US Politics

The January 6 committee just gave a final blow to Trump’s very bad yearLloyd GreenThe committee referred Trump for possible criminal prosecution. And politically he looks like a loser This year was bad for the 45th president. 2023 may even be worse. Criminal prosecutions may be forthcoming. Beyond that, the legacy of 6 January 2021, combined with the results of the recent midterms, left Donald Trump politically vulnerable.Stripped of the veneer of invincibility and inevitability, he looks like a loser. On Monday, the House committee on the January 6 attacks concluded that the evidence warranted referral to the justice department for possible prosecution.In the committee’s eyes, Trump unlawfully conspired to overturn the 2020 election and remained actively adjacent to the invasion of the Capitol. In its referral, the committee tagged the former guy for alleged obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the US, and conspiring to make a false statement.The committee also determined that sufficient evidence existed of Trump inciting, assisting, or aiding the insurrection. “The facts are compelling,” according to Trump administration veterans. His hold over the Republican party no longer appears ironclad.His headaches go beyond legal woes. Tennessee Republicans prefer the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, 54-41. Polls out of New Hampshire, Georgia and Florida show Trump trailing. In Texas, he is locked in a footrace with DeSantis.The luster is gone. Nationwide 62% of Republicans and Republican-leaners now believe someone other than Trump should be the party’s next presidential nominee. To be sure, his defeat in 2024 is not foreordained.In 2015 and 2016, Trump appeared fresh, compelling and incendiary. He captured the anger, grievance and imagination of the party’s white working-class base. He was a walking middle-finger gleefully shoved in the eye of a clueless and self-satisfied party establishment.His Republican rivals behaved like caricatures. “Jeb!” sleep-walked through the early primaries, dreaming of coronation. In the middle of February 2016, he exited the race without a win. Marco Rubio appeared robotic and hyper-caffeinated.By contrast, Trump spearheaded a movement. His rallies doubled as revival meetings. Those left behind no longer needed to bowl alone. The ex-reality show host birthed a congregation of the faithful. Their applause was his sustenance, his performance their sacrament. It was a two-way street.These days, Trump doubles as an aged huckster. He pitches NFTs bearing his image. “I can’t watch it again, make it stop,” Steve Bannon announced on his podcast.Fast forward. Trump’s presidential announcement from Mar-a-Lago, his Eagle’s Nest on the Atlantic, was a snooze-fest. No one would confuse it with his earlier trip down the escalator at Trump Tower.Back then, Bannon likened Trump’s descent to a scene from Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film. “That’s Hitler, Bannon thought,” according to the New York Times’s Jeremy Peters.Now the sizzle is gone, replaced by a steady stream of damning headlines, needless errors and high-risk provocations. Trump bet that his candidacy would force Attorney General Merrick Garland’s hand. He wound up only half right.His move triggered Garland’s recusal and the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith. But where Garland appeared reticent, Smith conveys the air of Eliot Ness, the legendary federal agent. In the heat of a moment, Trump transformed the justice department’s inquiry.Substitute Al Capone for Joe Biden’s predecessor and you get the picture. The investigation was no longer a bottom-up endeavor, driven by the department’s career lawyers. Instead, it morphed into a top-down crusade led by a man who prosecutes war criminals.Since Smith arrived on the scene, the tempo speeds up; grand jury subpoenas fly out the door. Trump misread the terrain just as he had misunderstood the realities and downside of treating presidential records as personal baubles. Chalk up the record-keeping debacle at Mar-a-Lago as another self-inflicted wound.Indeed, his dinner with Ye, the antisemitic recording artist formerly known as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist, was made of ominous cloth, reminiscent of his September 2020 debate shout-out – “Stand back and stand by.” Three months later, the Proud Boys served as Trumpian shock troops.Past looms as prelude. Against that backdrop, Trump’s infamous pre-Thanksgiving dinner signals steadfastness with the mob that rioted on 6 January and a dog whistle for street violence if indicted.Whether the justice department indicts Trump is the open question. A New York jury recently convicted two of Trump’s companies. On Tuesday, the House’s ways and means committee will probably vote to release portions of Trump’s tax information. The hits keep on coming.If anyone forgot, two years ago to the day, Trump tweeted: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild.” It certainly was.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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House January 6 panel recommends criminal charges against Donald TrumpThe referral marks the first time in US history that Congress has taken such action against a former president01:51The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the justice department to face criminal charges, accusing the former president of fomenting an insurrection and conspiring against the government over his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and the bloody attack on the US Capitol.The committee’s referrals approved by its members on Monday are the first time in American history that Congress has recommended charges against a former president. They come after more than a year of investigation by the bipartisan House of Representatives panel tasked with understanding Trump’s plot to stop Joe Biden from taking office.