 | BY MYAH WARD | | With help from Renuka Rayasam
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A woman pushes a stroller as she walks inside security fencing surrounding the U.S. Capitol. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images | ‘JUSTICE FOR J6’ EXPLAINED — Washington is on edge as law enforcement braces for Saturday’s “Justice for J6” rally, which right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys may attend to support people who are being prosecuted for participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved a request from Capitol Police today to provide 100 unarmed D.C. National Guard troops in case law enforcement needs back-up. Legal Affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, who has closely followed the insurrection aftermath, talked with Nightly over Slack about the Jan. 6 cases that are bringing rally-goers back to Capitol Hill. Who exactly are they rallying for on Saturday? It’s been a bit of a moving target. The organizers claim they’re rallying to support the nonviolent participants in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, those charged with entering the building but not causing any destruction or assaulting police. They claim, despite evidence to the contrary, that those people are facing unfair treatment by the Justice Department. But they also describe standing up on behalf of “political prisoners,” which implies they’re supporting many of the people who are currently detained for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The issue is, the overwhelming majority of those detained are charged with either police assault or a conspiracy to stop the certification of the 2020 election. What do we know about the people facing charges related to Jan. 6? As of today, there are more than 600 people charged with participating in events connected to the Capitol breach. Most of them are facing charges for simply entering the building without authorization, but more than 100 are charged with assaulting or impeding police. A few dozen are members of various militias — the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, Three Percenters — charged with conspiracy for seeking to stop the certification of the election. The vast majority of those charged are free while they await trial or negotiate guilty pleas, but about 80 to 90 or so have been deemed by judges to be too dangerous to remain in society, or are too great a flight risk. So they’re detained. Most of them are detained in D.C. jails but some are being held in the districts they were arrested in (all over the country) and in some D.C. suburbs. DOJ calls this the most complex case in the history of the country. Gathering all the evidence is a massive undertaking involving virtually every FBI field office and enormous amounts of resources. We’ve seen about 80 defendants in some of the lower-level cases accept or schedule plea deals, and I imagine a lot more will follow. But the militia cases and even some assault cases could take months, if not another year, to actually bring to trial. There is one case in which a felony defendant — in fact, the first felony defendant to be sentenced — is attempting to claim he was basically tricked into accepting a plea deal by his former attorney. There are many reasons this is unlikely to pass the court’s smell test, but it’s an example of yet another complexity DOJ has to deal with as it tries to close the book on these cases. Do we have any idea how long it will take to wrap up all of the cases? Most federal criminal cases never go to trial, so I expect hundreds will be resolved by plea deals over the next few months. The more serious cases are likely to be a year or even two from resolution. A judge Thursday just tentatively set one of the two Oath Keeper trials for July 2022, and even that date might not hold. There could be 100 or more additional defendants added in the weeks and months ahead. And just to be clear: There are lots of genuine questions about the legal culpability of those who simply wandered into the building following the crowd, committing no violence. Not every defendant is the same. But there’s no way to characterize Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest or civil disobedience. The overall character of the day was a violent affront to democratic institutions. What are your expectations for the rally? I’ll be out there. My expectation is it will end up being relatively small and uneventful. There’s no sitting president trying to drive up turnout, the security forces on the ground are so highly mobilized it may border on overpreparation, and Congress isn’t in session, so the Capitol will be a ghost town. Trump himself has discouraged people from going Saturday, calling the event a “setup,” in keeping with a mentality many of his supporters have voiced about the nature of the event. So I think that’ll depress turnout too. Despite my expectation, authorities warned today that there has been some social media chatter about potential violence that has their guard up. So it’ll still be important to be vigilant and safe. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s authors at mward@politico.com and on Twitter at @MyahWard.
