouri, the other prominent Republican in objections to election results, was in a pack of names lower even than that.

The battle for the soul of the party is on. On Monday, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell followed an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which said Trump would not win another national election with a column of his own.

McConnell restated his argument, made in a Senate speech in which he otherwise excoriated Trump, that Trump’s acquittal was a matter of constitutional law. Scholars, and the Senate twice, have rejected the argument that Trump could not be tried because he had left office.

McConnell has also made clear that he will oppose pro-Trump candidates seeking Republican nominations in the 2022 midterms, if he thinks they would damage chances of beating a Democrat

Meno2 · February 17, 2021, 3:15pm

Impeachment is over. The 2020 election? Not yet
Donald Trump rips Mitch McConnell as each seeks to exert leadership after impeachment trial

Moments after voting to acquit Donald Trump of the impeachment charge, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the deadly Capitol riot. Still, he said conviction would be unconstitutional. (Feb. 13)
AP
WASHINGTON – Seeking to keep control of a divided Republican Party, Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – the GOP’s highest-ranking elected official – after comments he made about Trump’s culpability for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Trump said in a written statement put out by a political action committee called the “Save America PAC.”

In a stark statement that laid bare the party’s fractiousness over Trump, the ex-president described McConnell as a “hack” who will not be able to lead the Republican Party back to victory. Division within the party has been on full display since the Capitol riots, after which 10 House Republicans voted to impeach him and seven Senate Republicans voted to convict him at his impeachment trial Saturday, when he was acquitted.

The statement came three days after McConnell criticized Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, even as he voted to acquit the former president at the impeachment trial. McConnell said he did so because he did not think it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial of a former president.

The Senate Republican leader did, however, hold Trump responsible for the attack, saying Trump’s false claims of fraud in his election loss to Joe Biden inspired extremist followers to commit violence.

“This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decisions or else torch our institutions on the way out,” McConnell said on Saturday.

Trump has not spoken on camera since leaving the White House. His office has put out written statements under his name, as it did after the Senate acquittal vote on Saturday.

Trump thanked Republicans who supported him and, suggesting a future run, said the political movement he began with his 2016 election has “only just begun.”

So far, at least, Trump is winning the internal battle with Republicans who want him to go away. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday said that “a majority of Republican voters (54 percent) said they would support Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election.”

Republicans who back McConnell said Trump is the one who caused the GOP to lose control of Congress and the White House during last year’s elections.

“I love Trump warning about the demise of a party that just lost the House, Senate, and White House under him,” tweeted Brendan Buck, a former spokesman for GOP House speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Buck later added: “I am so here for this conflict and so Team Mitch.”

Then-President Donald Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2017.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
More: Mitch McConnell votes to acquit but says Trump’s actions were a ‘disgraceful dereliction of duty’

More: Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’

In his written statement on Tuesday, Trump did not mention McConnell’s impeachment comments. He instead accused McConnell of practicing “business as usual” politics, and failing to stand up to Chinese trade practices.

Trump also blamed McConnell for Republicans losing control of the Senate, something for which McConnell holds Trump responsible. The Senate Republican leader has suggested that the party needs to move past Trump as it tries to regain control of the House and Senate in the 2022 elections.

Trump has vowed to support primary challengers to Republican lawmakers who either supported impeachment or refused to help him overturn the election. The latter group includes state officials like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who Trump criticized as “inept” in his statement.

More: A bloody insurrection, a deadly pandemic: Historians weigh in on Trump’s legacy after his acquittal

More: ‘Tribalism is a hell of a drug.’ Trump impeachment trial reopens GOP battle lines even as he is acquitted

Trump also plans to get involved in the congressional elections, and may seek to win the presidency again in 2024.

“Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack,” Trump said, “and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.”

Seven Republicans were among the 57 senators who found Trump guilty of inciting the riot, but conviction required 67 votes, two-thirds of the Senate.

If the Senate had voted to convict, it could also have disqualified Trump from holding office in the future, nullifying a 2024 presidential run.

As the Democratic-led House moved to impeach Trump in mid-January, McConnell at one point said he had not decided on the president’s guilt. After his acquittal vote, McConnell made clear he based his decision on the belief that the trial was unconstitutional, not Trump’s guilt.

“Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” McConnell said in his speech.

Meno2 · February 18, 2021, 2:13am

Impeachment is over. The 2020 election? Not yet
Donald Trump rips Mitch McConnell as each seeks to exert leadership after impeachment trial
DAVID JACKSON | USA TODAY | 7 hours ago

Moments after voting to acquit Donald Trump of the impeachment charge, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the deadly Capitol riot. Still, he said conviction would be unconstitutional.
AP

WASHINGTON – Seeking to keep control of a divided Republican Party, Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – the GOP’s highest-ranking elected official – after comments he made about Trump’s culpability for the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

“The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Trump said in a statement put out by a political action committee called the Save America PAC.

In stark terms that laid bare the party’s fractiousness over Trump, the ex-president described McConnell as a “hack” who will not be able to lead Republicans back to victory. Division within the party has been on full display since the Capitol riots, after which 10 House Republicans voted to impeach him and seven Senate Republicans voted to convict him at his impeachment trial Saturday, when he was acquitted.

The statement came three days after McConnell criticized Trump over the attack on the Capitol, though he voted to acquit at the impeachment trial. McConnell said he did so because he did not think it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial of a former president.

The Senate Republican leader held Trump responsible for the attack, saying his false claims of fraud in the election he lost to Joe Biden inspired extremist followers to commit violence.

“This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decisions or else torch our institutions on the way out,” McConnell said Saturday.

Trump has not spoken on camera since leaving the White House. His office has put out statements under his name, as it did after the Senate acquittal vote Saturday.

Trump thanked Republicans who supported him and suggesting a future run, he said the political movement that started with his 2016 election has “only just begun.”

Trump is winning the internal battle against Republicans who want him to go away. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday said, “A majority of Republican voters (54 percent) said they would support Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election.”

Republicans who back McConnell said Trump caused the GOP to lose control of Congress and the White House during last year’s elections.

“I love Trump warning about the demise of a party that just lost the House, Senate, and White House under him,” tweeted Brendan Buck, a former spokesman for GOP House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Buck said, “I am so here for this conflict and so Team Mitch.”

While Donald Trump was in office, he and Republican leader Mitch McConnell were allies for the most part. After election losses, the Capitol riot and the former president’s impeachment, their relationship has soured.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
More: Mitch McConnell votes to acquit but says Trump’s actions were a ‘disgraceful dereliction of duty’

Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’

In his statement Tuesday, Trump did not mention McConnell’s impeachment comments. He accused the Kentucky senator of practicing “business as usual” politics and failing to stand up to Chinese trade practices.

Trump blamed McConnell for Republicans losing control of the Senate, something for which McConnell holds Trump responsible. The Senate Republican leader suggested the party needs to move past Trump as it tries to regain control of the House and Senate in the 2022 elections.

Trump vowed to support primary challengers to Republican lawmakers who supported impeachment or refused to help him overturn the election. The latter group includes Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump criticized as “inept” in his statement.

A bloody insurrection, a deadly pandemic: Historians weigh in on Trump’s legacy after his acquittal

‘Tribalism is a hell of a drug.’ Trump impeachment trial reopens GOP battle lines even as he is acquitted

Trump plans to get involved in the congressional elections and may seek the presidency again in 2024.

“Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack,” Trump said, “and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.”

Seven Republicans were among the 57 senators who found Trump guilty of inciting the riot, but conviction required 67 votes, two-thirds of the Senate.

If the Senate had voted to convict, it could have disqualified Trump from holding office, nullifying a 2024 presidential run.

As the Democratic-led House moved to impeach Trump in mid-January, McConnell said he had not decided on the president’s guilt. After his acquittal vote, McConnell made clear he based his decision on the belief that the trial was unconstitutional, not Trump’s guilt.

“Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” McConnell said."

Some Republican bigwigs say MCconnell is dead in the water without Trump, who now wants him out.

Meno2 · February 19, 2021, 10:14pm

NewsWorldAmericasUS politics

Fauci on the differences between Trump and Biden administrations
Dr Fauci says Trump did ‘terrible things’ to him and now has to live under armed security
The doctor said he has been living under the protection of armed security since last April

The Independent employs over 100 journalists around the world to bring you news you can trust. To support truly independent journalism, please consider making a contribution or taking a subscription.

