US Politics

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the retention of classified documents by President Joe Biden from his time as vice-president. Speaking in Washington DC, Garland outlined the events that led to the announcement, confirming that further classified documents had been found at Biden’s home in Delaware. Prior to the statement, the White House said the search for secret materials from Biden’s time under President Barack Obama had concluded

Special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents
White House pledges to cooperate with special counsel over classified documents – live More

More Republicans call for George Santos to resign over fictional résuméNewly elected New York congressman insists he will not step down despite lies about background and education being exposed Republican members of Congress have joined state party officials in calling for the New York representative George Santos to resign, heaping more pressure on the disgraced politician who won election in November with a largely fictional biography.In Santos’s district, reactions to brazen lies remain mixed: ‘I might let him slide’Read moreAnthony D’Esposito, who represents New York’s fourth congressional district, neighbouring Santos in the third, said on Wednesday Santos had lost the faith of voters and did “not have the ability” to represent them, the New York Times reported.Santos, whose lies about his family background, education and work history were exposed by the Times, has insisted he will not resign, despite a slew of investigations and a complaint to the Federal Election Committee over his campaign finances.D’Esposito told reporters he would actively encourage “other representatives in the House of Representatives to join me in rejecting” Santos.He was joined in short order by three other first-term Republican congressmen from New York, the Times said. Two more weighed in on Thursday.The three were Nick LaLota, who like Santos and D’Esposito represents parts of Long Island; Nick Langworthy, the New York party chair who represents part of the upstate southern tier; and Brandon Williams, from a district near Syracuse.LaLota was particularly scathing, according to Axios.“I definitely share their sentiments,” he said of state party officials’ calls for Santos to give up his seat. “What he’s done is disgraceful, dishonorable and unworthy of the office. I think he should resign.”Williams tweeted a statement.“As more revelations become public, I concur with the Nassau Republicans’ decision to request George Santos’ resignation,” he wrote.“The constituents in NY-3 elected Representative Santos in part due to his biographical exaggerations and apparent deceptions. He must resign.”On Thursday morning, CNN’s chief congressional reporter, Manu Raju, tweeted that he had spoken with two more Republican New Yorkers, Marcus Molinaro and Mike Lawler, who concurred with their fellow congressmen.“There’s no way I believe [Santos] can fully fulfill his responsibilities,” Molinaro was quoted as saying.Santos has admitted “embellishing” his résumé, including lying about his college record – he did not attend Baruch and New York University – and saying a “poor choice of words” created the impression he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.He has claimed a tragic link to the Pulse nightclub shooting and said the attacks on New York on 11 September 2001 “claimed my mother’s life”. His mother died in 2016.He has claimed to have Jewish roots and to be descended from Holocaust survivors. He has claimed to be part Black, but while voting for Kevin McCarthy to be House speaker last week, he appeared to flash a “white power” sign.He is under investigation in New York and in Brazil, in the latter case over the use of a stolen checkbook.On Thursday, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House and another New Yorker, had stern words for Republican leaders.Santos, Jeffries said, was “a complete and total fraud. He lied to the voters of the third congressional district in New York. He deceived and connived his way into Congress, and is now the responsibility of House Republicans to do something about it.“This is not a partisan issue, but it is an issue that Republicans need to handle. Clean up your house. You can start with George Santos.”Earlier this week, two New York Democrats, Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres, hand-delivered to Santos their request for an investigation of his campaign finances.Jeffries said: “I was well aware of their decision to do so. But any matters before the ethics committee … should be resolved by members of the ethics committee.”Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, was also asked about Santos on Thursday. He told reporters: “What I find is that voters have elected George Santos. If there is a concern he will go through ethics. If there is something that is found it will be dealt with in that manner. But they [voters] have a voice in this process.”Santos remains defiant – even after being disowned by his own district Republican party.On Wednesday, Joseph Cairo, chair of the Nassau county Republican committee, criticized Santos for running a campaign of “deceit, lies and fabrication”.“He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople,” Cairo told reporters. “Today, on behalf of the Nassau county Republican committee, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”Cairo even said Santos did not just claim to have attended colleges he did not attend, but claimed to have been “a star on the Baruch volleyball team and that they won the league championship”.In response, Santos tweeted: “I was elected to serve the people of the New York third district not the party and politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.“I will NOT resign!”TopicsRepublicansGeorge SantosUS politicsNew YorknewsReuse this content More