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| | A message from the American Investment Council: Private equity is fueling the American recovery. The majority of private equity investment – 86% – went to small businesses last year to keep doors open and Americans employed during uncertain times. Private equity is supporting jobs in every state across the country, directly employing more than 11 million workers. This is why Congress should oppose a 98% tax increase on private investment. Learn more. | | | | | — FDA panel votes against broad rollout of Pfizer booster shot, endorses narrower use: An FDA advisory panel voted 18-0 today to endorse the use of a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in people 65 and older and those at high risk of severe disease. Pfizer sought approval from the FDA to offer the booster to people 16 and older, a proposal the FDA panel unexpectedly rejected in a 16-2 vote after hours of debate. The non-binding vote is an unexpected roadblock for the Biden administration’s plan to begin administering boosters widely as early as next week. — U.S. determines Kabul drone strike killed innocent aid worker, nine family members: An investigation by U.S. Central Command has determined that an Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul killed an innocent aid worker and nine members of his family , not a member of the ISIS-K terrorist group, a top general announced today. The command now assesses that the man targeted was not affiliated with ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch of ISIS, or “a direct threat to U.S. forces,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters today. “Our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake.” — Hoyer: House will vote to avoid debt default, shutdown next week: The House will vote next week on a measure to stave off a U.S. debt default, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today, although it’s unclear if Democrats will pair that with a stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. Hoyer confirmed in a letter to colleagues that the party will look to suspend the cap on how much money the government can borrow, rather than increase that figure outright. Both parties have been far more willing to support a suspension than a hike in recent years, because it gives lawmakers some cover from the political blowback that could follow. — U.S. threatens sanctions against officials in Tigray conflict: The White House today threatened to impose sanctions against Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other leaders involved in a conflict gripping the Tigray region , where 10 months of fighting have left hundreds of thousands of people facing famine. A new executive order allows the U.S. Treasury Department to sanction leaders and groups seen as fueling the violence if they don’t take steps soon to stop the fighting. Senior U.S. officials who previewed the order Thursday said that while it does not set a deadline on the leaders, they wanted to see progress made toward a cease-fire in the coming weeks.
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| | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | THE TWEEN SPEAKEASY — Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam emails: I know at least two parents who lied about their 11-year-old’s birthday to get their child vaccinated against Covid before the start of this school year. One of the nearly 12-year-olds had an underlying health issue and the other had an immunocompromised parent. Casually forging your kid’s birthday is just another sign of the desperation that the pandemic has unleashed, a throwback to earlier this year when some people claimed to be frontline workers or have a serious condition so that they could be first in line for a shot. Or maybe it’s the inverse of people who are buying fake vaccine cards to avoid getting a mandatory shot. Authorization for shots for children who are 5 to 11 could come later this fall or winter, but with kids mingling with unvaccinated peers and teachers in middle school and the Delta variant on the loose, these parents — who say they’re not alone — felt like they didn’t have the luxury of even a few months to wait. Pfizer is set to submit results of its clinical trial data for its under-12 study this month, and Moderna’s submission is coming later this year. While Covid deaths among children are still relatively rare, pediatric cases have skyrocketed around the country, climbing 240 percent from July to September. Nearly half a million kids were diagnosed with Covid from Aug. 26 to Sept. 9. Local providers in Nashville are turning away parents who are asking them to please vaccinate their pre-teen child, said C. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “As a dad I can see where people are coming from,” Creech said. “But as a pediatrician I want to protect these kids.” Like all such distinctions, the age cutoff for Covid vaccination is somewhat arbitrary, Creech admits. At the same time, there are physiological differences between young children and adolescents and a line has to be drawn somewhere. More important, children produce a better vaccine immune response and could face risks from too much vaccine, so they will most likely need smaller doses, which Pfizer and Moderna are both testing in younger kids. The impulse to vaccinate almost 12-year-olds is understandable, Mark Schleiss, a professor of pediatrics in the University of Minnesota Medical School, told Nightly. Children can get and transmit Covid, plus pediatricians often use medicines off-label because drugs are frequently approved for adults and not kids. Albuterol nebulizers, for example, aren’t approved for toddlers, but are commonly used when they have an asthma attack. Just north of the border, Ontario has already approved the Pfizer vaccine for 11-year-olds who turn 12 before the end of the year. But both doctors said there are plenty of good reasons — beyond side effects from too high of a dose — why providers should follow the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines and refuse to vaccinate 11-year-olds until the FDA authorizes the jab for them. For one, there’s a difference between using a therapy for an acute condition and a preventative measure. Getting vaccinated too early may also create complications for future vaccinate requirements. Kids, for example, have to get a measles shot after they turn one. They can get it four days before their birthday, but anything earlier doesn’t count for official vaccination requirements. (Nightly editor Chris Suellentrop had to get a second measles vaccination in high school to participate in extracurricular events, because he had been vaccinated when he was 11 months old.) Schleiss said using Covid vaccines off-label also complicates efforts to track side effects in kids in the country’s vaccine registry. Pharmacists have no real way to verify whether a parent is lying about their kid’s age, said Anne Burns, vice president of professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association. Requiring a birth certificate would only create additional hurdles for eligible patients. But if they knowingly vaccinate kids before they are eligible, pharmacists could lose their vaccine supply or their liability protections, she said. “The doctor who uses the Covid-19 vaccine off-label in kids under 12 is guilty of bad judgment,” Schleiss said, “but not bad science.”
