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The Hypothesis: Did COVID-19 originate on the mink farms£ - Google Search
This article below is of the same opinion and it elaborates this hypothesis further.
A lot of work is needed to confirm or refute this hypothesis but it should remain the working assumption.
A mutated strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been found in mink farms, such as this one in Naestved, Denmark, causing a mass cull in November 2020.
PHOTO: MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/RITZAU SCANPIX/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and COVID-19 all broke out in recent decades and are caused by different strains of coronavirus (CoV). These viruses are considered to originate from bats and to have been transmitted to humans through intermediate hosts. SARS-CoV was identified in palm civets in wildlife markets and MERS-CoV in dromedary camels (1), but the direct source of the COVID-19 causative agent, SARS-CoV-2, is still undetermined. On page 172 of this issue, Oude Munnink et al. (2) report an in-depth investigation of SARS-CoV-2 infections in animals and humans working or living in 16 mink farms in the Netherlands. SARS-CoV-2 infections were detected in 66 out of 97 (68%) of the owners, workers, and their close contacts. Some people were infected with viral strains with an animal sequence signature, providing evidence of SARS-CoV-2 spillover back and forth between animals and humans within mink farms.
Besides mink, multiple species of wild or domestic animals may also carry SARS-CoV-2 or its related viruses. Experimental infections and binding-affinity assays between the SARS-CoV-2 spike (a surface protein that mediates cell entry) and its receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2), demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 has a wide host range (3). After the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, several groups reported SARS-related CoVs in horseshoe bats in China and in pangolins smuggled from South Asian countries, but according to genome sequence comparison, none are directly the progenitor virus of SARS-CoV-2 (4). Domestic cats and dogs, as well as tigers in zoos, have also been found to be naturally infected by SARS-CoV-2 from humans, but there is no evidence that they can infect humans, and so they are unlikely to be the source hosts of SARS-CoV-2 (4, 5).
To date, SARS-CoV-2 infections in mink farms have been reported in eight countries (the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, France, Sweden, Italy, the United States, and Greece), according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (6). In addition to animal-to-human transmission in farms, cold food supplier chains are raising substantial concern. In various cities in China, several small-scale COVID-19 outbreaks caused by virus-contaminated uncooked seafood or pork from overseas countries have been documented. It was found that viral genome signatures in these outbreaks were different from the viral strains present in China (7, 8). There is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can survive up to 3 weeks in meat and on the surface of cold food packages without losing infectivity (7, 8). Thus, meat from SARS-CoV-2–infected animals or food packaging contaminated by SARS-CoV-2 could be a source of human infection (see the figure).
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This raises concerns about public health and agriculture in the prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2. Most SARS-CoV-2–infected animals do not display an obvious clinical syndrome, and infections would be unrecognized without routine diagnosis. The massive mink culling of infected farms is an efficient way to prevent further transmission of the virus. However, it cannot be applied to all domestic animals (if other species are found to be SARS-CoV-2 hosts). Thus, out of caution, extensive and strict quarantine measures should be implemented in all domestic farms with high-density animal populations. Because the virus is able to jump between some animals (such as mink) and humans, similar strategies should be applied to people in key occupations involving animal-human interfaces, such as animal farmers, zookeepers, or people who work in slaughterhouses. Notably, there is limited evidence of animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 except for mink. Research on whether other domestic animals carry SARS-CoV-2, whether they can transmit it to humans, and factors related to spillover should be conducted.
The RNA genome of SARS-CoV-2 seems relatively stable during transmission within human populations, although accumulated mutations have been detected. It is generally accepted that coronaviruses tend to exhibit rapid evolution when jumping to a different species. To keep the replication error rate low, coronaviruses encode several RNA-processing and proofreading enzymes that are thought to increase the fidelity of viral replication. However, viruses tend to have reduced fidelity in favor of adaptation to a new host species (9), although the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are unclear. The coronaviral spike protein is prone to have more mutations because it is the first virus-host interaction protein and thus faces the strongest selection pressure. This molecular evolution can be observed in SARS-CoV genomes, which were under more adaptive pressure in the early stage of the epidemic (palm civet to human) than in later stages (human to human) (10).
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spillover likely occurred from bat and/or pangolin (ancestral virus) through unidentified intermediate host animals (direct progenitor virus). Human SARS-CoV-2 strains infect susceptible domestic animals (such as mink) and likely adapt to these species through mutation. The virus can be transmitted from mink back to farm workers and close contacts. SARS-CoV-2 can also be transmitted to humans through contact with contaminated uncooked meat or food packaging.
GRAPHIC: MELISSA THOMAS BAUM/SCIENCE
Mutations that occur in SARS-CoV-2 in animals may increase its pathogenesis or transmissibility in humans. Five clusters of SARS-CoV-2 strains were found in mink, each characterized by a specific mink-related variant. In Denmark, the cluster 5 strain of mink SARS-CoV-2 was less immunogenic to COVID-19 patient serum than was human SARS-CoV-2 because of mutations of the spike proteins in the mink strains (11). This cluster 5 strain has infected at least 12 people, and the clinical presentation, severity, and transmission among those infected are similar to those of other circulating human SARS-CoV-2 strains (12). Currently, there is no evidence that any mutation from mink strains of SARS-CoV-2 escapes neutralization by antibodies designed to target the prevalent human strains. However, considering the possible risk of spillover of SARS-CoV-2 between humans and some animals, it is imperative to closely monitor mutations in the viral genome from infected animals and humans, particularly the genome regions affecting diagnostic tests, antiviral drugs, and vaccine development.
It is anticipated that vaccines will allow control of COVID-19. Vaccines have been developed against the current prevalent viral strains and could face challenges if there is continued spillover from animals. The viral genome mutations likely produced during interspecies transmission between animals and humans raise concerns about whether the current vaccines can protect against emerging strains in the future. The extensive sequencing of viral genomes from animals and humans and worldwide data sharing will be central to efforts to monitor the key mutations that could affect vaccine efficacy. Laboratory-based studies should test whether the observed mutations affect key features of the virus, including pathogenesis, immunogenicity, and cross-neutralization. Moreover, preparedness of vaccines based on newly detected variants should be considered in advance. In the long term, vaccination of animals should also be considered to avoid economic losses in agriculture.
There has been debate about whether bats or pangolins, which carry coronaviruses with genomes that are ∼90 to 96% similar to human SARS-CoV-2, were the animal source of the first human outbreak (4). Evolutionary analyses of viral genomes from bats and pangolins indicate that further adaptions, either in animal hosts or in humans, occurred before the virus caused the COVID-19 pandemic (13). Therefore, an animal species that has a high population density to allow natural selection and a competent ACE2 protein for SARS-CoV-2—mink, for example—would be a possible host of the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.
Another debate concerns the source of SARS-CoV-2 that caused the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019. The current data question the animal origin of SARS-CoV-2 in the seafood market where the early cases were identified in Wuhan, China. Given the finding of SARS-CoV-2 on the surface of imported food packages, contact with contaminated uncooked food could be an important source of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (8). Recently, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were found in human serum samples taken outside of China before the COVID-19 outbreak was detected (14, 15), which suggests that SARS-CoV-2 existed for some time before the first cases were described in Wuhan. Retrospective investigations of preoutbreak samples from mink or other susceptible animals, as well as humans, should be conducted to identify the hosts of the direct progenitor virus and to determine when the virus spilled over into humans.
Acknowledgments: Supported by China National Science Foundation for Excellent Scholars award 81822028 (P.Z.) and Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences awards XDB29010101 (Z.-L.S.) and XDB29010204 (P.Z.).
Shi Zhengli. Photo: Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)
While the World Health Organization\'s expert team is in Wuhan to investigate how the coronavirus jumped to humans from animals, China\'s \"Bat Woman\" Shi Zhengli said in an article that mink could be a possible host of the origin of the novel coronavirus, and called on the world to investigate samples from more susceptible animals to determine when the virus moved to humans.
Chinese virologists said Shi\'s article proves that the mystery of the virus origin needs investigations in many countries and research on more animal species, and WHO\'s investigation in Wuhan, although unlikely to find the answer of the origin, will lay a good foundation for further investigations in more countries.
However, Chinese experts also stressed that Shi\'s article did not fix the direct host of the virus on mink, and scientists in different fields need to deepen their genome sequence research on mink to verify the possibility.
Shi, a Chinese virologist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology dubbed as China\'s \"Bat Woman\" due to her years of research and achievements in research with bats and viruses, and Zhou Peng, a scientist also from the institute, jointly published an article, titled \"SARS-CoV-2 spillover events,\" on Science Magazine recently, which said that after the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, several groups reported SARS-related coronavirus in horseshoe bats in China and in pangolins smuggled from South Asian countries. But according to genome sequence comparison, none are directly the source of SARS-CoV-2, the agent of COVID-19.
In the meantime, COVID-19 infections in mink farms have been reported in eight countries, including the Netherlands, France, Italy and the US, according to the WHO.
There is limited evidence of animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 except for mink, the study said.
Evolutionary analyses of viral genomes from bats and pangolins indicate that further adaption, either in animal hosts or in humans, occurred before the virus caused the COVID-19 pandemic, the study said. Therefore, an animal species that has a high population density, for example, mink, would be a possible host of the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
The current evidence also questioned the animal origin of the virus in the seafood market in Wuhan, as we have found the virus on the surface of imported food packages, and the coronavirus antibodies were found in human serum samples taken outside China before the COVID-19 outbreak was detected in Wuhan, which suggested that the virus had existed for some time before Wuhan discovered its first case, the study said.
Authors of the study called on retrospective investigations of pre-outbreak samples from mink and other susceptible animals as well as humans to identify the direct origin of the virus, and to determine when the virus moved to humans.
Shi\'s study was published amid the WHO expert team\'s investigation trip to Wuhan, which Chinese health experts believe would help worldwide experts explore more possibilities on the origin of the virus.
WHO Photo:VCG
According to a Terms of References for the China part on the global study of virus origin sent to the Global Times by the WHO ahead of the visit, the international team will conduct studies to better understand how the virus might have started circulating in Wuhan, and these studies include in-depth reviews of hospital records for cases compatible with COVID-19 before December 2019, and a mapping of activities and items traded at the Huanan seafood market and potentially other relevant markets in late November and December 2019, including types of animals and stalls present at the Huanan market, according to the WHO.
Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Friday that the WHO experts could work with Chinese counterparts to learn how and why the virus circulated in Wuhan, and their visit to Wuhan, including their methods and other experience, will set a fine example for more investigations in more countries.
Jin Dongyan, a biomedical professor at the University of Hong Kong, said that the WHO experts consisting of international scientists in various fields could provide China different experiences and thoughts on related studies.
But the world cannot pin their hopes of finding how the virus jumped from animals to humans and which species it came from solely on the ongoing WHO experts\' visit to China, which most likely will find no answer at all.
Too many scientific questions remain unanswered, such as how the virus triggered humans to develop the symptoms, and the infection chain between animals and humans. These answers cannot be found during Wuhan\'s visit, Yang said.
The COVID-19 outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, but where an epidemic is first detected does not reflect where it started, according to the WHO.
Countries including the US, Italy and France have reported coronavirus evidence in environmental and human specimens before or around the time the virus was officially identified in China in December 2019.
Fabian Leendertz, who is part of the WHO expert team and biologist at Germany\'s Robert Koch Institute, told the Global Times previously that the team would start where the first solid evidence was generated, and this is in Wuhan.
\"From there we do the scientific work and follow the tracks wherever they take us... could be within China, could be outside China. We have to be open to all directions, this is what science is about and it is data based,\" Leendertz said.
After overturning the possibility of bats, Shi\'s article provided a new possibility, although more thorough research is needed, and helped broaden the range of potential animal hosts, experts said.
Yang said it\'s possible we missed some animals in hunting the virus source because no scientists have dug into them.
\"They may not just live in China but in Africa, the Americas or Europe. Is it possible that some animals in places such as the US where natural ecological environment is well-protected have some relation to the novel coronavirus as well£\" Yang said.
So far, mutations of the virus have been found in the US, not Wuhan, and the WHO experts need to investigate in the US, Yang said.
The visit of WHO experts should also highlight sharing the Chinese experience on controlling the pandemic in a timely manner. This is a more realistic mission to complete, Yang said.
Remapping the history of the COVID-19 pandemic
The coronavirus that conquered the world came from a thumb-sized bat tucked inside a remote Chinese cave. Of this much, scientists are convinced.
Exactly how and when it fled the bat to begin its devastating flight across the globe remain open questions.
In just one year, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has infected 100 million people and killed 2 million, 400,000 of them in the U.S. Answers could stop such a calamity from happening again.
Researchers in China, under government scrutiny, have been investigating since January. This week, a World Health Organization delegation of scientists from 10 different nations finally was allowed in the country to explore the virus\' origins.
\"This is important not just for COVID-19, but for the future of global health security and to manage emerging disease threats with pandemic potential,\" Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO\'s director-general, said just after the team left for China.
It\'s not clear how much evidence will remain a year later, and what the team will be able to learn. The Wuhan fish market, seen as a likely breeding ground for the virus, has been scrubbed and shuttered.
But the effort is worth it, infectious disease experts say. Understanding the journey of SARS-CoV-2 may provide insights into how the relationship between humans and animals led to the pandemic, as well as other disease outbreaks including Ebola, Zika and many strains of flu.
\"These are emerging diseases that breach the barrier between animals and humans and cause devastation in human populations,\" the WHO\'s Mike Ryan said at a Monday news conference. \"It is an absolute requirement that we understand that interface and what is driving that dynamic and what specific issues resulted in diseases breaching that barrier.\"
The international team is not looking to assign blame, said Ryan, executive director of WHO\'s Health Emergencies Programme. If it were, there would be plenty to go around.
\"We can blame climate change. We can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago regarding everything from urbanization to the way we exploit the forest,\" he said. \"You can find people to blame in every level of what we\'re doing on this planet.\"
The chain of events that led to the worst global pandemic in a century started with a tiny, insect-eating mammal with the mundane name, Intermediate Horseshoe bat.
