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For more than three hours on Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump dismissed pleas from his top aides, lawyers and family members to halt a riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol, instead watching the attack unfold on Fox News as he sat in his dining room off the Oval Office.
At its final sitting of the summer, a congressional committee investigating the insurrection heard testimony from former White House staff and security officials that sketched out Trump’s inaction in vivid detail.
It also issued a plea for Trump and associates who conspired to overturn the 2020 election to face criminal charges. The Department of Justice has so far appeared to hold back from investigating the former president.
“He recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption,” Bennie Thompson, the panel’s chair said. “There needs to be accountability under the law, accountability to the American people, accountability at every level … all the way up to the Oval Office.”
According to several witnesses, including then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Keith Kellogg, a national security official, Mr. Trump made no attempt to call in reinforcements from the National Guard, FBI, Department of Justice or Homeland Security, even as police at the Capitol were overrun and beaten up and the mob stormed into the building.
Read more:
- Analysis: Can the Jan. 6 hearings wake Americans up to the threat to their democracy?
- Defence in Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial rests case without calling any witnesses
Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, center, speaks during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, July 21POOL/Reuters
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Rogers replaces chief technology officer after nationwide outage
Rogers Communications has replaced its chief technology officer just days before the company faces scrutiny in Ottawa over this month’s nationwide shutdown of wireless and internet services.
Veteran telecom executive Ron McKenzie will now take charge of the systems for Canada’s largest cellphone company, replacing Jorge Fernandes. McKenzie joined Rogers’ technology team three years ago and led the company’s technology transformation projects during the pandemic. He has three decades of telecom experience.
A company spokesperson confirmed that Fernandes will be stepping down from his role as chief technology and information officer. Fernandes joined Rogers just over four years ago from Vodafone.
The lengthy, nationwide shutdown of wireless and internet services on July 8 outraged customers, prompted a government review and created new regulatory challenges for Rogers’ planned $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.
Read more:
- Opinion: The Rogers network outage proves Ottawa’s case for fourth network
- Rogers outage may weigh on decision around $26-billion takeover of Shaw, Champagne says
Debate erupts within Unifor over executive expenses as it looks to replace former president Jerry Dias
As Canada’s largest private-sector union seeks to replace its beleaguered former president, Jerry Dias, a raging debate has cropped up among current and former members over the expense accounts of some of its top leadership.
Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail – which have also been circulating among union members and staff, and on social media – show that a number of key figures in the union, including Dias, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of Unifor’s money annually on travel, hotels and other union-related expenses.
The contents of the documents have elicited a mix of outrage and skepticism from former and current union members, with some saying the information was leaked for political purposes in the lead-up to a pivotal election that will determine Dias’s successor as national president. Others in Unifor’s ranks are calling for greater accountability when it comes to the expense accounts of senior union executives.
Financial integrity is a key issue in the union’s election, because of the circumstances that surrounded Dias’s departure: an ethics scandal over an improper payment he had allegedly received from a vendor. The race’s outcome will be determined at the union’s convention, which begins on Aug. 8.
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Also on our radar
Trudeau says ‘real reckoning’ needed at Hockey Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Hockey Canada needs a “real reckoning” regarding the way it handles allegations of sexual assault, saying the sports organization has much more work to do to regain the trust of Canadians. He made his criticism after the national governing body for hockey announced measures to address what it describes as a “culture of toxic behaviour” within the sport, including no longer using a special multimillion-dollar fund to settle claims of alleged sexual assault.
Poilievre skipping third official leadership debate; Lewis has reservations: Pierre Poilievre is skipping the third official federal Conservative leadership debate, which was announced Thursday by the party in response to a vote by members on whether to hold such an event. Leslyn Lewis, another candidate in the race to lead the Conservatives, is also expressing reservations about the debate.
Russia, Ukraine to sign deal on restarting grain exports, Turkey says: Russia and Ukraine will sign a deal on Friday to reopen Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, Turkey said. Ukraine and Russia are both among the world’s biggest exporters of food and the war has left millions around the world under the threat of hunger as Ukraine’s ports, including the major hub of Odesa, have been blockaded by Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Germany warned Canada in turbine talks of domestic repercussions of halt to Russian gas: Germany’s Foreign Minister said Berlin warned Ottawa it could be forced to suspend aid to Ukraine if a Russian gas pipeline turbine stranded in Montreal, a result of Canadian economic sanctions, isn’t returned.
YouTube to remove videos spreading abortion falsehoods: YouTube said Thursday that it will begin removing misleading videos about abortion in response to falsehoods being spread about the procedure that is being banned or restricted across a broad swath of the U.S.. The purge will remove content promoting unsafe at-home abortions, as well as misinformation about the safety of undergoing the procedure in clinics located in states where it remains legal.
Morning markets
World stocks eke out gains: Global stocks were marginally higher on Friday, eyeing a sixth day of gains as European markets rose, while weak euro zone business activity data hit the euro and weighed on the bloc’s debt. Just after 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.29 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 added 0.41 per cent and 0.16 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei finished up 0.40. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.17 per cent. New York futures were in the red. The Canadian dollar was trading at 77.72 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Robert Skidelsky: “Nearly all political careers end in failure, but Boris Johnson is the first British prime minister to be toppled for scandalous behaviour. That should worry us.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
Living better
How you (and your home) can stay cool in a heat wave
Much of Ontario, southern Quebec and Nova Scotia were under heat warnings this week, with temperatures reaching 30 degrees or feeling as hot as 40 with the humidex in some cities. British Columbia is also expecting a hot spell this weekend and is advising residents to have a heat plan ready.
As heat waves become increasingly common across Canada, so too does the threat of heat-related illnesses. Older adults and people with chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, are particularly at risk. The Globe collected advice for how to keep yourself, your home and your pets cool during heat waves, plus information about the health risks that can be caused by extreme heat.
Moment in Time: July 22, 1999
PRACTITIONERS OF BANNED SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT FALUN GONG DEMONSTRATE HOW THEY PRACTICE --Practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement demonstrate how they perform meditation and breathing exercises at a clandestine press conference held in the outskirts of Beijing October 28, 1999. The Chinese government officially branded the spiritual movement a cult on Thursday. Cults are banned in China which only allows religious organizations sponsored by the government. REUTERSReuters
Chinese government outlaws Falun Gong
By the time the Falun Gong new religious movement was banned in July, 1999, the group counted tens of millions of followers across China. Two months earlier, some 10,000 of them had descended on central Beijing, surrounding a government compound to demand an end to the growing harassment of the movement, which grew out of a spiritual boom around the traditional Chinese practice of Qigong, exercises similar to tai chi, in the 1990s. The protest, coming almost exactly a decade after the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, caught the Chinese government completely off guard and was met with a fierce response. On July 22, Falun Gong was deemed “illegal” and accused of “advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability.” A subsequent crackdown would see tens of thousands of people arrested and many subjected to horrific abuse. Today, Falun Gong remains one of the most sensitive topics in China, subject to intense censorship and repression. The movement still has large memberships in Canada and the United States, where it has an influential lobbying organization, media outlets, and the Shen Yun stage show. James Griffiths
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