US Politics

Polly Klaas’s murder fueled the 90s crime panic. Her sisters fear ‘we’re repeating history’ Jess and Annie Nichol want to undo the harsh criminal laws passed after their sister was abducted: ‘We don’t want our pain to be used to punish anyone else’Annie Nichol was seven years old on 19 March 1994 when she was brought to the White House to talk to Bill Clinton.With a stuffed dolphin by her side, the girl spoke to the president about her 12-year-old sister, Polly Klaas, who had been abducted five months earlier from the family’s home in Petaluma, California, while Annie was sleeping nearby.Annie and Clinton watched footage showing how she’d since booby-trapped her room with bells and ropes to stop intruders.“Do you think I’m going to live to grow up?” television cameras captured her asking the president.“You’re a brave girl,” Clinton responded, adding that he was working to make sure people with “serious problems” would remain in prison.Today, Annie is tormented by the memory. Polly’s kidnapping and subsequent murder fueled a host of “tough on crime” laws and a powerful victims’ rights movement, which pushed America to have the highest reported incarceration rate in the world.The meeting at the White House, Annie said, was a reminder of how her family’s story was exploited to expand mass incarceration and racial inequality in America.What’s Prison For? Concise diagnosis of a huge American problemRead more“I had just lost Polly and someone had given me that question to ask, and it was a message that wasn’t mine. I was a scared kid who had been through something I couldn’t even begin to process. Being put in the position of going to the White House to be on this television program and seeing Clinton start crying, the shame of that experience still overwhelms me. I was the perfect person to be used like that. What’s more compelling than seeing this scared little girl?”Annie and her older sister Jess are now on a mission to reclaim their family’s legacy and undo the harsh legislation the tragedy that befell them sparked. They say they want a different criminal justice system, one that focuses on preventing violence; accountability, treatment and rehabilitation for people who cause harm; and care and services for survivors.Their message is urgent, the sisters say, as growing concerns over crime in cities across the US since the pandemic have led to familiar calls for more punitive responses from pundits and some politicians facing midterm elections.“There’s the trauma of losing Polly and then there’s the trauma of how her death was used to punish other people,” Jess said. “We don’t want our pain to be used to punish anyone else … We’re on the precipice of repeating a really terrible history. And we don’t want people to make the same mistake.”On the evening of 1 October 1993, Polly was playing a board game at home with two friends when a stranger broke in and snatched her, leaving the two other girls behind.Jess and Annie, aged 12 and six at the time, recall fragments of the aftermath: the reporters camped outside their door, the “Polly, we love you” T-shirts worn by everyone in town, their visits with Winona Ryder, who grew up in Petaluma.Two months after the abduction, the kidnapper led authorities to Polly’s body.Polly’s story led to panic. American media covered every twist in the investigation of the “slumber party that became a nightmare”. Commentators argued the “age of innocence had been lost” and that “the 12-year-old’s awful fate drove home the disturbing message that youngsters are not safe even in their own bedrooms”.By 1994, voters in California had approved the Three Strikes and You’re Out law, which, inspired by the extensive criminal record of Polly’s killer, established life sentences for all felonies if the defendant had two prior convictions for serious or violent offenses.Versions of the law, which also doubled the sentence length for second strikes, were adopted in 23 other states. In September 1994, Congress passed the notorious federal crime bill, sponsored by then senator Joe Biden, which included a three strikes sentencing provision.In California, Three Strikes contributed to an explosion in the state’s prison population. More than 7,500 people were sentenced to life in prison within the first decade after it passed, nearly half of them for non-serious and non-violent offenses.‘America could be truly free’: John Legend on his fight to overhaul the criminal justice systemRead moreAnnie remembers adults trying to comfort her by talking about locking people up, including an officer who held her hand to the wall of the building where the man who killed Polly was incarcerated: “He said, ‘Look how thick these walls are. Don’t you feel safe?’”Marc Klaas, Polly’s father (but not Jess and Annie’s), had advocated for three strikes laws. But as the sisters grew older, they became increasingly uncomfortable with the California legislation and their connection to it.“Since I was 13, I knew it was wrong, and it was stressful to see newspapers on the table for many years, and I kind of stopped looking,” recalled Jess, now 41, on a recent morning in Annie’s backyard. With the sensationalized media and celebrity support, she added, “It didn’t feel right getting attention for Polly’s death and being known and validated for that, and I was repulsed by my own internal identity with it.”In 2019, Jess watched 13th, Ava DuVernay’s documentary on the history of racial inequality in the US, which featured Polly’s story: “When I saw the sequence from slavery to our current mass incarceration crisis, with Polly’s face right there as one of the major reasons incarceration took off in the 90s, I was stunned.”“A lot of people see this history as something that is separate from themselves, but in our case we have a really deep connection to this crisis,” Annie, now 35, added. “It’s such an injustice that the sum of Polly’s life was turned into this harm for others. The story that was told about Polly was used to pass these incredibly terrible laws, and it always felt like a distortion of the truth.”Jess cold called the ACLU of California in 2019, telling a receptionist she and Annie wanted to talk about the law passed in their family’s name and see if there was anything they could do to help repeal it.The sisters felt some initial apprehension about speaking publicly. They had long been intensely private in part out of a desire not to feed the true crime genre obsession with Polly. They were also aware of their privilege as white survivors whose story had received intense attention and were wary of taking up space while the vast majority of victims of violence are people of color whose cases never make headlines.They also weren’t sure their voices would matter, a doubt Annie partly attributes to the way the criminal legal system operates: “There is this kind of paternalistic dynamic in the justice system, which co-opts victims’ stories and claims to represent them without actually listening to them or asking them what they want. It’s, ‘We’re going to handle this for you and solve this problem. And now we fixed it’. It leaves victims feeling disempowered. And for a while, we felt powerless.”The ACLU connected the sisters to policy experts at Stanford university, and they began to learn more about Three Strikes: that it was originally proposed as the “street sweeper” law, but was deemed too extreme until Polly’s death; that it had been disproportionately applied to defendants with disabilities and mental illness; that some people have received two strikes for the same incident; that defendants got life sentences for stealing pizza and baby shoes; and that research had repeatedly suggested there was no evidence that Three Strikes reduced crime or deterred violence. Today, 45% of people serving life sentences with three strikes in California are Black, while Black residents make up only 6.5% of the broader population.In 2020, after the uprisings sparked by George Floyd’s murder, the sisters started meeting with other crime survivors who were disenchanted with America’s criminal justice system.One of them was Tinisch Hollins, who lost two of her brothers to violence and serves as executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a survivors’ advocacy group. Hollins grew up in San Francisco and remembered when her mother made her watch news reports about Polly so she would be aware of the potential for abductions.“The terror that my mother had when she called me to watch the news of Polly Klaas was the same kind of terror that friends and family had when they talked about loved ones who had been arrested and were potentially going away to prison forever. There was this looming possibility that you could become a victim of the system in the same way you could become a victim of crime.”The sisters came to view Three Strikes as a symptom of systemic problems and started publishing op-eds advocating for an alternative approach to justice.They also launched A New Legacy, a podcast named after their hopes to chart a different legacy for Polly; they interview people fighting to undo mass incarceration, including people previously imprisoned under Three Strikes.