Federal investigators focus on emails between Trump lawyers and congressman – as it happened

We’re closing the politics blog now for the day, and indeed the week. Thanks for reading along with us.

It was, again, not a great day for Donald Trump. A judge unsealed an order that granted the justice department access to emails between several of his allies over the January 6 insurrection; and a Guardian exclusive revealed that the former president could face referral for criminal conspiracy charges when the House panel publishes its final report into his election meddling next week.

Join us again on Monday for what’s certain to be a high-octane week in US politics.

Here’s what else we covered today:

• The United Nations said it was “very concerned” for press freedoms, as a global backlash grew against Elon Musk for throwing a number of prominent journalists off Twitter. European leaders hinted at sanctions against the social media giant.

• Joe Biden spoke at a National Guard center in Delaware, touting the Pact Act that supports veterans’ healthcare, and getting emotional speaking about his late son Beau, a former Guard major.

• Senators discussed a long-term, $1.7tn package to keep the government funded for another year. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer wants the Electoral Count Act included to preserve the integrity of future elections.

• Biden signed a one-week, stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown on Friday afternoon, after the Senate passed it on Thursday night, one day after the House approved the measure. Congress has until 23 December to negotiate the longer-term agreement.

Joe Biden is seeking to elevate Cindy McCain, widow of the late Republican Senator John McCain, as the executive director of World Food Program, Axios reported on Friday.

McCain is currently serving as the US ambassador to the United Nations agencies for food and agriculture.

The president is also recommending David Lane, former US ambassador to the WFP for the post, Axios said, citing people familiar with the matter.

David Beasley, the Republican former South Carolina governor, currently serves in WFP’s top role but is set to leave that post when his term ends in April next year.

Officials are now pushing for McCain to take on the role and get to work raising funds in this time of crisis.

“Cindy deserves a promotion. She’s doing a great job,” Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s Republican senator, told Axios.

Donald Trump could face criminal referrals for obstructing Congress and conspiracy to defraud the US when the January 6 House panel delivers its final report on Monday. Here’s an exclusive from The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:

The House January 6 select committee is considering a criminal referral to the justice department against Donald Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States on the recommendation of a special subcommittee, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The recommendations on the former president – made by the subcommittee examining referrals – were based on renewed examinations of the evidence that indicated Trump’s attempts to impede the certification of the 2020 election results amounted to potential crimes.

The select committee could pursue additional criminal referrals for Trump and others, given the subcommittee raised the obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud statutes among a range of options and discussions about referrals continued on Thursday, said the sources.

The referrals could also largely be symbolic since Congress has no ability to compel prosecutions by the justice department, which has increasingly ramped up its own investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and subpoenaed top aides to appear before federal grand juries.

The recommendations presage a moment of high political drama next Monday, when the full panel will vote publicly to adopt its final report and formally decide on making referrals, and increase pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to seek charges over January 6.

Trump could be referred for obstruction of an official proceeding, the subcommittee is said to have concluded, because he attempted to impede the certification and did so with a “consciousness of wrongdoing” – as the panel has previously interpreted the intent threshold

The former president was seen to have met the elements of the offense since he relentlessly pressured Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral college votes for Joe Biden, despite knowing he had lost the election and had been told the plan was illegal.

Trump could also be referred for conspiracy to defraud the United States, the subcommittee suggested, arguing the former president violated the statute that prohibits entering into an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of government by dishonest means.

Read the full story:

Federal investigators have been scrutinizing emails between lawyers for Donald Trump and a loyalist Republican congressman for months, it emerged on Friday, casting new light on the direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s insurrection efforts.

US district court chief judge Beryl Howell granted a request from the justice department to unseal an order she made in June.

That order allowed the inquiry access to 37 emails exchanged between Jeffrey Clark and Ken Klukowski, both justice department officials for Trump, the conservative attorney John Eastman, and Pennsylvania congressman Scott Perry, a Trump loyalist who chairs the rightwing House freedom caucus.

Perry has previously been implicated in Trump’s efforts overturn his election defeat to Joe Biden. Earlier this week, some of his texts sent to Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, came to light, showing increasingly desperate efforts to try to keep Trump in power around the time of the 6 January insurrection.

Those efforts included seizing voting machines, and a suggestion the US government should investigate an outlandish conspiracy theory in which Italian satellites were used to zap the machines from space and flip votes for Trump to Biden.

Eastman and his allies had claimed the emails were protected by presidential privilege but Washington DC judge Howell, in her order, rejected it.

