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US Capitol Riot Panel Expects to See Secret Service Texts

The U.S. congressional panel probing the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of last year expects to be able to look at text messages sent by Secret Service agents from the day before the mayhem and as it unfolded, a member of the investigative committee said Sunday.

“We expect to get them by this Tuesday,” Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told ABC’s “This Week” show. “We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January.”

The riot unfolded as about 2,000 supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, stormed into the Capitol to try to block Congress from certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had won the 2020 election. The certification of the Electoral College vote showing Biden had turned back Trump’s reelection bid was delayed for hours as the rioters scuffled with police, vandalized the Capitol building and ransacked congressional offices.

Lofgren said the investigative committee needs the Secret Service texts “to get the full picture” of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection. The Secret Service said last week that some phone data was lost during a routine reset of iPhones, but that all the requested texts had been saved.

“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones,” Lofgren said. “That’s crazy, and I don’t know why that would be, but we need to get this information.”

“We went into it trying to do our job. We were assigned the task as a committee of uncovering all of the facts about the sixth and all of the events leading up to the sixth so that we could report on that,” Lofgren said. “We hope to do it in a way that is accessible to all Americans.”

The Secret Service said last week that any “insinuation” that it intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had its “full and unwavering cooperation.”

The texts could be relevant to understanding how Trump berated his security detail about its refusal to drive him to the Capitol after he finished speaking at a rally near the White House, and just ahead of the time in the early afternoon when the first of the rioters breached the Capitol as lawmakers were starting to certify Biden’s victory.

Witnesses testifying before the committee and police radio communications show that Trump demanded to join his supporters at the Capitol but that his Secret Service detail refused to take him there out of fear for his safety in a volatile situation.

One witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, then a top assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, testified about a secondhand account she heard that Trump attempted to grab the wheel of his limo to head to the Capitol, although the Secret Service has disputed her account.

In what could be its last public hearing, the committee is hearing testimony Thursday night about what Trump was doing for three hours and 17 minutes between the time he finished his rally speech contending, as he does to this day, that he was cheated out of another four-year term in the White House, and the time he issued a short video telling the rioters at the Capitol to leave the building.

Witnesses have already said that Trump watched the insurrection unfold on television, while ignoring entreaties from his aides and his daughter Ivanka, a White House adviser, to publicly tell the rioters to disperse.

At one point, according to insider accounts of his comments during the rioting, Trump voiced approval of the demonstrators who were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” The then-vice president had refused to accede to demands by Trump to return the election results to legislatures in states that he narrowly lost so that pro-Trump electors could replace the official Biden electors.   

In the United States, presidents are effectively chosen in separate elections in each of the 50 states, not through the national popular vote. Each state’s number of votes in the Electoral College is dependent on its population, with the biggest states holding the most sway.

Eventually, Trump told the rioters, “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. But you have to go home now; we have to have peace. We have to have law and order; we have to respect our great people in law and order.”

In another tweet sent later, he said, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

After the rioters were cleared from the Capitol, lawmakers in the early hours of January 7, 2021, certified that Biden had won the election by a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College, and he was inaugurated as the country’s 46th president two weeks later.  
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Biden Vows ‘Strong’ Climate Action Despite Dual Setbacks

President Joe Biden is promising “strong executive action” to combat climate change, despite dual setbacks in recent weeks that have restricted his ability to regulate carbon emissions and boost clean energy, such as wind and solar power.

The Supreme Court last month limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Then late Thursday, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he wants to delay sweeping environmental legislation that Democrats have pushed as central to achieving Biden’s ambitious climate goals.

Biden, who has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, said Friday that “action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.”

If the Senate will not act to address climate change and boost clean energy, “I will take strong executive action to meet this moment,” Biden said in a statement from Saudi Arabia, where he met Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Biden did not specify what actions he will take on climate, but said they will create jobs, improve energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and protect consumers from oil and gas price increases. “I will not back down,” he promised.

Some advocates urged Biden to use the moment to declare a national climate emergency and reinstate a ban on crude oil exports, among other steps. Declaring a climate emergency would allow Biden to redirect spending to accelerate renewable energy such as wind and solar and speed the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Climate advocates, including some of Manchin’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate, slammed his opposition, noting that it was the second time he has torpedoed climate change legislation.

“It’s infuriating and nothing short of tragic that Senator Manchin is walking away, again, from taking essential action on climate and clean energy,” said Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota. “The world is literally burning up while he joins every single Republican to stop strong action to cut emissions and speed the transition to clean energy.”

Other Democrats said Manchin’s announcement that he cannot back the climate provisions in the Senate bill — at least for now — frees Biden of the obligation to cater to a powerful, coal-state senator eager to protect his energy-producing home state. Manchin’s vote is decisive in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans unanimously oppose climate action.

“Free at last. Let’s roll. Do it all and start it now,” tweeted Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has long pushed stronger action on climate. “With legislative climate options now closed, it’s now time for executive Beast Mode,” Whitehouse wrote.