“There’s an underlying assumption that the thing that victims want is the harshest sentencing for the people who caused harm. And that’s really the only option,” Jess said. “It’s this revengeful ‘eye for an eye’ culture. I’ve come to realize we don’t really have a ‘department of corrections and rehabilitation’. It’s a ‘department of punishment and revenge’.”Jess and Annie’s advocacy is coming at a pivotal moment. While crime levels remain below the historic highs of the early 1990s, the pandemic has seen devastating spikes in gun violence across the US, and polls have shown that Americans report feeling less safe.Why America overlooks those most hurt by gun violence: ‘Black people are seen as expendable’Read moreSome police officials, pundits and media crime reporting have placed the blame on reform efforts, including “progressive prosecutors” who have sought to reduce incarceration, the “defund the police” movement and efforts to dismantle cash bail so people aren’t jailed because they can’t pay a fee.There’s no evidence any of these reforms have caused crime or violence to increase – and there is research suggesting the contrary – but in the lead up to the midterms, Republicans and some Democrats have argued for an increased police presence, expanded punishments and a rollback of reforms.“Hearing the kind of fear-based rhetoric that is taking over headlines and that politicians are spouting is so familiar with what we grew up with,” Annie said. “It would be so easy to fall back on all these failed solutions just because there were rising crime rates during a pandemic when people didn’t have safe places to go, school programs were shut down, and people lost their jobs and homes. These pro-incarceration agendas tend to exploit people’s fears and make people imagine really terrible things. But arguably the worst thing that could ever happen to a family happened to us. And if we can imagine a better future then I think that’s something everyone can imagine.”They’re not alone among survivors. The children of a murdered pastor in Tennessee recently opposed prosecutors’ decision to charge the 15-year-old suspects as adults, saying it’s not what her mother, an activist, would have wanted; the woman who helped create the sex offender registry after her son was abducted has since argued it has gone too far and is ineffective; and some murder victims’ relatives have argued against the death penalty and in favor of the defendants’ release after years behind bars.Jess and Annie have been talking to survivors about what they actually need and want; their family had access to financial support, but they’ve met many survivors of color who were denied victim compensation from the state, including victims of police killings, who aren’t considered eligible. Many survivors fall into financial crises amid grief and the aftermath of violence and need time off or relocation help.Survivors also want prevention. The sisters said they would like to see the US reallocate a significant portion of the estimated $180bn that the country spends on police and prisons each year toward community resources, including violence intervention, mental health care, restorative justice and services for survivors, such as faith-based programs or trauma therapy: “Unaddressed trauma is one of the major root causes of crime and violence in this society, and it absolutely supports public safety to provide these services to survivors,” Annie said.Annie said she has also heard stories of survivors finding peace in forgiving the people who hurt them. But she is not one of them: “It’s easier for me to feel hatred than compassion for the person who killed Polly. At the same time, I know that before there was a man who did unfathomable harm to our family, there was a boy who was hurt and abused and neglected and abandoned by the social structures that were supposed to help him. And I would rather have a system that would help and protect that child from becoming someone capable of murdering a little girl than one that only seeks to punish him after taking our sister’s life.”Speaking out has provided some catharsis for the sisters after years of struggling to process their trauma.“I was in hiding for so long,” Jess said. “And it has been incredibly healing to come into this work and share our story and advocate for something that matters rather than hiding from shame of the aftermath of Polly’s kidnapping. For us there’s a full-circle healing coming out. It’s wonderful to be in service.”They also hope people think more critically about the impact of true crime and media sensationalism: “There is healing in reclaiming agency over our story, because for the longest time it felt like it wasn’t ours,” Annie said.But as Polly’s name continues to be invoked, in podcasts, videos or by politicians and advocates, there’s one part of their story the sisters are keeping to themselves: their memories of Polly. It’s all they have left of her.TopicsCaliforniaUS crimeUS politicsUS prisonsfeaturesReuse this content More

InterviewIlhan Omar on the critical issues of the midterm elections: ‘People understand what’s at stake’Nina Lakhani in New YorkFrom abortion rights to climate action, the Minnesota congresswoman outlines the work ahead for Democrats The snow is already falling in Minnesota and with less than three weeks until election day, the priority for congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the state Democrats is getting people out to vote early before enthusiasm – and the temperature – dips.“The number one concern for a lot of people I am talking to is Roe – it’s reproductive rights,” Omar said. “There’s also concern about inflation and what that means for people. We’re seeing a lot of enthusiasm. I hope it holds … We can pay attention to the polls, but if we don’t get the people out to vote, nothing else matters.”It’s not so long ago that polls, political analysts and even straight-talking party officials were forecasting humiliating losses for the Democrats in the November midterm elections. But then came the supreme court’s devastating and largely unpopular decision in June to strip away the constitutional right to abortion access.It was a ruling that enraged and mobilised Democrats and independents across the country, but whether it’s enough to outweigh concerns about the rising cost of living that Republicans are blaming squarely on Joe Biden, is yet to be seen.And while this could be framed as an abortion versus inflation election, issues like climate and migration are also playing on voters’ minds, according to Omar.“People are trying to wrap their heads around the investments made in the Inflation Reduction Act, and when they’ll be able to access the home improvement subsidies in the climate provisions. There’s just a lot of excitement about that,” she told the Guardian.The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was passed in August after months of wrangling by Omar’s fossil fuel friendly colleagues in the Senate, and only after progressives were forced to drop anti-poverty measures like the child tax credit.Still, when the Biden administration signed America’s first-ever climate legislation there was a collective sigh of relief among the Democratic party – finally. Omar says people are genuinely enthused about the historic $369bn climate investment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy sources.But they’re also a bit confused, as there’s no money in people’s pockets yet – that will take months or even years.“People are excited about what we’ve been able to do with a slim majority – three [representatives] in the House and almost zero in the Senate – so it’s been easy to translate that into campaign conversations around what happens if you continue to elect Democrats, that we are going to do the work even if it’s hard.”And it is going to be hard. Despite Biden polling upwards since a slew of policy victories this summer, polls still suggest that Democrats will probably lose the House and possibly the Senate. In addition, the supreme court’s extreme right majority is likely to follow last year’s controversial rulings with even more constitutional rollbacks.“Some days it is hard to stay motivated and optimistic,” admitted Omar. “But people understand what’s at stake and they know that if we are back in the majority, we will take action to mitigate a lot of the harm coming from our courts.”Earlier this week Biden promised to make codifying abortion rights his legislative priority next year if the Dems take back both Houses. But it’s a big if.Born in Mogadishu in 1982, Omar was elected to the House in 2018 – the first Somali American and one of the first two Muslim women in Congress. She is in the most progressive wing of the party, one of six newly elected representatives from communities of color, collectively known as the squad.Her seat, which includes the city of Minneapolis and some of its suburbs, is considered solidly Democratic; however Omar’s primary race was much closer than expected and she won by just two percentage points.Omar says that she is frequently asked questions about the country’s failed immigration system.. There has been no meaningful reform for decades and 2022 has been truly awful, with a record number of deaths at the southern border and thousands of refugees sent to Democratic-controlled northern cities by southern Republican governors. Then, just last week the Biden administration expanded Title 42 – a controversial Trump-era order that denies people from a handful of countries the chance to seek asylum on the false pretense of Covid prevention, given how selectively it is enforced.