The species is part of a family of bats that act as natural reservoirs for coronaviruses, notorious for how easily they mutate and how well they can be transmitted from species to species. The bats aren\'t bothered by the viruses. The animals they pass them onto aren\'t always so lucky.
Humans are one of those animals.
This happens all the time – a virus harmlessly infects one creature then finds its way to another, mutates and becomes something new. The newly mutated virus can be insignificant but annoying (think common colds, some of which are caused by coronaviruses) or devastating and deadly (think smallpox.)
SARS-CoV-2 is a little of both.
As many as 40% of those who test positive for COVID-19 have no symptoms at all but 2% of people who get sick die. It’s especially deadly in the elderly. COVID-19 has killed 1 of every 66 Americans older than 85. Among those infected, some percentage — we don\'t yet know how many — cope with crippling long-term symptoms that plague them for months. Future health impacts remain unknown.
The group of related coronaviruses giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has existed for decades in bats and likely originated more than 40 years ago, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a professor and expert in viral genomics at the University of California, San Francisco.
SARS-CoV-2 shares 96% of its genetic material with a sample of coronavirus taken in 2013 in Intermediate Horseshoe bats from Yunnan province in China, which suggests the Yunnan virus is its ancestor. How the virus traveled the 1,200 miles from Yunnan to Wuhan remains unknown.
Because the 2013 sample is the only one available, scientists had to undertake genetic analysis to estimate when the bat strain and the strain now circulating among humans diverged. They put the split sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, said Maciej Boni, a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University\'s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, who spent almost a decade working in Asia.
\"There\'s really not a clear tree where we have forensic evidence to point to exactly where it came from,\" said John Connor, a virologist at Boston University who studies emerging infectious diseases. \"It looks like it\'s a bat-derived virus, and there\'s a big question mark after that.\"
Scientists simply don\'t do enough surveillance of bats and coronavirus to tell.
\"We just don\'t know because we don\'t have any data — we weren\'t looking,\" said Boni. \"Over the last 20 years we haven\'t been doing enough sampling.\"
There\'s really not a clear tree where we have forensic evidence to point to exactly where it came from. It looks like it\'s a bat-derived virus, and there\'s a big question mark after that.
Boni is among those who think the virus most likely came directly from bats, possibly infecting miners who work in bat-infested caves or people exposed to bat feces. Others say it more likely spent some time infecting another animal species before leaping to humans.
The original SARS virus, identified in China in 2003, is believed to have passed through civets – a type of nocturnal mammal native to Asia and Africa – though other animals may have been involved.
SARS underwent only a few genetic changes between bats and people, which made its animal roots easier to trace, while SARS-CoV-2 has changed a lot more, Connor said.
With SARS-CoV-2, a suspect is the frequently trafficked scaly anteater, also known as a pangolin. Other possibilities include civets or ferrets or even cats.
“SARS-CoV-2 may originate from live animal markets, but it may also have emerged from any setting in which people come into contact with animals, including farms, pets, or zoos,” Chiu said.
Whatever its path, sometime before November 2019 it became a virus that could easily – far too easily – infect humans.
Despite a persistent conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a lab, perhaps an infectious disease lab in Wuhan, there’s no evidence to support the claim and plenty to counter it.
In March, a group of researchers found the virus most closely resembled existing bat viruses and was not man-made.
\"Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,\" they wrote in the prestigious journal Nature.
No new details have emerged since to change the author minds, said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, one of the co-authors and a professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
\"Can we exclude the possibility that there was a virus that was present in this lab that somehow got out into either animals or people£ No, we can\'t do that,\" he said. \"The only thing we can say is that there\'s no evidence that suggests it was deliberately engineered through some sort of gain-of-function experiments.\"
Connor said he\'s also dubious the virus originated in a lab rather than in nature.
\"What laboratory people are really good at doing is making viruses weaker,\" said Connor, who is also an investigator at Boston University\'s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories.
Viruses, especially RNA viruses like coronaviruses, make tiny mistakes as they reproduce. One person\'s nose might contain 10 to a 100,000 copies of the virus, and with so many replications and so many mistakes, it\'s plausible chance mutations led to SARS-CoV-2, he said.
\"I don\'t think we need to look for man-made. I think we see the viruses that we know assaulting us all the time,\" Connor said. \"We look back to Zika. That wasn\'t man-made. Neither was Ebola. Flu keeps coming after us.\"
I don\'t think we need to look for man-made. I think we see the viruses that we know assaulting us all the time. We look back to Zika. That wasn\'t man-made. Neither was Ebola. Flu keeps coming after us.
It’s possible to bioengineer a virus, but it’s extremely hard. Anyone doing so would have used a pre-existing virus as the template. The virus that’s now killing millions has novel mutations, many of them, said Chiu.
“We barely know how to manipulate even a few base pairs in a single viral gene,\" he said. \"The difference between Chinese bat coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 is more than 3,000 base pairs.\"
In some ways, it doesn\'t matter where the virus came from, said Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University\'s Mailman School of Public Health. What matters is how we deal with the current situation, which is at a crisis state in the United States.
\"When the house is burning down is not the time to start looking for where the matches were,\" he said.
If SARS-Cov-2 had been a type of bird flu instead of a coronavirus, the world would have alerted within days of the first infections. A global surveillance system was established in the 1990s and has been expanded and strengthened, Boni said.
\"If a single poultry farmer in Southeast Asia comes down with severe respiratory symptoms, samples are taken and sequenced. That week you know which avian influenza virus it is,\" he said. \"Farms in neighboring regions are immediately quarantined and the birds may be depopulated. It takes days.\"
Setting up something similar for bats and coronaviruses would cost several billion a year globally, said Boni. \"It\'s not expensive for the benefit we\'d get.\"
To track SARS-COV-2 as it transferred among species requires analyzing blood collected from the animals, as well as samples from their airways.
Distinguishing between closely related viruses isn\'t always so easy.
\"We have a special test that can do this if we could get samples out of China,\" said Lipkin. He\'s been trying for months to do so, and when he attempted to send his own sampling tools into the country the U.S wouldn\'t allow it.
\"We now have obstruction on both sides,\" said Lipkin, who\'s been working to get into China himself since early in the outbreak. \"I don\'t know when that\'s going to let up. I\'m hoping the Biden administration will feel differently.\"
Lipkin\'s March paper explored key features of the new virus but nothing more has been learned since about SARS-CoV-2\'s earliest days, he said.
\"We still haven\'t had a full post-mortem on what went wrong in China,\" said Lipkin, who caught COVID-19 in March in New York and was recently vaccinated.
The U.S. has a very good system of reporting outbreaks, and rapidly publishes information in the CDC\'s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly. The Chinese are not as transparent at reporting their public health information.
Increased transparency is one of several changes Lipkin recommends to avoid a repeat of the 2020 disaster.
Wild animal markets and consumption of wildlife continue to pose dangers, he said.
And the world needs to have the ability to respond faster to novel viruses like SARS-CoV-2. Global surveillance would help, as would drugs that can treat a wide spectrum of viruses – maybe one that can address all coronaviruses and another to tackle influenzas.
\"These drugs might not be ideal but we should think of them as a finger in the dike,\" Lipkin said, so outbreaks won\'t get out of hand, the way this one did.
Connor, at Boston University, agrees that effective and transparent public health systems around the world are essential for detecting and preventing outbreaks like COVID-19.
While Wuhan may have had a good health care system, that was not the case in West Africa, where a 2014-2016 epidemic of Ebola infected more than 28,000, killed over 11,000 and terrified the world.
\"It would be nice for all people to have good health care, not just because it would be nice for them ... but for everybody else,\" Connor said. \"It would be nice to be able to identify: Oh, all of a sudden, five people in one area got sick with something we didn\'t know what it was.\"
Connor said it\'s pointless to try to predict all the ways in which a virus now infecting animals could make the leap to humans. A much better approach, he said, is to focus on the viruses that do emerge.
\"What matters is how good we are at responding quickly,\" he said.
The race is now between the speed of mutations and the speed of vaccination, said Chiu.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says it may take up to 85% of Americans being vaccinated to protect the population. Reaching those numbers will be challenging considering pervasive vaccine hesitancy and a slow, complicated roll out.
In the meantime, public health measures to stop the spread – masking, social distancing and handwashing – are essential, experts repeat.
“We have to reduce the number of infections before the virus has a chance to mutate in such a way that it can evade drugs and vaccines,\" said Chiu. \"That’s what keeps me up at night.”
Contact Elizabeth Weise at eweise@usatoday.com and Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
In a last-ditch attempt to defend the outgoing U.S. President Donald J. Trump, Russian-speaking participants in the recent mob at the Capitol flooded the airwaves of the Kremlin-controlled Russian state television. They claimed that the pro-Trump insurrectionists were merely “peaceful demonstrators” and blamed “antifa” for the violence that took place in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.
Russian state media propagandists and their mouthpieces apparently didn’t get the memo that even the Republicans no longer pursue that false narrative. Congressman Kevin McCarthy spoke on the House floor ahead of a vote on Trump’s second impeachment and asserted: “Some say the riots were caused by antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that.”
But the truth never stopped the Kremlin’s propaganda networks from continuing to disseminate a convenient fable. Russian-speaking eyewitnesses were shown intermittently—or some might argue interchangeably—with clips from Fox News, featuring Tucker Carlson, Marco Rubio and other Trump apologists. Appearing on state TV channel Rossiya-24, two Russian-speakers living in the United States were identified as “those who participated in the events” on Capitol Hill and later took part in numerous shows on Russian state television. Anchor Stas Natanzon asked Elena Nikitskaya of Greenville, South Carolina and Alexander Schneider of Boston, Massachusetts whether they’re facing persecution in the United States for supporting Donald Trump.
Many who participated in the chaos at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday came straight from an event held by President Donald Trump.
Trump\'s \"Save America Rally\" included the president telling supporters to \"stop the steal\" of the election, urging them to head to the Capitol to demonstrate against Congress certifying President-elect Joe Biden\'s victory. Among the crowd\'s battle cries was, \"Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!\"
Trump spoke at the event for nearly an hour at the Ellipse, a park near the White House. After he spoke, thousands of attendees, many of them without masks, marched toward Capitol Hill as federal law enforcement vehicles raced to beat them there.
Here\'s what Trump said at his rally:
Media will not show the magnitude of this crowd even I when I turned on today, I looked, and I saw thousands of people here, but you don\'t see hundreds of thousands of people behind you because they don\'t want to show that. We have hundreds of thousands of people here, and I just want them to be recognized by the fake news media. Turn your cameras, please, and show what is really happening out here because these people are not going to take it any longer, they\'re not going to take it any longer.
Go ahead, turn your cameras, please. Would you show they came from all over the world actually, but they came from all over our country. I just really want to see what they do. I just want to see how they cover it. I\'ve never seen anything like it, but it would be really great if we could be covered fairly by the media. The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I\'m concerned single biggest problem.
The fake news and the big tech, big tech, is now coming into their own. We beat them four years ago, we surprised them. We took him by surprise and this year they rigged an election, they rigged it like they have never rigged an election before, and by the way, last night, they didn\'t do a bad job either, if you notice. I am honest, and I just again, I want to thank you. It\'s just a great honor to have this kind of crowd and to be before you and hundreds of thousands of American patriots who are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of our glorious Republic.
All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by a bold and radical left Democrats which is what they are doing and stolen by the fake news media. That is what they have done and what they are doing. We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn\'t happen. You don\'t concede when there\'s theft involved.
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about.
And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal.
Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election. You know I say sometimes jokingly, but there\'s no joke about it. I have been into elections. I won them both and the second one I won much bigger than the first, okay£
Almost 75 million people voted for our campaign, the most of any incumbent president by far in the history of our country; 12 million more than four years ago.
And I was told by the real pollsters; we do have real pollsters. They know that we were going to do well and we were going to win. What I was told if I went from 63 million, which we had four years ago to 66 million, there was no chance of losing. Well, we didn\'t go to 66, we went to 75 million, and they say we lost. We didn\'t lose. And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes£ Does anybody believe that£
He had 80 million computer votes. It\'s a disgrace. There\'s never been anything like that. You can take third world countries just take a look take third world countries their elections are more honest than what we have been going through in this country. It\'s a disgrace. It\'s a disgrace. Even when you look at last night, they were all running around like chickens with their heads cut off with boxes, and nobody knows what the hell is going on. There\'s never been anything like this. We will not let them silence your voices. We\'re not going to let it happen.
Not going to let it happen.
CROWD:\nFight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump.
TRUMP:\nThank you.
And I would love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and the police and law enforcement great you\'re doing a great job, but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible£ Can you just let them, please£ And Rudy, you did a great job.
He\'s got guts. You know what£ he\'s got guts, unlike a lot of people in the Republican Party, he\'s got guts he fights, he fights. And I will tell you thank you very much, John, fantastic job. I watched--that\'s a tough act to follow those two. John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country and he looked at this, and he said what an absolute disgrace that this could be happening to our Constitution and he looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we when the election.
All he has to do--all--this is--this is from the number one or certainly one of the top constitutional lawyers in our country he has the absolute right to do it; we\'re supposed to protect our country support our country, support our Constitution and protect our Constitution. States want to revote, the states got defrauded. They were given false information, they voted on it. Now they want to recertify; they want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people.
And I actually I just spoke to Mike. I said, Mike, that doesn\'t take courage, what takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage, and then we are stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot, and we have to live with that for four more years. We\'re just not going to let that happen. Many of you have traveled from all across the nation to be here, and I want to thank you for the extraordinary love. That is what it is; there\'s never been a movement like this ever, ever for the extraordinary love for this amazing country. And this amazing movement. Thank you.
By the way, this goes all the way back past the Washington Monument. Do you believe this£ Look at this. Unfortunately, they gave the press the prime seats. I can\'t stand that. No, but you look at that behind. I wish they would flip those cameras and look behind you. That is the most amazing site.
When they make a mistake, you get to see it on television, amazing. Amazing. All of the way back and don\'t worry. We will not take the name off the Washington Monument. We will not. Cancel culture. They wanted to get rid of the Jefferson Memorial, either take it down or just put somebody else in there. I don\'t think that\'s going to happen. It damn well better not, even though with this administration if this happens, it could happen. You will see some really bad things happen. They will knock out Lincoln, too, by the way. They have been taking his statute down, but then we signed a little law you hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for ten years, and everything stopped. You notice that it stopped£
It all stopped, and they could use Rudy back in New York City, Rudy.