Chicago mayor faces backlash for asking students to work on campaign for creditLori Lightfoot’s office asked teachers to encourage their students to submit résumés in exchange for ‘class credit’ Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is facing criticism after her office attempted to recruit students with school credit to help with her re-election campaign.Emails encouraging students to volunteer were sent to several Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers’ work emails from Megan Crane, who identifies herself as Lightfoot’s deputy campaign manager on LinkedIn.According to screenshots that circulated on social media late on Wednesday, Lightfoot’s office asked teachers to encourage their students to submit their résumés for an externship program for those “interested in campaign politics and eager to gain experience in the field”.Those who join the externship would be expected to contribute 12 hours a week in exchange for “class credit”, WTTW first reported.The email further elaborated that Lightfoot’s office was seeking “enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people eager to help Mayor Lightfoot win this spring”.Many were quick to call out Lightfoot’s office for the recruitment attempts.“Looks like desperate times call for desperate measures,” tweeted the Illinois representative and Chicago mayoral candidate Jesús García.Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson wrote on Twitter that Lightfoot’s actions were “outrageous, desperate, & downright unethical”.Former Chicago inspector general Joe Ferguson also called the initiative “deeply, deeply problematic”.The solicitation of volunteers using the CPS email system is specifically discouraged in an ethics guideline published by CPS, though Lightfoot’s campaign claimed to have used emails made publicly available, reported the Chicago Tribune.Shortly after the email was publicized, Lightfoot’s campaign sent out several follow-up statements about the emails.In one statement, Lightfoot’s campaign wrote that staff would “cease contact with CPS employees” out of an “abundance of caution”, reported the Tribune.Less than two hours after that statement, Lightfoot’s campaign announced that contacting “any city of Chicago, or other sister agency employees, including CPS employees, even through publicly available sources” would be “off limits”.In light of the controversy, a spokesperson from CPS told the Tribune that the school district does not “coordinate with any political candidates or campaigns”, highlighting that teacher emails are publicly available.But leadership from the Chicago Teachers Union called the recruitment efforts “unethical and wrong”, noting concern that teachers who decline to participate in volunteer efforts or do not encourage their students to do so could face retaliation.“This is the same mayor who promised to clean up corruption and make good ethics an anchor in her administration. This latest scheme shows she’s a rank hypocrite on ethics issues – including her attempt to use our schools and students as her campaign tools,” wrote union leaders in a statement, reported WGN 9, a local news affiliate.The Chicago board of ethics told WGN that they were aware of the emails and planned to discuss it at the next board meeting, currently scheduled for 23 January.The Chicago mayoral election will be held on 28 February.TopicsChicagoUS educationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

ExplainerClassified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?The president and his predecessor have each retained secret papers but what do we know and what happens next? The discovery of documents from the Biden-Obama administration in at least two locations linked to Joe Biden has been greeted with dismay by Democrats and glee by Republicans, given the extensive legal troubles that Donald Trump faces for taking classified papers to his Florida resort.More classified documents found in garage at Biden’s Delaware homeRead moreRepublicans believe the incident shows that Biden has committed the same transgression as the former president, and argue that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and subsequent investigation were politically motivated point-scoring.But Democrats insist the two incidents are different legally, while acknowledging that they present a political problem for Biden that allows Republicans to go on the offensive.So what is the real situation? Here are the key points to know:What actually has happened?The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago last summer discovered more than 11,000 documents and photos from the Trump administration. They reportedly included highly classified intelligence material as well as more mundane papers. Subsequently more documents were also found.With Biden, the papers are much smaller in number and hail from his time as vice-president to Barack Obama. The first batch was found at a Washington thinktank linked to Biden, and more