The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, including quarterback Tom Brady, celebrated their Super Bowl win with President Biden at the White House.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, has chosen a pair of former President Donald J. Trump’s staunchest and most combative allies to be among his five picks to sit on the special House committee investigating the Jan.6 attack on the Capitol, signaling he is approaching the inquiry as a partisan battle. Mr. McCarthy and Republicans had opposed the creation of the select committee, which is to scrutinize the mob violence that delayed Congress’s formal adoption of President Biden’s victory. The 13-member panel, created on a party-line vote, will have seven Democrats and six Republicans, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and a harsh critic of Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan.6, as one of her eight members. The committee, which is led by Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, is scheduled to have its first meeting July 27 to hear from members of the Capitol Police and District of Columbia police force who fought off the mob. Among them are Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, a sergeant, Michael Fanone, who has lobbied Republicans to support an investigation, and Daniel Hodges, who was crushed in a door during the rampage. Some of them have been outspoken about the trauma they experienced that day, but Officer Hodges has called it an honor. “If it wasn’t my job, I would have done that for free,” he told NBC News shortly after the assault. “It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection.” Ms. Pelosi still must agree to the five Republicans Mr. McCarthy has selected. If he gets his way, they will be: Mr. Banks, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, will be the ranking member of the panel. He recently led several House Republicans on a trip to join Mr. Trump at an event at the southwestern border. He voted against certifying electoral votes for Mr. Biden on Jan.6 and against creating an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. In a statement on Tuesday, he said Ms. Pelosi had created the panel “solely to malign conservatives and to justify the left’s authoritarian agenda.” “I will not allow this committee to be turned into a forum for condemning millions of Americans because of their political beliefs,” he added. A founding member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, Mr. Jordan led the effort to discredit the Russia investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and was one of the former president’s most strident defenders during his first impeachment. Just before leaving office, Mr. Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mr. Jordan also voted against certifying electoral votes for Mr. Biden on Jan.6 and against creating an independent bipartisan commission. On Tuesday, he branded the select committee “impeachment Round 3,” telling Newsmax, “This is to go after President Trump.” Mr. Davis is the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, where he has studied Capitol security failures, and he is known as a pragmatist. He did not join his party’s effort to invalidate electoral votes for Mr. Biden on Jan.6, and he was one of only 35 Republicans who voted to create an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. He told the Illinois newspaper Herald & Review in January that the Capitol breach was the “second-most terrifying moment” he had experienced as a member of Congress after a shooting on a baseball field in 2017. “It’s tragic we’ve gotten to this point in the country that people feel they can commit acts of violence because they’re inspired by politics,” he said. Mr. Armstrong is a former criminal defense lawyer who earned praise from Mr. Trump for his defense during the former president’s first impeachment trial. He did not object to electoral votes for Mr. Biden on Jan.6, but he voted against the creation of an independent bipartisan inquiry. Mr. Armstrong, who was in the House balcony during the attack, has condemned conspiracy theories about the riot and praised the Capitol Police for their response. A former sheriff, Mr. Nehls was among the lawmakers who assisted the Capitol Police in barricading the door to the House floor during the Jan.6 attack. Hours later, he joined most Republicans in voting against counting electoral votes for Mr. Biden. He also opposed forming an independent bipartisan commission. “I was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with Capitol police barricading entrance to our sacred House chamber, while trying to calm the situation talking to protestors,” Mr. Nehls wrote on Twitter on Jan.6. “What I’m witnessing is a disgrace. We’re better than this. Violence is NEVER the answer. Law and order!” — Luke Broadwater The White House said on Tuesday that it would nominate Jonathan Kanter to be the top antitrust official at the Justice Department, a move that would add another longtime critic of Big Tech and corporate concentration to a powerful regulatory position. President Biden’s plan to appoint Mr. Kanter, an antitrust lawyer who has made a career out of representing rivals of American tech giants like Google and Facebook, signals how strongly his administration is siding with the growing field of lawmakers, researchers and regulators who say Silicon Valley has obtained outsize power over the way Americans speak with one another, buy products online and consume news. Mr. Kanter,47, is the founder of Kanter Law Group, which bills itself online as an “antitrust advocacy boutique.” He previously worked at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. His services have attracted some of the most prominent critics of Big Tech in corporate America, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Microsoft as well as upstarts like Spotify and Yelp. If he is confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Kanter will lead a division of the Justice Department that filed a lawsuit last year arguing that Google had illegally protected a monopoly over online search services. The antitrust division of the agency has also been asking questions about Apple’s business practices. Federal scrutiny of acquisitions has expanded beyond headline-grabbing Big Tech deals to industries like consumer goods, agriculture, insurance and health care. The Justice Department has sued to block the proposed merger of Aon and Willis Towers Watson, in its first major antitrust action since Mr. Biden took office. And the F.T.C. announced in March that it was forming a group to “update” its approach to evaluating the impact of pharmaceutical deals. — Lauren Hirsch and David McCabe transcript “We’re here today to congratulate and welcome to the White house, the Super Bowl champion, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. [applause] To the players, the coaches and the Glazer family, my good friends, it’s an honor to have you here. This Buccaneer team is a testament to the fact that it’s never too late to come together and achieve extraordinary