Jan 6 Select Committee

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation of the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and the events leading up to the U.S. Capitol insurrection is raising questions about former President Donald Trump’s role and whether he committed crimes.

The various schemes and talking points that witnesses have revealed also highlight what a president has the authority to do.

Government and legal experts say the bigger question is: Can further limits be put on presidential authority to make sure there are no repeats of 2020 in future administrations?

WHAT LAWS FORM THE BASIS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL POWERS IN QUESTION?

There are two primary ones: the Insurrection Act, first enacted in 1792, and the National Emergencies Act of 1976.

The Insurrection Act is a long-standing presidential power that gives the president wide latitude to use military forces to stop a rebellion or domestic violence. Military forces are normally barred by the Posse Comit­atus Act from joining in civilian law enforce­ment actions.

Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the insurrection “in my opinion” could have been the catalyst for the president to invoke the act and bring in the military to escort congressional lawmakers out of the proceedings for their safety. “That doesn’t mean Donald Trump would have been the president, but it would have thrown a wrench in the works," she said.

Under the NEA, dozens of statutory authorities become available to any president when national emergencies are declared. They include everything from severe weather responses to civil disorder. Congress can vote to terminate the declaration, but if the president vetoes, a two-thirds supermajority is required to overcome the veto.

“The statute itself doesn't say what an emergency is. It leaves it up to the president,” said Chris Edelson, assistant professor of government at American University. “That means an unscrupulous president can use it" for ill purposes. It is up to Congress to rein in the president, he said.

WHAT ISSUES WERE RAISED AT THE LAST HEARING?

In the most recent hearing, former White House counsel Pat Cipillone discussed a rancorous meeting in which Trump's outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize the states’ voting machines. In his testimony Cipollone said the plan was a terrible idea. It had been floated before.

“You can't preemptively seize voting machines. If there was a reason to do so, you need a court order,” Edelson said.

At the same meeting, there were a range of theories pushed, including invoking martial law. It was an idea Trump adviser Michael Flynn had floated before, along with seizing the voting machines.

WHAT ABOUT MARTIAL LAW?

Under the Insurrection Act the president can call on the military in certain circumstances, but they are intended to support civilian law enforcement. One example was the use of the military during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Under martial law the military takes over the function of the civilian government.

Martial law, said Goitein, “gives me nightmares" because the law is unsettled. “The whole concept of martial law, there's not even an agreed upon definition of what it is," she said.

ARE THERE GUARDRAILS TO PREVENT FUTURE PRESIDENTS FROM ABUSING POWER?

The House passed the Protecting Our Democracy bill last year and sent it to the Senate. The legislation would prevent presidents from pardoning themselves, strengthen reporting requirements for campaigns, and clarify and enhance criminal penalties for campaigns that accept foreign information sought or obtained for political advantage.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents deleted text messages sent and received around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol even after an inspector general requested them as part of an investigation into the insurrection, the government watchdog has found.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, said the messages between Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, were erased “as part of a device-replacement program.” The erasure came after the watchdog office requested records of electronic communications between the agents as part of its probe into events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack, the letter said.

Additionally, Homeland Security personnel were told they couldn't provide records to the inspector general and any such records would first have to be reviewed by DHS attorneys.

“This review led to a weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced,” states the letter, which was dated Wednesday and sent to leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi objected to the letter Thursday night, saying: “The insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request is false. In fact, the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the OIG in every respect — whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts.”

He said the Secret Service had started to reset its mobile devices to factory settings in January 2021 “as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration.” In that process, some data was lost.

The inspector general has first requested the electronic communications on Feb. 26, “after the migration was well under way,” Guglielmi said.

“The Secret Service notified DHS OIG of the loss of certain phones’ data, but confirmed to OIG that none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration,” he said.

The allegation that officials at the inspector general’s office were not given timely access to the material because of a review by Homeland Security attorneys had been raised by the inspector general before and is also not true, he said.

“DHS has repeatedly and publicly debunked this allegation, including in response to OIG’s last two semi-annual reports to Congress,” Guglielmi added.

The agency said it provided a substantial number of emails and chat messages that included conversations and details related to Jan. 6 to the inspector general and said text messages from the Capitol Police requesting assistance on Jan. 6 were preserved and provided to the inspector general’s office.

The erasure of the messages is sure to raise new questions for the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack, which has taken a renewed interest in the Secret Service following the dramatic testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson about former President Donald Trump's actions the day of the insurrection.

Hutchinson recalled being told about a confrontation between Trump and his Secret Service detail as he angrily demanded to be driven to the Capitol, where his supporters would later breach the building. She also recalled overhearing Trump telling security officials to remove magnetometers for his rally on the Ellipse even though some of his supporters were armed.

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