Donald Trump would do “terrible things” anytime Dr Anthony Fauci disagreed with him publicly, the doctor revealed in a recently released interview.

The Mr Trump’s antagonistic behaviour towards Dr Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, inspired his supporters to do the same. Now, Dr Fauci has to live under the care of armed guards since last April.

During an interview with The Telegraph, Dr Fauci - who became a household name thanks to his press conference appearances in the early days of the coronavirus’s spread throughout the US, often times looking dismayed by Mr Trump’s comments - said the former president was vindictive and used his loyalists in other government offices to undermine him.

“Like he allowed [White House trade adviser] Peter Navarro to write an editorial in USA Today saying that almost everything I’ve ever said was wrong,” the doctor said. “He allowed the communications department of the White House to send out a list to all of the media, all of the networks, all of the cables, all of the print press, about all of the mistakes I’ve made, which was absolute nonsense because there were no mistakes.”

Read more
Dr Fauci says Trump gave up fighting the pandemic once he lost the election
Dr Fauci laughs after learning the meaning of new dating term ‘Fauci-ing’
Fauci awarded $1m Israeli prize for public health career and ‘speaking truth to power’ during pandemic
Mr Trump’s frustration with Dr Fauci quickly became apparent as the doctor regularly contradicted him and quickly became liberal Americans’ preferred source of information regarding the pandemic. Dr Fauci became a minor celebrity, while Mr Trump faced mountain of criticism for his botched response to the pandemic.

Eventually, Mr Trump sidelined Dr Fauci, barring him from further public appearances, and replaced him with Dr Scott Atlas, who was loyal to the president.

Mr Atlas had no expertise in infectious diseases and often parroted whatever talking point Mr Trump was pushing at the time.

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Dr Fauci - who has worked with six presidents - said Mr Trump was not the first president he struggled to work alongside.

In the 1980’s, Dr Fauci was serving under former President Ronald Reagan, and recalled the Republican’s reluctance to take the AIDS crisis ravaging the LBGT community seriously.

Even still, Dr Fauci felt his relationship with that president was significantly better than the one he shared with Mr Trump, claiming Mr Reagan “never did anything to obstruct what I was trying to do.”

He said Mr Trump’s reliance on bunk “science” and insistence on repeating conspiracy theories directly undermined his attempts to let facts guide the country’s coronavirus response.

“I was trying to let science guide our policy, but [Mr Trump] was putting as much stock in anecdotal things that turned out not to be true as he was in what scientists like myself were saying,” Dr Fauci said. “That caused unnecessary and uncomfortable conflict where I had to essentially correct what he was saying, and put me at great odds with his people.”

Mr Trump became fed up with Dr Fauci questioning and correcting him, and disparaged him both privately and publicly.

“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Mr Trump said during a call with his staffers last year. “Fauci is a disaster.

The president also complained about the positive media attention Dr Fauci received.

Near the end of his time in office, Mr Trump - who was still convinced he would have a second term - openly pondered firing Dr Fauci.

Dr Fauci admits he worried about contracting Covid-19 in Trump White House
Double-masking: Should you wear two face masks to protect against Covid? Dr Fauci suggests it ‘makes sense’
The fight against vaccine hesitancy is more important than ever
Mr Trump’s former strategist and ally, Steve Bannon, agreed with the idea and wanted it to be taken an extreme step further; he called for the doctor’s head to be posted on a spike outside the White House.

“Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Mr Bannon said. “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games.”

Dr Fauci called the comments “very unusual.”

Meno2 · February 21, 2021, 5:33pm

Merrick Garland: What to know about Biden’s Attorney General pick
Trump’s fate hangs over attorney general nominee Merrick Garland’s confirmation hearing
KEVIN JOHNSON AND BART JANSEN | USA TODAY | 2 hours ago

Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general pick, has a long history with the Justice Department. Here are three things to know about Judge Garland.
USA TODAY
When Merrick Garland accepted President Joe Biden’s nomination to serve as attorney general, the federal appeals court judge said he looked forward to a Justice Department “homecoming” where he first began in the Carter administration.