The development comes as the bipartisan panel investigating the 6 January Capitol attack and Trump’s subversion prepares to release on Monday its final report, and make civil and criminal referrals.

Trump, Eastman and Clark, who sought to become acting attorney general in the waning days of the Trump presidency, are all thought to be among those who could be referred for charges.

Politico reports that Howell unsealed a second opinion, issued in September, in which she determined that 331 documents from Clark were also not protected by attorney-client privilege.

The contents of the emails and documents are not known, but the revelation they were in the hands of the criminal inquiry provides a clue to investigators’ thinking over Trump’s plotting.

Federal agents seized Eastman’s phone in June, the same time as Howell made her order. Perry’s phone was seized in August. Both lost legal challenges to reclaim them, Politico says.

An Iowa construction worker and QAnon follower was sentenced earlier today to five years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, when he led a crowd chasing police officer Eugene Goodman, who courageously diverted rioters away from lawmakers.

Wearing a T-shirt celebrating the conspiracy theory, with his arms spread, Douglas Jensen became part of one of the most memorable images from the riot, the Associated Press reports.

As he handed down the sentence, judge Timothy Kelly said he wasn’t sure Jensen understood the seriousness of a violent attack in which he played a “big role.”

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It snapped our previously unbroken tradition of peaceful transfer of power. We can’t get that back. I wish I could say I had evidence you understood this cannot be repeated,” Kelly said.

Jensen was convicted at trial of seven counts, including felony charges that he obstructed Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote and that he assaulted or interfered with police officers during the siege. His sentence also includes three years of supervised release and a $2,000 fine.

He gave a brief statement to the judge, saying that he wanted to return to “being a family man and my normal life before I got involved with politics.”

Jensen scaled a retaining wall and entered through a broken window so he could be one of the first people to storm the Capitol that day, Kelly said.

He led a group that chased Capitol Police officer Goodman up a staircase. He would later re-entered the building and scuffle with police.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Doug Jensen wanted to be the poster boy of the insurrection,” prosecutor Emily Allen said.

Jensen wore a T-shirt with a large “Q” on it because he wanted the conspiracy theory to get credit for what happened that day, his defense attorney Christopher Davis said.

Davis has argued Jensen was dressed as a “walking advertisement for QAnon” and not intending to attack the Capitol.

He did not physically hurt people or damage anything inside the Capitol, Davis said, and many friends and family members wrote letters to the judge on his behalf.

Goodman’s quick thinking that day — to divert the rioters away from the Senate and then find backup — avoided “tremendous bloodshed,” Capitol Police inspector Thomas Lloyd said today.

The United Nations is “very disturbed” by the arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on today, adding that media voices should not be silenced on a platform professing to give space for freedom of speech.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The move sets a dangerous precedent at a time when journalists all over the world are facing censorship, physical threats and even worse,” Dujarric told reporters.

Dujarric is the spokesman for UN secretary-general António Guterres, a position he has held since 2014, when he was appointed by previous secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon.

Time to take stock of developments midway through Friday.

There’s a growing global backlash against Elon Musk for suspending the accounts of several prominent journalists from Twitter. European leaders are threatening sanctions, while Musk’s company insists it only acted after a careful manual review.

Here’s what else we’ve been following:

• Joe Biden has been speaking at a National Guard center in Delaware, touting the Pact Act that supports veterans’ healthcare, and getting emotional speaking about his late son Beau, a former Guard major.

• The bipartisan House committee investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection is making final preparations ahead of Monday’s last public hearing, the publication of its report and civil and criminal referrals for certain individuals possibly including Trump.

• Senators have been discussing a long-term, $1.7tn package to keep the government funded for another year. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer wants the Electoral Count Act included to preserve the integrity of future elections.

Joe Biden is at a town hall for veterans in New Castle, Delaware, choking with emotion when talking about his late son Beau, a former National Guard major for whom the center he was speaking at is named.

The president kept his comments tightly focused on the expansion of benefits and services for veterans resulting from the Pact Act, introducing a second world war pilot, and talking of the need to support and improve the physical and mental health of retired military members.

The law helps veterans get screened for exposure to toxins, such as agent orange, which was used for deforestation during the Vietnam War; and burn pits, where poisonous trash was destroyed on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Biden said:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Pact Act was the first step of being sure that we leave no-one behind.

We also need to pass the bipartisan government funding bill so we can deliver on the act’s promise.

It was a more somber, subdued delivery from Biden as he delivered anecdotes about military families who have struggled to get care, and remembered his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

Joe Biden is about to speak in Delaware. You can follow his comments live here:

Happy Wright Brothers Day everyone, for tomorrow! The White House has issued a proclamation to commemorate the first powered fight, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December, 1903.

