US Politics

Trump ally Matt Schlapp sued by Herschel Walker aide over groping claimChair of American Conservative Union denies claim from 2022 midterms campaign as lawyer says countersuit could be filed A staffer for Herschel Walker’s Republican Senate campaign filed a lawsuit against the prominent conservative activist Matt Schlapp on Tuesday, accusing Schlapp of groping him during a car ride in Georgia before last year’s midterm election.Schlapp denies the allegation. His lawyer said they were considering a countersuit.The battery and defamation lawsuit was filed in Alexandria circuit court in Virginia, where Schlapp lives, and seeks more than $9m in damages.It accuses Schlapp of “aggressively fondling” the staffer’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while the staffer drove Schlapp back to his hotel from a bar in October, on the day of a Walker campaign event. The allegations were first reported by the Daily Beast.The staffer filed the lawsuit anonymously as “John Doe”, citing his status as an alleged sexual assault victim and fearing backlash from supporters of Schlapp, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump and chair of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference.The lawsuit accuses Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, who was Trump’s White House director of strategic communications, of defamation and conspiracy, citing Matt Schlapp’s repeated denials and alleged attempts by both to discredit the staffer.In a statement, the lawyer Charlie Spies accused the staffer of trying to harm the Schlapp family.“The complaint is false and the Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual,” Spies said, adding that the legal team was “assessing counter-lawsuit options”.According to the lawsuit, Matt Schlapp was in Georgia in the waning days of the general election season to campaign for Walker, the former University of Georgia football star who lost a runoff election to the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock. The lawsuit alleges that after the staffer drove Schlapp back to Atlanta following a campaign event, Schlapp invited the staffer to join him for drinks.The two ended up at a local bar, where Schlapp, according to the suit, “sat unusually close” to the accuser, “such that his leg repeatedly contacted, and was in almost constant contact with Mr Doe’s leg”.The staffer said he offered to drive Schlapp back to his hotel but during the car ride Schlapp allegedly placed his hand on the staffer’s leg without consent, leaving him “frozen with shock, mortification and fear from what was happening, particularly given Mr Schlapp’s power and status in conservative social circles”.When they reached the hotel, the suit alleges, Schlapp invited the staffer up to his room, but the staffer declined. He later informed senior campaign aides about what had happened and recorded a video recounting the events.“As a direct and proximate result of Mr Schlapp’s battery upon Mr Doe, Mr Doe suffered damages, including without limitation shock, mortification, horror, humiliation, and distress,” the suit reads.A former campaign official said the staffer had done everything right, including notifying his superiors, and said the campaign acted swiftly to make sure he knew he was believed. The staffer had been scheduled to drive Schlapp to an event the next morning, but was advised to inform Schlapp alternative transportation had been arranged, according to the filing. Schlapp did not attend the event and would not have been welcome, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Timothy Hyland, a lawyer representing the staffer, sent a statement from his law firm calling Schlapp a “sexual predator”.“Our client takes no joy in filing this lawsuit,” it said. “However, Mr Schlapp has had ample time to accept responsibility and apologize for his despicable actions. But instead of doing the right thing, Mr Schlapp, Ms Schlapp, and their friends and associates embarked on a ridiculous, spurious and defamatory attempt to smear the reputation of Mr Schlapp’s victim.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsVirginiaGeorgiaUS crimenewsReuse this content More

How did gas stoves ignite a culture war in the US?Jill FilipovicI recently moved from a gas stove to an induction range, and I love it. Other Americans probably will, too Of all the political issues I assumed would come to the fore in 2023, gas stoves were not on my bingo card. And yet Americans’ right to cook on an open gas flame has turned into a red-hot culture war issue. Conservatives are gearing up for a War of the Cooktops – and unfortunately, some Democrats aren’t helping.Some five decades’ worth of studies have found that gas stoves are hazardous to human health, with a recent one suggesting that gas stoves in US homes may be to blame for nearly 13% of childhood asthma cases. Gas stoves are bad for the environment, too, powered as they are by fossil fuels.This has led to some liberal cities – Berkeley, California, and New York City – to mandate that some new buildings use electric over gas. But the blistering gas stove dispute really ignited when a commissioner at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Richard Trumka Jr, told Bloomberg that gas was a “hidden hazard” and that when it came to banning gas stoves, “any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”Cue rightwing firestorm.Multiple prominent conservatives and rightwing politicians tweeted some version of “You will have to pry my gas stove from my cold dead hands.” Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, tweeted the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag with a gas stove in the place of the snake. Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas worried himself about the day “the maniacs in the White House come for my stove”.Others claimed that Democrats were hypocrites, pointing to a video of the first lady, Jill Biden, cooking on gas. “Can’t wait to see the headlines when Feds raid Jill Biden’s private home to confiscate her criminal gas stove,” one rightwing agitator tweeted.The bellicose defense of the sanctity of the gas range was largely fueled by conservative men, whose typical macho act doesn’t usually entail embracing the feminized work of cooking on the stove. And there’s no red-blue divide when it comes to cooking with gas – gas stoves are used in only 38% of American households, and are most common in the blue bubbles of California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington DC.But this was a chance to punch at Democrats, and so Republicans lined up to take a shot.Just one problem: the claim that “Biden will ban gas stoves for normal people”, as DeSantis’s terminally online aide Christina Pushaw put it, isn’t true.“The president does not support banning gas stoves – and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. The feds are not going to bust through your door and take away your gas range, and the rightwing immolation at the mere suggestion of a gas stove ban is just one more line on a long list of rightwing lies made for political gain.Still: Democrats made a pretty unforced error here. Yes, gas stoves are bad for your health. But for a great many people – myself included, until very recently – it’s hard to imagine giving them up. For professional chefs and enthusiastic home cooks, gas has been the gold standard for decades, with its superior temperature control. Many cooking traditions rely on a flame that simply isn’t replicable on an electric cooktop. And a whole lot of us who have cooked on both gas burners and electric coils see a clear difference – I love to cook and do so often, and if my only choice were an electric coil stove, I might also tell you that you could pry my gas range from my cold dead hands (even in the face of the mounds of evidence suggesting that time would come sooner if I continued to cook on gas).Luckily, electric coil isn’t the only option. A few months ago, I moved into a very old house and needed to buy a new stove to replace an electric range that appeared to have been manufactured in approximately 1974. Gas was my first choice, but the house didn’t have a gas line, and even though I didn’t want to deal with refilling propane tanks, I still ordered one and decided to make it work – until the gas stove for which I had already gotten countertops cut to fit was backordered yet again. So, out of options and needing to cook at some point before 2024, I very hesitantly switched to the induction version of the same range, and told myself I would just have to put my big-girl pants on and power through with less than ideal meals prepared on a less than ideal stove.Reader, I love it.Yes, I had to replace my old non-stick pans, but frankly those were probably bad for my health too. (Want to know if your pots and pans will work on induction? Try to stick a fridge magnet to the bottom; if it sticks, they’ll work, and if it doesn’t, they won’t.) My cast iron works like a charm. The temperature control is incredibly precise. Water boils at astonishing speed – water for pasta or hot tea is ready in two minutes. It’s easy to clean. The electric oven bakes much more evenly, and my roast chickens come out better than ever. And the flat top gives me much-needed extra counter space in a compact kitchen.And that’s where this is an opportunity for Democrats: instead of playing the Culture War game Republicans want, Democrats should expand incentives to move away from gas while talking about the real benefits of induction – including equal or superior performance for most cooks. The Inflation Reduction Act, with its rebate of up to $840 for an electric range, is certainly a good start. And wider efforts to decrease the cost of and thereby incentivize safer, healthier options would go a long way to making people feel as though they’re making a voluntary consumer choice, rather than being forced into a less-than-optimal situation by an overzealous government.I still despise cooking on electric coil stoves, and I still enjoy cooking on gas. But now, to my great surprise, I prefer induction for everyday use. Other Americans might fall in love with induction, too, if they have the chance. Republicans and Democrats alike have an opportunity to stop silly squabbles and give consumers a real choice – and promote better health and a cleaner environment while they’re at it.
Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness
TopicsUS newsOpinionUS politicsPollutionRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

FBI’s opposition to release Leonard Peltier driven by vendetta, says ex-agentExclusive: retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley calls for clemency for Indigenous activist who has been in prison for nearly 50 years The FBI’s repeated opposition to the release of Leonard Peltier is driven by vindictiveness and misplaced loyalties, according to a former senior agent close to the case who is the first agency insider to call for clemency for the Indigenous rights activist who has been held in US maximum security prisons for almost five decades.Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent whose career included 14 years as legal counsel in the Minneapolis division where she worked with prosecutors and agents directly involved in the Peltier case, has written to Joe Biden making a case for Peltier’s release.“Retribution seems to have emerged as the primary if not sole reason for continuing what looks from the outside to have become an emotion-driven “FBI Family” vendetta,” said Rowley in the letter sent to the US president in December and shared exclusively with the Guardian.Rowley added: “The focus of my two cents leading to my joining the call for clemency is based on Peltier’s inordinately long prison sentence and an ever more compelling need for simple mercy due to his advanced age and deteriorating health.”“Enough is enough. Leonard Peltier should now be allowed to go home.”Peltier, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe and of Lakota and Dakota descent, was convicted of murdering two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. Peltier was a leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an Indigenous civil rights movement founded in Minneapolis that was infiltrated and repressed by the FBI.Rowley refers to the historical context in which the shooting took place as “…the long-standing horribly wrongful oppressive treatment of Indians in the U.S. [which] played a key role in putting both the agents and Peltier in the wrong place at the wrong time.”The 1977 murder trial – and subsequent parole hearings – were rife with irregularities and due process violations including evidence that the FBI had coerced witnesses, withheld and falsified evidence.Peltier, now 78, has been held in maximum security prisons for 46 of the past 47 years. He has always denied shooting the agents. Last year, UN experts called for Peltier’s immediate release after concluding that his prolonged imprisonment amounted to arbitrary detention.In an exclusive interview with the Guardian about her intervention, Rowley, who retired in 2004, said that for years new agents were “indoctrinated” with the FBI’s version of events.“The facts are murky, and I’m not going to say either narrative is correct. I wasn’t there. But I do know that if you really care about justice, then the real issue now is mercy, truth and reconciliation. To keep this going for almost 50 years really shows the level of vindictiveness the organisation has for Leonard Peltier.”“The bottom line is there are all kinds of problems in the intelligence service which by and large never get corrected for the same reasons: group conformity, pride, and an unwillingness to admit mistakes so systemic problems are covered up and never fixed,” said Rowley, a 9/11 whistleblower who testified to the senate about FBI failures in the terrorist attacks.Nick Estes, an assistant professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota, said Rowley’s support of Peltier’s clemency was “historic”.“She is trying to dispel a myth that is deeply embedded into the culture of the FBI… handed down through indoctrinating young recruits such as Rowley about Peltier’s unquestionable guilt and the FBI’s supposed blamelessness during the reign of terror on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation,” said Estes, a volunteer with the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.Rowley wrote to Biden in response to a letter by the intelligence agency’s current director vehemently opposing Peltier’s release on behalf of the “entire FBI family” – which was recently published online by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.Christopher Wray described Peltier as a “remorseless killer who brutally murdered two of our own – special agents Jack R Coler and Ronald A Williams”. Commutation of Peltier’s sentence would be “shattering to the victims’ loved ones and an affront to the rule of law”, according to Wray’s letter to the justice department’s pardon attorney dated March 2022.FBI has successfully opposed every clemency application with emotive Op-Eds, letters and marches on Washington.But the time served on most murder sentences ranges between 11 and 18 years, while Mark Putnam, the first FBI agent convicted of homicide – for strangling his female informant – was released after serving just 10 years of a 16-year sentence. Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, and a parole officer who recommended his release after acknowledging that there was not enough evidence to sustain the conviction, was demoted.“The disparate nature of Peltier being held for nearly a half century behind bars is striking,” said Rowley, who in the 1990s helped pen an Op-Ed by the head of the Minneapolis division opposing Peltier’s release. “The facts are everything, not loyalty to the FBI family, not them versus us, not good guys versus bad guys.”Peltier supporters hope that Rowley’s intervention will count.“Rowley speaks with authority and is saying that nothing justifies him being in prison, just vindictiveness, so ignoring her means turning a blind eye to what’s happening,” said Kevin Sharp, Peltier’s attorney who submitted the most recent clemency application 18 months ago. “Rowley knows the case. She knows the FBI and supervised some of those directly involved. She knows Indian Country, so understands the context which is really important.”Peltier is currently being held in a maximum security prison in Coleman, Florida, where his health has significantly deteriorated since contracting Covid-19, according to Sharp, who visited in December. Multiple recommendations by the facility to lower Peltier’s classification, so that he can be transferred to a less restrictive prison closer to his family, have been rejected.“This is a little old man with a walker. It’s not just the FBI that’s vindictive,” added Sharp, a former federal judge appointed by Obama who stepped down from the bench in protest of minimum mandatory sentence. He took on Peltier’s case in 2018 after successfully obtaining a pardon from Donald Trump for a young Black man he had been forced to imprison.According to Sharp, Peltier’s clemency was still on the table until Trump’s last day in office but didn’t make it onto the final list of presidential pardons which was mostly former associates and white collar criminals.He added: “This is not about a 10 minute shootout. It’s about hundreds of years of what had gone before and the decades of what’s gone on afterwards. That’s why Leonard Peltier was convicted, and that’s why he’s still in jail.”TopicsNative AmericansFBIUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

