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GOP senators led by Graham slam Trump Jan. 6 pardon promise

Former President Trump’s promise to grant pardons to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is running into strong opposition from Senate Republicans. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s closest allies, told The Hill that granting pardons to Jan. 6 protesters is “a bad idea.”  

“Pardons are given to people who admit misconduct, rehabilitate themselves. They’re not supposed to be used for other purposes,” he said. 

Other Republican senators are joining Graham in criticizing Trump’s promise to pardon the Jan. 6 protesters as inappropriate.  

“I don’t think potential candidates should hold pardons out as a promise,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who is usually a reliable Trump ally. “It’s somewhat problematic for me on a moral level and an ethical level — sort of like promising other giveaways to particular individuals. 

“I prefer avoiding those kinds of things,” he said.  

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said he wouldn’t support granting pardons to people convicted of crimes because of their actions on Jan. 6.  

“If he were elected, he would have a constitutional ability to do it,” he said of Trump’s promise of pardons. “I would disagree with it. I think there was insurrection and I think these folks need to be punished. 

“I was there. This was truly violent. People were injured, people were killed. I have very little mercy for the individuals that were involved in that activity that day,” Rounds added.  

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said people who committed crimes on Jan. 6 must face the consequences of their actions.  

“The only people that get pardoned are people who are charged with crimes. If they were charged with crimes, they ought to be prosecuted like everybody else,” he said. “The rule of law applies. If people broke laws, they need to be held accountable.”  

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted last year to impeach Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, said pardoning people who invaded the Capitol to stop Biden’s election would be wrong.  

“The Jan. 6 riot was an attack on the temple of democracy, and the people who violated the law, attacked our law enforcement and besmirched our nation’s Capitol should be prosecuted according to the law, and certainly should not be pardoned,” he said. “It’s a grossly inappropriate comment to make.”  

Not every Republican is quick to dismiss the idea of a pardon.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) who raised a fist to protestors outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, before he and other members of Congress were evacuated during the insurrection, is more open to the idea of granting leniency to pro-Trump protesters. 

“Let’s see which ones he would choose to do,” Hawley said of the prospect of Trump pardoning Jan. 6 protesters if he wins another term in the White House. “There’s no question it has been a massive prosecutorial effort.“

He and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who both led objections to the Electoral College tally in January 2021, argue the Department of Justice (DOJ) is punishing Trump supporters who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 much more aggressively than the rioters who destroyed property at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.

“I think that the folks who committed crimes, particularly violent crimes, on that day ought to be prosecuted,” Hawley said of the Jan. 6 protesters who have been sentenced to prison. “I think the question becomes, are there are people who’ve been caught up in this drag net who, for instance, didn’t know that they were trespassing?“  

“There’s a lot of concern about, frankly, the double standard at [the Department of Justice] going after people who may have at most trespassed on federal property and not even known they did it versus folks who have in [Black Lives Matter] riots committed violent crimes and not been prosecuted,” he added, referring to the failure to prosecute people who destroyed property at riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.  

“There absolutely is undeniably a double standard,” he said.  

Hawley said the Department of Justice has filed briefs asking for leniency for Black Lives Matter protesters who destroyed property or caused injuries because their actions were motivated by a desire for social justice, while federal prosecutors have sought maximum penalties for Trump supporters who entered the Capitol last year.  

Federal prosecutors, for example, asked for an 18-month prison sentence for Richard Michetti, who was arrested after his ex-girlfriend turned him in to law enforcement.  

Michetti was charged with aiding and abetting obstruction of an official proceeding after entering and remaining in the Capitol for 45 minutes on Jan. 6, where he yelled obscenities at police officers. He was sentenced last week to 24 months of supervised release and ordered to pay a $2,000 penalty. 

A study published by Time magazine in June found that 840 people had been charged with storming the Capitol on that day and that about a quarter of them have received criminal sentences, with a median prison sentence of 45 days.  

Trump told conservative radio host Wendy Bell on Sept. 1 that he would issue full pardons and apologize to many of his supporters who were prosecuted for their actions on Jan. 6.  

“I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he said earlier this month.  

Cruz said there’s a big difference between protesters who attacked Capitol police officers and smashed the Capitol’s windows and doorways and Trump supporters who showed up at the Capitol to voice their opposition to certifying Biden as president.  

“I think there is a stark difference between acts of violence and peaceful protest. Acts of violence are unacceptable from any political perspective. Peaceful protest is protected by the first amendment of the Constitution,” Cruz said when asked about Trump’s promise to pardon many Jan. 6 protesters.  

“The Biden Justice Department has used Jan. 6 and the violent acts of a few to justify persecuting the peaceful protest and political speech of the many,” he said. “It is wildly inconsistent.  

“The Department of Justice turns a blind eye to violent rioters who looted, destroyed and firebombed American cities across the country but is eager to target anyone who dares speak on the other side of the aisle,” he said, citing Biden’s recent speech in Philadelphia, where he accused Trump and his allies of pushing a form of political extremism that “threatens the very foundations of our republic.”  

