July 12, 2016

Police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said Tuesday a burglary over the weekend at a pawn shop was part of a wider plot to attack law enforcement officers in the city.

Early Saturday, officers responded to a burglary call at the Cash America Pawn Store, where they discovered that nine guns had been stolen, WAFB reports. A suspect arrested at the scene, 17-year-old Antonio Thomas, reportedly told investigators that he and at least three other men were behind the burglary, and that they planned to use the stolen guns against police; Thomas also allegedly said the plot stemmed from the officer-involved shooting of Alton Sterling last week in Baton Rouge. Along with Thomas, two other suspects have been arrested and seven guns have been recovered. An unidentified fourth suspect is still at large. (Note: This article has been updated.) Catherine Garcia

1:46 p.m.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS News' Margaret Brennan on Sunday that there needs to be a "plan B" in areas where the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is widely used.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been shown to be quite effective in trials, but early findings suggest a drop in its ability to protect against the so-called South African variant. That's troubling because the vaccine is widely seen as a game-changer due to its lower-cost and easy storage method, making it the most likely to candidate to reach harder-to-access communities around the world, especially in developing nations. If the South African variant eventually becomes the dominant source of infections in those areas, that could put things back at square one.

The problem is, Gottlieb explained, the most logical replacement shot — the Johnson & Johnson candidate (which isn't on the market yet) — may be rendered ineffective in people who have already taken the Oxford vaccine since both rely on adenoviruses to draw an immune response. Gottlieb clarified that the latter point is not proven, but the risk is there until data becomes clear. In that case, he said the answer may be to turn to the vaccines that use mRNA technology, such as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna, instead, but they present significant distribution challenges. Tim O'Donnell

1:09 p.m.

There was a moment Saturday when it looked like former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial would extend into next week. The Senate had surprisingly voted to consider hearing from witnesses, and it appeared as if both sides were going to call people into testify. But after a quick recess, the Democratic House impeachment managers entered one final piece of evidence into the record, and the trial moved into the closing argument phase before Trump was acquitted by the upper chamber, as many expected.

Democrats were criticized for caving, but several impeachment managers pushed back on that idea Sunday. Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) told CNN's Jake Tapper that she understands the frustration, but said gathering testimony from individuals who were near Trump on Jan. 6 during the Capitol riot would have required a lengthy subpoena process, and many of them would have been "hostile witnesses." Plaskett argued the impeachment managers had put forth "sufficient evidence" to prove Trump incited an insurrection, either way. "We didn't need more witnesses," she said. "We needed more senators with spines."

Her colleagues, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), agreed. Raskin told NBC's Chuck Todd that even if "a thousand witnesses" had testified, he doesn't think they would have been able to persuade enough Republican senators to flip their votes. Dean put it simply to ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "America witnessed this. We were in a room full of witnesses and victims." Tim O'Donnell

11:48 a.m.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) didn't hold back on Saturday when she issued a "scorching" statement on why she decided to vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.

"The facts make it clear that the violence and desecration of the Capitol that we saw on Jan. 6 was not a spontaneous uprising," Murkowski said, explaining that she believes Trump "set the stage" for the insurrection months before by repeatedly pushing unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election. Trump, she said, "did everything in his power to stay in power," ultimately calling on his supporters "to come to Washington, D.C., ... to 'Stop the Steal' of an election that had not been stolen" and giving the crowd on Jan. 6 "explicit instructions" to march to the Capitol.

Once the riot started, Murkowski continued, Trump was "not concerned" about members of Congress, the Capitol Police, or former Vice President Mike Pence. "He was concerned about his election and retaining power," she said.

Lawmakers were still able to finish certifying the Electoral College results that day because of "brave men and women who fulfilled their oath to protect and defend Congress. I regret that Donald Trump was not one of them," Murkowski said as she wrapped up the statement.

Murkowski will be the first of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump to come up for re-election in 2022 (two of the senators are retiring), though any risk she may face for defying Trump is mitigated somewhat by Alaska's unique electoral system, analysts say. Either way, Murkowski has built a reputation as one of the more bipartisan senators, so there's no reason to think she would have changed her vote under different circumstances. Read the full statement here. Tim O'Donnell

11:15 a.m.