Far-right Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar restored to House panelsGreene will sit on the House homeland security committee while Gosar will be on the natural resources panel Two far-right members of Congress whose threatening behavior prompted their removal from committees when Democrats controlled the US House were given assignments on Tuesday by the new Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.George Santos will be seated on committees, House speaker says Read moreMarjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia will sit on the House homeland security committee. Paul Gosar of Arizona was named to the natural resources panel.Democrats removed Greene from committees in February 2021, citing incendiary behavior including advocating the assassination of opponents and voicing support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories, including bizarre claims about 9/11 and the Parkland school shooting.Eleven Republicans supported Greene’s removal but despite being condemned by party leaders for speaking at a white supremacist conference last February, the Georgia congresswoman has since become close to McCarthy.Earlier this month, Greene refused to join the far-right rebellion which dragged McCarthy through 15 rounds of voting before he was confirmed as speaker.Greene, who recently said the January 6 attack on the US Capitol would have succeeded had she organised it, will now sit on the homeland security committee.That panel is set to spearhead Republican attacks, possibly including impeachment, against Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, over immigration policy and border security.On Tuesday, Greene tweeted: “It is time to restore dignity to the people, Border Patrol, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and the families who have lost a loved one to the cartel’s fentanyl murders and illegal alien crime.“I serve the American people and no one else. As far as I’m concerned American dignity is the only one that matters.”Gosar, who attended the same white supremacist conference as Greene, was censured and removed from committees in November 2021, after tweeting an anime-style video which showed him striking the New York progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and also menacing Biden. Two Republicans supported the move.Earlier this month, early in the run of votes by which McCarthy became speaker, Gosar and Ocasio-Cortez were filmed talking to each other in the House chamber.Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC: “In chaos, anything is possible, especially in this era.”TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsKevin McCarthynewsReuse this content More

Republicans are continuing to pressure Joe Biden over the classified documents found at his residence and former office, while Democrats are telling anyone who will listen that there are significant differences between the president’s case and that of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the White House is demanding Kevin McCarthy release the details of agreements he made with conservative Republicans to win their support for his House speaker bid, arguing he has empowered extremists.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The White House attempted to explain why it didn’t announce the discovery of classified documents in Biden’s possession when it was first made in November.
Trump may be the big winner of the kerfuffle over Biden’s classified documents, especially if it undermines the investigation into the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
Daniel Goldman, who served as the Democrats’ lead prosecutor of Trump during his 2019 impeachment, will play a major role in defending Biden from the GOP’s investigation campaign.
State Democratic parties are revolting against Biden’s plan to shake up the primary calendar for presidential nominations.
George Santos lied his way into office, but he will nonetheless serve on committees in the House, McCarthy said.
It’s going to be a tough couple of months for Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary who has become the subject of near-daily criticism from Republicans for his handling of the surge of migrants at the country’s southern border.The GOP has already vowed to call him repeatedly before the House, and will probably use the hearings as another cudgel against the Biden administration. Today, CNN reports that several top Republicans are ready to impeach the secretary – something that hasn’t happened to a cabinet secretary since 1876:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over an impeachment resolution, is prepared to move ahead with formal proceedings if there appears to be a consensus within the GOP conference, according to a GOP source directly familiar with the matter. The first impeachment resolution introduced by House Republicans already has picked up support, including from a member of the GOP leadership team.
A GOP source said the first Judiciary Committee hearing on the border could come later this month or early February.
One top chairman is already sounding supportive of the move, a sign of how the idea of impeaching President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretary has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of the conference.
