January 6 committee news: Trump cancels speech as Sean Hannity’s texts revealed

Donald Trump has canceled his press conference to commemorate the 6 January Capitol riot, which the former president planned to hold at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Mr Trump’s change of plans comes after the special congressional committee investigating the insurrection released a series of texts from Fox News host Sean Hannity, who texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows his concerns over the violence at the Capitol and raised doubts on Mr Trump’s election fraud claims.

In one text message sent on 5 January 2021, Mr Hannity wrote that he was “very worried” about the next 48 hours. In another, sent a few days earlier, he wrote: “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.”

Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) said on Tuesday that the attacks on the US Capitol were an “attempted overthrow of American democracy.”

Warning against the “continued threat” to the country, he said: “A year ago, there was an attempted overthrow of American democracy right here in this building. We came perilously close to losing everything that night. Police officers were maimed and killed. Custodial workers and Senate staffers were hiding, with zero protection.”

He added: “One year later, and I’m even more worried now.”Mr Schatz continued: “If we take a moment and we realise what’s at stake, we will realise what is required… It will require citizens to understand that democracy in this country is not what we have, it is what we do, and it is never, ever guaranteed.”

The senator emphasised that “authoritarians rarely give up. And we know that they aren’t doing their preparation for the next coup in hiding. They are doing it all in plain sight and they must be stopped.”

House Republicans are preparing their own report on the events of 6 January to counter the House select committee’s report, Axios reported.

Republican representative from Indiana, Jim Banks, is allegedly preparing the report.

Sources quoted by Axios said that Mr Banks will share a “separate investigation from House Republicans” and will also circulate a memo describing Nancy Pelosi’s committee as “illegitimate.”

Mr Banks is also supposed to tell House Republicans that GOP leadership staff have been “conducting their own interviews with Capitol Police, their union and other officials to focus on the security failures that allowed the Capitol breach.”

He has told other Republicans that they “will produce their own report documenting failures of preparation, activation on intelligence and inadequate equipment for Capitol Police.”

A report by Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab revealed that a year after the 6 January riots, “domestic extremist movements have evolved and adapted their strategies, infrastructure, and messaging.”

The report found that “despite an initial decline, domestic extremist groups have evolved and resurfaced, encouraging local action while recruiting and spreading their messages through culture-war debates including vaccines, race and education.”

Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab — and the author of the new report titled “After the Insurrection” — says that “the domestic extremist landscape was battered by Jan. 6. But extremism is dynamic and fluid. It is always trying to adapt to fit the container that it’s in.”

The report notes that “domestic extremist threats include groups and individuals whose racial, ethnic, or religious hatred leads them toward violence” and those who incite “imminent violence in opposition to legislative, regulatory, or other actions taken by the government,” including self-proclaimed militias, “sovereign citizen” movements, and others promoting fringe ideological grievances.

Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the select committee investigating the 6 January riots said that the committee wants to hear from former vice president, Mike Pence, directly.

In an interview with CNN, Mr Thompson said: “I would hope that he would do the right thing and come forward and voluntarily talk to the committee.”

However, he added that the committee has not officially asked Mr Pence to speak with them but added “if he offered, we’d gladly accept. Everything is under consideration.”

“I think it’s important that the public needs to know this was the no. 2 person in government. And for our President, at that time, to take 187 minutes to say the rioters you need to stop and go home because my vice president is in the building and his life is in danger is an absolute shame,” Mr Thompson added.

After Donald Trump cancelled a press conference he was scheduled to address on the anniversary of the Capitol Hill riots, he said that he is expecting a “big crowd” on his next appearance on 15 January in Arizona.

In a statement, Mr Trump said: “In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am cancelling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona—It will be a big crowd!”

He continued: “What has become more and more obvious to ALL is that the LameStream Media will not report the facts that Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Sergeant-at-Arms denied requests for DC National Guard or Military to be present at the Capitol. Their emails and correspondence with the Department of Defense exist, but the media won’t ask for this evidence, or report the truth!”

Several Republican leaders said that the cancellation of the press conference by Trump was not a good idea.

Among the more than 700 people arrested in connection with the Capitol insurrection, a few names and faces stand out. The Independent’s Andrew Naughtie catches up with their cases:

The January 6 riot was an assault on democracy, meant to undermine the democratic process.

But Capitol Hill is also an office where 435 members of Congress, together with five non-voting delegates, 100 Senators and thousands of staffers that range from seasoned professionals to earnest recent college graduates and interns, show up to go to work.

The Independent’s Eric Garcia on how the attack broke the House:

Over the course of the attack and its aftermath, a few viral images became seared in the national memory.

Many of the people who fought to defend the Capitol on 6 January or laboured late into the night to allow Congress to complete…