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Tag: terrorism and counter-terrorism

  • As more in North Carolina regain power, investigators probe domestic terrorism and threats against power infrastructure across the US | CNN

    As more in North Carolina regain power, investigators probe domestic terrorism and threats against power infrastructure across the US | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A growing number of reported threats to power infrastructure are under investigation following attacks on substations in the South and on the West Coast as electricity becomes a more critical need in winter.

    Even before the gun assaults Saturday in Moore County, North Carolina, wiped out power for days to thousands, at least five electricity substations in Oregon and Washington had been attacked in November, according to energy companies.

    And now, the FBI is involved after reports of shots fired Wednesday near a power station in Ridgeway, South Carolina, a Duke Energy spokesperson told CNN. No outages or known property damage was reported at the Wateree Hydro Station, spokesperson Jeff Brooks said.

    While no motive or suspect behind the North Carolina attacks has been identified, investigators are zeroing in on two possible threads centered on extremist behavior: writings by extremists on online forums encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure and a series of recent disruptions of LGBTQ+ events across the nation by domestic extremists, law enforcement sources told CNN.

    Though investigators have no evidence connecting the Moore County outage to a drag event that began there around when the lights went out, the timing and context of armed confrontations around similar LBGTQ+ events across the country are being considered, the sources told CNN. The outage ended the Moore County drag show after audience members lit the stage with phone flashlights, Sandhills PRIDE has said.

    The FBI had warned of reports of threats to electricity infrastructure by people espousing racially or ethnically motivated extremist ideology “to create civil disorder and inspire further violence,” the agency said in a November 22 bulletin sent to private industry.

    Beyond this month’s incidents in South Carolina and North Carolina, where lights flickered back on Wednesday:

    • In Oregon, a substation in Clackamas was damaged in a “deliberate physical attack” over the Thanksgiving holiday, a Bonneville Power Administration spokesperson told CNN. “BPA operators discovered a cut perimeter fence and damaged equipment inside,” the spokesperson said, adding the company is working with the FBI on the incident.

    • In Washington state, “two incidents occur(ed) in late November at two different substations,” Puget Sound Energy spokesperson told CNN. “Both incidents are currently under investigation by the FBI,” it said, adding, “We are aware of recent threats on power systems across the country and take these very seriously.”

    And two Cowlitz County Public Utility District substations were vandalized in mid-November in the Woodland area, agency spokesperson Alice Dietz told The Seattle Times. “At this time, we do not have any further comment … Our facilities have since been repaired,” Dietz told the Times. CNN has reached out to the FBI’s office in Seattle for comment.

    Anti-government groups in the past two years began using online forums to urge followers to attack critical infrastructure, including the power grid. They have posted documents and even instructions outlining vulnerabilities and suggesting the use of high-powered rifles.

    One 14-page guide obtained by CNN cited as an example the 2013 sniper attack on a high voltage substation at the edge of Silicon Valley that destroyed 17 transformers and cost Pacific Gas and Electric $15 million in repairs.

    The caliber of the bullets in that California incident is different from those used in North Carolina, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    But whoever attacked the North Carolina substations “knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields has said.

    Investigators recovered around the damaged substations nearly two dozen shell casings from a high-powered rifle, law enforcement sources told CNN. While no rifle has been recovered, the ballistics may still offer critical evidence. And bullets pulled from a transformer station and brass shell casings found a short distance away are being examined, the sources said.

    Duke Energy workers repair an electrical substation Tuesday in Mineral Springs near Pinehurst, North Carolina.

    The casings can be entered into a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives database and matched to any other shell casings fired by the same gun at another crime scene, or to the gun itself if it’s found. The locations of the casings may also offer clues.

    The sheriff on Wednesday asked the public to provide any surveillance footage from the areas that were hit and announced $75,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible.

    Someone who lives near the West End substation heard around 20 gunshots in quick succession the night of the attack on the station, he told CNN affiliate WRAL. The power did not go out for about 30 minutes after that, he said.

    “Me and my wife were just sitting on the couch just watching a movie and all of the sudden, about 8:45, about 20 shots fired off right across the street,” Spencer Matthews told WRAL.

    The outages crippled the local economy and paralyzed daily life for more than 45,000 homes and businesses. And just because the electricity is back on doesn’t mean the pain is over.

    Businesses “have lost a tremendous amount over the last few days,” Moore County Manager Wayne Vest said. The outages affected more than 600 food establishments, Moore County Health Director Matt Garner said

    “We know our residents are going to end the day and go through the night in power and light and in safety. But there’s another element of our population is still suffering … and that’s our local merchants,” Pinehurst Mayor John Strickland said.

    “If you’re dining out, if you’re only going to go out once, go out twice,” Vest said. “If you were going to shop and buy one package, buy two packages.”

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  • Why the power grid is an ‘attractive target’ for attacks | CNN Politics

    Why the power grid is an ‘attractive target’ for attacks | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The motivation behind an attack on the electrical grid in a North Carolina county remains a mystery.

    But the method – apparently coordinated attacks on multiple substations – exploits a vulnerability that has long been a source of concern for authorities warning about domestic terrorism.

    Just last week the Department of Homeland Security renewed a national bulletin to warn of attacks on critical infrastructure.

    The details of this particular story are only starting to come into view, although Moore County, North Carolina, remains plunged in darkness. The FBI has joined the hunt for answers into how attacks on substations left around 40,000 without power over the weekend.

    In a Sunday news conference, the county sheriff described the attacks as “intentional” and “targeted,” but had no reason why the person or persons involved would choose the place.

    CNN’s Whitney Wild, reporting from Moore County, mentioned online rumors that disrupting a drag show planned for Saturday night may have been the cause of the attack, but authorities have not confirmed that and said no person or group has claimed responsibility.

    What authorities have confirmed is that someone or some people removed a gate at one substation from its hinges. The damage to transformers was apparently caused by gunfire, although it’s not clear what kind of weapon was used.

    Most of the roughly 40,000 people who lost power aren’t expected to get it back until Thursday, according to Duke Energy.

    Mike Cameron is the assistant town manager and fire chief of Southern Pines, North Carolina, which is in Moore County.

    Appearing on CNN on Monday, he said medical calls have increased as people who rely on oxygen and plug-in medical devices struggle.

    In temperatures that have dipped almost to freezing overnight, people have gotten creative to heat their homes, which has led to an increase in calls about house fires.

    There has also been an increase in emergency calls about traffic accidents, “just because our traffic lights are obviously not working,” he said.

    Southern Pines Mayor Carol Haney did not hold back on her message to whoever is responsible for plunging her town into darkness.

    “It is just a horrible, horrible terrorist, in my opinion, act. Cowardly,” she told CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Monday.

    The mayor of Pinehurst, North Carolina, John Strickland, said on CNN that investigators will have to determine if this was a targeted attack by domestic extremists, but he said it was meant to be destructive.

    “This is clearly an act that was intentional, very forceful and an act of vandalism to create a situation where the citizens of Pinehurst and Moore County are lacking heat and other support services at the present time,” he said on “CNN Newsroom.”

    FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital is currently being powered by diesel fuel, according to its president, Jonathan Davis, but elective procedures have been delayed.

    CNN’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller said this type of attack has long been feared.

    The American electrical grid is decentralized and controlled by a hybrid of public and private entities.

    “The challenge is most of these places are outdoors, most are in remote areas and most of them are available for attack from a long distance,” Miller said on “CNN This Morning.”

    He also noted there has been an uptick in chatter among various anti-government and ecoterrorist groups who consider attacks on the electrical infrastructure as a way to create chaos in the US.

    In particular, Miller said right wing neo-Nazi groups have suggested creating a chain reaction of attacks to systematically take down the power grid.

    “Their theory is that if you identify the key nodes and you knock out one and they divert power to the next one, and you knock out the next one and the next one, a domino effect can actually start to topple the national grid and plunge the nation into darkness and chaos,” Miller said.

    It’s obviously not clear if this North Carolina attack is anything along those lines, but the Department of Homeland Security has been warning about such attacks for some time.

    Sniper fire hit a Silicon Valley substation in April 2013, when 150 rounds from an assault rifle took out 17 transformers. Workers rerouted power in that case, but repairs to the transformers took nearly a month.

    Miller said that after that incident, power companies and the government undertook a systemic review of grid security and made changes to add more cameras and motion sensors.

    In January 2022, CNN’s Geneva Sands reported on a DHS memo about potential electrical grid threats from extremist groups angry at the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

    Violent extremist groups have identified the electrical grid as a “particularly attractive target,” according to the intelligence bulletin, and have drawn up specific plans.

    In October 2020, the memo noted, White supremacists in Idaho were charged with conspiracy for trying to damage transformers in that area.

    Also, in May 2020 the government charged followers of the Boogaloo movement, which believes there is a civil war coming, for allegedly conspiring to attack a substation in Las Vegas. Their larger goal was to incite riots and violence.

    Unsophisticated small-scale attacks are unlikely to cause the kind of large-scale meltdown that anti-government plotters envision, but they are likely to cause substantial harm and expensive damage – which is precisely what’s happening in Moore County.

    Juliette Kayyem, a CNN analyst and the former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at DHS, said on CNN’s “The Lead” that investigators are probably looking at three possible scenarios:

    Foreign attack. She said this seems unlikely, since Moore County is a rural area and not the expected target for a foreign actor.