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| | | | | MID-FIGHT IN PARIS — France has recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia in response to the strategic partnership with the U.K. that displaced a multibillion-euro submarine contract Paris had signed with Canberra. “At the request of the President of the Republic, I have decided to immediately recall for consultations our ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement.
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Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Rankin is seen during AUSINDEX 21, a biennial maritime exercise between the Royal Australian Navy and the Indian Navy in Darwin, Australia. | POIS Yuri Ramsey/Australian Defence Force via Getty Images | CANBERRA’S HEADS UP — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had told French President Emmanuel Macron in June that Canberra could walk away from its submarine contract, Liv Klingert writes. “I made it very clear, we had a lengthy dinner there in Paris, about our very significant concerns about the capabilities of conventional submarines to deal with the new strategic environment we’re faced with,” Morrison told 5aa Radio. Australia chose this week to ditch a deal worth more than €50 million with France’s Naval Group to create a fleet of conventional submarines, a move French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called a “stab in the back.” Under a new deal described on Wednesday by U.S. President Joe Biden, Australia will collaborate with the U.S. and the U.K. to build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines. The new alliance, called AUKUS, will see the three countries share technologies with each other. France was furious with the decision, saying it had not been given fair warning as Australia discarded a deal so massive it was called the “contract of the century.” The French embassy in Washington canceled a reception it was supposed to host on Thursday.
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| | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | | | THE AGE OF POLITICAL ENTREPRENEURS — In the latest Weekend Wrap roundup of political satire and cartoons, Matt Wuerker finds examples of some candidates in the expensive California recall won by losing, as well as entries on Gen. Mark Milley’s call to China and Nicki Minaj’s tweets on the Covid vaccine.
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| | | RIP POLITICAL OBITUARIES? In a time-honored practice, obituary writers pre-write the death notices of famous people before they are actually ushered to their eternal reward. For instance, at one point in 2014, New York Times obituarist Robert McFadden had 235 “advances” in the can awaiting the demise of his subjects. Similarly, most political reporters and columnists keep stored in memory or in a tickler file the starter yeast for the political obituary of the president of the United States to be baked the day he blunders or circumstances swamp him. A covey of political obituarists predictably took wing last month when Kabul fell and continue flocking this month to spell the end — or least the coming end, or the beginning of the coming end — of Biden’s presidency, senior media writer Jack Shafer writes. These weren’t death wishes as much as they were examples of journalistic boilerplate. Journalists absolutely love to write that a president has suffered a blow he will never recover from. How many times during Donald Trump’s first campaign for president or during his administration did the embalmers of the press announce that he had gone too far this time and proceed to prepare him for burial? The brilliance of political deaths of presidents foretold is that they’re usually so vague that the writers who make the predictions are rarely held accountable. For instance, nobody in the commentariat paid a price for claiming that the walls were closing in on Trump or that his status was so desperate that he would have to resign. The only time a pundit or reporter wants his deathwatch prediction cited is when a president actually gets shown the door. They line up to say, “See, I was right,” when Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford go down but demand their Miranda rights when Ronald Reagan stymies their prophesies by surviving Iran-Contra or when Bill Clinton rides out his sex scandal, wins acquittal in the Senate and gets a bounce in the polls. The point here isn’t that the commentariat should never predict a downfall, an impeachment, a resignation or a “failed” presidency but that they should 1) have some humility about their ability to see the future, and 2) remind the reader at the end of the year how wrong they were if their forecast bombs. If journalists were any better than a coin toss at predicting the future, wouldn’t they be wiser to apply their talents to the stock market?
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| | A message from the American Investment Council: Private equity is investing in America and fueling our recovery. The industry is supporting jobs in every state across the country, directly employing more than 11 million workers. Last year, private equity provided hundreds of billions of dollars to struggling companies to save jobs and help businesses make it through the pandemic. The majority of private equity investment – 86% – went to small businesses, and roughly a third went to businesses with just 10 workers or less.
Private equity is strengthening our country by pouring capital into infrastructure, renewable energy projects, and healthcare. According to the Wall Street Journal, “private-equity portfolio companies have been involved in nearly every step” of getting people vaccinated against COVID-19. And, because of these strong investments, PE is the highest returning asset class for public pensions for teachers, first-responders, and other public servants. Tell Congress to oppose a 98% tax increase on private investment. Learn more. | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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