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LIVE Updated 10m agoMartin Pengelly (now), Lauren Arataniand Richard Luscombe (earlier)Fri 22 Apr 2022 11.12 EDTFirst published on Fri 22 Apr 2022 09.06 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyThe Marjorie Taylor Greene hearing on Atlanta is back in session now, with the far-right Republican congresswoma testifying as liberal groups and voters try to bar her from Congress under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, which bars those who have engaged in sedition or rebellion.“Please try to refrain from clapping and shouting,” an official asked attendees, after a raucous opening including clapping and cheering for Greene when she walked in.The judge agreed, saying: “That will not happen.”The hearing opened with a presentation in Greene’s defence. Those seeking to bar her from Congress began with extensive questioning of a historian about what the 14th amendment means and about past rebellions, including the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was quashed by George Washington.The historical conversation continued after the break.Underlining the circus-like aspect of the hearing, the far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was attending and tweeting, at one point criticising the case against Greene and calling the hearing a “Total Kangaroo Court”.House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke with Donald Trump last night about the audio that was leaked to the New York Times that reveals McCarthy was considering telling Trump to resign. Citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the call, the Washington Post reports that Trump told McCarthy that he’s not mad at McCarthy (insert sigh of relief) and that he is glad McCarthy didn’t follow through on that plan. McCarthy has not responded to the leaked audio of his conversations with Republicans. The sources told the Post that House Republicans are waiting for Trump to release his official statement to determine how – and if – they should support McCarthy amid the Times’ report. “If Trump comes out and says [McCarthy] lost my faith and can’t be speaker, that is bold. That will move people. If he puts out a statement complaining — he complains about McConnell all the time and hasn’t threatened his position in leadership,” said one Republican congressional aide who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations.The far right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was cheered into court in Georgia on Friday, for a hearing in an attempt by a coalition of voters and liberal groups to bar her from Congress under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for aiding the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Some people in the courtroom cheered and applauded as Greene took her seat.As the hearing began, Greene tweeted: “Only the People have the right to choose who they send to Congress.”The 14th amendment, passed after the civil war, says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden, an attack mounted in service of Trump’s lies about electoral fraud. A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the riot. More than 100 law enforcement officers were hurt. About 800 people, including members of far-right and militia groups, have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy. A House investigation continues.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection – and acquitted when Senate Republicans stayed loyal.Organisers of events in Washington on January 6 have tied Greene to their efforts. Greene has denied such links and said she does not encourage violence.In October, however, she told a radio show: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”After the riot, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in Congress who went ahead with objections to results in battleground states.An effort to use the 14th amendment against Madison Cawthorn, a far-right Republican from North Carolina, was unsuccessful, after a judge ruled an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive.In Greene’s case, a federal judge said the 1872 law did not apply and allowed the hearing on Friday to proceed.Greene’s full tweet as her hearing began read as follows: “Republicans must protect election integrity. It’s one of the most important issues in our country. When the People lose their right to vote and their freedom to choose their representatives, our country is lost. Only the People have the right to choose who they send to Congress.”The hearing opened with a presentation in her defence. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another far-right Republican congressman, was pictured in the room.The hearing is streaming here.The New York Times just released another clip of Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy telling Republican leaders that he believes Donald Trump was responsible for the January 6 insurrection.In the clip, McCarthy can be heard detailing a conversation he had with Trump where he asked the former president whether he believes he had responsibility for the attack. “Well, let me be very clear to all of you, and I’ve been very clear to the president: He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No if’s, and’s or but’s. I asked him personally today, “Does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened?” He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he needs to acknowledge that,” McCarthy said in the clip, which was just played live on CNN. The audio comes from a call that took place January 11, 2021.Seems like