Eliana Willis

Trump’s bid to cling to power ‘beyond Nixon’s imagination’, Watergate duo sayBob Woodward and Carl Bernstein write in new book foreword that bid to overturn election made Trump ‘our first seditious president’ Donald Trump was the first seditious president in US history, surpassing in his efforts to hang on to power beyond even the criminal imagination of Richard Nixon, according to the two political reporters who were instrumental in securing Nixon’s downfall.In a new foreword to their celebrated 1974 book on the Watergate scandal, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein accuse Trump of pursuing his “diabolical instincts” by zeroing in on the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory by Congress on January 6 last year. In the authors’ assessment, Trump’s unleashing of the mob that day, culminating in the violent attack on the US Capitol, amounted to “a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination”.Capitol attack panel to unveil new evidence against Trump at public hearingsRead moreThey write in their foreword, published by the Washington Post, they write: “By legal definition this is clearly sedition … thus Trump became the first seditious president in our history.”Woodward and Bernstein’s comparison of Trump and Nixon carries singular weight, given that as young Washington Post reporters they helped to uncover Nixon’s campaign of political spying and cover-up that led in 1974 to the only resignation of a president in American history. In separate capacities, the two journalists have also reported extensively on the Trump presidency, with Woodward doing so in a series of three books: Fear, Rage and Peril.The timing of their analysis is also potent. It comes just days before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection stages the first of at least six televised hearings in which they will attempt to show the American people that Trump acted corruptly in his efforts to stop Biden’s certification.Woodward and Bernstein suggest that the two presidents had much in common, despite the almost half a century that stands between them. Nixon’s belief that it was for the greater good that he stayed in power whatever the means was “embraced by Trump”, they write.“A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits,” Nixon told himself in 1969. That informed Trump’s campaign to hold on to power through falsehoods even in the face of defeat.Misinformation also unites the diabolical pair. “Both Nixon and Trump created a conspiratorial world in which the US constitution, laws and fragile democratic traditions were to be manipulated or ignored, political opponents and the media were ‘enemies,’ and there were few or no restraints on the powers entrusted to presidents,” Woodward and Bernstein say in their new foreword.The reporters also explore the differences between the two men, notably that Trump attempted his electoral subversion in public. Pulling no punches, they call the January 6 insurrection “a Trump operation” and predict that the House committee has an abundance of evidence to prove that point in the upcoming hearings.Though Nixon’s criminal misdeeds tend to be remembered through the lens of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on 17 June 1972, and the cover-up that followed, the authors remind their readers that his core purpose was to subvert that year’s presidential election. They rehearse some of the extreme measures that Nixon’s team of operatives took to derail the presidential campaign of his main Democratic rival, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine.Those measures included writing fake letters on Muskie stationery alleging sexual misconduct by other Democratic candidates and stealing Muskie’s shoes from outside his hotel room where he had left them for polishing in order to spook him out. Muskie ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to the liberal senator George McGovern of South Dakota.Trump, the reporters argue, pursued equally ruthless tactics designed to undermine credibility in the 2020 presidential election. They reached a pitch on January 6 with the violent mob breaking into the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence” against Trump’s vice-president who was proceeding with certification of the election results.In the last analysis, Woodward and Bernstein ask themselves why two such powerful men would embark on parallel efforts to destroy democracy. They have one overriding answer.“Fear of losing and being considered a loser was a common thread for Nixon and Trump,” they write.TopicsDonald TrumpBob WoodwardCarl BernsteinUS Capitol attackUS politicsRichard NixonWatergatenewsReuse this content More