    Hate crime or domestic terrorism. She noted the lights went out at the drag show, which was organized by a LGBTQ group, just as it began.

    Insider threat. Kayyem noted the knowledge it would take to disable the substations could be a clue.

    “You don’t just drive by these places and know where to shoot,” she said. “(Investigators) will be looking at the potential there was either casing or someone who knew the area, the facilities and knew where to shoot. These aren’t drive-by incidents,” she said.

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  • Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics

    Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s call for the termination of the Constitution is his most extreme anti-democratic statement yet and seems oblivious to the sentiments of voters who rejected election deniers in the midterm elections.

    It may also reflect desperation on the part of the former president to whip up controversy and fury among his core supporters in order to inject some energy into a so-far lackluster 2024 White House bid.

    Trump’s comments on his Truth Social network – which should be easy for anyone to condemn – are exposing the familiar moral timidity of top Republicans who won’t disown the former president. But his latest tirade also plays into the arguments of some Republicans now saying that it’s time to move on from Trump’s fixation with the 2020 election.

    And while it is far too early to write off his chances in the 2024 GOP nominating contest, Trump’s behavior since announcing his third presidential bid also suggests his never-ending quest to shock and to fire up his base now means going so far right he ends up on the extremist fringe and almost in self-parody. In the short time he’s been a candidate, he’s expressed support for rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and dined with a White nationalist Holocaust denier.

    Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State Office, chuckled at the incredulity of Trump’s claim about the Constitution when it was described by CNN’s Pam Brown on Saturday.

    “It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, to suspend the Constitution. Come on man, seriously?” said Sterling, a Republican who helped oversee Georgia’s election in 2020, when President Joe Biden carried the state. “I think more and more Republicans, Americans are saying, ‘Ok I am good, I am done with this now, I’m going to move on to the next thing.’”

    The most immediate question raised by Trump’s latest controversy is what it says about a presidential campaign that has been swallowed up by one far-right authoritarian sideshow after another.

    Far from barnstorming the nation, making a case on the economy, health care and immigration or outlining a program for the future, Trump has given comfort to zealots and insurrectionists.

    He hosted Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago last month, at a time when the rapper now known as Ye is in the middle of a vile streak of antisemitism and praising Adolf Hitler. The far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was at also at that dinner. Trump claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was but the former president still hasn’t criticized his ideology. Last week, Trump, in a fundraising video, praised the mob that invaded the Capitol in the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, again promoting violence as an acceptable response to political grievances.

    His social media assault on the Constitution appears to be proving the point of the House select committee probing January 6, which has portrayed him as a clear and present danger to American democracy and met on Friday to consider criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

    Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, tweeted on Sunday: “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.” Trump’s latest wild social media post could even deepen his legal exposure as the Justice Department seeks evidence of his mindset as it investigates his conduct before the attack on the Capitol.

    Trump’s doubling down on authoritarianism also follows a moment when much of the country, at least in crucial swing states, rejected his 2020 election denialism and anti-democratic chaos candidates he picked for the midterms – with a final test on Tuesday in Georgia’s Senate runoff. It appears to make it even more unlikely that the ex-president, even if he wins the Republican nomination, will be the kind of candidate who could win among the broader national electorate. After all, his message failed in two consecutive elections in 2020 and 2022. And even in the wilder reaches of the GOP, which Trump has dominated since 2015, a call to simply trash the Constitution might seem a stretch – and reflect the former president’s increasing distance from reality.

    One could argue that the most prudent response to Trump’s latest radical rhetoric might be to ignore it and his bid for publicity.

    But even if his idea of crushing the Constitution looks far-fetched, his behavior needs to be taken seriously because of its possible future consequences.

    That’s because Trump remains an extraordinarily influential force in the Republican Party. His acolytes hold outsized power in the new House majority set to take over in January, which they plan to use as a political weapon to promote his restoration in the White House. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is appeasing this group in an increasingly troubled campaign for speaker. The California Republican also last week shielded Trump over criticism of the Fuentes dinner, saying that while such a person had no place in the party, Trump had condemned him four times – a false claim.

    Furthermore, in an electoral sense, the theory that Republican voters may be willing to move on from Trump – and to find a candidate who may reflect “America First” populism but not dine with antisemites – has not yet been tested. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen are still broadly accepted among GOP voters – only 24% of whom believe that Biden legitimately won in 2020, according to midterm election exit polls.

    And a GOP primary that includes multiple candidates competing with Trump for the presidential nomination could yet again splinter the vote against the former president and allow him to emerge at the top of a mostly winner-take-all delegate race, a vote that would put a prospective authoritarian who has already tried to dismantle the US system of democracy one step from a return to power.

    Ignoring or downplaying public evidence of extremism and incitement only allows it to become normalized. There is already proof that the ex-president’s rhetoric can cause violence – after he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to save their country on January 6. And the rhetoric of people like West and Fuentes, with whom Trump has associated, risks normalizing odious forces in society that will grow if they are not challenged. Fuentes, after all, has appeared with Republican lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – an increasingly influential voice in the House GOP conference.

    Years of norm crushing and acceptance of extremists by the twice-impeached former president never convinced the party to purge him or his views. Were it not for principled, conservative Republicans like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Trump’s election-stealing effort might have worked in 2020.

    As they work through an intense lame-duck session of Congress, Republican lawmakers are, for the umpteenth time, going to be asked this week about the tyrannical attitudes of the front-runner for their party’s presidential nod.

    One newly elected Republican, Michael Lawler – who picked up a Democratic-held House seat critical to the slim GOP majority – stood up for the Constitution on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

    “The Constitution is set for a reason, to protect the rights of every American. And so I certainly don’t endorse that language or that sentiment,” Lawler told Jake Tapper. “I think the former president would be well-advised to focus on the future, if he is going to run for president again.”

    Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he “vehemently” disagreed with Trump’s statement and said his dinner with West and Fuentes was “atrocious” and that voters would take both incidents into consideration.

    But a fellow Ohio Republican, Rep. David Joyce, demonstrated the characteristic reluctance of members of his party to confront an ex-president who remains hugely popular among its grassroots. Regarding the threat to the Constitution, Joyce said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “You know he says a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen,” adding that it was important to separate “fact from fantasy.”

    Joyce didn’t directly condemn Trump’s rhetoric and said he would support whomever the Republican Party nominates in 2024. The fact that Republicans are open to a potential president – who would be called upon to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution but who has already called for its termination – speaks volumes about how much the GOP is still in Trump’s shadow.

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  • Former Trump White House counsel and his deputy testify to Jan. 6 criminal grand jury | CNN Politics

    Former Trump White House counsel and his deputy testify to Jan. 6 criminal grand jury | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy counsel Patrick Philbin testified to a federal grand jury for several hours in Washington, DC, on Friday, indicating the Justice Department had compelled the men to answer more questions in the January 6, 2021, criminal investigation despite challenges from Donald Trump’s legal team.

    The January 6 grand jury activity is the latest indication the investigation – now led by special counsel Jack Smith – has pushed in recent months to unearth new details about direct conversations with the former president and advice given to him after the election.

    Cipollone was first seen entering the grand jury area with his attorney, Michael Purpura, before 9 a.m., and he was there for more than five hours. Purpura has not responded to requests for comment. The grand jury proceedings themselves are confidential.

    Philbin, whom Purpura also represents, headed into the grand jury area just before the lunch hour on Friday, staying until about 4 p.m.

    Thomas Windom and Mary Dohrmann, prosecutors in the January 6 investigation who are now to be led by Smith, were also seen walking in with Cipollone.

    The investigators are looking at efforts to obstruct the transfer of power at the end of Trump’s presidency and have obtained testimony from several administration advisers closest to the former president after the election and as the Capitol was attacked by his supporters.

    CNN previously reported that Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, who oversees the federal grand juries in Washington, ordered Cipollone and Philbin to provide additional grand jury testimony this month, following up on their testimony in the fall. The judge has repeatedly rejected Trump’s privilege claims in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to people briefed on the matter.

    Philbin and Cipollone were both key witnesses to Trump’s actions in the last days of his presidency. Cipollone repeatedly pushed back on efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report, he and Philbin opposed a proposal to replace the attorney general with someone willing to look into false claims of election fraud.

    Previously, the Justice Department compelled top advisers from Vice President Mike Pence’s office to testify to the grand jury. They had sought to protect Pence in January 2021 from Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election.

    Earlier this week, Trump White House official Stephen Miller, who worked with Trump on his speech at the Ellipse, had his own day before the grand jury.

    On Thursday, another leg of Smith’s special counsel investigation – into the handling of documents at Mar-a-Lago after the presidency – was active in the courthouse. At least one Mar-a-Lago prosecutor was working in the secret grand jury proceedings, as three aides to Trump, Dan Scavino, William Russell and Beau Harrison, each appeared, according to sources familiar with them. Their attorney declined to comment.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • McCarthy demands January 6 committee preserve all records and vows to hold hearings next year | CNN Politics

    McCarthy demands January 6 committee preserve all records and vows to hold hearings next year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy sent a letter to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, on Wednesday demanding that it preserve all records and transcripts and vowing to hold hearings next year on the security failures that led to the US Capitol breach.

    After winning the House majority earlier this month, Republicans made it clear they will prioritize investigating President Joe Biden and his administration on a variety of fronts. The latest warning from McCarthy, who is vying to be House speaker, signals that Republicans may also use some of their time in the next Congress attempting to rewrite the narrative of the insurrection.