“The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former President Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States,” Congressman Jamie Raskin said as the lawmakers held their final public meeting.“The committee has developed significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our Constitution. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.”January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreThe committee accused Trump of breaching four federal criminal statutes, including those relating to obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, assisting an insurrection and conspiring to defraud the United States. It also alleged Trump committed seditious conspiracy – the same charge which a jury found two members of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group guilty of last month.In his opening remarks, the committee’s Democratic chair, Bennie Thompson, said Trump broke voters’ trust by mounting a campaign to stay in office, despite overwhelming evidence that he had lost.“To cast a vote in the United States is an act of faith and hope. When we drop that ballot in the ballot box, we expect the people named on the ballot are going to uphold that end of the deal,” he said. “Donald Trump broke that faith. He lost the 2020 election and knew it. But he chose to try to stay in office through a multiparty scheme to overturn the results and blocked the transfer of power.”A major architect of that scheme was John Eastman, a lawyer for the president who the committee said laid much of the groundwork for the strategy to overturn Biden’s election win. According to their evidence, Eastman helped Trump pressure Vice-President Mike Pence to disrupt the certification of electoral votes, even though the lawyer knew doing so would be illegal. The lawmaker referred Eastman on conspiracy charges.The lawmakers also referred four Republican House representatives to the chamber’s ethics committee. The group includes Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader who is expected to run for speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber next year, as well as Jim Jordan, a staunch ally of the former president.His spokesman Russell Dye called the referral “just another partisan and political stunt”.Finally, the committee urged the justice department to investigate efforts to obstruct its investigation, including by “certain counsel … who may have advised clients to provide false or misleading testimony to the Committee”.The referrals are largely a recommendation, but will arrive at a justice department already busy investigating the former president for crimes he may have committed during and after his time in office.The attorney general, Merrick Garland, last month appointed the veteran prosecutor Jack Smith to determine whether to charge Trump over the insurrection and his efforts to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. Smith is also handling the inquiry into whether Trump unlawfully retained government secrets after leaving the White House in January 2021. His decisions in those cases will have huge ramifications for the future of the former president, who has announced he will run for the White House again in 2024.On Wednesday, the panel is expected to release a lengthy report into the attack that left five people dead and spawned nearly 1,000 criminal cases. That may be the final word from the committee, which many Americans hoped would follow in the mold of the bipartisan group that investigated the 9/11 attacks, but quickly ran up against opposition from Trump and his allies.Created by an almost party-line vote in the Democratic-led House, the nine-member panel has two Republican lawmakers, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom were censured by their party for participating and won’t return to Congress next year.While Kinzinger opted not to run again, Cheney lost her primary to a Trump-backed candidate. In her final remarks as the panel’s vice-chair, Cheney recounted how Trump failed to act for hours as a mob of his supporters assaulted the Capitol.“No man who would behave that way, at that moment in time, can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again,” Cheney said. “He is unfit for any office.”Their nine public hearings held this year featured in-person testimony from witnesses and recorded interviews that shed light on how the attack happened, but the lawmakers also resorted to issuing subpoenas to a host of uncooperative former Trump officials and allies, some of whom are facing jail time for refusing to comply.In its second-to-last hearing held in October, the committee publicly voted to subpoena documents and testimony from Trump. The former president went to court to stop the summons, and time appears to be on his side. The committee’s mandate runs out at the end of the year, and in 2023, the Republican House majority is almost certain not to continue its work.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS justice systemUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