US justice department declines to charge former Trump officials Meadows and Scavino with contempt of CongressDecision marks major blow for House committee investigating US Capitol attack The US Department of Justice will not pursue charges of criminal contempt of Congress against top former Trump White House officials Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for refusing to comply with subpoenas in the congressional investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol.The decision – communicated to the counsel for the House of Representatives on Friday morning – marks a major blow for the House select committee investigating January 6, which had sought prosecutions for the two Trump aides in criminal referrals.But in a letter sent around the same time that the justice department charged former Trump White House official Peter Navarro with contempt for defying his subpoena, the US attorney for the District of Columbia said he would take no action against Meadows and Scavino.Secret Service were warned of security risk to Pence day before Capitol attackRead more“Based on the individual facts and circumstances of their alleged contempt, my office will not be initiating prosecutions for criminal contempt as requested in the referral against Messrs Meadows and Scavino,” the US attorney, Matthew Graves, said.The justice department’s letter, earlier reported by the New York Times, was confirmed to the Guardian by two sources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications.In declining to prosecute Meadows and Scavino, Graves said in his letter that his office was also closing the probes into two of Trump’s most senior advisers. “Review of each of the contempt referrals arising from the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation is complete,” he said.Meadows did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. An attorney for Scavino could not be reached late on Friday. The US attorney’s office declined to comment.The decision marks the denouement for five months of speculation over whether the justice department would move to bring contempt charges against Meadows, who was deeply involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results as White House chief of staff.Meadows was among the very first targets to receive a subpoena from the select committee and initially assisted the investigation under a cooperation agreement, turning over thousands of pages of documents and communications, until he abruptly withdrew from the deal.Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelRead moreThe select committee moved to recommend him for criminal contempt of Congress after he refused to attend a closed-door deposition, but that initial cooperation – in addition to his valid claims of executive privilege – appears to have brought him a reprieve.The select committee also recommended contempt of Congress charges for Dan Scavino, the former Trump White House deputy chief of staff for communications, who remained in close proximity to Trump on January 6 and was subpoenaed to give documents and testimony.Scavino is not understood to have provided any materials. But as with Meadows, Scavino spent months negotiating with the select committee over executive privilege and justice department office of legal counsel memos that shield presidential advisers from testifying.TopicsUS newsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Trump aide Peter Navarro ordered to testify before grand jury over January 6Former White House adviser reveals federal subpoena, which also calls for documents to be handed over, in court filing Peter Navarro, a top White House adviser to Donald Trump, revealed in a court filing on Monday that he had been ordered to testify before a federal grand jury and produce to prosecutors any records concerning January 6, including communications with the former president.The grand jury subpoena to Navarro, which he said was served by two FBI agents last week, compels him to produce documents to the US attorney for the District of Columbia and could indicate widening justice department action ensnaring senior Trump administration officials.Trump calls Capitol attack an ‘insurrection hoax’ as public hearings set to beginRead moreNavarro’s disclosure about the subpoena came in an 88-page filing that seeks a federal court to declare the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack unlawful, in a desperate move to stop a potential contempt of Congress indictment for defying the panel’s subpoena.The grand jury subpoena appeared to be part of a case to hold Navarro in contempt rather than pertaining to the justice department’s criminal investigation into the Capitol attack, though the exact nature of the justice department subpoena was not immediately clear.But the new filing, reviewed by the Guardian, that Navarro will submit to the US district court for the District of Columbia, is not expected to succeed beyond causing a nuisance and possibly delaying the justice department from moving on a contempt indictment.The filing is seeking the court to rule that the select committee is not properly constituted and therefore illegal, because the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, refused last year to appoint some Republican members put forward by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy.Since the panel supposedly lacks a Republican minority – despite the presence of Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – its subpoenas are unenforceable, the suit argues, and therefore his non-compliance with his subpoena is immaterial and should mean the justice department cannot act on a referral for contempt of Congress.The filing also asks the court to grant an injunction preventing the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, from enforcing a 28 May 2022 grand jury subpoena compelling him to produce documents requested in the select committee subpoena.