“This past week it got so bad that Joe Biden, bathed in red light, decreed that half the nation are fascists because they dare to disagree with his socialist policies,” Cruz said. “What DOJ is doing, targeting the political enemies of the White House, is corrupt and incredibly harmful.”  

Asked if people who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 should receive pardons if they didn’t assault officers or destroy property, Cruz would only say “acts of violence are qualitatively different.”  

A study of court records by The Associated Press have found that federal prosecutors have filed more than 300 cases related to the protests that swept America after Floyd’s death.  

It also found that more than 120 defendants have pleaded guilty to crimes such as rioting and arson and that more than 70 have received sentences, with the average penalty being 27 months in prison.  

Graham, one of Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate, said granting pardons to people who tried to intimidate and stop lawmakers from doing their jobs would set a bad precedent.   

“It reinforces violence. The people who defiled the Capitol and took the law in their own hands deserve to be brought to justice,” he said.  

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Democrat Hobbs refuses to debate 'conspiracy theorist' Lake in Arizona governor race

Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs announced Sunday that she will not debate her GOP opponent in the race to become Arizona’s next governor.

“Unfortunately, debating a conspiracy theorist like Kari Lake – whose entire campaign platform is to cause enormous chaos and make Arizona the subject of national ridicule – would only lead to constant interruptions, pointless distractions, and childish name-calling,” Nicole DeMont, the campaign manager for Hobbs, said in a statement.

“Arizonans deserve so much better than Kari Lake, and that’s why we’re confident Katie Hobbs will be elected our next governor.”

Instead, the Democratic nominee will participate in a town-hall style event in which the candidates are questioned separately, the statement said.

The Hobbs campaign was responding to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, a state commission that monitors and organizes debates.

The commission last week rejected a request from Hobbs to do separate, televised town hall events and gave the candidates seven days to come to an agreement for the Oct. 12 debate.

Hobbs’s decision on Sunday likely kills any chance of a debate before the November election, which is projected as a tossup.

Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, has frequently lambasted Lake for repeating former President Trump’s false claims the 2020 election was stolen.

The Hobbs campaign has pointed to a June GOP primary debate, in which Lake said the 2020 election was rigged and that Democrats would cheat in the upcoming election, as evidence that any debate would be a mess.

But Hobbs’s refusal to debate could bolster Lake’s claims her opponent is afraid of confrontation.

Lake, a former television news anchor, said last week she would take the stage to herself on Oct. 12 if Hobbs does not show up.

“It’s becoming clearer everyday that Hobbs’ strategy is to hide from Me, the Press, and the Voters throughout the entirety of this campaign and run out the clock on the people of Arizona,” Lake tweeted.

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Jan. 6 panel set to reemerge with eye on Newt Gingrich

The House panel investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to revive the public portion of its probe this month, eyeing at least two more hearings in the coming weeks to highlight former President Trump’s role in the deadly rampage.

Publicly, the inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack has been overshadowed in recent weeks by the FBI’s extraordinary seizure of thousands of government documents, including those alleged to be highly sensitive, from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last month — part of a separate Justice Department investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of federal records. 

But behind the scenes, the Jan. 6 select committee has spent Congress’s long summer recess plugging away, interviewing a number of new witnesses while seeking the cooperation of several more, including such prominent GOP figures as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence. 

The work has continued against the backdrop not only of the legal battle surrounding the FBI search, but of Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) losing her primary battle against a Trump-backed candidate. Despite Cheney’s loss, many Democrats think the focus in the headlines on Trump is helping their party ahead of the midterms.

As the House returns to Washington this week, the panel is promising to air its new findings in at least one public hearing this month, with another perhaps to follow in October — a schedule that would put Trump and his GOP supporters on the defensive heading into November’s midterm elections.

The exact timing of the hearings, as well as the witness list, remain works in progress, according to members of the committee. But a central focus of the investigation throughout August was the wide-ranging effort by a long list of Trump supporters — some of them on Capitol Hill — to install slates of fake electors in certain battleground states where Trump has claimed, falsely, that he prevailed over President Biden. Gingrich, the committee has found, was a part of that effort. 

“Former House Speaker Gingrich appears to have been involved in some of the planning around the counterfeit electors scheme, and efforts to substitute a fraudulent process for the actual process,” a member of the select committee said in an interview. 

Another member of the committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), said Gingrich’s campaign to keep Trump in the White House did not stop even after Congress voted to certify Biden’s victory in the aftermath of the failed insurrection. 

“We also have information about his efforts to get the election overturned, even after the riot on the 6th,” Lofgren told CNN earlier this month. 

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the select committee, delivered a letter to Gingrich this month seeking his “voluntary cooperation.” The request cited Gingrich’s communications with several top Trump advisers — including Meadows, Jared Kushner and Jason Miller — about methods to reverse the election outcome and suggested Gingrich may have been in direct touch with Trump on the subject.