ExplainerFive key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionThe House committee has issued the first sections of its report and recommended criminal referrals for Trump The House January 6 committee has staged its final public hearing and issued the first sections of its report. According to its chairman, Bennie Thompson, it will both release “the bulk of its non-sensitive records” before the end of the year and transmit criminal referrals, for Donald Trump and others, to the Department of Justice by the end of business on Monday.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreHere are some key conclusions after the final session on Capitol Hill.Trump is in troubleThe committee has decided to make four criminal referrals of Trump, his associate John Eastman and others to the justice department.In the hearing, the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin introduced referrals for obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection.The referrals received unanimous support and may not be the last. Raskin said: “Depending on evidence developed by the Department of Justice, the president’s actions could certainly trigger other criminal violations.”The report discusses other conspiracy statutes, including seditious conspiracy, which it says could be considered. It also says the committee has “substantial concerns regarding potential efforts to obstruct its investigation”, and “urges the Department of Justice to examine the facts to discern whether prosecution is warranted”.Noting the need for accountability, the report points to recent developments including Trump’s stated desire to “terminate” the US constitution and says: “If President Trump and the associates who assisted him in an effort to overturn the lawful outcome of the 2020 election are not ultimately held accountable under the law, their behavior may become a precedent and invitation to danger for future elections.”The justice department is already investigating, under a special counsel, the notably aggressive prosecutor Jack Smith, who was appointed last month.In messages seen by the Guardian on Monday, former Trump officials acknowledged the strength of the case against Trump. A former administration official said the committee had made “a very solid recommendation” while a former White House official said: “The facts are compelling. These charges are coming.”Trump’s aim was clearly to stop BidenIn its final hearing and its report, the committee seeks to rebut Republican claims it has overstated its case. It makes clear the Capitol attack was not an isolated and chaotic event but the culmination of a concerted attempt, fueled and guided by Trump, to stop Joe Biden becoming the 46th president.As the section on the recommended referral for conspiracy to defraud the United States puts it, “the very purpose of the plan was to prevent the lawful certification of Joe Biden’s election”.House Republicans are breathing easierThe report considers the activities of House Republicans prominently including Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Of such figures’ refusal to cooperate with subpoenas, it says: “The rules of the House of Representatives make clear that their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline.” Therefore, the committee “is referring their failure to comply with the subpoenas … to the ethics committee for further action”.Raskin said the committee was seeking “appropriate sanction by the House ethics committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas”.But Republicans will take the House in January. Jordan, who the report labels “a significant player in President Trump’s efforts”, is on course to chair the judiciary committee. Unlike other panels the ethics committee is split equally but it will be led by a Republican. In all likelihood, Jordan, Perry and others are sitting pretty for now.Ivanka Trump and others were less than forthcomingThe report names Trump’s daughter as a witness “from the Trump White House [who] displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or [was] not otherwise as frank or direct” as other, less senior aides.Describing an exchange between Donald Trump and Mike Pence on January 6, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff said Trump called his vice-president a “pussy” for not going along with election subversion.The report says: “When the committee asked Ivanka Trump whether there were ‘[a]ny particular words that you recall your father using during the conversation’ … she answered simply: ‘No.’”Other aides are singled out. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, refused to testify but did produce a book in which he claimed Trump was “speaking metaphorically” when he told supporters he would march to the Capitol.The committee says: “This appeared to be an intentional effort to conceal the facts. Multiple witnesses directly contradicted Meadows’ account … This and several other statements in the Meadows book were false, and the select committee was concerned multiple witnesses might attempt to repeat elements of these false accounts.”“A few did,” it says. One was Anthony Ornato, a deputy chief of staff who said Trump’s desire to march on Congress “was one of those hypotheticals from the good idea fairy” and who denied Trump was “irate” when told, by Ornato in the presidential SUV, he couldn’t go to the Capitol.The report says other witnesses cited Ornato as their source for accounts of how Trump “was ‘irate’, ‘heated’, ‘angry’ and ‘insistent’. But Ornato professed that he … had no knowledge at all about the president’s anger.”The committee says it has “significant concerns about the credibility” of Ornato’s testimony, including his claim not to have known of information which suggested violence at the Capitol was possible. As Thompson indicated, Ornato’s interview will be among materials released.Trump paid lawyers and pressured witnessesIn findings detailed by the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, the committee says it uncovered “efforts to obstruct” its investigation including a lawyer “receiving payments … from a group allied with” Trump advising a witness she “could, in certain circumstances, tell the committee she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them”.The lawyer is also said to have “instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump, [saying]: ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.’”When the client asked who was paying the lawyer, the report says, the lawyer said: “We’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now.”01:42The client was also reportedly “offered potential employment that would make her ‘financially very comfortable’ … by entities apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates. Such offers were withdrawn or did not materialise as reports of the content of her testimony circulated. The client believed this was an effort to affect her testimony.”The client appears to be Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump and Meadows aide whose testimony lit up a public hearing in June.The panel also says Secret Service agents chose to be represented by private counsel rather than agency lawyers who would have worked free of charge. Such behavior raised concerns that lawyers “receiving such payments have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients”.The report adds that the US Department of Justice and the Fulton county district attorney, investigating election subversion in Georgia, “have been provided with certain information related to this topic”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsexplainersReuse this content More