“In many ways a country that was once seen as a beacon of hope for those escaping persecution has now become one that persecutes those who are escaping persecution. It’s become easier to use these desperate immigrants as a political pawn,” said Omar.Congress did pass immigration reforms, but the measure predictably perished in the Senate. “It’s where all good ideas go to die,” said Omar. We have to find a way to make immigration not be a politically toxic conversation.”Immigration is another important issue for voters, according to national polls, but there’s little evidence that many are worried about root causes like political repression, corruption, and climate disasters – or the role the US plays in creating these conditions that drive people to flee their homes. “The fact that these linkages are not evident to the everyday American voter is alarming.”The climate breakdown is increasingly forcing people to migrate. And as voters go to the polls in the US, the UN climate negotiations will be getting under way in Egypt after a year of catastrophic extreme weather events that include deadly floods in Florida, Nigeria and Pakistan, destructive wildfires in Alaska and western Europe, as well as historic drought in the greater Horn of Africa (which includes Somalia), where 37 million people face hunger and starvation.In what’s been called the African Cop, the US and other large polluting economies like the UK, Germany and France will face growing pressure to pay for the loss and damage being suffered by developing countries that have contributed little to the climate breakdown.“In order to make things right, I think it is important for the US and other countries to make heavy investments, and [part of that] can come in the form of reparations,” said Omar.Africa is the continent confronting the worst climate impacts despite having contributed least to greenhouse gases. It is also the region where American and other transnational companies continue to extract fossil fuel and are cutting deals with governments to extract minerals needed for green technologies.If internationally financed green energy projects – like lithium mines or windfarms – are imposed on communities just like fossil fuel projects, talk of a just transition will be just talk.“If we are not serious about consulting Indigenous and impacted African communities, we are allowing for their exploitation to take place.”But that’s not enough, argues Omar. “We need to back up and make sure that countries like the United States and China are also doing their part by ending new [fossil fuel] expansion and phasing out the existing oil, gas and coal in a fair and equitable way.”On a recent trip to Honduras, Omar witnessed first-hand the lasting impact of the US having propped up for more than a decade a repressive regime that terrorized communities and killed environmental defenders such as Berta Cáceres. “It was easy to see the ways in which the United States and Canada are complacent in brutal extraction practices where people’s livelihoods and sheer existence are being destroyed.” ”It’s not just the US that needs to be held to account of course. The decision to hold this year’s climate talks in Egypt – and next year’s in the UAE – has been widely criticised given that both governments have a propensity for arbitrary detentions, torture and cyber espionage against citizens, and the failure by many governments to raise the issue of human rights.Omar said: “The United States needs to centre human rights in all our foreign policy and it certainly needs to do it with our climate action. Egypt is one of the most repressive regimes in the world and one that the United States continues to prop up with weapons. The UAE is one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels, not to mention their complicity in the brutal war in Yemen. There can be no safe or habitable planet without the protection of human rights.” TopicsIlhan OmarUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

‘A nutso proposition’: Robert Draper on Trump, Republicans and January 6 The New York Times reporter’s new book considers the Capitol attack and after: the fall of Liz Cheney, the rise of MTG and moreIn mid-December 2020, Robert Draper signed to write a book about the Republican party under Donald Trump, who spent four wild years in the White House but had just been beaten by Joe Biden.‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican partyRead more“Trump hadn’t conceded,” Draper says, from Washington, where he writes for the New York Times. “But the expectation was that he would. The notion of the ‘Be there, will be wild’ January 6 insurrection had not yet taken root. And so I thought that the book would be about a factionalised Republican party, more or less in keeping with When the Tea Party Came to Town, the book I did about the class of 2010.”“All that changed on my first day of reporting the job, which happened to be January 6, when I was inside the Capitol.”The book became Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind. It is a detailed account of Republican dynamics since 2020, but it opens with visceral reportage from the scene of what Draper calls the “seismic travesty” of the Capitol attack.Draper says: “I still get chills, thinking about that day. It’s a Rashomon kind of experience, right? There were a lot of people in the Capitol and they all have different viewpoints that are equally valid.“Mine was that of someone who just showed up figuring I would cover this routine ceremony of certification, ended up not being able to get into the press gallery, wandered around to the west side of the building and suddenly saw all of these police officers under siege, getting maced and beaten. After being there for a while, I escaped through the tunnels and went to the east side of the Capitol, and watched people push their way in.”In their book The Steal, Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague observe that those who attacked the Capitol had no more chance of overturning the election than the hippies of 1967 had of seeing the Pentagon levitate. Draper’s term “seismic travesty” points in the same direction. But he does not diminish the enormity of the attempt, of Trump’s rejection of democracy and the threat posed by those who support him.His book joins a flock on January 6. One point of difference is that each chapter starts with an image by the Canadian photographer Louie Palu, of January 6 and the days after it. Rioters surge. Politicians stalk the corridors of power.Draper says: “There’s a reason why the subtitle isn’t how the Republican party lost its mind, but instead when the Republican party did. It is about a snapshot in time. I happen to think it is an incredibly momentous snapshot, but this is not a dry historical recitation of how the Republican party over decades moved from one mode of thought to another.”“It’s important for me to impress upon readers that this is a discrete moment worth considering, a moment when the Republican party … rather than decide, ‘Wow, we’ve been co-conspirators, intended or not, to a horrific event, and we’ve got to do better,’ instead went in a different direction.“And that to me is a moment when democracy is now shuttered and therefore has to be contemplated.”Draper interviewed most major players, among them Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader with his eye on the speaker’s gavel after next month’s midterms. Asked if the man who courted Trump with red and pink Starbursts and genuflections at Mar-a-Lago is the leader Republicans deserve, Draper answers carefully.“So two operative words there are ‘leader’ and ‘deserves’. It depends on how you define either. He would be the leader in the sense of that they’ll probably vote for him for speaker … but it’s an open question as to whether he really will lead or whether he really has ever led.“The important word is ‘deserves’. And obviously, that requires a judgment on my part. But I do think that what Kevin McCarthy embodies to me is the human refutation to the argument that Donald Trump hijacked the Republican party, because to imagine that metaphor, you imagine the Republican party as an airplane seized by force, without any complicity, and that the plane was a perfectly well-functioning plane before then. McCarthy is here to disprove all of that.“McCarthy has been an absolute enabler of Donald Trump. He has never refuted the kinds of lies his party has embraced. He has winked and nodded along. People have told me that he’s offered to create for Marjorie Taylor Greene a new leadership position. At minimum, she’s likely to get plum committee assignments.”Greene, a far-right, conspiracy-spouting congresswoman from Georgia, was elected as Draper began work.“I thought she would be just kind of marginalised, sitting at the Star Wars bar of Republican politics, kind of a member of Congress who would be ousted after one term. But in a lot of ways, tracing her trajectory was a way of tracing the trajectory of the post– Trump presidency Republican party after January 6. Now, Trump is without question the dominant party leader, and more to the point, Trumpism is the straw that stirs the drink.”Some in the media say Greene should not be covered. Some say strenuously otherwise. Draper spent time with her.“This is the advantage of doing a book as opposed to daily journalism. It took me a year to get my first interview with her. You have to understand, to her, the mainstream media is, as Trump has delicately put it, the enemy of the American people. She thinks we habitually lie. We merit nothing but disgust, minimum, and contempt, maximum.