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Five Key Takeaways From Seventh January 6 US Capitol Riot Hearing

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4 years ago

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Tuesday’s wide-ranging hearing attempted to link former President Donald Trump to far-right groups that stormed Capitol.

Former President Donald Trump’s role dominated the seventh hearing this year of the US congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Whether discussing meetings at the White House after the 2020 election or the role of far-right groups in the violence on January 6, Trump was a constant theme at the hearing on Tuesday.

The public session featured for the first time snippets from the video testimony of former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who agreed to speak to the panel last week.

It also tried to link Trump’s public rhetoric to the planning of the assault on the Capitol.

Here are five key takeaways from the hearing:

Cipollone confirms he rejected theory that Pence could overturn election

Cipollone confirmed accounts from previous testimonies that he vehemently rejected efforts to push Vice President Mike Pence to reverse election results.

A previous hearing had detailed how some Trump allies believed that the vice president, who presides over the counting of electoral college votes, can declare a different result than the official election tally.

In a video played on Tuesday, Cipollone tells the committee that he does not disagree with the testimony of a White House aide saying that he had described the theory as “nutty”.

The former White House counsel went on to praise Pence for refusing to go along with those efforts, saying he suggested that the ex-vice president should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Separately, witnesses later told the committee that Trump added last-minute lines attacking Pence to his January 6 speech, which he delivered ahead of the riots.

Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, a Democrat, said Trump ad-libbed several references to Pence and “fighting” in that speech.

“A single scripted reference in the speech to Mike Pence became eight,” Murphy said.

“A single scripted reference to rally-goers marching to the Capitol became four, with President Trump ad-libbing that he would be joining the protesters at the Capitol. Added throughout his speech were references to fighting and the need for people to have courage and to be strong.”

Pat Cipollone's video testimony on a big screen during Tuesday's January 6 hearing.
Pat Cipollone praised Trump for refusing to interfere in the certification of the 2020 election 

Election deniers and other aides clashed at White House meeting

The panel portrayed a contentious meeting between election deniers and aides who were pushing against unfounded fraud claims at the White House on December 18, 2020.

Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had come to the White House for an unscheduled meeting.

Cipollone said he pressed for evidence to back election fraud allegations, decrying what he called Powell’s “general disregard for the importance of actually backing up what you say with facts”.

Eric Herschmann, a former White House lawyer, said he also voiced opposition to some of the conspiracy theories that were being floated to back fraud allegations.

For his part, Rudy Giuliani said he accused aides who were not convinced that there was election fraud of not fighting hard enough.

“Maybe I put it another way: ‘You’re a bunch of p***ies’,” Giuliani said.

Other witnesses described screaming and hurling of insults between the two camps.

“It got to the point where the screaming was completely out there. When you got people walk in – it was late at night – it’s been a long day, and what they were proposing I thought was nuts,” Herschmann tells the committee in a video played at the hearing.

The panel later showed a text message by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who delivered an explosive testimony late last month, describing the meeting as “unhinged”.

Trump set the date

The panel argued on Tuesday that a Trump tweet calling for a “big protest” against election results in Washington, DC, on January 6 set the date for various far-right groups to descend on the city and subsequently storm the Capitol.

“Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” the tweet said. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin said the founder of a website that served as a forum for election fraud claims “confirmed how the president’s tweet created a laser-like focus on the date of January 6”.

The panel then played parts of a video testimony from Jody Williams, owner of the now-defunct thedonald.win website.

“After it was announced that he was going to be there on the sixth to talk, yes, then everything else was kind of shut out, and it was just going to be on the sixth,” Williams told the committee.

The committee displayed posts from that website calling for bringing handcuffs, shields and bats to the January 6 rally.

Donell Harvin, a former top intelligence official for the government of the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), said previously non-aligned groups from the far-right started coordinating together ahead of the January 6 attack.

“All the red flags were up at that point,” Harvin added.

“We have far-right militia collaborating with white supremacy groups, collaborating with conspiracy theory groups,” Harvin said, calling the coordination a “blended ideology”.

He said the groups were sharing “operational intelligence” ahead of the riot.

Committee attempts to draw link between far-right groups and Trump

The committee tried to draw a link between far-right groups, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys – which are accused of involvement in the Capitol attack – and Trump and his allies.

Raskin specifically highlighted ties between Trump confidantes Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and the far-right organisations, showing photos and text messages between the two men with members of the groups.

Before the hearing, Stone – a veteran right-wing political operative – denied any wrongdoing.

“Any assertion that I knew in advance about, was involved in or condoned any of the illegal actions at the Capitol is false,” the Reuters news agency quoted Stone as saying in an email. “Any claim that I knew from any member of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers about any plan for illegal activities on January 6th is also false.”

The hearing featured a former spokesperson of the Oath Keepers, who described the group as violent and dangerous.

Early this year, the Department of Justice charged the Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes with seditious conspiracy in relation to his alleged role in the Capitol attack.

Rhodes has pleaded not guilty.

Trump tried to contact committee witness, Cheney says

Vice Chair Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee, revealed that Trump attempted to contact one of the panel’s witnesses, saying that the incident has been referred to the Justice Department.

“President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation – a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” she said.

“That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call; their lawyer alerted us. And this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.

“Let me say one more time: We will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously.”

Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern, who is not on the panel, stressed that “witness tampering” in a congressional investigation is against the law.

“Donald Trump continues to commit crimes to cover up his unconstitutional scheme to overturn the 2020 election,” McGovern wrote on Twitter.

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Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

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15th January 2024

By

Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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