“Since the subpoena of the Committee is ultra vires, unlawful, and unenforceable, the US Attorney’s Grand Jury Subpoena is likewise ultra vires, unlawful, and unenforceable and the US Attorney must be enjoined from any actions to enforce this subpoena,” Navarro wrote.The argument that the select committee is not properly constituted has been a common charge levelled by some of Trump’s allies against the congressional investigation into January 6, as they seek to find any way to avoid having to cooperate with the sprawling investigation.But even as Navarro repeats the claim echoed by prominent Republican members of Congress challenging their subpoenas from the panel, he may find his suit an uphill battle given that multiple federal courts have repeatedly rejected that argument as meritless.Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee to the DC district court, most recently ruled this month that the panel was not illegitimate when the Republican National Committee mounted a legal challenge to block a subpoena demanding records from its email vendor, Salesforce.Navarro’s additional argument that Biden could not waive the executive privilege asserted by Trump that precluded him from testifying to the panel is also expected to run into difficulty given the supreme court rejected that reading of the presidential protection.In the opinion that declined to grant Trump an injunction to stop the National Archives turning over White House documents to the inquiry, the supreme court ruled that although Trump had some ability to assert executive privilege, it did not overcome Biden’s waiver.The arguments put forward by Navarro are questionable from a legal standpoint, two former US attorneys told the Guardian, broadly characterizing Navarro’s complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief as a frivolous suit designed to buy him time.A spokesman for the select committee declined to comment.Navarro was referred to the justice department for criminal contempt of Congress by the full House of Representatives in April after he entirely ignored a subpoena issued to him in February demanding that he produce documents and appear for a deposition.The top White House trade adviser to Trump was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election from the very start, the Guardian has previously reported, deputizing his aides to help produce reports on largely debunked claims of election fraud.Navarro was also in touch with Trump’s legal team led by Rudy Giuliani and operatives working from a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel in Washington to stop Biden’s election certification from taking place on January 6 – a plan he christened the “Green Bay Sweep”.TopicsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

Trump calls Capitol attack an ‘insurrection hoax’ as public hearings set to beginFormer president intensifies attacks on Liz Cheney at Wyoming rally and endorses her Republican primary challenger in midterm elections As the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start public hearings next week, the former president called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a hoax.Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday night in support of the Republican primary challenger in the midterm elections to congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the insurrection.Addressing the sub-capacity crowd at a rally in Casper for Republican candidate Harriet Hageman, Trump slammed Cheney, saying: “As one of the nation’s leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical partisan narrative.”Capitol attack panel to hold six public hearings as it aims to show how Trump broke lawRead moreHe added: “Look at the so-called word insurrection, January 6 – what a lot of crap.”Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives a week after a violent mob broke into the US Capitol to try in vain to prevent a joint session of congress certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Republican Trump in the 2020 presidential election.Trump was accused of inciting the deadly insurrection because he held a rally near the White House that morning, during which he urged the crowd to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn the election result.Then as the violent mob, many carrying Trump banners, broke into the Capitol and rampaged through corridors, offices and chambers, attacking vastly outnumbered police officers and sending Democrats and Republicans fleeing for their lives, Trump ignored calls from colleagues and relatives to publicly call his supporters off and only hours later went on TV mildly telling people to “go home”.Trump was acquitted at his impeachment trial by the US Senate. A bipartisan Senate report later linked seven deaths to the Capitol attack on January 6.Lawmakers called for an independent commission to be created, similar to one set up after the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11 2001, to investigate the events on and leading up to January 6 and the involvement of the Trump White House.Republicans in the Senate killed that move so the House last summer formed a select committee to investigate the insurrection, chaired by Mississippi Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson but also including Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Cheney, the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney.The committee has since gathered mountains of evidence and taken testimony from numerous witnesses behind closed doors, while being stonewalled by many senior Republicans, and accuses Trump of attempting to lead a type of coup.January 6 ‘was a coup organized by the president’, says Jamie RaskinRead moreThe committee is due to hold a series of public hearings beginning 9 June and expects to present a report before the midterm elections in November. Separately, the Department of Justice is also investigating events on and surrounding the Capitol attack, led by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.At the rally in Wyoming , Trump appeared to lament the treatment of those arrested for taking part in the Capitol attack, while falsely claiming that anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter movement anti-racism activists “have killed plenty”.