House January 6 panel found Trump lawyers tried to influence witnessesIn addition to offering lucrative jobs, attorneys connected to ex-president also told them it was OK to lie to investigators The House January 6 committee has discovered that lawyers connected to Donald Trump sought to influence witnesses with job offers and advice including that it was OK to lie to investigators.In an opening statement in Monday’s final hearing on Capitol Hill, Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said: “We are concerned that these efforts may have been a strategy to prevent the committee in finding the truth.”House January 6 panel recommends criminal charges against Donald TrumpRead moreLofgren was outlining findings detailed in the committee’s report into the attack on the US Capitol in Washington DC, which was released on Monday after a final hearing in which the committee voted to make four criminal referrals of the former US president and his associates to the justice department.She said: “The committee found that Mr Trump raised hundreds of millions of dollars with false representations made to his online donors.“Proceeds from his fundraising we have learned have been used in ways that we believe are concerning. In particular, the committee has learned that some of those funds were used to hire lawyers. We have also obtained evidence of efforts to provide or offer employment to witnesses.“For example, one lawyer told the witness the witness could in certain circumstances tell the committee that she didn’t recall facts, when she actually did.”The committee report says the lawyer also “instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump”, saying: “No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.”Lofgren continued: “That lawyer also did not disclose who was paying for the lawyer’s representation, despite questions from the client seeking that information. He told her, ‘We’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now.’”Efforts to contact and influence witnesses have been mentioned by committee members before, around an appearance by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, which contained some of the most dramatic testimony of all.Lofgren said: “We’ve learned that a client was offered potential employment that would make her quote ‘financially very comfortable’. As the date of her testimony approached, by entities that were apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates, these offers were withdrawn or didn’t materialise.“As reports of the content of her testimony circulated, the witness believed this was an effort to perfect her testimony. We are concerned that these efforts may have been a strategy to prevent the committee from finding the truth.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for powerExecutive summary of report released by House panel investigating January 6 details a failed self-coup It was, all in all, a very American attempt at a coup. Or self-coup to be exact.The world watched its denouement dumbfounded on 6 January 2021 as thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the heart of US democracy, the Capitol in Washington, with cries to hang the vice-president, in an attempt to overturn an election and keep Trump in power.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreBut, as the detailed executive summary of the report released by the congressional committee investigating the insurrection lays bare, Trump’s bid to usurp power began while the votes from the November 2020 presidential election were still being counted.That kicked off what amounted to a rolling coup attempt as an increasingly desperate president sought to compromise and corrupt officials from the US justice department to state election boards in an effort to find a way, any way, to have his defeat declared null and void.The seeds were sown by Trump as he watched the results roll in on election night. The president’s own campaign manager, Bill Stepien, had told him that the way the count was conducted in several states meant that early results were likely to give Trump the lead but that would be eroded as absentee and other postal votes were tallied.The count panned out as Stepien predicted and Trump’s aides cautioned the president that, for all his euphoria at the prospect of pulling off another astonishing upset, it was way too soon to be declaring victory. But all Trump saw was his numbers go up and then down. He brushed off his advisers and went on television.“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election,” he declared.The following morning, Trump inevitably used Twitter to demand that the results already declared, and showing him ahead, be frozen: “STOP THE COUNT!”The report notes that almost none of Trump’s aides supported his claims, with the exception of the increasingly erratic former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But that fed the narrative pushed by the president and his supporters that he was the victim of an establishment conspiracy.By the time the electoral college met on 14 December to cast and certify each state’s votes, many of Trump’s senior staff, cabinet secretaries and even members of his family, were pressing him to admit defeat. The president preferred to listen to Giuliani’s conspiratorial claims that the voting machines were rigged and suitcases of fake ballots had been used to tip the result against him.As Trump grew more desperate, he pressured Republican officials in key swing states he had lost to overturn the results. In early January, he called Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to demand he “find 11,780 votes” to reverse Joe Biden’s crucial victory in the state.