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    Pro-Trump activist Ali Alexander to cooperate with Capitol attack inquiry

    Pro-Trump activist Ali Alexander to cooperate with Capitol attack inquiryAttorney says organizer of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement will work with justice department after he was subpoenaed Ali Alexander, the prominent pro-Trump activist, will cooperate with the justice department investigation into the Capitol attack, making him the first high-profile political figure to agree to assist the government’s criminal inquiry into the events of January 6.The move is likely to give initial momentum to the newly expanded justice department investigation running in parallel to the House select committee investigation examining Donald Trump and the Capitol attack.An attorney for Alexander – the organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement – told the Guardian that he had agreed to cooperate with the justice department since he was left with no choice after being issued a grand jury subpoena, and had been informed by the prosecutor that he was not currently a target of the investigation.The news of his cooperation was earlier reported by the New York Times.In a lengthy statement through his attorney, Alexander denounced the process as “hostile” but indicated he would comply with the grand jury subpoena asking about the “Women for America First” group and the “Save America March” events that immediately preceded the Capitol attack.Capitol attack investigators zero in on far-right Oath Keepers and Proud BoysRead more“I did nothing wrong and I am not in possession of any evidence that anyone else had plans to commit unlawful acts,” Alexander said in the statement. He has also denounced anyone who took part in or planned violence on 6 January 2021.Alexander said he did not think he could provide prosecutors with anything useful for the inquiry, noting he had not financed the equipment used for the Save America rally on the Ellipse near the White House and had not discussed the security for the event with the Trump White House.The statement added that he had not coordinated any movements with the Proud Boys militia group and he had only accepted an offer from the Oath Keepers militia group to act as security for a separate event he had planned near the Capitol, which ultimately did not take place.It was not clear what assistance Alexander might furnish. But he was deeply involved in efforts to invalidate the results of the 2020 election and had contacts with members of Congress and, according to the House select committee, White House officials.That is now of interest to the justice department, which recently expanded the scope of its January 6 inquiry to include Trump’s push to return himself to office, after spending months focused purely on the rioters that stormed the Capitol.A spokesperson for the justice department declined to comment.The subpoena to Alexander from the grand jury empaneled by federal prosecutors suggests the justice department investigation could go beyond that of the select committee, to which he testified voluntarily for about eight hours last December.It also indicates that the criminal inquiry could reach Trump’s inner circle, with the subpoena demanding information about members of the legislative and executive branches who were involved in efforts to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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    Trump says he regrets not marching on Capitol with supporters on January 6

    Trump says he regrets not marching on Capitol with supporters on January 6 Ex-president also rejects suggestions he used ‘burner phones’ on day of the assault in Washington Post interview Donald Trump has said he regrets not marching on the US Capitol building with his supporters on the day of the January 6 insurrection and again rejected suggestions he used “burner phones” on the day of the assault.In a defiant interview with the Washington Post the former president said he had pressed to march with his supporters on January 6, but was blocked from doing so by Secret Service agents. “Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute,” Trump told the Post, later bragging about the size of the “tremendous crowd” at the “Save America” rally that day.Last month CBS News and the Post revealed internal White House phone records from the day of the attack on the Capitol showed a seven-hour-and-37-minute gap in Trump’s phone logs including the period in which the assault occurred. The reports revealed the House committee investigating the attack were examining whether Trump had used burner phones – disposable mobile phones – during that period.Trump has denied doing so and said he did not know the meaning of the term, but last week his former national security adviser John Bolton said the former president had used the term several times in conversations.In his interview with the Washington Post, Trump again denied use of burner phones and said he had not destroyed any call logs. He claimed instead he had not received many phone calls on the day of the assault, but remembered talking to two Republican congressmen, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and Jim Jordan.“From the standpoint of telephone calls, I don’t remember getting very many,” he told the Post, later adding, “Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make? There was nothing secretive about it. There was no secret.”Trump also acknowledged he had communicated with Ginni Thomas, wife of the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, during his presidency but said he was not aware of her lobbying around the 2020 election results.Text messages obtained by the Washington Post and received by the 6 January committee, revealed Ginni Thomas had repeatedly lobbied Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to push to keep Trump in power after Joe Biden won the election.“First of all, her husband is a great justice. And she’s a fine woman. And she loves our country,” Trump said in his interview with the Post.The former president also said he had not been contacted by the 6 January committee and offered no clear indication of how he would respond if contacted. He branded his daughter Ivanka’s appearance before the committee earlier this week as “shame and harassment” but told the Post he was not aware of what she had said.The interview came as the committee received a cache of 101 emails belonging to the Trump lawyer John Eastman, which are likely to reveal details of the efforts undertaken to block former vice-president Mike Pence from certifying the election result in Congress on 6 January.On Wednesday the House also voted to hold two former senior Trump aides, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas issues by the committee, paving the way for potential criminal prosecution.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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    House votes to hold Trump duo Navarro and Scavino in contempt of Congress

