Eliana Willis

QAnon follower who chased officer on January 6 convicted of feloniesDouglas Jensen could face more than 50 years in prison after federal jury found him guilty A QAnon conspiracy theorist who led a pack of Donald Trump supporters that chased a solitary police officer around the US Capitol on the day of the January 6 attack has been found guilty of several felonies.Douglas Jensen – the bearded 43-year-old Iowa man who appeared in several media photos of the attack while wearing a black T-shirt with a large “Q” – could in theory face more than 50 years in prison after a federal jury in Washington DC convicted him on Friday, US justice department prosecutors said in a statement.However, it is rare for convicts in US district court to receive the harshest available punishment, even if they chose to stand trial rather than plead guilty in advance. And the harshest sentence handed out so far to anyone found guilty of having a role in the deadly Capitol attack has been 10 years.Antisemitic army reservist gets four years for role in January 6 Capitol attackRead moreProsecutors alleged that Jensen formed part of the mob of Trump supporters who gathered at the Capitol on the day in early 2021 that Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the previous year’s presidential election.Clad in a navy blue knit cap and the T-shirt paying homage to QAnon, the conspiracy myth that Trump is locked in secret combat against a cabal of leftist pedophiles and its deep state allies, Jensen scaled a wall at the Capitol, watched as fellow mob members broke the Senate wing entrance’s windows and doors, and was among the first 10 people to invade the facility, according to prosecutors.Jensen went around a few corners and joined a crowd that encountered a lone Capitol police officer near a stairwell, prosecutors said. Jensen squeezed his way to the front of the group, essentially came face to face with the officer, Eugene Goodman, and helped chase him up the stairs to a hallway just outside the Senate chamber.Prosecutors said that Jensen – carrying a knife with a three-inch blade in his pocket – barked at Goodman as well as other officers to “back up” and ordered them to arrest Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, whom the mob was threatening to hang if he didn’t halt the certification of Biden’s electoral college win.After 40 minutes, Jensen was made to exit, briefly re-entered another section of the Capitol and was forced out again, prosecutors said.Authorities arrested him two days later, after he returned to Iowa.At Jensen’s trial, concluding Friday, his defense attorney portrayed him as “a terribly confused man” whose mind was even more twisted by QAnon as well as Covid lockdowns. Jensen’s attorney also claimed his client had never physically hurt anyone during his time at the Capitol.But jurors needed just four hours to convict Jensen as charged of assaulting police, obstructing a congressional proceeding, interfering with law enforcement, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon, which are all felonies.Jensen was also found guilty of a pair of misdemeanors: picketing in the Capitol and disorderly conduct in that facility.Goodman testified during Jensen’s trial, describing how he had felt cornered and threatened by the mob. Prosecutors showed video of Goodman leading the mob away from the Senate floor while defensively holding up a baton with one of his hands.The Senate awarded Goodman a congressional Gold Medal, saying that the officer had led the violent mob away from lawmakers who ultimately did certify Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the Capitol attack and said it had left more than 140 police officers injured. As of this week, more than 870 people had been charged with roles in the insurrection.TopicsUS Capitol attackIowaWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

Alarm as Koch bankrolls dozens of election denier candidates Election watchdogs say Koch’s about face after pledging change following January 6 is disturbing given the threats to democracy Fossil fuel giant Koch Industries has poured over $1m into backing – directly and indirectly – dozens of House and Senate candidates who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win on 6 January 2021.Koch, which is controlled by multibillionaire Charles Koch, boasts a corporate Pac that has donated $607,000 to the campaigns or leadership Pacs of 52 election deniers since January 2021, making Koch’s Pac the top corporate funder of members who opposed the election results, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign spending.In addition, the Super Pac Americans for Prosperity Action to which Koch Industries has given over $6m since January 2021, has backed some election deniers with advertising and other communications support, as well as a few candidates Donald Trump has endorsed who tried to help him overturn the 2020 election, or raised doubts about the final results.A top official with AFP Action