“On Wright Brothers Day, we celebrate the ingenuity and perseverance of Orville and Wilbur Wright, whose aircraft expanded the limits of human discovery and lifted this nation to new heights,” the statement, signed by Joe Biden, says.

“When their Wright Flyer finally took to the skies… they launched the future of aviation and helped define the American spirit: bold, daring, innovative, and always asking what is next”.

Never missing an opportunity to brag, the White House is using the occasion to tout some of its own achievements.

“[The] Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is investing $25bn to renovate airport terminals; upgrade air traffic control facilities; and improve runways, taxiways, and other vital infrastructure that make flying easier and more secure,” it says.

“We have pushed airlines to rebook travelers’ tickets for free when flights are significantly delayed or canceled, and to disclose fees, like for checked baggage, clearly and up front. And we are exploring new technologies that can decrease carbon emissions coming from airplanes.”

Read the White House proclamation here.

It’s the final countdown for the bipartisan House committee investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection as it prepares for its last public hearing and report publication next week. Also coming soon: criminal referrals.

The panel has set a 1pm date on Monday for a “business meeting” at which it will make finishing touches to its report and recommendations for legislative changes, and prepare to announce much-anticipated referrals for civil and criminal charges, which many expect to include Trump himself and a number of close allies.

But it is unclear if the final report’s release will also come on Monday. Bloomberg’s congressional correspondent Billy House says there’s doubt, as some important discussions still need to take place.

The Guardian reported last month there was something of a rift on the panel, with members split over focusing on Trump and the efforts he made to cling on to power after losing the 2020 election; and issues such as intelligence failures by the FBI and others that allowed Trump’s mob of supporters to easily overrun law enforcement defending the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the panel, urged observers this week to “stay tuned” as he refused to give clues about referrals or conclusions. “We’re going with what we think are the strongest arguments,” he said, according to the New York Times.

The referrals could follow two tracks, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported last week: citations for things that Congress can request prosecution by statute, such as perjury or witness tampering, or wider-ranging recommendations such as making the case that Trump obstructed an official proceeding on 6 January.

The select committee held its first meeting in July 2021.

Read more:

Joe Biden is in Delaware, where he’s meeting with veterans at a National Guard facility named for his late son. The president is urging them to take advantage of new healthcare opportunities under legislation he signed in August.

Biden is scheduled to make public remarks at noon. We don’t know if he’ll restrict his comments only to the Pact Act, a law that helps veterans get screened for exposure to toxins, and which Senate Republicans famously blocked earlier this year in a political stunt, before relenting.

The toxins include agent orange, which was used for deforestation during the Vietnam War, and burn pits, where trash was destroyed on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the Associated Press, the Biden administration has been hosting scores of events around the country to draw attention to the new benefits. More than 730,000 veterans have already received screenings, the White House says.

Beau Biden, the president’s elder son, served as a major in the Delaware National Guard. He died of brain cancer in 2015, and the president has suggested that exposure to burn pits on his base in Iraq may have been the cause.

Hundreds of thousands of railroad jobs disappeared in the US over the last 50 years, while railroad carriers made record profits. After their recent strike was blocked, workers are fighting back. Michael Sainato reports:

Railroad workers and unions are ramping up pressure on the US Congress and Joe Biden to address poor working conditions in the wake of the recent move to block a strike when Congress voted to impose a contract agreement.

Workers and labor activists in America have criticized that action for undermining the collective bargaining process in the US and workers’ right to strike.

Twelve labor unions representing about 115,000 railroad workers across the US had been negotiating with railway carriers since 2019 on a new union contract. By September the prospect of a strike threatened to shut down down the US railroads and hit the US economy to an estimated $2bn a day. That eventually prompted Congress – backed by the president – to impose the settlement.

“You always knew that this was the culmination of the process, you knew that Congress was going to push you back to work, you just didn’t know when and under what conditions that you’d be put back to work,” said Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer based in Iowa and co-chair of Railroad Workers United.

Railroad workers had pushed for paid sick days to provide relief for grueling schedules caused by of labor cuts, with many workers on call 24/7 every day of the year, often having to work while sick or forgo doctor’s appointments because of their scheduling demands and strict disciplinary policies around attendance.