documents, including some marked classified, were found by lawyers in a garage and storage room during a search of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.Legally, how serious is this for Trump and Biden?Both situations are being investigated by the US Department of Justice, which will look into the behavior and possible motivations for taking the documents.Trump appears to have willfully obstructed efforts to recover them, leading to the FBI raid, and the decision by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to launch a criminal inquiry and appoint a special counsel to weigh charges on the issue as part of a broader brief looking at investigations into Trump.With Biden, his team said they cooperated fully and immediately returned the documents to the National Archives as soon as they were discovered. Garland has asked John Lausch, a Trump appointee as US attorney for the northern district of Illinois, to conduct a review, but has initially resisted Republican calls for a criminal investigation or special counsel.What’s in the documents?In neither case is that entirely clear, although the Trump documents are reported to have included an unidentified foreign power’s nuclear secrets and other military capabilities.The Biden documents also reportedly contained classified papers commingled with non-classified materials, with the subjects and content yet unknown.Notably, however, the Trump papers included some dated after his presidency, suggesting he had them while no longer authorized. All of Biden’s seem to be dated while he was in office as vice-president.What’s the political fallout?The Mar-a-Lago raid had mixed impact for Trump. Many Republicans despaired at having to defend the former president, while others backed his claims that he was being unfairly targeted.The Trump team will attempt to exploit Biden’s misfortunes as he pursues his 2024 run to recapture the presidency, while the new Republican majority in the House can, if it wishes, launch its own investigation into the Biden documents.For Democrats, the discovery of the documents is an unexpected and unwanted political headache. It dilutes their outrage at Trump’s possession of classified papers and hands Republicans an easy talking point on what had previously been a thorny issue.What are the Trump and Biden camps saying?The White House issued a statement on Thursday from Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, conceding “a small number” of documents with classified markings were found among personal and political papers at Biden’s Wilmington home, but didn’t say when. It stressed the president’s lawyers were “fully cooperating with the National Archives and Department of Justice”.Trump, in a predictable response on his Truth Social network, demanded to know when the FBI would “raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House”.TopicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

Joe Biden may have broken the Espionage Act. It’s so broad that you may have, tooTrevor TimmThe Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. Readers of this newspaper may even have violated it With President Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States. This should be yet another wake up call that both the classification system and the Espionage Act need a dramatic overhaul. The question is — as more secret documents are found at a second Biden location and Trump’s special prosecutor continues to work — will anyone listen?Now, before someone accuses me of “both side-ing” the separate Trump and Biden scandals here: no, they are not the same. Trump had mountains of secret documents he purposefully absconded with that he both refused to give back and arguably lied to authorities about. Whereas it seems Biden’s team actually alerted the authorities that the president had them in his office and is fully cooperating in their return. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean Biden didn’t potentially violate the Espionage Act – at least according to some legal experts. That’s because the Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. As I’ve explained before, even using the Espionage Act to go after Trump should not be cheered on by Democrats. Instead of actual spies, the hundred year-old law is usually abused to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists. But it’s actually so broad that if you are a longtime reader of the Guardian, you’ve probably technically broken the law too!“Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document…relating to the national defense…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” is in violation of the statute. The Guardian, like every other major newspaper reporting on US news, has published documents the government considers classified or “national defense information.” The Snowden files are only one example; there are likely countless others. Thankfully the First Amendment should ultimately protect both the Guardian and its readers from prosecution. (Ironically, first the Trump administration, and now the Biden administration may be trying to change that with its unprecedented and dangerous charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.) Regardless, such an overly broad and dangerous law should not be on the books in the first place. The reason the Justice Department is able to potentially wield it over so many people is because the secrecy system itself is