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    Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenas

    Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenasHouse select committee expands investigation into planning and financing of rally that preceded 6 January insurrection The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday issued new subpoenas to five political operatives associated with Donald Trump, including Roger Stone and the far-right media star Alex Jones, as the panel deepens its inquiry into the “Save America” rally that preceded the 6 January insurrection. Trump’s allies think they can defy the Capitol attack panel. History suggests otherwise | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreThe subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House.House investigators issued subpoenas to the veteran operatives Stone and Jones, Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, and the pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and his wife, Jennifer Lawrence.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the subpoenas aimed to uncover “who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress”.Thompson said in the subpoena letter to Stone that he was being subpoenaed to explain why he had been invited to lead the march to the Capitol on 6 January from the rally at the Ellipse, but curiously did not ultimately attend the rally or go near the Capitol.The chairman also suggested that House investigators were interested in Stone’s connection to the Oath Keepers, the militia group he used as his private security detail before several members stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Stone was also at a “command center” at the Willard hotel in Washington DC on 5 January, where Trump lieutenants strategized late into the night about how to subvert the results of the 2020 election at the joint session of Congress.In the subpoena letter for Jones, the host of the far-right network InfoWars, Thompson raised the fact that he too did not lead the march from the rally from the Ellipse despite being invited to do so, in a potential indication he knew in advance about the Capitol attack.The select committee also subpoenaed Budowich, a Trump spokesperson who sought to set up a social media and advertising campaign to promote attendance at the rally, according to the subpoena letter.Thompson said, citing information on file with the select committee, that Budowich’s efforts extended to directing about $200,000 to rally organizers from unnamed donors “that was not disclosed to the organization to pay for the advertising campaign”.The new detail about Budowich’s involvement in the financing of the rally could suggest that the select committee is aware of intimate connections between organizers and the Trump campaign, and that the level of coordination was deeper than previously known.Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a member of the select committee, suggested on Saturday that the panel had uncovered new information pertaining to the Capitol attack, telling CNN they had interviewed more than 200 people.The select committee also subpoenaed Stockton and Lawrence, pro-Trump activists who have ties to the ex-president’s former adviser Steve Bannon and allegedly helped organize the rally, according to their subpoena letters.The new subpoenas came after counsel for the select committee said on Monday that allowing Donald Trump to block House investigators from accessing White House records held by the National Archives would threaten the safety of the 2022 and 2024 elections.In court filings with the DC circuit of the US court of appeals, the select committee said the integrity of future elections would be in jeopardy if they were unable to learn everything they could about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“The select committee’s task to study and suggest legislation to ensure that January 6 is not repeated, and that our nation’s democracy is protected from future attacks, is urgent,” the House counsel Douglas Letter argued on behalf of the panel.Trump sued last month to stop the select committee from receiving hundreds of pages of White House records from the National Archives, including memos by the former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin, over executive privilege claims.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesRoger StonenewsReuse this content More

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    Two quit Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s Capitol attack series

    Two quit Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s Capitol attack seriesCommentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg cite Fox Nation documentary Patriot Purge in stinging open letter Two Fox News contributors have quit the network over Tucker Carlson’s Patriot Purge, a documentary about the deadly Capitol attack.Kayleigh McEnany’s book claims don’t stand up to assurances that she didn’t lieRead moreIn an open letter, Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg said: “Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.“A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson.”As Hayes and Goldberg noted on the Dispatch, an outlet they founded in 2019, Patriot Purge showed on the Fox Nation streaming service but was promoted on Fox News.The three-part series recycles conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack, in which supporters of Donald Trump attacked Congress on 6 January in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.Hayes and Goldberg, formerly writers with the Weekly Standard and the National Review, said the series was “presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery and damning omissions.”Goldberg told the New York Times he and Hayes had stayed on at Fox News in the hope it would recover independence from Trump.But as goes the Republican party, so goes Fox News. In their resignation letter, Hayes and Goldberg wrote: “Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend.”Goldberg told the Times the Carlson documentary was “a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction.“Now, righting the ship is an academic question. The Patriot Purge thing meant: OK, we hit the iceberg now, and I can’t do the rationalisations any more.”Fox News did not comment. The Times said a spokeswoman “sent data showing that [political] independents” watch the network.NPR cited five sources “with direct knowledge” as saying Hayes and Goldberg’s resignations “reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson’s series … and his increasingly strident stances”. The same report named Bret Baier and Chris Wallace as senior anchors whose objections “rose to Lachlan Murdoch”, the chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation.Murdoch did not comment. Last week his father, Rupert Murdoch, said it was “crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in … debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”Outcry after Kyle Rittenhouse sits down with Tucker Carlson for Fox News interviewRead moreBut Carlson dominates primetime. He told the Times the resignations of Hayes and Goldberg were “great news” and said: “Our viewers will be grateful.”Carlson is due on Monday to broadcast an interview with Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was found not guilty on all counts on Friday, in his trial for shooting dead two men and wounding another during protests for racial justice in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.Carlson has also made a documentary with Rittenhouse, an enterprise Rittenhouse’s lawyer has said he opposed.Hayes told the Times he had been disturbed when a man at a recent event staged by Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump group, asked: “When do we get to use the guns?”“That’s a scary moment,” Hayes said. “And I think we’d do well to have people who at the very least are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.”TopicsFox NewsUS television industryUS politicsRepublicansUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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    ‘What is so hard about saying this is wrong?’, says AOC over Paul Gosar’s violent tweet – video

    Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has blasted Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy for failing to condemn the violent tweet of fellow Republican Paul Gosar ahead of a censure vote against him. The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives was poised to punish a Republican lawmaker over an anime video that depicted him killing Ocasio-Cortez and swinging two swords at President Joe Biden. ‘What is so hard, what is so hard about saying that this is wrong?’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘This is not about me. This is not about representative Gosar. But, this is about what we are willing to accept.’ 

    ‘This is not about me,’ AOC says as House debates censuring Paul Gosar over violent video – live More

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    Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claims

    Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claimsTwo cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreThe amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.According to Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, by the ABC Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, talked to other cabinet members about using the amendment on the night of 6 January, the day of the attack, and the following day.Removing Trump via the amendment would have required a majority vote in the cabinet. Karl reports that Mnuchin spoke to Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state and an avowed loyalist.Mnuchin did not comment for Karl’s book, which is published on Tuesday. Karl writes that Pompeo responded only after Karl told Trump the former secretary of state had not done so.“Pompeo through a spokesman denied there have ever been conversations around invoking the 25th amendment,” Karl writes. “The spokesman declined to put his name to the statement.”Karl also reports that Pompeo asked for a legal analysis of the process for invoking the 25th amendment.“The analysis determined that it would take too much time,” Karl writes, “considering that Trump only had 14 days left in office and any attempt to forcefully remove him would be subject to legal challenge.”Karl says Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and Elaine Chao, transportation, might have supported invoking the 25th amendment but both resigned after the Capitol attack.Chao is married to the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell – who broke with Trump over the Capitol riot.Karl also says that “while the discussions did happen, the idea that Trump’s cabinet would vote to remove him was, in fact, ludicrous”.Pompeo is among Republicans jostling for position ahead of the 2024 presidential primary but that is a process which demands demonstrations of fealty to Trump, who continues to dominate the party in part by toying with another White House run.Trump is free to do so because he was acquitted at his second Senate impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the Capitol insurrection.At a rally near the White House on 6 January, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, by blocking certification of electoral college results. Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, eventually declined to weaponise his role overseeing the vote count, as Trump demanded he should.Karl reports that in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, around which five people died, “at least two cabinet secretaries” asked Pence, who had been holed up at the Capitol as rioters chanted for his hanging, to convene a cabinet meeting.Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguishedRead morePence did not do so, Karl writes, adding that there is no evidence to suggest Pence was involved in 25th amendment discussions.On 7 January, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, formally asked Pence to invoke the 25th amendment. Pence waited five days, then refused.Pence is also a potential candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024.TopicsDonald TrumpMike PompeoTrump administrationUS politicsMike PenceUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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    Biden-Xi virtual summit: Biden says US and China must 'not veer into conflict' – video

    US president Joe Biden has told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he hoped to have a candid conversation about human rights and security issues as the two began a meeting meant to lower tensions between the two global superpowers. Biden added that the two leaders must make sure their relations do not veer into open conflict, including by installing ‘common sense’ guardrails. Biden spoke with Xi over a video conference as the two leaders engaged in their most extensive talks since Biden became president in January. Xi said the two sides must increase communication and cooperation to solve the many challenges they face.

