Derrick Evans, who was sworn into West Virginia’s House of delegates last month, wore a black helmet as he forced his way into the building among a crush of rioters, live streaming the whole episode on the internet.
Referring to himself in third person, he then shouts: “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
Other footage shows him warning people not to vandalize anything, as he wandered around the Capitol Rotunda, where historical paintings depict the republic’s founding.
But despite what it looks like, Mr Evans has released a statement saying that he was not a part of the mob, and was in fact “simply there as an independent member of the media to film history.”
Who he was working for is not clear, and why he deleted the footage if it was filmed in good journalistic faith is also not known.
In a statement on Facebook on Wednesday evening, Mr. Evans said that he has “traveled across the country to film many different events,” and that earlier he had “had the opportunity to film at another event in DC.”
“I want to assure you all that I did not have any negative interactions with law enforcement nor did I participate in any destruction that may have occurred,” he wrote. “I was simply there as an independent member of the media to film history.”
West Virginia locals have not bought his excuse and around 10,000 people have signed an online petition calling for him to be removed from office.
The speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates, Roger Hanshaw, said he could be facing something more serious.
In a statement on Wednesday night Mr Hanshaw said that he had “not spoken to Delegate Evans about today’s events,” though he said he saw what was posted on social media.
He added that “storming government buildings and participating in a violent intentional disruption of one of our nation’s most fundamental political institutions is a crime that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
What China is saying about the pro-Trump insurrection at the US Capitol
REUTERS/LEAH MILLIS.
Beijing usually leaps at the opportunity to highlight when liberal democracies stumble, and use those moments to bolster its claims that its authoritarian model is superior. The pro-Trump mob storming of the US Capitol on Jan. 6 provided the perfect opportunity.
Much of the media coverage focused on connecting the reaction to the mob with the US’s support of the Hong Kong protests, and the apparent hypocrisy of the US political establishment and media in supporting protests in another country but not their own (that comparison is disingenuous given Hong Kong’s protests were a fight for free and fair democratic procedures, while the Trump protests were a denial of them.)
The Global Times, a hawkish Chinese state-owned tabloid, was among the first to draw parallels between the insurrection at the Capitol and Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. In a tweet today (Jan. 7), the newspaper cited White House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s description of the Hong Kong demonstrations in June 2019 as “a beautiful sight to behold,” and asked whether she felt the same of the pro-Trump mob.
The outlet also offered a side-by-side comparison of scenes from the Hong Kong protests, such as when activists stormed the city’s legislature in July 2019, with the flag-waving, pro-Trump mob inside the Capitol.
The insurrection was featured on the front page of the Global Times’ Chinese website, accompanied with headlines such as (link in Chinese) “An iconic humiliation! The madness of the Capitol [incident] has dragged the US’s standing [as a democracy] into its Waterloo!”
Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said today (link in Chinese) that China hopes the US will return soon to peace and stability. She also commented US media coverage and political responses to the pro-Trump demonstrations versus the Hong Kong protests, equating the two. “What words did they use on Hong Kong, and what words did they use [on storming of the Capitol]?…such a difference and the reasons behind it is worth us reflecting on seriously,” said Hua.
Xiakedao, a social media account run by the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the Party’s largest mouthpiece, also zeroed in on Pelosi’s “beautiful sight” remark. The term has become a buzzword among Chinese internet users, who used it to mock the US democratic system, which they say only supports social unrest in other places, but not in its own country.
“The US Congress at the moment…what did Pelosi say before?” Xiakedao posted today, alongside nine pictures showing the pro-Trump mob breaching the building, as well as lawmakers hiding under their seats.
China’s Communist Youth League, a Party-affiliated political organization for Chinese youngsters, posted photos of the mob holding up pro-Trump banners in front of the Capitol, and captioned it with “a world-famous painting.”
As of noon on Thursday, the hashtag #Trump supporters stormed into the Capitol Hill had generated nearly 500 million views on Weibo. Many users said the riots marked the beginning of a deeper divide in the US, with some even asking if it might culminate in a second Civil War.
It is a familiar tactic for Beijing to utilize flashpoints in democracies to justify its own approach to governance. The country’s blanket censorship of foreign websites means most of the country relies on domestic, often state-owned, media for information, allowing the authorities to promote a narrative that a one-party state can provide far more stability than the chaos of a democracy.
Six Republican lawmakers among rioters as police release photos of wanted
Gustaf Kilander January 7, 2021
DC police release photos of alleged members of Trump mob (DC Police).
At least six Republican state legislators took part in events surrounding the storming of the US Capitol. West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans posted a video of himself entering the building but later deleted it, The New York Times reported.
Tennessee state lawmaker Terri Lynn Weaver told the Tennessean that she was “in the thick of it” during the rally before the storming of the Capitol. She said there was “Just a whole heck of a lot of patriots here”. She later tweeted a picture of the mob at the base of the Capitol, saying: “Epic and historic day gathering with fellow Patriots from all over the nation DC.”
Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase denied that any violence had taken place, despite the overwhelming evidence, and later accused the police of murder after the shooting of a California woman inside the Capitol. “A veteran who was brutally murdered by Capitol Police today,” Chase wrote on Facebook.
“These were not rioters and looters; these were Patriots who love their country and do not want to see our great republic turn into a socialist country. I was there with the people; I know. Don’t believe the fake media narrative,” she wrote.
Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano made sure that a busload of people could be in DC. He said in a video that he didn’t participate in the clashes with police, The Hill reported.
Michigan State Representative Matt Maddock was also at the scene, according to The Hill.
This comes as the FBI and DC Police released images of people wanted on federal charges for violently storming the US Capitol. They are trying to track down 36 people after 68 were already arrested after violent clashes with police as the Trump -supporting mob broke into the Capitol, forcing members of Congress to evacuate and seek shelter in undisclosed locations. Four rioters died and 56 officers were injured in the ensuing chaos. One officer remains in hospital after being beaten and tased by the mob.