“Trump also made a thinly veiled threat to Raffensperger and his attorney about his failure to respond to Trump’s demands: ‘That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense … That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen,’” the report said.In Arizona, Trump targeted the Republican speaker of the state legislature, Russell “Rusty” Bowers. The president and Giuliani repeatedly called or met with Bowers to claim that Arizona’s results were fraudulent and to press him to replace the state’s members of the electoral college with ones who would vote for Trump.Bowers told Giuliani: “You are asking me do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.”Trump exerted similar pressure on officials in Michigan, which he had won in 2016 but lost four years later.The president was pursuing a parallel track with the US justice department. The attorney general, William Barr, grew so exasperated with Trump’s actions that he resigned. The president called or met with Barr’s replacement, Jeff Rosen, nearly every day of the following weeks in an attempt to pressure the justice department “to find factual support for his stolen election claims and thereby to assist his efforts to reverse election results”, according to the report.When Rosen repeatedly told Trump that there was no evidence for the allegations, Trump replied: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”When this didn’t fly either, Trump turned to those he could always trust: the men and women in the red Make America Great Again caps. As he saw it, the “deep state” was working to rob him of his rightful victory. Trump would count on the people to save him.And so the president summoned the faithful to Washington for a rally on January 6, the day his vice-president, Mike Pence, was to preside over a joint meeting of both houses of Congress to count and approve the electoral college votes, a routine affair for much of the US’s existence.Trump’s efforts to pressure states to withhold their tallies in the hope of delaying the endorsement of Biden’s victory had come to naught and a wave of court challenges to the results failed. Pence made clear to Trump that he would fulfil his duty and that the president’s days in the White House were numbered.Trump told the world a different story. On the evening of 5 January, he released a statement falsely claiming that his vice-president was “in total agreement” with him that Pence had the power to prevent endorsement of the results by “sending them back” to the states.In the early hours of the following morning, Trump tweeted: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!”Pence did not agree and, astonishingly, refused to take his own president’s call on the morning of the rally. When Trump finally reached his vice-president by phone, the president called him “a wimp” for refusing to block Congress from approving Biden’s victory.The crowd that arrived for the Washington rally was already stoked by weeks of Trump’s tweets and conspiratorial claims bolstered by Fox News and other rightwing broadcasters. The committee’s report noted that far-right militia groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters were also instrumental in spreading the false claims of fraud.“President Trump’s supporters believed the election was stolen because they listened to his words, and they knew what he had called them to do; stop the certification of the electoral count,” the report said.It noted that supporters tweeted messages ahead of the rally predicting what would happen.“IF TRUMP TELLS US TO STORM THE FUKIN CAPITAL IMA DO THAT THEN!” said one.Others circulated flyers proclaiming “#OccupyCongress” over images of the Capitol.The report records that the intelligence services had wind of all of this, and warned the president and his staff. Some of Trump’s aides urged him to make a public statement disavowing violence.The president refused. His speech on January 6 instead made clear who he regarded as the real villain of the moment.As the congressional report recorded, Trump told the assembled crowd: “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country.” The president added a veiled threat: “If you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”The report records the reaction of Trump supporters at the rally.“I’m telling you, if Pence caved, we’re going to drag motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are going to get fucking drug through the streets,” said one.And then the mob headed Pence’s way.The report concluded that the Proud Boys militia led the attack on Congress.“Multiple Proud Boys reacted immediately to President Trump’s December 19th tweet and began their planning,” it said.Someone erected an imitation gallows in front of the Capitol. As the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence”, the vice-president fled his office near the Senate chamber but refused to leave the building. The protesters passed within 40ft.Pence was not the only target. The report records that one woman was looking for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, “to shoot her in the frigging brain”.By the time the crowd broke through the barriers around the Capitol, beating police officers with flag poles and smashing their way into the corridors of Congress, Trump was back in the White House.Alarmed aides pleaded with him to make a call to stop the violence. Trump instead sent out yet another tweet denouncing Pence for failing to overturn the election result.Finally, he was pressured into acting.“As the evidence demonstrates, the rioters at the Capitol had invaded the building and halted the electoral count. They did not begin to relent until President Trump finally issued a video statement instructing his supporters to leave the Capitol at 4:17 p.m., which had an immediate and helpful effect: rioters began to disperse,” the report said.The self-coup had failed. Biden’s election win would be certified.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

