-An Oath Keeper misquoting Monty Python before taking part in a seditious conspiracy

A day after winning access to the mountain of White House records that Donald Trump tried to conceal, the House January 6 committee escalated its investigation of his inner circle with its first voluntary request of a Trump family member.
 

• The January 6 committee requested voluntary testimony from Ivanka Trump on Thursday, citing its interest in Ivanka’s knowledge of her father’s plan to impede the electoral-vote certification, his inaction during the attack on the Capitol, and what he was up to in the days that followed. The letter included evidence that Ivanka witnessed a phone call between him and then-Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of the 6th, that she was viewed as a last resort for persuading daddy to call off the rioters, and that Fox News Sean Hannity acted as volunteer communications director in the aftermath. 
   
• Ivanka does not seem psyched to cooperate, for whatever reason! A spokesman with poor reading comprehension said in a statement that Ivanka had “just learned” about the letter, irrelevantly continuing, “As the committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the Jan. 6 rally. As she publicly stated that day at 3:15 p.m., ‘Any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.’” (#TBT: That tweet, which Ivanka swiftly deleted, also called the rioters “American Patriots.”)
   
• Unfortunately for Trump, not every witness is his loyal spawn. Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham reportedly told the panel that Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in the days leading up to January 6, which does not, on the face of it, sound great. Grisham also told investigators that the documents they’ve just obtained from the National Archives might resolve the question of whether Trump had actually planned to march to the Capitol with his supporters.

House investigators aren’t the only ones ramping up a probe into Trump’s involvement in the coup attempt.
 

• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested a special grand jury to help her compel witnesses (like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger) to testify in her investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results. Trump insisted in a Thursday statement that “My phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia was perfect, perhaps even more so than my call with the Ukrainian President, if that’s possible,” before launching into more vote-fraud lies. 
   
• Meanwhile, CNN reported Thursday that Trump campaign officials, led by recently subpoenaed 9/11 t-shirt salesman Rudy Giuliani, actively coordinated efforts to put forward alternate electors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Mexico. That included circulating drafts of the forged certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives. One fake elector was savvy enough to brag about it at a public event last week: “We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that," said Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

It’s uncanny how the more evidence investigators gather about the post-election effort to keep Donald Trump in power and the violent mob chanting “we want Trump,” the more it all seems to point back to Trump himself! After failing to pass election protections that would have complicated his next attempt, Democrats can’t afford to be quiet about it. 

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The Treasury Department has sanctioned four Ukrainian officials, including two current members of parliament, accusing Russia of recruiting them to help create the pretext for an invasion. All four officials were working closely with Russian intelligence to destabilize Ukraine, according to the Biden administration. Meanwhile, President Biden and other top officials sought to clarify his Wednesday remark suggesting that a “minor incursion” into Ukraine wouldn’t trigger a full-scale U.S. response, which troubled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (And triggered a wave of very sincere criticism from Republicans suddenly scandalized by the thought of a U.S. president being weak on Russia.) “I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin,” Biden told reporters on Thursday. “He has no misunderstanding: any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”

• After all 50 Senate Republicans blocked voting-rights legislation on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell defended racist GOP voter-suppression laws with his own racist flourish: “African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” 
   
• Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) had a favorability rating among Arizona Democrats of eight (8) percent before she voted against reforming the filibuster to pass Democrats’ voting-rights package.
   
• Trump-backed Georgia gubernatorial candidate David Perdue has called for a state-election police unit, inspired by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
   
• A U.S. Special Operations unit bombed a Syrian dam on a no-strike list in 2017, risking the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.
   
• New Mexico has asked National Guard members to volunteer as substitute teachers, after running out of actual teachers that don’t have COVID. 
   
• Attorney General Maura Healey (D-MA) announced she’s running for Massachusetts governor.
   
• Uline founder and billionaire GOP donor Dick Uihlein dumped millions of dollars into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and far-right hate groups, according to new tax disclosures.
   
• A state-sponsored Christian adoption agency in Tennessee refused to help a couple because they’re Jewish. Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram have sued to challenge a new state law that allows religious adoption agencies to turn away families with different beliefs, which evidently does not stop at gay couples.
   
• The CIA has found that most cases of “Havana syndrome,” whatever it is, were not caused by a foreign power. About two-dozen cases remain unexplained, but the majority of cases could plausibly be chalked up to pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors, or stress, according to an initial investigation.
   
• Mars Wrigley has redesigned the lady M&Ms to be less sexy, which means we have about 45 seconds until Tucker Carlson blames the cancellation of sexy fictional candy ladies on Joe Biden.

Now that the voting-rights effort has officially bitten the dust, Democrats can turn their attention back to the other key chunk of the Biden agenda that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) doesn’t feel like passing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that she agreed with President Biden’s assessment that the Build Back Better Act will need to be scaled back, and possibly renamed (do whatever it takes Nancy), but pushed back on the idea of breaking it up into multiple bills that Republicans would be able to filibuster. The Biden administration (and a growing number of Democrats) hope to salvage the climate portion of the bill, which Manchin has made positive noises about since last month, and either slim down or cut the child tax credit extension and paid family leave proposals that he (cruelly, indefensibly) opposes. Manchin, for his part, doesn’t want to do anything until inflation goes down, and only then to start from scratch. Should be another fun year!

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The FDA could authorize the Pfizer vaccine for kids under age five within the next month, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dropped her opposition to a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, after Democrats rallied around the idea. 

The Decolonizing Wealth Project will distribute more than $1 million in grants to 16 Indigenous-led organizations responding to the climate crisis. 

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has removed a disturbing statue of Teddy Roosevelt that had been outside the entrance since 1940.