told Politico after the January 6 insurrection by Donald Trump supporters that it planned to “weigh heavily” future spending and back “policy makers who reject the politics of division”.Altogether, 139 House members and eight senators voted against certifying Biden’s win in Arizona or Pennsylvania.Election and campaign finance watchdogs say that the financial support for candidates who were election deniers by Koch’s Pac and the Super Pac AFP Action is very disturbing given the threats to democracy posed by election deniers. “There’s a unique danger in having politicians who cast doubt on the validity of the last election results play a role in certifying the next election,” said Ian Vandewalker, a senior counsel for the Democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice.“Even if they don’t take any overt action to reject the will of the voters, the election denial message itself harms voter confidence in the system. Democracy requires the losing side to accept the results – without that we could see civil unrest on a much larger scale than January 6.”Although the Koch-funded Super Pac AFP Action had suggested it would not back election deniers after 6 January, analysts aren’t shocked given Koch’s lobbying and legislative priorities, which include fighting various tax and regulatory measures related to fossil fuel issues including climate change that affect the company’s bottom line. Koch spent $12.2m last year on lobbying – more than any other oil and gas company during 2021.“Like other corporations pledging change following January 6, Koch Industries has returned to business as usual,” said Sheila Krumholz, who leads OpenSecrets.” Without repercussions and continued public attention, companies will go back to funding politicians who support their agenda.”“Like many big business spenders, Koch seems more interested in their favored party controlling Congress than the characteristics of specific members,” Vandewalker added.To be sure, the Koch Pac’s support for 52 election deniers included a number of members whose votes are often helpful to fossil fuel interests.Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, who is often a staunch ally of fossil fuel interests, received $20,000 from Koch’s Pac, a sum only matched by the corporate Pac of Capital One. Kennedy teamed up with other senators in January 2021 on a statement that claimed the 2020 election was “rife with allegations of fraud and irregularities that exceed any in our lifetimes”.Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, where Koch is headquartered, also voted against certifying Biden’s election and has received support from Koch’s Pac. Marshall is not up for re-election this year.Separately, Americans for Prosperity Action, to which Koch has donated $6m, has spent almost $20m on ads and other communications much of which has gone to support some election deniers running for the Senate and House, plus Senate candidates who tried to help Trump reverse the 2020 election results or who have raised doubts about its outcome.For instance, House member Ted Budd, who voted against certifying Biden’s win on 6 January, and now hopes to win a Senate seat in North Carolina, has benefited from almost $3.1m that AFP Action has spent to help him win the seat of the retiring senator Richard Burr. Budd has also told CNN that he had “constitutional concerns” about the election while acknowledging that Biden is president.Similarly, two House members who opposed certifying Biden’s victory, Kat Cammack of Florida and Steve Chabot of Ohio, have both attracted backing from AFP Action. AFP Action has spent $369,750 to help Cammack and $287,902 to help Chabot.Moreover, AFP Action has spent $4.9m to boost the Missouri attorney general, Eric Schmitt, who filed a lawsuit in December 2020 in tandem with the Texas attorney general to overturn the election results, and is running for an open seat.The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson also has benefited from $4.2m spent by AFP Action to help him in what seems to be a tight re-election race. According to revelations at a House January 6 committee hearing in June, an aide to Johnson reportedly helped promote efforts to substitute fake electors for Trump for legitimate ones that Biden won in the run up to 6 January when Congress certified the election results.And Mehmet Oz, the GOP Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, whose campaign has been backed by over $2m of ad and other support from AFP Action, told Fox News in September that “lots more information” was needed to assess whether Trump won the 2020 election, contradicting prior Oz remarks that he would have certified Biden’s election if he was senator.Election objectors won substantial donations from other corporate Pacs besides Koch’s. OpenSecrets reported in August that altogether members who voted against certifying Biden’s win received a whopping $22m post-January 6 from the Pacs of 700 corporations. Besides Koch’s Pac, the other top corporate Pacs were those of Home Depot and Boeing that respectively ponied up $593,000 to 44 members and $520,000 to 27 members.Still, at least one veteran of a thinktank that Charles Koch co-founded and has helped fund says that the company’s ongoing support for election deniers is very troubling.