    “It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” wrote McCarthy, who did not comply with a subpoena to appear before the committee. “The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”

    Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House select committee, told reporters Wednesday that he had not seen the California Republican’s letter to the committee, but that the panel planned to preserve everything. He added that McCarthy “had a chance to have members on the committee, he had a chance to come and testify before the committee, so, I think the horse has left the barn.”

    Thompson said, “We will do our work. We will end December 31. If he wants to conduct whatever he wants as speaker, it’s his choice.”

    McCarthy has signaled no interest in creating a Republican-led January 6 select committee, as some on the right have pushed to do. But McCarthy – who is scrambling to lock down speaker votes – is expected to give his members some room to re-litigate the Democrat-led select committee’s investigation. That effort is likely to be housed within existing committees.

    Earlier this year, Republicans on the House Administration Committee sent a similar preservation request to the select committee and also pledged to continue looking into January 6 security failures. The House GOP is planning to release its own report on the topic when the select committee releases its final report before the end of this year.

    Thompson reiterated Wednesday that not only does the panel plan to preserve everything, it’s also set to release as much as possible to the public through its final report as soon as the committee gets the report back from the printer.

    “A lot depends on when we can get it back once we get it to the printer and how that impacts the Christmas holidays,” Thompson said.

    Top House Republicans would much rather put January 6 in the rear view mirror, but McCarthy needs to win over hardline critics and keep former President Donald Trump happy if he wants to become speaker – and that group is eager to undermine the committee’s investigation, which has painted a damning portrait of Trump and his allies.

    Meanwhile, members of the select committee are scheduled to have a key meeting on Friday to discuss its final report as well as the possibility of making criminal referrals, CNN reported earlier Wednesday.

    A subcommittee of members is also expected to provide options to the full committee about a number of pressing issues including how to present evidence of possible obstruction, possible perjury and possible witness tampering as well as potential criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, according to multiple sources familiar with the committee’s work.

    Also under discussion in the Friday meeting will be how to handle the five Republican lawmakers who refused to cooperate with their subpoenas, which includes McCarthy.

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  • Opinion: Why Kevin McCarthy may have the hardest job on Capitol Hill | CNN

    Opinion: Why Kevin McCarthy may have the hardest job on Capitol Hill | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on Twitter. The views expressed in this piece are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    Like a treasure hunter who hacks his way to the heart of the jungle only to find an empty chest, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy thought he was on his way to achieving his goal of becoming speaker before a rebellion on his right flank put that dream very much in doubt.

    Currently, House Republicans are expected to hold a narrow majority in the next Congress – 222 seats to Democrats’ 213, if there are no changes to the projected winners. McCarthy, who recently was reelected as GOP leader, will need a majority, or 218, of the House representatives to vote for him on January 3 to become the next speaker.

    That leaves the California Republican with just a handful of votes to spare if he wants to win. And CNN’s Chris Cillizza has already tallied five Republican congressmen who have expressed their unwillingness to vote for McCarthy.

    With enough negotiations, concessions and wheeling and dealing, the most likely scenario is that McCarthy will squeak out just enough votes. But the uncertain start to his potential tenure, and the challenges he faces within his own caucus, reflect both the tumult of trying to lead a legislative body in an anti-institutional age and the fundamental uncertainty of what the Republican Party actually stands for.

    McCarthy, don’t forget, started his career as a reform-oriented “Young Gun,” posing for the cover of the Weekly Standard with fellow GOP wunderkinds (and now-former Reps.) Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Eric Cantor of Virginia. The populist thrust in the party ultimately sidelined the other two, along with the magazine they appeared on, but McCarthy survived – in part by adopting the pose of an America First culture warrior.

    In spring 2021, while Democrats were passing an American Rescue Plan that put billions of dollars into states’ hands and ended up fueling inflation, McCarthy made headlines by reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to protest the Dr. Seuss estate’s decision not to continue publishing six older books due to racial stereotypes. (“Green Eggs and Ham” was not one of the six books in question.)

    McCarthy’s plans for the new Congress are far from ambitious. He boldly announced that each day will start with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, something Congress already does. He also vowed to have the Constitution read aloud in its entirety – a nice gesture, but one Republicans have done in the recent past with little impact on the work of governing.

    Because the Republican Party struggles to put forward a cohesive governing agenda (McCarthy’s touted Commitment to America was better suited as an attack on President Joe Biden’s administration than a detailed list of proactive agenda items), the matters that have caused some Republicans to rebel against a potential McCarthy speakership may seem picayune.

    He has pledged to seek votes on removing Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, both of California, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from certain congressional committees, nominally for various violations. But diehard partisans will certainly see it as payback for Democratic actions, such as stripping Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia of her committee assignments – the kind of DC insider red meat that leaves most voters cold.

    Other possible inside-baseball concessions are even more in the weeds. Reps. Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana, for example, have spoken about their desire to bring back the legislative maneuver known as the “motion to vacate the chair,” which would allow any member of Congress to seek a vote on removing the House speaker. That procedure, coupled with a razor-thin margin, would leave a future Speaker McCarthy on the proverbial hot seat.

    And many of the more Trump-supporting figures, like Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who challenged McCarthy for his leadership post, prefer a more MAGA-aligned speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another “no” vote against McCarthy, has endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, partly stemming from his frustration that McCarthy had initially said the former president bore some responsibility for the riots on January 6.

    But more moderate Republicans would likely shy away from Jordan as a candidate, and a centrist candidate would be anathema to the more populist wing. So McCarthy’s path to the speaker’s chair may end up being the least objectionable option.

    Without a clear vision of what the Republican Party’s legislative priorities are, McCarthy’s presumptive speakership will mostly consist of oversight. And some aspect of feeding the political base is part of the game. His announced intentions to end proxy voting, which allowed lawmakers to cast their vote remotely, would be the right step, as would fully reopening the Capitol complex to visitors.

    But McCarthy’s travails illustrate how trying to lead in an era when parties and institutions are held captive by an anti-establishment mentality will be a continual exercise in frustration. Base-pleasing moves like investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden, don’t do anything to solidify Republican support where it is needed – the middle-class suburbs, which voted decidedly against stunts and for normalcy in last month’s midterm elections.

    Fights over legislative committee assignments and empty culture war gestures may suck up political oxygen, but they don’t point the way forward to a more compelling argument for Republican control of Congress. Republicans who can hammer home an agenda that puts parents first, and is laser-focused on reducing crime and inflation, will be more attractive to an electorate that’s soured on MAGA candidates but also signaled displeasure with the Biden administration.

    Either Kevin McCarthy will figure that out, or he’ll be replaced.

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  • Meghan and Harry faced ‘disgusting and very real’ threats, ex-counterterror chief says | CNN

    Meghan and Harry faced ‘disgusting and very real’ threats, ex-counterterror chief says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and her husband Prince Harry faced “disgusting and very real” threats from right-wing extremists, a former counterterrorism police chief has said.

    In an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News on Tuesday, Neil Basu said the threats against Meghan were serious and credible enough that authorities had assigned teams to investigate them.

    “If you’d seen the stuff that was written, and you were receiving it … you would feel under threat all of the time,” said Basu, who was in charge of royal protection during his time at the Metropolitan Police.

    “People have been prosecuted for those threats,” said the former Met assistant commissioner.

    Since news of her relationship with Prince Harry broke in 2016, Meghan has been subjected to harsh criticism in the British press. In particular, the UK tabloids have faced allegations that their negative coverage of Meghan fueled racist attacks against her.

    The racist bullying on social media became so intense during her first pregnancy that the royal staff was put on high alert, beefing up its own digital presence to filter out hateful comments, including use of the n-word and emojis of guns and knives.

    The couple said that the racial abuse Meghan faced was a major factor that drove them to move to the United States and step back as senior members of the royal family.

    In the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, Prince Harry said he felt the palace was not doing enough publicly to combat the continued racial abuse in the press.

    Harry is currently in a legal dispute with the Home Office regarding the family’s security arrangements when they visit the UK.

    The threats against the royal couple came amid a rise in right-wing extremism in Britain, according to Basu.

    Basu said in his interview that during his tenure, extreme right-wing terrorism was the fastest-growing threat facing the country, going from 6% of the counterterroism department’s workload in 2015 to more than 20% at the time of his departure more than a year ago.

    Basu, who is mixed-race, said he believes the Home Office needs to do more to tackle institutional racism.

    “I’ve been the only non-White face as a chief officer for a very long time,” he said. “I don’t think the Home Office cares about this subject at all.”

    The Home Office said in a statement to CNN that UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman expects police forces in the country to “take a zero tolerance approach to racism within their workplace.”

    “We are actively pushing for a cultural change in the police, including via a targeted review of police dismissals to ensure officers who are not fit to serve can be swiftly removed,” a spokesperson for the Home Office said.

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  • House January 6 committee chairman says panel ‘close to putting pens down’ on final report | CNN Politics

    House January 6 committee chairman says panel ‘close to putting pens down’ on final report | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol said Tuesday that the panel is “close to putting pens down” on its final report, which is slated for release by the end of this Congress.

    “The body of the report is complete and there is general agreement on that,” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told reporters.

    The final report, he said, will include eight chapters.

    In addition to focusing on former President Donald Trump’s actions around January 6, the congressman said the final report will “focus on some other issues,” including material the committee has not previously presented. “We are reviewing material on a daily basis,” he said, though he told reporters the panel has largely completed its interviews.