Whitehouse suggested a series of actions Biden could take, including “a robust social cost of carbon rule” that would force energy producers to account for greenhouse gas emissions as a cost of doing business. The senator also urged Biden to require major polluters to use technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions and impose stronger pollution controls on cars, light trucks and heavy-duty vehicles.

Advocates also urged Biden to reject all onshore and offshore drilling on federal lands and in federal waters — a step he promised during the 2020 campaign but has not enacted — and restrict approval of natural gas pipelines and other fossil fuel projects.

Manchin, in a radio interview Friday, said climate activists want an immediate end to U.S. use of oil, coal and gas.

“That’s crazy,” he told West Virginia talk show host Hoppy Kercheval. “I’m not throwing caution to the wind. I think we need an energy policy that works for our country.”

Even before Manchin’s apparent rejection of the climate measures, Democrats had slimmed their down their plan from about $555 billion in climate spending to just more than $300 billion in a bid to secure his support. Proposed tax credits for wind, solar and nuclear energy, along with still-unproven carbon-capture technology, could reduce emissions by up to 40% by 2030, advocates said.

Manchin earlier had forced Democrats to drop two tax provisions he opposes: direct payments of clean energy credits and tax credits for drivers who purchase electric vehicles. Manchin forced other concessions last year, including killing a proposal that would have paid utilities that increase clean energy while penalizing those that do not.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he still hopes to salvage the clean energy tax provisions and said failure “really is not an option here.”

Manchin’s request to postpone action on the climate measure follows a June 30 ruling by the Supreme Court, which said in a 6-3 vote that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The ruling by the court’s conservative majority likely complicates the Biden administration’s plan to manage power plant pollution but does not eliminate its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has said the agency is moving forward with proposed rules for power plants in the coming months. 
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Native American News Roundup July 10-16, 2022

Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:

Interior secretary Haaland hears emotional testimony on boarding schools

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland heard from former students of federally backed Indian boarding schools as part of a year-long “Road to Healing” initiative. At the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, July 9, elders from different states and tribes shared stories of physical and emotional punishment, sexual abuse and other indignities suffered as part of an educational program designed to sever children from families and tribes and assimilate them into mainstream U.S. society.

Tribal elders recall painful boarding school memories

Conservative magazine takes aim at Haaland boarding school initiative

An article in the July/August 2022 issue of American Conservative magazine slams the Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding Schools Initiative as “a thoroughly political scheme contrived by activists to stoke outrage regardless of the facts.”

“The most commonly cited complaint is that students were forbidden from speaking their native languages,” senior editor Helen Edwards writes. “Today it would be called immersion learning. The goal was not to eradicate Indian languages but to equip students to operate in the modern world, including as citizens.”

As for physical punishment of Native children in the schools, Edwards states that conditions “were, by the standards of the age, about average.”

Stirring Up Hatred Against Indian Boarding Schools

Episcopalians to examine role in Indian boarding schools

The Episcopal Church is acknowledging its role in “the intergenerational trauma caused by the Doctrine of Discovery, colonialism, genocide, ethnocide through the operation of Indigenous boarding schools, and other systems of white supremacy that have oppressed Indigenous peoples.” At a July 11 meeting in Baltimore, the church set aside $2.5 million to research its role in operating Indian boarding schools, gather testimony from survivors, and establish spiritual healing centers in Indigenous communities.

Episcopalians Approve Fact-Finding Commission on Indigenous Boarding Schools

Justice department makes violence against Indigenous women a priority

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco is directing all U.S. Attorneys with Indian Country jurisdiction and all federal law enforcement partners to develop new plans to promote public safety in Indian Country.

“The new directive stresses that the department has a duty to investigate and prosecute serious crimes in Indian country, including domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking,” Monaco said at the close of a two-day meeting of the Trilateral Working Group on violence against Indigenous women and girls. “The directive also sets forth specific steps that U.S. Attorneys and law enforcement officers should take to ensure that their work is victim-centered and culturally and linguistically appropriate.”

Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco Delivers Remarks at the Closing Session of the Fourth Convening of the Trilateral Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls

Athletic legend Jim Thorpe reinstated as sole 1912 Olympic gold winner

Indianz.com reports that descendants of Native American sports legend Jim Thorpe are ecstatic over the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision Friday to reinstate gold medals Thorpe won after spectacular performances in 15 pentathlon and decathlon events at the 1912 Stockholm Games.

At the time, King Gustave of Sweden declared Thorpe, a citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation in present-day Oklahoma, the “most wonderful athlete in the world.”

But the glory was short-lived. In 1913, the Amateur Athletic Union, the predecessor of the United States Olympic Committee deemed that he had infringed on the rules regarding amateurism because he had previously played minor league baseball and stripped him of his medals.

“We welcome the fact that … a solution could be found,” said Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC. “This is a most exceptional and unique situation, which has been addressed by an extraordinary gesture of fair play from the National Olympic Committees concerned.”

A moment 110 years in the making: Jim Thorpe wins restoration of Olympic awards

Tulalip Tribes take on vaping giant

The Tulalip Tribes of Washington State have sued e-cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc. (JLI), alleging the company and its affiliates illegally targeted teenaged tribe members with deceptive ads about the addictiveness of its fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigarettes.