“When the only elected officials who will carry your political water are proto-fascists, what is one to do?” said Jerry Taylor, a former vice-president at the Cato Institute in DC where he oversaw climate and energy issues. “Charles Koch has made his choice. This self-proclaimed voice of freedom and liberty has apparently decided that advancing the public policies he desires is more important than democracy.“His choice is not unlike the choices that most German industrialists made in the Weimar Republic.”TopicsUS elections 2020Koch brothersUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

Virginia Thomas agrees to interview with House January 6 panelHer lawyer said she is eager to ‘clear up any misconceptions’ in helping Donald Trump overturn the 2020 US election Conservative activist Virginia Thomas, the wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the House panel investigating the January 6 insurrection, her lawyer said Wednesday.Attorney Mark Paoletta said Thomas is “eager to answer the committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election”.The committee has sought an interview with Thomas in an effort to know more about her role in trying to help former president Donald Trump overturn his election defeat. She texted with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election and before the insurrection.Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren to propose bill to stop another January 6 attackRead moreThomas’s willingness to testify comes as the committee is preparing to wrap up its work before the end of the year and is writing a final report laying out its findings about the US Capitol insurrection. The panel announced Wednesday that it will reconvene for a hearing on 28 September, likely the last in a series of hearings that began this summer. The testimony from Thomas was one of the remaining items for the panel as its work comes to a close. The panel has already interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and shown some of that video testimony in its eight hearings over the summer.The extent of Thomas’ involvement ahead of the Capitol attack is unknown. In the days after news organizations called the presidential election for Biden, Thomas emailed two lawmakers in Arizona to urge them to choose “a clean slate of electors” and “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure”. The Associated Press obtained the emails earlier this year under the state’s open records law.She has said in interviews that she attended the initial pro-Trump rally the morning of 6 January 2021 but left before Trump spoke and the crowds headed for the Capitol.Thomas, a Trump supporter long active in conservative causes, has repeatedly maintained that her political activities posed no conflict of interest with the work of her husband.“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America. But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work,” Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview published in March.Thomas has been openly critical of the committee’s work, including signing on to a letter to House Republicans calling for the expulsion of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the GOP conference for joining the January 6 congressional committee.CNN first reported that Thomas agreed to the interview.Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenting voice when the supreme court ruled in January to allow a congressional committee access to presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes relating to the January 6 attack.It’s unclear if the hearing would provide a general overview of what the panel has learned or if it would be focused on new information and evidence, such as an interview with Thomas. The committee conducted several interviews at the end of July and into August with Trump’s cabinet secretaries, some of whom had discussed invoking the constitutional process in the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chairwoman, said the committee “has far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsClarence ThomasDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Letitia James, attorney general of New York state, has filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and members of his family for doctoring their finances in order to obtain favourable borrowing terms. 
In a statement on Wednesday, James said: ‘The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and senior executives of the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms.’
Allen Weisselberg, a former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, and Jeffrey McConney, a former controller, were also named in the suit.