    CNN reported earlier this week that committee members have been in active discussions about what to include in the report, which will effectively serve as the committee’s closing statement. The panel has less than two months before it expires, and members continue to deliberate what the report will contain and how those findings will be presented.

    It is unclear what the committee will do with the thousands of pages of documents and transcribed interviews it has compiled throughout its investigation. Sources said there could even be a digital component to accompany the final written report.

    Thompson said Tuesday that the committee could release “hundreds” of transcripts by the end of its investigation, adding that “the goal is to release as many of the transcripts where we didn’t have prior agreement with the people because of the sensitivity where they are employed.”

    The chairman said he doubts the panel will release its final report by December 16 – the last day Congress is scheduled to be in session before the year’s end – but there is a “good possibility” the report is released by Christmas.

    Whether the panel will issue criminal referrals is “still under consideration,” Thompson said, though any such referrals would be “done separately” from the final report. The panel would not need to hold a business meeting to issue criminal referral, he said.

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  • Twitter is less safe due to Elon Musk’s management style, says former top official | CNN Business

    Twitter is less safe due to Elon Musk’s management style, says former top official | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Twitter owner Elon Musk’s dictatorial management style risks driving the company headlong into unforced business blunders, content moderation disasters and the degradation of core platform features that help keep vulnerable users safe, according to a former top Twitter official who led the company’s content moderation before abruptly resigning this month.

    The social media company’s botched rollout of a paid verification feature “is an example of a disaster that slipped through” amid the chaos Musk brought to Twitter, and the prospect of further disasters made it impossible to stay, said Yoel Roth, the company’s former head of site integrity, during an onstage interview with the journalist Kara Swisher Tuesday in his first public appearance since quitting Twitter on Nov. 10.

    Roth and other colleagues tried to warn Musk of the “obvious” problems in his plan to offer a verified check mark to any user who paid $8 a month. But Musk charged ahead anyway through sheer force of will, leading to a wave of new impostor accounts posing as major brands, athletes and other verified users that soon forced Twitter to suspend the feature.

    “It went off the rails in exactly the ways that we anticipated,” Roth said.

    The public reflections of a senior Twitter leader who had close contact with Musk in the raw, early days of his ownership of the company — a period marked by internal tumult and a damaging advertiser revolt — provide the latest evidence of a billionaire CEO who leads by his gut at the expense of virtually everyone else.

    There was no explosive confrontation with Musk that led to Roth’s resignation, and the episode involving Twitter’s paid verification feature was only one of many factors that drove Roth’s decision to leave, he said. But the experience exemplified the kind of damage Musk’s freewheeling approach can do, Roth added, likening his final weeks at the company to standing before a leaky dam, trying desperately to plug the holes but knowing that eventually something would get past him.

    In the hour-long interview, Roth warned Musk’s laissez-faire approach to content moderation, and his lack of a transparent process for making and enforcing platform policies, has made Twitter less safe, in part because there aren’t enough staff remaining who understand that malicious actors are constantly trying to game the system in ways that automated algorithms don’t know how to catch.

    “People are not sitting still,” he said. “They are actively devising new ways to be horrible on the internet.”

    He urged Twitter users to monitor the functioning of key safety features such as muting, blocking and protected tweets as early warning signs the platform may be breaking down.

    “If protected tweets stop working, run,” he said.

    For two weeks after Musk closed his purchase of Twitter, Roth presented himself as a voice of stability and calm at the center of a company undergoing dramatic change. Roth knew that by remaining at the company, Musk was using him to help keep advertisers from abandoning the platform. But Roth also suggested that he and others who did not leave Twitter may have been able to influence Musk and keep him from making damaging unilateral decisions, which he had “multiple opportunities” to do.

    Even as he spent his initial days in the new regime battling a “surge in hateful conduct on Twitter” apparently meant to test Musk’s tolerance for racism and antisemitism on the platform, Roth sought to reassure the public that Twitter’s trust and safety work continued unhindered.

    He shared data on the platform’s ongoing enforcement efforts, and downplayed the impact of Twitter’s mass layoffs on its content moderation team, saying the job cuts were less severe in that department compared to the wider organization.

    As late as Nov. 9, Roth spoke alongside Musk during a public Twitter Spaces event intended to persuade advertisers not to flee the platform. In the hour-long session, which was attended by more than 100,000 listeners, including representatives of Adidas, Chevron and other major brands, Roth waxed optimistic about Twitter’s plans to fight hate speech.

    The very next day, Roth abruptly resigned, joining a slew of other senior executives including Twitter’s chief privacy officer and chief information security officer.

    In a subsequent New York Times op-ed, Roth said his reason for leaving came down to Musk’s highly personal and improvisational approach to content moderation. Roth’s essay accused Musk of perpetuating a “lack of legitimacy through his impulsive changes and tweet-length pronouncements about Twitter’s rules.”

    On Tuesday, Roth said the popular narrative that describes Musk as a villain is wrong and doesn’t reflect his own experiences with him. But, he said, Musk surrounds himself with those who rarely challenge him.

    Before Musk took over Twitter, Roth wrote down several commitments to himself that would trigger the decision to quit. One limit, he said — one that was never reached — was that Roth would refuse to lie for Musk. Another limit, one that was ultimately reached and drove his decision to resign, was “if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by a policy.”

    Roth’s role at Twitter came under intense scrutiny in 2020 after the company appended a fact-check message to false tweets by then-US President Donald Trump.

    Tweets that Roth sent in 2016 and 2017 that were critical of President Trump and his supporters were dug up and used to argue that Roth and Twitter were biased against the president.

    Among Roth’s tweets was one he wrote on Election Day 2016 that read, “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.”

    Twitter defended Roth at the time, saying, “No one person at Twitter is responsible for our policies or enforcement actions, and it’s unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions.”

    When Roth was still working at Twitter in October, Musk was asked about Roth’s old tweets.

    “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel. My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs,” Musk tweeted.

    Roth also became the personal face of Twitter, and a target of harassment, after the company decided to suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden, a decision then-CEO Jack Dorsey has since said was a mistake.

    “It’s widely reported that I personally directed the suppression of the Hunter Biden story. That is not true. It is absolutely, unequivocally untrue,” Roth told Swisher on Tuesday.

    Roth did not feel removing the content from Twitter was appropriate, he said, but at the time the story seemed to bear the hallmarks of a hack-and-leak information operation.

    Roth also said Tuesday that, in retrospect, suppressing the Hunter Biden story was a mistake. But he defended Twitter’s other decisions to ban Trump for his activities around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as a personal account belonging to Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and an account belonging to the satirical website Babylon Bee.

    All three cases involved obvious violations of Twitter’s publicly accessible, written policies, Roth said, making them a much clearer case for enforcement.

    Amid the layoffs that have decimated Twitter’s content moderation team, Musk has said he intends to rely much more heavily on crowdsourced fact-checking of tweets to provide context to misleading claims. But Roth said that in doing so, Twitter risks abdicating its responsibility to the public, which should still apply despite it being a private company.

    Policymakers should require platforms to share data with academics and researchers, he said, preempting privately owned platforms such as Twitter from shirking a duty to transparency.

    Asked to give a single piece of advice to Musk going forward, Roth paused for the briefest of moments.

    “Humility goes a really long way,” he said.

    Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    – CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report

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  • Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store | CNN Business

    Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Elon Musk on Monday claimed that Apple has “threatened” to pull Twitter from its iOS app store, a move that could be devastating to the company Musk just acquired for $44 billion.

    “Apple

    (AAPL)     has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk said in one of several tweets Monday taking aim at Apple

    (AAPL)     and its CEO for alleged moves that could undermine Twitter’s business.

    In another tweet, Musk claimed that Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. “Do they hate free speech in America,” he said, in an apparent reference to his oft-stated desire to bolster his idea of free speech on the platform. “What’s going on here [Apple CEO Tim Cook]?” Musk added in a follow-up tweet. He also criticized Apple’s size, claimed it engages in “censorship,” and called out the 30% transaction fee Apple charges large app developers to be listed in its app store.

    The tweetstorm highlights the tenuous relationship between Musk and Apple, which along with Google serves as the major gatekeepers for mobile applications. Long before taking over Twitter, the Tesla CEO said that when the car company was struggling, he considered selling the company to Apple, but that Cook refused to take a meeting with him.

    Removal from Apple’s app store, or that of Google, would be detrimental to Twitter’s business, which is already struggling with a loss of advertisers following Musk’s takeover and a rocky initial attempt at expanding its subscription business.

    Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s tweets. The company has previously shown it’s willing to remove apps from its app store over concerns about their ability to moderate harmful content or if they attempt to circumvent the cut Apple takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions.

    In January 2021, Apple removed Parler, an app popular with conservatives, including some members of the far right, from its app store following the US Capitol attack over concerns about the platform’s ability to detect and moderate hate speech and incitement. Parler was returned to Apple’s app store three months later after updating its content moderation practices.

    In its official app store review guidelines, Apple lists various safety parameters that apps must adhere to in order to be included in the store, including an ability to prevent “content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy” such as hate speech, pornography and terrorism. “If you’re looking to shock and offend people, the App Store isn’t the right place for your app,” the guidelines state.