“Look what they are doing to these people,” he said.More than 800 people have been charged with federal crimes relating to the riot on January 6, in the biggest federal criminal investigation since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.At least 300 have already pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and nearly 20o have been sentenced. Approximately 100 others have trial dates.In the latest court cases, Matthew Mark Wood, of North Carolina, pleaded guilty last Friday to charges that he stormed the Capitol, including a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding, and will be sentenced in September.He entered the Capitol by climbing through a smashed window and followed others who had overcome police through corridors and into House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s offices.Also last Friday Matthew Joseph Buckler, of Maryland, pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in July for “parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building” after also entering through a window breached by the mob.It was ruled in court that the former top leader of the far right, violent group the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, will remain jailed while awaiting trial on charges that he conspired with other members of the extremist group to take part in the insurrection.Tarrio, a south Florida resident, has been indicted on charges including conspiracy.TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Kevin McCarthy refuses to comply with January 6 attack panel subpoenaThe Republican minority leader sent an 11-page letter appearing to demand materials from the committee related to his questioning Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, indicated on Friday to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that he would not cooperate with a subpoena unless he could review deposition topics and the legal rationale justifying the request.The California congressman’s response adopts an adversarial position similar to other subpoenaed Republican Congress members, and it sets a conundrum for the panel over whether to entertain the requests that also challenge the January 6 inquiry’s legitimacy.McCarthy appeared to tell the select committee in an 11-page letter through his lawyer that he would not consider complying with the subpoena until House investigators turned over materials that would reveal what the panel intended to use in questioning ahead of a deposition.Rudy Giuliani stonewalls Capitol attack investigators during lengthy depositionRead moreThe House minority leader also asked the panel to give him internal analyses about the constitutional and legal rationales justifying the subpoena, and whether the panel would adhere to one-hour questioning between majority and minority counsel, according to the letter.McCarthy’s references to the minority counsel amounted to a thinly veiled attack at the investigation, which Republicans have called illegitimate because the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, refused last year to appoint some of McCarthy’s picks for the Republican minority.The accusations, however, are to some degree disingenuous: it was McCarthy who pulled all Republican participation, incensed at Pelosi’s refusals, rather than name different members. Pelosi later added Republican congressmembers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to the panel.McCarthy’s requests also appeared phrased in a manner expecting the select committee to decline his requests, with the letter accusing the panel of issuing unprecedented subpoenas to five House Republicans in an illegal and unconstitutional manner.“The select committee is clearly not acting within the confines of any legislative purpose,” the letter said. “It is unclear how the select committee believes it is operating within the bounds of law or even within the confines of any legislative purpose.”The response from McCarthy largely mirrored the response from Ohio congressman Jim Jordan on Wednesday. In the letter, obtained by the Guardian, Jordan said he would consider complying only if the panel shared material that put him under scrutiny.Like with Jordan, it was not immediately clear how McCarthy might act if the select committee refused his requests. The investigation’s standard operating procedure to date has been not to share such materials with witnesses, according to a source familiar with the matter.The panel’s next move could have significant ramifications for both its inquiry and Congress. If the panel refused the request and the five subpoenaed House Republicans in turn declined to cooperate, it could leave large unanswered questions about the Capitol attack.But it could also set a problematic precedent for Republicans themselves, who might like the idea of subpoenaing Democrats in partisan investigations should the GOP take control of the House – as Capitol Hill widely expects – after the 2022 midterm elections.