New York attorney general announces civil lawsuit against Trump and family More

Trump’s ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows complies with January 6 subpoenaMeadows is reportedly the highest-ranking Trump official known to have responded to a subpoena in the federal investigation The former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who served under Donald Trump, has complied with a subpoena from the justice department investigation into the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, CNN reported on Wednesday.Trump chief of staff used book on president’s mental health as White House guideRead moreThat makes him the highest-ranking Trump official known to have responded to a subpoena in the federal investigation, CNN said.The attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters led to several deaths, injured police officers and delayed certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election.Meadows provided the same materials he gave to the House January 6 committee, satisfying the obligations of the subpoena, CNN reported, citing an unnamed source.Meadows initially cooperated with the January 6 committee in 2021 but later sued over the subpoenas.The US House of Representatives earlier this year voted to refer Meadows to the justice department for contempt of Congress. The department declined to charge him.Reuters could not immediately contact Meadows for comment. George Terwilliger, a lawyer who represents Meadows, did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The January 6 committee has accumulated reams of evidence and testimonies in its investigation into the attack on the Capitol, but one outstanding question has been what will happen to it all. Will the evidence be shared with federal prosecutors? What about the lawyers of people facing charges over the attack?The lawmakers in the committee gathered behind closed doors yesterday for their first meeting in more than a month, and Politico has reported a few details about where they were on these questions. “I think now that the department of justice is being proactive in issuing subpoenas and other things, I think it’s time for the committee to determine whether or not the information we’ve gathered can be beneficial to their investigation,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said.Indeed, the justice department has recently issued a flurry of subpoenas to associates of Donald Trump as part of its investigation into the attack on the Capitol, and the January 6 committee seems to be aware that some of what it has found in its own, separate investigation could be useful to them. However, that could also open the door for attorneys of people defending charges over the attack to get access to the committee’s evidence as well.Either way, expect to be hearing a lot more from the committee later this month. Thompson said the lawmakers are eyeing September 28 as the date to resume their hearings, according to Politico.Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to ban abortion after 15 weeks nationwide was excoriated by Democrats and downplayed by Republicans after it was introduced yesterday.But pro-abortion sentiment isn’t unanimous among Democrats in the chamber. National Review reports that Joe Manchin, the conservative Democratic senator representing West Virginia, reiterated his support for banning abortion after 20 weeks, noting he’d voted for such a measure in the past. As for Graham’s more stringent proposal, Manchin said he was “very interested” in it. As long as Democrats control the Senate, Graham’s measure probably won’t even be put up for a vote. And even if Republicans did gain control, they’d need to find 60 votes to overcome an inevitable filibuster from Democrats before the bill could pass.Yesterday should have been a rough day for the Biden administration. It started off with the government releasing new inflation data that was worse than expected, and ended with a massive sell-off on Wall Street. Both developments should have been potent fodder for Republicans aiming to convince voters that inflation was the fault of Biden and the Democrats ahead of the November midterms. Instead, much of yesterday’s news cycle was dominated by Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal for federal restrictions on abortion, which are controversial with many voters, including in the GOP.Politico has published a rundown of the own goal scored by the senator and the unexpected reprieve it won for Democrats from the disquieting economic news:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}So obvious was the apparent ill-timing of the bill’s introduction that one White House aide said a Republican lobbyist friend joked that Graham appeared to be working for the Biden administration. Other aides suggested that the comments continued a Democratic winning streak that started mid-summer and began to imagine holding onto both houses of Congress.
“Dems might need to send gift baskets and champagne to Graham and other Republicans for their selfless act of service today,” another Democratic official told POLITICO.
The immediate response to Graham’s legislation, which would not just establish a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy but also allow states to keep and pass more restrictive laws, was a microcosm of the way abortion politics has wholly upended the midterm sprint.
It’s not as if the images out of the White House were pristine. Live TV coverage of Biden’s speech was bracketed by large red arrows signifying the stock market’s downward trajectory. The more Biden talked about how the legislation would help the economy, the more the markets tumbled. By the closing bell, Wall Street had suffered its worst day since June 2020, with the Dow dropping more than 1,250 points.
