Eliana Willis

Donald TrumpTrump ‘throws sand’ in gears of Capitol attack inquiry amid legal setbacks Ex-president wages a court battle to thwart House committee from obtaining White House records for inquiry into the Capitol assaultPeter Stone in WashingtonTue 9 Nov 2021 06.00 ESTLast modified on Tue 9 Nov 2021 06.03 ESTDonald Trump has suffered a series of legal setbacks and more loom, as he wages a court battle to thwart a House committee from obtaining White House records for its inquiry into the 6 January Capitol assault and a new grand jury begins hearing evidence about possible crimes by his real estate firm.Former justice officials and legal scholars say Trump’s long-standing penchant for using lawsuits to fend off investigations and opponents is looking weaker now that he’s out of the White House and facing legal threats on multiple fronts.The list of significant legal setbacks is lengthy for the former president and real estate mogul who has long had a reputation for threatening to sue his foes.Early this year, for example, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr won a lengthy legal fight to obtain Trump’s tax returns, and in July charged two Trump companies and the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer with a 15 year tax fraud scheme, which the companies and the CFO have denied in pleas.On 4 November, a second grand jury was convened by Vance to hear more evidence about the financial practices of the Trump Organization and possibly bring more charges, according to the Washington Post.Trump suffered another legal setback when a New York court ordered him to give a deposition in October that lasted more than four hours in an old lawsuit by men alleging they were attacked in 2015 by Trump security guards at a demonstration outside Trump Tower in Manhattan.Meanwhile, in his latest high stakes court fight, Trump’s attorneys have launched a legal blitz invoking executive privilege to block the House select committee from obtaining hundreds of pages of documents from the National Archives the committee seeks as it investigates the 6 January Capitol riot and what role Trump played in it.A federal judge at a hearing on Trump’s legal challenges on 4 November voiced strong scepticism about his lawyers’ executive privilege claims to keep the committee from getting most of the records it wants, noting that President Joe Biden approved turning them over.Trump’s many reverses in court and his efforts to blunt the bipartisan House committee’s inquiry, underscore the growing legal threats Trump is facing that pose new financial and political risks, say former justice department lawyers and legal scholars.Historically, Trump has relied on lawsuits as a delaying tactic to benefit his business interests, or to claim executive privilege or immunity to stymie congressional, state and other investigations when he was president, according to legal analysts.Likewise, after his loss to Joe Biden last year, Trump’s campaign and allies filed more than 60 lawsuits claiming widespread fraud that were rejected by various courts.To back his fights Trump boasts a legal arsenal with a shifting cast of lawyers, in part because Trump has been rebuffed by several high-profile attorneys this year, according to a CNN report and legal sources.“Trump is going pretty deep down the bench to find lawyers,” said one former DOJ prosecutor and GOP white collar attorney. “I think a lot of established lawyers would have trouble getting approval from their firms because of political blowback and risk of non-payment.”DoJ lawyers and experts say that Trump’s legal fortunes now look grimmer, and that his current battle royale to block the House inquiry into the Capitol riot by his allies seems quite weak, though it may delay the inquiry for months.“Trump’s current assertions of a privilege against the disclosures are almost identical to the baseless claims of an absolute immunity that he advanced repeatedly – and the supreme court rejected – when he was president,” said Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, in a Guardian interview.Ayer added that “Trump is just blowing smoke and trying to throw sand in the gears of the select committee investigation. Congress, the administration, and the courts need to quickly and emphatically say no and press ahead with the investigation.”Other DoJ veterans agree that Trump’s legal case looks flimsy, but say it could stall the House inquiry.“The executive privilege claim against the National Archives is extremely weak,” said former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig. “The question is whether he can game the system to run out the clock and make the requests moot.”That may well be the point. Trump’s regular use of litigation to delay federal and state inquiries echo his modus operandi when he was president and in the business world, say experts.“Likelihood of success on Trump’s legal claims is not always or often the primary goal,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “The primary goal, at least for the farfetched claims, is delay. If there’s also a partial victory, so much the better.”More legal battles are pending for Trump, including claims by two women, ex- Apprentice candidate Summer Zervos and writer E Jean Carroll, who, respectively, have alleged they were sexually harassed or raped by Trump, charges he has denied.Zervos has sued Trump for defamation and Trump, who has threatened to counter sue, faces a court order to sit for a deposition by Christmas. Similarly, a New York judge in September denied a Trump lawyer’s request to pause a defamation lawsuit by Carroll against Trump.But Trump’s legal armada now seems focused on blocking White House records from the House committee investigating the deadly 6 January attack on Congress, which followed a Trump rally where he told a large crowd of loyalists to “fight like hell”, as Congress was poised to certify Biden’s win.Trump’s legal tactics fit his old playbook. “He is behaving now as he long behaved as a real estate investor and builder in the high stakes and often vicious world of New York commercial real estate,” Gillers said. “When the same tactics are employed in national politics, the victims are democracy and the nation.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