Charges include inciting a riot and weapons violations. Rioters scaled the Capitol building, defaced statues, committed countless acts of vandalism and fought with police.
The suspects include Holocaust deniers, White supremacists, and conspiracy theorists.
Several of them have already been identified online, such as 32-year-old Jake Angeli, sometimes called the “QAnon Shaman” according to the Arizona Republic. Shirtless and wearing horns and a fur, the Trump-supporting QAnon conspiracy theorist was seen in numerous images from the Capitol on Wednesday.
An unnamed man was fired from his job at a Maryland marketing firm after wearing his company badge while storming the Capitol.
But many have yet to be identified. Former Deputy Director of the FBI Danny Coulson told Fox News that: “It didn’t just happen,” asserting that inciters of the riot were to blame. “There were people there that came to do it and generated it and caused this horrible mayhem,” he said.
Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a statement: “The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that those responsible for this attack on our Government and the rule of law face the full consequences of their actions under the law.”
“Some participants in yesterday’s violence will be charged today, and we will continue to methodically assess evidence, charge crimes and make arrests in the coming days and weeks to ensure that those responsible are held accountable under the law.”
“We still have a significant amount of work ahead of us to identify and hold each and every one of the violent mob accountable for their violent actions,” Metropolitan Police Department chief Robert Contee said.
WASHINGTON — A violent, armed mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday, entering the House and Senate chambers and forcing legislators and staff to take shelter. The astonishing turn of events came an hour after President Trump exhorted a Washington rally to protest the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote, a process that would seal President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The unprecedented violent protest brought a halt to the debate on the futile attempt by some Republican lawmakers to decertify the results from a number of states.
After a “Stop the Steal” rally that police say was attended by 25,000 to 35,000 people, thousands of angry Trump supporters surrounded the Capitol building, bounded up the steps and set up barricades using a ladder. Standing on top of an entrance, one man looked down and said, “This is epic. We’re taking the Capitol back.”
Protesters overpowered Capitol Police, smashed windows and forced open doors, then streamed into the building where both chambers of Congress were debating whether to certify the Electoral College votes in Arizona.
The surprise intrusion caught lawmakers off guard, sending many scurrying for safety.
“The president invited us here, and we’re not leaving,” another protester shouted.
Multiple shots were fired, and CNN reported that a female protester identified as Ashli Babbit was killed after being shot in the chest. Capitol Police also reported that three other people had died of medical complications stemming from the clashes and that several officers had been injured. Washington Police Chief Peter Newsham said protesters deployed “chemical irritants on police” as they stormed the Capitol, the Associated Press reported.
Protesters supporting Trump break into the U.S. Capitol. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the proceedings in the Senate, was taken to a secure location by the Secret Service out of fear for his safety.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were also placed in secure locations. With the Capitol complex in lockdown, Trump issued a belated plea for calm.
Notably, Trump did not instruct his supporters to disperse, and his tweet was met with angry responses from Democrats and some Republicans who said the president’s words had led to the day’s developments.
Minutes later, Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement.
“We are calling on President Trump to demand that all protesters leave the U.S. Capitol and Capitol grounds immediately,” the statement read.
With Trump steering clear of television cameras since attending his rally earlier in the day, Biden delivered a stern message.
Trump supporters take over the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)
“I call on this mob to pull back and allow democracy to go forward,” Biden said, adding, “I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”
By the time the president strengthened his calls for cooperation with the police, his protesters, many of whom were armed and had not passed through a metal detector, had already broken through a police barricade and entered the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. An improvised explosive device was found on the Capitol grounds, NBC News reported, and at least two IEDs were discovered on the 300 and 400 blocks of Canal Street, according to a law enforcement document obtained by Yahoo News.
An improvised explosive device recovered in Washington on Wednesday.
Approximately 1,100 members of the National Guard were activated to help put down what Democrats said was a coup attempt. In a statement to the press, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said he had spoken with Pence, Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Schumer about the plan.
“We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation. We are prepared to provide additional support as necessary and appropriate as requested by local authorities,” Miller said in his statement.
The Department of Homeland Security set up a virtual situation room to facilitate interagency communication and coordination, a DHS spokesperson told Yahoo News.
Yet with the former heads of the Justice and Defense departments fired or having resigned after clashes with Trump, the statements from their replacements came hours after the mob had descended.
“The violence at our Nation’s Capitol Building is an intolerable attack on a fundamental institution of our democracy. From the outset, the Department of Justice has been working in close coordination with the Capitol Police and federal partners from the Interior Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Guard, as well as the Metropolitan Police and other local authorities,” Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen said in a statement. “Earlier this afternoon, the Department of Justice sent hundreds of federal law enforcement officers and agents from the FBI, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service to assist the Capitol Police in addressing this unacceptable situation, and we intend to enforce the laws of our land.”
A member of a pro-Trump mob bashes an entrance of the Capitol in an attempt to gain access. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
With the siege continuing, Trump finally relented, issuing a video from the White House that, while it urged his supporters to leave the Capitol, also seemed to justify their behavior.
“I know your pain, I know your hurt,” Trump told his supporters. “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.”
Trump’s remarks were littered with false and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and social media companies quickly flagged the video on their platforms as containing disputed information. In fact, it was those same claims that inspired a mob of his supporters to travel to Washington to protest in the first place.
“This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people,” Trump added.
Ultimately, Twitter and Facebook concluded that they had reached an inflection point, deciding for the first time to remove messages, including the video, from Trump’s accounts. Facebook added an additional punishment, banning Trump from posting for 24 hours, a move that was quickly followed by Instagram.
Snapchat blocked Trump from making new posts and Twitter also locked Trump’s account for 12 hours.
At least one prominent Democratic Senator said Twitter’s penalty was not stern enough.
Pence, who had been criticized by Trump and his followers for not attempting to overturn the results of the Electoral College vote – something the vice president does not have the power to do – issued his own statement as the violence continued.