Yet any celebration marking his return to Main Justice – 24 years after departing for the federal bench – could be short-lived.

Not since Watergate has any attorney general nominee faced the kinds of questions awaiting Garland as he prepares to take his seat Monday for a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Opener: What Garland plans to say at anticipated confirmation hearing

DOJ: The Justice Department urgently needs a reset. Enter Merrick Garland. Is he up for it?

The rolling crisis that defined the Justice Department and its relationship with former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly sought to bend the agency to serve his political interests, is now just one of many challenges facing the nominee.

Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland speaks during an event with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at The Queen theater in Wilmington on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021.
Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland speaks during an event with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at The Queen theater in Wilmington on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021.
SUSAN WALSH, AP
Last month, a resurgent domestic extremist movement was thrust into public view during the deadly Capitol siege. The stunning assault has launched federal law enforcement authorities on one of the most far-reaching investigations in history while raising deeper concerns about the government’s capacity to contain the threat.

Conspiracy case: 6 more associated with Oath Keepers charged

As senators weigh confirmation, Garland is certain to be confronted with pointed inquiries about whether Justice should investigate, and potentially prosecute Trump, for inciting the Jan. 6 riots that left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all but threw Trump’s fate to the Justice Department last week when the former president was acquitted by the Senate at his impeachment trial.

“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said following the Senate trial. “No question about it … He didn’t get away with anything, yet. We still have a criminal justice system in this country. We still have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

More: Donald Trump rips Mitch McConnell as each seeks to exert leadership after impeachment trial

While there is little open opposition to Garland’s nomination, a striking departure from 2016 when President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court was blocked by a Republican-controlled Senate, the contentious nature of the challenges before him now make Monday’s hearing perhaps the most anticipated of any Biden Cabinet nominee.

What to know: Who is Merrick Garland, the attorney general nominee?

Should DOJ pick up where Trump’s Senate impeachment left off?
At virtually every opportunity since the close of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, the Biden administration has deflected questions about the former president’s potential criminal vulnerability for inciting the Jan. 6 riots.

More: Trump impeachment trial vote acquits him in historic second impeachment proceeding

“We’re doing something new here,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week, adding that an “independent Justice Department (would) determine what any path forward and any investigation would look like.”

Aside from the not-so-subtle dig at the Trump White House, which routinely intervened in some of the most politically sensitive matters at Justice, Psaki effectively put the department — and Garland — in the hot seat.

Pending confirmation, it now will be largely Garland’s call on a criminal investigation and the resulting shadow Trump may cast on the new administration.

As much as Biden has sought to rid Justice of the kind of politicization that marked the Trump Justice Department — from the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey for his management of the Russia investigation to dropping the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn — any decision involving Trump is fraught with political implications.

William Yeomans, a former Justice official whose service spanned the administrations of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, said that if the facts ultimately lead to Trump, the former president “must be held accountable.”

House prosecutors ended their arguments Feb. 11, the third day of former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial.
House prosecutors ended their arguments Feb. 11, the third day of former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial.
GETTY
“It has been and must remain a fundamental tenet of our adherence to the rule of law that we do not tolerate the use of the prosecution power to target individuals simply because they are political opponents,” Yeomans said. “That generally means we must proceed with care in prosecuting a former president, particularly one of a different political party. But, it does not mean that a former president whose crimes are uncovered by a fair and full investigation should escape accountability.”

Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and faced difficult questions about the administration’s torture policies during his Senate confirmation hearing, said Garland should not commit “one way or the other” on the possible legal jeopardy facing Trump.

“Given the political nature of the case and the public interest, he may commit or at least say he would consider appointing a career prosecutor to make an initial assessment (on) whether a formal investigation should be commenced,” said Gonzales, one of two Republican attorneys general who have announced their support for Garland.

More: Gonzales, 3 other ex-attorneys general sign letter of support for Garland

At the same time, Gonzales said Garland “may be pressured by Republicans to formally recuse himself from the final decision whether to prosecute.”

“I am not aware of any legitimate reason he would be required to do so under DOJ regulations if he wants to make this decision,” Gonzales said. “There is no financial, political or personal reason I know of to recuse. But he will be pressed about this.”