They could use you. Your city is going to hell. They want Rudy Giuliani back in New York. We will get a little younger version of Rudy. Is that okay, Rudy£ We\'re gathered together in the heart of our nation\'s capital for one very, very basic and simple reason, to save our democracy.
You know most candidates on election evening, and of course, this thing goes on so long they still don\'t have any idea what the votes are. We still have congressional seats under review. They have no idea. They have totally lost control; they have used the pandemic as a way of defrauding the people in a proper election, but you know, you know when you see this and when you see what is happening number one they all say, sir, we will never let it happen again. I said that\'s good, but what about eight weeks ago£
You know they try and get you to go they say, sir, in four years you are guaranteed. I said I\'m not interested right now. Do me a favor. Go back eight weeks. I want to go back eight weeks. Let\'s go back eight weeks.
We want to go back and we want to get this right because we\'re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we\'re not going to stand for that.
For years, Democrats have gotten away with election fraud and weak Republicans. And that\'s what they are. There\'s so many weak Republicans. And we have great ones. Jim Jordan and some of these guys, they are out there fighting. The House guys are fighting, but it\'s--it\'s incredible. Many of the Republicans, I helped them get in. I helped them get elected. I helped Mitch get elected. I helped--
(BOOING)
I could name 24 of them, let\'s say. I won\'t bore you with it. And then all of a sudden, you have something like this. There is like oh, gee, maybe I\'ll talk to the president sometime later. No, it\'s amazing. The weak Republicans. They\'re pathetic Republicans, and that\'s what happens.
If this happened to the Democrats, there\'d be held all over the country going on. There\'d be hell all over the country. But just remember this, you\'re stronger, you\'re smarter. You\'ve got more going than anybody and they try and demean everybody having to do with us and you\'re the real people. You\'re the people that built this nation. You\'re not the people that tore down our nation.
The weak Republicans--and that\'s it, I really believe it. I think I\'m going to use the term. The weak Republicans. You\'ve got a lot of them and you\'ve got a lot of great ones. But you\'ve got a lot of weak ones. They\'ve turned a blind eye.
Even as Democrats enacted policies that shipped away our jobs, weakend our military, threw open our borders, and put America last. Did you see the other day where Joe Biden said I want to get rid of the America first policy. What\'s that all about£ Get rid of--how do you say I want to get rid of America first£ Even if you\'re going to do it, don\'t talk about it, right£
Unbelievable, what we have to go through. What we have to go through--and you have to get your people to fight. And if they don\'t fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don\'t fight. We primary them.
We\'re going to--we\'re going to let you know who they are. I can already tell you, frankly. But this year, using the pretext of the China virus and the scam of mail in ballots, Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft. And there\'s never been anything like this. It\'s a pure theft in American history. Everybody knows it.
That election, our election was over at 10:00 in the evening. We\'re leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia. By hundreds of thousands of votes and then late in the evening or early in the morning, boom. These explosions of bull---- and all of the sudden--
All of a sudden, it started to happen.
Don\'t forget, when Romney got beat--Romney. Did you see his--
I wonder if he enjoyed his flight in last night.
But when Romney got beat, you know, he stands up like your more typical--well, I\'d like to congratulate the victor. The victor. Who was the victor, Mitt£ I\'d like to congratulate. They don\'t go in and look at the facts. Oh, I don\'t know. You\'ve got--he got slaughtered, probably. Maybe it was okay, maybe it was--that\'s what happened.
But we look at the facts and our election was so corrupt that in the history of this country, we\'ve never seen anything like it. You could go all the way back. You know, America is blessed with elections. All over the world they talk about our elections. You know what the world\'s says about us now£ They said we don\'t have free and fair elections.
And you know what else£ We don\'t have a free and fair press. Our media is not free, it\'s not fair. It\'s suppresses thought. It suppresses speech, and it\'s become the enemy of the people. It\'s become the enemy of the people. It\'s a--it\'s the biggest problem we have in this country. No third world countries would even attempt to do what we caught them doing. And you\'ll hear about that in just a few minutes. Republicans are--
Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It\'s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we\'re going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn\'t, that will be a sad day for our country because you\'re sworn to uphold our constitution.
Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we\'re going to walk down and I\'ll be there with you. We\'re going to walk down--
We\'re going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we\'re going to walk down to the Capitol--
And we\'re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we\'re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you\'ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today, we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections. But whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time. Far longer than this four year period.
We set it on a much straighter course, a much--and we--I thought, you know, four more years. I thought it would be easy. We created the greatest economy in history. We rebuilt our military. We get you the biggest tax cuts in history, right£ We got the biggest regulation cuts. There is no president, whether it\'s four years, eight years, or in one case more got anywhere near the regulation cuts.
It used to take 20 years to get hey highway approved. Now we\'re down to two. I want to get it down to one, but we\'re down to two. And it may get rejected for environmental or safety reasons, but we got it down, the safety. We created Space Force. We--and look what we did. Our military has been totally rebuilt. So we create Space Force, which by and of itself is a major achievement for an administration. And with us, it\'s one of so many different things.
Right to try. Everybody know about right to try. We did things that nobody ever thought possible. We took care of our vets. Our vets. The VA now has the highest rating. 91 percent. The highest rating that it\'s had from the beginning. 91 percent approval rate rating. Always, you watch the VA. It was on television. Every night, people living in a horrible, horrible manner. We got that done and we got accountability done.
We got it so that now in the VA, you don\'t have to wait for four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, four months to see a doctor. If you can\'t get a doctor, you go outside, you get the doctor, you have him taken care of, and we pay the doctor. And we\'ve not only made life wonderful for so many people, we\'ve saved tremendous amounts of money far, secondarily. But we\'ve saved a lot of money.
And now we have the right to fire bad people in the VA. We had 9,000 people they treated our veterans horribly. In prime time, they would not have treated our veterans badly. But they treated our veterans horribly and we have what\'s called the account--VA Accountability Act. And the accountability says if we see somebody in there that doesn\'t treat our vets well or they steal, they rob, they do things badly, we say Joe, you\'re fired. Get out of here.
Before, you couldn\'t do that. You couldn\'t do that before. So we\'ve taken care of things. We\'ve done things like nobody\'s ever thought possible, and that\'s part of the reason that many people don\'t like us because we\'ve done too much. But we\'ve done it quickly.
And we were going to sit home and watch a big victory and everybody had us down for a victory. It was going to be great. And now we\'re out here fighting. I said to somebody I was going to take a few days and relax after our big electoral victory. 10:00, it was over and I was going to take a few days.
And I can say this. Since our election, I believe--which was such a catastrophe when I watched, and even these guys knew what happened. They know what happened. They\'re saying wow. Pennsylvania is insurmountable. Wow. Wisconsin. Look at the big leads we had, right£
Even you know, the press said we\'re going to lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Even though the press said Ohio\'s going to be close, we set a record. Florida\'s going to be close. We set a record. Texas is going to be close.
Texas is going to be close. We set a record. And, we set a record with Hispanic, with the black community. We set a record with everybody.
Today, we see a very important event, though, because right over there, right there, we see the event that\'s going to take place and I\'m going to be watching because history is going to be made. We\'re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves throughout history, throughout eternity. They\'ll be ashamed.
And, you know what£ If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did. Never forget.
We should never, ever forget. With only three of the seven states in question, we win the presidency of the United States. And, by the way, it\'s much more important today than it was 24 hours ago because--and don\'t-- I spoke to David Perdue. What a great person. And, Kelly Loeffler, two great people.
But, it was a setup and you know, I said we have no backline anymore. The only backline, the only line of demarcation, the only line that we have is the veto of the president of the United States. So, this is now, what we\'re doing, a far more important election than it was two days ago.
I want to thank the more than 140 members of the House. Those are warriors. They\'re over there working like you\'ve never seen before, studying, talking, actually going all the way back studying the roots of the Constitution because they know we have the right to send a bad vote that was illegally gotten.
They gave these people bad things to vote for and they voted because what did they know. And, then when they found out a few weeks later, again, it took them four years to devise this great--and the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton because she said, \"Why didn\'t you do this for me four years ago£\"
\"Why didn\'t you do this for me four years ago£ Change the votes, 10,000 in Michigan. You could have changed the whole thing.\" But, she\'s not too happy. You notice, she--you don\'t see her anymore. What happened£ Where\'s Hillary£ Where is she£
But, I want to thank all of those congressmen and women. I also want to thank our 13 most courageous members of the U.S. Senate, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Ron Johnson--
--Senator Josh Hawley, Kelly Loeffler. And, Kelly Loeffler, I\'ll tell you, she has been--she has been so great. She works so hard, so let\'s give her and David a little special hand, because it was rigged against them. Let\'s give her and David--Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue.
They fought a good race. They never had a shot. That equipment should never have been allowed to be used. And, I was telling these people, \"Don\'t let them use this stuff.\" Marsha Blackburn, terrific person, Mike Braun, Indiana, Steve Daines, great guy, Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, James Lankford, Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, the coach, and Roger Marshall. We want to thank them. Senators have stepped up. We want to thank them.
I actually think, though, it takes, again, more courage not to step up and I think a lot of those people are going to find that out. And, you better start looking at your leadership because your leadership has led you down the tubes.
You know, \"We don\'t want to give $2,000 to people. We want to give them $600.\" Oh, great. How does that play politically£ Pretty good£ And, this has nothing to do with politics, but how does it play politically£
China destroyed these people. We didn\'t destroy them. China destroyed them, totally destroyed them. \"We want to give them $600,\" and they just wouldn\'t change. I said, \"Give them $2,000, we\'ll pay it back, we\'ll pay it back fast. You already owe $26 trillion. Give them a couple of bucks. Let them live. Give them a couple of bucks.\"
And, some of the people here disagree with me on that, but I--I just say, look, you\'ve got to let people live. And, how does that play, though£ Okay, number one, it\'s the right thing to do. But, how does that play politically£
I think it\'s the primary reason--one of the primary reasons, the other was just pure cheating. That was the primary--super primary reason. But, you can\'t do that. You\'ve got to use your head.
As you know, the media has constantly asserted the outrageous lie that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. You ever see these people£ \"While there\'s no evidence of fraud.\" Oh, really£ Well, I\'m going to read you pages. I hope you don\'t get bored listening to it. Promise£ Don\'t get bored listening to it, all those hundreds of thousands of people back there.
Move them up, please. Yeah. All they--all these people, don\'t get bored. Don\'t get angry at me because you\'re going to get bored, because it\'s so much. The American people do not believe the corrupt fake news anymore. They have ruined their reputation.
But, you know, it used to be that they\'d argue with me. I\'d fight. So, I\'d fight, they\'d fight, I\'d fight, they\'d fight, bump, bump, you\'d believe me, you\'d believe them. Somebody comes out. You know, they had their point of view, I had my point of view. But, you\'d have an argument.
Now, what they do is they go silent. It\'s called suppression and that\'s what happens in a communist country. That\'s what they do. They suppress. You don\'t fight with them anymore unless it\'s a bad story. If they have a little bad story about me, they make it ten times worse and it\'s a major headline.
But, Hunter Biden, they don\'t talk about him. What happened to Hunter£ Where\'s Hunter£ Where is Hunter£ They don\'t talk about him.
Now, watch, all the sets will go off. Well, they can\'t do that because they get good ratings. Their ratings are too good.
Now, where\'s Hunter, you know£ And--and how come Joe was allowed to give $1 billion of money to get rid of the prosecutor in Ukraine£ How does that happen£ I\'d ask you that question. How does that happen£
Can you imagine if I said that£ If I said that, it would be a whole different ballgame. And, how come Hunter gets 3 and a half million dollars from the mayor of Moscow\'s wife and gets hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit on an energy board even though he admits he has no knowledge of energy and millions of dollars upfront£ And, how come they go into China and they leave with billions of dollars to manage£
\"Have you managed money before£\" \"No, I haven\'t.\" \"Oh, that\'s good, here\'s about $3 billion.\"
No, they don\'t talk about that. No, we have a corrupt media. They\'ve gone silent. They\'ve gone dead. I now realize how good it was, if you go back ten years. I realize how good--even though I didn\'t necessarily love them, I realize how good--it was like a cleansing motion, right£
But, we don\'t have that anymore. We don\'t have a fair media anymore. It\'s suppression and you have to be very careful with that, and they\'ve lost all credibility in this country.
We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we\'ve been forced to believe. Over the past several weeks, we\'ve amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. This is the presidential election. Last night was a little bit better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway. You have one of the dumbest governors in the United States.
And, you know, when I endorsed him at--I didn\'t know this guy--at the request of David Perdue. He said, \"A friend of mine is running for governor,\" \"What\'s his name£\" and you know the rest. He was in fourth place, fifth place. I don\'t know, he was way--he was doing poorly. I endorsed him. He went like a rocket ship and he won.
And, then I had to beat Stacey Abrams with this guy, Brian Kemp. I had to beat Stacey Abrams and I had to beat Oprah, used to be a friend of mine. You know, I was on her last show, her last week. She picked the five outstanding people. I don\'t think she thinks that anymore.
Once I ran for president, I didn\'t notice too many calls coming in from Oprah. Believe it or not, she used to like me. But, I was one of the five outstanding people and I had to campaign against Michelle Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, against Stacey.
And, I had Brian Kemp who weighs 130 pounds. He said he played offensive line in football. I\'m trying to figure that out. I\'m still trying to figure that out. He said that the other night. \"I was an offensive lineman.\" I\'m saying, \"Really£ That must have been a very small team.\"
But, I look at that and I look at what\'s happened and he turned out to be a disaster. This stuff happens. You know, look, I\'m not happy with the Supreme Court. They love to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for them. One in particular I fought.
They all said, \"Sir, cut him loose, he\'s killing the senators.\" You know, very loyal senators. They\'re very loyal people.