“The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building,” Pence tweeted. “Peaceful protest is the right of every American but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Trump had urged his followers to travel to Washington to attend the rally, and he addressed them at the Washington Ellipse shortly before Congress began the electoral vote count.
A protester inside the Senate chamber after the Capitol was breached. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,” Trump said, adding, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much some of them.”
Instead, Trump returned to the White House while many in the crowd did just as he asked and began laying siege to the Capitol. Several buildings were evacuated as protesters clashed with police.
As the chaos unfolded, instead of issuing a call for calm and urging his supporters to cooperate with Capitol Police, Trump lashed out at Pence in a tweet deleted by Twitter. Minutes later, the president issued a second tweet urging the same supporters he’d whipped up into a frenzy over bogus claims of election fraud to “Stay peaceful!”
As members of Congress took shelter in the basement of the Capitol, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a 6 p.m. ET curfew.
Armed protesters stormed the Senate chamber and the offices of several lawmakers, with one climbing the dais and proclaiming, “Trump won that election!”
While some of the Trump supporters inside the Capitol said their intention was to stay there overnight, others began dispersing as darkness fell. One man with a megaphone called out to the mob that the National Guard was coming and that the group “needed to go to CNN and MSNBC instead, because that’s where it all started.”
At the “Stop the Steal” rally, Trump had gone after the news media with particular vigor, and soon his supporters had attacked a news crew.
A woman leaving the Capitol in tears said she had been sprayed with Mace by the police when she attempted to force her way inside the building. Asked why she wanted to get in, the woman, who identified herself as Elizabeth from Knoxville, Tenn., said, “We’re storming the Capitol, it’s a revolution!”
Predictably, some of Trump’s backers in Congress blamed the violence on left-wing provocateurs from antifa.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., meanwhile, announced she was introducing a new set of articles of impeachment against Trump.
Other Democrats also called for Trump to face swift consequences for what transpired Wednesday.
“He must be impeached and removed from office immediately,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement.
Trump’s predecessor also pointed the finger at the 45th president.
“History will rightly remember today’s violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation,” former President Barack Obama said in a written statement.
Former President Bill Clinton also had harsh words for the current White House occupant.
“The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost,” Clinton said in a statement.
Democrats weren’t the only ones lashing out at the soon-to-be-former president, however.
“Today, the United States Capitol — the world’s greatest symbol of self-government — was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard — tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution,” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said in a written statement. “Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the President’s addiction to constantly stoking division.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, former Republican President George W. Bush put the blame for the event on those who had fostered “falsehoods and false hopes” about the election results.
“The violent assault on the Capitol — and disruption of a Constitutionally mandated meeting of Congress — was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes,” Bush said in a statement.
As Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, gathered other lawmakers at a secure location, he was equally pointed in who was to blame.
“This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Romney said, according to the New York Times.
National Guard troops clear a street from protestors outside the Capitol. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., also didn’t mince words.
“The President bears responsibility for today’s events by promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point,” Burr said in a statement. “It is past time to accept the will of the American voters and to allow our nation to move forward.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also urged Trump to move on from the election.
“It’s past time for the president to accept the results of the election, quit misleading the American people, and repudiate mob violence,” Cotton said in a statement. “And the senators and representatives who fanned the flames by encouraging the president … should withdraw those objections.”
Longtime Trump ally and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie issued another scathing assessment of Trump’s role in the melee to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
“Those people today who had been lied to consistently by the president about a fraudulent election acted out, and acted out not just on their own George, but through his encouragement, and I did listen carefully to what he said this morning at that rally,” Christie said.
In the afternoon, hours after the mob took control of the Capitol, rumors swirled in Washington about the 25th Amendment, which contains a provision whereby the vice president and a majority of the cabinet can rule that a president has become incapable of doing his job, could be used to remove Trump from office.
Momentum for the 25th Amendment built throughout the day until all the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Pence asking him to invoke it, saying “President Trump revealed that he is not mentally sound and is unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election.”
Numerous officials inside the Trump administration were said to be considering resigning in disgust. The first person to make that announcement was first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham. The second was White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews.
White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger has resigned in the wake of the riot at the Capitol.
At 5:56 p.m., nearly four and a half hours after the insurrection had begun, the sergeant-at-arms announced that the Capitol had been cleared of the mob, eliciting cheers from the lawmakers who had remained inside the building. One hundred and thirty-six National Guard troops took up positions on the Capitol grounds, according to an update sent to law enforcement and obtained by Yahoo News.
While thousands of Trump supporters took part in the violence at the Capitol, by 9:30 p.m, Washington police said they had made slightly more than 52 arrests, most on charges of violating curfew.
But the incident itself would have broader repercussions. For starters, some of the Republicans who said they would protest the certification of the Electoral College vote announced they had reconsidered in light of the attack on the Capitol.
As the Senate resumed its business, outgoing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke sternly about the mob.
“The United States Senate will not be intimidated,” he said, adding, “They tried to obstruct our democracy. They failed.”
Schumer, the man in line to lead the Senate, was more precise. “This mob was in good part President Trump’s doing,” the New York Democrat said.
One by one, Senate Republicans who had planned to protest the Electoral College certification, including James Lankford of Oklahoma and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, stepped forward to say they were dropping their objections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a Senate debate session to ratify the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Photo by congress.gov via Getty Images)
One of the president’s most dependable supporters, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, delivered an especially stinging rebuke of the plan to deny certification.
“If you’re a conservative, this is the most offensive concept in the world — that a single person could disenfranchise 155 million people,” Graham said, adding, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected.”
Back at the White House, Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani continued to pressure senators to protest the certification. When the vote came up to challenge the electors in Arizona, Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., Roger Marshall, R-Ks., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Ted Cruz, R-Tex., and John Kennedy, R-La., obliged, less than half of those who initially committed to doing so.