    Various civil society groups, researchers and other industry watchers have raised concerns about Twitter’s ability to effectively moderate harmful content and maintain the platform’s safety following widespread layoffs and mass employee exits at the company. Musk has also claimed he wants to amplify “free speech” on the platform and has begun to restore some accounts that were previously banned or suspended for repeatedly violating Twitter’s rules. Musk himself has shared a conspiracy theory and several other controversial tweets since taking over as Twitter’s owner.

    Musk, long a prolific and antagonistic tweeter, has not let up at all since taking over the company. And what it may have lost in revenue, he has claimed it has made up for in engagement. Part of the strategy appears to be relentlessly taking aim at enemies, either of him personally or of “free speech.”

    In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Cook was asked whether there are any ways in which Twitter could change that would cause Apple to remove it from the app store. “They say that they’re going to continue to moderate and so … I count on them to do that,” Cook responded. “Because I don’t think that anybody really wants hate speech on their platform. So I’m counting on them to continue to do that.”

    In an op-ed published in the New York Times last week, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, who left the company earlier this month, suggested that Twitter had already begun to receive calls from app store operators following Musk’s takeover. Roth said the company’s failure to adhere to Google and Apple’s app store rules could be “catastrophic.”

    And last weekend, the head of Apple’s app store, Phil Schiller, deleted his Twitter account.

    While the state of Apple and Twitter’s relationship is unclear, the iPhone maker was running Black Friday ads on the platform as recently as last Thursday, according to posts viewed by CNN.

    Many companies have pulled back on digital ad spending in recent months as the economy declined, and Twitter has likely always only been a small portion of Apple’s ad budget. Apple’s impact on Twitter, however, could be much more significant, including if Musk succeeds in shifting its core business to being more reliant on subscription revenue, and potentially has to pay a 30% cut to Apple.

    In one tweet Monday, Musk asked his nearly 120 million followers if they know “Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store?” In another tweet, he posted a picture of a highway exit: one lane headed toward “pay 30%,” the other pointed toward “go to war.” An old car labeled “Elon” skidded toward the latter.

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  • These are the end-of-year political showdowns that will help decide America’s future | CNN Politics

    These are the end-of-year political showdowns that will help decide America’s future | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    America is heading for a year-end political collision that will set the stage for showdowns between the new Republican-led House and the Democrats who still wield power in the Senate and White House.

    A fraught coda to the political battles of 2022 will decide who holds the government purse strings and how far the US will go in funding Ukraine’s war with Russia. It will showcase extremism in the incoming GOP-run House and the size of the Democratic Senate majority. And the 2024 presidential campaign is grinding into gear with ex-President Donald Trump stirring controversy on multiple fronts and President Joe Biden pondering a reelection bid.

    In Congress, a lame-duck session will see standoffs that could risk a government shutdown and over the must-lift US government borrowing limit, with grave implications for the economy.

    Meanwhile, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is scrambling to solidify support in his bid to become speaker in January, with a smaller-than-expected incoming majority giving his extreme pro-Trump colleagues extra power.

    And the House January 6 committee is poised to soon unveil its final report on Trump’s negligence and incitement leading up to the US Capitol insurrection. The findings, amid signs of acrimony inside the panel, could further color sentiment towards the ex-president as he seeks to build momentum after an underwhelming 2024 campaign launch – and as powerful donors, as well as prominent Republicans considering their own White House ambitions, are openly castigating Trump for hosting and then failing to disavow White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. The special counsel probe into his hoarding of classified documents and 2020 election chicanery is also gathering pace.

    Trump is also one of the factors playing into the Georgia Senate runoff election on December 6 that could give Democrats slender breathing room in the chamber or extend the 50-50 split broken only by Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote that made Biden’s agenda so precarious for the last two years.

    These next few weeks will show the country has failed to fully process the trauma of the Trump presidency or to arrive at the sense of normality that Biden promised during the 2020 campaign – even as the two rivals maneuver ahead of a possible rematch in 2024. They will also stress the near impossibility of governing at a time when America is deeply split between two political poles since big questions are likely to get pushed down the road.

    Big issues not solved this December will be pitched into an even more volatile atmosphere by an aggressive GOP-controlled House primed to slam the White House with partisan investigations.

    There’s also the renewed threat of a freight rail strike that could again clog supply lines and fresh Democratic calls for more action on gun control after a tragic new spate of mass shootings. The Democrats have a massive agenda before relinquishing the House but have little political room or time to accomplish it.

    Still, Congress is expected to mark one milestone in the coming weeks. The Senate is expected to vote to codify rights to same-sex and interracial marriage after a procedural vote on the measure earlier in November demonstrated strong bipartisan support.

    Here is what to look out for in the coming weeks.

    Congress must pass a bill to fund the government by December 16 or risk a partial government shutdown. The administration has asked for $37.7 billion in aid for Ukraine, $10 billion for extended efforts to combat Covid-19 and an unspecified amount for disaster relief after hurricanes hit Florida and Puerto Rico.

    Democrats will remain in control of the House until the new Congress in 2023, but a major spending package will also still likely require agreement from 10 Republicans to beat a Senate filibuster. GOP senators are especially skeptical about the administration’s warnings that the US will suffer a relapse in its exit from the pandemic without billions more dollars in funding. And even getting a Democratic majority in the chamber to sign on could be a challenge since West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin could make another stand against another spurt of government spending, especially since he would face a tough race if he decides to run for reelection in 2024.

    There is likely sufficient support for new aid to Ukraine in the Senate, but funding President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war for democracy against Russia is set to become far less routine next year as pro-Trump House members, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, are vowing to halt aid needed for vital weapons and ammunition. They want the cash sent to reinforce the southern US border instead.

    The most serious showdown of the new Congress could come over raising the government’s borrowing limit that is due to be reached sometime next year. Failure to do so could trash faith in America’s willingness to pay its bills and send shockwaves through the US and global economy.

    McCarthy has already warned he will require spending concessions on key programs in return for allowing the government to borrow more money – a scenario that triggered several damaging fiscal showdowns during the Obama administration.

    To avoid a repeat, Democrats could use the waning days of their control of both chambers to raise the debt ceiling themselves, using a budgetary process known as reconciliation that could bypass a Senate filibuster. But the process is hugely complex, in terms of congressional choreography and time.

    Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before Thanksgiving that the “best way to get it done, the way it’s been done the last two or three times is bipartisan.” But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell didn’t express much interest in Schumer’s invitation sit down to sort out the issue, saying “I don’t think the debt limit issue is until sometime next year.”

    The House Republican leader has a big problem – finding the votes in the new GOP majority to fulfill his dream of becoming speaker.

    McCarthy staked out a series of hardline positions heading into the holiday in an apparent effort to appease pro-Trump lawmakers after several declared they won’t vote for him. The California lawmaker can afford to lose only a few GOP votes if he wants to be speaker.

    During a trip to the border last week, he warned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign or face possible impeachment next year. And he said he’ll follow through on a threat to throw high-profile Democrats, such as Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar, off of top committees next year.

    Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Schiff accused McCarthy of adopting extremist positions for his own naked political gain.

    “Kevin McCarthy has no ideology, has no core set of beliefs,” Schiff told CNN’s Dana Bash, saying the top House Republican will do “whatever he needs to do to get the votes of the QAnon caucus within his conference.”

    McCarthy’s struggle to confirm his speakership lies partly in the smaller-than-expected GOP majority following the lack of an expected “red wave” in this month’s election. And it could be a preview of a volatile majority and the extent to which his tenure, if he does win the speakership, will be hostage to the whims of the far-right Freedom Caucus and pro-Trump lawyers who want to use their majority as a weapon against Biden. But McCarthy also has to worry that two years of relentless, partisan investigations could turn off voters and lead them to snatch away the party’s fragile edge in the House in the 2024 election.

    But before the 2024 election gets into full swing, there’s unfinished business from 2022. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker go head-to-head in a runoff on December 6 after neither broke the 50 percent threshold the first time around.

    Former President Barack Obama, who was the most effective Democratic messenger in the midterms, is due to campaign for Warnock on Thursday. Walker’s chances could depend on whether he is able to win over a significant block of Republican voters who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him despite backing Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Walker’s problem is that he’s a protégé of Trump, from whom Kemp kept a good distance.

    After Trump announced his 2024 campaign days after the midterms, Warnock and his supporters started framing the runoff as the first chance for Democrats to stop Trump’s bid to return to the White House. Their argument recalled complaints by many Republicans that Trump’s intervention in two 2020 Senate runoffs in Georgia cost the GOP the chance to control the Senate.

    This might all be about one seat. But holding the Senate 51-49 rather than 50-50 would be huge for Democrats because it would insulate them from the incapacitation of one of their members and could diminish the power of Manchin, who has been a stubborn brake on Biden’s aspirations for two years.

    The former president finds himself under unusual political pressure inside the Republican Party he has dominated since 2015. His backing of several losing, election-denying and unpolished candidates in the midterms angered many key figures in the party. His hosting of Fuentes at the same time as rapper Kanye West at his Mar-a-Lago estate worried Republicans who fear that while he may be a formidable candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump’s empathy for the far-right will again doom him before a national electorate.

    Another potential Republican presidential candidate, outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, condemned the incident as “very troubling” on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    “I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that’s setting an example for the country or the party to meet with (an) avowed racist or anti-Semite,” Hutchinson said. “You want to diminish their strength, not empower them. Stay away from it.”

    Trump acknowledged the meeting in a Truth Social post, but claimed he knew nothing about Fuentes. He also did not disavow him or his views.