“And so to get her to kind of cross that psychological Rubicon and be willing to talk to me was a real process. But I do find in journalism and anthropology that people generally speaking want to let the rest of the world know why they are the way they are. They want to reveal themselves. And if you place them in a comfortable zone, where they feel like they can do that, and trust that they will not be made to pay for it immediately, then they often will, if only in increments, begin to reveal themselves. And that’s what happened with Greene and me.”Democracy on the vergeLiz Cheney is in some ways Greene’s opposite. The daughter of Dick Cheney, vice-president under George W Bush, she is an establishment figure who broke from Trump only over the Capitol attack. Ejected from party leadership, she is one of two Republicans on the House January 6 committee but lost her seat in Wyoming to a Trump-backed challenger.To Draper, it is “remarkable that we’re talking about those two female Republicans in the same breath, implicitly recognising these improbable opposite trajectories.“In December 2020, if you and I were talking about Liz Cheney and saying, ‘What’s going to happen to her next,’ we wouldn’t say she’s going to be exiled from the party. And if we said, ‘What’s going to happen to Marjorie Taylor Greene next,’ we wouldn’t say she would basically be a more influential figure in the Republican party than Liz Cheney. It would seem a nutso proposition and yet that’s exactly what happened.“Cheney stood almost alone in her view that not only did the party need to move on from Trump, but that it needed to see to it that Trump would no longer be a powerful force within the GOP. That put her on an island along with Adam Kinzinger and precious few others. She’s paid a heavy political price.”Draper’s previous book, To Start a War, showed how Cheney’s father and his boss sold the Iraq war, citing weapons of mass destruction which did not exist. How did Cheney feel about that?“She said, ‘You and I probably disagree on whether or not it was the right thing to do to go into Iraq.’ I remember saying to her, ‘You mean, I’m not a warmonger like you are?’ And she laughed, but she happens still to believe that was a viable proposition. And I think my book reaches the inexorable conclusion that [it] was a very foolish proposition.“But it’s worth bringing that up, because … the subject at hand was not just Donald Trump, but also the Republican party and its tenuous grip on the truth. And it has been an eye-opener, I think, for a lot of us that Liz Cheney … stands for other things beyond ideology, and among them are the preservation of democracy.”Before the Capitol was attacked, Cheney read Lincoln on the Verge, Ted Widmer’s account of Abraham Lincoln’s perilous rail journey to Washington in 1861.Draper writes: “As the nation teetered on the brink of civil war, Lincoln avoided two assassination attempts on the journey, while the counting of electoral college votes in the Capitol was preceded by fears that someone might seize the mahogany box containing the ballots and thereby undo Abe Lincoln’s presidency before its inception.“Cheney had shuddered to think what would have happened had the mob gotten their hands on the mahogany boxes on January 6, 2021.”Unchecked review: how Trump dodged two impeachments … and the January 6 committee?Read moreWidmer is a historian but plenty of books have suggested that with America deeply polarised and Trumpism rampant, we could be close to a second civil war. To Draper, “tragically it is not out of the question”.“It’s certainly clear to me that when you’ve got a third of the voting public in America that believes that the election was stolen … [that’s] not something that you take with a grain of salt.“America really is beset by fractures that could metastasize into something violent. I hope to hell that’s not the case. But but I’m not gonna look at you and say there’s no way it’ll happen.”
Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind is published in the US by Penguin Press
TopicsBooksRepublicansUS politicsThe far rightDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

The Envoy review: Gordon Sondland’s Trump tale fails to strike many sparks The ex-ambassador was caught up in the first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine. He offers scattershot justificationGordon Sondland arrived late to Donald Trump’s party but still snagged an ambassador’s post.Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreAccording to the Federal Elections Commission, Sondland, an Oregon hotelier, never donated to Trump’s candidacy. Rather, in 2015 he gave $25,000 to a political action committee aligned with Jeb Bush and $2,500 directly the former Florida governor’s campaign. After Bush dropped out of the Republican primary, Sondland cut checks to a host of candidates but stopped short of Trump.A spokesperson decried Trump’s beliefs and values but eventually ambition got the better of Sondland. With the 2016 election done, Sondland ponied up $1m to Trump’s inaugural committee via four limited-liability companies. Opacity mattered. Trump posted Sondland to Brussels, as US ambassador to the European Union.Fame found Sondland there – with a vengeance. He emerged as a key witness in Trump’s first impeachment, enmeshed with Rudy Giuliani and Hunter Biden in investigations of approaches to Ukraine for political dirt. After Trump’s Senate acquittal, the president and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, cut Sondland loose.Now comes Sondland’s attempt at image restoration. In his memoir, he criticises Trump and his family but tries to stay close to the fold. With the exception of Steve Bannon, no one has managed that. Then again, Bannon has continuously demonstrated his value to Trump.Sondland brands Trump as a “dick” and a narcissist and lashes into his psyche, calling him “a man with a fragile ego who wants more than anything to feed that ego the way an addict would feed a habit”.In the next breath, however, Sondland contends that Trump was “essentially right about many things, including how out of whack our relationship with Europe has become”.On matters diplomatic, Sondland also skips consideration of Trump’s abiding admiration for Vladimir Putin. Last February, the former president lavished praise on his Russian idol and derided Nato as “not so smart”. In September, Trump went full Tucker Carlson. At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he contrasted Putin and Xi Jinping of China with Joe Biden, the man who kicked Trump out of the White House.“I’ve got to know a lot of the foreign leaders, and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game,” Trump said.Authoritarianism makes him swoon. Xi “rules with an iron fist, 1.5 billion people, yeah I’d say he’s smart”. From Sondland? Crickets, except to say that while in office, Trump “hated” Ukraine but hoped he would like Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Sondland tries to lay part of the blame for the war in Ukraine on Biden. No doubt, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was ugly. But Sondland expresses his belief that “the practical, no-nonsense approach pursued by Trump, which I also pursued while ambassador in Europe, could have kept Putin in check”.Jared Kushner also receives ambivalent treatment. Early on, Sondland heaps praise: “Jared is very smart, highly effective, and highly criticized because of envy.” He “quietly but effectively used his leverage in the family across the interagency writ large.” Few would dispute Kushner’s clout in the Trump White House.Later, though, Sondland says his relationship with Kushner “cooled” over impeachment. He points fingers: “In retrospect, Kushner likely knew that Pompeo was going to can me … maybe Kushner was the one to tell the president to get rid of me.”Sondland dumps on the libs, trashes the “deep state” and sings the praises of Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary. Hardcore Trumpers despise Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker they deride as a “globalist”. Just ask Bannon or Peter Navarro. Then again, Bannon has been sentenced for contempt of Congress and is under indictment for fraud and Navarro goes to trial in weeks. Like Bannon, he defied the 6 January committee.Sondland lauds the Abraham Accords; calls David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, a “stud”; but stays mum over Charlottesville and Trump’s compliments for neo-Nazis. White supremacists and Kanye West have a home in the Republican party. The party of Lincoln is no more.At times, Sondland’s praise is unalloyed. He voices his respect and admiration for Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine; William Taylor, her deputy; and Kurt Volker, the former ambassador to Nato who became Trump’s troubleshooter on Ukraine and Crimea.There is also unstinting criticism of Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene.“They’re sycophants who built careers on dissembling and playing roles that aren’t authentic,” Sondland opines. Unmentioned is that those four reflect the Republican base and its anger far better than Sondland.He also has jabs for the Ukraine whistleblower, Alexander Vindman, and two former Trump advisers, Fiona Hill and John Bolton. In her impeachment testimony, Hill said Bolton, then national security adviser, described Sondland helping to “cook up” a “drug deal” on Ukraine. Sondland’s disdain is understandable.Pompeo also earns rebuke. According to Sondland, the secretary of state reneged on a promise to reimburse him for impeachment legal fees. In May 2021, Sondland commenced a lawsuit in US district court, seeking to recover $1.8m from Pompeo and the government. Pompeo was dropped as a defendant on jurisdictional grounds, the case transferred. Discovery will run into May next year, Pompeo a possible witness.In the here and now, Sondland could have used a sharper proofreader. He writes that Mitt Romney lost the 2011 presidential election and that Trump assumed office in January 2016. The dates are 2012 and 2017, respectively.The book concludes with this admission: “I’m a touch arrogant, a bit showy, and yes, I like attention.”