ExplainerWhat has the January 6 House panel done so far – and what’s next?The final meeting will determine if Trump will be criminally referred to the US justice department The US House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is holding a final public meeting on Monday, when it’s expected to decide whether to issue criminal referrals for former president Donald Trump and his allies.House January 6 panel to issue criminal referrals to DoJ as tensions heightenRead moreThe event, which comes just before the release of the committee’s final report, marks the end of a panel which has led the inquiry into the riots since the January day when more than 2,000 rioters breached the US Capitol building.Here is an explanation of what the panel is and what work it has done.How did the panel come together?In the days and months after the riots at the US Capitol, members of Congress began calling for a committee to investigate the attack and how Trump supporters were able to breach one of the nation’s most significant governmental buildings. But from the beginning, Democrats and Republicans couldn’t agree on how the investigation should look.In February 2021, leaders on the House homeland security committee tried to convene a bicameral commission modeled after the one that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but disputes between Democrats and Republicans over its makeup and focus derailed negotiations. The commission was ultimately blocked by Senate Republicans.Democrats pivoted to launching a special investigative committee, and in June 2021, House Democrats voted 220-to-190 to establish the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.Who served on the panel?Two Republican lawmakers – Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – joined Democrats in voting to create the select committee, and both became members of the panel. They were joined by seven Democrats: Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Zoe Lofgren of California, Adam Schiff of California, Pete Aguilar of California, Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and Elaine Luria of Virginia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected Thompson to chair the committee and Cheney to serve as vice chair.How did the panel conduct its investigation?Committee members and staff conducted more than 1,000 witness interviews and reviewed over a million documents and hundreds of hours of video. They obtained a massive number of call records, text messages, and emails through subpoenas and also got access to White House records from the National Archives.What was the focus of its investigation?The committee assembled five teams to investigate different topic areas and assigned each team a color, the Guardian has previously reported. The issues ranged from efforts by Trump and his associates to pressure federal, state, and local officials to overturn the election to law enforcement and intelligence agency failures. They also examined domestic extremist groups like QAnon, and online misinformation, those who planned the January 6 rally, the “Stop the Steal” movement and the money behind efforts to overturn the election.How many public hearings did the panel hold?The committee held one public hearing in July 2021 on the law enforcement experience on January 6 and then nine public hearings from June to October 2022. The final hearing is scheduled for 19 December, when the committee is expected to issue criminal referrals and cue up its final report for full release on 21 December.Who served as witnesses and who provided some of the most notable interviews?The committee has interviewed over 1,000 witnesses, many of whom are close allies of Trump, Department of Justice officials, or Republicans serving on the state and local level. They interviewed members of Trump’s family, including his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, former attorney general Bill Barr, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien, and Greg Jacob who served as general counsel for former Vice-President Mike Pence.Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, provided compelling testimony during a televised hearing about Trump’s alarming behavior during the riots and how White House officials knew that attendees would be armed and were planning for violence.US Capitol police officers also provided testimony, including Carolina Edwards, who was the first officer injured in the riots and described the scene at the US Capitol as an “absolute war zone”.Former Fulton county, Georgia election officer Wandrea “Shea” Moss testified about the harassment she and her family faced by Trump supporters in the wake of the 2020 election.Notably missing from the witness list is Trump himself, who the committee voted to subpoena in October. Trump has refused to cooperate and sued the committee to block the subpoena.January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreHow did the panel handle Trump allies who denied its subpoenas?The committee has referred four Trump allies to the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate. Two of them, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, have been criminally charged, and Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison in October but is currently free while he appeals his conviction. The Justice Department chose not to charge former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.Before Meadows stopped cooperating, he provided the committee with thousands of emails and text messages implicating prominent Republicans in an effort to overturn the results of the election.What will be in the final report?While the exact contents of the final report are still unknown and could change, it’s expected to be eight chapters and include information that hasn’t yet been made public. The committee is also expected to eventually release transcripts of many of its witness interviews.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansexplainersReuse this content More