    This latest storm comes as the new special counsel Jack Smith, blasted by Trump as a “political hitman,” gets up to speed on the serious legal challenges facing the ex-president, who’s suffered several recent defeats in court in his bid to delay accountability. Trump’s early declaration of a campaign – apparently to quell the buzz around possible alternative Republican candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – leaves the former president needing a way to create some traction in December and in the early months of the year when he might find it hardest to win political exposure.

    The opening stages of the campaign will begin to answer the central question of Trump’s 2024 run – whether his so far rock solid appeal to the GOP base will counter concerns in the wider party about his broader viability.

    Trump’s decision to jump in the race has also increased scrutiny of whether Biden, who turned 80 earlier this month, will decide to run for reelection. The president was asked by CNN’s Betsy Klein during his holiday vacation in Nantucket how his conversations about 2024 were going with his family.

    “We’re not having any. We’re celebrating,” Biden replied.

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  • Schiff says January 6 committee will decide what goes in the final report ‘in a collaborative manner’ | CNN Politics

    Schiff says January 6 committee will decide what goes in the final report ‘in a collaborative manner’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who also sits on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, said Sunday that he doesn’t believe the committee’s upcoming report would focus almost entirely on Donald Trump.

    Schiff, a California Democrat, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” that he doesn’t believe a recent Washington Post story about how the contents of the report could potentially leave out investigations in other areas.

    “No, I mean – I certainly hope not,” Schiff said. “I would like to see our report be as broad and inclusive as possible. We are discussing as a committee among the members what belongs in the body of the report, what belongs in the appendices of the report, what is beyond the scope of our investigation, and we’ll reach those decisions in a collaborative manner.”

    Schiff also defended the committee in response to a statement from Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s spokesperson accusing staffers of trying to slip “liberal biases” into the report.

    “I don’t think the back and forth is particularly helpful to the committee and I don’t want to engage in it. We’re gonna get to consensus on the report. We’re very close to that now. We’re close to the putting down the pen,” Schiff said.

    Bash asked about tension surrounding Cheney, asking Schiff about a quote in the Post story in which one former staffer said that people working for the committee became “discouraged” when they felt the investigation had become a “Cheney 2024 campaign affair.”

    “I’ve never viewed it that way,” Schiff said, defending Cheney. “And I think her role on the committee has been indispensable. I have tremendous respect for her and for (Illinois Rep.) Adam Kinzinger. They’ve shown a lot of courage and backbone, something in very short supply in the GOP these days. So the committee would not have been the same without both of their participation and I have nothing but respect for both of them.”

    Schiff also responded to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy repeatedly saying he plans to strip Schiff of his committees if he becomes Speaker in the next Congress.

    “Kevin McCarthy has no ideology, has no core set of beliefs. It’s very hard to not only get to 218 that way, it’s even more difficult to keep 218. That’s his problem,” Schiff said. “So he will misrepresent my record, he’ll misrepresent (California Rep.) Eric Swalwell or (Minnesota Rep.) Ilhan Omar, whatever he needs to do to get the votes of the QAnon caucus within his conference.”

    This comes as McCarthy promised he would strip power from Democrats, vowing to kick Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Swalwell and Schiff off the House Intelligence Committee.

    When asked about comments from Rep. Jim Comer of Kentucky, likely the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, blaming Schiff for why he doesn’t believe in the credibility of congressional investigations, Schiff defended himself.

    “Comer doesn’t believe in the Russia investigation, he doesn’t believe in Ukraine investigation, he doesn’t believe in the investigation of January 6. And why? Because those were investigations of the serial abuse of power by Donald Trump. And Comer and (likely next House Judiciary Chairman Jim) Jordan and McCarthy will do nothing but carry Donald Trump’s water,” Schiff said.

    When asked if he would comply with a GOP subpoena in the new Congress, Schiff said: “We’ll have to consider the validity of the subpoena. … But I would certainly view my obligation, the administration’s obligation, to follow the law. And the fact that they have disrespected the law is not a precedent I would hope that would be broadly followed, but we’ll have to look at the legitimacy or lack of legitimacy in what they do.”

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  • Al-Shabaab terror attack targets Mogadishu hotel frequented by Somali lawmakers, police say | CNN

    Al-Shabaab terror attack targets Mogadishu hotel frequented by Somali lawmakers, police say | CNN

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    Mogadishu
    CNN
     — 

    The al Qaeda linked terror group al-Shabaab has carried out a suicide attack and stormed a central Mogadishu hotel frequented by Somalia’s ministers and members of parliament, Somali police said Sunday.

    Al-Shabaab stormed the Villa Rose hotel near Somalia’s presidential palace following a suicide bombing at the gate at 8 p.m. local time (noon ET), according to police.

    Capt. Bishar Ahmed confirmed to CNN that a major attack occurred at the hotel, which lies in a heavily protected zone in downtown Mogadishu, where the state house, ministries and a high-security intelligence prison are also located.

    Adam Aw Hirsi, the state minister for the environment, said he escaped the attack.

    Police have not released details on the number of casualties. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

    Somalia’s armed forces, backed by the United States, have been carrying out a military campaign against the group since August in parts of southern and central Somalia.

    In May, US President Joe Biden decided to redeploy troops to Somalia in support of the local government and to counter al-Shabaab. The move reversed a decision by former President Donald Trump to withdraw all US troops from the country.

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  • Prior 2021 arrest of Colorado Springs gunman puts spotlight on the politics of red flag laws | CNN

    Prior 2021 arrest of Colorado Springs gunman puts spotlight on the politics of red flag laws | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The prior arrest of the 22-year-old suspected gunman who allegedly opened fire in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub last weekend has put the spotlight on a state law which can be utilized to temporarily remove gun access from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.

    Colorado’s controversial red flag law, also known as an extreme risk protection order, allows law enforcement, family members or a roommate to petition a judge to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk. But one caveat is they must start the process.

    If the public is uninformed of the potential risk, or rejects gun control measures, or law enforcement refuses to enforce the law, it could be rendered useless, some observers said.

    The year before Anderson Lee Aldrich, whose attorneys say uses they/them pronouns, allegedly entered Club Q with an AR-style weapon and a handgun, killing five people and injuring at least 19 others, they were arrested in June 2021 on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, according to a news release from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at the time.

    Aldrich allegedly threatened to harm their mother with a homemade bomb and other weapons. But no charges were filed, and the case has since been sealed. It is unclear why the records were sealed.

    When asked last week why the red flag law was not used in Aldrich’s case, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it was “too early” to say.

    “I don’t have enough information to know exactly what the officers knew,” Weiser said.

    The sheriff’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but it does not appear that anyone, including law enforcement, triggered the process to obtain an extreme risk protection order after Aldrich allegedly made the threat.

    Law enforcement sources told CNN the suspect purchased the two weapons brought to Club Q, however, police have not provided details about when the transaction took place. Aldrich’s arrest in connection to the bomb threat would not have shown up in background checks, according to the law enforcement sources. 

    It is unclear whether the state’s red flag law could have been used in Aldrich’s case, or if, ultimately, it would have prevented the mass shooting last weekend.

    Following the 2021 arrest, there was an indication Aldrich was someone who posed a risk of harm, Jeffrey Swanson, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine Duke University School of Medicine who led the research group that published the first evaluations of red flag laws, told CNN.

    “The law could have been used. It’s a great sort of parable of how you can pass a law and if it’s not implemented or used, it’s not going to do any good,” he continued.

    Red flag laws can be useful in cases where an individual shows an inclination to harm themselves or others or have had encounters with police, but charges were never pursued, according to Swanson. 

    “It’s designed for cases where there’s a clear indication of someone who poses an imminent risk to others or themselves, but otherwise would be qualified to buy a gun,” he said.

    The law allows for a type of restraining order, which does not have any criminal penalties associated with it, unless a person violates the order, according to Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

    Under the law, a court can issue an order valid for up to a year, restraining a person from accessing guns if the petitioner has met the “standard of proof” to demonstrate a credible and substantial risk, said Anderman, who worked with Colorado lawmakers as they were drafting the bill.

    “It’s minimally invasive, yet it restrains a person from obtaining lethal weapons if they’re in a period of crisis,” Anderman told CNN. “And when the laws are used, they work.”

    Extreme risk laws have been shown to reduce firearm suicide rates in Connecticut by 14% and Indiana by 7.5%, according to the Giffords Law Center, data up to 2015.

    After the 2021 arrest, Aldrich was booked into the El Paso County Jail, the same facility where they were transferred on Tuesday after the Club Q shooting. El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, has openly rejected the state’s red flag law.

    During the debate in 2019 over the Colorado bill, opponents argued the law would allow vindictive people to take guns away from others for no good reason, CNN previously reported.

    The formal legal process to temporarily remove a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others under the state’s law, which went into effect in 2020, has never been initiated by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, according to reporting by The Colorado Sun.

    Sgt. Jason Garrett, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told the Sun Wednesday the office has never requested an extreme risk protection order but did not respond to a question asking why it has not been used, according to the Sun.

    El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder, who declined an interview request from The Sun, publicly denounced the law in 2019, telling CNN affiliate KOAA that it violates citizens’ constitutional rights. 

    “We’re going to be taking personal property away from people without having due process,” Elder told KOAA. 

    “We’re not going to pursue these on our own, meaning the sheriff’s office isn’t going to run over and try to get a court order,” Elder told KOAA in 2019. However, Elder said if a judge issues an order, “then it is up to law enforcement to execute that order.”