    House votes to hold Trump duo Navarro and Scavino in contempt of CongressApproval of contempt resolution over months-long defiance of subpoenas sets pair on path towards criminal prosecution by DoJ The House voted on Wednesday to hold two of Donald Trump’s top advisers – Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino – in criminal contempt of Congress for their months-long refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.The approval of the contempt resolution, by a vote of 220 to 203, sets the two Trump aides on the path toward criminal prosecution by the justice department as the panel escalates its inquiry into whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee who introduced the contempt resolution to the House floor, said the select committee needed the House to advance the measure in order to reaffirm the consequences for defying the January 6 investigation.January 6 panel receives Trump lawyer emails about plan to block Biden victoryRead moreCiting a ruling by a federal judge last week that Trump “likely” committed felonies to return himself to the Oval Office for a second term, Raskin said on the House floor that the panel wanted Navarro and Scavino’s cooperation because they engaged in trying to overthrow an election.But having refused to comply with their subpoenas in any form, Raskin said that “these two witnesses have acted in contempt of Congress and the American people; we must hold them in contempt of Congress and the American people”.The contempt citations approved by the House now head to the justice department and the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, who is required by law to weigh a prosecution and present the matter before a federal grand jury.Should the justice department secure a conviction against the Trump aides, the consequences could mean up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – though it would not force their compliance, and pursuing the misdemeanor charge could take months.The subpoena defiance by Navarro and Scavino meant the select committee was ultimately unable to extract information directly from them about Trump’s unlawful scheme to have then-vice president Mike Pence stop Joe Biden’s election win certification on 6 January.But the panel has quietly amassed deep knowledge about their roles in the effort to return Trump to office in recent weeks, and senior staff decided that they could move ahead in the inquiry without hearing from the two aides, say sources close to the inquiry.The determination by the select committee that Navarro and Scavino’s cooperation was no longer essential came when it found it could fill in the gaps from others, the sources said, and led to the decision to break off negotiations for their cooperation.The final decision to withdraw from talks reflected the panel’s belief that it was not worth the time – the probe is on a time crunch to complete its work before the November midterms – to pursue their testimony for potentially only marginal gain, the sources said.House investigators had sought cooperation from Navarro, a former Trump senior advisor for trade policy who became enmeshed in the effort to reverse Trump’s election defeat, for around a month until it became apparent they were making no headway.The select committee issued a subpoena to Navarro since he helped devise – by his own admission on MSNBC and elsewhere – the scheme to have Pence stop Biden’s certification from taking place as part of one Trump “war room” based at the Willard hotel in Washington.Navarro also worked with the Trump campaign’s legal team to pressure legislators in battleground states win by Biden to decertify the results and instead send Trump slates of electors for certification by Congress at the joint session in January 6.But when that plan started to go awry, Navarro encouraged then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to call political operative Roger Stone to discuss January 6, the panel said in its contempt of Congress report published last week.The former Trump aide, however, told the select committee – without providing any evidence – that the former president had asserted executive privilege over the contents of his subpoena and would therefore not provide documents or testimony.With Scavino, the select committee first issued Trump’s former deputy White House chief of staff for communications in September last year, since he had attended several meetings with Trump where election fraud matters were discussed, the panel said.But after the panel granted to Scavino six extensions that pushed his subpoena deadlines from October 2021 to February 2022, the former Trump aide also told House investigators that he too would not comply with the order because Trump invoked executive privilege.The select committee rejected those arguments of executive privilege, saying neither Navarro nor Scavino had grounds for entirely defying the subpoenas because either Trump did not formally invoke the protections, or because Biden ultimately waived them.At the business meeting last week where the select committee voted unanimously to recommend that the full House find Navarro and Scavino in contempt of Congress, Raskin delivered an emotional rebuke of the supposed executive privilege arguments.“This is America, and there’s no executive privilege here for presidents, much less trained advisors, to plan coups and organize insurrections against the people’s government in the people’s constitution and then to cover up the evidence of their crimes.“These two men,” Raskin said of Navarro and Scavino, “are in contempt of Congress and we must say, both for their brazen disregard for their duties and for our laws and our institutions.”Attending an event featuring Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, Navarro made a point of appearing aloof to his impending referral to the justice department. “Oh that vote,” Navarro said dismissively, the Washington Post reported.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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    Trump lawyer discussed plans to block Biden victory, emails reveal