irrevocably broken. The US government has a massive overclassification problem – and that’s not just my opinion as a transparency advocate. Even the people who have been in charge of administering the secrecy system often denounce it once they leave government.Tens or hundreds of millions of documents are classified per year. A tiny fraction will ever see the light of day, despite the fact the vast majority never should have been given the “secret” stamp in the first place. Of all the money spent on the classification system, less than half of one percent is spent on de-classification.The system is set up so the government has every incentive to claim any information is of the utmost sensitivity because they know anyone they prosecute cannot challenge their classification decisions. And it doesn’t matter that, time and again, they have been shown to grossly exaggerate or lie about the true nature of those supposed “secrets.” No one is ever punished for overclassifying information, yet plenty of people go to prison for disclosing information to journalists that never should have been classified to begin in. Even efforts to reform the secrecy system end up classified themselves. Take the reporting on the Biden controversy. CNN reported that the “classified materials included some top-secret files with the ‘sensitive compartmented information’ designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.” They cited an anonymous source (almost certainly law enforcement). Yet CNN also said that a “White House official characterized the documents as ‘fewer than a dozen,’ … none of which are ‘particularly sensitive’ and ‘not of high interest to the intelligence community.’”So which is it? Maybe somebody’s lying. Or maybe it’s all Top Secret and also basically nothing, because the US government classifies everything. As journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out, political elites constantly mishandle classified documents, but never receive the severe punishment lower level whistleblowers do when they commit same or similar crimes. It’s true there is a severe double standard that has ruined the lives of so many brave whistleblowers. But maybe, just maybe, now that the classification system has ensnared each of the last two presidents, people will start coming to their senses: tear down the US secrecy system before it tears down its next victim.
Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation
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The FTC is back to being the activist US agency progressives sought in 1914Robert ReichLast week, under its Biden-appointed chair, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule banning non-compete agreements – and it’s a big deal Have you ever been forced to sign a non-compete agreement when you started a job?About 30 million Americans are trapped by contracts that say if they leave their current job, they can’t take a job with a rival company or start a new business of their own.The US should break up monopolies – not punish working Americans for rising prices | Robert ReichRead moreThese clauses deprive workers of higher wages and better working conditions. In effect, they’re a form of involuntary servitude.Last week, while America was fixated on Kevin McCarthy’s travails, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a sweeping new rule that would ban these non-compete agreements.This is a big deal. The FTC estimates that such a ban could increase wages by nearly $300bn a year (about $2,000 a worker, on average) by allowing workers to pursue better job opportunities.Non-competes also harm the economy, depriving growing businesses of talent and experience they need to build and expand. California’s ban on non-competes has been a major reason for Silicon Valley’s success.The rule isn’t a sure thing. House Republicans will try to kill it. Corporate America will appeal it up to the supreme court, which is hostile to independent regulatory agencies such as the FTC.For decades, non-compete agreements have been cropping up all over the economy – not just in high-paying fields like banking and tech but as standard boilerplate for employment contracts in many low-wage sectors such as construction, hospitality and retail.A recent study found one in five workers without a college education subject to them, disproportionately women and people of color.Employers say they need non-compete agreements to protect trade secrets and investments they put into growing their businesses, including training workers.Rubbish. Employers in the states that already ban them (such as California) show no sign of being more reluctant to invest in their businesses or train workers.The real purpose of non-competes is to make it harder (or impossible) for workers to bargain with rival employers for better pay or working conditions.As we learn again and again, capitalism needs guardrails to survive. Unfettered greed leads to monopolies that charge high prices, suppress wages and corrupt politics.As Adam Smith, the putative godfather of conservative economics, put it in The Wealth of Nations: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”America once understood the importance of fighting monopolies.The presidential election of 1912 was dominated by the question. Once elected, Woodrow Wilson created the FTC to save capitalism from the depredations of powerful corporations and “robber barons” that had turned the economy