Snippets of Gingrich’s emails obtained by the panel reveal he had suggested line edits for a post-election TV ad in Georgia, where Trump was defeated, promoting conspiracy theories around voter fraud. The message, Gingrich advised, should include reference to a “call to action.”

“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger,” Gingrich wrote to Kushner and Miller, adding that viewers “will then bring pressure on legislators and governors.”

“These advertising efforts were not designed to encourage voting for a particular candidate,” Thompson wrote to Gingrich. “Instead, these efforts attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the election after voting had already taken place.” 

The Sept. 1 letter was a clear sign that the committee’s investigation is far from over, while raising new questions about what remaining figures could be implicated as its work continues.

Meadows, it was already known, is one of them. While Trump’s former chief of staff had delivered thousands of text messages to investigators last year, he has refused to speak with the panel, even under subpoena. The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress last year, but the Justice Department declined to bring charges. The standoff remains under litigation. 

Some members of the select committee are also interested in speaking with Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who had sought to overturn the 2020 election and solicited the help of several well-placed figures, including Meadows and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had drafted the dubious legal reasoning on which the “stop the steal” effort relied. 

“Speaking as one member and only as one member, I would say she has a relevant testimony to render, and she should come forward and give it,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), another member of the select committee, said earlier this month in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. 

“I don’t want to overstate her role — we’ve talked to more than 1,000 people,” Raskin continued. “But we’d like to hear from Gingrich and we’d like to hear from her, too.”

Still another figure of interest is Tony Ornato, a former Secret Service agent who doubled as Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Ornato has already spoken with investigators, but they want him back to clarify discrepancies in testimony surrounding Trump’s alleged clash with his security detail on the day of the Capitol attack. 

“We do want to talk to him again,” Lofgren told CNN. “There are a lot of things that just don’t add up, to me, on what the Secret Service has said and the material that we’re getting.”

Also largely unexplored by the committee are Trump’s actions in the window between the Capitol attack of Jan. 6 and Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20 — a time period during which Trump’s own Cabinet members were considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. 

The committee has hinted at that effort in clips shown of a conversation with Trump’s Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia — who penned a memo urging Trump to stop questioning the election results — as well as in a letter to Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“You appear also to have detailed knowledge regarding President Trump’s state of mind in the days following the January 6th attack. For example, you appear to have had a discussion with President Trump on January 10th that may have raised a number of specific concerns about his possible actions in the days before the January 20th inaugural,” the committee wrote to the popular pundit. 

The committee has also suggested it could imminently release a report on the National Guard’s hours-long delay in getting to the Capitol to defuse the violence on Jan. 6.

But time is running short. 

With Democrats expected to lose control of the House in the midterms, the panel will have to wrap up its investigation before year’s end, or Republicans will pull the plug on it. With that in mind, the panel is expected to issue an interim report on its findings before November’s elections, with its final report to follow later in the year. 

“When the final report is released, the committee is dissolved,” Lofgren said earlier this summer. “And so, so long as information continues to come in, we want to avoid that result. We don’t want to prematurely cut off witnesses who want to be heard.”

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Six primary races to watch in New Hampshire and beyond

Voters will be heading to the polls in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware next Tuesday to weigh in on some of the last primaries this year before turning their attention to November.

While the spotlight will be on New Hampshire’s Republican Senate primary, which will determine who takes on Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in November, next week’s primaries will prove consequential in several gubernatorial and House races as well. 

Those primaries will determine whether Govs. Dan McKee (D) of Rhode Island and Chris Sununu (R) of New Hampshire prevail in their reelection bids, while several races in New Hampshire will determine who will take on two vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the House.

Here’s a look at the races we’re watching next week.

New Hampshire GOP Senate primary

Next week’s primary will be closely watched as Republicans determine which candidate they want to see go head to head with Hassan, who is vying for a second term in one of the year’s most competitive Senate races. She won her first term in 2016 by about a tenth of a percentage point, and Republicans are eager to see the seat flip. 

While the field has attracted close to a dozen GOP candidates, retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc and state Senate President Chuck Morse are seen as the leading candidates.

Bolduc has garnered controversy for previously supporting former President Trump’s claims that he won the 2020 election — claims from which Bolduc has recently backtracked — and for calling Sununu a “communist sympathizer.” He ran for Senate in 2020, losing the GOP nomination to Republican candidate Corky Messner. Messner later lost to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) by a 15-percentage point margin. 

Morse, considered the more establishment Republican, has focused on school choice, completing the wall at the southern border and reforming supply chain regulations. In a last-minute boost, Sununu announced on Thursday that he would be endorsing Morse.

Both Republicans and Democrats have poured money into the race. Republicans have spent money airing ads criticizing Bolduc, whom some in the GOP worry would be a weak candidate against Hassan, while Democrats have aired ads targeting Morse. 

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the seat as “lean Democrat.”

New Hampshire GOP gubernatorial primary

Sununu is seeking his fourth run for office after dashing hopes held among some Republicans that he would run for Senate. While he’s competing against a handful of candidates in the GOP primary, recent polling shows he’s likely to prevail.

