October 03, 2022

Day 622: "By whatever means necessary."

4 minutes

1/ The National Archives told the House Oversight Committee that it hasn’t recovered all the presidential records from Trump administration officials that should have been transferred under the Presidential Records Act. The Archives will consult with the Justice Department “on whether ‘to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed,’ as established under the Federal Records Act,” acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall said in a letter to Carolyn Maloney, the committee’s chairwoman. Wall added that the archives was working to retrieve electronic messages from certain unnamed White House officials who had used personal email and messaging accounts to conduct official business. (Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

A majority of House Republicans last year voted to challenge the Electoral College and upend the presidential election. “On the day the Capitol was attacked, 139 Republicans in the House voted to dispute the Electoral College count.” (New York Times)

2/ Five members of the Oath Keepers militia planned an “armed rebellion” to keep Trump in power “by whatever means necessary,” the Justice Department said during its opening statements in the first seditious conspiracy trial to stem from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Using text messages, video, and recorded calls, federal prosecutors said the group intended to “take matters into their own hands” to overturn the results of the 2020 election and “concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy.” Prosecutors played a recording of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes saying that his group “should have brought rifles” to the Capitol. The charge of seditious conspiracy calls for up to 20 years in prison. (Politico / Associated Press / Washington Post / Bloomberg / New York Times / NPR / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / USA Today)