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Richard Burr censured from North Carolina GOP after voting to convict Trump

16 February 2021
Dan Ackermann

The North Carolina Republican Party announced Monday night that its members had voted unanimously to censure Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) for finding former President Trump guilty of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol siege.

The big picture: Most of the House Republicans who voted to convict Trump in January have been censured.

  • Now the party backlash for rebuking Trump in the wake of the Capitol insurrectionhas continued in the Senate, as the Republican Party of Louisiana voted unanimously to censure Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Saturday for his vote to convict Trump.

What they're saying: "The NCGOP agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former President lies outside the United States Constitution," the Central Committee of the North Carolina Republican Party said in an emailed statement.

What he's saying: "The President promoted unfounded conspiracy theories to cast doubt on the integrity of a free and fair election because he did not like the results," Burr said in a statement on Saturday to explain his vote in favor of impeachment.

  • "As Congress met to certify the election results, the President directed his supporters to go to the Capitol to disrupt the lawful proceedings required by the Constitution. When the crowd became violent, the President used his office to first inflame the situation instead of immediately calling for an end to the assault," he said.
  • Burr added that he still believes it is unconstitutional to impeach a former president, but that the Senate had established precedent for this by voting to continue with Trump's second trial.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that Burr has been censured.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.