Among some of the candidates vying for the chance to take on Sununu include U.S. Marine Corps veteran Julian Acciard, “biker” candidate Jay Lewis, professional logger Richard McMenamon II, small business owner Thad Riley and Karen Testerman, who served in Franklin, N.H., as a former city councilor. 

Despite Republican candidates targeting him over his criticism of Trump and how he’s dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, a University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll released earlier this month shows Sununu on a likely easy reelection path.

The poll found that Sununu received 72 percent support among likely Republican primary voters compared to Riley, who placed second at 7 percent. 

New Hampshire 1st Congressional District GOP primary

The GOP primary to take on Rep. Chris Pappas (D.), who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, has attracted a crowded field of candidates in a race that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as a “toss up.”

A University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll released late last month showed two former Trump administration officials — former State Department official Matt Mowers (26 percent) and former White House assistant press secretary Karoline Leavitt (24 percent) — as the leading contenders among likely GOP primary voters. 

Other candidates running in the race include journalist Gail Huff Brown — the wife of former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) — former state Sen. Russell Prescott and state Rep. Tim Baxter, among others. If Mowers wins reelection, it would set up a rematch with Pappas. The two went head to head in 2020, with Pappas prevailing by a 5-percentage point margin. 

If Leavitt notches the GOP primary and wins the seat in November, she could be among the first Gen Z candidates to win office. 

New Hampshire 2nd Congressional District GOP primary

Voters will weigh in on seven Republican candidates next Tuesday eager to take on Rep. Ann Kuster (D) in November for the state’s 2nd Congressional District. 

Among those vying for the Republican nomination include bar manager and bartender Scott Black; Bob Burns, a former deputy state director for Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign; stone craft artist Michael Callis; Keene, N.H., Mayor George Hansel; Jay Mercer, a department head at New Hampshire Technical Institute and Rivier University; Army veteran Dean Poirier and Lily Tang Williams, who serves as supervisor of the checklist in Weare, N.H.

A University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll released late last month showed Burns leading his Republican contenders with 32 percent among likely Republican primary voters, followed by Hansel with 18 percent. Williams placed third at 10 percent. 

The Cook Political Report rates the seat a “toss up.” 

Rhode Island Democratic gubernatorial primary

Gov. Dan McKee (D) is looking to win his first full term as governor after he was elevated to the post in 2021 after then-Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) left office to serve as Commerce secretary under the Biden administration. 

McKee, who prior to his governorship served as the state’s lieutenant governor between 2015 and 2021, is facing four other challengers for the state’s top post: state Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, former state Secretary of State Matt Brown, former CVS executive Helena Foulkes and physician Luis Daniel Muñoz.

A 12 News-Roger Williams University Poll released in August showed McKee leading his Democratic contenders with 28 percent of support among Democratic primary voters in the state. Gorbea followed in second with 25 percent while Foulkes received 14 percent. Brown and Muñoz both received less than 10 percent.

The Cook Political Report rates the seat as “solid Democrat,” meaning whoever wins on Tuesday will be the heavy favorite in November. 

Rhode Island 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary

Rep. Jim Langevin (D) announced earlier this year that he would not be seeking reelection after serving for two decades in Congress, leaving the seat open in a race that Cook Political Reports rates as a “toss up.”

While only one Republican is running on the GOP side, five candidates are looking to secure the Democratic nomination. Those include state General Treasurer Seth Magaziner; former state lawmaker David Segal; former Commerce Department official Sarah Morgenthau; small business owner Joy Fox; and Refugee Dream Center founder Omar Bah.

Another Democratic candidate, Spencer Dickinson, suspended “the active part of his campaign,” The Providence Journal reported.

A 12 News-Roger Williams University Poll released in August shows Magaziner leading the pack by double digits with 37 percent support among Democratic primary voters in the state, followed by Segal and Morgenthau both with 8 percent. Fox, Bah and Dickinson both received less than 5 percent.

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Falling gas prices give Democrats a sense of optimism for November

Weeks of falling gas prices are dulling what had previously been a sharp Republican weapon, giving Democrats another glimmer of hope ahead of the midterm elections. 

Months ago, sky-high gas prices were a major reason why Democrats’ prospects looked bleak.

But as candidates hit the homestretch ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms, the lower gas prices are giving reasons for Democrats to think they can be more competitive.

“It takes a lot of the effectiveness out of a cudgel when people aren’t seeing and feeling it as much,” Democratic strategist Eddie Vale said of gas prices.

Since hitting a June peak of $5.02 on average across the country, U.S. gasoline prices have fallen by $1.28 and are averaging about $3.74 per gallon as of Friday. 

That’s still relatively high and up about 56 cents from a year ago. It’s about $1.18 higher compared to the same day in 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Still, the prices are going in a better direction for consumers and the party in power.

Republicans have sought to make the election about inflation — with gas prices being a heavy target. But some polls suggest voters are now looking at other issues.

In a recent poll from Marist, fewer Americans cited inflation as their top voting issue than in a previous poll, indicating that at least some focus is shifting onto other topics.