US Capitol attackLawyer John Eastman and Michael Flynn among six subpoenaed by Capitol attack panelPanel seeks documents and testimony from legal scholar said to have outlined scenarios for overturning election Hugo Lowell in WashingtonMon 8 Nov 2021 18.31 ESTFirst published on Mon 8 Nov 2021 17.58 ESTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued subpoenas to six of Donald Trump’s associates involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election from a “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony open a new line of inquiry into the coordinated strategy by the White House and the Trump campaign to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and whether it was connected to the 6 January insurrection.House investigators on Monday targeted six Trump officials connected to the Willard: the legal scholar John Eastman, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller, the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s campaign aide Angela McCallum, and the former New York police department commissioner Bernard Kerik.The select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials in order to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”.House 6 January panel to issue new round of subpoenas for Trump alliesRead moreThe six Trump officials compelled to cooperate with the select committee may have some of the most intimate knowledge of how the different elements of the former president’s effort to stop the certification – fit together.The subpoenas for Eastman and other Trump associates – first reported by the Guardian – show the select committee’s resolve to uncover the “centers of gravity” from which Trump and his advisers schemed to overturn the election, according to a source familiar with the matter.House investigators are taking a special interest in Eastman after it emerged that he outlined scenarios for overturning the election in a memo for a 4 January White House meeting that included Trump, the former vice-president Mike Pence and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.At the meeting, according to a source close to Trump, Eastman ran through the memo that detailed how Pence might refuse to certify electoral slates for Biden on 6 January and thereby unilaterally hand Trump a second term.The former president seized on Eastman’s memo, reviewed by the Guardian, and relentlessly pressured Pence in the days that followed to use it to in effect commandeer the ceremonial electoral certification process, the source said.Trump was not successful in co-opting Pence and Congress certified Biden as president. But House investigators are examining whether the memo was part of a broader conspiracy connected to the Capitol attack – and whether Trump had advance knowledge of the insurrection.The pro-Trump legal scholar also pressured nearly 300 state legislators to challenge the legitimacy of Biden’s win, reportedly participated at a “war room” meeting at the Willard on 5 January and spoke at a rally before the Capitol attack, the select committee said.House investigators also subpoenaed Stepien, the manager of the Trump 2020 campaign, after he urged state and Republican party officials to delay or deny the certification of electoral votes ahead of the joint session of Congress on 6 January.The select committee said it had subpoenaed Miller since he was in close and repeated contact with top Trump associates at the Willard and he too participated in the “war room” meeting that took place the day before the Capitol attack.At that meeting, the select committee said, Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani discussed how to subvert the election by having Pence follow Eastman’s memo and not certify the election for Biden.The select committee issued further subpoenas to Bernard Kerik, an aide to Giuliani based at the Willard, as well as Angela McCallum, who also pressured state legislators to challenge Biden’s win.House investigators sent a sixth subpoena to Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser fired in 2017 for lying to the FBI, after he attended an 18 December Oval Office meeting about whether Trump could invoke emergency powers based on lies about election fraud.The select committee was expected to send further subpoenas to Trump officials connected to activities at the Willard, the source said, noting that Thompson had told reporters last week that he had signed about 20 subpoenas that were ready to be issued.In the letters accompanying the six subpoenas, Thompson said Eastman was compelled to produce documents by 22 November and appear for a deposition on 8 December. The other Trump officials have until 23 November to produce documents and have deposition dates later in December.But it was not immediately clear whether the subpoenaed aides would comply with the orders. Other Trump administration aides subpoenaed by the select committee have slow-walked their cooperation, while Bannon ignored his subpoena in its entirety.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMichael FlynnnewsReuse this content More

US Capitol attackTrump DoJ official Jeffrey Clark to testify before Capitol attack committeeEx-acting head of DoJ civil division was proponent of Trump’s false claim that Joe Biden’s election victory was result of fraud Guardian staff and agenciesThu 4 Nov 2021 18.32 EDTA former senior Department of Justice official will testify on Friday before the congressional committee investigating the Capitol insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump, a congressional aide familiar with the inquiry has said.Last week, the House of Representatives select committee delayed testimony by Jeffrey Clark because he had retained a new lawyer.Clark did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment. The congressional aide spoke on condition of anonymity.Giuliani investigators home in on 2019 plan to advance Ukraine interests in USRead moreClark, the former acting head of the DoJ’s civil division, was a proponent Trump’s false claims that Joe Biden’s victory in the November election was the result of fraud.On 13 October, the committee announced it had issued a subpoena to Clark asking him to produce records and testify at a deposition by 29 October.In announcing it had subpoenaed Clark, the panel said it needed to understand all the details about efforts inside the previous administration to amplify misinformation about election results.In January, the DoJ’s inspector general announced his office was launching an investigation into whether Clark plotted to oust then acting attorney general Jeff Rosen so he could take over the department and help pursue Trump’s baseless claims by opening an investigation into voter fraud in Georgia.A US Senate judiciary committee report found Clark also drafted a letter he wanted Rosen to approve which urged Georgia to convene a special legislative session to investigate voter fraud claims.Clark’s plan ultimately failed after senior department leaders threatened to resign in protest, the Senate investigation found.Meanwhile, former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides subpoenaed by the committee have defied orders to produce relevant documents and give testimony.Four Trump aides targeted by the select committee – Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel resisted the orders – under the influence of Trump, sources told the Guardian last month.The House later voted to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress and federal prosecutors are weighing the case.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Joe Biden said “people are upset and uncertain about a lot of things” after Democrats suffered the loss of a gubernatorial seat in Virginia. Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe one year after the party took control of the White House and Congress. Biden won Virginia by 10 points in 2020 before the victory of political newcomer Youngkin.

Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert Democrats More

Donald TrumpTrump call to ‘find’ votes was threat to my safety, Georgia elections official saysBrad Raffensperger urged by Trump in early January to ‘find 11,780 votes’ to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellyTue 2 Nov 2021 10.13 EDTLast modified on Tue 2 Nov 2021 11.12 EDTThe Georgia Republican responsible for running elections considered an infamous call in which Donald Trump told him to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state a “threat” to his safety and that of his family.Virginia governor’s race: Glenn Youngkin may win due to ‘white backlash’, expert saysRead moreBiden’s victory in Georgia was a narrow but vital part of his national win. No Democratic presidential candidate had taken the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.Trump called Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, nearly two months after election day, on Saturday 2 January. Telling him “it’s pretty clear we won”, the then president said: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have [to get]” to surpass Biden’s total.Raffensperger, a conservative who supported Trump, resisted the president’s demands. That prompted Trump to suggest the refusal to expose mass voter fraud in Georgia – on which Trump insisted but which did not exist, as in all other states – could be a “criminal offense”.“That’s a big risk to you,” Trump said. “That’s a big risk.”In Integrity Counts, a book published on Tuesday, Raffensperger writes: “I felt then – and still believe today – that this was a threat. Others obviously thought so, too, because some of Trump’s more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat.”Raffensperger details death threats texted to his wife, an encounter with men who may have been staking out his home, and being escorted out of the Georgia state capitol on 6 January as rightwing protesters entered.A recording of Trump’s call was released to the Washington Post and became a key exhibit in Trump’s second impeachment trial, for inciting the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, by supporters seeking to overturn the election.Trump was acquitted when only seven Republican senators could be persuaded to vote for his guilt. He remains free to run for president again and dominates the Republican party but his attempts to overturn his defeat in Georgia have contributed to his extensive legal jeopardy.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is investigating. Raffensperger told the Associated Press investigators “talked to some of our folks here. We sent all the documents and she can now buy the book online”.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

