--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Monday, January 11th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: House Democrats are trying to remove President Trump from office after Wednesday's attack at the Capitol. This morning, they introduced an article of impeachment, as well as a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. As expected, Republicans blocked that resolution's passage via unanimous consent, which means that the full House will have to vote tomorrow.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If that passes and Pence doesn't act within 24 hours, then the House is expected to vote to impeach President Trump on Wednesday for incitement of insurrection. Now, on top of that, House Majority Whip James Clyburn says he wants the House to explore another article of impeachment, one related to President Trump's call to Georgia's secretary of state, in which he pressured him to change the election results.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But according to Politico, some people in the Democratic caucus are concerned that impeachment proceedings will interfere with President-elect Biden's goals for his first 100 days in office, like passing the next stimulus or confirming his cabinet members. Clyburn suggested the party could wait until after Biden's first 100 days to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Politico also notes some Democrats worry a second Trump impeachment would only further provoke extremists who are already threatening more violence in the coming days. A group of seven House Republicans are asking Joe Biden to stop the impeachment process. They said in a letter to Biden, quote, this impeachment would undermine your priority of unifying Americans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Norm Eisen disagrees. He provided legal counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. He tells Politico the current Democratic case against the president is so overwhelming, so strong that, quote, if this is not a high crime and misdemeanor, I don't know what is.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The authors of the impeachment charge say at least 200 House Democrats back it. That's nearly all of them. A few members of the GOP, including Senator Ben Sasse, have shown signs that they're open to the possibility, with Republican Senators Pat Toomey and Lisa Murkowski calling on the president to resign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But a lot more Senate Republicans would have to get on board in order to convict Trump. So much reporting is emerging that begins to paint a fuller picture of what exactly took place at the Capitol on Wednesday.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In so many videos, you can see people wearing tactical gear, carrying bats and pepper spray in zip ties. You hear people chanting, hang Mike Pence and where's Nancy? And there are videos of police officers being crushed or beaten.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the most comprehensive articles we saw is from the Washington Post. Their reporters spoke with dozens of lawmakers, staff members, and law enforcement officials to get a sense of just how chaotic and out of control things were inside the Capitol building that day.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah, according to their reporting, in the House, Capitol police officers had to drag a desk to use as a barricade. They propped it up in front of the door where presidents usually enter to deliver their State of the Union address. And on the other side of that door, rioters were trying to get into the chamber.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's when officers drew their weapons. And they were pointing their guns at the door, right at the holes that rioters had broken into the glass panel of the door. That image is now all over the internet.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Another video shows rioters trying to break through a door that leads to the Speaker's lobby. Police were completely outnumbered. And the Washington Post explains the crowd was just 10 feet away from an open door into the House chamber. But there were more officers on the other side of that door. And that's when one opens fire, shooting and ultimately killing Ashley Babbitt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the video, you see her wearing a Trump flag as a cape. The Washington Post also has an exclusive interview with the outgoing Capitol Police chief Stephen Sund. He says two days before the attack, House and Senate security officials turned him down when he asked about requesting help from the D.C. National Guard.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Sund has been the target of criticism, and he's resigned from his post. Many questions still remain about the security failings that allowed the riot to happen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Social media companies have done an about-face. President Trump is no longer on their platforms, and many of his extremist supporters are getting the boot too. On Thursday, Facebook removed Trump from the platform, at least until he's out of office.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The following day, Twitter permanently banned the president. Then Google, Apple, and Amazon suspended Parler, which is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the United States that's recently attracted many Trump supporters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the platform where one of Trump's attorneys, Lynn Wood, posted on Thursday morning, and I'm quoting, Get the firing squad ready. Pence goes first. And that post was viewed nearly 800,000 times before it was finally removed over the weekend.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Several other platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, and Reddit have also announced new restrictions. What these developments demonstrate, Shamita, is the tech industry's sweeping power.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Evelyn Duick writes about this in The Atlantic, and she's a lecturer at Harvard where she studies online speech regulation. She says, while suspending Trump might be the right move by social media platforms so far, social media and tech companies have not been clear about where they're drawing the line.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And Duick says Trump's latest tweets haven't really been worse than they've been over the past four years. Remember when he tweeted during a Black Lives Matter protest, when the looting starts, the shooting starts? Or there was other times that he's retweeted conspiracy theories from groups that the FBI considers domestic threats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Dweck points out there are plenty of people who violate these social media companies' policies who are still on these platforms, including the Taliban's official spokesperson on Twitter and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Facebook.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Many people are calling what social media and tech companies did this weekend censorship or a violation of the First Amendment. But legal scholars say that a misunderstanding of how the First Amendment works.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Twitter and Facebook are private companies. They can set the rules for their platforms and kick people off for violating their rules. Although the ACLU is urging caution here. They put out a statement this weekend saying it's one thing for Trump to be banned. He still has so many other ways to speak to the public through his press team or news outlets.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But it's a whole other thing for people without that kind of access to a public microphone to be censored by social media companies. And that Trump's banning is an example of what tech companies have the power to do to anyone on their platforms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One man who made his way into the Senate chamber on Wednesday was dressed for the battlefield. He had a combat helmet on and body armor, and he was carrying zip ties.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That man has been identified as Larry Rendell Rock Jr. He's a retired lieutenant colonel from the Air Force. People scouring the internet, looking at videos and pics, helped identify him. He, along with dozens of insurrectionists, have already been arrested. More are likely to come.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ronan Farrow explains how it happened in his latest piece for The New Yorker. A researcher at the University of Toronto, John Scott Railton, used facial recognition and clues from the military symbols that Brock was wearing to piece together his identity.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And he's been doing the same thing for other people who were photographed or caught on video that day. Scott Railton stresses this crowdsourcing approach is best as a supplement to traditional law enforcement investigations, not as a replacement. And he cautions, it's important to refer any inferences or leads that you figure out from Internet sleuthing to the FBI. Don't immediately make a name public.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories. We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Thank you.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