While Marist found that 30 percent of Americans still consider inflation to be their top voting issue, that number is down from 37 percent of respondents who said the same in July. 

The Marist poll also found the number of those surveyed who said abortion was their top issue was growing, from 18 percent in July to 22 percent in September.

Democrats have zeroed in on abortion rights as a key midterm issue ever since the Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision in June. The party has won two special House elections since the court’s decision amid some evidence that more women are registering to vote.

The Cook Political Report also cited lower gas prices as the second-biggest reason why Democrats appear in a better political position than they were a few months ago, writing that the fall is “taking some bite out of Republicans’ ‘Biden-flation’ message.”

To be sure, Democrats still face some serious hurdles.

Historically, the party that holds the presidency has lost congressional seats during midterm elections. And while President Biden’s approval ratings have started to rise in some polls, more than 50 percent in several recent polls say they disapprove of his policies.

Low approval ratings for a president are generally a serious drag on lawmakers in that president’s party.

Still, while Democrats remain the underdog to hold on to the House majority, they are starting to feel better about cutting into their potential losses in the lower chamber.

And the party is feeling much better about retaining its Senate majority as candidates in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin show signs of strength.

The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is seen as the biggest reason why the future looks brighter for Democrats, and why the party pulled off key wins in those special House elections in New York and Alaska last month. 

But Vale said the gasoline price drop is also having significant political impacts. 

“It’s something that people feel every two days, five days, seven days depending on how long your commute is,” he said. “Even if you’re not filling up your tank, you’re driving by like 10 gas stations with the signs every day, so it’s very front-of-mind.”

Republicans argue that they still have the upper hand on the issue given where prices stand.

“Voters still care that gas prices are through the roof,” said Michael McAdams, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm for House races. 

“It’s undeniable that the most important issue for every voter – doesn’t matter where you live whether it’s in Oregon or Florida — [is] the rising cost of everything,” McAdams said. 

GOP strategist Doug Heye similarly said in a statement that Republican candidates should continue to hammer their Democratic opponents on gasoline prices and inflation more broadly.

“Even as [prices] have fallen and Democrats try to take credit, that money — or the money families spend on eggs, ground beef and vegetables, or housing — is not going back in their pockets,” Heye said in an email. 

“This is still the #1 issue for Republicans and Independents. GOP candidates should spend all day every day reminding voters of those things,” he added. 

In their own messaging on the issue, Vale said that Democrats need to strike a balance between acknowledging that the country is still grappling with inflation and trying to take credit for downward price trends. 

“Since you’re seeing a lot of the inflation soften or even decrease in some areas, you can take credit broadly speaking,” he said. 

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Senate Intelligence chair says briefing on Trump classified documents on hold

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said on Sunday that a congressional briefing to get a damage assessment of the classified documents potentially mishandled by former President Trump is on hold since a judge allowed a special master to review what was seized.

“My understanding is there is some question because of the special master appointment by the judge in Florida whether they can brief at this point,” Warner told CBS “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan. “We need clarification on that from that judge as quickly as possible because it is essential that the intelligence community, leadership at least, get a briefing of the damage assessment.”

Warner, along with the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have requested more information on the classified documents obtained during an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in August, seeking both the documents seized and an assessment of any national security threats posed by potential mishandling of the information.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump’s request last week to appoint an independent special master to review materials seized by the FBI after he raised concerns that some of the information obtained as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president was protected under attorney-client and executive privileges.

Warner said the congressional request in no way sought to hinder the DOJ’s ongoing investigation and sidestepped questions by Brennan about information shared with Congress being more likely to leak to the public.

“I believe that it’s our congressional duty to have that oversight,” Warner said. “Remember what’s at stake here is the fact that if some of these documents involved human intelligence and that information got out, people will die,” noting that years of work could be “destroyed.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which Warner called the “last functioning bipartisan committee, I believe, in the whole Congress” had an obligation to review any potential security dangers to the country and its intelligence gathering capabilities. 

“I do want the damage assessment of what would happen to our ability to protect the nation,” Warner said, adding that the request by the intelligence leaders sought to “assess whether there’s been damage done to our intelligence collection and maintenance of secrets capacity.”

Updated 11:32 a.m.

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Biden honors 9/11 victims at Pentagon: 'So many heroes were made here'

President Biden traveled to the Pentagon on Sunday to mark the 21-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, remembering the attack’s victims while vowing to stand up for democracy in their honor.

“Here at the Pentagon, which was both the scene of the horrific terrorist attack and the command center for our response to defend and protect the American people, so many heroes were made here,” Biden said.

“So many of your loved ones were those heroes,” he said, noting civilians and service members who immediately leapt into action.

Biden, who served as a senator at the time of the attacks, said he remembers seeing the smoke from the Pentagon that day as he returned to his office.

The president during the speech also honored veterans who served in wars following the attacks in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We owe you,” Biden said. “We owe you an incredible, an incredible debt. A debt that can never be repaid, but we’ll never fail to meet the sacred obligation to you.”