Georgia, the next state challenged by members of the House, did not receive the support of a single Senator, killing debate before it began. The same pattern held in Michigan and Nevada.
But Sen. Hawley joined the challenge to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes put forth by Republican House members, delaying Biden’s inevitable victory even further.
As was clear before they began, the final votes on the challenges, however, did not go in Trump’s favor, and when Hawley was asked by CNN’s Manju Raju whether Trump bore responsibility for the violence in Washington on Wednesday, even he gave an answer the president was sure to dislike.
“I don’t think urging people to come to the Capitol was a good idea,” he said.
A bigger question that remains, however, is what lasting damage the mob takeover will have on the party of the man who beckoned his supporters to Washington to stage Wednesday’s uprising.
Caitlin Dickson contributed reporting to this story.
Analysis: Trump’s rage ignites mob assault on democracy
Jonathan Lemire January 6, 2021
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President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
NEW YORK (AP) — The riotous mob that laid siege to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was the product of the destructive forces that President Donald Trump has been stirring for years, culminating in the disruption of a democratic ritual that would formally end his unconstitutional bid to stay in power.
The scene that unfolded — pushing through police barricades, breaking windows, then occupying seats of power — was one that Americans are accustomed to watching in distant lands with authoritarian regimes.
But the violence, which included gunshots fired in the Capitol, one death, and an armed occupation of the Senate floor, was born from the man who swore an oath to protect the very democratic traditions that rioters tried to undo in his name.
The rioters chose to storm the Capitol, a building symbolic as a citadel of democracy, and stirred echoes of the the angst and blood of the Civil War era. Only this time it was instigated by a duly elected president unwilling to honor the foundational creed of a peaceful transfer of power.
“This is an attempted coup d’état incited by the President of the United States,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “We are in an unprecedented moment when a president who is willing to conspire with mobs to bring down his own government. This is totally against the idea of democracy for which the nation has stood for over two centuries.”
The certification of the Electoral College votes that formalizes President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, a Constitutionally-enshrined ceremony typically designed to show American democracy’s strength, was disrupted within hours of Trump’s incendiary demand for action in a speech to his supporters, as he implored them to “fight” to stop the “steal” of the election and march on the Capitol.
“After this, we’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol,” Trump said, “and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
As his presidency enters its final days, Trump’s speech was a valedictory that seethed with anger, and roused those who took it as a call to insurrection. Rioters overran and overmatched Capitol security forces, breaking windows, stealing mementos and mocking the institution with photos showing them in seats of power.
One in the mob seized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s dais, another her office. A sea of red “Make America Great Again” hats stormed through Statuary Hall, a part of the Capitol familiar to tourists. One man carried a Confederate flag under the same rotunda where Abraham Lincoln — and, just last year, the congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis — had lain in state. A noose was photographed not far from the Capitol’s west front.
And the inauguration stand where Biden will put his hand on a Bible in two weeks was used by U.S. Capitol Police to fire pepper spray into the violent crowd.
Few escaped Trump’s rage — not even his most loyal lieutenant, Vice President Mike Pence, who had, for once, said he could not honor the president’s wishes that he overturn the electoral vote count because there was no legal authority for him to do so.
At his rally on the Ellipse, Trump said he would be “very disappointed” in his vice president, who a short time later had to be whisked to safety by the Secret Service when the Capitol’s barriers were breached.
But the groundwork for the violence was laid far before the rally, which also included a call from the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, for a “trial by combat” to settle accusations of election fraud.
Trump, who has long shied away from committing to a peaceful transfer of power, spent the better part of 2020 declaring that the election was “rigged” while making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud that numerous federal courts and his former attorney general said did not exist.
The president was enabled by dozens of his fellow Republicans, who said they were willing to object to the count, a maneuver they knew would delay but not change the outcome.
Even when it became clear he had lost the election, Trump refused to acknowledge reality, insisting repeatedly that he had won in a landslide. He lost to Biden by 7 million votes.
But his supporters were more than willing to accept his effort to subvert the verdict of voters.
Just weeks ago, he tweeted: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” And even after the siege began, and members of his own party — including some trapped in the Capitol and hiding for their lives — begged him to forcibly condemn the act of domestic terrorism, Trump refused.
He spent most of the afternoon in his private dining room off the Oval Office, watching the violence in Washington on a large mounted television, though most of his attention was fixated on Pence’s disloyalty.
He reluctantly taped a video in which he called for “peace” and told the rioters to “go home,” but he bracketed his request with further false claims of election fraud and told the insurrectionists: “We love you. You’re very special.”
In a tweet, rather than directly criticizing the mob, he offered an apologia for them. “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” And he encouraged them to “remember” the day as though it would someday be seen as a celebration rather than a riot.
The post was later removed by Twitter.
His words were a remarkable contrast to the man who defeated him and one who came before him.
“At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite,” said Biden in an address to the nation from Delaware. “The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy and the recovery of respect for the rule of law, and the renewal of a politics that’s about solving problems — not stoking the flames of hate and chaos.” He implored Trump to “step up.” Trump did not.
George W. Bush, the most recent Republican president, declared that the “Insurrection could do grave damage to our nation and reputation.”
“The violent assault on the Capitol — and disruption of a Constitutionally-mandated meeting of Congress — was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes,” Bush said.
Trump has long been slow to condemn violent extremism, refusing to denounce white supremacists, cheering armed protesters at the Michigan state capitol last spring and telling the far right Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.”
The U.S. Capitol was breached in 1814, when the British attacked it and set it on fire during the War of 1812, according to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. And the moment of internal strife, one fueled by the president, “can only be reminiscent of the Civil War,” according to presidential historian Julian Zelizer.
“This is an attack on the government,” said Zelizer, who teaches at Princeton University “The president has been stoking divisions and he called for this protest, he called for this chaos. We have never been here before.”
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Lemire has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2013.