Sir, cut him loose. He is killing us, sir. Cut him loose, sir. I will never--I must have gotten half of these senators. I said no, I can\'t do that. It\'s unfair to him, and it\'s unfair to the family. He didn\'t do anything wrong. They made up stories. They were all made up stories. He didn\'t do anything wrong. Cut him loose, sir. I said no, I won\'t do that. We got him through, and you know what, they couldn\'t give a damn. They couldn\'t give a damn. Let him rule the right way, but it almost seems that they are all going out of their way to hurt all of us and to hurt our country, to hurt our country.
You know I read a story in one of the newspapers recently how I control the three Supreme Court justices. I control them. They are puppets. I read it about Bill Barr that he is my personal attorney, that he will do anything for me and I said you know it really is genius because what they do is that and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory because all of the sudden Bill Barr changed if you hadn\'t noticed. I like Bill Barr, but he changed because he didn\'t want to be considered my personal attorney.
And the Supreme Court they rule against me so much do you know why because the story is I haven\'t spoken to any of them, any of them since virtually they got in, but the story is that they are my puppet, right£ That they are puppets, and now the only way they can get out of that because they hate that; it\'s not good on the social circuit, and the only way they get out is to rule against Trump, so let\'s rule against Trump, and they do that. So I want to congratulate them, but it shows you the media is genius. In fact, probably if I was the media, I would do it the same way I hate to say it, but we have got to get them straightened out. Today for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our Constitution, and for the sake of our children, we lay out the case for the entire world to hear. You want to hear it£
In every single swing state local officials, state officials almost all Democrats made illegal and unconstitutional changes to election procedures without the mandated approvals by the state legislatures that these changes paved the way for fraud on a scale never seen before, and I think we would go a long way outside of our country when I say that. So just in a nutshell, you can\'t make a change on voting for a federal election unless the state legislature approves it. No judge can do it; nobody can do it, only a legislature.
So as an example, in Pennsylvania or whatever, you have a Republican legislature, you have a Democrat mayor, and you have a lot of Democrats all over the place; they go to the legislature, the legislature laughs at them says we\'re not going to do that they say thank you very much and they go and make the changes themselves, they do it anyway, and that is totally illegal, that is totally illegal. You can\'t do that.
In Pennsylvania, the Democrat secretary of state and the Democrat state Supreme Court justices illegally abolished the signature verification requirements just 11 days prior to the election. So think of what they did. No longer is there signature verification. That\'s okay. We want voter ID, by the way, but no longer is there signature verification. 11 days before the election, they say we don\'t want it. Do you know why they don\'t want them£ Because they want to cheat, that\'s the only reason. Who would even think of that£ We don\'t want to verify a signature.
There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Now think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had to--where did they come from£ Do you know where they came from£ Somebody\'s imagination whatever they need it. So in Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters, and it\'s--the number is actually much greater than that now. That was as of a week ago, and this is a mathematical impossibility unless you want to say it\'s a total fraud. So if Pennsylvania was defrauded.
Over 8,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 and prior to the election. Think of that. Dead people, lots of dead people, thousands, and some dead people actually requested an application. That bothers me even more. Not only are they voting, they want an application to vote; one of them was 29 years ago died. It\'s incredible.
Over 14,000 ballots were cast by out-of-state voters, so these are voters that don\'t live in the state, and by the way, these numbers are what they call outcome-determinative, meaning these numbers far surpass--I lost by a very little bit. These numbers are massive, massive. More than 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania were illegally counted even though they were received after election day. In other words, they were received after election day. Let\'s count them anyway and what they did in many cases is they did fraud, they took the date, and they moved it back so that it no longer is after election day.
And more than 60,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were reported received back, they got back before they were ever supposedly mailed out. In other words, you got the ballot back before you mailed it, which is also logically and logistically impossible, right£ Think of that one. You got that ballot back. Let\'s send the ballots. Oh, they\'ve already been sent. But we got the ballot back before they were sent. I don\'t think that\'s too good, right£
25,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were requested by nursing home residents, all in a single giant batch, not legal, indicating an enormous illegal ballot harvesting operation. You are not allowed to do it. It\'s against the law. The day before the election, the state of Pennsylvania reported the number of absentee ballots that had been sent out, yet this number was suddenly and drastically increased by 400,000 people. It was increased; nobody knows where it came from by 400,000 ballots one day after the election. It remains totally unexplained. They said, well, we can\'t figure that. Now that\'s many, many times what it would take to overthrow the state, just that one element, 400,000 ballots appeared from nowhere right after the election.
By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn\'t know because it was so quick they had a vote, they voted, but now they see all of this stuff, it has all come to light. It doesn\'t happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want them recertified, but the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back.
And many people in Congress want it sent back. Think of what you are doing. Let\'s say you don\'t do it somebody says well, we have to obey the Constitution and you are because you are protecting our country, and you are protecting the Constitution, so you are but think of what happens.
Let\'s say there are stiffs and they are stupid people and they say well, we really have no choice even though Pennsylvania and other states want to redo their votes, they want to see the numbers, they only have the numbers go very quickly and they want to redo their legislature because many of these votes were taken as I said because it wasn\'t approved by their legislature you know that in itself is legal and then you have the scam and that is all of the things that we are talking about.
But think of this if you don\'t do that that means you will have a president of the United States for four years with his wonderful son, you will have a president who lost all of these states, or you will have a president to put it another way who was voted on by a bunch of stupid people who lost all of these states. You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can\'t let that happen. These are the facts that you won\'t hear from the fake news media. It\'s all part of the suppression effort. They don\'t want to talk about it. They don\'t want to talk about it.
In fact, when I started talking about that, I guarantee you a lot of the television sets and a lot of those cameras went off, and that\'s a lot of cameras back there. But a lot of them went off, but these are the things you don\'t hear about, you don\'t hear what you just heard, and I\'m going to go over a few more states, but you don\'t hear of the people who want to deceive you and demoralize you and control you big tech media just like the suppression polls that said we are going to lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Well, we won Wisconsin. They don\'t have it that way because they just buy a little sliver, but they had me down the day before. Washington Post ABC poll down 17 points. I called up a real pollster. I said, what is that£ Sir, that\'s called a suppression poll.
I think you are going to win Wisconsin, sir. I said, \"But why don\'t they make it four or five points,\" because then people vote. But when you\'re down 17, they say hey, I\'m not going to waste my time. I love the president, but there\'s no way. Despite that--Despite that, we won Wisconsin. It\'s going to see--I mean, you\'ll see.
But that\'s called suppression because a lot of people when they see that--it\'s very interesting. This pollster said, \"Sir, if you\'re down three, four, five people vote. When you go down 17, they say let\'s save--let\'s go and have dinner and let\'s watch the presidential defeat tonight on television, darling.\"
And just like the radical left tries to blacklist you on social media--every time I put out a tweet that\'s--even if it\'s totally correct, totally correct, I get a flag. I get a flag. And they also don\'t let you get out. You know, on Twitter, it\'s very hard to come on to my account. It\'s very hard to get out a message. They don\'t let the message get out nearly like they should.
But I\'ve had many people say I can\'t get on your Twitter. I don\'t care about Twitter. Twitter is bad news. They are all bad news. But you know what£ If you want to--if you want to get out a message and if you want to go through big tech, social media, they are really--if you\'re a conservative, if you\'re a Republican, if you have a big voice, I guess they call it shadow ban, right£ Shadow ban. They shadow ban you and it should be illegal. I\'ve been telling these Republicans get rid of Section 230.
And for some reason, Mitch and the group, they don\'t want to put it in there and they don\'t realize that that\'s going to be the end of the Republican Party as we know it, but it\'s never going to be the end of us. Never.
Let them get out. Let--let the weak ones get out. This is a time for strength. They also want to indoctrinate your children in school by teaching them things that aren\'t so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It\'s all part of a comprehensive assault on our democracy and the American people are finally standing up and saying no. This crowd is, again, a testament to it.
I did no advertising. I did nothing. You do have some groups that are big supporters. I want to thank that. Amy and everybody. We have some incredible supporters. Incredible. But we didn\'t do anything. This just happened. Two months ago, we had a massive crowd come down to Washington. I said what are they there for£ Sir, they\'re there for you. We had nothing to do with it.
These groups are formed--they\'re forming all over the United States. And we\'ve got to remember, in a year from now, you\'re going to start working on Congress and we\'ve got to get rid of the week congresspeople, the ones that aren\'t any good, the Liz Cheney\'s of the world. We\'ve got to get rid of them. We\'ve got to get rid.
You know, she never wants a soldier brought home. 20--I brought a lot of our soldiers home. I don\'t know. Some might like it. They\'re in countries that nobody even knows the name. Nobody knows where they are. They\'re dying. They\'re great, but they\'re dying. They are losing their arms, their legs, their face. I brought them back home. Largely back home.
Afghanistan, Iraq. Remember I used to say in the old days, don\'t go in Iraq. But if you go in, keep the oil. We didn\'t keep the oil. So stupid. So stupid, these people. And Iraq has billions and billions of dollars now in the bank. And what did we do£ We did get nothing. We never get--but we do, actually. We kept the oil here. We kept--we did good.
We got rid of the ISIS caliphate. We got rid of plenty of different things. Everybody knows and the rebuilding of our military in three years, people said it couldn\'t be done and it was all made in the USA. All made in the USA. Best equipment in the world.
In Wisconsin, corrupt, Democrat run cities deployed more than 500 illegal unmanned, unsecured drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes. It was razor thin, the loss. This one thing alone is much more than we would need, but there are many things.
They have these lock boxes. And you know, they pick them up and they disappear for two days. People would say where\'s that box£ They\'d disappeared. Nobody even knew where the hell it was. In addition, over 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application. So they had a vote, but they had no application and that\'s illegal in Wisconsin. Meaning, those votes were blatantly done in opposition to state law and they came 100 percent from Democrat areas such as Milwaukee and Madison. 100 percent.
In Madison, at 17,000 votes were deposited in so called human drop boxes. You know what that is, right£ Where operatives stuff thousands of unsecured ballots into duffel bags on park benches across the city in complete defiance of cease and desist letters from state legislature. The state legislatures said don\'t do it. They\'re the only ones that could approve it.
They gave tens of thousands of votes. They came in duffel bags. Where the hell did they come from£ According to eyewitness testimony, Postal Service workers in Wisconsin were also instructed to illegally backdate approximately 100,000 ballots. The margin of difference in Wisconsin was less than 20,000 votes. Each one of these things alone wins us the state. Great state. We love the state. We won the state.
In Georgia, your secretary of state who I can\'t believe this guy is a Republican. He loves recording telephone conversations. You know, that was a--I thought it was a great conversation, personally. So did a lot of other--people love that conversation because it says what\'s going on. These people are crooked. They are 100 percent--in my opinion, one of the most corrupt.
Between your governor and your secretary of state and now you have it again last night. Just take a look at what happened. What a mess. And the Democrat party operators operatives entered into an illegal and unconstitution--unconstitutional settlement agreement that drastically weakens signature verification and other election security procedures.
Stacey Abrams. She took them to lunch. And I beat her two years ago with a bad candidate, Brian Kemp. But they took--the Democrats took the Republicans to lunch because the secretary of state had no clue what the hell was happening unless he did have a clue. That\'s interesting. Maybe he was with the other side.
But we\'ve been trying to get verifications of signatures in Fulton County. They won\'t let us do it. The only reason they won\'t is because we\'ll find things in the hundreds of thousands. Why wouldn\'t they let us verify signatures at Fulton County, which is known for being very corrupt£ They won\'t do it. They go to some other County where you would live.
I said that\'s not the problem. The problem is Fulton County, home of Stacey Abrams. She did a good job. I congratulate her, but it was done in such a way that we can\'t let this stuff happen. We won\'t have a country if it happens. As a result, Georgia\'s absentee ballot rejection rate was more than 10 times lower than previous levels because the criteria was so off.
48 counties in Georgia with thousands and thousands of votes rejected zero ballots. There wasn\'t one ballot. In other words, in a year in which more mail in ballots were sent than ever before and more people were voting by mail for the first time, their rejection rate was drastically lower than it had ever been before.
The only way this can be explained as if tens of thousands of illegitimate votes were added to the tally. That\'s the only way you could explain it. By the way, you\'re talking about tens of thousands. If Georgia had merely rejected the same number of unlawful ballots as in other years, there should have been approximately 45,000 ballots projected. Far more than what we needed to win, just over 11,000. They should find those votes. They should absolutely find that. Just over 11,000 votes. That\'s all we need.
They defrauded us out of a win in Georgia. And we are not going to forget it. There\'s only one reason the Democrats could possibly want to eliminate signature matching, oppose voter ID, and stop citizenship confirmation. Are you a citizen£ You\'re not allowed to ask that question. Because they want to steal the election.
The radical left knows exactly what they were doing. They are ruthless and it\'s time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you\'re going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our country.
And if you\'re not, I\'m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I\'m not hearing good stories.
In Fulton County, Republican poll watchers rejected in some cases physically, the individuals whose names and dates of birth match incarcerated felons in Georgia prison, people who are not allowed to vote. More than 4,500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state\'s own voter rolls. Over 18,000 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who registered to vote using an address listed as vacant according to the postal service.
At least 88,000 ballots in Georgia were cast by people whose registrations were illegally backdated. Sixty-six thousand votes--each one of these is far more than we need. Sixty-six thousand votes in Georgia were cast by individuals under the legal voting age and at least 15,000 ballots were cast by individuals who moved out of the state prior to November 3rd election. They say they moved right back.
They move right back. Oh, they moved out, they moved right back, okay. They missed Georgia that much£ I do, I love Georgia, but it\'s a corrupt system.
Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia is only 11,779 votes. Each and every one of these issues is enough to give us a victory in Georgia, a big beautiful victory. Make no mistake, this election was stolen from you, from me, and from the country, and not a single swing state has conducted a comprehensive audit to remove the illegal ballots. This should absolutely occur in every single contested state before the election is certified.
In the state of Arizona, over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by non-citizens. Two thousand ballots were returned with no address. More than 22,000 ballots were returned before they were ever supposedly mailed out. They returned, but we haven\'t mailed them yet. 11,600 more ballots and votes were counted more than there were actual voters. You see that£
So, you have more votes, again, than you have voters. 150,000 people registered in Maricopa County after the registration deadline. 103,000 ballots in the county were sent for electronic adjudication with no Republican observers.