President Biden mostly stayed out of former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial. Tim Miller, of the moderate conservative site The Bulwark, praised him for "tonally ... living up to his campaign promise" to not "inflame divisions" during the proceedings, even though he had "ample opportunity to do so." In his response to Trump's acquittal, Biden, though critical of his predecessor's role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, did seem to focus less on the verdict and more on how to move forward, again calling for "an end to this uncivil war" and the healing of "the very soul of our nation." That said, Politico reports, don't expect Biden and his administration to stop talking about Trump anytime soon.

Three people familiar with the situation told Politico the Biden White House will continue to use Trump as a foil "for the foreseeable future" in the hopes of building support for the president's agenda. The strategy reportedly stems from 2009, when Biden (then vice president) and former President Barack Obama came to believe they didn't defend their policies forcefully enough from Republican criticism, which they viewed as a major factor in the GOP's big victory in the 2010 midterm elections.

"You have to make sure you are making it clear that you are contrasting the person and the policies," a longtime Biden adviser told Politico. "In some ways, American voters picked Biden to be the opposite of Trump."

That doesn't necessarily mean Biden will launch many personal attacks at Trump, however. "They're trying to draw a governmental contrast, a moral contrast, a values contrast," Robert Gibbs, Obama's former White House press secretary, told Politico. "Yet at the same time, they'll try to keep themselves above the day-to-day Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump." Read more at Politico. Tim O'Donnell

8:56 a.m.

In the latest Saturday Night Live cold open, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — portrayed by Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, respectively — celebrated former President Donald Trump's acquittal during a post-impeachment trial interview on a parody version of Tucker Carlson Tonight. As McKinnon's Graham told Alex Moffat's Carlson, "it's a great day for 30 percent of America and tonight ... we party."

Moffat's Carlson closed the show by bringing on a less enthusiastic Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), played by Beck Bennett, who said, much like the real McConnell, that he voted to acquit Trump because "you cannot impeach a former president." But when pressed to reveal what he really thinks of Trump, Bennett's McConnell said, breathlessly, "I think he's guilty as hell, and the worst person I ever met, and I hope every city, county, and state locks his a-- up ... I've been holding that inside my neck for four years." Watch the full skit below. Tim O'Donnell

8:32 a.m.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has already been censured by the Louisiana GOP for his vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial Saturday, keeping with a trend across the country, in which Republicans breaking with Trump have faced backlash at home. It appears the Nebraska Republican Party may take the same route with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).

Meanwhile, two other senators who joined Cassidy and Sasse in voting to convict — Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) — faced rebukes from the Republican parties in their home state, but so far, it seems, the parties are stopping short of voting to censure.

The Utah GOP's executive director Laurel Price told Forbes the party doesn't have a statement on Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-Utah) vote to convict, adding "I'm not certain about a censure effort just yet."

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) round out the group of seven GOP lawmakers who voted guilty. There's been no word from their state parties as of yet, but Murkowski is up for re-election in 2022, making her the first of the seven (Burr and Toomey are retiring) to face the ballot box test. Read more about the backlash the seven senators are facing at The Guardian. Tim O'Donnell

February 13, 2021

Republican senators let former President Donald Trump off "on a technicality," Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), a House impeachment manager, said Saturday after Trump escaped conviction for the second time in a little over a year.

Castro was arguing that many of the 43 GOP lawmakers who voted that Trump was not guilty of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 did so because they believed it wasn't constitutional to try an ex-president. He likely won't hear much of a rebuttal from within that contingent. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), for example, said Trump's actions in the lead up the Capitol riot were "inexcusable," but couldn't shake his stance that the trial shouldn't have taken place in the first place.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also said the constitutionality question was his primary reason for acquitting before tearing into Trump on the Senate floor. Others, like Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), were less direct in their criticism of the president, but similarly suggested they based their votes on whether they thought the trial was constitutional, rather than the case itself.

In the end, only Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) separated the two votes. While he agreed the trial was unconstitutional initially, once the Senate decided to move forward, he accepted the proceedings in full and wound up voting to convict. Tim O'Donnell

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