Live updates: McConnell blames Trump for having ‘provoked’ mob; Senate holding five confirmation hearings

In 2018, after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, then a right-wing online commentator, spread the noxious conspiracy theory that the massacre was a “false flag” event intended to take away people’s guns.

The comments, unearthed by Media Matters, are the latest in a long history of Greene repeating toxic, untrue claims by far-right extremists on social media.

After the Parkland shooting, which killed 17 people, Greene shared a story on Facebook about former Broward County sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson — who was fired over his response to the shooting — receiving a retirement pension. In the comments, someone wrote, “It’s called a pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting.” Greene replied: “Exactly.”

Media Matters also uncovered separate comments from 2018 in which Greene lied that Democrats, specifically House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), rooted for school shootings to justify stricter gun laws.

“This war on our second amendment is going to continue and must be fought. I am told that Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that ‘we need another school shooting’ in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control,” Greene said.

Greene, elected in November, has also trafficked in the QAnon conspiracy theory, as well as other lies popular among the far right.

Greene’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Media Matters report.

Georgia election officials on Tuesday certified the victories of two Democrats who won in the state’s hard-fought U.S. Senate runoff elections earlier this month, paving the way for them to take office as early as Wednesday.

Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock narrowly defeated Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Jan. 5. runoffs, a stunning and unexpected boon for President-elect Joe Biden.

Shortly before certification Tuesday, election officials in Fulton County grappled with discrepancies between the unofficial vote totals reported and the final tallies. In the end, those discrepancies gave Perdue and Loeffler a few hundred additional votes — not enough to alter the outcome.

Ossoff and Warnock are expected to be sworn in Wednesday by newly inaugurated Vice President Kamala D. Harris in one of her first acts in presiding over the Senate, according to an individual with direct knowledge of the plan.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who will soon be the Senate majority leader, vowed Tuesday to press forward with an impeachment of Trump after he leaves office with the aim of barring him from seeking the presidency again.

During remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer said that Trump had invited his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 and directed them to go to the U.S. Capitol and that “his demagoguery whipped them into a frenzy.”

“We need to set a precedent that the severest offense ever committed by a president will be met by the severest remedy provided by the Constitution: impeachment and conviction by this chamber as well as disbarment from future office,” Schumer said.

The House has yet to transmit its impeachment article, and Schumer did not speak to the timing of the trial. But he made clear that one will proceed.

“President Trump is a threat to our constitutional order, whether he is in or out of office,” the minority leader said. “Even now, he has not accepted responsibility for what he has done. … Once he leaves office, do we really expect him to change his tune and accept the truth? Of course not.”

Schumer also urged his colleagues to quickly confirm Biden’s nominees and move on a comprehensive coronavirus relief package.

He said he looks forward to the “peaceful passing of the torch” Wednesday.

“Tomorrow the country will turn the page on the most chaotic and divisive presidency that can ever be remembered,” Schumer said.

The incoming Biden administration will tap Monty Wilkinson, a Justice Department human resources official, to lead the department on an acting basis before Merrick Garland’s confirmation, as officials zero in on other temporary leaders, people familiar with the matter said.

The pick reflects the administration’s desire to install an apolitical stopgap while its slate of Justice Department nominees are confirmed. The Biden administration also plans to install John Carlin, the former head of the Justice Department’s national security division, as the principal associate deputy attorney general — a key top management post advising the No. 2 official, the people said.

And it plans to install Matt Klapper, who most recently served as the chief of staff for Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), as Garland’s chief of staff, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations.

Wilkinson’s selection was first reported by the New York Times.

My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell — an avid Trump backer who has repeatedly pressed debunked claims the 2020 election was rigged — said Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair and other retailers are dropping his products.

The moves, which Lindell referenced during a weekend interview, come as corporate America is rethinking its political affiliations following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters attempting to block Congress from confirming Biden’s victory in the presidential contest. Dozens of Republican lawmakers who subsequently voted against certification have lost the support of many of their largest corporate backers.