In Clark County Nevada, the accuracy settings on signature verification machines were purposefully lowered before they were used to count over 130,000 ballots. If you signed your name as Santa Claus, it would go through.
There were also more than 42,000 double votes in Nevada. Over 150,000 people were hurt so badly by what took place and 1,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Nevada residents who died in 2020 prior to November 3rd election. More than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no address and probably didn\'t live there.
The margin in Nevada is down at a very low number. Any of these things would have taken care of the situation. We would have won Nevada also. Every one of these we\'re going over, we win.
In Michigan, quickly, the secretary of state, a real great one, flooded the state with unsolicited mail-in ballot applications sent to every person on the rolls in direct violation of state law. More than 17,000 Michigan ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match people who were deceased.
In Wayne County, that\'s a great one. That\'d Detroit--174,000 ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter. Nobody knows where they came from. Also in Wayne County, poll watches observed canvassers rescanning batches of ballots over and over again up to three or four or five times.
In Detroit turnout was 139 percent of registered voters. Think of that. So, you had 139 percent of the people in Detroit voting. This is in Michigan, Detroit Michigan. A career employee of the Detroit--City of Detroit testified under penalty of perjury that she witnessed city workers coaching voters to vote straight democrat while accompanying them to watch who they voted for. When a Republican came in, they wouldn\'t talk to them.
The same worker was instructed not to ask for any voter ID and not to attempt to validate any signatures if they were Democrats. She also told to illegally and was told backdate ballots, received after the deadline and reports of thousands and thousands of ballots were improperly backdated.
That\'s Michigan. Four witnesses have testified under penalty of perjury that after officials in Detroit announced the last votes had been counted, tens of thousands of additional ballots arrived without required envelopes. Every single one was for a Democrat. I got no votes.
At 6:31 AM in the early morning hours after voting had ended, Michigan suddenly reported 147,000 votes. An astounding 94 percent went to Joe Biden who campaigned brilliantly from his basement. Only a couple of percentage points went to Trump.
Such gigantic and one sided vote dumps were only observed in a few swing states and they were observed in the states where it was necessary--you know what\'s interesting£ President Obama beat Biden in every state other than the swing states where Biden killed them, but the swing states were the ones that mattered.
They\'re always just enough to push Joe Biden barely into the lead. We were ahead by a lot and within a number of hours, we were losing by a little.
In addition, there is the highly troubling matter of Dominion voting systems. In one Michigan County alone, 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden and the same systems are used in the majority of states in our country.
Senator William Ligon, a great gentleman, Chairman of Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Senator Ligon, highly respected, on elections has written a letter describing his concerns with Dominion in Georgia.
He wrote, and I quote, \"The Dominion voting machines employed in Fulton County had an astronomical and astounding 93.67 percent error rate.\" It\'s only wrong 93 percent of the time in the scanning of ballots requiring a review panel to adjudicate or determine the voters\' interest in over 106,000 ballots out of a total of 113,000.
Think of it, you go in and you vote and then they tell people who you\'re supposed to be voting for. They make up whatever they want. Nobody\'s ever even heard. They adjudicate your vote. They say, \"Well, we don\'t think Trump wants to vote for Trump. We think he wants to vote for Biden. Put it down for Biden.\"
The national average for such an error rate is far less than 1 percent and yet you\'re at 93 percent. The source of this astronomical error rate must be identified to determine if these machines were set up or destroyed to allow for a third party to disregard the actual ballot cast by the registered voter.
The letter continues, \"There is clear evidence that tens of thousands of votes were switched from President Trump to former Vice President Biden in several counties in Georgia.\" For example, in Bibb County, President Trump was reported to have 29,391 votes at 9:11 PM eastern time while simultaneously, Vice President Joe Biden was reported to have 17,213.
Minutes later, just minutes, at the next update, these vote numbers switched with President Trump going way down to 17,000 and Biden going way up to 29,391. And, that was very quick, a 12,000 vote switch all in Mr. Biden\'s favor.
So, I mean, I could go on and on about this fraud that took place in every state and all of these legislators want this back. I don\'t want to do it to you because I love you and it\'s freezing out here.--
--But, I could just go on forever. I can tell you this--
So, when you hear--when you hear, \"While there is no evidence to prove any wrongdoing,\" this is the most fraudulent thing anybody\'s--this is a criminal enterprise. This is a criminal enterprise and--and the press will say, and I\'m sure they won\'t put any of that on there because that\'s no good and did you ever see while there is no evidence to back President Trump\'s assertion--I could go on for another hour reading this stuff to you and telling you about it.
There\'s never been anything like it. Think about it. Detroit had more votes than it had voters. Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than it had more--but you don\'t have to go--between that, I think that\'s almost better than dead people if you think, right£ More votes than they had voters and many other states also. It\'s a disgrace that the United States of America, tens of millions of people are allowed to go vote without so much as even showing identification. In no state is there any question or effort made to verify the identity, citizenship, residency, or eligibility of the votes cast.
The Republicans have to get tougher. You\'re not going to have a Republican party if you don\'t get tougher. They want to play so straight; they want to play so serious the United States, the Constitution doesn\'t allow me to send them back to the states. Well, I would say yes, it does because the Constitution says you have to protect our country, and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can\'t vote on fraud, and fraud breaks up everything, doesn\'t it£ When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn\'t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he\'s listening to.
It is also widely understood that the voter rolls are crammed full of noncitizens, felons, and people who have moved out of state, and individuals who are otherwise ineligible to vote, yet Democrats oppose every effort to clean up their voter rolls. They don\'t want to clean them up. They are loaded, and how many people here are--know other people that when hundreds of thousands and then millions of ballots got sent out got three, four, five, six and I heard one who got seven ballots, and then they say you didn\'t quite make it, sir. We won in a landslide. This was a landslide.
They said it\'s not American to challenge the election. This is the most corrupt election in the history, maybe in the world. You know you could go to third world countries, but I don\'t think they had hundreds of thousands of votes, and they don\'t have voters for them. I mean, no matter where you go, nobody would think this. In fact, it\'s so egregious, it\'s so bad that a lot of people don\'t even believe it. It is so crazy that people don\'t even believe it. It can\'t be true. So they don\'t believe it.
This is not just a matter of domestic politics; this is a matter of national security. So today, in addition to challenging the certification of the election, I\'m calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping election reforms, and you had better do it before we have no country left. Today is not the end; it\'s just the beginning.
With your help over the last four years, we built the greatest political movement in the history of our country, and nobody even challenges that. I say that over and over, and I never get challenged by the fake news, and they challenge almost everything we say. But our fight against the big donors, big media, big tech, and others is just getting started.
This is the greatest in history; there\'s never been a movement like that. You look back, there are all of the way to the Washington Monument. It\'s hard to believe. We must stop the steal, and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again, but we are going forward; we will take care of it going forward. We have got to take care of going back.
Don\'t let them talk, okay, well, we promise. I have had a lot of people, sir, you are at 96 percent for four years. I said I\'m not interested right now. I\'m interested in right there. With your help, we will finally pass powerful requirements for voter ID. You need an ID to cash a check, you need an ID to go to a bank, to buy alcohol, to drive a car; every person should need to show an ID in order to cast your most important thing, a vote.
We will also require proof of American citizenship in order to vote in American elections. We just have a good victory in court on that one, actually. We will ban ballot harvesting and prohibit the use of unsecured drop boxes to commit rampant fraud. These drop boxes are fraudulent. They get--they disappear, and then all of the sudden, they show up. It is fraudulent. We will stop the practice of universal unsolicited mail-in balloting. We will clean up the voter rolls and ensure that every single person who cast a vote is a citizen of our country, a resident of the state in which they vote, and their vote is cast in a lawful and honest manner.
We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on election day so that voters can be fully informed when they make their choice. We will finally hold big tech accountable, and if these people had courage and guts, they would get rid of Section 230, something that no other company, no other person in America, in the world has.
All of these tech monopolies are going to abuse their power and interfere in our elections, and it has to be stopped; and the Republicans have to get a lot tougher, and so should the Democrats. They should be regulated, investigated, and brought to justice under the fullest extent of the law. They are totally breaking the law.
Together we will drain the Washington swamp, and we will clean up the corruption in our nation\'s Capitol. We have done a big job on it, but you think it\'s easy; it\'s a dirty business. It\'s a dirty business. We have a lot of bad people out there. Despite everything we have been through looking out all over this country and seeing fantastic crowds, although this I think is our all-time record.
I think you have 250,000 people, 250,000. Looking out at all of the amazing patriots here today I have never been more confident in our nation\'s future. Well, I have to say we have to be a little bit careful. That\'s a nice statement, but we have to be a little careful with that statement. If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country because it\'s illegal when the votes are illegal when the way that they got there is illegal, when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.
We are the greatest country on earth, and we are headed and were headed in the right direction. You know the wall is built; we are doing record numbers at the wall. Now they want to take down the wall. Let\'s let everyone flow in. Let\'s let everybody flow in. We did a great job on the wall. Remember the wall; they said it could never be done, one of the largest infrastructure projects we have ever had in this country, and it has had a tremendous impact and we got rid of catch and release, we got rid of all of the stuff that we had to live with. But now the caravans they think Biden is getting in the caravans are forming again. They want to come in again and rip off our country, can\'t let it happen.
As this enormous crowd shows, we have truth and justice on our side. We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country. We have overwhelming pride in this great country. We have it deep in our souls. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Our brightest days are before us. Our greatest achievements still wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security because nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our elections were, and again most people would stand there at 9 o\'clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life, but I said something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can\'t have happened and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don\'t fight like hell you\'re not going to have a country anymore.
Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country, and I say this despite all that has happened, the best is yet to come.
So we are going to--we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we are going to the Capitol, and we are going to try and give--the Democrats are hopeless, they are never voting for anything, not even one vote but we are going to try--give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don\'t need any of our help, we\'re try--going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let\'s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here. This is incredible.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
In the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump may have exposed himself to a criminal prosecution after he leaves the White House.
First he repeatedly pressured a state official to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election. Then he incited a violent pro-Trump mob Wednesday to storm and ransack the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Congress’ counting of electoral votes confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Five people died in the rioting, including one Capitol Police officer.
Even after repeatedly pushing the limits of presidential power and surviving an impeachment, his last-ditch bid to hold on to power through intimidation and insurrection has dramatically increased the odds he will face a criminal investigation and possibly the first-ever prosecution of an ex-president.
Legal experts say only a criminal prosecution could hold Trump fully accountable for his actions.
Though the Democratic-led House is moving toward a possible second impeachment this week, chances of a Senate conviction of Trump — which would bar him from running for office again — remain unclear and would almost certainly occur only after he left office.
“The facts currently known warrant a criminal investigation of the president and others who were involved in inciting the insurrection at the Capitol,” said Mary B. McCord, a former Justice Department official and Georgetown University law professor. “Whether charges should be brought will depend on the results of that investigation and considerations of prosecutorial discretion, but accountability is important in the face of such grievous and dangerous abuses of power and privilege.”
Leandra Blades, of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified Board of Education, and Whittier City Councilwoman Jessica Martinez are facing calls to resign after they attended the rally of Trump supporters in Washington that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Jan. 9, 2021
But pressing criminal charges against a former U.S. president would take the nation into uncharted territory.
The law against “seditious conspiracy” makes it a crime for “two or more persons ... in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to conspire to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the government of the United States ... or by force to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take or possess any property of the United States.” A conviction could lead to fines or up to 20 years in prison.
Federal law also makes it a crime to fraudulently tamper with the “tabulation of ballots.” In an hourlong recorded phone call Jan. 2, Trump pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “recalculate” votes to make him the winner.
The Justice Department has long maintained that a president may not face criminal prosecution while in office because it would interfere with his duties. But constitutional experts say a former president has no such immunity.
“I think it’s clear that after a president leaves office, he can be tried for a crime he committed while he was president,” said University of Chicago law professor David A. Strauss. “The Constitution itself says that if he’s impeached, convicted and removed from office, he can then be tried for a crime.”
The Supreme Court in the 1982 case of Nixon vs. Fitzgerald ruled an ex-president cannot be sued for damages for his official actions — in this instance, for the firing of a Pentagon whistleblower. But the justices have not confronted the question of whether an ex-president is shielded from being charged with criminal conduct committed while in office.
A former Oakland police officer joined a pro-Trump mob that stormed Washington. His old department says it will ‘root out’ current officers who supported the insurrection.
Jan. 9, 2021
Until this month, many lawyers who were highly critical of Trump were nevertheless opposed to prosecuting him for actions he had taken up to that point in his tenure, such as allegations he obstructed justice in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. They feared such charges would be seen by many as partisan and politically divisive.
But Trump’s use of his office to attempt to overturn his electoral defeat crossed the line for many.
“We have a long history, developed most recently from the aftermath of the Nixon administration, of keeping politics separate from federal law enforcement and not using the power of the federal government to investigate and punish one’s political opponents. That norm needs to be taken seriously,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal group in Washington.
“But Trump’s lawlessness is so blatant, and so threatening to our constitutional democracy, that letting him escape accountability could be even worse for the country.”
“One step in the right direction,” she said, “is Biden’s repeated commitment to keep the White House separate from the Justice Department’s charging decisions.” Biden has said the Justice Department will have the independent capacity to decide who gets prosecuted.
Randall Eliason, a former prosecutor who teaches at George Washington University, said he changed his mind about the wisdom of prosecuting Trump over the last two weeks.
“Generally we should be very reluctant to suggest that a new administration should prosecute an outgoing president for actions taken while in office. That’s routinely done in some other countries, but has never been done here,” he said. “If we are going to break that precedent, there has to be a very compelling reason. I think Trump’s actions in inciting the riot meet that standard. Not only are they outrageous and potentially criminal, but they have nothing to do with the legitimate exercise of his presidential powers. There’s no risk here that we would be criminalizing mere policy or political differences.”
Democratic momentum for a fresh drive to quickly impeach departing President Trump is gaining support.
Jan. 9, 2021
Biden may not share that view. He said often during the campaign that he wanted to look forward, not back, and that he would leave any decision on whether to prosecute Trump to his attorney general. He has appeared cool to Democratic calls for a second impeachment.
