New York lawmaker makes formal request to dismiss Giuliani
New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat and chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, formally requested that Rudy Giuliani’s legal license be revoked “for his participation and role in fomenting a violent insurrectionary attack,” according to a letter sent to the court on Monday and shared with NBC News.
The letter, sent to the complaints committee of the State Supreme Court’s Appeals Division First Judicial Department, said the attack on the Capitol “was the predictable culmination of increasingly outrageous lies and misinformation propagated by Giuliani and many of his associates” and urging the grievance committee to dismiss the president’s personal lawyer.
The letter was sent after the New York State Bar Association announced on Monday that it was initiating an investigation into the possibility of removing Giuliani, a personal lawyer for President Donald Trump and former mayor of New York, from his ranks.
The removal of a voluntary state bar of lawyers, prior to exclusion by the courts, is extremely rare.
“We believe that the last time we removed a member who had not been expelled was in 1904,” said Susan DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the association with NBC News. “We have our current statute that establishes the process of removing a member since the 1970s and we have never used them to remove a lawyer who has not yet been removed.”
Chad Wolf, acting secretary of homeland security, resigns
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Monday became the last Cabinet officer to step down after last week’s deadly riot at the United States Capitol.
“Unfortunately, this action is justified by recent events, including ongoing judicial decisions and without merit about the validity of my authority as acting secretary,” Wolf in a letter to the team obtained by NBC News. “These events and concerns increasingly serve to divert attention and resources from the Department’s important work at this critical time in the transition of power.”
Wolf said his resignation will take effect at midnight. Pete Gaynor, the FEMA administrator, will take over as acting secretary.
The crowd attack in Washington while Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer. His announcement follows the resignations of other Cabinet officials, including transport secretary Elaine Chao and education secretary Betsy DeVos, who cited President Donald Trump’s role in inciting protesters. Wolf did not specifically cite the disturbances in his explanation for the exit, but issued a strong statement on Thursday condemning the protesters.
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Republican group executive AG resigns after automatic calls for a Capitol march
The executive director of the Association of Republican Attorneys General resigned due to automatic calls that an arm of the group made to encourage people to march to the United States Capitol the day before the building was invaded by a pro-Trump crowd.
“At 1 pm, we will march to the Capitol building and ask Congress to stop the theft,” said the voice on the tape, obtained by NBC News.
The voluntary resignation of Adam Piper, who was also executive director of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, RAGA’s fundraising arm, was accepted on Monday, the group said.
Piper stepped down after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, the group’s president of policy, said the calls were sent without his knowledge.
In a statement on Monday, Marshall said, “Every decision that Adam made on behalf of the RLDF was with the best of intentions and the best interests of the organization in mind.”
Piper said in a statement released by the organization: “Serving Republican attorney generals was the honor of a lifetime and, honestly, a dream job.”
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Facebook prohibits all “stop stealing” content
Facebook said on Monday that it will begin removing any content that contains the phrase “stop stealing” from its platforms, an expansion of its efforts to limit the spread of electoral misinformation.
The announcement comes two months after the company removed the original group with the same name that fueled voter fraudulent misinformation after the election.
The move is part of the company’s efforts to protect itself from violence and misinformation in preparation for US presidential inauguration after last week’s events on Capitol Hill, Guy Rosen, vice president of integrity, and Monika Bickert, vice president of management of global policies, wrote in a company blog post.
“We started preparing for Induction Day last year. But our planning took on a new urgency after last week’s violence in Washington, DC, and we are treating the next two weeks as a major civic event, ”they wrote.
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Following the violence at Capitol, Trump brand partners are setting aside toxic assets: the president
From country clubs to entertainment programs, President Donald Trump’s business empire may face severe pressure after his involvement in last week’s Capitol violence.
On Monday, the New York Mayor’s office told NBC News that it was considering its legal options to end deals with Trump Organization properties, which include the Wollman skating rink in Central Park, the famous carousel and the golf course. Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx.
“The attacks on our capital killed a policeman, left four protesters dead, exposed lawmakers to Covid-19 and threatened the constitutional transfer of power,” Laura Feyer, assistant press secretary to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, told NBC News in an email statement. “They were a national abomination. We are looking into whether there are legal bases in light of these new circumstances to end concessions with the Trump Organization.”
Other lucrative deals like this could be at risk if partners follow the example of PGA of America, which on Sunday withdrew the 2022 PGA Championship tournament from the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
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Wisconsin Republicans want battered districts to decide poll results
In the wake of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, a Wisconsin Republican is proposing to change the way the state allocates voters in the presidential race.
Deputy Gary Tauchen began circulating the bill among colleagues on January 5, the day before the rioters invaded the Capitol to challenge the results of the 2020 race, his office said.
If the proposed bill, which Tauchen tried unsuccessfully to pass in 2007, becomes law, one voter would be allocated to each constituency that a candidate won, with two additional voters allocated to the winner across the state.
Wisconsin currently allocates polling station votes based on results across the state; in 2020, Biden won in Wisconsin, securing 10 votes at the electoral college. Forty-eight states allocate the votes of the electoral college based on the popular vote; only Maine and Nebraska use the results of the constituency in their allocation.
It would undoubtedly benefit the Republicans, who messed up the state’s electoral district maps in their favor; Republicans are also more spread out across rural parts of the state, while Democrats are more concentrated in urban areas.
“Given Wisconsin’s countless political views and progressive history, this alternative distribution system would better reflect Wisconsin’s diverse political landscape,” said Tauchen in a memo seeking co-sponsorship.
First Congressional chaplain condemns “deeply disturbing” turmoil in opening prayer
Democrats struggle to figure out how to impeach Trump without disrupting Biden’s agenda
House Democrats are determined to impeach President Donald Trump in his final days for inciting a deadly riot on the U.S. Capitol. But some fear that forcing a Senate trial at the time Joe Biden is taking office could hurt the president-elect’s administration.
Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House’s third Democrat, suggested an exit at the weekend, telling CNN that the House could accuse Trump and wait 100 days to transmit the articles to the Senate to give Biden the time to “get your schedule up and running.”
But others strongly resisted this. A Democratic lawmaker, who asked to speak anonymously to offer a frank assessment of Clyburn’s idea, said that a postponement would be a “terrible idea”.
The internal debate highlights the tension between two immediate Democratic priorities: punishing Trump for his role in inciting the crowd and giving Biden a Congress on the first day that can confirm his nominees and act quickly on his priority for an economic relief package.
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Sheryl Sandberg says Facebook has no plans to lift Trump’s ban
Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said on Monday that the company “has no plans” to lift President Donald Trump’s indefinite ban.
Sandberg, who gave an interview at a Reuters event, said he supported the ban.
“Right now, the risk to our democracy was so great that we felt we had to take an unprecedented step in what is an indefinite ban, and I’m happy about that,” she said.
Sandberg also said that the events leading up to the riot were largely organized on other platforms. The NBC News report found warning signs on Facebook and Instagram related to the Capitol crowd on Wednesday.