things. Three-quarters of the way through the season, they found themselves in the middle of the pack, seven wins and five losses. But this is a team that didn’t fold and always got up, dug deep and won their last four games of the season and then stormed through the playoffs, winning on the road in Washington, New Orleans and Green Bay, and capping it all off back home in Tampa to become the first team to win the Super Bowl on their home turf.” “It was actually a very challenging season for a lot of reasons. But we bonded together. We worked really hard. We put all our individual agendas aside, and we came together as a team. It didn’t look great there. At one point, we were 7-5, struggling a little bit, as the president alluded to. But we found our rhythm. We got on a roll. Not a lot of people, you know, think that we could have won. And in fact, I think about 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won.” Biden: “I understand.” “You understand that, Mr. President.” Biden: “I understand that.” “Yeah and personally, you know, it’s nice for me to be back here. We had a game in Chicago where I forgot what down it was. I lost track of one down in 21 years of playing and they started calling me ‘Sleepy Tom.’ Why would they do that to me?” “I don’t know.” “So it’s great to be, you know, we’re on the eve of football season. We start tomorrow, practice. And we’re going to do everything we can to work to achieve another one of those Lombardi trophies.” President Biden hosted a celebration with the 2021 Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, on Tuesday morning at the White House, continuing a recent run of celebrations with title-winning athletes. Once again, Tom Brady stole the show. Mr. Biden opened the festivities, praising the Bucs for their persistence in reeling off an unbeaten run to the championship after starting the season with seven wins and five losses: “This is a team that didn’t fold, got up, dug deep,” the president said, relishing his role as a sort of cheerleader in chief. “It’s an incredible run.” But it was Mr. Brady, the final speaker and a seven-time Super Bowl winner, who snagged the headlines with political jokes that appeared to be jabs at former President Donald J. Trump, with whom Mr. Brady has shared a long friendship. Mr. Brady needled Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, which many Trump supporters still believe. The quarterback said many people did not believe the Buccaneers could win the championship last year. “I think about 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won,” Mr. Brady said. “I understand that,” Mr. Biden said. — Jim Tankersley Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close friend of former President Donald J. Trump and one of his top 2016 campaign fund-raisers, was indicted on Tuesday morning on federal charges of violating a federal law requiring lobbyists for foreign interests to disclose their work to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. have been investigating Mr. Barrack for nearly three years, focusing on whether he tried to sway Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign or his administration on behalf of Persian Gulf nations with huge stakes in United States policy. The inquiry was overseen by prosecutors in the public integrity section of United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. In an interview two years ago, a spokesman for Mr. Barrack said he had acted as an independent intermediary between Persian Gulf leaders and the Trump campaign and administration, not on behalf of foreign officials or entities. The indictment charged Mr. Barrack and two other men with failing to register as agents of the United Arab Emirates government. The other two men charged were Matthew Grimes, a former top executive at Mr. Barrack’s company, and Rashid al-Malik Alshahhi, an Emirati businessman who is close to the U.A.E. rulers. The seven-count indictment also accused Mr. Barrack of obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements during a June 20, 2019, interview with federal agents. — Sharon LaFraniere and William K. Rashbaum Democrats are preparing to muscle through the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to head the Bureau of Land Management, despite united opposition from Republicans who have branded her an “eco-terrorist” because of her involvement in a tree-spiking episode as a graduate student in the 1980s. The vote over her nomination, scheduled for Thursday in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, sets up a battle between Republicans and Democrats over an agency at the center of climate policy. The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the Interior Department that oversees grazing, logging and drilling on 245 million acres of public land and manages 700 million acres of mineral rights. It is responsible for balancing oil, gas and coal extraction with recreation and the protection of natural resources. It is also key to President Biden’s goal to phase out oil and gas drilling on federal lands — a plan that is being challenged by 15 states led by Republican attorneys general. Ms. Stone-Manning,55, has built a career in environmental policy, working as an aide to Senator Jon Tester of Montana and as chief of staff to former Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, both Democrats. She was also the head of Montana’s environment agency, where she gained a reputation as a bridge builder among environmentalists, ranchers and fossil fuel interests. She is currently the senior adviser for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit conservation group. But Republicans argue that her actions in 1989, and her account of that episode in the intervening years, make her unfit for the post. They wrote to Mr. Biden asking him to withdraw her nomination, and they plan to vote against her as a bloc in the committee. Republicans also fought the choice of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, because of her opposition to expanded oil and gas drilling on public lands. While Ms. Haaland narrowly won confirmation, that process morphed into a proxy fight over climate policy. — Lisa Friedman A former special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration was arrested on Tuesday and charged with trespassing at the Capitol on Jan.6 while carrying his service weapon and later lying to investigators about his actions during the riot. Prosecutors did not accuse the former agent, Mark S. Ibrahim, of Orange County, Calif., of breaching the Capitol itself. But they said he had illegally entered restricted areas on the Capitol grounds and taken several photos of himself showing off his sidearm and D.E.A. badge. They also said that when a Justice Department investigator questioned Mr. Ibrahim two months after the riot, he lied, saying that he had gone to the Capitol to help a friend in the F.B.I. According to court papers, Mr. Ibrahim had given notice to his bosses weeks before Jan.6 that he intended to leave the D.E.A. Prosecutors said he was not on duty when he went to the Capitol, and Mr.