of the Gilded Age into vast monopolies, fueling unprecedented inequality and political corruption.But as the FTC began prosecuting giant corporations, the robber barons saw the agency as a major threat – and did what they could to strip it of its powers. Within a few years, the FTC was derided as the “little old lady of Pennsylvania Avenue”.In 1976, when I ran the policy planning staff of the FTC, the agency again began cracking down on corporations under its aggressive chairman, Michael Pertschuk. (Pertschuk died just weeks ago.)Big corporations were so unhappy with the FTC under Pertschuk that they tried to choke off the agency’s appropriation, briefly closing it down in 1978. But Pertschuk didn’t relent.He (and I) left the agency when Ronald Reagan appointed a new chairman, who promptly defanged it.Now, under its new Biden-appointed chair, Lina M Khan, the FTC is back to being the activist agency that progressives sought in 1914 and Pertschuk resurrected in 1976.The FTC’s new proposed rule banning non-compete agreements marks the first time since Pertschuk headed the FTC that the agency has issued a rule prohibiting an unfair method of competition.I wouldn’t be surprised if the new radical-right Republicans now in control of the House tried to pull off a stunt similar to what the House tried in 1978.In the meantime, kudos to Biden, Lina Khan (and her fellow FTC commissioners Rebecca Kelley-Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya), and to the FTC staff for protecting American workers and economic competition – and thereby protecting American capitalism from the depredations of untrammeled greed.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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Biden under scrutiny as second batch of classified documents reportedly foundAnother set of materials discovered at a separate location, as White House addresses first discovery at Biden’s institute Joe Biden was facing fresh scrutiny over his handling of government secrets on Wednesday after a second batch of classified materials was reportedly found at a location linked to him.The White House was already on the defensive after revelations that classified documents were discovered last November in an office used by Biden after he served as US vice-president. On Tuesday he said he was “surprised to learn” of their existence.Then came a report from the NBC News network, followed by other media outlets, that said the president’s aides had found another set of classified documents at a separate location. The classification level, number and precise location of the material was not immediately clear, NBC News added.In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenRead moreThe allegation handed fresh ammunition to Republicans seeking to draw a false equivalence with a justice department investigation into former president Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.Josh Hawley, a Republican senator for Missouri and ardent Trump defender, responded to the disclosure by tweeting: “Special counsel”.Biden maintained an office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a thinktank in Washington, after he left the vice-presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. It was affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and continued to operate independently of the Biden administration.Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, has said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered on 2 November 2022 in a locked closet at the centre as Biden’s personal lawyers were clearing out the offices. According to Sauber, the lawyers immediately alerted the White House counsel’s office, which notified the National Archives, which took custody of the documents the next day.But it remains unclear why the administration waited more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of the records and what exactly they contain. Trump weighed in on his social media site, demanding: “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?”At a press conference in Mexico on Tuesday, Biden said he takes classified documents “seriously” and his team acted appropriately by quickly turning the documents over. “They did what they should have done. They immediately called the Archives.”But a day later his spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, faced tough questioning from a White House press corps starved of scandal since the end of the Trump presidency. She declined to say how the documents came to be at the office or when Biden was informed of their existence or provide assurances that other materials would not come to light.