Last week, Biden named veteran Judge Merrick Garland, a respected former federal prosecutor, to lead the Justice Department, which presumably will make any final decision about whether to prosecute Trump.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a former federal prosecutor who led the Democrats’ 2019 impeachment, said the incoming attorney general will face a complex decision. “He’ll have to examine issues of proof. And he’ll have to consider the gravity of the offense and the need for the country to heal,” he said in an interview Saturday.
The acting U.S. attorney in Washington, Michael Sherwin, a Trump appointee, said his office is already building a criminal case around Wednesday’s attack, starting with those who stormed the Capitol.
“Those are the people that obviously breached the Capitol, created violence and mayhem there and then exited,” he told reporters last week. “But yes, we are looking at all actors here, OK£ Not only the people that went into the building. All options are on the table.”
Trump has reportedly considered granting himself a pardon for any crimes he committed. Legal scholars are divided on whether the president’s power extends that far. Many predict such a move would backfire.
Three members of the House of Representatives introduced the article of impeachment, citing the president’s role in ‘incitement of insurrection.’
Jan. 11, 2021
Trump would be seen as admitting he committed serious crimes necessitating a pardon. And the Justice Department is not likely to stand aside and allow such a precedent to go unchallenged because it might suggest that a future president with criminal tendencies could steal billions, sell national secrets or even murder opponents, and then walk away scot-free.
In fact, if Trump were to pardon himself, federal prosecutors might be more likely to charge him with a crime, some experts say. Doing so would then require judges and ultimately the Supreme Court to decide whether the president has an absolute power to commit crimes with impunity.
Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump’s supporters massed outside the Capitol last week and sang the national anthem, a line of men wearing olive-drab helmets and body armor trudged purposefully up the marble stairs in a single-file line, each man holding the jacket collar of the one ahead.
The formation, known as “Ranger File,” is standard operating procedure for a combat team that is “stacking up” to breach a building — instantly recognizable to any U.S. soldier or Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a chilling sign that many at the vanguard of the mob that stormed the seat of American democracy either had military training or were trained by those who did.
An Associated Press review of public records, social media posts and videos shows at least 21 current or former members of the U.S. military or law enforcement have been identified as being at or near the Capitol riot, with more than a dozen others under investigation but not yet named. In many cases, those who stormed the Capitol appeared to employ tactics, body armor and technology such as two-way radio headsets that were similar to those of the very police they were confronting.
Experts in homegrown extremism have warned for years about efforts by far-right militants and white-supremacist groups to radicalize and recruit people with military and law enforcement training, and they say the Jan. 6 insurrection that left five people dead saw some of their worst fears realized.
In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, Donald Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“ISIS and al-Qaida would drool over having someone with the training and experience of a U.S. military officer,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “These people have training and capabilities that far exceed what any foreign terrorist group can do. Foreign terrorist groups don’t have any members who have badges.”
Among the most prominent to emerge is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and decorated combat veteran from Texas who was arrested after he was photographed wearing a helmet and body armor on the floor of the Senate, holding a pair of zip-tie handcuffs.
More on the Capitol Siege:
Another Air Force veteran from San Diego was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to leap through a barricade near the House chamber. A retired Navy SEAL, among the most elite special warfare operators in the military, posted a Facebook video about traveling from his Ohio home to the rally and seemingly approving of the invasion of “our building, our house.”
Two police officers from a small Virginia town, both of them former infantrymen, were arrested by the FBI after posting a selfie of themselves inside the Capitol, one flashing his middle finger at the camera.
Also under scrutiny is an active-duty psychological warfare captain from North Carolina who organized three busloads of people who headed to Washington for the “Save America” rally in support the president’s false claim that the November election was stolen from him.
While the Pentagon declined to provide an estimate for how many other active-duty military personnel are under investigation, the military’s top leaders were concerned enough ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration that they issued a highly unusual warning to all service members this week that the right to free speech gives no one the right to commit violence.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police was forced to resign following the breach and several officers have been suspended pending the outcome of investigations into their conduct, including one who posed for a selfie with a rioter and another who was seen wearing one of Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” caps.
The AP’s review of hundreds of videos and photos from the insurrectionist riot shows scores of people mixed in the crowd who were wearing military-style gear, including helmets, body armor, rucksacks and two-way radios. Dozens carried canisters of bear spray, baseball bats, hockey sticks and pro-Trump flags attached to stout poles later used to bash police officers.
A close examination of the group marching up the steps to help breach the Capitol shows they wore military-style patches that read “MILITIA” and “OATHKEEPER.” Others were wearing patches and insignias representing far-right militant groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and various self-styled state militias.
The Oath Keepers, which claims to count thousands of current and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members, have become fixtures at protests and counter-protests across the country, often heavily armed with semi-automatic carbines and tactical shotguns.
Stewart Rhodes, an Army veteran who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 as a reaction to the presidency of Barack Obama, had been saying for weeks before the Capitol riot that his group was preparing for a civil war and was “armed, prepared to go in if the president calls us up.”
Adam Newbold, the retired Navy SEAL from Lisbon, Ohio, whose more than two-decade military career includes multiple combat awards for valor, said in a Jan. 5 Facebook video, “We are just very prepared, very capable and very skilled patriots ready for a fight.”
He later posted a since-deleted follow-up video after the riot saying he was “proud” of the assault.
Newbold, 45, did not respond to multiple messages from the AP but in an interview with the Task & Purpose website he denied ever going inside the Capitol. He added that because of the fallout from the videos he has resigned from a program that helps prepare potential SEAL applicants.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. of Texas was released to home confinement Thursday after a prosecutor alleged the former fighter pilot had zip-tie handcuffs on the Senate floor because he planned to take hostages.
“He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said. “His prior experience and training make him all the more dangerous.”
Army commanders at Fort Bragg in North Carolina are investigating the possible involvement of Capt. Emily Rainey, the 30-year-old psychological operations officer and Afghanistan war veteran who told the AP she traveled with 100 others to Washington to “stand against election fraud.” She insisted she acted within Army regulations and that no one in her group entered the Capitol or broke the law.
“I was a private citizen and doing everything right and within my rights,” Rainey said.
More than 110 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol riot so far, ranging from curfew violations to serious federal felonies related to theft and weapons possession.
Brian Harrell, who served as the assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security until last year, said it is “obviously problematic” when “extremist bad actors” have military and law enforcement backgrounds.
“Many have specialized training, some have seen combat, and nearly all have been fed disinformation and propaganda from illegitimate sources,” Harrell said. “They are fueled by conspiracy theories, feel as if something is being stolen from them, and they are not interested in debate. This is a powder keg cocktail waiting to blow.”
The FBI is warning of the potential for more bloodshed. In an internal bulletin issued Sunday, the bureau warned of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, police departments in such major cities as New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston and Philadelphia announced they were investigating whether members of their agencies participated in the Capitol riot. The Philadelphia area’s transit authority is also investigating whether seven of its police officers who attended Trump’s rally in Washington broke any laws.
A Texas sheriff announced last week that he had reported one of his lieutenants to the FBI after she posted photos of herself on social media with a crowd outside the Capitol. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Lt. Roxanne Mathai, a 46-year-old jailer, had the right to attend the rally but he’s investigating whether she may have broken the law.
One of the posts Mathai shared was a photo that appeared to be taken Jan. 6 from among the mass of Trump supporters outside the Capitol, captioned: “Not gonna lie. ... aside from my kids, this was, indeed, the best day of my life. And it’s not over yet.”
A lawyer for Mathai, a mother and longtime San Antonio resident, said she attended the Trump rally but never entered the Capitol.
In Houston, Police Chief Art Acevedo said an 18-year veteran of the department suspected of joining the mob that breached the Capitol was placed on leave and will face a disciplinary hearing.
“There is no excuse for criminal activity, especially from a police officer,” Acevedo said. “I can’t tell you the anger I feel at the thought of a police officer, and other police officers, thinking they get to storm the Capitol.”
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Bleiberg reported from Dallas and LaPorta from in Delray Beach, Florida. Robert Burns and Mike Balsamo in Washington; Jim Mustian, Michael R. Sisak and Thalia Beaty in New York; Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland; Juan A. Lozano in Houston; Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; Martha Bellisle in Seattle; and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.
___
Follow Associated Press Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck; Jake Bleiberg at http://twitter.com/JZBleiberg; and James LaPorta at http://twitter.com/JimLaPorta
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Friday continued to fill out top roles for his administration, naming former Deputy CIA Director David Cohen to reprise his role at the U.S. intelligence agency and choosing New York City’s emergency coordinator to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Biden’s transition team, in a statement, also named deputy level officials for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and Budget.
Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Lambert
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
More From Reuters
No headline I\'ve ever written, no headline I\'ve ever read, has brought me greater joy than the one my father held up at Victoria train station one August afternoon in 1991: THE COUP COLLAPSES.
\nNearly 30 years later, I can still recall the angle of the summer light illuminating the Evening Standard, the broad grin on Dad\'s face, the sheer relief flooding through my brain. Suddenly it didn\'t matter that I was late meeting my family on this, the first day I\'d been allowed to roam London on my own. I was late because I\'d dawdled in the crowd outside Downing Street, waiting for news. \"It\'s such a shame,\" a voice in the crowd had said. In those pre-just-pull-out-your-phone days, the voice sounded like confirmation of our deepest collective fear.
\nThe fear in August 1991 was exactly the same as our fear in January 2021: that an anti-democratic insurrection in one of the world\'s superpowers would cement its position, then drag us all back down the path towards global annihilation.
\nBut the 1991 insurrection failed. The scales tipped. The bloody authoritarianism seen in Tiananmen Square two years earlier would not be replicated, not yet; the democratic movement that toppled the Berlin Wall two years earlier would roll on for now. The 1990s, one of the most hopeful decades in human history, truly began that summer day. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, as Wordsworth wrote of the French Revolution, but to be young was very heaven.
\nAnd I didn\'t even know then that I was about to see the U.S.S.R. first hand, in its last weeks of existence.
\nYou\'re damn right I saved it.\n
Image: chris taylor / mashable \n
These days, if it is recalled at all, the one-week coup in the U.S.S.R. is remembered as a brief blip in the decline of Communism. When the Soviet Union dissolved itself at the end of 1991, the whole thing started to feel inevitable. Of course the hardliners in the Kremlin would fail; of course Russian president Boris Yeltsin would succeed in standing against them. Hindsight, once again, was 20/20.
\nIn the heartland of America — where many didn\'t know about or distrusted the democratic reforms of the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev — a dangerous myth began to take hold. It wasn\'t the failure of a right-wing Russian coup, they said, but the unwavering rhetoric of the Reagan-Bush right, that had forever ended the threat of the Cold War. Besides, how dare you call the plotters right-wing, just because they looked backwards to an anti-democratic authoritarian past£ Commies are all extreme leftists, aren\'t they£
\nNow we\'ve witnessed a coup attempt in the United States where more people actually died (five) than during its Soviet counterpart (three). So it\'s a good time to revisit this half-forgotten week that shook the world and ended the \"evil empire\". Then as now, the battle was really between authoritarians and (small-d) democrats. Then as now, democracy was fragile. Then as now, democrats were outraged and emboldened by the attempt to silence their voices. Then as now, countering the regime\'s lies was key.
\nAnd then as now, the authoritarian threat wasn\'t as defeated as it seemed. Arguably, you can draw a direct line between the KGB-backed coup of 1991 and the election in 2000, under suspicious circumstances, of former KGB officer Vladimir Putin.
\n\nThere\'s another connection between the coups: no matter how much anyone said afterwards that we didn\'t see it coming, we saw it coming. Even teenage me saw it coming. \"It had always been talked about, a coup by hardliners,\" I wrote in my diary on the coup\'s first day. \"I suppose everyone was hoping old soldiers would fade away.\"
\nMikhail Gorbachev testifies in Russia\'s Supreme Court, at the trial of the men charged with treason and conspiracy to seize power in the 1991 coup attempt.\n
Image: Tanya Makeeva / AP/ Shutterstock\n
Here\'s what the old soldiers were fighting against. Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader who wasn\'t a doddering old relic from the Bolshevik Revolution. He turned out to be a cautious reformer. He introduced glasnost, a policy that increased freedom of speech, and perestroika, which let people own private businesses. In spring 1989 he said he wouldn\'t interfere in the politics of Eastern European countries under Soviet rule; this led directly to the wave of revolutions that toppled the Berlin Wall that November. And he brought democracy to the Soviet Union, allowing each republic (like Russia) to elect its own leadership (like Yeltsin, a former protege of Gorbachev\'s).
\nIn August 1991, Gorbachev and Yeltsin were about to sign the Union treaty, which would allow republics to control their own resources, including oil. The U.S.S.R. was about to become a collection of federal states like the U.S.A.; allowing non-communist parties was the obvious next step on the road to full democracy. The KGB put Gorbachev under surveillance.
\nOn Aug. 18, the president was in his holiday home on the Black Sea, putting finishing touches on the treaty. If right-wing reactionaries wanted to maintain their stranglehold on Soviet society, it was now or never — just as Republicans told themselves that Jan. 6, 2021, was their last chance to hold on to power.
\nThe coup\'s acting President Gennady Yanayev, right, gives his first press conference.\n
Image: ITAR-TASS via Getty Images\n
In America, we have just seen a mob that wanted to kill the Vice President for carrying out his legal duty of certifying an election. The Soviet coup, by contrast, was led by a Vice President who wanted to end elections. Gennady Yanayev was a hardliner who\'d been forced on Gorbachev by the Communist parliament in 1990. On the morning of Aug. 19, state radio announced Yanayev had taken over because Gorbachev wasn\'t feeling well, when he was in fact under house arrest. A fake 25th Amendment situation, if you will.
\nAn \"emergency committee\" composed of other Soviet bosses, including the head of the KGB, was formed to deal with a manufactured crisis. They moved to control state radio and TV, and shut down non-state newspapers. They arrested Gorbachev allies whom they thought might cause trouble. But in the committee\'s first and greatest error, it failed to arrest Boris Yeltsin. The Russian republic\'s president barricaded himself inside his parliament building, known as the White House, and dared the regime\'s tanks to come at him.