    Biden-Xi virtual summit: US president warns nations must not ‘veer into open conflict’ More

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    Appear before 6 January panel or risk prosecution, ex-Trump chief of staff told

    Appear before 6 January panel or risk prosecution, ex-Trump chief of staff toldMark Meadows threatened with criminal contempt referral to DoJ should he refuse to show for deposition on Friday morning Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is facing a criminal referral to the justice department for contempt of Congress should he refuse to appear for an immediate deposition on Friday morning before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.Republican lawsuits unlikely to halt US worker vaccine mandates, experts sayRead moreThe move to threaten criminal prosecution for Meadows amounts to an abrupt and sharp escalation for the select committee as it seeks to enforce its subpoena against one of Donald Trump’s closest aides first issued in September.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said in a letter to Meadows’s attorney on Thursday that the panel had exhausted its patience with Meadows, and his failure to appear at the deposition would be viewed as an instance of willful noncompliance.The chairman said that would force the select committee to “consider invoking contempt of Congress procedures” that could result in a criminal referral to the justice department, as well as the possibility of a civil action to enforce the subpoena.But despite the threat of criminal prosecution, Meadows was not expected to attend his deposition, scheduled to take place with select committee counsel in a nondescript House office building on Capitol Hill, according to a source familiar with the matter.The select committee is targeting Meadows since his role as Trump’s former White House chief of staff means he is likely to hold the key to uncover Trump’s involvement in efforts on 6 January to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The select committee also believes that Meadows remained by Trump’s side for most of 6 January, and was therefore in a unique position to know what the former president was privately thinking and doing at the White House as the deadly attack on the Capitol unfolded.But after Trump instructed his former aides to defy the subpoenas on grounds of executive privilege, Meadows moved to negotiate with the select committee about the scope of his cooperation – which members on the panel suspect was an effort to stall the inquiry.Those suspicions among members on the select committee appeared to be bolstered on Thursday after Meadows’s attorney, George Terwilliger, said in a statement that Meadows was “immune” from congressional testimony under justice department opinions.“Mr Meadows remains under the instructions of former President Trump to respect long-standing principles of executive privilege. It now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict,” Terwilliger added.Thompson said in the letter that rejected the notion that Meadows was immune from testifying to the select committee, noting that every federal court has ruled that presidential aides have no such protections in spite of the justice department opinions.The chairman also noted that Meadows had not produced any materials demanded in his subpoena – including those not covered by executive privilege – though weeks had passed since Terwilliger indicated he would review which records to release.Thompson said in the letter that his patience had expired and demanded that Meadows appear with the requested documents at a deposition on Friday. Noncompliance by Meadows would force the select committee to pursue contempt proceedings, he added.The White House on Thursday backed Thompson, notifying Terwilliger in a separate letter that Biden would not assert executive privilege – a power wielded by sitting presidents – or immunity over the documents and deposition requested by the select committee.“President Biden has determined that he will not assert immunity to preclude your client from testifying before the select committee,” deputy White House counsel Jonathan Su said in an office of legal counsel letter first reported by the Washington Post.Thompson’s warning on Thursday was his third threat against a recalcitrant witness since House investigators starting issuing subpoenas to dozens of top former Trump administration officials and pro-Trump activists connected to the 6 January insurrection.The chairman last week raised the possibility of holding former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark in contempt of Congress after he appeared for a deposition pursuant to a subpoena but refused to answer any questions, citing attorney-client privilege.Last month, the House voted to refer Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to the justice department for prosecution after the select committee unanimously recommended his referral after he ignored his September subpoena in its entirety.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Brad Raffensperger: ‘I haven’t talked to Trump. I don’t expect that’ll happen’