The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World is published in the US by Post Hill Press
TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump impeachment (2019)US politicsUS foreign policyTrump administrationUkrainereviewsReuse this content More

Steve Bannon has been sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress.Donald Trump’s former chief strategist was sentenced to serve four months on each of the two contempt counts for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the January 6 House panel investigating the former president’s efforts to reverse his defeat by Joe Biden.The prison terms will be served concurrently, district court judge Carl Nichols ruled. But the judge said he would stay the sentence pending an appeal by Bannon, as long as the legal paperwork is filed promptly.The statutory minimum was one month in prison on each count.BREAKING: Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon sentenced to four months of prison on each count of contempt of Congress concurrently and $6,500 in fines — and will stay the sentence pending appeal if that is filed in timely fashion— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 21, 2022
We’ll have more details shortly…We’re closing our live blog now at the end of another tumultuous day, and week, in US politics. Thanks for joining us.
The House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection issued a subpoena to the former president for documents and testimony.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, and fined, for defying his own subpoena. But he was allowed to remain free pending his appeal.
The White House dismissed claims by Russia’s ambassador to the US that it had shut down communication with Moscow as the war in Ukraine continues. US defense secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu earlier.
The Washington Post reported that documents seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida contained secrets about Iran’s missile program, and China.
Joe Biden touted a “record” reduction of the federal deficit, $1.4tn since last year and the largest one year drop in American history, the president said.
A Miami judge dismissed one of the 19 voter fraud prosecutions loudly trumpeted by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis. Former felon Robert Lee Wood, 56, voted after being sent a registration card by the state.
Joe Biden is appealing to younger voters in a speech Friday afternoon touting his student debt relief program. The president is addressing students at the historically black Delaware state university in Dover.Ahead of his address, the supreme court gave Biden a lift on Thursday by refusing a request by a taxpayers’ group in Wisconsin to block the program, which cancels up to $20,000 in student debt for millions of borrowers.Biden addressed an enthusiastic crowd:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You are an example of why I’m so optimistic about the future. You are the most involved, the most educated, the most engaged, least prejudiced generation in American history.Biden says the debt relief program is changing lives, and urged those qualified to sign up online:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is a game changer. We’re hearing from people all over the country. Over 10,000 students have written me letters so far. It’s as easy to sign up as hanging out with your friends or watching a movie.
My commitment when I ran for president was if I was elected I’d make the government work and deliver for the people.And he attacked congressional Republicans for attempting to block the aid “to their own constituents”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As soon as I announced my administration’s plan on student debt they started attacking it and saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.
But we’re not letting them get away with it. They’ve been fighting us in the courts. But just yesterday, state courts and the supreme court said no, we’re on Biden’s side.Read more:Supreme court declines to stop Biden’s $400bn student debt relief planRead moreThe Biden administration’s strategic communications coordinator has dismissed claims by Russia’s ambassador to the US that Washington is blocking conversations with Moscow over the Ukraine war.Newsweek reported on Thursday the belief of Anatoly Antonov that no direct open lines of communication existed between the countries similar to the Kremlin-White House hotline credited with preventing nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.“The attempts of Russian diplomats in Washington to re-establish such contacts have been futile,” he said. “The administration is unwilling to talk with us as equals.”But in an interview on CNN Friday, John Kirby, the national security council coordinator for strategic communications, said that was not true.He pointed to defense secretary Lloyd Austin’s conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu earlier today, their first known contact for more than four months, as evidence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s many channels open with Russia even down to the fairly low operational level. We still have a deconfliction line set up in Europe so that we can properly deconflict operations with respect to Nato’s eastern flank.
You saw today the secretary of defense spoke with with his counterpart. The secretary of state has an open line of communication with foreign minister [Sergey] Lavrov if needed. There are many channels at various levels throughout our government to continue to communicate with Russia.
That’s important, particularly now when when bellicose rhetoric by [Russian president Vladimir] Putin about the potential use of nuclear weapons only could lead to confusion and miscalculation.Maya Yang reports…The rightwing TV network Newsmax has said it had no plans to interview Lara Logan again, after the award-winning war correspondent turned rightwing pundit launched a QAnon-tinged tirade on air.Speaking to host Eric Bolling, Logan said “the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and claimed world leaders drank children’s blood.QAnon is a pro-Trump conspiracy theory which holds that leading liberal figures in US and world politics are, among other things, secretly murderous pedophiles.Logan told Bolling: “God believes in sovereignty and national identity and the sanctity of family, and all the things that we’ve lived with from the beginning of time.“And he knows that the open [southern US] border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world through all of these people who are his stooges and his servants.“And they may think that they’re going to become gods. That’s what they tell us … You know, the ones who want us eating insects, cockroaches and that while they dine on the blood of children? Those are the people, right? They’re not going to win. They’re not going to win.”Newsmax said in a statement it “condemns in the strongest terms the reprehensible statements made by Lara Logan” and had “no plans to interview her again”.Full story:Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tiradeRead moreThe White House won’t comment specifically on the subpoena issued to Donald Trump by the January 6 House panel this afternoon. But it has thoughts on the direction of the inquiry.Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is addressing reporters aboard Air Force One as the Joe Biden makes his way to Delaware to speak on his student loan forgiveness program.Asked if she believed Trump would comply, Jean-Pierre said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m going to speak broadly, as we do not comment on any ongoing investigation, the department of justice is independent, but the president has spoken to this many times, it is important to get to the bottom of January 6.