“I just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond. They’re dropping My Pillow. Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places,” Lindell told Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative YouTube channel. “These guys, they’re scared, like a Bed Bath & Beyond, they’re scared. They were good partners. In fact, I told them, ‘You guys come back anytime you want.’ ”

Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair and Kohl’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Neither did My Pillow. Lindell, a major Republican donor, has been promoting baseless election fraud claims on right-wing media for months and now faces litigation from Dominion Voting Systems, whose lawyers accused him of mounting a “smear campaign” against the election technology company.

Last week, parts of Lindell’s notes were photographed by The Washington Post ahead of his White House meeting with Trump that captured such phrases as “election issues” and “martial law if necessary.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday pointedly blamed Trump for having “provoked” the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell noted that the Senate was meeting for the first time since that day, when Congress ultimately finished counting the electoral votes that cemented Biden’s victory.

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on, we stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), among the lawmakers who led the challenge of electoral votes in states Biden won, was presiding as McConnell spoke.

Speaking at a rally Jan. 6, Trump, who has refused to acknowledge his election loss, had implored a crowd to head to the Capitol shortly before security there was breached and the chambers were taken over.

During his remarks Tuesday, McConnell said Biden enters office without “a mandate for sweeping ideological change,” calling him “a presidential candidate who said he’d represent everyone.”

McConnell, soon to be the chamber’s minority leader, said Republicans will pursue bipartisan agreements where they can.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said at Mayorkas’s hearing that the United States is “woefully unprepared, from a cybersecurity standpoint,” and that he hoped Mayorkas would bring a “whole different level of expertise” to confront “those who would attack us in this new and most powerful way.”

The Department of Homeland Security says on its website that “sophisticated cyber actors and nation-states” are exploiting weaknesses in the nation’s systems “to steal information and money” and disrupt essential services.

Mayorkas said cybersecurity was a priority when he was the No. 2 to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson during the Obama administration.

“The threat has only evolved and only grown since then,” Mayorkas said. “I can assure you that the cybersecurity of our nation will be one of my highest priorities because I concur with you that the threat is real and the threat is every day, and we have to do a much better job than we are doing now.”

Blinken, among the several national security nominees shoehorned into the Tuesday hearings, is unlikely to be confirmed as secretary of state until next week, amid partisan legislative battles and competing Senate priorities, including Trump’s impeachment trial.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the panel would probably vote on Blinken’s nomination Monday, with the timing of a floor vote up to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Schumer is expected to take over as leader of a 50-to-50 Senate as soon as Wednesday afternoon, with a tie-breaking vote from Kamala D. Harris following her swearing-in as vice president.

Asked whether the floor vote would come before the impeachment trial, scheduled to begin Monday, Menendez told reporters, “I don’t know the answer.”

Biden has asked that the Senate divide its time between confirming his nominations and Trump’s trial.

Blinken is one of several nominees facing final confirmation delays for various reasons. Mayorkas, the homeland security nominee, faces questions on his role as the department’s deputy secretary under the Obama administration. Before confirming Austin as defense secretary, the Senate must agree to waive restrictions on recently retired military officers taking over as the department’s top civilian.

Senate Republicans have insisted Blinken answer written questions the committee has 24 hours to submit after the close of Tuesday’s hearing. He and the State Department then have 48 hours to respond, pushing a committee vote to the beginning of next week. Although he is likely to face grilling over his role in some of the more controversial policies of the Obama administration, in which he served as then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser and as deputy secretary of state, Blinken faces no substantive objections.

Asked whether he thought the U.S.-Mexico border needed more barriers, Mayorkas told senators border enforcement is “not a monolithic challenge,” quoting the late Sen. John McCain, who he called “an American hero.”

“The border is varied,” he said, and enforcement should be determined by “geography, the venue and conduct of individuals around it.”

At his confirmation hearing for secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas was pressed repeatedly by GOP senators whether he believed asylum seekers who cross the border should have their cases considered on the basis of economic opportunity. The law does not cover applicants seeking protections on those grounds, Mayorkas said.

“We are a nation of immigrants,” Mayorkas said. “We are also a nation of laws. I intend to apply the law.”