“I know you all are going to have a lot of questions on this but at this time I’m not going to go beyond what the president said yesterday,” Jean-Pierre said. “I’m not going to go beyond what my colleagues from the White House counsel shared with many of you as well on Monday. I want to be prudent here and make sure that my colleagues really truly handle this issue.”Asked why it had taken so long for the existence of the document to be disclosed, she replied: “This is under review by the Department of Justice.”There was an unusually acrimonious exchange with Ed O’Keefe, senior White House correspondent of CBS News, who pointed out that Biden had started his tenure by acknowledging that he would make mistakes and be transparent about them. Jean-Pierre retorted: “We don’t need to have this kind of confrontation. Ask your question.”Attorney general Merrick Garland has reportedly asked US attorney for the northern district of Illinois John Lausch – one of the few US attorneys to be held over from Trump’s administration – to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department.The situation contrasts sharply with that of Trump, who had around 300 documents with classification markings, including some that were recovered in an FBI search after his lawyers provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.In November Garland appointed Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption cases, to lead investigations into Trump’s retention of classified documents, as well as key aspects of a separate investigation regarding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.But such distinctions are likely to be lost for many voters, especially as Republicans and rightwing media capitalise on the apparent misstep and accuse the justice department of double standards. Reports of a second batch of documents are likely to add fuel to the fire.Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee, said the American public deserved to know earlier about the revelation of Biden’s classified documents.“They knew about this a week before the election, maybe the American people should have known that,” he told reporters. “They certainly knew about the the raid on Mar-a-Lago 91 days before this election, but nice if on November 2, the country would have known that there were classified documents at the Biden Center.”Congressman Mike Turner of the House intelligence committee has requested that the US intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of the documents found at the Penn Center.The White House did not respond to a request for comment.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Exclusive: more than 70 US and Brazilian lawmakers condemn Trump-Bolsonaro allianceCongresswoman Ilhan Omar leads joint statement focused on Sunday’s riots in Brasília and January 6 insurrection

Brazil’s failed coup is the poison flower of the Trump-Bolsonaro symbiosis
More than 70 progressive US and Brazilian lawmakers have condemned the collaboration between the Bolsonaro family and Trumpists in the US aimed at overturning elections in both countries, and called for those involved to be held to account.“As lawmakers in Brazil and the United States, we stand united against the efforts by authoritarian, anti-democratic far right actors to overturn legitimate election results and overthrow our democracies,” said the joint statement, led by Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar.The statement, released on Wednesday evening, cited both Sunday’s attack by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro on government institutions in Brasília, and the very similar 6 January 2021 insurrection in Washington by Donald Trump supporters.“It is no secret that ultra-right agitators in Brazil and the United States are coordinating efforts,” the legislators, including 36 US Democrats and 35 Brazilian progressives, said.Security tightened in Brazil amid fears of new attacks by Bolsonaro supportersRead moreThey pointed out that after the 30 October Brazilian elections, won by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the defeated president’s son and Brazilian congressman, Eduardo Bolsonaro, flew to Florida and met Trump and his former aides, Jason Miller and Steve Bannon, who “encouraged Bolsonaro to contest the election results in Brazil”.“Soon after the meetings, Bolsonaro’s party sought to invalidate thousands of votes,” the statement said. “All involved must be held accountable.”The lawmakers also drew attention to the fact that Bannon has been convicted for failing to comply with a subpoena to appear before congressional hearings or provide relevant documents on his role in the January 6 insurrection two years ago.03:49Jair Bolsonaro flew to Florida on 30 December, the day before his presidency came to an end. The Biden administration has not directly commented on his immigration status, but it pointed out that an A-1 visa, reserved for foreign leaders, would expire 30 days after the holder ceased to hold high office, implying that if Bolsonaro entered the country on such a visa, he would have to leave by the end of this month. The administration has also said it would treat any Brazilian government request for extradition “seriously”.Bolsonaro’s former justice minister Anderson Torres, who was the official responsible for security in Brasília, flew to Orlando, Florida, where the former Brazilian president is staying, on the weekend of the insurrection, instead of making any preparations to defend government buildings from the protests. Torres has been fired, his house has been searched and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He said he was ready to return to Brazil to present himself to the authorities.An inquiry is under way in Brazil to determine the extent and sophistication of the planning behind Sunday’s riots, and whether they were a part of a coordinated coup attempt.“Democracies rely on the peaceful transfer of power,” the lawmakers’ statement said. “Just as far-right extremists are coordinating their efforts to undermine democracy, we must stand united in our efforts to protect it.”TopicsJair BolsonaroUS politicsBrazilDonald TrumpIlhan OmarUS CongressnewsReuse this content More