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.The resistance from McCarthy came as he and Jordan denounced the investigation as a “kangaroo court” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “For House Republican leaders to agree to participate in this political stunt would change the House forever,” they wrote.With McCarthy’s refusal to appear for a deposition without first receiving materials from the select committee, at least four of the five Republicans subpoenaed to testify about their roles in the events of 6 January have now declined to comply without some sort of negotiation.The current chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, Scott Perry, and its previous chairman, Andy Biggs, have both sent letters to the panel refusing to cooperate, CNN reported. It was not clear whether the fifth Republican, Mo Brooks, would comply.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Jim Jordan demands material on him before complying with January 6 subpoenaRepublican congressman sent a six-page letter to the panel asking for materials that put him under scrutiny for his cooperation Republican congressman Jim Jordan told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that he would consider complying with the panel’s subpoena only if they shared the material that put him under scrutiny, according to a letter he sent Wednesday.The response by Jordan – the top Republican on the House judiciary committee who spoke to Donald Trump on January 6 – stopped short of a refusal to comply with his subpoena, though it was not clear how he would proceed if the panel refused his request.In the six-page letter sent to the select committee and obtained by the Guardian, Jordan demanded House investigators share with him all materials they intended to rely upon in questioning, materials in which he is referenced, and legal analyses about subpoenaing members of Congress.Capitol attack committee seeks appearance by Trump ally Jim JordanRead more“Because your subpoena is an unprecedented use of a committee’s compulsory authority against another member,” Jordan said in his letter, “I respectfully ask for the following material so that I may adequately further respond to your subpoena.”The response puts the ball in the select committee’s court, forcing House investigators to decide whether they will acquiesce to Jordan’s demands in the hope that it convinces him to give some testimony, or refuse and potentially close off any chance of cooperation.But the letter, which challenged the legality of the select committee and its subpoenas, appeared to be something of a gambit for Jordan, too. For one thing, it was not clear whether Jordan wanted to face the consequences for defying a subpoena if his demands were not met.The response from Jordan – finalized on Tuesday and sent to the panel on Wednesday – also included complaints that House investigators had not acted in good faith by issuing a subpoena around four months after Jordan apparently declined to give voluntary assistance.“Your subpoena was unprompted and, in light of the unaddressed points from my January 9 letter, plainly unreasonable. I write to strongly contest the constitutionality and validity of the subpoena in several respects,” Jordan said.The select committee’s subpoena to Jordan – which came alongside four other subpoenas to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks – demanded testimony about his December 2020 meetings with Trump in the White House and other communications.House investigators took the step to issue the unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress after Jordan, McCarthy and Perry did not appear for interviews on tentative dates suggested in initial letters seeking voluntary cooperation.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses ‘insurrectionist’ rulingPeople who take part in insurrections against US government can be barred from office and 1872 act does not apply, court rules People who take part in insurrections against the US government can be barred from office, an appeals court said on Tuesday, reversing a ruling in favor of Madison Cawthorn, an extremist Republican politician from North Carolina.Trump-backed nominees lost in Georgia, but can Republicans escape the specter of Maga?Read moreHailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 – including Donald Trump – from the consequences of their actions.”Cawthorn lost a primary this month and will not return to Congress in November. But Free Speech For People pursued an appeal.It also brought cases against Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, two Arizona Republicans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and an Arizona state representative, Mark Finchem. All have been unsuccessful.The challenges cited the the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.It says: “No person shall … 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.”Cawthorn and the other Republicans were closely tied to events around the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. They have denied knowledge of plans for violence.In answer to Free Speech for People, lawyers argued that an 1872 amnesty law for former Confederates did not only apply retroactively. Judges sided with them.Ruling in the Cawthorn appeal, Toby Heytens, one of a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the US fourth circuit, wrote: “The available evidence suggests that the Congress that enacted the 1872 Amnesty Act was, understandably, laser-focused on the then-pressing problems posed by the hordes of former Confederates seeking forgiveness.”Heytens also said only Congress could decide such matters, writing: “When the district court here tried to determine the effect of the 1872 Amnesty Act on Representative Cawthorn’s qualification for access to the ballot, the attempt amounted to a judging of his qualifications for office. The district court had no jurisdiction to make that call.”Praveen Fernandes, vice-president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, which filed an amicus brief, said: “Although Representative Cawthorn just lost his party’s nomination for his seat in Congress, today’s ruling remains an incredibly important one.