RepublicansAlmost one in three of Republicans say violence may be necessary to ‘save’ USTroubling statistics show the post-election rancor that led to the US Capitol attack on 6 January is still very much in place Adam Gabbatt@adamgabbattMon 1 Nov 2021 09.14 EDTLast modified on Mon 1 Nov 2021 09.16 EDTAlmost a third of Republicans believe violence may be necessary to “save” the US, according to a new poll.Southwest Airlines investigates pilot’s use of ‘Let’s go Brandon’ anti-Biden jibeRead moreResearchers at the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, found that 30% of Republicans agreed with the statement “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country”.Among Americans who believe the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump, which it was not, 39% believe violence may be required.The troubling statistics show the post-election rancour that led to the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January is still very much in place.Republicans are most likely to believe “true American patriots may have to resort to violence”, PRRI found, with just 11% of Democrats and 17% of independents agreeing with the statement. Among all Americans, 18% agreed.PRRI said 2,508 adults, living in all 50 states, were interviewed for the survey between 16 and 29 September.“It is an alarming finding,” Robert Jones, chief executive and founder of PRRI, told Yahoo News. “I’ve been doing this a while, for decades, and it’s not the kind of finding that as a sociologist, a public opinion pollster, that you’re used to seeing.”Jones said the responses illustrate the “significant and rapidly increasing polarisation in the United States”.“As we’ve gotten some distance [from the 6 January], one might hope cooler heads would prevail, but we really haven’t seen that,” Jones said. “If anything, it looks like people are doubling down and views are getting kind of locked in.”The PRRI poll is not the first to discover an apparent readiness for violence among Republican voters.FBI failed to act on tips of likely violence ahead of Capitol attack – report Read moreIn February a survey by the American Enterprise Institute found that 39% of Republicans thought that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions”.Among all Americans, 29% agreed with that statement. Some 31% of independent voters and 17% of Democrats thought violent action might be required.More than 650 people have been criminally charged for their role in the Capitol attack, in which five people died.Trump is resisting attempts to investigate from a House select committee, most recently suing the national archives to stop the release of White House documents.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

RepublicansRepublican Adam Kinzinger: I’ll fight Trumpism ‘cancer’ outside Congress
One of two GOP members of 6 January panel will retire next year
‘Roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump plot to steal the presidency
Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 31 Oct 2021 11.08 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 11.10 EDTThe Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Sunday he would fight the “cancer” of Trumpism outside the congressional GOP, after he retires from the House next year. Trump seeking to block call logs and notes from Capitol attack panelRead more“In the House you can fight to try to tell the truth,” the Illinois representative said, speaking to ABC’s This Week. “You can fight against the cancer in the Republican party of lies, of conspiracy, of dishonesty.“And you ultimately come to the realisation that basically it’d be Liz Cheney and a few others that are telling the truth and there are about 190 people in the Republican party that aren’t going to say a word, and there’s a leader of the Republican caucus [Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader] that is embracing Donald Trump with all he can.”Asked if he had handed Trump a “win” by quitting, he said he “potentially” had but added: “It’s not really handing a win as much to Donald Trump as it is to the cancerous kind of lie and conspiracy, not just wing anymore, but mainstream argument of the Republican party.”Kinzinger and Cheney were among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting supporters to attack the Capitol on 6 January, in an attempt to overturn the election.That made Trump’s second impeachment the most bipartisan ever. Seven Republican senators voted to convict, not enough for a required super-majority, ensuring Trump’s acquittal.Another House Republican who voted for impeachment, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, has announced his retirement. Trump greeted Kinzinger’s announcement by saying: “Two down, eight to go.” Others including Cheney have attracted challengers.Kinzinger and Cheney are the only Republican members of the House select committee investigating 6 January. McCarthy withdrew co-operation when the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, rejected an attempt to put Trump allies on the panel.Kinzinger told ABC Trump’s lawsuit to stop the committee accessing presidential records held in the National Archives was an attempt to drag proceedings out long enough for Republicans to retake the House next year and thereby kill the investigation.“Look, they killed an independent commission,” he said. “They’ve killed any attempt to get to the truth. [But] we have sources beyond just those that are kind of making the news, the Steve Bannons, you know, the Archives. We have people coming in and talking to the committee every day.“I think if you look at that archive request and what the former president is trying to block, it is very telling when you look at things like call logs, etc … We are going to fight as hard as we can to get that, and the president has no grounds to claim executive privilege as he is today.”Trump supporters, dominant in a GOP fully under the former president’s control, greeted Kinzinger’s retirement announcement with glee and abuse – despite the fact that as a strong conservative, he mostly voted with Trump during Trump’s time in office. Kinzinger told ABC he intended to stay in politics.“The point is there’s a lot of people that feel politically homeless, there’s a lot of people that feel like something has to change in our politics, and I think it’s important to jump in with both feet and see where that goes. See if there’s that market out there because what’s happening, we’re failing the American people right now.“The political system is failing. And the Republicans in particular.”Tucker Carlson condemned over ‘false flag’ claim about deadly Capitol attackRead moreKinzinger admitted that redistricting by Illinois Democrats that would affect his chances of re-election was part of his decision, saying: “I’m not complaining, it’s redistricting, I get it, it’s being done and abused everywhere. But when Democrats do say they want Republican partners to tell the truth, and then they specifically target me, it makes me wonder.”But he said a stronger push to retire had come from the direction of his party under Trump.“It’s sitting back and saying, ‘OK, what happens if I win again? I go back, probably Republicans will probably be in the majority. I’m going to be fighting even harder … and I haven’t seen any momentum in the party to move away from lies and towards truth.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

