Amazon suspends Parler, threatening to take pro-Trump site offline indefinitely

By Tony Romm and Rachel Lerman, Washington Post

Amazon suspended the pro-Trump social network Parler from its Web-hosting service this weekend, a move that threatens to darken the site indefinitely after its users glorified the recent riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The e-commerce and Web-hosting giant said Parler had violated its terms of service given its inadequate content-moderation practices, adding in a letter that it would implement its punishment just before midnight Pacific time Monday.

Trump scrambles to find new social network after Twitter ban, as White House prepares to blast big tech

The move by Amazon Web Services, or AWS, marks the latest and most crippling blow for the pro-Trump social network, which has emerged as a haven for conservative users who have fled more mainstream Silicon Valley sites that crack down on harmful, viral falsehoods online. Earlier this week, Apple and Google removed Parler’s app from their stores for smartphone downloads, similarly citing concerns that posts on Parler could contribute to violence.AD

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that AWS had communicated its suspension to Parler on Saturday.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Parler also did not respond to a request for comment. But its chief executive, John Matze, said in a post on his site that the social network soon could be “unavailable on the Internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.”

Troubling the tech giants, Parler users in recent days had praised the mob that put the Capitol on lockdown midweek, threatening a potential “war.” The pro-Trump attorney L. Lin Wood, meanwhile, at one point urged Trump-supporting “patriots” on Parler to keep fighting, saying, “Almighty God is with you. TODAY IS OUR DAY.”

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CHAOS AT THE CAPITOL: A Frontline Report

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A violent mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, as Congress met to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. The rioters plotted for weeks beforehand on social media, mobilizing around President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and were egged on by him and others at a rally just before they stormed the Capitol.

Who are the forces behind the attack, how did it unfold and why was the law enforcement presence so easily overpowered?

ProPublica reporter and FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson, who covered the rise of right-wing extremism for our joint “Documenting Hate” series, joins The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast to discuss what happened at the Capitol, President Trump’s role and what the future may hold.

“This was definitely something that you could predict,” Thompson tells FRONTLINE’s executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath about the Capitol’s siege this week. “For the last three years, people have been talking about civil war; people have been talking about overthrowing the government.”

And now, we may see “a movement that’s been further radicalized by this event,” Thompson says. “We have a big concern that what happens next may be more radical, more violent, and more damaging to the culture than what we’ve seen so far.”

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FBI focuses on whether some Capitol rioters intended to harm lawmakers or take hostages

By Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Matt Zapotosky, Washington Post

FBI agents are trying to determine whether some who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday intended to do more than cause havoc and disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and they are sifting through evidence to see whether anyone wanted to kill or capture lawmakers or their staffers, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Dozens have been arrested, and Friday, officials announced charges against an Arkansas man photographed in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office chair with a foot on her desk. But investigators also are working to determine the motivations and larger goals, if any, of those who had weapons or other gear suggesting they planned to do physical harm.

Some rioters, for instance, were photographed carrying zip ties, a plastic version of handcuffs, and one man was arrested allegedly carrying a pistol on the Capitol grounds.

“We’re not looking at this as a grand conspiracy, but we are interested in learning what people would do with things like zip ties,” said a law enforcement official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

No photos or videos that have surfaced so far suggest any of the individuals with zip ties tried to take hostages. One possibility being pursued by investigators is that some who burst into the building may be current or former law enforcement officers, or current and former military personnel, people familiar with the investigation said.

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PA lawmaker gives Trump a pass on D.C. riot but raps Twitter ban

State Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-10, New Beaver, tweeted his disdain for the social media platform's ban of the president Friday evening, sharing screenshots of now-deleted tweets from Trump's official government account.
PA State Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R-10)

By Daveen Rae Kurutz, Beaver County Times

A Republican state representative is encouraging his constituents to continue to support President Donald Trump in the wake of his Twitter ban. 

State Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-10, New Beaver, tweeted his disdain for the social media platform’s ban of the president Friday evening, sharing screenshots of now-deleted tweets from Trump’s official government account. 

Bernstine asked his followers to share the president’s tweets, which claimed Twitter was attacking free speech and collaborating with the “Democrats and the radical Left” to remove him from the platform. 

Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s personal account early Friday evening for what it called safety concerns. Trump then took to the @POTUS account, to which access is passed from president to president, to rail against Twitter’s actions. The social media platform then deleted those four tweets. 

President Trump permanently banned from Twitter over risk he could incite violence

Shortly after, Bernstine, who defended Trump on his campaign Facebook page Wednesday after an attack on the U.S. Capitol, shared a screenshot of the tweets, encouraging his followers to help get the president’s message out. 

The representative said he believes what happened at the Capitol was an “absolute disgrace,” adding the violence was the work of domestic terrorists. 

“There’s no reason that should ever happen in the United States,” he said in a video. “That being said, there are those that blame the president specifically, and what I know is, very simply, that individuals are held accountable for their actions.

Bernstine said those who commit violence should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. 

Many Republicans have distanced themselves from Trump since Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol. Locally, Bernstine was the only legislator to make social media posts or comments supporting the idea that Trump did not play a role in Wednesday’s events. 

“This is a very trying time in our country right now, and I find it disgusting that some politicians from both parties are using this as an opportunity to score political points,” Bernstine told The Times on Friday night. “This is about personal responsibility and holding lawbreakers accountable.”

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Voting machine company Dominion sues pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, seeking more than $1.3 billion

By Emma Brown, Washington Post

Dominion Voting Systems on Friday filed a defamation lawsuit against lawyer Sidney Powell, demanding more than $1.3 billion in damages for havoc it says Powell has caused by spreading “wild” and “demonstrably false” allegations, including that Dominion played a central role in a fantastical scheme to steal the 2020 election from President Trump.

For weeks, Powell has claimed that Dominion was established with communist money in Venezuela to enable ballot-stuffing and other vote manipulation, and that those abilities were harnessed to rig the election for former vice president Joe Biden.

In a 124-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Dominion said its reputation and resale value have been deeply damaged by a “viral disinformation campaign” that Powell mounted “to financially enrich herself, to raise her public profile, and to ingratiate herself to Donald Trump.” The defendants named in the lawsuit include Powell, her law firm and Defending the Republic, the organization she set up to solicit donations to support her election-related litigation.

Read the full complaint here

In an interview, Dominion CEO John Poulos said the lawsuit aims to clear his company’s name through a full airing of the facts about the 2020 election.

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Pelosi says she spoke to nation’s top military leader about ensuring Trump doesn’t launch a nuclear attack

By John Wagner and Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post
Jan. 8, 2021 at 12:47 p.m. EST

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues in a letter Friday that she has spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, about keeping an “unstable president” from accessing the nuclear codes.

Her letter came shortly after Trump tweeted that he would not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20, breaking with a long-standing tradition of outgoing presidents attending the swearing-in ceremony of their successors.

Democrats are increasingly eyeing a second impeachment of Trump in the wake of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters if Vice President Pence and Trump Cabinet officials do not remove him from office under the 25th Amendment.

Here’s what to know:

  • A growing corps of House Democrats, furious over the invasion of the Capitol, is pushing to rapidly impeach the president a second time — hoping to force Trump from office even a few days early rather than allow him to leave on his own terms.
  • A 42-year-old Capitol Police officer who was injured amid Wednesday’s takeover of the Capitol died Thursday night, according to a statement from his department.
  • Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who remained a staunch Trump supporter during her four-year tenure, was reelected unanimously Friday at an RNC meeting in Florida.
  • Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao are among the latest Trump administration officials to announce their resignations in the wake of the assault on the Capitol.

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