Eric Alterman on Holding Trump Enablers Accountable
By Eric Alterman January 8, 2021
Sen. Josh Hawley greeting protesters in the east side of the Capitol before riots began. (Photo by Francis Chung, E&E Daily, Twitter)
I’ve been forced to write about Donald Trump an awful lot during the past five years and the problem I always face when writing in a limited space, like this one, is which of his countless horrific qualities to focus on. The same thing happens when I need to address the consequences of the policies of his administration. There are so many terrible ones, so many victims and so many enablers. I always found myself asking, “Who deserves a thousand words today?”
Not today. I don’t dispute the genuine horror, outrage and sadness genuinely patriotic people feel at seeing the desecration of one of the most potent symbols of American democracy. I share those feelings. But another part of me is glad about it. Finally, Trumpism has clarified itself. It’s not about “economic insecurity.” It’s not about globalization. It’s not about being “forgotten,” “disdained by elites,” or “fear of the future.” It’s just about hatred: hatred of anyone and anything who is not a white, Christian, right-wing, American-born American. Any other attempt to defend or explain Trump’s appeal is a lie and a dangerous one at that because it’s a lie that perpetuates all the other lies that have allowed him and his minions to conduct a rampage against America and all that it stands for; the same rampage that finally found its physical manifestation in the insurrectional riot we saw on Wednesday.
What made all this possible? Obviously, there is Trump himself. His entire life, beginning with his real estate career, his TV celebrity, his presidential campaign and then of course, his presidency, had been built on a foundation of easily disprovable falsehood. And somehow, it worked. Trump apparently told the right kind of lies; the kinds of lies that were in the interests of the powerful people allied with him to pretend to believe. As for his victims, who cared? If they had any power in the first place, they would not have been victims. As far as Trump was concerned, lying worked. It pumped up his ego and got him what he wanted. After all, he got elected president of the United States without having any appreciable qualifications. It’s not much of a mystery as to why he kept it up.
The more compelling question for our future is who were the people who bought into his lies, pretended to believe (or at least excuse) them and benefitted as a result? These, after all, are the people who betrayed their country and will still be around when Trump is either serving time or living in exile. Second, of course, was the structure of enablement his lies enjoyed. The Trump administration was one big bribe. The rich got their massive tax cuts and extremely relaxed enforcement of financial crimes. Evangelicals got their Federalist Society–appointed judges and extreme Zionism put into practice. Racists, Nazis and nationalists got their attacks on everyone who did not look and “think” like them. (These people came cheap.) Cops got to beat up and sometimes murder people with impunity. Corporations were free to pollute their communities and disempower their workers. The right-wing press got to give their “middle finger” as National Review editor Rich Lowry named it, at the rest of us and the mainstream media got ratings, subscriptions and stock prices they could not have imagined five years earlier. Remember CBS CEO Les Moonves speaking about Trump’s candidacy, before Moonves lost his job following numerous claims of sexual misconduct? He may have been speaking for the entire industry when he said: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
All this added up to an irresistible bargain for all of them to embrace Trump’s lies and pass them along to the voters, viewers, stockholders, churchgoers, whomever. The net result was the creation of an entire world of unreality in which nearly half the country lived and most of the rest of it agreed to indulge. Trump-supporting Kentucky Republican, Thomas Massie, sounds like he’s making complete sense when he says, “Trump has a 94 percent approval rating among my Republican electorate—I’ve actually polled it twice,” Massie said. “Those are people that vote in the primaries in Kentucky’s Fourth District … I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.” The poor fellow…
Almost all the mainstream media commentators expressed profound shock at the sight of Trump’s most devoted followers attacking Congress on Wednesday. It played out as a “Drunk History” parody version of the Bolsheviks’ 1917 storming of the Tsar’s winter palace. Didn’t these people know a wink when they saw one? Didn’t they understand, as Selena Zito lectured the rest of us back in September, 2016 (in the Atlantic, no less,) that while, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally?” Apparently, not. These people have been fed a diet of literally nothing but political lies for decades now in the fantasy “propaganda loop” that right-wing billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and Rebekah Mercer have created for them. Donald Trump was just the Frankenstein monster that (we now see) pushed things a little too far. But give credit where it’s due. Trump’s 30,000 or so presidential lies were built on a mountain of lies that came before him, thanks to Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, both George Bushes (but especially the second one) and all of the politicians and pundits who embraced and enabled them.
Viewed from a certain perspective, one is almost tempted to feel sorry for these clowns — or “very special” people as Trump called them — in the Viking hats and the “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirts. They had become, what Hannah Arendt called, “the ideal subject of a totalitarian state”; that is, the person “for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Too bad, however, that — just like with Covid deniers — their purposeful ignorance combined with their maniacal aggressiveness is endangering the rest of us to the point of that (My God!) even Mitch McConnell recognized as a potential “death spiral” for democracy and said enough was finally enough.
The obvious question for which there is just as obviously no clear answer yet is, “Are we too far gone to save ourselves?” As posed by the punditocracy, it takes some form of, “How much of the Republican Party will remain in thrall to this guy that we now all suddenly discovered is a dangerous lunatic?” This question is always followed by references to rhetorical flamethrowers, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and the total of 179 lawmakers who, even after what they saw on Wednesday, still refused to recognize the rightful president-elect of the United States. (This is coupled with a running count of which rats are jumping from their sinking ship. ) But the Congressional Republican Party is just the head of an extremely pugnacious and poisonous snake. The reptilian structure it grows out of has strangled so many of institutions that make democracy possible and infected so many of the people who shape and influence it, one has a hard time imagining where we will find the resources to nurse the body politic back even to a semblance of good health.
One thing is for certain, however: we have no choice but to try. There is no “moving on” or “looking to the future” without first facing the truth. And that means legally holding responsible everyone who helped to create the criminal syndicate that took over our government and morally, everyone who supported it. They were not just “playing politics,” this time around. They were toying with treason. And that’s just how they need to be treated if we are to restore a semblance of functional democracy to our system and personal honor to our politics.