‘If anybody is a prime candidate for impeachment in this town, it’s Mayorkas,’ Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN.But not all Republicans are on board, with several lawmakers worrying the public won’t see the need for the effort, which is sure to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate anyway. Here’s Republican Dusty Johnson’s thoughts on the matter, to CNN:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Clearly, the management of the Southern border has been incompetent … That is not the threshold in the Constitution for impeachment – it’s high crimes and misdemeanors. … I would want to think about the legal standard the Constitution has set out – and whether or not that’s been met.Mario Diaz-Balart was of a similar mind:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Has he been totally dishonest to people? Yes. Has he failed in his job miserably? Yes … Are those grounds for impeachment? I don’t know.For all the bombast of Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans in the House, keep this fact in mind: their margin of control is only four seats. If the party wants to maintain its grip on the chamber for the next two years, the GOP simply cannot afford to have any of their lawmakers leave office.That said, not all Republicans were happy with the deals that McCarthy cut to win the House speakership, and Puck reports that one lawmaker is particularly aggrieved over the Californian’s bargaining. That would be Vern Buchanan, who was passed over as chair of the tax-writing ways and means committee in favor of Jason Smith, an ally of the speaker.With no committee to helm, Puck reports that the 71-year-old Buchanan could decide that now’s the time to retire. According to their story, he already told McCarthy what he thought of his decision to promote Smith rather than himself on the House floor:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Just how angry was he? Well, a source on the House floor during the vote told me that while McCarthy was gaveling down the votes, Buchanan walked up to McCarthy and said, ‘You fucked me, I know it was you, you whipped against me.’ He then proceeded to chew out McCarthy’s deputy chief of staff for floor operations, John Leganski. It was shocking to see such fury from Buchanan, who’s known for being mild mannered. Indeed, I heard that the tirade was so heated that the Speaker’s security detail stepped in with a light touch. (McCarthy’s spokesperson Matt Sparks disputed this detail saying, ‘at no point did anyone have to step in.’ A spokesperson for Buchanan declined to comment.)The House hasn’t convened its committees yet, and thus Democrats and Republicans have taken their squabble over the investigations into Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s possession of classified material to the next logical venue: Twitter.Jim Jordan, chair of the House judiciary committee, fired the latest salvo by reiterating his latest talking points about the investigation into Biden’s documents:Why was President Trump’s home raided but not President Biden’s? Why did the FBI take pictures of President Trump’s so-called classified documents but not President Biden’s?Americans are tired of the double standard.— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 17, 2023
To which Daniel Goldman, a Democrat who has lined up to be one of Biden’s chief defenders in the House and served as the lead counsel when Democrats impeached Trump in 2019, fired back:1) because Trump obstructed justice by failing to comply with a subpoena. Biden volunteered all docs. 2) It’s standard procedure for the FBI to photograph everything they find during a search warrant. In the future, feel free to reach out to me directly with your questions. https://t.co/05JVjbNCgI— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) January 17, 2023
And before you “investigate the FBI” to obstruct their investigations into you and others, you might want to brush up on the FBI Manual of Investigative Operations and Guidelines (MIOG) so you don’t ask any more dumb questions.— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) January 17, 2023
Arizona’s US senator Kyrsten Sinema, who recently left the Democratic party and declared herself an independent, drew political fire from critics Tuesday after defending her congressional chamber’s filibuster rule at Switzerland’s Davos World Economic Forum.Among other remarks Tuesday, Sinema reportedly said the Senate filibuster was the “basis of the productivity for some incredible achievements” in Congress during Joe Biden’s first two years in the White House.Both Democrats and Republicans have used the rule, which allows a relatively small group of senator to block action by the majority. Sinema outraged Democratic supporters before she left the party in December when she opposed filibuster reform to pave the way for the passage of voting rights legislation.A group named “Replace Sinema Because Arizona Deserves Better” on Tuesday issued a statement arguing that the first-term senator preferred to be at Davos rubbing elbows with “billionaires and Wall Street execs” as well as others belonging to the global elite rather than “doing her job” in her state or on Capitol Hill.Meanwhile, one journalist snapped and tweeted out a photograph of her appearing to speak warmly with former Donald Trump White House spokesperson Anthony Scaramucci and ex-US House speaker Paul Ryan, both figures in the Republican party. The tweet referred to both Ryan and Scaramucci – Republican figures and Democratic opponents – as “old pals”.Sinema, like centrist Democrat Joe Manchin (who was alongside her on stage at Davos), has often taken stands that undermined key Biden administration agenda items along with other left-leaning interests in the nation’s capital. Her defection from the party came shortly after Raphael Warnock’s victory over Republican challenger Herschel Walker in Georgia left the Democrats thinking they had a clear one-seat majority in the Senate.There has been no indication that Sinema will caucus with Republicans, and she has said she doesn’t intend to. Either way, when the Senate was split 50-50 for two years beginning in 2021, Vice-President Kamala Harris broke ties in the Democrats’ favor.The White House on Tuesday defended its public handling of revelations that classified documents were discovered at Joe Biden’s home and the president’s private office. In a call with reporters, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said the decision not to immediately inform the public of the discovery of sensitive records in November was “consistent with safeguarding the integrity of the investigation”.