US Capitol attack Trump seeking to block call logs and notes from Capitol attack panelEx-president sued to stop the National Archives from transmitting documents to the House committee

‘Roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump plot to steal the presidency
Associated Press in WashingtonSat 30 Oct 2021 08.47 EDTDonald Trump is trying to block documents including call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from his chief of staff relating to the 6 January Capitol riot from being released to an investigating House committee, the National Archives revealed in a court filing early on Saturday.Tucker Carlson condemned over ‘false flag’ claim about deadly Capitol attackRead moreThe former president has sued to stop the National Archives transmitting those documents, and thousands more, to the House committee investigating the attack. Joe Biden declined to assert executive privilege on most of Trump’s records after determining that doing so is “not in the best interests of the United States”.On 6 January, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory. Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House for inciting the riot but acquitted by a Republican Senate.The House select committee investigating 6 January contains only two Republicans, the anti-Trump conservatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, after House GOP leadership sought to place Trump allies on the panel and then withdrew co-operation.In his lawsuit to block the National Archives from turning over the documents to the committee, Trump called the committee’s document requests a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose”.The Saturday filing, which came as part of the National Archives and Record Administration’s opposition to Trump’s lawsuit, details the effort the agency has undertaken to identify records from the Trump White House in response to a broad, 13-page request from the House panel for documents pertaining to the insurrection and Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election.The document offers the first look at the sort of records that could soon be turned over.Billy Laster, director of the National Archives’ White House Liaison Division, wrote that among documents Trump has sought to block are 30 pages of “daily presidential diaries, schedules, appointment information showing visitors to the White House, activity logs, call logs and switchboard shift-change checklists showing calls to the president and vice-president, all specifically for or encompassing 6 January 2021”; 13 pages of “drafts of speeches, remarks, and correspondence concerning the events of 6 January 2021”; and “three handwritten notes concerning the events of 6 January from [former White House chief of staff Mark] Meadows’ files”.Trump also tried to exert executive privilege over pages from former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s binders of talking points and statements “principally relating to allegations of voter fraud, election security, and other topics concerning the 2020 election”.Other documents included a handwritten note from Meadows’ files “listing potential or scheduled briefings and telephone calls concerning the 6 January certification and other election issues” and “a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity”.Laster’s declaration notes that the National Archives’ search began with paper documents because it took until August for digital records from the Trump White House to be transferred to the agency.The National Archives, Laster wrote, has identified “several hundred thousand potentially responsive records” of emails from the Trump White House out of about 100m sent or received during his administration, and was working to determine whether they pertained to the House request.Biden has waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents the committee has asked for, though the committee agreed to “defer” its requests for several dozen pages of records at the behest of the White House.In explaining why Biden has not shielded Trump’s records, the White House counsel, Dana Remus, wrote that they could “shed light on events within the White House on and about 6 January and bear on the select committee’s need to understand the facts underlying the most serious attack on the operations of the federal government since the civil war”.The Trump suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing a president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after he left office is inherently unconstitutional. Biden has said he will go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More