He also referenced the killings of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 and his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at the end of July, saying the United States “will not rest.”

Al-Zawahiri’s killing came almost a year after the United States withdrew its military presence in Afghanistan as the Taliban retook control of the country. 

Biden has touted the operation as proof the United States can still fight terrorism in Afghanistan without troops on the ground, a sentiment he echoed on Sunday.

“We’ll continue to monitor and disrupt those terrorist activities wherever we find them, wherever they exist, and we will never hesitate to do what’s necessary to defend the American people,” he said.

The president also leveraged the anniversary to speak about democracy, a topic he has increasingly referenced as the midterm elections approach.

“We have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to defend, preserve and protect our democracy,” Biden said. “The very democracy that guarantees the rights of freedom that those terrorists on 9/11 sought to bury in the burning fire, smoke and ash.”

Biden has cast former President Trump and “MAGA Republicans” as threats to the republic in recent speeches. But on Sunday, he vowed to maintain America’s democratic system while not directly attacking Trump.

“It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then,” Biden said. “It’s something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American.”

–Updated at 11:11 a.m.

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Here's how Biden has shifted the war on terror

More than 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Biden has shifted the way America fights the war on terror by launching fewer drone strikes, embracing an over-the-horizon approach to killing terrorists in Afghanistan and leveraging alliances. 

Following last year’s pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan — ending a war that the 9/11 attacks tipped off — Biden has placed more emphasis on working with and through allies to target both new and long-standing foreign terrorist groups. 

Meanwhile, Biden is also prioritizing keeping a light footprint abroad, including by using drones and special forces. This marks a major shift from the large numbers of American service members sent overseas to fight the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as to far-flung locations including Syria and Somalia. 

But as the Biden administration pushes forward with its counterterrorism strategy, it will have to balance its efforts to combat foreign terrorists with addressing the threat of domestic extremism, experts say. 

“I think this is the challenge that the Biden administration is juggling — I’d say generally [it] is doing well,” said Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations.  

“Certainly, I think [he’s] taking this range of threats quite seriously. But part of it I think is not being lulled into a sense of complacency that very resilient and determined long-standing adversaries like al Qaeda have disappeared, even ISIS have disappeared and no longer pose a threat,” he continued.  

In keeping its footprint small in the Middle East, the U.S. maintains about 900 troops in Syria to counter ISIS in the country and has re-deployed troops to Somalia to counter al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab — a reversal of former President Trump’s decision to withdraw the 700 troops that were there.  

The administration sought to prove that it could still fight terrorists from afar while maintaining that small footprint in early August, when it conducted an over-the-horizon drone strike — which didn’t involve troops directly on the ground — that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. But whether the over-the-horizon approach works is still up for debate. 

“Al-Zawahiri was tracked to Kabul, but he was hiding in plain sight. I’m not sure that it’s proof of the over-the-horizon strategy working. That’s disrupting major terrorist plots and taking out the mid-level commanders, and the operations personnel,” Hoffman said.  

Some terrorism experts see Biden shifting toward a broader, longer-term strategy to approaching counterterrorism that isn’t very reliant on boots on the ground, but rather one that focuses on zeroing in on how terrorist groups grow.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor in the School of International Service at American University, said a big part of this is the Department of Defense’s recent efforts to mitigate civilian harm resulting from U.S. military activities. The Pentagon unveiled the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan on Aug. 25, which directs sweeping changes in military planning, training, doctrine and policy for future conflicts. 

Not only would a plan like this protect local civilians — who are always impacted by terrorism — but it helps when dealing with terrorist groups that rely on mobilizing grassroots support. 

“The only way that you can end groups that rely on mobilization — groups like al Qaeda and also ISIS — is to reduce the number of people that are likely to either actively or passively support them,” she said. “One way to do that … is to absolutely minimize the impact on civilians and to be very transparent with how you do that.”

Others see the move as a direct reaction to the political fallout of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which included surging troops to the countries by the thousands with no clear ending in sight. 

“My strong sense is that the lesson in every subsequent administration has been to try and keep military action off the front pages as absolutely as much as possible,” said Ret. Army Col. Gregory Daddis, a professor of U.S. military history at the San Diego State University who served in Iraq. 

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the administration has looked to combat domestic terrorism, which the FBI defines as violent, criminal acts committed by people or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences.  

The White House released a strategy in June 2021 to combat domestic terrorism, centered around federal agencies enhancing and improving how they share domestic terrorism-related information, preventing domestic terrorists from mobilizing Americans, disrupting their activities before they yield violence and addressing the long-term issues that contribute to domestic terrorism.  

Cronin warned that domestic terrorism is difficult to address because efforts to do so can easily bleed into current domestic polarization by giving the appearance of making largely political choices.   

“It’s a situation in the United States where our domestic laws are much more difficult to align with, compared to the laws that we use in order to fight international terrorism,” she said. “That’s for a good reason — we’re protecting domestic rights, we have a Constitution, [it’s] very tricky to define exactly what terrorism means domestically without becoming very political.”  