The tribes’ 316-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle July 7, alleges that JLI and its affiliates deliberately targeted young tribal members through “a diabolical pairing” of notorious cigarette company advertising techniques and cutting-edge viral marketing campaigns designed to make nicotine “cool again.”

The suit says that as a result, use of Juul’s products “became rampant” among Tulalip tribal youth, with the percentage of 12th graders who reported consuming nicotine nearly doubling from 2017 to 2018.

Tulalip Tribes sue e-cigarette giant Juul for ads targeting youth

Tribes to Montana museum: ‘Give back Big Medicine’

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSK) of the Flathead Reservation in Montana want the Montana Historical Society to return “Big Medicine” — a white bison that was born on the reservation in 1933. After his death in 1959, the bison underwent taxidermy and was put on display in the state museum in Helena. White bison are extremely rare and considered sacred by a number of Native American tribes.

“He inspired our people, and he represents hope for the future and positive things,” CSK Chairman Tom McDonald said. “If you think about when he came and the tough times that they lived through, it was seen as a sign of renewal.”

Decisions about the future of Big Medicine rest with the historical society’s board of trustees.

CSKT make pitch to bring Big Medicine back home to bison range

Navajo photographer looks at modern Native Americans through old lens

Native Americans have long decried their depiction in art and media as romantic relics of a vanishing past, particularly in the work of early 20th-century photographer Edward S. Curtis. Now, Navajo photographer Will Wilson is using a 19th-century process to produce tintype portraits of contemporary Native Americans.

“People don’t want to deal with the traumatic reality of history, of genocide, of attempted ethnic cleansing,” Wilson told Native News Online. “They’d rather see these noble, beautiful images of a ‘better time.’ I want to make the case that we’re still here doing interesting and important things.”

An exhibit of his work, In Conversation: Will Wilson, is currently on display through September 11, 2022, at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware.

Will Wilson Topples the Myth of the American Indian

 
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Biden to Meet with Arab Leaders as US Seeks to Reassert Influence in Middle East

U.S. President Joe Biden meets Saturday with Arab leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he will lay out his vision for U.S. engagement in the Middle East.

Biden will attend the GCC+3 Summit, meeting with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – plus Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.

He is also expected to discuss energy security with the leaders of the Gulf countries, but aides say there are not likely to be any announcements on oil output until next month’s meetings of OPEC+, a group of 13 OPEC members and 10 other oil producers, including Russia.

“I don’t think you should expect a particular announcement here bilaterally because we believe any further action taken to ensure that there is sufficient energy to protect the health of the global economy will be done in the context of OPEC+,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters Friday on the flight to Jeddah.

Biden and GCC+3 summit leaders are expected to announce an agreement to connect Iraq’s electric grid to the GCC’s grids through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, thus reducing Baghdad’s dependence on Iran.

On Friday, Biden met with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, and afterward Biden said they had a “good discussion” on ensuring adequate oil supplies to support global economic growth.

“I’m doing all I can to increase the supply for the United States of America, which I expect to happen,” Biden said.

Biden flew directly to Jeddah from Tel Aviv, just hours after the kingdom announced the opening of its airspace, effectively ending the country’s ban on flights to and from Israel. The gesture from Riyadh is part of a broader warming of relations between Israel and the Arab world as they align against Tehran.

Biden is claiming the move to be the result of his administration’s push toward a more integrated and stable Middle East region.

“That is a big deal. A big deal,” Biden said. “Not only symbolically but substantively, it’s a big deal,” Biden said, adding that he hopes the move will eventually lead to a broader normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations. The two countries currently do not recognize each other.

Biden said his talks with Saudi leaders help to reassert U.S. influence in the Middle East, part of a strategy of engaging the kingdom, whose poor human rights record he has condemned in the past.

“We’re not going to leave a vacuum in the Middle East for Russia or China to fill,” Biden told reporters following his meeting with the Saudis. “And we’re getting results.”

At the top of Biden’s meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed and other Saudi royals, both sides ignored shouted questions from the U.S. press, including, “Is Saudi still a pariah?” and “Jamal Khashoggi — will you apologize to his family?”

U.S. intelligence has concluded that the crown prince approved the brutal murder of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and U.S. resident.

Biden, who during his presidential campaign said the kingdom should be treated as a pariah, told reporters he made his views on human rights and Khashoggi’s murder “crystal clear” to the crown prince, who in turn claimed, according to Biden, that he “was not personally responsible for it.”

“I indicated I thought he was,” Biden said he replied.

Biden’s Saudi visit “came across as a slap” in the face of all those who stand for human rights, said Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International in an interview with VOA.

“What President Biden is doing is suggesting that human rights are cheap and can be bargained out for a range of other impact,” she said.

Biden’s Middle East trip has also taken him to the West Bank, where he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Jerusalem, where he held talks with Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
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Biden Vows to Work for Independent Palestinian State

U.S. President Joe Biden met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem on Friday before traveling to Saudi Arabia. Biden said he remains committed to an independent Palestinian state even if the time isn’t right to restart negotiations. Abbas condemned the Israeli occupation of the West Bank but said Palestinians are prepared to restart peace talks. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem.
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