House panel chair: Last Jan. 6 report should be out before Christmas
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol says the body of the final report is nearly complete.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the committee’s report will not be completed before Congress is scheduled to leave for the month on Dec. 16, but that there is a “good possibility” it will be out before Christmas.
Interviews for the more than yearlong investigation wrapped up this week after the panel heard from Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos; Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to then-President Donald Trump; and Tony Ornato, the former Secret Service agent who served as White House deputy chief of staff.
The committee dissolves at the end of this year and is not expected to be reconstituted when Republicans take control of the House in January.
The report will be eight chapters long and the panel could release hundreds of depositions — namely those for which the committee didn’t promise privacy — along with other raw information, Thompson said. The committee collected more than 1,000 depositions and hundreds of thousands of other documents, including emails, text messages and cellphone records.
The committee hasn’t indicated whether text or video from the depositions will be made available, or whether it will make public the reams of footage collected during the investigation and used during the hearings.
The depositions and video could provide a wealth of information for the FBI’s investigations into the actions of Trump and the people around him on Jan. 6, 2021, and into the more than 1,000 additional rioters the agency has predicted it will charge. Despite requests for access, the committee refused to share information with the Justice Department while conducting its investigation.
Thompson said the final report will include topics that go beyond Trump’s role in the attack on the Capitol, including information that has not been previously made public.
Student loan debt: The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether the Biden administration can broadly cancel student loans, keeping the program blocked for now but signaling a final answer by early summer.
The justices set arguments for late February or early March over whether the program is legal.
President Joe Biden’s plan promises $10,000 in federal student debt forgiveness to those with incomes of less than $125,000, or households earning less than $250,000. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, are eligible for an additional $10,000 in relief.
Over 26 million people already applied for the relief, with 16 million approved, but the Education Department stopped processing applications last month after a federal judge in Texas struck down the plan.
The Texas case is one of two in which federal judges have forbidden the administration from implementing the loan cancellations.
A watchdog investigation initiated after the tax returns of former FBI directors James Comey and Andrew McCabe were subjected to intensive audits during the
FBI heads’ tax audits:
Trump administration has concluded that the reviews from those years were conducted at random.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Thursday that its review had determined that the Internal Revenue Service had selected tax returns at random for its National Research Program audits in 2017 and 2019.
The watchdog said in its report that it had “confirmed that the processes and computer programs worked as designed, which reduces the ability to select specific taxpayers for an NRP audit.”
The inspector general review was begun after a New York Times report in July that Comey’s 2017 tax return was subjected to an audit under the NRP program, as was the 2019 return of McCabe, a former FBI acting director.
Outbreak in China: More Chinese cities eased anti-virus restrictions and police patrolled their streets Thursday as the government tried to defuse public anger over some of the world’s most stringent COVID-19 measures.
Guangzhou, Shijiazhuang, Chengdu and other major cities said they were easing testing requirements and controls on movement. In some areas, markets and bus service returned.
A newspaper reported Beijing has begun allowing some people with the virus to isolate at home.
The government didn’t immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
On Thursday, the government reported 36,061 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, including 31,911 without symptoms.
House Democrats: Wrapping up leadership elections, House Democrats unanimously chose Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina for a new role Thursday, as the party whip relinquishes his current job and a younger generation of Democratic leaders takes charge in the new year.
The vote for Clyburn who is the highest-ranking Black American in Congress and close to President Joe Biden, averted a potentially divisive internal party struggle after what had been a largely drama-free transition in the aftermath of the midterm elections. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team are stepping aside after decades at the helm.
Ahead of voting, Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who is openly gay, withdrew his challenge to Clyburn. Cicilline won assurances from the Democratic leaders that LGBTQ voices would be represented at the leadership table.
Clyburn, a civil rights leader, said he plans to continue his work advocating “for the South, and for communities that have been left out of economic progress of previous generations.”
Package bombs: Police in Spain detonated a suspicious parcel discovered at the U.S.
Embassy in Madrid, Spanish officials said Thursday, a day after a similar package sent to the Ukrainian Embassy ignited upon opening and injured an employee.
Spain’s police said the detonated parcel “contained substances similar to those used in pyrotechnics.”
The action followed police reporting that multiple explosive parcels were sent in Spain over the past two days. Police said they were delivered to Spain’s Defense Ministry, a European Union satellite center located at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base outside Madrid and to an arms factory in northeastern Spain that makes grenades sent to Ukraine.
Authorities said a bomb squad also destroyed an explosive device that was dispatched by regular post to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Nov. 24.
Spanish authorities have yet to determine who was responsible for the letters or link them to the war in Ukraine.