\nThey did, rolling across Moscow just as they had rolled in to Budapest in 1956, and Prague in 1968, and Beijing in 1989 — all cities where Communist reformers seemed to have the upper hand for a brief shining moment. The crackdown was the norm, and that\'s why the world expected a successful coup in 1991. We in the pro-democracy West were used to having our hopes dashed.
\nBut in this case, sympathetic tank commanders stopped just short of the White House.
\nBoris Yeltsin addresses a massive Moscow crowd during the coup attempt in August 1991.\n
Image: Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images\n
Yeltsin was an amateur politician, but he wasn\'t yet the drunken oaf he became in later years. He had charisma. He had fearlessness, which he demonstrated on the coup\'s first day by clambering atop a Soviet tank, surrounded by supporters, calling the coup illegitimate, and demanding a general strike. No Russians saw that on TV, but Yeltsin did an end-run around state media by broadcasting from ham radios inside the White House and dropping frequent news leaflets from its windows to the crowds below — a paper-based Twitter.
\nYanayev didn\'t get out in front of the cameras until later that day. He seemed every inch the lifelong bureaucrat he was, not a leader. (My sister thought he looked like Windom Earle, a rumpled FBI agent in the recently-cancelled Twin Peaks.) He wouldn\'t appear without five other coup plotters beside him. Afterwards, it became increasingly clear that he was a figurehead; his fellow hardliners were pulling the strings.
\nBut losing the charisma contest was no guarantee that the coup would fail. After all, a popular reformer, Nikita Khrushchev, had been deposed by a bunch of Communist bureaucrats in 1963. The committee still had the tanks, and history, on their side. Pro-democracy protesters tried lying in the street in front of the tanks, but lost the game of chicken, pulling themselves up at the last minute.
\nWatch this report from Aug. 19 to get a sense of the somber, stomach-churning mood on that day. Note how the people in the report describe the military leaders arrayed against them: \"Fascists.\" It was very, very clear which political wing they thought the coup belonged to.
\nPeople march towards the White House on Aug. 19, 1991. The sign reads \"No to Facism! Yes to Yeltsin! All on Strike!\"\n
Image: ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images\n
The next day, Aug. 20, hardline victory and a return to the Cold War still seemed the most likely outcome. Leningrad was still holding out against the coup, but for how long£ In Moscow, Yeltsin talked to world leaders like George Bush and John Major, but there wasn\'t anything they could do. \"Don\'t write my obituary yet,\" Yeltsin joked with a visiting American journalist. Then they filled his office with sandbags. That night, tanks fired on protesters, killing three. The most obvious comparison was to the recent deaths in Beijing.
\nMuscovites form a barricade of buses against the Soviet tanks.\n
Image: david turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images\n
On the night of the 20th, \"I prayed this wouldn\'t be another Tiananmen Square,\" I wrote in my diary. \"Me, an atheist!\" The prayers were answered, not by heavenly intervention, but by the people of Russia. Thousands defied curfew to surround the Russian parliament. The deaths of demonstrators only made them more determined to resist the reactionaries.
\nDemonstrators roll a large metal pipe through the streets of Moscow to help form a barricade outside the Russian White House.\n
Image: Alain Nogues/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images\n
A pro-democracy demonstrator argues with a Soviet soldier late Aug. 20, 1991 as a tank block access to the center of Moscow.\n
Image: ANDRE DURAND / AFP via Getty Images\n
More and more, the tank crews began to display the Russian flag, not the Soviet one, to show sympathy with the demonstrators. The emergency committee wavered as the military argued over its support for the coup, which the Air Force had always been against. Was this, perhaps, the beginning of a new civil war£ The future seemed to hang in the balance.
\nA little girl stands placidly atop a Soviet tank in the barricades at Red Square during the coup.\n
Image: David Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images\n
Then in one day, Aug. 21, the Defense Ministry announced it was withdrawing from Moscow. Its leader, Dimitry Yazov, seemed to be unavailable with some sort of bug. That was it; the coup committee had lost its trump card. One committed suicide; the others fled the capital by air before being arrested.
\nOn Aug. 21, 1991, armoured units leave their positions in Moscow following the collapse of the military coup.\n
Image: WILLY SLINGERLAND / AFP via Getty Images\n
Crowds gather in Red Square to celebrate the failure of the attempted coup.\n
Image: Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images\n
Demonstrators in front of the White House cheer a speech by Boris Yeltsin.\n
Image: Pascal Le Segretain / Sygma via Getty Images\n
Gorbachev, released from his dachau, returned to Moscow that night. But as he soon discovered, the city had changed forever. It was Yeltsin territory now. Reform could no longer proceed at Gorbachev\'s slow pace.
\nMikhail Gorbachev and his family at Moscow airport, returning from house arrest in Crimea.\n
Image: TASS via Getty Images\n
That same week, Yeltsin humiliated Gorbachev live on state TV. It was during a meeting at the Russian Parliament which Gorbachev hoped would restore the status quo. In fact, Yeltsin started lecturing him publicly. Before the delegates, before the world, Yeltsin forced Gorbachev to read an account of the coup — revealing that only one man in Gorbachev\'s entire cabinet had defended him. His voice cracked reading it. He immediately announced the appointment of Yeltsin men to replace them.
\nGorbachev gets a lecture from Yeltsin.\n
Image: peter turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images\n
By the end of that incredible meeting, Yeltsin did something none of us alive had ever expected to see in our lifetimes. He effectively dissolved the Soviet Communist party by signing an official decree suspending all its activities in Russia. Gorbachev could only look on and splutter about how, surely, there were still some good Communists left. He may have been back in power, but most of that power evaporated at the stroke of Yeltsin\'s pen.
\nAll other parties were now legal. The Communists were not. The Republics that were ready to break away followed suit, arresting Communist officials. Statues fell like ninepins, starting with that of the hated founder of Russia\'s secret police, long a symbol of KGB power. Without fear of the KGB to keep the Republics in line, the official breakup of the Soviet Union that December was set in motion.
\nBefore the coup, Gorbachev had a shot at keeping the U.S.S.R. together in a U.S.A.-style multicultural federal democracy. Now that dream was dead. The coup had failed so hard, it had done what decades of Cold War rhetoric had failed to do. It wasn\'t Reagan or Bush who ended the U.S.S.R. It was a parliament full of anger at right-wing insurrectionists, a parliament fearful that they might try to bring down their legitimate leaders again.
\nPeople from various parts of the Soviet Union hold flags in Red Square on Oct. 5, 1991, protesting desecrations of Lenin\'s memory since the failed coup. Statues of the Soviet founder were removed; the Mayor of Moscow closed Lenin\'s tomb.\n
Image: VITALY ARMAND / AFP via Getty Images\n
That October, a few of us from my school district had the good fortune to go on an exchange trip to the U.S.S.R. two months before it ceased to exist. In the conservative countryside of Kostroma, we saw a strange land of contrasts. A lot of people were getting religion, but hadn\'t yet celebrated Christmas. Our hosts were Yeltsin people who eagerly devoured independent news, yet Communist symbols persisted. The neighbors gave us old Red Army medals. The statues of Lenin, always in that taxi-hailing pose, were gone in Moscow, but there were no plans yet to remove them here. But they wouldn\'t be celebrating Revolution Day in November for the first time ever.
\nMy host family\'s youngest boy gave me the gift of a toy tank; his contribution to disarmament, they laughed. Meanwhile a giant statue of a tank in the center of Kostroma commemorated a local regiment that was wiped out not once, not twice, but three times in the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis. Reminders that this war had cost 20 million Russian lives were everywhere. When you\'re living with the weight of that much history, even a coup must seem small potatoes.
\nAnd yet it had still been a big deal. My hosts recalled their sudden glumness in those days of the coup when suddenly, around town, everyone stopped feeling like they could talk openly again. Now they were as hopeful as Russians ever got. \"God saved us from the coup,\" insisted a girl my age in a pink Jesus top. The new economic reality had not yet begun to bite. Everything was on the table for the newly unshackled country. My hosts wouldn\'t even rule out the appointment of a new Tsar. A purely constitutional monarch, of course.
\nThe coup organizers in the early 2000s, gathered under a banner that says \"Patriot!\"\n
Image: Ivan Sekretarev / AP / Shutterstock\n
I thought of them often in the decades since, as we saw a new kind of Tsar rise — one not bound by any constitution. Putin, an obscure former KGB officer, was suddenly appointed Prime Minister at the alcohol-soaked end of Yeltsin\'s presidency. In the wake of terrorist-style apartment bombings in Moscow, the truth about which is still murky, Putin won the 2000 Presidential election. He invited his former KGB boss — yes, one of the coup plotters — to the inauguration.
\nThe coup still reverberated in Russian culture as the country plunged into its increasingly authoritarian nightmare under Putin. If Americans have anything to learn from it all, it\'s this: Don\'t go easy on insurrection. The top plotters were pardoned after their treason trial by the Russian parliament, which was eager to turn the page and promote unity, in 1994.
\nTen years after the coup, the plotters gathered in public again, insisting they had been right all along. Dmitry Yazov, the defense minister who had become conveniently ill towards the end of the coup, became a chief military aide to Vladimir Putin, who gave him a medal. Yazov died in 2020.
\nRussian soldiers on the 15th anniversary of the failure of the coup, near the White House, on 20 August 2006.\n
Image: VIKTOR DRACHEV / AFP via Getty Images\n
The anniversary in later years has been a source of regret for some Russians, meaning regret that it didn\'t succeed. Their numbers likely include Vladimir Putin, whose sympathies are not hard to guess. Putin has called the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union the \"biggest geopolitical catastrophe\" of the 20th century. And it was Putin\'s KGB that helped initiate the coup in the first place — a coup that Russians still call an act of fascism.
\nNo to fascism, no to communism: Russian opposition supporters hold a puppet\'s head wearing a balaclava, trademark of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, during a commemorative event for the victims of the 1991 coup in Moscow on Aug. 19, 2012. Putin made no comment on the anniversary.\n
Image: andrey Smirnov / AFP via Getty Images\n
Then, Fanone, who had just been Tasered several times in the back of the neck, heard something chilling that made him go into survival mode.
\"Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, \'Kill him with his own gun,\'\" said Fanone, who\'s been a police officer for almost two decades.
Fanone, one of three officers who spoke with CNN, described his experience fighting a mob of President Donald Trump\'s supporters who\'d invaded the Capitol in an insurrection unheard of in modern American history.
Federal officials have said the details of the violence that come out will be disturbing.
\"People are going to be shocked by some of the egregious contact that happened in the Capitol,\" acting
US Attorney Michael Sherwinsaid Tuesday in reference to attacks on police officers.
Fanone, a narcotics detective who works in plain clothes, heard the commotion at the Capitol and grabbed his still brand-new police uniform that had been hanging in his locker and put it on for the first time, he said. He raced to the building with his partner and helped officers who were being pushed back by rioters.
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone
But Fanone, who said he\'d rather be shot than be pulled into a crowd where he had no control, was suddenly in his biggest nightmare as an officer. And in those few moments, Fanone considered using deadly force. He thought about using his gun but knew that he didn\'t have enough fire power and he\'d soon be overpowered again, except this time they would probably use his gun against him and they\'d have all the reason to end his life.
\"So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody\'s humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work,\" said the 40-year-old father of four.
A group within the rioters circled Fanone and protected him until help arrived, saving his life.
\"Thank you, but f*** you for being there,\" Fanone said of the rioters who protected him in that moment.
Fanone\'s anger and frustration was a sentiment felt by law enforcement around the country, furious that Trump supporters had breached the grounds of the Capitol on the very day Joe Biden\'s win was confirmed by the House and Senate.
Fanone\'s dramatic encounter with the Trump supporting rioters was repeated all over the grounds of the US Capitol as law enforcement officers battled to push them back. Fanone, one of scores of officers who were injured in the brutal battle, shared his story for the first time, still suffering the effects of a mild heart attack.
Since the breach of the Capitol, investigators have been dissecting every aspect of the day\'s events, from the response of US Capitol Police to the nationwide manhunt for everyone involved.
Investigators are now looking into the notion that here was some level of planning, with enough evidence to indicate that it was not just a protest that got out of control,
law enforcement sources tell CNN.
\"Certainly some things that we saw on the ground were some indication that there were some coordination going on, but I think as we get further into the investigation, a lot of that will be revealed,\" acting MPD Chief Robert Contee told reporters Thursday.
Fanone said the rioters had weapons, either of their own or taken from his fellow police.
\"We were getting chemical irritants sprayed. They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those,\" said Fanone, who added that he wasn\'t going to be sitting at a desk while an insurrection was happening at the Capitol.
\"And then it was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side,\" he added. \"It was difficult to offer any resistance when you\'re only about 30 guys going up against 15,000.\"
Officer Christina Laury, a member of the Metropolitan Police Department\'s gun recovery unit, got to the Capitol at around 12:30 p.m. ET and saw the riotous groups gaining ground.
Laury, who was guarding the line to make sure there were no gaps for anyone to slip through, was hit with a much stronger type of pepper spray that\'s supposed to be used only on bears, she said.
\"The individuals were pushing officers, hitting officers. They were spraying us with what we were calling, essentially, bear mace, because you use it on bears,\" she said.
\"Unfortunately, it shuts you down for a while. It\'s way worse than pepper spray,\" Laury added. \"It seals your eyes shut. ... You\'ve got to spray and douse yourself with water. And in those moments it\'s scary because you can\'t see anything and have people that are fighting to get through.\"
She was lucky enough not to be struck with anything but saw others beaten with objects.
\"They were getting hit with metal objects. Metal poles. I remember seeing pitchforks. They\'re getting sprayed, knocked down,\" said Laury, who added that reinforcements kept rotating in so others could rest during the hours-long battle.
\"Just puling officers back to heal up and (reinforcements) stepping in to get to the front line. And then they go down and more officers step in and the officers that were knocked down, they\'re better again and they\'re just battling because the bottom line is, we\'re not letting anyone through.\"
Officer Daniel Hodges was one of those officers who tried to battle back rioters but was roughed up in the fight. Hodges gained notice after footage of him circulated being crushed by a door. The 32-year-old officer is seen in the clip with blood dripping through his teeth as he kept gasping for enough air so he could yell \"Help\" at the top of his lungs.