“It makes clear that the 1872 Amnesty Act poses no barrier to similar future … challenges of the qualification of candidates to appear on the ballot, thus ensuring that section three of the 14th amendment can continue to serve its purpose as an important mechanism for holding public officials accountable when they violate their oaths of office.”Cawthorn did not immediately comment.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

Rudy Giuliani stonewalls Capitol attack investigators during lengthy depositionTrump lawyer testified to panel Friday but declined to discuss involvement of Republicans in bid to overturn election Donald Trump’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack at length on Friday but declined to discuss the involvement of congressional Republicans in efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to sources familiar with the matter.The move by Giuliani to refuse to give insight into Republican involvement could mean his appearance only marginally advanced the inquiry into his ploy to have the then vice-president, Mike Pence, unlawfully keep Trump in office after he lost to Joe Biden.However, he did potentially pique the committee’s interest by discussing two notable meetings at the White House involving Trump that took place just weeks before the Capitol insurrection.‘You are a jackass’: video of Rudy Giuliani rant at Israel parade goes viralRead moreGiuliani asserted privilege and the work-product doctrine to decline to respond when asked to detail the roles played by House and Senate Republicans in the scheme to stop Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory on 6 January 2021, the sources said.The panel was not expecting Giuliani to divulge damning information against Trump, since committee counsel had agreed with Giuliani in advance that he should not have to violate legitimate claims of privilege he might have as the former president’s attorney.But Giuliani’s refusal to engage with questions about House and Senate Republicans frustrated the select committee, the sources said, not least because Giuliani personally urged them to object to Biden’s victory to delay its certification.One thing that the former president’s attorney did discuss – at length – was a contentious Oval Office meeting on 18 December 2020, the sources said, when the former Trump campaign lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell lobbied Trump to authorize the seizure of voting machines and appoint her special counsel to investigate election fraud.The former president did not advance Powell’s proposal, the Guardian has previously reported, after Giuliani cut off her access to Trump and instead proposed at a separate White House meeting with congressional Republicans on 21 December 2020 to have Pence help return Trump to office.Giuliani spent the remainder of the virtual deposition – conducted by investigative counsel and the select committee members Peter Aguilar, Jamie Raskin and Zoe Lofgren – arguing about the debunked claims of election fraud which underpinned Trump’s allies’ push to return him to power, the sources said.The extended back-and-forth via Cisco Webex video conference centered on the select committee’s lawyers investigating whether Giuliani could truly believe the claims of election fraud even though the justice department found no such evidence, the sources said.Giuliani told the select committee that he disagreed with the justice department and that the evidence for election fraud was incontrovertible, the sources said, seemingly making the case that his belief meant he could not have acted with criminal intent to obstruct Congress.The question of what Giuliani truly believed extends to Trump, former US attorney Joyce Vance said.As Vance put it: “What prosecutors are driving at here is proof Trump knew or should have known he had lost the election. His state of mind is where a prosecution would rise or fall.”Giuliani’s lawyer declined to comment on the deposition.Rudy Giuliani backs out of interview with Capitol attack committeeRead moreGiuliani’s transcribed deposition, which was conducted under oath and bisected by a break during which he hosted his hour-long afternoon radio show, came a fortnight after he abruptly pulled out of a scheduled interview because the panel refused to allow him to video the session.He later dropped his objection and rescheduled his appearance after the select committee implicitly threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued earlier this year demanding documents and testimony, an order which he immediately denounced as illegal.Giuliani made a formal complaint at the start of the deposition challenging the legality of the panel and the subpoena, the sources said. Earlier, he shared some documents with House investigators but did not create a “privilege log” of documents he was withholding, as is standard, the sources said.TopicsRudy GiulianiUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More