    CNN has reached out to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office for comment but did not receive a response.

    In 2019, a year before the law came into effect, the Board of El Paso County Commissioners approved a resolution to designate the county a so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary. The county was among dozens in the state to make the declaration, pledging to “actively resist” the bill, arguing it violates Second Amendment rights.

    “It’s a highly suspect action from beginning to end,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor in the political science department at SUNY Cortland, referring to the county’s decision to declare itself a Second Amendment Sanctuary. “But it raises the question of whether the police, if they had information, would be willing to take action on their own.”

    Spitzer said the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement, prompted by the enactment of the red flag law in Colorado, “really has nothing to do with actual law and a lot more to do with a statement of political defiance.”

    There is a “very big question mark” on whether the sanctuary declaration had a tangible effect on law enforcement in the county or not, Spitzer said. “But the implication certainly suggests that it could have,” he added.

    One of the major reasons red flag laws are not enforced is because people are not aware of them or do not know what steps to take when someone shows signs of dangerous behavior.

    “It’s incumbent on the stakeholders, officials in a state when a law is passed, to have careful thought and some investment and thinking about how to implement this,” said Swanson. “It involves educating the right people about it and law enforcement are key.”

    In his response to a question about red flag laws last week, after the Club Q shooting, Colorado Attorney General Weiser said state officials are “working hard to educate and to bring more awareness about the Red Flag Law.” 

    “We’ve got to do better and we’re going to work on educating law enforcement to make sure that again, for everyone who is [a] responsible gun owner, this red flag law is not about you. This is about people who are dangerous, who we know should not have firearms,” Weiser added.

    Another barrier to the law can be police discretion, according to Spritzer. The nature of policing relies on a “great deal of discretion,” which allows officers to decide whether to give a speeding ticket, for example, or not to use an existing law because they don’t support it.

    “It opens the door to perhaps not enforcing laws that could have a profound effect on people’s lives and safety,” Spritzer said.

    People who have an involuntary commitment history from years ago are banned from buying or possessing firearms, even if they aren’t dangerous. But those who are alienated, display anger, impulsivity or an inclination to harm others might not have a record that disqualifies them from buying a gun, Swanson said.

    “What do we know about people who have impulsive anger and possess a gun? If you could think about that compared to the tiny group of people who are getting these risk protection orders, there’s a long way to go,” Swanson said.

    “It’s just too small a pebble to make much of a ripple in such a big pond,” he added.

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  • Elon Musk says he will begin restoring previously banned Twitter accounts next week | CNN Business

    Elon Musk says he will begin restoring previously banned Twitter accounts next week | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Elon Musk said Thursday that he will begin restoring most previously banned accounts on Twitter starting next week, in his most wide-reaching move yet to undo the social media platform’s policy of permanently suspending users who repeatedly violated its rules.

    “The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted on Thursday. “Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

    The announcement comes after Musk on Wednesday polled his followers about whether to offer “general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.”

    The poll, which closed around 12:45 pm ET on Thursday, finished with 72.4% voting in favor of the proposition and 27.6% voting against. The poll garnered more than 3 million votes on Twitter.

    It is not immediately clear how Musk and his team at Twitter will sort out which accounts had been banned for illegal or spam content versus other violations, nor how many total accounts will be restored.

    Musk announced last week that he would restore the account of Donald Trump after another poll he posted on the platform ended slightly in favor of returning the former President, who had been banned following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, to the platform. Musk has also restored the accounts of several other controversial, previously banned or suspended users, including conservative Canadian podcaster Jordan Peterson, right-leaning satire website Babylon Bee, comedian Kathy Griffin and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

    Shortly after acquiring Twitter, Musk said he would create a “content moderation council” with “widely diverse viewpoints,” and that no major content decisions would be made until it was in place. There is no evidence that such a group has been formed or was involved in Musk’s replatforming decisions. Instead, after Musk restored Trump’s account, he tweeted “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Latin for “the voice of the people is the voice of god.”

    Prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter typically imposed “strikes” that corresponded with suspensions for escalating periods of time when users repeatedly broke its rules against Covid-19 or civic integrity misinformation, giving users up to nine chances before they were booted from the platform. The platform also had other enforcement mechanisms — such as labeling a tweet or reducing its reach — for its additional rules including those prohibiting terrorism, threats of violence against individuals or groups of people, targeted abuse or harassment, publishing another person’s private information, and content promoting abuse or self-harm.

    Musk has previously said he disagreed with Twitter’s policy of permanent bans.

    “New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, not freedom of reach,” Musk said in a tweet last week, echoing an approach that is something of an industry standard. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.”

    The decision to restore countless previously banned accounts could further alienate Twitter’s advertisers, many of whom have fled the platform in the wake of the chaos since Musk took over and out of fear that their ads could end up running alongside objectionable content. Musk has said the departure of key Twitter advertisers in recent weeks has led to a “massive drop in revenue” for the company.

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  • CNN projects Rep. Mary Peltola will win race for Alaska House seat, thwarting Sarah Palin’s political comeback again | CNN Politics

    CNN projects Rep. Mary Peltola will win race for Alaska House seat, thwarting Sarah Palin’s political comeback again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democrat who won a special election that sent her to Congress this summer, will once again thwart former Gov. Sarah Palin’s bid for a political comeback. CNN projected Wednesday that Peltola will win the race for Alaska’s at-large House seat after the state’s ranked choice voting tabulation, defeating Palin and Republican Nick Begich III.

    CNN also projected that Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski will win reelection. She’ll defeat Republican Kelly Tshibaka and Democrat Patricia Chesbro. CNN had previously projected that a Republican would hold the seat.

    And Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy will win reelection, CNN projected. He defeats Democrat Les Gara and independent Bill Walker. Dunleavy won more than 50% of first choice votes, so ranked choice tabulation was not required.

    In Alaska, voters in 2020 approved a switch to a ranked choice voting system. It is in place in 2022 for the first time.

    Under the new system, Alaska holds open primaries and voters cast ballots for one candidate of any party, and the top four finishers advance. In the general election, voters rank those four candidates, from their first choice to their fourth choice.

    If no candidate tops 50% of the first choice votes, the state then tabulates ranked choice results – dropping the last-place finisher and shifting those votes to voters’ second choices. If, after one round of tabulation, there is still no winner, the third-place finisher is dropped and the same vote-shifting process takes place.

    SE Cupp: Palin followed fame but Alaskans were turned off (September 2022)

    Peltola first won the House seat when a similar scenario played out in the August special election to fill the remaining months of the term of the late Rep. Don Young, a Republican who died in March after representing Alaska in the House for 49 years.

    Offering herself as a supporter of abortion rights and a salmon fishing advocate, Peltola emerged as the victor in the August special election after receiving just 40% of the first-place votes. This time, she has a larger share, while Palin’s and Begich’s support has shrunk.

    The House race has showcased the unusual alliances in Alaska politics. Though Peltola is a Democrat, she is also close with Palin – whose tenure as governor overlapped with Peltola’s time as a state lawmaker in Juneau. The two have warmly praised each other. Palin has criticized the ranked choice voting system. But she never took aim at Peltola in personal terms.

    The Republicans in the race, Palin and Begich, both urged voters to “rank the red” and list the two GOP contenders first and second.

    But Peltola had quickly won over many in the state after her special election victory – in part because she has deep relationships with a number of Republicans.

    Peltola told CNN in an interview that she and Palin had bonded in Juneau over being new mothers, and that Palin’s family had given Peltola’s family its backyard trampoline when Palin resigned from the governor’s office.

    At an Alaska Federation of Natives candidate forum in October, Palin effusively praised Peltola.

    “Doggone it, I never have anything to gripe about. I just wish she’d convert on over to the other party. But other than that, love her,” Palin said of Peltola.

    Peltola’s family was also close to the family of the late Young. Peltola’s father and Young had taught school together decades ago and were hunting buddies, Peltola said in an interview.

    In the race for Alaska’s Senate seat, Murkowski, a moderate Republican, was targeted by former President Donald Trump after she voted to convict him during his impeachment trial in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Murkowski also broke with Trump on a number of key votes during his presidency.

    Trump endorsed Tshibaka, and a cadre of former Trump campaign officials worked on her campaign. She was also endorsed by the Alaska Republican Party, which opted to back the more conservative candidate in a state Trump won by 10 percentage points in 2020.

    But Murkowski had built a broad coalition in a state where political alliances are often more complicated than they appear. She and Peltola, had publicly said they would rank each other first in their elections.

    Chesbro, the Democrat, was among the four candidates who had advanced to the general election. Republican Buzz Kelley also advanced, but dropped out and urged his supporters to vote for Tshibaka.

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  • January 6 defendant who barged into Pelosi offices during attack found guilty of multiple counts | CNN Politics

    January 6 defendant who barged into Pelosi offices during attack found guilty of multiple counts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Riley Williams, a Pennsylvania woman who barged into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s offices on January 6, 2021, was found guilty on Monday of multiple counts she faced over the Capitol attack.

    Williams was found guilty of six of the eight counts she was charged with, including assaulting or resisting an officer and disorderly conduct in the Capitol.

    A mistrial was declared on two of the remaining counts, including the government’s charge that Riley had aided and abetted in the theft of a laptop from Pelosi’s office. The jury also could not come to a unanimous decision on the charge of obstructing the certification of the electoral college, which carried a maximum sentence of 20 years.