Moving forward, experts say that Biden will have to be able to allocate resources wisely as he deals with multiple counterterrorism challenges — particularly as acute threats caused by Russia, China and the pandemic emerge. 

“I think the American public and republics of many countries throughout the world, not just in the West, are tired of the War on Terror the same way they’re tired of the global pandemic, and they want to put both of them in the rearview mirror. I think the main challenge for the Biden administration is to be able to develop a flexible and adaptive security strategy that enables us to focus on the array of really unprecedented threats that a presidential administration faces now,” Hoffman said.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Muslim Americans see their political clout grow 20 years after 9/11

The political and cultural power of Muslim Americans has grown in the past 20 years as a result of an expanding voter base and record numbers of candidates running for office at both at the local and national level.  

But the rise in political power has come with its difficulties.  

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al Qaeda on American soil, Muslims living in the U.S. have experienced political and cultural firsts along with an exponential rise in hate crimes, bullying, harassment and racial profiling. 

In the years following 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment grew in the United States.   

Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage, a Muslim American civic group, explained to Changing America that Muslim Americans could have stayed silent in the aftermath of 9/11 as a “way to defend their interests and their freedoms” because of hostile rhetoric.  

But eventually, Alzayat said, the community warmed to a more affirmative agenda, engaging in political discourse and becoming an active voter block in U.S. elections.  

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By 2020, a record number of Muslim Americans voted and were running for elected office. 

Emgage found there were 1.5 million registered Muslim American voters in 2020 and that well over half — 71 percent — cast a ballot. The figure was four percentage points higher than the national average of about 67 percent. 

The country has also seen an increase in the number of Muslim candidates and elected officials.  

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) was the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2007.  

In addition, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) became the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress. The progressive “squad” members are two of the most prominent Muslim voices in American politics, elected in the “blue wave” 2018 midterms during the Trump administration. 

A record 81 Muslim American candidates ran for office in 2020 across 28 states and Washington, D.C., according to a report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). 

But these milestones have been accompanied by a growing rise in Islamophobic incidents in the U.S. 

Data from Brown University revealed that from 2000 to 2009, hate crimes against Muslims spiked 500 percent.  

Beyond former President Obama’s presidency, critics contend that former President Trump’s policies exhibited animosity toward the community including his travel ban, which included predominately Muslim countries. 

In 2020, the Justice Department (DOJ) found there were 110 anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S., the second highest after anti-Jewish acts.  

The DOJ also found that religion was the second-most common reason for single-bias incidents in the U.S. 

A Pew Research survey found Republicans increasingly associated Muslims and Islam with violence, with 72 percent of Republicans in 2021 believing Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. 

Among Democrats, 34 percent felt the same. 

Abdullah Hammoud, the first Muslim American mayor of Dearborn, Mich., told Changing America that there was a sense of urgency among members of the Muslim American community to step up and push back against Islamophobia in a post 9/11 America. 

Before becoming mayor, Hammoud ran for a seat in Michigan’s state legislature. He shared that doors were “slammed in his face” when he introduced himself. 

“I knocked on a neighbor, who was a primary Democratic voter, two blocks from my house at the time. And when I said, ‘I’m Abdullah Hammoud and I’m running for office, he replied, ‘I’m disgusted that you’re my neighbor,’ and slammed the door in my face.” 

Hammoud told Changing America that one of the first questions his parents asked him when he shared his intentions to run for elected office was if he would run on the name “Abdullah”. 

“Many told me I would never win with a name like Abdullah and told me to change my name to Abe Hammoud,” he shared. 

Tlaib and Omar have previously shared that they’ve received violent threats during their brief time in Congress.  

During a press conference, Omar played a voicemail she received in which the caller characterized her as a “f—ing Muslim piece of shit” — one hellbent on “taking over our country.” 

Omar has also received attacks from congressional colleagues including Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who described her as a member of the “jihad squad” and even suggested she was a “terrorist sympathizer.” 

The Minnesota Democrat published a statement last year that called out the Republican party for not holding their members accountable for anti-Muslim hate and harassment. 

“This is not about one hateful statement or one politician; it is about a party that has mainstreamed bigotry and hatred. It is time for Republican Leader McCarthy to actually hold his party accountable,” the 2021 statement said. 

Hatem al-Bazian, Director, Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at University of California, Berkeley said that both Omar and Tlaib experience “constant assault” on their status, personhood and more. 

“The attacks are not only from the Republicans but sometimes even from centrists or establishment Democrats, so you can see this in how Islamophobia is the ‘big elephant’ or the ‘big donkey’ in politics and has no party affiliation,” he said. 

Attacks on both Omar and Tilab fit into this sense of defining “who is an American” and who’s not, according to al-Bazian. 

“It’s constantly trying to delegitimize who they are and in essence their religion and constant demonization because of their religion,” he added. 

But despite these challenges, Muslim Americans are not only increasing their presence in politics but also in American pop culture. 

Marvel Studios showcased its first Pakistani-American character in its Ms. Marvel series while Netflix has featured Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer’s scripted show and Indian-American Hasan Minhaj’s stand up specials. 

