The speaker of the House has for centuries played a singular role among political leaders in the United States, as the only partisan figure in Congress who is also explicitly empowered by the Constitution to lead the legislative branch. One wouldn’t necessarily know that from watching the recent behavior of Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of … Read more
A man who received a pardon from President Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy on Sunday after he resisted arrest during a traffic stop, the Indiana State Police said. The state police said that a deputy with the Jasper County … Read more
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a key Trump ally, spoke out Sunday against President Trump’s pardoning of violent rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, several of whom were convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers. “I’ve always said that when you pardon people who attack police officers, you’re sending the wrong signal … Read more
On his first full day back in the White House, President Trump reveled in his return to power and vowed to do what no president had ever done before. “We’re going to do things that people will be shocked at,” he declared. Of all the thousands of words that Mr. Trump uttered during his fact-challenged, … Read more
On Monday, the Washington police union was decrying President Trump’s use of pardons when he let off rioters who attacked more than 150 officers on Jan. 6, 2021. By Wednesday, the same union was praising Mr. Trump after he pardoned two of their own who had been convicted in connection with the death of a … Read more
A little over two years ago, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington obtained a landmark conviction against Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, on charges of seditious conspiracy for the role he played in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Friday, the same office — now … Read more
Speaker Mike Johnson announced on Wednesday that House Republicans would establish a new select subcommittee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and counter “false narratives” about it, continuing the party’s efforts to rewrite the history of the riot. Mr. Johnson’s announcement came just two days after President Trump pardoned those charged … Read more
No one knows more about the hundreds of criminal cases filed against rioters who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol than the federal judges in Washington who oversaw their trials and guilty pleas, watched thousands of hours of surveillance videos and heard hundreds of witnesses deliver firsthand accounts of the … Read more
Fresh from being freed by President Trump’s sweeping grants of clemency, two of the nation’s most notorious far-right leaders — Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia — spoke out this week. While the men avoided any declarations about the future of their battered organizations, they asserted unrepentantly … Read more
After President Trump left the White House in 2021, critics of his norm-breaking use of executive power implored Congress to tighten legal limits on when presidents can unilaterally reshape American government with the stroke of a pen. But lawmakers largely did not act. On Monday, as Mr. Trump took the oath of office to begin … Read more