Senior Trump Official: We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist’
By Olivia Nuzzi January 8, 2021
The 11th hour. Photo: AFP via Getty Images
On Friday afternoon, 48 hours after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by violent insurrectionists encouraged by Donald Trump in an attempt to overthrow the government in protest of his election loss, a senior member of his administration spoke to me while he was driving to work.
“This is confirmation of so much that everyone has said for years now — things that a lot of us thought were hyperbolic. We’d say, ‘Trump’s not a fascist,’ or ‘He’s not a wannabe dictator.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Well, what do you even say in response to that now?’”
For four years, people like this official — lifelong Republican operatives — have convinced themselves that Trump’s obvious faults were worth tolerating if it meant implementing a conservative policy agenda. These officials believed the benefits of remaking the courts with conservative justices, or passing tax reform, outweighed the risks that a Trump presidency posed to democracy and to the reputation of the country in the world. Now, at the 11th hour, with 12 days left before Joe Biden is sworn into office, it’s clear to some that it was always a delusion.
“This is like a plot straight out of the later, sucky seasons of House of Cards where they just go full evil and say, ‘Let’s spark mass protests and start wars and whatever,’” the senior administration official said.
“I went through Access Hollywood, Charlottesville — all of these insane things. There’s some degree of growing accustomed to the craziness. It’s not like my heart is racing, like, Oh God, how am I supposed to react to this? It’s just more that I’m depressed. For people who devoted years of their lives to dealing with the insanity in an attempt to advance a policy agenda that you believe in, all of that has been wiped out. The legacy of the Trump administration is going to be that the president sparked an insurrection and people died because he tried his best to not abide by the Constitution and the tradition of a peaceful transition of power that’s been the norm since our founding. Nothing else is even going to be a side note.”
Trump’s world has grown ever smaller as the damage he inflicts on the United States continues to swell. Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, which left five dead, including a police officer, prompted resignations in the administration and calls for Trump to do the same and threats — from Democratic and Republican lawmakers — of a second impeachment as well as vaguer discussions about the 25th Amendment. Trump is an increasingly symbolic figure — Norma Desmond with the nuclear codes and sycophantic butlers in his ears on a West Wing Sunset Boulevard soundstage. With no power left to grab, many staffers spent the weeks following November 3 making themselves scarce, plotting their post-White House careers, avoiding the president’s calls.
But many others are keeping their heads down and keeping their jobs, citing, among other self-serving interests, a desire to remain on their health-care plans, according to my interviews with staffers. Others justify their continued employment by citing the demands of the continuity of government.
“There’s not a single person I have talked to at any level, from 23-year-old assistants to members of the Cabinet, who are not disgusted and ashamed with what has happened,” the senior administration official said, adding that the conversations among remaining officials were about how to handle the next 12 days before Joe Biden’s administration — and whether to continue to be a part of the transition of power at all. “It’s different for everybody. If you’re a regular domestic-policy staffer in the West Wing or the EEOB, the implications of you quitting are different than if you’re a senior national security official, or you’re tasked with contributing to the continuity of government.”
“We are in a terrible spot,” the official said. “You can’t just say, ‘Well, this is outrageous and I quit’ in this situation.”
Trump’s inner circle has contracted amid the self-created chaos and carnage. For this reason, resignations have not had much of an effect on him directly. “He may not even notice,” one adviser said. “People aren’t around to begin with. There aren’t policy meetings with the president and eight or ten people in there anymore.”
Advisers have expressed concern and anger over Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, whose actions have been perceived as an effort to secure employment with Trump in his post-presidency, perhaps at the Trump Organization. “Jared has been telling people, ‘Don’t even deal with him anymore,’” one adviser said. “Mark’s responsible for bringing kook after crazy after conniver after Rudy into the West Wing.” (“This is completely false,” Avi Berkowitz, Jared Kushner’s spokesman, said in a tweet responding to this article, “Jared has never said that.”)A former senior White House official said, “Morale plummeted under him, huge mistakes were made — and now he’s scrambling to stick around after. He’s a dishonest asshole who pretends to be this religious Southern gentleman. Fuck that.”
The senior administration official put it this way: “The only way it gets to this point are a thousand really bad small decisions. The first time Sidney Powell calls the White House switchboard and is allowed to speak to the president, the next thing you know she and others are in the West Wing — these are areas where the chief of staff has unilateral authority to do what he wants to do.” Instead, the official said, Meadows tells Trump what he wants to hear, and often calls whomever Trump has directed him to call, repeats what Trump told him to say, and then apologizes, explaining that he just needs to be able to tell the boss that he followed his orders.
Meanwhile, the yes-men are countered mostly by the lawyers, who have tried to convey to Trump that he has put himself at risk of prosecution, not just by inciting Wednesday’s riot — for which the Justice Department is reportedly open to pursuing charges — but for his phone call to Georgia election officials, in which he attempted to pressure them to overturn the results, as well as in the many ongoing investigations related to his businesses and finances.
“It’s a lot to adjust to. If you think you’re going to be there for four more years, it’s a bit jarring,” the adviser said. “The smart lawyers have gotten to him. It’s all hit him since yesterday: You may have legal exposure from yesterday. You definitely have legal exposure from other things. You have less than two weeks to remain ensconced in here with executive privilege.”
This adviser, who spoke to Trump on Wednesday amid the siege, said Trump watched the events on television intently. CNN reported that he was so excited by the action, it “freaked out” some staffers around him. The adviser told me that Trump expressed disgust on aesthetic grounds over how “low class” his supporters looked. “He doesn’t like low-class things,” the adviser said, explaining that Trump had a similar reaction over the summer to a video of Brad Parscale, his former campaign manager, shirtless and drinking a beer in his driveway during a mental-health emergency in which police tackled him and seized his weapons. “He kept mentioning, ‘Oh, did you see him in his beer shirt?’ He was annoyed. To him, it’s just low class, in other words.”