Mayorkas said he did not support “defunding ICE," (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), which has become a target of liberal Democrats. But Mayorkas deferred questions about whether he supported the emergency enforcement measures the Trump administration has implemented at the border that allow U.S. agents to “expel” most illegal crossers to Mexico.

"Our highest priority is to protect the health and well-being of the American public,” said Mayorkas, who said he needed to study the emergency measures.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) asked about the large caravan of Honduran migrants who have been attempting to travel north in recent days, telling some reporters they believe Biden will allow them to enter. “If people qualify under the law to remain in the United States, we will apply the law,” Mayorkas said. “If they do not qualify, then they won’t.”

Like many presidents before him, Trump is set to mark his final hours in office with a string of pardons.

That alone does not set him apart from other world leaders. Executive pardons are a common power across the globe. But Trump’s approach to the pardon stands out on the world stage.

Past U.S. presidents have issued politically charged pardons, but Trump’s moves have been criticized by experts and historians as unprecedented in scale on his focus on allies, family, friends and supporters.

“No former president has ever pardoned such an array of figures who are his own cronies and have been involved in crimes related to the president,” said Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) questioned Mayorkas about a 2015 Inspector General report that found that when Mayorkas was head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, he intervened in a visa program for wealthy investors at the behest of high-profile Democrats.

The report found Mayorkas did not break any laws but created the appearance of “special access.” The report — viewed as one of the main hindrances to Mayorkas’s confirmation — found that three projects were headed for the trash before he stepped in.

The projects were a Las Vegas casino pushed by then-Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.); a Los Angeles film project involving former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (D); and an electric car manufacturing company then headed by Hillary Clinton’s brother Anthony Rodham and Terry McAuliffe, later elected governor of Virginia.

Mayorkas said that he fixed problems in a troubled government agency that was supposed to create American jobs, and that the cases mentioned in the report were among “hundreds” he looked into at the request of lawmakers from both parties.

“I don’t take these jobs, senator, I don’t drive to be a government servant and serve the American public to cut ribbons around the country and have fun,” Mayorkas said. “I work really hard. And I worked really, really, hard throughout my nearly 20 years of government service to bring honor to the office that I have been privileged to occupy.”

Haines came out strongly against torture, and, in particular, waterboarding — the most controversial interrogation tactic used against foreign terrorism suspects detained during the George W. Bush administration.

“I believe that waterboarding is, in fact, torture — constitutes torture under the law,” said Haines, a lawyer and deputy CIA director during the Obama administration. “And all those techniques that use cruel and inhuman treatment are unlawful.”

She added that they should not be used “whether or not they’re effective.”

Liberal activists have voiced opposition to Haines, alleging that she has “covered up” the intelligence community’s record on torture.

Incoming Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) pressed Haines to say whether China, under Communist Party rule, was an adversary of the United States. Haines gave a measured answer.

“China is adversarial and an adversary on some issues,” she said, “and on other issues, we try to cooperate with them.” Climate change, for instance.

But, Haines said, “that does not mitigate the fact that in espionage and other ways, they are an adversary” and the intelligence community has to work to counter “their aggressive and unfair actions in these spaces.”

Haines, Biden’s choice for director of national intelligence, faced questions from senators at her confirmation hearing Tuesday.

Senate Democrats, who will soon control the chamber, announced Tuesday that the first legislation they plan to push will be a sweeping package of ethics, voting and campaign finance reforms dubbed the “For the People Act.”

“From a violent insurrection at the Capitol to the countless attempts to silence the vote of millions of Americans, attacks on our democracy have come in many forms,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Senate Democrats are committed to advancing real solutions and fighting to uphold the core tenets of our Constitution. … This legislation will bring about long-needed democracy reforms that will ensure that government is finally able to respond to the pressing needs of the American people.”

The legislation includes multiple steps aimed at making it easier to vote, including requiring states to have at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections and requiring that voting sites are near public transportation.

Among the numerous campaign finance provisions are steps to increase disclosure of donations and to report attempts by foreign entities to influence elections.

The legislation also includes several new ethics requirements from members of Congress and the executive branch, including a requirement that presidents divest financial interests that pose a conflict of interest.

The Supreme Court would also be required to develop a code of ethics for its judges.