“We understand that there’s a tension between the need to be cooperative with an ongoing DOJ investigation, and rightful demands for additional public information,” Sams said. “And so we’re trying to strike that balance.” He pointed reporters to a line in a statement released by the president’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, after the discovery of additional documents, which stated that “regular ongoing public disclosures also pose the risk that, as further information develops, answers provided on this periodic basis may be incomplete.”The explanation did little to satisfy Republicans – or reporters – who have repeatedly pressed the White House on why it was not transparent with the public when the documents were first found at the president’s private Washington office on 2 November. On 2o December, Biden’s personal lawyers found “a small number of potential records bearing classified markings” in the garage of the president’s Delaware home. Five more pages of materials were found at his home on Thursday. ‘Rampant hypocrisy’After the first discovery two months ago, the White House said it “immediately”notified the National Archives and Records Administration, which then informed the US justice department.Sams repeated that the White House was cooperating with the investigation and would continue to do so, drawing a sharp distinction with the way Biden’s presidential predecessor Donald Trump handled sensitive documents. Trump refused to turn over troves of government documents that he took with him to his Mar-a-lago estate, even after being subpoenaed. Agents dispatched to his home to retrieve the materials, which Trump said he had the right to keep, and even argued without evidence that he had declassified. Sams accused Republicans of fomenting “faking outrage about disclosure and transparency” and “rampant hypocrisy.” ‘Fake outrage’He seized on comments by the newly installed Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, who has promised to aggressively investigate Biden’s handling of the documents. In a CNN interview this weekend, the Republican said: “At the end of the day, my biggest concern isn’t the classified documents, to be honest with you. My concern is there’s such a discrepancy between how President Trump was treated … versus Joe Biden.” Asked last year about Trump’s handling of the documents, Comer, Sams noted, said it “didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” “House Republicans lose credibility when they engage in fake outrage about an issue that they’re clearly pursuing only for partisan gain,” Sams said. Sams said the White House was reviewing “a few letters” from the House Oversight committee related to Biden’s retention of classified documents and will make a “determination about our response in due course.”Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has vowed to investigate both the classified documents found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and at Joe Biden’s properties.But his sympathies were clearly with Trump. The Republican leader argued that the former president had been treated more harshly than Biden, which “just does not seem fair.”“This is why the American people get so upset and distrust their government when they see that the law is not applied equally,” he continued, accusing Biden of “hypocrisy” for not making the document discovery public before the November midterms.Here’s C-SPAN with his full comments:.@SpeakerMcCarthy (R-CA) on Biden and Trump documents probes: “It’s not a fair process when you equalize this out, and that is what is wrong with the system.” https://t.co/wY8OFxGe89 pic.twitter.com/FZ8vlO1aDZ— CSPAN (@cspan) January 17, 2023
George Santos will be seated on committees in the House, even though the New York Republican admitted to lying about his qualifications for office, House speaker Kevin McCarthy said.While he did not say on which committees the freshman lawmaker will serve, the comment underscores that Republican leadership is disinclined to take any major steps to exclude Santos, who is facing an array of investigations into his admitted dishonesty on the campaign trail.Here are McCarthy’s comments, courtesy of C-Span:.@SpeakerMcCarthy (R-CA) on Rep. George Santos (R-NY): “He’ll get seated on committees.” https://t.co/77obCJittk pic.twitter.com/Oo2JIBf9Cc— CSPAN (@cspan) January 17, 2023
Republicans are continuing to pressure Joe Biden over the classified documents found at his residence and former office, while Democrats are working to point out the significant differences between the president’s case and that of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the White House is demanding Kevin McCarthy release the details of the agreements he made with conservative Republican to win their support for his House speaker bid.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump may be the big winner of the kerfuffle over Biden’s classified documents, as it undermines the investigation into the government secrets found at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The House Democrats’ lead prosecutor of Trump during his first impeachment will play a major role in defending Biden from the GOP’s investigation campaign.
State Democratic parties are revolting against Biden’s plan to shake up the primary calendar for presidential nominations.
In Florida, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports that US authorities are turning back more and more migrants amid a surge in arrivals:Authorities in Florida have been turning back growing numbers of undocumented Cubans and Haitians arriving by sea in recent weeks as more attempt to seek haven in the US.Local US residents on jet skis have been helping some of the migrants who attempted to swim ashore after making arduous, life-threateningand days-long journeys in makeshift vessels.Joe Biden’s turn to the center over immigration comes as Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, attempts to plot his own strategy for handling a sensitive situation in the south of his state, calling out national guard troops in a hardline approach.US turns back growing number of undocumented people after arduous sea journeysRead moreTo the GOP, the White House’s demand for answers from Kevin McCarthy is little more than a distraction from the unfolding investigation into Joe Biden’s classified documents.Here’s Republican operative Matt Whitlock:The communications wizards at the Biden White House right now: https://t.co/dT9swCaPVc pic.twitter.com/hTKj4qIntv— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) January 17, 2023 More