January 6 was one of the darkest days in our nation, and it’s important for the American people to know exactly what happened, so that it doesn’t happen again, so we don’t repeat that very dark day in our nation.The subpoena issued by the January 6 House panel this afternoon demands that Donald Trump provide documents and testimony under oath.It requires documents to be submitted to the committee by 4 November, and for Trump to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about 14 November.“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power”, a four-page letter accompanying the subpoena said.It was signed by panel chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and vice-chair Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican.In a tweet, the panel says the vote to issue the subpoena was approved by a unanimous vote. The nine-member committee includes two Republican House members, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Cheney.In a letter to Mr. Trump, Chair @BennieGThompson and Vice Chair @RepLizCheney underscored Trump’s central role in a deliberate, orchestrated effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of presidential power. pic.twitter.com/rg7R37YE11— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 21, 2022
Shortly before news broke that Donald Trump has been issued a subpoena by the House panel investigating his 6 January insurrection, the former president was lashing out over another episode.The Washington Post drew Trump’s ire for its story that classified papers seized by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida allegedly included documents containing secrets about Iran and China.Predictably, in a statement, Trump claims it’s a hoax:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The FBI and the department of ‘justice,’ which paid a man $200,000 to spy on me, and offered a $1 million ‘bounty’ to try and prove a totally made up and fake ‘dossier’ about me (they went down in flames!), are now leaking nonstop on the Document Hoax to the Fake News.
Who could ever trust corrupt, weaponized agencies, and that includes Nara [the US national archives and records administration] who disrespects our constitution and Bill of Rights, to keep and safeguard any records, especially since they’ve lost millions and millions of pages of information from previous Presidents.
Also, who knows what NARA and the FBI plant into documents, or subtract from documents – we will never know, will we?It’s safe to say Trump will have other things on his mind as the afternoon wears on.The House January 6 select committee has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, compelling the former president to provide an accounting under oath about his potential foreknowledge of the Capitol attack and his broader efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The subpoena of constitutional and investigative consequence made sweeping requests for testimony about some of the most key moments before January 6, as well as documents and communications about his role in multi-pronged schemes to return himself to office.BREAKING: Jan. 6 committee formally issues subpoena to Donald Trump — https://t.co/OzljsNT0oF— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 21, 2022
It comes on the same day as Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with his own subpoena.We’ll have more details soon …Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has filed a terrific interview with Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the crack reporter and “Trump whisperer” whose new book seeks to explain the rise and fall and rise (and rise and fall and rise, ad infinitum) of the 45th president. It’s certainly worth your time this lunchtime. Here’s a taster, with a link at the bottom to follow:“He’s become something of a Charles Foster Kane-like character down in Mar-a-Lago these days,” observes Maggie Haberman, a Pulitzer-winning reporter for the New York Times, political analyst for CNN and author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, which has a black-and-white photo of Trump on its cover.Her analogy raises the question: what is Trump’s Rosebud, the childhood sled that symbolised Kane’s lost innocence? “His father is Rosebud, and I don’t think it’s one particular moment,” Haberman replies. “There’s no single childhood memory that is the key. It’s a series of moments that interlock and they point back to his father.”Fred Trump was a property mogul who had been disappointed by his eldest son Fred Jr’s lack of commitment to the family business. Donald Trump, by contrast, impressed his father by cultivating a brash “killer” persona and became heir apparent. Decades later, in the first weeks of his presidency, Trump had one photo on the credenza behind him in the Oval Office: his father, still watching.Speaking by phone from her car in midtown Manhattan, Haberman reflects: “His father basically created this endless competition between Trump and his older brother Freddie, and pitted them against each other. Donald Trump spent a lot of time seeking his father’s approval and that became a style of dealing with people, which was certainly better suited for a business than for a household.”“But it became one that Trump recreated in all aspects of his life. It became how he dealt with his own children. It became how he dealt with people who worked for him and then, in the White House, you read a number of stories about these battles that his aides would have. A lot of it was predetermined by lessons from his father.”But if Trump is Kane, who is Haberman?Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreThe Biden administration is taking steps to protect residents of nursing homes, promising what it calls “aggressive action… to keep American seniors safe”.A White House fact sheet released Friday lays out measures including financial penalties for failing nursing homes, improved safety standards and more and better technical support for homes in need.The labor department is providing $80m in grants for nursing training and development, while the department of health and human services providing a further $13m for education and training initiatives.“Covid-19 laid bare the challenges in America’s nursing homes,” Biden’s domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said in a tweet.“Today, we’re announcing new steps to improve nursing home quality and accountability”.COVID-19 has laid bare the challenges in America’s nursing homes. In his State of the Union, @POTUS laid out an action plan to address these challenges—and, today, we’re announcing new steps to improve nursing home quality and accountability. https://t.co/yNG6rLn757— Susan Rice (@AmbRice46) October 21, 2022
Joe Biden may have coined a phrase earlier, or tried to coin one at this late stage in the midterms race, when he said Republican economic policy amounted to “Maga-mega trickle down”.Trickle down economics is the idea that slashed taxes on the wealthy mean benefits for all those below them. Liz Truss was a devotee. She was also British prime minister for all of 45 days before announcing her resignation yesterday, after crashing the markets and cratering the UK economy.Biden may have been seeking to remind any Americans even vaguely aware of events across the pond when he told reporters: “If Republicans get their way, the deficit is going to soar, the burden is going to fall on the middle-class … They’re not going to stop there. “It’s Maga-mega trickle down.”For the avoidance of doubt, here’s how Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, defines “trickle down”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The theory is simple. Governments should cut taxes for the better off and for corporations because that is the key to securing faster growth. Entrepreneurs are more likely to start and expand businesses, companies are more inclined to invest and banks will tend to increase lending if they are paying less in tax.
Initially, the beneficiaries are the rich, but gradually everyone gains because as the economy gets bigger well-paid jobs are created for working people. Governments should stop focusing on how the economic pie is distributed and focus on growing the pie instead.
