Officials testify that Capitol riot was 'coordinated attack' in first Senate hearing – as it happened

Liz Cheney, the representative of Wyoming and third-highest ranking House Republican, said her party needed to distance itself from white supremacy and Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Speaking at a virtual event with the Reagan Institute, Cheney - who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump – said, “These ideas are just as dangerous today as they were in 1940, when isolationists launched the America First movement to appease Hitler and prevent America from aiding Britain in the fight against the Nazis.”

On the Capitol Hill riot, she said it was important not to “look away”.

“It’s very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren’t the party of white supremacy,” she said.“You saw the symbols of Holocaust denial, for example, at the Capitol that day; you saw the Confederate flag being carried through the rotunda, and I think we as Republicans in particular, have a duty and an obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection.”

The ultra-conservative daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney has found herself in the odd position of being in opposition to many in her own party. Trump allies were furious that Cheney voted to impeach, and the Wyoming GOP called on her to resign. But Cheney showed no sign of backing away from her criticisms of Trump and Trumpism.

The two leaders were on a first name basis - they have worked together before, when Biden was vice president.

But Biden’s recent decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, which Canada had backed had led to some concerns. In the statements after the bilateral meeting, Trudeau praised Biden’s willingness to boost the middle class and maintain jobs, while tackling climate change.

“Canadian energy workers power homes on both sides of the border,” Trudeau said. Energy is an important sector in Canada, the prime minister said and added that the two countries would work together to create “good, well-paying jobs”, creating new opportunities for workers even as the countries fight climate change.

Joe Biden will soon participate in a virtual meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, marking his first bilateral meeting as president.

“The United States and Canada share a unique bond and close friendship – and I’m committed to strengthening our partnership in the years ahead,” Biden said in a tweet before the meeting.

After Biden took office last month, his first call to a foreign leader was to Trudeau, and the two leaders discussed the importance of the US-Canadian alliance.

According to the White House readout of that call, Biden also “acknowledged Prime Minister Trudeau’s disappointment regarding the decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline”.

The pipeline will likely come up during today’s meeting as well.

The Hlcarpenter.com’s Kari Paul reports:

Google will again be accepting political ads on its platforms, the company announced on Tuesday, after a brief ban it began in January.

The self-imposed suspension began following the riot at the Capitol on 6 January and followed similar decisions from other social platforms, most notably Facebook, which changed its policy on political ads in November ahead of the 2020 elections.

In an email to political clients on Monday, Google said it would now allow advertising from campaigns and political topics, which according to Poitico has made more than $750m in advertising money since the spring of 2018.

Facebook has not announced if and when it will lift the policy, which currently remains in place. It said in an earnings call in January it will reduce political content on the platform in general, including no longer recommending political Facebook groups.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic chairwoman of the House rules committee, condemned disinformation about the Capitol insurrection after one of her Republican colleagues questioned who carried out the 6 January attack.

Klobuchar said in a tweet, “As our hearing concludes, I want to make one thing clear: ‘provocateurs’ did not storm the Capitol. They were not ‘fake Trump protestors.’ The mood on January 6th was not ‘festive.’ That is disinformation.”

Klobuchar’s statement came after Republican Senator Ron Johnson used his questioning period during today’s Senate hearing to read from this Federalist piece, which argues that “agents-provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters” were responsible for the insurrection.

“Not one appeared angry or incited to riot,” Johnson said, reading from the Federalist story. “Many of the marchers were families with small children; many were elderly, overweight, or just plain tired or frail – traits not typically attributed to the riot-prone.”

In reality, the Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob who was incited by the then-president. During the 6 January rally in Washington, Donald Trump explicitly told his supporters to march to the Capitol as lawmakers certified Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. The Capitol was breached shortly after Trump spoke.

The Hlcarpenter.com’s Nina Lakhani reports:

A group of influential Democratic senators have introduced legislation which would sanction the president of Honduras – an alleged drug trafficker and key US ally – and cut off financial aid and ammunition sales to the country’s security forces which are implicated in widespread human rights abuses and criminal activities.

The Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Van Hollen, would suspend certain US assistance to the Central American country until corruption and human rights violations are no longer systemic, and the perpetrators of these crimes start facing justice.

Joe Biden has vowed to tackle the root causes of migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle – Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador – the most violent region in the world outside an official war zone, which accounts for most migrants and refugees seeking safety and economic opportunities in the US.

This bill makes clear that tackling the misery driving migration from Honduras will be impossible if the US continues to prop up the president, Juan Orlando Hernández, and the security forces.

It lays bare the systematic violence and abuses perpetrated against civilians and activists since the 2009 military-backed coup, as a result of widespread collusion between government officials, state and private security forces, organized crime, and business leaders.

“The United States cannot remain silent in the face of deeply alarming corruption and human rights abuses being committed at the highest levels of the Honduran government,” said Merkley, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee.

“A failure to hold President Hernández, national officials and the police and military accountable for these crimes will fuel widespread poverty and violence and force more families to flee their communities in search of safety.”

This is the first time the Senate has proposed legislation which could genuinely threaten the regime which has been in power since the 2009 coup.

At the roundtable with Black essential workers, Joe Biden was asked about Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Tanden’s path to confirmation is unclear, now that the Democratic senator Joe Manchin has said he will not support her nomination over some of her past tweets.

But the president said he still believed there was a chance that Tanden could be confirmed as OMB director.

“We’re going to push,” Biden said. “We still think there’s a shot, a good shot.”