But Democrats, who have been on the defensive for months over stubbornly high inflation, felt once again revitalized in trying to fend off GOP-led initiatives to restrict abortion rights. Virtually every Senate candidate quickly issued statements excoriating Graham’s bill and asking their Republican opponents whether they would sign off on it.Biden has said he will attend the funeral of Elizabeth II, but it remains unclear if he will meet with new prime minister Liz Truss or King Charles III.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not shed much light on the matter today, The Washington Post reports:Asked if Biden will be meeting with new King Charles III or new British prime minister Liz Truss while he’s in London, @PressSec says: “I don’t have an update on who he’s going to be meeting or anything like that.” She notes this morning’s call between the president and the king.— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 14, 2022
President Joe Biden called Britain’s King Charles III today and offered his condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the White House announced.Here’s the full readout from the Biden administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with King Charles III to offer his condolences on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The President recalled fondly the Queen’s kindness and hospitality, including when she hosted him and the First Lady at Windsor Castle last June. He also conveyed the great admiration of the American people for the Queen, whose dignity and constancy deepened the enduring friendship and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. President Biden conveyed his wish to continue a close relationship with the King.Elizabeth II passed away last week, and her coffin has just arrived in the Palace of Westminster in London to lie in state. The Guardian is running a live blog with the latest events, which you can read below.Queen Elizabeth’s coffin arrives at Palace of Westminster to lie in state – latest updatesRead moreBusy times for the feds, it seems. FBI agents reported to the drive-thru lane of a Minnesota Hardee’s to question and seize the cellphone of Mike Lindell, a prominent Trump ally and 2020 election denier who is also known for his company MyPillow, which makes… pillows. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe explains what they were looking for:Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman who became an enthusiastic mouthpiece for Donald Trump’s lie about a stolen election, has said he was forced to hand his phone to FBI agents who surrounded him at a fast-food drive-through.The incident happened on Tuesday as Lindell, chief executive of My Pillow, was in line at a branch of Hardee’s in Mankato, Minnesota, his home town, following a hunting trip.“Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us, and behind us and I said those are either bad guys or the FBI,” the conspiracy theorist said on his internet show, the Lindell Report. “Well, it turns out they were the FBI.”Lindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the state’s top election official.My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has phone seized by FBI at fast-food outletRead moreIn June, federal investigators issued a subpoena for surveillance footage from inside Mar-a-Lago and obtained a hard drive in response, according to a newly revealed portion of the warrant authorizing last month’s search of Donald Trump’s resort by the FBI.The detail was redacted from the warrant released by a federal judge last month, but the Associated Press reports that the justice department asked for it to be released after Trump’s lawyers publicly revealed the subpoena’s existence.Here’s more from the AP about the possible significance of the subpoena for surveillance footage:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”The January 6 committee has accumulated reams of evidence and testimonies in its investigation into the attack on the Capitol, but one outstanding question has been what will happen to it all. Will the evidence be shared with federal prosecutors? What about the lawyers of people facing charges over the attack?The lawmakers in the committee gathered behind closed doors yesterday for their first meeting in more than a month, and Politico has reported a few details about where they were on these questions. “I think now that the department of justice is being proactive in issuing subpoenas and other things, I think it’s time for the committee to determine whether or not the information we’ve gathered can be beneficial to their investigation,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said.Indeed, the justice department has recently issued a flurry of subpoenas to associates of Donald Trump as part of its investigation into the attack on the Capitol, and the January 6 committee seems to be aware that some of what it has found in its own, separate investigation could be useful to them. However, that could also open the door for attorneys of people defending charges over the attack to get access to the committee’s evidence as well.Either way, expect to be hearing a lot more from the committee later this month. Thompson said the lawmakers are eyeing September 28 as the date to resume their hearings, according to Politico.Good morning, US politics blog readers. After weeks of quiet, congress members investigating the January 6 attack have reconvened with plans to hold a new public hearing later this month, and potentially share evidence with the justice department. That would set the stage for the insurrection at the Capitol to remain in the public eye in the lead up to the November midterms, where a slew of Trump-supporting Republicans are on the ballot.Here’s what else is happening today:
President Joe Biden is traveling to Michigan for an appearance promoting electric vehicles at the Detroit auto show.