the special house panel investigating the January 6 insurrection is planning to hold its public hearings in June. The committee had previously suggested that the hearings would be held next month. Representative Jamie Raskin, a prominent Democrat on the committee, has been making the rounds hyping up the findings of the committee to the press. He recently told NBC News: “The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House.” He also said that the committee plans on holding the hearings in June.Earlier this week, Raskin told the Guardian that the committee is “going to tell the whole story of everything that happened. There was a violent insurrection and an attempted coup and we were saved by Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with that plan.” The hearings in June will be televised and will be the first time the public will get a direct look at the investigations into the attack that are underway. About 800 people have been charged with crimes committed in relation to the Capitol attack over the last year.The Washington Post obtained records that show Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows was simultaneously registered to vote in three different states – North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina – until last week.“The overlap lasted about three weeks, and it might have continued if revelations about Meadows’s voting record had not attracted scrutiny in North Carolina. Meadows is still registered in Virginia and South Carolina,” writes Glenn Kessler, writer for the Post’s “Fact Checker” column. This isn’t the first revelation that Meadows is registered to vote in multiple states. The New Yorker reported in March that the former South Carolina senator and his wife, Debra, submitted voter registration forms that linked to a mobile home in North Carolina, even though the couple did not actually live there. North Carolina recently removed Meadows from its voter rolls and is investigating potential voter fraud. The irony, of course, is that Meadows has become outspoken about the voter fraud that he believed happened in 2020. Meadows has been critical of “lowered” standards for mail-in ballots.Some analysis about the released audio clip of Kevin McCarthy considering telling Donald Trump to resign: The McCarthy tape is the same rolling crisis of bad faith going on since 2016. Large chunks of the party said, or say in private, Trump is unfit and dangerous. Every race features all MAGA candidates, the divide is who’s coded to donors and backers as secretly believing it too.— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) April 22, 2022
“The McCarthy tape is the same rolling crisis of bad faith going on since 2016. Large chunks of the party said, or say in private, Trump is unfit and dangerous,” writes Benjy Sarlin of NBC on Twitter. This brings to mind a great piece from New York Magazine by Olivia Nuzzi that was published in October 2020, right before the presidential election. Nuzzi profiles an anonymous Republican source who, like the many anonymous sources who were prolific at talking to the media during Trump’s presidency, privately bashed Trump while publicly supporting him. While McCarthy didn’t hide behind anonymity per se, the leak of the audio clip reveals how pervasive private sentiments against Trump were, just as the breadth of anonymous sourcing that was seen during the Trump presidency demonstrated. The subject of the piece grapples with his anonymous criticism of Trump. “It’s hard to go up against the president of your own party – even if he’s not really a Republican.” And, he notes, “If you don’t like Trump, but you like money, and you’re willing to be vocal about how much we need to reelect him, there’s a lot of money to be made this year.” The source said that while some Republicans may have seen supporting Trump as a way to “prevent the worst stuff from happening”, keeping a close eye on him, he admitted that “it’s definitely self-serving.” “I mean, once you grow up, life is all about contradictions.” Good morning readers of the US politics blog, and happy Earth Day!It’s not such a happy one for the House minority leader and Donald Trump apologist Kevin McCarthy, who appears to have been caught in a lie over whether he said he would seek the former president’s resignation in the aftermath of the 6 January Capitol riot.The backstory is that yesterday, the top House Republican angrily denied claims in a new book by New York Times journalists Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin that he was so outraged with Trump’s incitement of the insurrection that he said he would push him to quit.Unfortunately for McCarthy, there’s a stunning audio recording of him saying just that to Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, whom he helped oust from party leadership when she didn’t follow the would-be House speaker’s reversal back to Trump acolyte.We’ll have plenty more on that today.Developments in the Ukraine conflict can be found on our 24-hour live blog here.And here’s what else we’re watching in the US today:
Joe Biden travels to Washington state, where he will talk about the climate crisis and reveal steps to “safeguard the nation’s forests”.
Later, in Auburn, the president will deliver another address about his plans to lower healthcare and energy prices.
The extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is set to appear in a Georgia courtroom at a hearing to determine if she should be disqualified from seeking re-election for supporting the 6 January insurrection.
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