The adviser said that Trump recently offered them a pardon, although they have not been charged with any crime. The adviser “politely declined.” Others are taking Trump’s pardon offers more seriously, whether they’ve been investigated or are at risk of jail time or not. “He’s just talking up a storm about giving pardons to allies: his kids, and their significant others, and staffers. He’s pretty generous with the offers. When you’re offered one, it’s like, Should I take it? Is it like insurance?”
One person close to Trump’s legal team told me that the lawyers have struggled to get his attention. “He’s sort of turning on everybody. The president is so visceral, he just can’t hear people unless he can respect them. And he thinks everybody’s a traitor, even the people who got him through impeachment. It’s just nuts.”
Futile open rebellion goes back to the Confederacy. Trump will also lose, but will also keep fighting.
By Neil Steinberg
Trump flags and Confederate flags are often seen side-by-side, which is fitting, since both represent futile rebellions by weaker parts of the country against dominant American principles and government. Getty
The South was never going to win the Civil War.
If you consider the resources of the North, the moment the first Confederate cannon fired on Fort Sumter, the South’s doom was sealed. A week later, the Chicago Tribune ran a prescient editorial explaining why.
“It is a military maxim of modern war that the longest purse wins,” it begins, outlining the North’s advantages in manpower, manufacturing, maritime strength and, most of all, money. “The little State of Massachusetts can raise more money than the Jeff Davis Confederacy.”
The conclusion may have been foregone, but it took four years and 620,000 American lives to play out.
It’s still unfolding. The Confederacy lost the war, but never gave up the fight — its baked-in bigotry, the proud ignorance required to consider another human being your property, marches on, from then to now. Manifesting itself plainly in the Trump era, his entire political philosophy being the slaveholder mentality decked out in new clothes, trying to pass in the 21st century. They even wave the same rebel flag. Kind of a giveaway, really.
The Lost Cause marches on, as we will see Wednesday, when Congress faces another ego-stoked rebellion: Donald Trump’s insistence that his clearly losing the 2020 presidential election in the chill world of fact can be set aside, since he won the race in the steamy delta swampland between his ears.
No way. Not as long as there are Americans, like the Chicagoans rushing to sign up to fight in April 1861, who are true patriots and willing to stand up for democracy.
Urged on by the president, Trump supporters have been showing up to protest in Washington, D.C. ever since the November election. This group with a Confederate battle flag were there in December. Trump has called for his backers to rally near the White House on Wednesday, the day Congress meets to count the Electoral College votes that gave the win to President-elect Joe Biden. Getty
While trying to thwart the will of the people, the president has, for the past two months, ignored a lethal pandemic raging across the country — one whose toll over two years may match the Civil War’s over four. Aided by Republican politicians in open rebellion to the Constitution and the laws of this country. And millions of Americans who support him because, like the slave-holding South, they have made a fundamental error in judgment. They believe their own self-aggrandizing delusions, convinced their opponents will collapse at a touch.
Almost exactly 160 years ago, the smaller, weaker South thought it could impose its will on the whole country by military force. During the past four years Trump, who received 10 million fewer votes than his opponents in two presidential elections, served not America, but only his fanatical base. Never forget the Trump administration initially tried to shrug off COVID as a blue state problem.
The South expected the Northern population to rebel with them, against their own government. Like today, their warped worldview was stoked by the media.
“This preposterous idea has been instilled into their noddles from reading such satanic and tory sheets as the New York Herald and Chicago Times,” the Trib editorialized, “which they were led to suppose reflected Democratic opinion in the Free States.”
(The copperhead Chicago Times, I hasten to point out, is no relation to the paper you’re reading now. It folded in 1901. Our forefather, the Chicago Daily Times, began in 1929.)
The South figured out how, in losing, to win, after a fashion. They waited out the federal troops of Reconstruction, then returned to slavery, barely altered and under a new name, keeping Blacks down in economic and legal bondage. For 100 years. First slaves couldn’t vote. Then Blacks in the South were kept from voting. And today the president tries to bat Black votes away, if not for him.
The fight continues. In the spring of 1861, the Tribune called the Southern secession “the most senseless and causeless rebellion of all history.” Until now. We may have surpassed it with Trump’s frantic tearing at our democracy, supported by a cast of cowards and traitors, hailed by the eternally duped. And for what? Lower taxes? A wall? Their fetus friends? An embassy in Jerusalem? I will never understand it.
No matter. They’re losers. They lost in 1865, lost in 2020. Evil always loses, eventually. Since they continue to fight, desperate to go back to the plantations of their dreams, they’ll continue to lose. Not every battle. But their war against the future is futile, doomed. Drowned out by the swelling ranks of diverse, accepting Americans, facing actual problems with courage and candor, dedicated to helping our nation become what she is destined to be.
Fact check: Denmark is among world’s happiest countries, but it’s not No. 1
The claim: Denmark is ranked the happiest country in the world; 33 hours work in a week, $20 minimum wages, free university, medical and child care
Every year ahead of the United Nations’ World Happiness Day, on March 20, a report is released that ranks 156 countries on their happiness based on income, life expectancy, freedom, social support, trust and generosity.
According to one social media post, Denmark has turned up at the top of list.
“Denmark is ranked as the happiest country in the world with 33 hours work in a week, $20 minimum wages, free universities and medical care, free child care and low level of Corruption,” reads a Dec. 30 Facebook post to the group Mysterious Facts which has since been deleted. The user who posted it did not have a way to be contacted.
Nordic countries ranked high in reports, but Denmark isn’t first now
This year, the Gallup 2020 World Happiness Report rated Finland as the world’s happiest country for the third year in a row, with Denmark in second and Switzerland third.
The report rates the countries based on different aspects of social environment, such as having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity and trust.