Federal health officials including CDC director Rochelle Walensky will testify about the response to Monkeypox before the Senate health committee.
Donald Trump has ruled out picking his former vice-president Mike Pence as his running mate, a soon-to-be published book obtained by The Guardian reveals. More

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has phone seized by FBI at fast-food outletProminent proponent of Donald Trump’s stolen election lie says he was questioned about Colorado electoral official Tina Peters Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman who became an enthusiastic mouthpiece for Donald Trump’s lie about a stolen election, has said he was forced to hand his phone to FBI agents who surrounded him at a fast-food drive-through.Trump says Pence is out as potential running mate, book revealsRead moreThe incident happened on Tuesday as Lindell, chief executive of My Pillow, was in line at a branch of Hardee’s in Mankato, Minnesota, his home town, following a hunting trip.“Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us, and behind us and I said those are either bad guys or the FBI,” the conspiracy theorist said on his internet show, the Lindell Report. “Well, it turns out they were the FBI.”Lindell said the agents questioned him about Tina Peters, a fellow election denier facing criminal charges in Colorado for tampering with voting machinery as a county clerk, and who in June lost a Republican primary to become the state’s top election official.Lindell campaigned for Peters, who in May was removed by a judge from running elections in Mesa county.An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents were “at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge” but would not give other details.Lindell, a close Trump ally, is one of the loudest proponents of Trump’s false claims that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was rigged, and has been widely ridiculed for his frequent claims that he has enough “evidence” to see Trump reinstated to the presidency.Lindell admitted earlier this month that he had spent up to $40m of his own money in the pursuit, including underwriting lawsuits in numerous states to try to eliminate voting machines he insists were to blame for Trump’s defeat.There is no evidence to support his allegations and Lindell has lost numerous legal challenges over machines manufactured by Smartmatic and Dominion.In April, he was sued for defamation by a Dominion Voting Systems employee, who claimed Lindell was engaged in “efforts to undermine faith in American democracy and enrich himself in the process”.Lindell said on Tuesday the FBI demanded his phone, which he handed over only after consulting his attorney.“They surrounded me at a Hardee’s and took my phone that I run all my business, everything with,” he said. “What they have done is weaponise the FBI, it’s disgusting. I don’t have a computer, that phone, everything was on everybody.”In a later interview with CNN, Lindell said he was surprised when the agents started asking questions about Peters, having assumed they were about to serve him a subpoena as part of the justice department investigation into the 6 January insurrection and other attempts to reverse Trump’s election defeat.“I said, ‘Come on, bring me to January 6. I want to be part of that show’,” he said he told them.“They thought they were there to intimidate me. They won’t intimidate me.“I want to say this for the record, they were pretty nice guys. None of them had an attitude.”TopicsUS newsUS elections 2020FBInewsReuse this content More

US issues 40 subpoenas about Trump’s failed bid to overturn the 2020 electionThe justice department has cast a wide net seeking tips on efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to submit alternatives slates of fake electors The US Justice Department has issued about 40 subpoenas over the past week seeking information about efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, the New York Times reported on Monday.Trump backed failed campaign coup against Kushner, Navarro book saysRead moreBoris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser, and Mike Roman, a campaign strategist for Trump, had their phones seized last week as evidence, the Times said, citing people familiar with the situation.Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media director, was also among those who were subpoenaed, according to the paper, which said the group included low-level aides as well as senior advisers.An attorney for Scavino did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, while Reuters was unable to contact Roman and Epshteyn.The subpoenas seek information on a failed bid by the former president and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election by submitting alternative slates of fake electors.The inquiry is also looking at the assault on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by Trump supporters.Some of the subpoenas also seek information on Trump’s Save America political fundraising group, which the Times said was a new line of inquiry by the justice department.TopicsUS elections 2020US Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More