Al-Bazian said that despite representations in cinema and entertainment, they are not a sign prejudice against Muslims has been eradicated.  

“For any community to have the space to be able to articulate and narrate stories about themselves is a positive development,” he said. “But if we take inclusion on the screen, and in different settings, as a sign that racism and Islamophobia is at an end, then the Black and Jewish community’s strides in cinema would show that the strong currents of racism still persist.” 

He added that there’s still an “avalanche” of negative content out there in both television shows and movies where Muslims are portrayed as terrorists. 

Hammoud says that he hopes these “firsts” of Muslim representation are not the last.  

“The hope is that they’re not the last to hold that office or to have their own TV shows and films. What I hope is that if my daughter Maryam decides to run for office, I hope that her name is welcomed and it’s not challenged because of who she is,” he added. 

“That if somebody with an accent runs for office, people aren’t apprehensive. I think that there’s no office that’s out of sight for Muslim Americans,” he said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Barr is breaking from Trump — and the GOP — over Mar-a-Lago search

Former Attorney General William Barr has emerged as one of the most prominent conservatives to suggest former President Trump may be in serious legal jeopardy over his handling of sensitive materials, underscoring the growing divide between the former president and his onetime staunch ally.

Barr has become a regular presence on Fox News over the past few weeks, weighing in on the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and subsequent court battles over what the Department of Justice (DOJ) can do with what it found.

It’s not the first time Barr, a frequent target of criticism from Democrats as attorney general, has broken with Trump. Nor is he the first former Trump Cabinet member to become critical of the former president.

But he has stood out recently for his willingness to undercut not just Trump’s own defense but the preferred narrative of Trump’s allies and wide swaths of the Republican Party.

“Bill Barr has been a real law and order kind of guy and has been strongly protective of national security interests and Department of Justice interests,” said Alan Morrison, a law professor at George Washington University.

“And I think he’s always seen himself as being on that side: Tough on people who violate criminal laws, and I think his remarks here are in keeping with that. He’s trying to protect the Justice Department, which he headed not once but twice,” Morrison said.

Barr has in fact just done that, offering defenses of the Justice Department and the legitimacy of its investigation into Trump in a series of Fox News appearances over the past two weeks.

The former attorney general earlier in the month pushed back on various defenses Trump and his team have offered in response to the FBI raid, telling Fox News he was skeptical that Trump had declassified everything he took to Mar-a-Lago as the former president had claimed.

“Let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this [raid] was unprecedented — well, it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay,” Barr said.

Barr has also been critical of Trump’s push for a special master to review the documents taken by the FBI. The former attorney general called the legal strategy a “red herring” since federal authorities likely had already sifted through most of the seized materials.

Barr urged the Justice Department this week to appeal Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling in favor of appointing a special master, calling the decision “deeply flawed in a number of ways.”

In an appearance on Fox on Thursday, Barr said he believes the Justice Department is “getting very close” to the point where they could indict someone in the case, including potentially Trump.

The comments were notable coming from a man who Democrats and some legal experts criticized throughout his latest tenure as attorney general, accusing him of viewing himself as the president’s lawyer rather than the country’s.

“I think it’s partially a repudiation of Trump but it’s much more in wearing his law and order hat than a repudiation of Trump,” Morrison said.

Barr’s Fox News appearances undercutting Trump are the latest example of what has been a steadily growing divide between the two men.

One former Trump administration official said there is no love lost between Trump and Barr, and the relationship had been steadily deteriorating since the 2020 election, when Trump was irked that his attorney general publicly said he hadn’t found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Barr was a key witness for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with recordings of his closed-door depositions featuring prominently in the panel’s public hearings.

Barr told the panel he believed Trump’s claims about election fraud were “bullshit,” “nonsense” and “idiotic.” One hearing featured video of Barr saying he worried Trump had become “detached from reality” as he raised the false premise that voting machines were designed to rig the election.

Trump, who has frequently derided his former attorney general as a “RINO,” or “Republican in Name Only,” used the same insult in response to Barr’s commentary on Fox in which he said authorities likely had good evidence to pursue its search of Trump’s home.

“Bill Barr had ‘no guts,’ and got ‘no glory,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “He was a weak and pathetic RINO [Republican in name only], who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats.”

While the vast majority of conservatives have lined up behind Trump to offer shifting defenses of the former president and criticize the Justice Department as politicized, a few conservatives and former Trump officials have joined Barr in publicly recognizing the seriousness of the matter.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is viewed as laying the groundwork for a 2024 bid, said in New Hampshire late last month that he was “deeply troubled” by the search but added the public needs to “let the facts play out” and condemned attacks on law enforcement.

Ty Cobb, who served as a lawyer in Trump’s White House during the Russia investigation, told CBS News on Friday he believes Trump is “in serious legal water,” not just because of the ongoing investigation into his handling of classified documents, but because of efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Like Barr, Cobb told the news outlet he believes the possibility of Trump being indicted is “very high.”

Source: TEST FEED1