Can DOJ rebuild White House firewall?
On the campaign trail, Biden said the Justice Department had been transformed into the “president’s private law firm” under Trump, who casually penetrated the institutional firewall with a well aimed tweet.

“I want to be clear to those who lead this department (about) who you will serve,” Biden said when introducing Garland as his nominee Jan. 7. “You won’t work for me. You are not the president or the vice president’s lawyer. Your loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, the Constitution, the people of this nation, to guarantee justice.”

Merrick Garland: Biden’s pick for attorney general
View | 9 Photos
Merrick Garland: Biden’s pick for attorney general
Garland has taken his lead from Biden, drawing stark parallels to the post-Watergate era when Justice faced a similar challenge to separate itself from the raw political interests of a president.

While accepting the nomination, he invoked the name of Edward Levi, the revered former attorney general nominated by President Gerald Ford to restore the department’s credibility following the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

“As Ed Levi said at his own swearing in, ‘Nothing can more weaken the quality of life, or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold dear, than our failure to make clear by words and deed that our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose,’” Garland said, quoting the former attorney general.

If confirmed, Garland said it would be “my mission … to reaffirm those policies as the principles upon which the department operates.”

Hunter Biden and Durham probes continue
A test of that commitment looms with the continuing federal tax investigation involving the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the pending inquiry into the origins of the Russian investigation led by Connecticut federal prosecutor John Durham, appointed by former Trump Attorney General William Barr.

President-elect Joe Biden’s son was in the spotlight during the presidential campaign for his business dealings with Ukraine and China.
President-elect Joe Biden’s son was in the spotlight during the presidential campaign for his business dealings with Ukraine and China.
USA TODAY
Before departing in December, Barr resisted Trump’s calls to appoint a special prosecutor in the Biden case.

At the time, Barr said the investigation was being handled “responsibly and professionally” by federal prosecutors in Delaware.

Although all presidentially appointed federal prosecutors are expected to submit their resignations during transitions to new administrations, the Biden administration said the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney leading the Hunter Biden inquiry and Durham would remain to complete their work.

“These were decisions that were made in order to fulfill (Biden’s) promise of maintaining independence and ensuring that he sent that message and every action that was taken,” Psaki said earlier this month.

The enemy within: Is domestic terror law now necessary?
The Capitol assault was still fresh when a long-simmering debate began anew: Is federal law enforcement adequately equipped to confront the resurgent domestic terror threat.

The question, which has prompted new calls for equal penalties for both domestic and international terror offenses, is certain to spill into the Senate hearing for Garland, who during his previous Justice tenure, oversaw the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing — the most deadly domestic terror attack in U.S. history.

In remarks prepared for delivery at Monday’s Senate hearing, Garland cast the fight against extremism as “central” to the department’s mission.

“We have to do something,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said this month during the first congressional examination of the domestic threat following the Jan. 6 attack. Thompson has since sued Trump and Giuliani.

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021.
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
More: After massacres and thwarted plots, federal authorities confront limits in fighting domestic terror

For some, including Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former chairman of the Homeland panel, the remedies should include legislation that treats domestic terrorists no differently than their international counter-parts.

During the Homeland panel hearing, McCaul said the Capitol attack “cries out” for such action.

“I think it sends a strong message about where Congress is that we treat domestic terrorism on an equal plane as international terrorism,” McCaul said.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, shown at an August 2019 meeting, said this week an Austin company is making progress toward a COVID-19 treatment.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILE
More: Domestic extremism has become ‘mainstream,’ could threaten American life for 20 years

While domestic terror is codified in federal law as an effort to “intimidate or coerce” a civilian population or government, there are no corresponding criminal penalties to back it. That has forced law enforcement to head off potential threats with the tools at their disposal, including leaning on the public to provide tips and charging suspects with violating weapons laws, hate crimes or illegal threats in the absence of a domestic terrorism charge.

The government has moved to thwart right-wing extremism when it appeared to be on the precipice of violence, though authorities face significant limits in the form of free speech rights.

And some fear that a revamped domestic terrorism law raises the prospect of formally designating groups as domestic terror organizations, similar to ISIS or al-Qaeda, merely because their messages may be repulsive.