The Poll Bludger reported on two Queensland polls on December 12. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted December 1-8 from a sample of 1,000, had a 50-50 tie, unchanged since June. Primary votes were 38% LNP (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (down one), 11% One Nation (up one) and 4% for all Others (steady).

Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had a 41% disapproval rating (up two) and a 40% approval (down five), for a net approval of -1, down seven points. LNP leader David Crisafilli had a 31-27 approval rating (31-23 in June). Palaszczuk’s lead as preferred premier slipped to 39-28 from 41-28 in June.

Analyst Kevin Bonham strongly criticised The Courier Mail for the anti-Labor slant they put on this poll.

The first Resolve Queensland state poll, conducted from August to December from a sample of 924 for The Brisbane Times, gave Labor 37% of the primary vote, the LNP 35%, the Greens 11%, One Nation 6%, independents 7% and others 4%.

Resolve does not give two party estimates until close to elections, but Bonham estimated this poll would be 53-47 to Labor. This Queensland poll was presumably conducted with the five federal Resolve polls from August to December.

Asked whether they held positive, neutral or negative views of the leaders or were unfamiliar with them, Palaszczuk had a 39-31 positive rating and Crisafulli a 23-15 positive rating. Palaszczuk led as preferred premier by 42-30.

The next Queensland election is not until October 2024. Currently Labor appears to be just ahead, and Bonham thinks Labor would be likely to hold onto enough seats to form government with a 50-50 two party tie.

By the 2024 election, Labor will have held power since the January 2015 election, so there’s time for the polling to worsen for Labor. But Victorian Labor just retained government after eight years in power with 56 of the 88 lower house seats, up one since the 2018 election.

Read more:
Final Victorian election results: how would upper house look using the Senate system?

NSW Resolve poll on cashless gaming card

The New South Wales state election is in March 2023. We have been getting NSW voting intentions after every second federal Resolve poll. The last voting intentions was in early November, and there’s only been one federal Resolve poll since. I don’t expect NSW voting intentions until after the next federal Resolve poll.

A NSW Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, presumably conducted with just the federal December Resolve poll, had voters supporting a mandatory cashless gaming card by 62-16. However, the question wording included arguments in favour of the cashless gaming card, but none against.

If the cashless gaming card were to go ahead, 32% wanted it introduced immediately for all gamblers, 24% to have a voluntary trial of the card statewide and 19% a mandatory trial in specific areas.