George Santos will be seated on committees, House speaker says Kevin McCarthy deflects growing calls for Santos to resign over his largely made-up résumé and suspect campaign finances George Santos – the New York Republican congressman under local, state, federal and international investigation over his largely made-up résumé, suspect campaign finances and potentially criminal aspects of his personal history – “will get seated on committees”, the US House speaker said on Tuesday.How McCarthy’s speaker deals will cause ‘cannibalistic brawl among extremists’Read moreSpeaking to reporters at the Capitol, Kevin McCarthy said: “We will be done with all committees today – he will get seated on committees.”McCarthy must govern with a narrow majority, 222-213. Earlier this month, Santos supported McCarthy through 15 votes for speaker.McCarthy has deflected growing calls for Santos to resign, from Republicans in New York’s third congressional district and on Capitol Hill from senior Democrats.Instead, McCarthy and other Republicans have said the New York freshman should be subject to a House ethics process the party is trying to gut.Santos’s résumé has been shown to be largely fictional, including claims about where he went to college, which companies he worked for, and his racial and family background.Democrats and an outside watchdog have called for an investigation of Santos’s campaign finances. He is under investigation at local and state levels in New York, by US federal authorities and by authorities in Brazil, in that case over the use of a stolen chequebook.On Monday, the Washington Post extended the story to Russia, reporting that Santos “has deeper ties than previously known” to Andrew Intrater, “a businessman who cultivated close links with a onetime Trump confidant and who is the cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch”.Intrater is related to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire in the Russian energy industry. Intrater’s links with Michael Cohen, then Trump’s lawyer and fixer, came under the gaze of Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Santos has admitted to “embellishing” his résumé but denied wrongdoing and insisted he will not resign.Democrats have raised questions about how much McCarthy and other Republicans knew of Santos’s falsehoods before he won last November.On Sunday, Daniel Goldman told CBS that he and another New York Democrat, Ritchie Torres, had written to McCarthy, his lieutenant Elise Stefanik and the head of McCarthy’s Super Pac about “bombshell … reporting from the New York Times that they all knew about Mr Santos’s lies prior to the election”.On Monday, McCarthy told reporters: “I never knew about his résumé or not but I always had a few questions about it.”The Times report said that in 2021 a member of Santos’s staff pretended to be McCarthy’s chief of staff.On Tuesday, McCarthy said: “My staff had concerns when he had a staff member impersonate my chief of staff and that individual was let go when Mr Santos found out about it.”In a column for NBC News, meanwhile, Torres said that having grown up across the street from former president Donald Trump’s “gilded golf course, I know what it’s like to have the neighbourhood you love hijacked by a man who is deceitful to the core”.“Now”, Torres added, “as I begin my second term in Congress representing the good people of the Bronx, I find myself in an institution that I love hijacked by yet another liar, cheat and fraud.”TopicsGeorge SantosHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsKevin McCarthynewsReuse this content More

Democratic plans to overhaul primary process hit a fresh snagFor very different reasons, New Hampshire and Georgia remain obstacles to Joe Biden’s bid for equity The Democratic party’s rationale for shaking up its presidential primary process was fairly straightforward: the current system is dominated by two predominantly white states who vote first, giving people of color little say in choosing the potential next president.Facing fuming New Hampshire officials, however, and a Georgia Republican party happy to meddle in Democrats’ plans, the Joe Biden-led effort to make things more equitable now looks increasingly in peril.New Hampshire, which has held the first presidential primary for decades, is proving itself particularly unyielding, raising the prospect of a rogue vote taking place in the state.The Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved a new primary schedule in December 2022, which would see the most significant changes to the way a potential president is selected in decades.Iowa Republicans threaten to move caucuses if Democrats change scheduleRead moreUnder the new plan, Iowa – which holds its vote under a complex caucus system – and New Hampshire, the two states which have led off the voting since the modern-day presidential nominating process began in the 1970s, would be nudged down the calendar – with Iowa in particular punted way down the schedule, following a shambolic counting process in 2020.Instead, Democrats want South Carolina, a more racially diverse state than Iowa and New Hampshire, to have first say in whom the Democratic party should nominate for president. The proposal would see New Hampshire vote a week later, along with Nevada, while Georgia – another racially diverse state, and one which was crucial to Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and Democrats’ successful holding of the Senate in 2022 – would go next.The plan hit a snag last week, however, when New Hampshire and Georgia asked for more time to meet the DNC’s requirements. The committee said it remained hopeful the new calendar would take effect in 2024, and it plans a full vote on the schedule next month, but it is clear that officials in New Hampshire and Georgia have other ideas.David Scanlan, who as New Hampshire’s secretary of state is in charge of selecting the date of the primary, suggested he would move the vote forward anyway.He told WMUR9: “I’m going to wait to set the date. There is a lot that can happen between now and next fall,” Scanlan said.“We have the luxury of just being patient and watching. We’ll see how the landscape develops and then at the right time we will announce the date of our primary.”Part of the issue is that New Hampshire has a law that states that the New Hampshire primary should be held on the second Tuesday in March, or “on a date selected by the secretary of state which is seven days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election”.The date of the primary has been moved forward several times over the years to preserve New Hampshire’s “first in the nation” status. In 2008, Michigan and Florida moved their primary dates forward, in defiance of the DNC’s official calendar, and party bosses reacted by cutting the number of delegates assigned to each state. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed not to campaign in either state, although the issue would become contentious when the DNC later decided to grant Michigan and Florida delegates after all.But as well as being law, at least some of the furore is about a desire to cling on to the first-primary-in-the-nation status, said Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.“It’s really much more about political culture, and it’s about political elites really enjoying their moment in the spotlight,” Scala said.