    Trump lawyer discussed plans to block Biden victory, emails revealJanuary 6 panel receives 101 emails belonging John Eastman, concerning plans to obstruct certification of 2020 election result The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol has received a cache of emails belonging to Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, federal court documents filed on Tuesday show.The 101 emails were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled in federal court in California last week that Eastman, a hard-right supporter of the former US president, had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege.The cache of documents, sent between 4 and 7 January 2021, contains extensive communications between Eastman and others about plans to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.These included proposed efforts to push Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, to reject or delay counting electoral college votes and weaponizing false allegations of voter fraud in numerous state lawsuits.In one email, which includes a draft memo for Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recommending Pence reject some states’ electors during the 6 January congressional meeting, Carter ruled for disclosure as the communications were being used to plan criminal activity.“The draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act, and Dr Eastman’s later memos closely track its analysis and proposal,” the ruling says. “The memo is both intimately related to and clearly advanced the plan to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”Neither Trump nor Eastman have been charged with crimes relating to 6 January and the order on Eastman’s emails was made in civil court.Others references to emails in the judge’s ruling allude to other plans Eastman was involved in.“In a different email thread,” Carter writes, “Dr Eastman and a colleague consider how to use a state court ruling to justify Vice-President Pence enacting the plan. In another email, a colleague focuses on the ‘plan of action’ after the January 6 attacks, not mentioning future litigation.”The sprawling select committee investigation, chaired by the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson from Mississippi, has interviewed more than 800 people as part of its investigation into the events on January 6.On Tuesday, Thompson confirmed that Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, had appeared before the committee, marking the first time a member of the immediate Trump family had appeared.Reports indicated her testimony lasted about eight hours. The testimony followed an appearance before the committee by her husband, Jared Kushner, the previous week.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Obama calls Biden 'vice-president' on return to the White House – video

    Barack Obama jokingly referred to Joe Biden as ‘vice-president’ on his return to the White House for the first time since 2017. The 44th president was there to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and offered Biden a potential boost ahead of the midterm elections

    Back to the future as Obama sprinkles some stardust on Biden White House More

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    Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attack

    Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, to speak virtually to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump will testify before the January 6 committee on Tuesday.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Guardian confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, will speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony will come after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.The committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for 6 January.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    ‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historians

    ‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansThe ex-president also said that Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’

    Review: The Presidency of Donald Trump
    Donald Trump has admitted he did not win the 2020 election.Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circleRead more“I didn’t win the election,” he said.The admission came in a video interview with a panel of historians convened by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and editor of The Presidency of Donald Trump: A First Historical Assessment. The interview was published on Monday by the Atlantic.Describing his attempts to make South Korea pay more for US military assistance, Trump said Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, was among the “happiest” world leaders after the 2020 US election put Joe Biden in the White House.“By not winning the election,” Trump said, “he was the happiest man – I would say, in order, China was – no, Iran was the happiest.“[Moon] was going to pay $5bn, $5bn a year. But when I didn’t win the election, he had to be the happiest – I would rate, probably, South Korea third- or fourth-happiest.”Trump also said “the election was rigged and lost”.Trump’s refusal to accept defeat by Biden provoked attempts to overturn results in key states in court – the vast majority of such cases ending in defeat – and the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Trump was impeached a second time, for inciting an insurrection, and acquitted a second time after enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal.Trump thus remains free to run for the White House again in 2024, which he has repeatedly hinted he will do.Writing for the Atlantic, Zelizer said Trump “was the one who had decided to reach out to a group of professional historians so that we produced ‘an accurate book’”.The former president called the historians assembled by Zelizer “a tremendous group of people, and I think rather than being critical I’d like to have you hear me out, which is what we’re doing now, and I appreciate it”.Trump, Zelizer wrote, “seemed to want the approval of historians, without any understanding of how historians gather evidence or render judgments”.Zelizer also pointed out that shortly after the session with the historians, Trump announced he would give no more interviews for books about his time in office.“It seems to me that meeting with authors of the ridiculous number of books being written about my very successful administration, or me, is a total waste of time,” Trump said in a statement, in July 2021.“These writers are often bad people who write whatever comes to their mind or fits their agenda. It has nothing to do with facts or reality.”TopicsBooksHistory booksPolitics booksDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle

    Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle House select committee seizes momentum as it embarks on final push to conclude evidence-gathering phase of inquiryThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalize on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete the roughly one hundred remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election.Members on the select committee believe Kushner’s cooperation might prompt other Trump officials to assist the investigation as the panel inches closer to Trump’s inner circle and the former president himself, according to sources familiar with the matter.The panel has also been buoyed by the federal court ruling that said Trump “more likely than not” violated the law over 6 January, reaffirming the purpose of the investigation and making it harder for Trump’s allies to defy the inquiry, the sources said.And members on the select committee believe that opening contempt of Congress proceedings against the Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for ignoring their subpoenas, will reinforce the message that the panel will punish non-compliance, the sources said.“There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation,” Jamie Raskin, one of the congressmen on the panel, said of the burst of recent activity. “When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”The select committee has now conducted more than 800 depositions and interviews, obtained almost 90,000 documents and followed up on more than 435 tips received through the tip line on its website, since it started its work in earnest last August.House investigators also have more than 100 depositions remaining on the schedule, the sources said, including one with a key witness who is expected to reveal connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys militia groups and the Capitol attack.That deposition – slated for 5 April – would represent another breakthrough and could play a big role in establishing for the select committee whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy as part of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.It is so crucial, the sources said, since it could form part of the evidence to connect the militia groups that stormed the Capitol to the organizers of the rallies that immediately preceded the attack – who in turn are slowly being linked to the Trump White House.But that testimony has been on the books for several weeks, and the greater challenge for the select committee remains to resolve ongoing cooperation talks with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s one-time attorney, and Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter.The select committee has a special interest in Giuliani since he was in close contact with Trump as he oversaw the implementation of the scheme to have the thenvice-president, Mike Pence, stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return Trump to office.The Guardian first reported that Giuliani was poised to cooperate with the investigation and reveal the roles played by Republican members of Congress with caveats – such as not discussing matters covered by executive privilege – that are not yet resolved.House investigators have also identified Ivanka Trump as a key person of interest since she appeared to have learned before 6 January that the scheme to have Pence stop the certification was unlawful – but and might shed light on why the former president still went ahead with the plan.Testimony that speaks to whether Trump knew what he was pressing Pence to do was unlawful – and when he knew it – is a central question for the panel as it seeks to establish whether Trump’s actions should warrant a criminal referral to the justice department.The panel has also privately noted in recent days that Ivanka Trump might be able to shed light on who Trump was calling from the White House as the Capitol attack unfolded, after call logs from that day showed a near eight-hour gap in communications.The Guardian has revealed at least one of Trump’s phone calls on 6 January – when he dialed the Republican senator Mike Lee trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville – was routed through an official White House phone and should have been in the call logs but was not.As the select committee moves towards wrapping up the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation, the hope among its members is that the recent momentum will carry the inquiry through to public hearings that are now expected to start in mid-May.The panel remains undecided whether to demand cooperation from Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, after the Washington Post and CBS reported she pressed Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in texts to overturn the 2020 election.The issue centers on the fact that several members on the select committee did not know about Thomas’s texts – turned over by Meadows months ago – until news reports brought them to public attention, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Some members wanted to call her in to ask her about the texts, but others who had discussed the issue months ago demurred, arguing that Thomas, a far-right activist, was unlikely to assist the panel and would try to turn the inquiry into a political circus.A spokesperson for the panel did not respond to a request for comment.The select committee may yet request cooperation from Thomas, but House investigators are pursuing myriad lines of inquiry and whether to ask her for voluntary assistance or demand documents and testimony pursuant to a subpoena is just one strand, the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationJared KushnerIvanka TrumpnewsReuse this content More