Considered risks are ill-health, discrimination, low income, unemployment, separation, divorce or widowhood and safety in the street. The “happiness costs of these risks are very large,” according to the report.
The meme provides no source of information or date; it is possible the first claim could have been true at the time the meme was created, as Denmark has been previously ranked first in World Happiness Reports.
A search of the text included in the post results in a blog post with an almost identical version of the claim from 2016, a year when Denmark was ranked first. Denmark also made the top of the list in 2012 and 2013.
Nordic countries, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, have appeared on the top 10 of the World Happiness Report since it started publishing its annual rankings in 2012. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Nordic countries occupied the top three spots.
The report found that Nordic citizens are exceptionally satisfied with their lives because of reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, well-functioning democracy and state institutions and small population.
Beyond overall happiness, the post makes claims — some true — about why Danes might be so happy.
While the post states an average workweek in Denmark is 33 hours, a full-time workweek in Denmark is typically 37 hours distributed over five days, according to the city of Copenhagen. It/ notes that workweeks can be longer for those in a managerial position or self-employed.
Staying extra hours is discouraged, and most employees leave the office around 4 p.m. to pick up their children and begin preparing for dinner, according to the official website of Denmark. In the last weeks of July, offices are shut down as Danes take time off to enjoy a short summer and every employee is legally entitled to five weeks of paid vacation per year.
Employees are also not allowed to work more than 48 hours per week on an average of a four month period due to the EU’s Working Time Directive, which was implemented in Denmark’s Working Enviornment Act in 2017.
The post states the nation’s minimum wage is $20 an hour. But Denmark lacks a federally mandated minimum wage, according to Investopedia. However, trade unions work to ensure that workers are paid a reasonable rate and try to keep the average minimum wage at $20 per hour. As of 2020, minimum wages in the country hover around $16.60 per hour, according to Check In Price.
Minimum-wage.org, says Denmark’s average minimum wage is $18 per hour and annual minimum wage is $44,252.00. A November 2020 article from Market Watch says wages in Scandinavia are among the highest in the world at $17.69 per hour.
Schooling is largely free, as the post claims. Higher education in Denmark is free for students from the European Union or European University Association and for students in exchange programs, according to the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science. Education is also free for students who have a permanent residence, a temporary residence with possibility of obtaining permanent residence or a resident permit.
It is also worth noting that every Danish student receives a rough estimate of $900 per month, the Washington Post reported.
In Denmark, the health care system is financed through an income tax of 8% and provides universal access to citizens and legal residents, USA TODAY reported. So while the post states medical care is free, it lacks the context that taxpayers do cover the cost.
The public child care system in Denmark is based on a partially free system, and some day care institutions have waiting lists. However, most guarantee a place for children from the age of 1, according to Work in Denmark. The child care facilities receive financial support from the state and the most payable out of pocket amount by parents is 30% of the cost. Child care is not free, as claimed.
The reason Denmark can afford to provide these services is because it has one of the highest tax rates in the world, with the average Dane paying a total of 45% in income taxes, according to BBC. In fact, most Scandinavian countries offer higher education, child and medical care, and parental leave due to their high levels of taxation. In 2018, Denmark’s tax-to-GDP ratio was 44.9%, Norway’s was 39% and Sweden’s 43.9%, which compares to a ratio of 24.3% in the U.S., according to the Tax Foundation.
The post is accurate in claiming that Denmark has low corruption. The 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Denmark as the least corrupt country in the world for the fifth year in a row due to its degree of press freedom, access to information, independent judicial systems and strong standards of integrity for public officials.
In 2018, New Zealand and Denmark were both ranked as the least corrupt, according to World Population Review, which notes that there is no exact way to measure corruption but many use the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International.
Our ruling: Partly False
The claim that Denmark is ranked the happiest country in the world due to its short workweeks, high minimum wage, and free university and health and child care is rated PARTLY FALSE, based on our research. Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world for the last three consecutive years, with Denmark holding a spot in the top three. Denmark also has 37-hour workweeks, not 33, and there is no minimum wage. Services of higher education, child and medical care and parental leave are available due to their high levels of taxation; they’re not offered for free.
Last-minute White House decision opens more Arctic land to oil leasing
The decision, which will open up more land in the western North Slope, is one of a number of pro-drilling actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days.
By Reuters January 5, 2021
Drilling operations in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Judy Patrick / AP file
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday that it has made final its plan to open up vast areas of once-protected Arctic Alaska territory to oil development.
The decision, which will open up more land in the western North Slope, is one of a number of pro-drilling actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days. It comes just before a scheduled auction of drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the eastern North Slope on Wednesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), a 23 million-acre (9.3 million-hectare) swath of land on the western North Slope. The plan, signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Dec. 21, allows lease sales to proceed under relaxed standards. The NPR-A is Alaska’s primary locale for the state’s daily oil production, which averaged 466,000 barrels per day in 2019, according to U.S. Energy Department data.
The plan allows oil development on about 80 percent of the reserve. Under Obama-era rules, about half of the reserve was available for leasing, with the other half protected for environmental and indigenous people reasons.
It is unclear whether making this acreage available will boost Alaskan oil production, which peaked more than 30 years ago at 2 million barrels per day. Legislation passed in 2017 opened up the ANWR, which borders Canada, for oil leases.
The Trump plan allows leasing in vast Teshekpuk Lake, the largest lake in Arctic Alaska and a haven for migrating birds and wildlife. Teshekpuk Lake has been off-limits to leasing since the Reagan administration.
“We are expanding access to our nation’s great energy potential and providing for economic opportunities and job creation for both Alaska Natives and our nation,” said Casey Hammond, principal deputy secretary for the Department of the Interior.
The NPR-A decision got a swift response from environmentalists, who have already sued to overturn the plan.
“This flawed management plan will create more conflict and a less-stable business environment for companies operating in the region,” David Krause, assistant Alaska director for The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
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