By 47-28, voters thought pubs and clubs have been poor instead of good on problem gambling. By 30-26, voters trusted Labor and Chris Minns over the Liberals and Dominic Perrottet to get the right outcome on gambling reforms.

Federal polls: Essential and Morgan

In last week’s federal Essential poll, Labor led by 51-44 on Essential’s two party measure that includes undecided (51-43 in late November). Primary votes were 35% Labor (up two), 30% Coalition (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 17% for all Others (steady) and 5% undecided (down one). Respondent allocated preferences were friendly for the Coalition.

In other findings from this poll of 1,042 respondents conducted in the days before December 13, Anthony Albanese’s ratings were unchanged since November at 60-27 approval (net +33). An Indigenous Voice to parliament was supported by a 63-37 margin (65-35 in August).

Probably due to the change in federal government, 2022 was considered a good year for trade unions over a bad year by a net +13, up from -13 in 2021. Small business was up from -45 to -25 in 2022, after the end of COVID lockdowns. The Australian economy had a net -27 rating in 2022, down one point on 2021.

Thinking about 2023, 40% thought it would be better for Australia than 2022, 25% no difference and 24% worse. On economic indicators, 78-80% expected the cost of living, energy prices and interest rates to be up in the year ahead, while 43% expected unemployment to be up, 30% about the same and 18% down.

A Morgan federal poll, conducted December 5-11, gave Labor a 56.5-53.5 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since the previous week. Morgan’s polls have been better for the Coalition than others since the May election. This is Labor’s highest two party vote in Morgan polls since the election.

US Senator Kyrsten Sinema switches from Democrat to independent

Shortly after United States Democrats won the December 6 Georgia Senate runoff election to seal a 51-49 federal Senate majority, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema defected from the Democrats to become an independent.

I have not seen any polls of Arizona conducted since Sinema defected, but Slate reported on a September poll that showed Sinema was unpopular with all Arizona demographics sampled. Sinema was at net -17 overall, net -20 with Democrats and net -18 with Republicans. She performed better with independent voters, but was still at net -10 with them.

Sinema is up for re-election in November 2024. Democrats are likely to run their own candidate against Sinema and a Republican. I do not know which side she will take most votes from, but it’s very unlikely Sinema will win given her unpopularity across the board.

Republicans’ worse than expected performance at the US midterm elections has resulted in some polls of the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 showing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now leading former president Donald Trump, although Trump still leads in others. More

Anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone defrocked by VaticanPavone had been investigated for placing an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it online The Vatican has defrocked the anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.A letter to US bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken and that there was no chance for an appeal.Pavone had been investigated by his then diocese of Amarillo, Texas, for having placed an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it on two social media sites in 2016. The video was accompanied by a post saying that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party would allow abortion to continue, and that Donald Trump and the Republicans wanted to protect unborn children.Pavone remains a firm supporter of Trump. His Twitter handle features him wearing a Maga hat with a background photo featuring the former US president, whom many conservatives praise for his supreme court nominees who overturned the landmark decision guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion in the US.Pavone was defiant in a tweet on Sunday, comparing his fate to that of unborn children. “So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the unborn, you will be treated like them! The only difference is that when we are ‘aborted’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”His supporters immediately denounced the measure, including the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, who referred to Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights as “evil”. Pavone had appealed to the Vatican over restrictions placed on his ministry in 2011 by the Amarillo bishop, succeeded in getting the restrictions eased and relocated away from Texas while remaining active with Priests for Life.In his letter, Pierre cited information from the Congregation for Clergy that Pavone had been found guilty in a canonical proceeding “of blasphemous communications on social media and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop”. The letter was first reported by Catholic News Agency.The statement said Pavone was given “ample opportunity to defend himself” as well as to submit to his bishop. The statement concluded that since Priests for Life is not a Catholic organisation, it would be up to the group to determine whether he could continue his role “as a layperson”.Laicisation, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church’s canon law. TopicsVaticanAbortionHealthWomenTrump administrationCatholicismReligionnewsReuse this content More