As conditions have worsened, railroad carriers have made record profits and spent billions of dollars on stock buybacks and dividends to shareholders. Meanwhile, US railroad jobs have declined significantly in recent years, from 1m in the 1950s to fewer than 150,000 in 2022, with drastic recent losses as the industry experienced a reduction of 40,000 workers between November 2018 and December 2020.

Now the imposed contract provides just one extra day of personal time off, with no days allotted for illnesses, and three days a year for doctor appointments with stipulations.

Read the full story:

Protecting the integrity of elections, and preventing another January 6-style insurrection, are up for discussion Friday as senators weigh an omnibus funding package to keep the government funded for another year.

The chamber passed a short-term deal late on Thursday to extend funding until 23 December, which Joe Biden will approve today after the House approved the same measure the day before.

It provides breathing space for a bipartisan team negotiating the longer-term deal, which Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer wants to see include the Electoral Count Act.

Among other measures, the law would clarify the role of the vice-president in the certification of general election results. The 2021 riot by Donald Trump supporters was sparked, at least in part, by the outgoing president’s false claim that his vice-president Mike Pence could refuse to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, and keep him in office.

“I expect an omnibus will contain priorities both sides want to see passed into law, including more funding for Ukraine and the Electoral Count Act, which my colleagues in the Rules Committee have done great work on. It will be great to get that done,” Schumer told reporters.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, has said he could support a omnibus bill, which will come in around $1.7tn, as long as it doesn’t contain any “poison pills”.

It would finance day-to-day operations of government agencies for the current fiscal year that began 1 October. Federal spending on programs such as social security and Medicare is not part of the annual appropriations process and is not included in the package.

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While it’s been quiet from politicians in the US (so far) over Elon Musk’s suspension of prominent journalists’ accounts from Twitter, European leaders are not holding back, and are threatening sanctions against the social media giant.

“News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” Věra Jourová, vice-president of the European Commission tweeted.

“EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct. @elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”

She did not specify what the sanctions could entail.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) compels companies using serving European web users to meet strict regulations in tackling manipulative algorithms, disinformation and other cyber harm.

Meanwhile, France’s industry minister Roland Lescure tweeted on Friday he would mothball his account.

“Following the suspension of journalists’ accounts by @elonmusk, I am suspending all activity on @Twitter until further notice”, he wrote.

Twitter insisted on Friday that the company “manually reviewed” every account it suspended last night, ranging from prominent journalists from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post, and a number of popular liberal commentators.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, made the claim in an email to Reuters, stating the manual review was on “any and all accounts” it said violated its new privacy policy by posting links to a Twitter account called ElonJet, which tracked Elon Musk‘s private jet using information in the public domain.

Musk, formerly the world’s richest man, who bought the social media platform for $44bn earlier this year, accused the journalists of posting “assassination coordinates” by publicizing the ElonJet account, which was suspended earlier.

“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” Musk tweeted.

He did clarify how he thought they had done so. And he hung up on a Twitter Spaces audio chat after clashing with some of the journalists he banned.

The suspension of the accounts late Thursday has prompted outrage on both sides of the Atlantic about Musk’s curbing of press freedoms.

Also suspended were accounts run by liberal commentators Keith Olbermann and Aaron Rupar.

Irwin’s letter to Reuters offered little by way of further explanation.

“I understand that the focus seems to be mainly on journalist accounts but we applied the policy equally to journalists and non-journalist accounts today,” she wrote.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the suspensions, which included its technology reporter Drew Harwell, were instigated at the “direction of Ella”.

Read more:

Good morning and happy Friday to all politics blog readers! After Elon Musk’s purge of several prominent US journalists’ Twitter accounts, the EU was quick to react, promising sanctions against the social media giant.

“We have a problem @Twitter,” the German foreign ministry tweeted, while a raft of other senior European officials are expressing their concern at curbed press freedoms.

Media outlets this side of the Atlantic are similarly outraged, and we’re waiting to see what US politicians have to say about it all. We’ll bring you reaction and developments through the day.

Here’s what else we’re watching on what’s shaping up to be a busy, and consequential day:

• Senators continue their discussions on an omnibus deal to keep the government funded for the next year after passing a week-long stopgap measure last night. Democrats want to include the Electoral Count Act, seeking to prevent another January 6-style insurrection.

• The House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack by followers of Donald Trump are wrapping up their business ahead of Monday’s final public hearing, but it’s unclear whether we’ll see the full report on that day.

• Joe Biden will meet veterans to talk about benefits and services resulting from the Pact Act during a town hall meeting at a National Guard center in Delaware named for the president’s late son Beau. He’ll speak at 12pm.

• The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will talk about international affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank in Washington DC.