    This is the first time a jury has not convicted a January 6 Capitol defendant of each count charged.

    Williams was detained following her conviction Monday, taking off her plaid tie before a Deputy US Marshal took her away.

    In agreeing with the Justice Department’s request that Williams be immediately locked up, Judge Amy Berman Jackson heavily reprimanded Williams and her actions on January 6.

    “She was profane, she was obnoxious and she was threatening,” Jackson said of Williams.

    “This is a person who was packed and ready to flee once before,” the judge added, saying that Williams’ father had offered her places to hide in the wake of the Capitol attack.

    Prosecutors say they are still determining whether to retry the case against Williams on the charges of obstruction and aiding and abetting in the laptop theft.

    “I don’t want to go to jail,” Williams said to her attorney Lori Ulrich, who told Williams as she was being taken away “You won. Riley, remember that. You won,” referring to the two counts the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on.

    During the trial prosecutors argued that while Williams, a 23-year-old with long amber hair, didn’t appear dangerous she in fact stirred up the mob, recruited and coordinated rioters to attack police and directed others to steal the laptop from Pelosi’s office.

    “Looks can be deceiving but evidence is not,” prosecutor Michael Gordon told the jury.

    During the trial, multiple videos were played of Riley – some of which she shared with people she knew online who gave them to law enforcement agents – inside of Pelosi’s offices allegedly yelling “take the f**king laptop” as well as pushing against officers in the Capitol with her back.

    The laptop was primarily used for conference videos and did not contain sensitive information, prosecutors said.

    Videos of Pelosi’s office during the Capitol attack showed an overturned table and broken window, rioters rummaging around, taking selfies and videos – bragging that they had reached the speaker’s office. “Where’s Nancy?” members of the mob could be heard asking, over and over again.

    Ulrich told the jury that what her client did on January 6 “was wrong,” but said she was young and simply “a girl wanting to be a somebody.”

    According to prosecutors, Williams was “consumed” by far-right white nationalist Nick Fuentes – whose internet show “she watched obsessively” – and the Stop the Steal movement, attending rallies in the lead up to January 6.

    After the riot, Williams bragged to people on the social media platform Discord that she had stolen the laptop and a gavel from the speaker’s office, none of which was true, her attorneys said.

    “Riley Williams lived in a fantasy world of sorts,” Ulrich said of her client’s online presence, where she messaged people she had never met about her alleged exploits that day, much of which was made up, according to her attorney.

    Williams will be sentenced on February 22 and, according to prosecutors, could face two to three years in prison, according to sentencing guidelines.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • US Capitol Police assistant chief who oversaw intelligence operations for the department will retire | CNN Politics

    US Capitol Police assistant chief who oversaw intelligence operations for the department will retire | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US Capitol Police Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman, who oversaw the department’s operations in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, is retiring from the agency, according to an internal announcement shared with CNN.

    Her last day with US Capitol Police will be February 1, 2023.

    Pittman served as the assistant chief of Protective and Intelligence Operations for Capitol Police from 2019 through mid-January of 2021. She rose to acting chief after former Chief Steven Sund abruptly left the department in the days after the January 6 insurrection.

    Despite major criticisms of intelligence breakdowns leading up to January 6, Pittman returned to that role – which oversees the physical security of the US Capitol and the intelligence operations – shortly after current Chief Tom Manger was placed in the top spot.

    She most recently served as acting chief administrative officer.

    Her career with the department began in September 2001.

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  • Kinzinger says he doesn’t think McCarthy will ‘last very long’ if he becomes House speaker | CNN Politics

    Kinzinger says he doesn’t think McCarthy will ‘last very long’ if he becomes House speaker | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois lambasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday, saying he does not think the California Republican will last long if he’s elected House speaker next year.

    “I think he has cut so many deals with bad people to get to this position that I think he’s not going to be a leader at all. I think he’ll be completely hostage to kind of the extreme wings of the Republican Party,” Kinzinger, who is retiring from Congress, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “And I frankly don’t think he’s going to last very long.”

    “It’s sad to see a man that I think has so much potential, just totally sell himself – he’s the one that resurrected Donald Trump the second he went to Mar-a-Lago, like a week or two after January 6,” added Kinzinger, a noted Trump critic.

    House Republicans voted last week for McCarthy to continue leading their conference following an underwhelming midterm election performance. While Republicans had anticipated big gains in the House earlier this month, they are currently on track to only hold a slim majority.

    But McCarthy beat back a long-shot challenge to his leadership position by Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, a former chairman of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus. Biggs received 31 votes to McCarthy’s 188, according to multiple sources in the room. It was a secret ballot, and McCarthy only needed support from a simple majority of the conference to prevail. In January, however, McCarthy must win 218 votes, or a majority of the House, to become speaker.

    Kinzinger also warned on Sunday that he wouldn’t be surprised if McCarthy had to make deals with Democrats in order to get things done in the next Congress, with more hard-line elements of the House GOP newly empowered by the party’s narrow majority.

    “I would not be surprised if Kevin McCarthy has to cut deals with Democrats, which is something he needs to keep in mind, because he’s not going to get 218 votes for everything he wants to pass, including government funding,” Kinzinger said.

    Former House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed confidence in McCarthy to become the next speaker, saying in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “There isn’t anybody better suited to running this conference than Kevin McCarthy.”

    “He’s been good for conservatives, frankly. But he’s also a person who really understands how to manage a conference,” the Wisconsin Republican added.

    Ryan backed McCarthy’s plan to conduct oversight of the Justice Department and of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, but added, “That’s not a substitute for an agenda.”

    He applauded current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “impressive legacy,” saying, “She has an incredible legacy and career to look back on.”

    Ryan blamed Donald Trump for Republicans’ disappointing performance this election cycle and predicted that the former president would not win the GOP nomination in 2024, saying, “It’s pretty clear. With Trump, we lose.”

    “The evidence is really clear. The biggest factor was the Trump factor,” he said when asked to reflect on his prediction that Republicans would pick up 15 seats. “It’s palpable right now. We get past Trump, we start winning elections. We stick with Trump, we keep losing elections.”

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  • Twitter was already in disarray. Trump’s return will only make it more chaotic | CNN Business

    Twitter was already in disarray. Trump’s return will only make it more chaotic | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    With his decision on Saturday to restore the personal Twitter account of former President Donald Trump nearly two years after it was permanently banned, Elon Musk could plunge Twitter deeper into chaos — and that may be the point.

    In the weeks since Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the influential social network has shed so much staff that users and employees have raised concerns about its ability to continue operating. It has also suffered a “massive drop in revenue,” according to Musk, as a growing number of brands pause advertising amid uncertainty about the direction and stability of the platform.

    Trump’s return won’t help either issue.

    The company’s servers are “being put through quite the stress test by @elonmusk right now,” tweeted Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and former Twitter employee who is working with Musk to manage the company. (He also noted Trump’s return comes a day before the World Cup is set to kick off, a high-traffic event for the platform.)

    Also on Saturday, NAACP president Derrick Johnson sent an urgent warning to companies still doing business with Twitter: “Any advertiser still funding Twitter should immediately pause all advertising.”

    Some advertisers had previously indicated they could halt spending on the platform if Trump were to be reinstated, potentially dealing a further blow to a company that generates nearly all of its revenue from advertising.

    Before buying Twitter, Musk had repeatedly said he would reinstate Trump’s account and rethink the platform’s approach to permanent bans as part of his maximalist vision for “free speech.” But Musk also sought to reassure brands and users that he would establish a “content moderation council” to determine whether Trump and other banned account holders would be brought back on the platform.

    There is no indication that group was even established, let alone involved in the decision to restore Trump. Instead, Musk tweeted a poll Friday, asking followers to vote whether or not to restore Trump’s account. “Yes” won, and Musk tweeted Saturday: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Latin for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

    If Musk has any strategy behind the decision and its timing, it appears to be betting that chaos makes for a good show.

    Through all the mass layoffs and staff departures, the controversial paid verification option introduced and withdrawn, the prominent brands and celebrities pulling back from the platform, and the widespread criticism of his incendiary remarks, Musk has repeatedly stressed that Twitter is hitting all-time highs in user numbers.

    Now, add Trump to the mix.

    Throughout his time as president, Trump was the most high-profile and often the most controversial user on the platform, forcing Twitter to think about how it should handle a sitting world leader taunting North Korea with threats of nuclear destruction (allowed) and encouraging a violent pro-Trump mob to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 (which got him banned).

    But Trump also made Twitter into the center of the known media and political universe. His tweets made headlines, moved markets and shaped the agenda in Washington. Celebrities, world leaders, and a long list of critics and supporters often engaged with Trump directly on Twitter. The world could not look away.

    It remains unclear whether Trump will tweet as often, or at all, now that he has his own social network, Truth Social. And if he does, his tweets may not get quite as much attention as when he was the sitting president. But Musk’s decision to bring Trump back also comes days after Trump announced he would run for president again, raising the likelihood that Trump’s remarks and his tweets, if he posts them, won’t be ignored.

    Musk is clearly still in the early days of setting up his so-called Twitter 2.0. Apart from reorganizing staff and racing to bolster Twitter’s bottom line through subscription products, he also has yet to formalize his policies around bans and suspensions.

    But one answer seems clear: Musk appears to be betting that if users can’t turn away from the platform, neither can advertisers. And with enough eyeballs on the site, he may just be able to find new ways to make money from them.

    All he has to do is find a way to keep the lights on.

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