    The fight to voteGeorgiaBrad Raffensperger: ‘I haven’t talked to Trump. I don’t expect that’ll happen’ Georgia’s top election official was pressured by Trump to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory. What does he think about it now?The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam Levine in New YorkThu 11 Nov 2021 05.00 ESTLast modified on Thu 11 Nov 2021 10.21 ESTBrad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official, was sitting at his kitchen counter with his wife, Tricia, in early January, his cell phone on a metal stand so he could take notes. On the other line was Donald Trump, who had lost Georgia to Joe Biden in November, a result confirmed by multiple recounts.The president had a blunt and unimaginable request for Raffensperger: find enough votes to flip the results of the election in Georgia.Raffensperger, a mild-mannered engineer by training, refused to go along with the president’s request, but saw it as a threat, he writes in his new book Integrity Counts.He and his family have since been subject to a barrage of harassment, including death threats, from Trump and his supporters. Republicans in the Georgia state legislature have stripped him of his role as the chair of the state election board. Now, he’s running for re-election next year in what is expected to be an extremely difficult primary for him, in a field that includes at least one candidate, endorsed by Trump, who tried to overturn the 2020 election results.The Guardian spoke to Raffensperger about the January phone call with Trump, threats to election officials, and whether he thinks there’s a place in the Republican party today for officials who resist attempts to undermine the 2020 election results.Have you talked to Trump since that January call? Do you expect to ever talk to him again?No, I haven’t talked to him, and don’t expect that’ll happen in the future.Were you scared in the moment of [the phone call]? You have the president of the United States, the leader of your party, in a very heated environment in the days after the election, pressuring you to do something that could affect whether he serves another term. And did you ever doubt yourself in what you were doing?I wanted to make sure that we had all the facts. That we weren’t missing something. Our team was continuously asked by me: “What about this? What about that?” And so we ran down every single allegation. Then I sent a letter to Congress, it’s a 10-page letter, which I put in the book – they got it on 6 January and I know they were busy with other things. But it really goes through, point by point, every single allegation that was made.I understand my side is grieving and has difficulty understanding this, but 28,000 people, 28,000 Georgians, did not vote for anyone for president. They skipped that and yet they voted down-ballot. And when I give those three data points to Republicans it starts to really dawn on them, they start to understand that there was [tail-off] at the top of the ticket.But people are still talking about the ballots that were stuffed in the suitcase and whatever else. People don’t seem to be persuaded by facts.I think that everyone is best served when they have intellectual honesty. And to get intellectual honesty you have to have intellectual curiosity. That you actually want to uncover the facts and have the courage to actually look into it and maybe have your paradigm shifted and challenged because what you’ve been told has been wrong.At some point, I know that if I was lied to by all these people, and they know that they’ve been lying to people, I think that they may rise up in anger and really understand that they’ve been played.Does it worry you to see the Republican party flirting with these claims, and in some cases not disavowing them and even embracing them?Well, let’s be fair and balanced. It bothers me that both parties are doing that. Because Stacey Abrams was in Virginia less than three weeks ago, and she said “just because you win doesn’t mean you’ve won”. Her narrative of voter suppression has been parroted by many people, from Hillary Clinton to many other notable national figures. (Note: Abrams has strongly repudiated attempts by Raffensperger and others to equate her decision not to concede Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial race to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.)So it’s actually both sides are guilty of this. And both sides need to pull back, stop, and walk that line of integrity. When you walk that line of integrity, then you can start rebuilding trust.Are you continuing to get threats?Every once in a while, now that the book’s out, you get a text or a voicemail. It’s people that really don’t want to know the truth and don’t want to dig into the truth. I understand where they’re coming from. They’re not happy with losing an election. They’re not happy with the direction of the country and they’re not pleased probably with President Biden. There’s a lot that’s happened in the last year under his leadership that is very disappointing and alarming.Are you concerned about experienced election officials leaving their jobs?I’m concerned that we have seen in Georgia, probably less than a handful of county election directors leave, retire a little bit early.And so you hate to see that happen. And you just hope they’ll have a team in place that’ll pick up that mantle and lead with strong leadership.I wanted to ask you a little bit about the provisions of Georgia’s new election law that dealt with your authority specifically on the state elections board. How concerned are you about efforts to give legislatures in Georgia and elsewhere more control over the bodies like the state elections board and election administration?I’ve always believed that these boards should be held accountable to the voters.If you look in Georgia, the state elections board chair has always been an elected position. And so for that reason alone, I don’t believe it was wise. I believe in some point in the future, they’ll regret the decision they made. But it was made with the thought of payback, petty retribution, blame-shifting, to placate people looking for, you know, a head on a platter.So you’re still very opposed to it?Well it’s bad policy. I don’t support bad policy.You’re in a competitive primary with at least one opponent who has voiced serious doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. How concerned are you that someone could get into power that gets a call from the president or someone else and is willing to go along with the kind of thing that you weren’t willing to go along with in 2020?I believe that Americans overwhelmingly are good, honest, people. And they’re looking for honest government. And they’re looking for people that will stand in the gap and do the right thing. And I’ve shown that I will make the tough calls to make sure that we follow the constitution, we follow state law.I talk to Republicans. I talk to a lot of them. And yes I get dog-cussed by a few. But many Republicans support what I did. They’re disappointed in the results. They wish that the president would have won. That runs the whole gamut. But people recognize that when people do what is right, even when it can appear to be difficult, that that is really something that should be modeled and esteemed.I’m curious what message you think it would send if people didn’t vote for that. If what you did in 2020 wound up costing you the election next year, what message would that send?Well, people have to decide individually and corporately what they want our country to look like. And I think that Americans, as I said, the vast majority are good, honest, taxpaying, law-abiding Americans. And what they want is people who will make the right decision.TopicsGeorgiaThe fight to voteUS elections 2020US politicsUS voting rightsnewsReuse this content More