Supporters of trickle down often cite the work of the US economist Arthur Laffer as proof that the theory works. Laffer said tax cuts for the wealthy had a powerful multiplier effect and any revenues lost by governments from reducing tax rates would be more than compensated for by the fruits of higher growth.For the further avoidance of doubt, Maga, written like that here because of Guardian style rules on acronyms, stands for “Make America great again”, aka Donald Trump’s campaign slogan in 2016.Biden was speaking at the White House, about the US deficit and efforts to reduce it. He said: “The federal deficit went up every year in the Trump administration – every single year he was president. On my watch, things have been different. The deficit has come down both years I’ve been in office, and I’ve just signed legislation that will reduce it even more in the decades to come.”Republicans will counter that Biden has passed a lot of legislation increasing government spending. And so the dance toward election day goes on.It’s a busy Friday again…In a bombshell scoop launched just as Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign chair and White House adviser, was handed a four-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress, the Washington Post reports that some of the classified documents recovered from Trump’s Florida home in August included “highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China”.The Post cites anonymous sources who said that “if shared with others … such information” as found by the Department of Justice at Mar-a-Lago “could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world”. Exposure of such information, the paper reports, could endanger people aiding US intelligence efforts or invite retaliation from the powers concerned.The Post also says at least one document described Iran’s missile programme while others described “highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China”.Trump or his spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the paper said.The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on 8 August set off a monumental tussle between the former president and the Department of Justice. The contest has gone back and forth in the courts ever since, lawyers for Trump fighting a delaying action, a watching nation wondering if Trump might yet be indicted.Trump claims to have done nothing wrong by taking records from the White House after he was beaten by Joe Biden in 2020. Most observers say otherwise.More:‘Where’s the beef?’: special master says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago records claims lack substanceRead moreJoe Biden is speaking at the White House about the achievements of his economic plans, and what he says is a “record” reduction of the federal deficit.“This year the deficit fell by $1.4tn, the largest one year drop in American history,” the president said.“We’re rebuilding the economy in a responsible way.”In an earlier treasury department statement, the Biden administration said the annual deficit plummeted from $2.8tn in 2021 to about $1.4tn this year, the Washington Post reported.Biden is touting a “historic” Covid-19 vaccination effort for saving lives and helping the economy recover from the pandemic, and hailing successes in passing bipartisan bills such as the inflation reduction act, the Chips act boosting semiconductor production, and last year’s infrastructure act.Today’s speech is, however, a thinly disguised party political broadcast on behalf of the Democrats barely two and a half weeks before midterm elections in which they are expected to cede control of at least one chamber of congress.Warming to that theme, Biden said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Congressional Republicans love to call Democrats big spenders. And they always claim to be for less federal spending. Let’s look at the facts. The federal deficit went up every single year in the Trump administration, every single year he was president, and went up before the pandemic, and went up during the pandemic.
In three years before Covid hit, the deficit ballooned by another $400bn. One big reason for that is the Republicans voted for a $2tn Trump tax cut, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and the biggest corporations. That racked up the deficit significantly.
On my watch, things have been different. The deficit has come down in both years that I’ve been in office.Here’s Hugo Lowell’s report on the Steve Bannon sentencing hearing this morning:Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.The sentence handed down by the US district court judge Carl Nichols in Washington was lighter than recommended by prosecutors, who sought six months in jail and the maximum $200,000 in fines because Bannon refused to cooperate with court officials’ pre-sentencing inquiries.Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings for his sentence to either be halted pending the appeal his lawyers filed briefs with the DC circuit court on Thursday or otherwise have the jail term reduced to home-confinement.But Nichols denied Bannon’s requests, saying he agreed with the justice department about the seriousness of his offense and noting that he had failed to show any remorse and was yet to demonstrate that he had any intention to comply with the subpoena.The far-right provocateur now faces a battle to overturn the conviction on appeal, which, the Guardian first reported, will contend the precedent that prevented his lawyers from disputing the definition of “wilful default” of a subpoena, and arguing he had acted on the advice of his lawyers, was inapplicable.Read the full story:Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead more More

Donald Trump formally subpoenaed by January 6 committeeFormer US president will be compelled to provide accounting under oath about his potential foreknowledge of the Capitol attack The House January 6 select committee has formally transmitted a subpoena to Donald Trump, compelling the former president to provide an accounting under oath about his potential foreknowledge of the Capitol attack and his broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead moreThe subpoena made sweeping requests for documents and testimony, dramatically raising the stakes in the highly charged congressional investigation and setting the stage for a constitutionally consequential legal battle that could ultimately go before the supreme court.“Because of your central role in each element,” the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Liz Cheney, wrote, “the select committee unanimously directed the issuance of a subpoena seeking your testimony and relevant documents in your possession on these and related topics.”Most notably, the committee demanded that Trump turn over records of all January 6-related calls and texts sent or received, any communications with members of Congress, as well as communications with the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups that stormed the Capitol.The expansive subpoena ordered Trump to produce documents by 4 November and testify on 14 November about interactions with key advisers who have asserted their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, including the political operatives Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.“You were at the center of the first and only effort by any US president to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” the panel’s leaders wrote in making the case to subpoena Trump. “The evidence demonstrates that you knew this activity was illegal.”The subpoena also sought materials that appeared destined to be scrutinised as part of an obstruction investigation conducted by the select committee.One of the document requests, for instance, was for records about Trump’s efforts to contact witnesses and their lawyers.The documents request was specifically drafted to cover materials Trump would be able to turn over. The subpoena added: “The attached schedule is narrowly focused on records in your custody and control that you are uniquely positioned to provide to the select committee.”Thompson transmitted the subpoena after investigators spent days drafting the order and attorneys for the select committee contacted multiple lawyers working for Trump to ascertain who was authorized to accept its service.“We do not take this action lightly,” the subpoena said, noting the historical significance of the moment. But, the subpoena added, this was not the first time that a former president had been subpoenaed – and multiple former presidents have testified to Congress.Whether Trump will testify remains unclear. Though he has retained the Dhillon Law Group to handle matters relating to the subpoena, the final decision about his cooperation will be based to a large degree on his own instincts, sources close to the former president suggested.The driving factor pushing Trump to want to testify has centered around a reflexive belief that he can convince investigators that their own inquiry is a witch-hunt and that he should be exonerated over January 6, the sources said.Trump has previously expressed an eagerness to appear before the select committee and “get his pound of flesh” as long as he can appear live, the sources said – a thought he reiterated to close aides last week after the panel voted to issue the subpoena.But Trump also appears to have become more attuned to the pitfalls of testifying in ongoing investigations, with lawyers warning him about mounting legal issues in criminal inquiries brought by the US justice department and a civil lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general.The former president invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times in a deposition with the office of the New York attorney general before the office filed a giant fraud lawsuit against him, three of his children and senior Trump Organization executives.Trump also ultimately took the advice of his lawyers during the special counsel investigation into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, submitting only written responses to investigators despite initially telling advisers he wanted to testify to clear his name.That recent caution has come with the realization that Trump could open himself up to legal peril should he testify under oath, given his penchant for misrepresenting or outright lying about events of any nature – which is a crime before Congress.Any falsehoods from Trump would almost certainly be caught by the select committee. The subpoena letter said the panel intended to have the questioning conduct by attorneys, many of whom are top former justice department lawyers or federal and national security prosecutors.The former president’s testimony and transcript would almost certainly be reviewed by the justice department as part of its criminal probe into various efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which the select committee has alleged was centrally orchestrated by Trump.But the move to subpoena Trump comes with inherent risks for the panel itself. If it were to allow Trump for instance to testify live, they would be faced with a witness who might self-incriminate, but could also use proceedings to repeat lies about the 2020 election that led to the Capitol attack.The select committee might also face a difficult choice of how to proceed should Trump simply ignore the subpoena, claiming the justice department’s internal legal opinions for instance indicate that presidents and former presidents have absolute immunity from testifying to Congress.Investigators would then have to decide whether to seek judicial enforcement of the subpoena, though such an effort would likely take months – time that the select committee does not have, given it will almost certainly be disbanded at the end of the current Congress in January 2023.Should the panel instead simply move to hold Trump in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoena – his former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to jail for his recalcitrance – it remains unclear whether the justice department would prosecute such a referral.