Hodges raced to the Capitol to offer support like many others and soon found himself being assaulted from an angry mob that, he said, believed they were patriots.
Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges
\"There\'s a guy ripping my mask off, he was able to rip away the baton and beat me with it,\" said Hodges, who was stuck in the door and added that his arm was bent before they ripped the weapon away.
\"He was practically foaming at the mouth so just, these people were true believers in the worst way.\"
Hodges was eventually rescued by other officers who eventually came to his aid.
\"You know things were looking bad,\" said Hodges, who miraculously walked away with no major injuries and may have suffered a minor concussion. \"I was calling out for all I was worth, and an officer behind me was able to get me enough room to pull me out of there and get me to the rear so I was able to extricate myself.\"
This was Hodges\'s first visit to the Capitol building.
The patrol officer said he had been hearing about the possibility of violence for years so he wasn\'t surprised that the rioters would storm the Capitol. What did surprise him was how the insurrectionists thought the police would be on their side.
\"Some of them felt like we would be fast friends because so many of them have been vocal,\" Hodges said. \"They say things like, \'Yeah, we\'ve been supporting you through all this Black Lives Matter stuff, you should have our back\' and they felt entitled.\"
He added, \"They felt like they would just walk up there and tell us that they\'re here to take back Congress and we would agree with them and we\'d walk in hand in hand and just take over the nation. But obviously that\'s not the case and it will never be the case.\"
Now, only days before Biden\'s inauguration, federal authorities are warning of other threats that may come.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has publicly warned people not to come to the city for the inauguration.
Hodges echoed her sentiments, and wanted not only residents, but Trump supporters and extremists to stay home too. But with one caveat.
\"Stay home. Stop this,\" said Hodges. \"On the other hand, I hope they\'re caught. Let\'s leave it at that.\"
Last week, Americans were shocked as a large group of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in protest of his 2020 election loss, following a rally that included a speech from Trump himself. Five people died, including two police officers, and significant damage was done to the building, including to many congressional representatives’ offices. Several prominent members of the alt-right either took part in the raid or were present just outside the Capitol, including internet personality Nick Fuentes.
It’s unclear to what degree the attack on the Capitol was planned in advance. ProPublica reports that in the weeks leading up, many Trump supporters discussed turning the event violent on Parler, a rightwing social media app now banned by most major tech platforms. However, we now have evidence that many alt-right groups and personalities, including Fuentes, received large Bitcoin donations in a single transaction that occurred a month before the riot on December 8. We have also gathered evidence that strongly suggests the donor was a now-deceased computer programmer based in France.
While we won’t share the donor’s identity publicly, we’ll walk you through how we made the identification and provide details on the donations below. The information we’ve uncovered shows that domestic extremism isn’t strictly domestic. International networks play a role as well, which we see reflected in the nationality of this extremist donor. The donation, as well as reports of the planning that went into the Capitol raid on alt-right communication channels, also suggests that domestic extremist groups may be better organized and funded than previously thought.
On December 8, 2020, a donor sent 28.15 BTC — worth approximately $522,000 at the time of transfer — to 22 separate addresses in a single transaction. Many of those addresses belong to far-right activists and internet personalities.
Nick Fuentes received 13.5 BTC — worth approximately $250,000 at the time of the transfer — making him by far the biggest beneficiary of the donation. However, several others received significant funds as well, including anti-immigration organization VDARE, alt-right streamer Ethan Ralph, and several addresses whose owners are as yet unidentified.
While there’s no evidence yet that Fuentes entered the Capitol — in fact, he explicitly denies entering the building — he was present at the initial rally and seen outside the Capitol as the rioting began. Fuentes promoted the rally that preceded the violence in the month before on social media. PBS notes that in the days leading up, Fuentes encouraged his audience to engage in extreme behavior to prevent Joe Biden’s election from being certified, even implying that they should kill state legislators. Fuentes had previously been banned from YouTube for hate speech, including Holocaust denial and promotion of other conspiracy theories.
The December 8 donation of over $250,000 worth of Bitcoin is by far the largest cryptocurrency donation Fuentes has ever received. Previously, the most he had ever received in a single month was $2,707 worth of Bitcoin.
In fact, as we see in the graph above, this multi-recipient donation made December 2020 the single biggest month we’ve ever observed in terms of cryptocurrency received by addresses associated with domestic extremism. Still, this donation isn’t a one-off. The data shows that domestic extremists have been receiving a steady stream of cryptocurrency donations since 2016.
The extremist donor funded his donation wallet with cryptocurrency from a French exchange, which he moved to the donation wallet via an intermediary we’ve labeled “Extremist Legacy Wallet.”
The Extremist Legacy Wallet first became active in 2013, suggesting that the extremist donor is a relatively early adopter of Bitcoin whose holdings have grown in value significantly. Using open-source intelligence, we discovered one BTC address associated with the Extremist Legacy Wallet is registered on NameID, a service that allows users to associate their online identity, email address, and other information with their Bitcoin address. In this case, the extremist donor associated his Bitcoin address with the pseudonym “pankkake.”
In addition to his Bitcoin address, the extremist donor also listed an email address and an OpenPGP signature.
Searching for information on the email address led us to a personal blog we believe belongs to the extremist donor, and which identifies him as a French computer programmer. The blog had been inactive since 2014 until a new post was published on December 9, 2020 — the day after the donations were made. Shockingly, the post appears to be a suicide note. You can read it in the screenshot below.
Most of the note details the author’s health difficulties, which he says prompted him to commit suicide, but the sections we’ve highlighted provide strong evidence that the author is the extremist donor. He mentions that he has “bequeathed [his] fortune to certain causes and certain people,” and cites several alt-right talking points in his analysis of the world today. For instance, he states his belief that “Western civilization is declining,” and claims that Westerners are encouraged to hate their “ancestors and heritage.” He also seemingly alludes to his belief that George Floyd died of a drug overdose rather than due to the actions of the police officer who violently apprehended him. All of these are common beliefs on the alt-right, and paint a picture of the donor’s motivations for sending cryptocurrency to so many far right extremist figures.
While we don’t know if these donations directly funded last week’s violent gathering at the Capitol or any associated activity, the timing certainly warrants suspicion. As the Biden administration gears up to fight domestic extremism, these donations are a reminder of the need to track the cryptocurrency activity of all groups and individuals designated as terrorists, including those operating on U.S. soil. As mainstream payment platforms remove extremist groups and figures, we may see them embrace cryptocurrency more as a donations mechanism. Luckily, thanks to the inherent transparency of cryptocurrency blockchains, law enforcement can track these transactions in real time and work with cryptocurrency businesses to prevent funds from reaching violent groups who may use them to fund their operations and commit acts of violence. Chainalysis is actively looking to identify any additional extremist payments and activity and will keep our customers updated.
This blog is an excerpt from the Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report. Click here and sign up to get the full document emailed to your inbox when it\'s released in February!
(Reuters) - Payments in bitcoin worth more than $500,000 were made to 22 different virtual wallets, most of them belonging to far-right activists and internet personalities, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, cryptocurrency compliance startup Chainalysis said on Friday.
The payments, made by a French donor, of 28.15 bitcoins were made on Dec. 8, the New York-based startup, specializing in countering money laundering and fraud in the digital currency space, said in a blog post. (bit.ly/3bG83yE)
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Chainalysis said it now has evidence that many alt-right groups and personalities received large bitcoin donations as part of the single transaction.
“We have also gathered evidence that strongly suggests the donor was a now-deceased computer programmer based in France,” Chainalysis said in the report.
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Nick Fuentes, who was permanently suspended from YouTube last year for hate speech, received 13.5 bitcoins, worth about $250,000 at the time of the transfer, making him by far the biggest beneficiary of the donation, according to the blog post.
Fuentes could not be reached for a request for comment.
Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
More From Reuters
Among the evidence the FBI is examining are indications that some participants at the Trump rally at the Ellipse, outside the White House, left the event early, perhaps to retrieve items to be used in the assault on the Capitol.
A team of investigators and prosecutors are also focused on the command and control aspect of the attack, looking at travel and communications records to determine if they can build a case that is similar to a counterterrorism investigation, the official said.
The belief, early in the probe, will demand significant investigation.
The presence of corruption prosecutors and agents is in part because of their expertise in financial investigations. \"We are following the money,\" the official said.
By Wednesday morning, the FBI reported that it had received more than 126,000 digital tips from the public regarding the attack on the Capitol -- more than three times the number of tips received on Monday.
Among the thousands of tips the FBI received are some that
appear to show members of Congresswith people who later showed up at the Capitol riot, two law enforcement officials said. This doesn\'t mean members of Congress and staff are under investigation, but the FBI is checking the veracity of the claims, the officials said.
At least some of the arrests already made are part of a strategy used in counterterrorism investigations, to find even a minimal charge and try to take a person of concern off the streets. That helps ease the possible threat amid concern about possible attacks on the inauguration, officials believe.
On January 4, for example, local police arrested the leader of the Proud Boys, Henry \"Enrique\" Tarrio, in Washington, DC.
Tarrio was taken into custody for allegedly burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church last month during protests in the city after an earlier \"Stop the Steal\" rally. The Miami resident was charged with destruction of property related to the banner, however, federal authorities say they found Tarrio in possession of two high-capacity firearm magazines, prompting them to add a charge of Possession of High Capacity Feeding Device.
On Tuesday, federal authorities in New York City arrested Eduard Florea, 40, on at least one weapons charge after law enforcement, including the FBI and NYPD, responded to a Queens home in response to online postings about an armed caravan heading to the US Capitol, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation tells CNN.
Law enforcement sources told CNN that the man claims to be a Proud Boy and was arrested with live ammunition in the home.
Already, the public efforts by prosecutors and the FBI to encourage people who participated In the riot to turn themselves in is yielding fruit. Some attorneys have reached out to arrange for safe surrender of their clients in order to gain a measure of leniency and lessen the chance of a police raid on their homes, two officials said.
For instance, a counterterrorism prosecutor even appeared in court for an early hearing for one of the defendants on Tuesday, signaling how integrated the Justice Department\'s effort already is between the typical criminal prosecutors who handle initial criminal hearings and with the units focused on more complex crimes.
\"With this strike force that was established to focus strictly on sedition charges, we\'re looking at in treating this just like a significant international counterterrorism or counterintelligence operation,\" DC US Attorney Michael Sherwin said Tuesday.
\"We\'re looking at everything: money, travel records. Looking at disposition, movement, communication records. So no resource related to the FBI, or the US Attorney\'s Office will be unchecked in terms of trying to determine exactly if there was a command and control how it operated and how they executed these, these activities.\"
(Bloomberg) -- Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi on Tuesday ordered flags flown at half-staff and declared three days of mourning after three police officers were killed, the latest round of shocking violence to plague the U.S. commonwealth.
On Tuesday, police said the investigation was ongoing, even after they recovered a bullet-riddled body of a man with a sign on his neck reading, “I was responsible for the killing of the guards. Here he is.”
The homicide rate in Puerto Rico is about four times the U.S. national rate. Although it has been dropping, the dramatic nature of the violence can make it all-the-more terrifying. The island is in a long population slump, and some out-migrants cite safety concerns for leaving.
The three officers, state policeman Luis Marrero Diaz, and municipal police, Luis Salaman Conde and Eliezer Hernandez Cartagena, were shot Monday afternoon as they chased a group of men in a stolen car near the island’s capital. All three died from their wounds.
The empty automobile involved in the chase was later found at the Luis Llorens Torres apartment complex in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood.
The incident is one of the first major challenges for Pierluisi, who took office Jan. 2. On Tuesday, he said the case would remain under investigation until all the suspects had been caught.
“There’s no room for these violent acts and this disdain for life in the Puerto Rico that we want,” he said in a statement.
Puerto Rico recorded 346 murders during the first seven months of 2020, according to the most recent police data. An analysis by local media found that 2020 ended with 529 homicides -- the lowest number in three decades.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
\n \n ANI |\n Updated: Jan 14, 2021 10:53 IST\n
Washington [US], January 14 (ANI): Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday said that the evidence he has seen so far suggests the attack on the US Capitol was a \'planned assault\'.
\"The FBI would be doing two things simultaneously -- going immediately to find the bad actors all over the country that they can lay hands on and charging them but also exploring the question of conspiracy,\" Comey told CNN.
\"There is no doubt that there were at least some conspiracy. People wandering around exercising First Amendment rights do not bring ropes and ladders and sledgehammers to a spontaneous event. This was a planned assault like going after a castle,\" he added.
His remarks come after it was reported that enforcement officials believed that the attack was premeditated rather than a protest that spiraled out of control.
CNN further reported that among the evidence the FBI is examining are indications that some participants at the Trump rally at the Ellipse, outside the White House, left the event early, perhaps to retrieve items to be used in the assault on the Capitol.
On January 6, a group of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to protest legislators confirming electoral slates from battleground US states they thought were invalid.
Trump had made a speech among thousands of supporters earlier that day reiterated his claim a massive voter fraud had robbed his election victory and encouraged supporters to maintain support to \"stop the steal.\"
Five people died in the riot, including one police officer as well as one Air Force veteran and Trump supporter who was shot dead by police. (ANI)
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\n\t\tJanuary 14, 2021 | 8:42pm\t\t\t\t| Updated January 14, 2021 | 9:24pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
5-alarm fire blazes in Brooklyn
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A massive fire ripped through a Brooklyn building Thursday evening, authorities said.
The five-alarm blaze broke out at 244 Montrose Avenue in Bushwick just after 6 p.m., the FDNY said.
Videos on social media show the flames bursting out of the top floors of the building as black smoke billowed into the night sky.
Firefighters can be seen on the roof of an adjacent building trying to put out the blaze, video shows.
Another video shows firefighters finally extinguishing the flames, which left the top of the building charred and destroyed.
Fire officials said no injuries were reported.
It’s unknown what caused the large fire. An investigation is ongoing.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFirefighters battle the five-alarm blaze at 244 Montrose Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Gabriella Bass
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