“They’re exceedingly protective; they’re exceedingly reluctant to give it up. They love the access that the primary brings in terms of access to candidates. Every party activist, Democratic or Republican, seemingly has a story to tell about their rubbing elbows with candidate X, or having a picture taken with such a person, all that sort of thing.”Democrats in New Hampshire have reacted angrily to the new plan. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire’s Democratic senators, skipped an annual congressional ball at the White House in December in protest, while Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic party, has described the plan as “unrealistic and unattainable”.In Georgia, the DNC faces a different problem. The state is led by Republicans, including Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who sets the primary date. Raffensberger has said he wants both primaries on the same day, and the Republican party has already said that its first four states will be in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.At the moment, the scheduling could be theoretical. Biden has indicated he will run in 2024, making it unlikely there would be a serious Democratic primary. But the party is also keen to shake up the schedule in 2028 and beyond – possibly with a different state order each election cycle – meaning New Hampshire’s days of going first could be doomed either way.Scala and Caitlin Jewitt, a political scientist at Virginia Tech university, said it was unlikely New Hampshire would back down, raising the prospect of an unwanted – by party leaders – first primary in 2024.Should that happen, the Democratic party could ask candidates not to campaign in New Hampshire, and not put their names on the ballot in the state. That would require the candidates to agree, but with the Republican primary taking place early in the state – something which will bring thousands of members of the media and national attention – it could be hard to resist.Jewitt said the DNC could also strip New Hampshire of its delegates, who cast votes for their chosen candidate at the party’s pre-presidential convention, effectively rendering the primary redundant.“That is supposed to be a punishment: you won’t have as much influence on the outcome, but it has never been very effective to stage because New Hampshire’s influence has never been that they have a large number of delegates and they can influence the outcome at the national convention.“Their influence has always been the media attention and the candidate attention and having this first-in-the-nation primary.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

Former Republican candidate arrested over shootings targeting Democrat homesSolomon Pena ran for the New Mexico state legislature in 2022, but lost to the Democrat incumbent A failed Republican state legislative candidate, who authorities say was angry over losing an election last November and made baseless claims that the vote was “rigged”, has been arrested in connection with a series of drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico’s largest city.Albuquerque Police chief Harold Medina held a news conference on Monday evening hours after Swat officers arrested Solomon Pena at his home.Medina described Pena as the “mastermind” of what appears to be a politically motivated criminal conspiracy behind four shootings at, or near, the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators. The shooting took place between December and early January.Pena lost an election in November to incumbent state Representative, Miguel P. Garcia, the longtime Democrat representing House District 14 in New Mexico. Garcia won by 48 percentage points, or roughly 3,600 votes.Police said Pena had approached county and state lawmakers after his loss, claiming the contest had been rigged against him despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud in New Mexico in 2020 or 2022. The shootings began shortly after those conversations.New Mexico’s state Canvassing Board unanimously certified the results of the November election.“This type of radicalism is a threat to our nation and has made its way to our doorstep right here in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” said Mayor Tim Keller. “But I know we are going to push back, and we will not allow this to cross the threshold.”Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock said at least five people, including Pena, were involved in the shootings. Pena is accused of paying the others to carry out at least two of the shootings, according to Hartsock, before “Pena himself” allegedly “pulled the trigger” during one of crimes.Police said they identified Pena as their “key” suspect using a combination of phone records, witness interviews and bullet casings collected at the Democrats’ homes.A lawyer for Pena who could comment on the allegations wasn’t listed Monday night in jail records.No one was injured in the shootings, which came amid a rise in threats to members of Congress, school board members, election officials and other government workers around the nation. In Albuquerque, law enforcement has been struggling to address back-to-back years of record homicides and persistent gun violence.Hartsock said additional arrests and charges were expected in the case but declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation. He said some individuals, including Pena, were in custody Monday night.A criminal complaint outlining the exact charges against Pena was expected to be released in the coming days.The shootings began in early December when eight rounds were fired at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, police said. Days later, former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley’s home was targeted.As news reports began to surface about the shootings, state Representative Javier Martinez examined his property and discovered damage from gunshots. Police believe the shooting occurred in early December.Then, during the first week of January, shots were fired at the home of state Senator Linda Lopez – a lead sponsor of a 2021 bill that reversed New Mexico’s ban on most abortion procedures.Lopez said in a statement that three of the bullets passed through her 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom.Police had been investigating two additional shootings – one in the vicinity of New Mexico attorney general Raul Torrez’s former campaign office and another at state Senator Antonio Maestas’ office. But Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesperson for the police department, said Monday the shootings do not appear to be connected to the case.TopicsNew MexicoUS politicsnewsReuse this content More