Brian Jenkins, a longtime terror analyst and senior adviser at the Rand Corp., said any effort to single out specific domestic groups may only deepen the country’s partisan divide.

“While (a domestic terror law) looks like an attractive option now, it may not be easily applied,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins said Garland, whose prosecutorial experience is steeped in domestic terrorism, may be uniquely suited to confront the current threat environment.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland, left, and interim U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan answer questions during a news conference May 18, 1995, in El Reno, Okla. Garland, a Harvard lawyer, was the Justice Department’s point man on the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
DAVID LONGSTREATH/AP
“This is someone who oversaw the investigation of Timothy McVeigh who was charged, convicted and ultimately executed for carrying out the worst domestic attack in U.S. history,” Jenkins said, referring to the Oklahoma City bomber. “And Garland did that without a domestic terrorism law.”

Are troubled police agencies back in DOJ’s crosshairs?
Garland’s nomination follows a summer of racial justice protests, prompted by deaths and injuries of Black men and women during police encounters.

While the incidents highlighted troubling law enforcement tactics, they also called attention to the Trump Justice Department’s departure from enforcement strategies that had sought to hold police agencies accountable for misconduct.

The Trump administration launched one investigation into a law enforcement agency during its four years, compared to 25 inquiries into “patterns and practices” of conduct in police agencies during eight years of the Obama administration.

Civil rights advocates have argued that Trump’s deference to law enforcement has seriously undercut confidence in policing in Black communities, and Biden has vowed new scrutiny of police tactics led by a re-invigorated Justice Department Civil Rights Division.

If confirmed, it would be up to Garland, however, to set the tone on how aggressively to pursue those priorities.

“That mission remains urgent because we do not yet have equal justice,” Garland’s prepared remarks state. “Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment, and the criminal justice system; and bear the brunt of the harm caused by pandemic, pollution, and climate change.”

More: 12 charts that show how racial disparities persist

Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor who prosecuted public corruption at the Justice Department, said Biden recognizes that policing problems are worse than “a few bad apples.”

“I think that will be a new and unique opportunity for the attorney general because no president has described bias in the terms that Biden has used, including frequently referencing white supremacy and systemic racism,” Butler said. “The reason that that’s a challenge is that systemic racism is built into operations and policies and even law. It’s daunting.”

In December, Biden joined an online meeting with seven civil rights group leaders to hash out the path forward.

During that meeting, Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told Biden the administration needed to undo “extensive damage” in enforcing federal civil rights laws.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (L) looks on as Kristen Clarke delivers remarks after being nominated to be civil rights division assistant attorney general by President-elect Joe Biden at The Queen theater January 07, 2021 in Wilmington, Delaware.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA, GETTY IMAGES
“We need this administration to make fighting white supremacy, confronting racial violence, addressing police violence and tackling rampant voter suppression topline priorities,” Clarke said at the time.

More than a month after that meeting, Biden nominated Clarke to serve as an assistant attorney general in charge of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Biden also nominated another leader on that call, Vanita Gupta, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, to become associate attorney general.

Since then, Gupta, the acting Civil Rights chief in the Obama administration, has become a target of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which has sought to brand her as a proponent for defunding police.

Vanita Gupta is President-elect Biden’s nominee for Associate Attorney General.
ANDREW HARNIK, AP
But Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, called Gupta a “gifted leader” for her service in the Obama administration, when she pioneered accountability for abusive police departments.

She also fought to protect voting rights at the leadership conference, for “elections that are free, fair, secure and safe,” Waldman said.

Biden, meanwhile, has made no secret of his regard for Justice’s civil rights mission.

“The Civil Rights Division represents the moral center of the Department of Justice and the heart of that fundamental American ideal that we’re all created equal and deserve to be treated equally,” Biden said when introducing his team of Justice nominees last month.

In preparing for the hearing, Garland noted in his written remarks that Senators had asked why he would agree to leave a lifetime judicial appointment to return to Justice.

“I have told you that I love being a judge. I have also told you that this is an important time for me to step forward because of my deep respect for the Department of Justice and its critical role in ensuring the Rule of Law.”