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Steve Bannon: how the Trump ally’s varied career led him to prisonThe former media entrepreneur, naval officer and investment banker was at Trump’s side during his ascent and some of his most divisive moments01:33Moments after being convicted of contempt of Congress in July, Steve Bannon, a former media entrepreneur, naval officer, investment banker and Trump administration aide, walked out of a Washington courthouse and made a declaration that summed up what the better part of the last decade of his life had been about.Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead more“I stand with Trump and the constitution, and I will never back off that, ever,” Bannon declared.On Friday, a federal judge sentenced Bannon to four months in jail and a $6,500 fine, for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the January 6 insurrection.It was the latest twist in the varied career of the 68-year-old far-right provocateur.Bannon was by Donald Trump’s side during his ascent to the White House and guided some of his most divisive moments, including his decision to ban travelers from Muslim-majority countries and his equivocation over a deadly white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.Bannon then met a fate common to Trump White House officials – pushed out, in his case after less than eight months and after repeatedly clashing with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser.But Bannon’s loyalty remained, and it paid off. On his last day in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been convicted on federal fraud charges.Now Bannon is trying to keep his freedom again. This time he can expect no presidential pardon, at least not as long as Joe Biden is in the White House. But he will remain free while appealing his sentence, his strategy, according to people close to him, to drag out the proceedings until the January 6 committee’s mandate expires at the end of this year.“We may have lost a battle here today but we’re not going to lose this war,” Bannon said in July, after a Washington jury handed down its guilty verdict.The son of a working-class Irish Catholic family of Democrats, Bannon grew up in Virginia, attended military prep school and spent four years in the navy before graduating with a MBA from Harvard.He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs then got into media financing, where he profited from the success of Seinfeld, one of the greatest TV comedies of all time.It was during his time as a film producer in Hollywood that Bannon met the conservative media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. Bannon took over the Breitbart News website after its founder died of a heart attack in 2012. Bannon once described the outlet as the “the platform of the alt-right”, embracing the racism and antisemitism Trump would use as fuel for his electoral success four years later.Bannon made Trump’s acquaintance in 2010, and was impressed by his stance on China and international trade. He took over as Trump campaign chair months before the election in 2016, helping hone the populist edge used to upset Hillary Clinton.Bannon co-wrote the grim “American carnage” speech Trump gave at his inauguration and helped see through divisive opening actions including pulling out of the Paris climate accords.Amid infighting within Trump’s inner circle of advisers, Bannon was pushed off the National Security Council by April, and out of the administration entirely by August.Critics decry him as a nationalist and a nihilist bent more on destroying the American political system that reforming it. Bannon describes himself as a “Tea Party populist guy” and in the past has insisted that his goal is to get the Republican party to focus its policies on the American people.Steve Bannon: ‘We’ve turned the Republicans into a working-class party’Read more“We’ve turned the Republican party into a working-class party,” he told the Guardian in 2019.Left unsaid was Bannon’s view that Trump would be best to lead that party no matter the cost. In a recording obtained by Mother Jones, Bannon described in 2020 how the then-president planned to declare victory in his re-election campaign even before all the votes were counted.“That’s our strategy,” Bannon said. “He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning [after election day], it’s going to be a firestorm.“You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.’”TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressFormer Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committee01:33Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.Steve Bannon sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress conviction – liveRead moreThe punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.The sentence handed down by the US district court judge Carl Nichols in Washington was lighter than recommended by prosecutors, who sought six months in jail and the maximum $200,000 in fines because Bannon refused to cooperate with court officials’ pre-sentencing inquiries.“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” Nichols said as he handed down the sentence, adding that a failure to adequately punish the flouting of congressional subpoenas would enshrine a lack of respect to the legislative branch.Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings for his sentence to either be halted pending the appeal his lawyers filed briefs with the DC circuit court on Thursday or otherwise have the jail term reduced to home-confinement.But Nichols denied Bannon’s requests, saying he agreed with the justice department about the seriousness of his offense and noting that he had failed to show any remorse and was yet to demonstrate that he had any intention to comply with the subpoena.The judge noted in issuing the sentence that he weighed how some factors cut in Bannon’s favor: while he did not comply with the subpoena, he did engage with the select committee and emails appeared to show he had been acting on the advice of his then-lawyer, Robert Costello.Those mitigating factors suggested that Bannon perhaps did not act in the most contemptuous manner that he could have against the subpoena, and so warranted a lighter sentence than the justice department had recommended, Nichols said.Nichols also ruled he would stay the sentence as long as Bannon filed his anticipated appeal “timely”. With his second defense lawyer, Evan Corcoran, understood to have largely finalized the brief, according to sources familiar with the matter, Bannon should meet deadlines.The far-right provocateur now faces a battle to overturn the conviction on appeal, which, the Guardian first reported, will contend the precedent that prevented his lawyers from disputing the definition of “wilful default” of a subpoena, and arguing he had acted on the advice of his lawyers, was inapplicable.After walking out of the courthouse with his lawyers into a melee of reporters and television cameras, Bannon, dressed in a military-style jacket over several navy-colored shirts, vowed that Democrats would face their “judgment day” with an appeal that would prove “bulletproof”.The former Trump White House official then climbed into a waiting SUV and returned to his nearby Washington townhouse to immediately host a victorious episode of his War Room show. A person close to Bannon described him as feeling triumphant and unrepentant.Bannon was charged with two counts of contempt Congress after his refusal to comply at all with the select committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony last year triggered the House of Representatives to refer him to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee had sought Bannon’s cooperation after it identified him early on in the investigation as a key player in the run-up to the Capitol attack, who appeared to have advance knowledge of Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6.Among other moments of interest, the Guardian has previously reported, Bannon received a call from Trump the night before the Capitol attack while he was at a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel and was told of then-vice president Mike Pence’s resistance to decertifying Biden’s win.The close contacts with Trump in the days and hours leading up to the Capitol attack meant Bannon was among the first targets of the investigation, and his refusal to comply with the subpoena galvanised the panel’s resolve to make an example of him with a contempt referral.During the five-day trial in July, Bannon’s legal team ultimately declined to present evidence after Nichols excluded the “advice of counsel” argument because the case law at the DC Circuit level, Licavoli v United States 1961, held that was not a valid defense for defying a subpoena.The justice department, according to Licavoli, had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bannon’s refusal to comply was deliberate and intentional, and the assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn told the jury in closing arguments they should find the case straightforward.“The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing,” Vaughn said in federal court in Washington. “This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”That meant the only arguments left available to Bannon were either that he was somehow confused about the deadlines indicated on the subpoena, or that he did not realize the deadlines were concrete and failing to comply with those dates would mean he was in default.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More