Eliana Willis

Joe Biden has criticised Donald Trump’s handling of the US Covid vaccination program after confirming the country had ordered an additional 200m vaccine doses to be delivered by the end of July. Speaking at the National Institutes of Health on Thursday, the president spoke of the efforts his team had gone through to ensure high vaccination numbers and criticised Trump’s strategy for distributing vaccines. ‘My predecessor, to be very blunt about it, did not do his job,’ Biden said. ‘He didn’t order enough vaccines. He didn’t mobilise enough people to administer the shots’
US finalizes order for 200m additional Covid-19 vaccine doses, Biden says More

House impeachment managers warned that more political violence could occur if Trump is not held accountable. Representative Diana DeGette argued the vote to impeach would make sure this would never happen again.
The  managers rested their case on the third day of the trial after presenting arguments for convicting Donald Trump.
US politics: latest updates More

In their prosecution of Donald Trump for inciting the 6 January attack on the United States Capitol in Washington DC, Democratic impeachment managers have focused on videos of the event, including previously unseen footage.
The managers, who act as prosecutors in the case, have shown clips to their audience of senators, who are in effect acting as jurors.
The shocking footage shown on Wednesday revealed the full scale and danger of the attack on the Capitol, including threats to some senators who were now sitting in the chamber during the trial
Trump trial shown disturbing footage of lawmakers ‘hunted’ by Capitol mob
Five shocking videos from the Capitol attack shown at Trump’s impeachment trial More

New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence. Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney’s close call as well as Pence and his family’s escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’
Trump trial shown disturbing footage of lawmakers ‘hunted’ by Capitol mob
New footage of Capitol riot shows Eugene Goodman rushing to save Mitt Romney – Trump impeachment live More

This is the full edited video montage from the Capitol insurrection that Democrats presented during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on 9 February 2021, as part of their evidence alleging the former president incited the mob More

The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the 2020 US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.As is routine for OSCE member states, its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a team out to observe the run-up, election day itself and the aftermath. Its report notes that voting infrastructure in the US is chronically underfunded, and the extra $400m disbursed to deal with the challenge of voting in a pandemic was insufficient.A total of 101 million Americans, 64% of all 2020 voters, cast an early ballot, but despite that unprecedented number, the report found that “early voting was generally well organised and implemented professionally”.“The number and scale of substantiated cases of fraud associated to absentee ballots were negligible,” it said.One of the main problems with the election and its aftermath, according to the findings, was the incumbent president.“On many occasions, President Trump created an impression of refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, claiming that the electoral process was systematically rigged,” the report said.“Such statements by an incumbent president weaken public confidence in state institutions and were perceived by many as increasing the potential for politically motivated violence after the elections.”The ODIHR report did not take an explicit view on Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January and for which he was impeached a second time. But it noted that at his rally immediately beforehand, Trump “persisted in his accusations that the election had been stolen, urging his supporters to pressure representatives to overturn the counting of electoral college votes”.The ODIHR was most scathing about the state of voting rights in the US. It notes that after the supreme court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act, “some states enacted laws which effectively compromised voting rights for some disadvantaged groups”.An estimated 5.2 million citizens are effectively disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction, even though half have served their sentences.The report concluded: “These restrictions on the voting rights of ex-felons and felons contravene principles of universal suffrage and the principle of proportionality in the restriction of rights, as provided for by OSCE commitments and other international standards.”The ODIHR made 38 recommendations on how to improve US democracy. It called on American politicians to stop using “inflammatory or discriminatory rhetoric”, and for all people with criminal convictions to have their voting rights restored on completion of their sentence.It also said US authorities should work on reducing the number of unregistered voters, by reducing “burdensome procedures and obstacles” to registration that have been erected in some states, draw up district boundaries on non-partisan principles, and review the electoral college system so that it confirms with the “principle of equality of the vote”. More

On the eve of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority and minority leaders, have laid out the framework for the trial. ’All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,’ Schumer said. Each side will have 16 hours to present their arguments and the trial will break on Friday afternoon and resume on Sunday afternoon
Trump impeachment: Schumer says agreement reached on rules for trial – live More

The Georgia secretary of state’s office opened an investigation on Monday into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, according to a new report.The office of Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, had faced calls to open an investigation after Trump was recorded in a 2 January phone call pressuring Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded voter fraud claims.“The secretary of state’s office investigates complaints it receives,” said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, describing the investigation as “fact-finding and administrative”, Reuters reported.“Any further legal efforts will be left to the attorney general,” he said.Legal experts said Trump’s phone calls might have violated at least three state criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional interference with performance of election duties.The felony and misdemeanor violations are punishable by fines or imprisonment.In the 2 January phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Joe Biden.The transcript quotes Trump telling Raffensperger: “All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” which is the number Trump needed to win.Trump made another phone call in December to Georgia’s chief elections investigator, Raffensperger’s office told Reuters.Additionally, two Democratic members of Congress – Kathleen Rice, of New York, and Ted Lieu, of California – have asked in a 4 January letter to the FBI for a criminal investigation into Trump’s call to Raffensperger.On 6 January – the day of the US Capitol riots – Trump bragged about the call in a speech to supporters: “People love that conversation because it says what’s going on,* he said. “These people are crooked.”The push for investigations is one illustration of the legal perils facing Trump since he lost the constitutional protections that shield sitting presidents from prosecution.Trump now faces nearly a dozen legal battles, including a criminal inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, into his business dealings, and several civil lawsuits.Trump has described the investigations into his family business as politically motivated.David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s state election board, had planned to introduce a motion at Wednesday’s board meeting urging the state attorney general, Chris Carr, and Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, to open a criminal investigation into Trump’s phone calls with election officials.He said such a move would be unnecessary if the secretary of state’s office had opened an investigation. “If they’ve done this, I won’t need to make my motion,” Worley said.“This is the normal thing that should happen when a complaint is filed. If a complaint is filed, an investigation is started. That’s how it works.” More