US Politics

US supreme court rejects Trump appeal in Mar-a-Lago documents caseFormer president requested independent arbiter to vet more than 100 documents marked classified seized from his Florida home The US supreme court on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to let an independent arbiter vet more than 100 classified documents that were seized from his Florida home as he confronts a criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government records.Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testifyRead moreThe justices, in a brief order, denied Trump’s emergency request that he made on 4 October asking them to lift a federal appeals court’s decision that prevented the arbiter from reviewing more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among the roughly 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on 8 August.There were no publicly noted dissents by any of the nine justices to the decision, which came two days after the justice department urged them to deny Trump’s request and keep the classified documents out of the hands of the arbiter, known as a special master.The court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump, who left office in January 2021.Federal officials obtained a court-approved warrant to search Trump’s residence after suspecting that not all classified documents in his possession had been returned after his presidency ended.Investigators searched for evidence of potential crimes related to unlawfully retaining national defense information and obstructing a federal investigation. Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated.Trump went to court on 22 August in a bid to restrict justice department access to the documents as it pursues a criminal investigation.TopicsDonald TrumpUS supreme courtLaw (US)Mar-a-LagoUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testifyAlyssa Farah and Cassidy Hutchinson tell January 6 panel former president acknowledged he had been defeated by Joe Biden Donald Trump privately admitted to losing the 2020 election even as he worked to undermine and change the results, according to two top aides who testified before the January 6 committee.During the ninth and possibly final hearing, the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection shared new testimony from Alyssa Farah, a former White House aide, who said that a week after the election was called in favor of Biden, Trump was watching Biden on the television in the Oval Office, and said: “‘Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?’”Jan 6 hearing updates: committee plans vote to subpoena Donald Trump – liveRead moreIn another new clip of testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, she shared that Trump told Meadows: “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.”The committee tried to build out the case that Trump tried to change the outcome of the election, despite knowing and believing that he had lost. Adam Kinzinger, one of the two Republicans on the committee, also pointed to Trump’s actions in his final weeks in office, which carried with them a sense of reckless urgency.“President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business,” Kinzinger said, point to one example of an order calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Somalia. The order was signed on 11 November, which means troops would have to be pulled out rapidly, before Biden took office on 20 January.The results would have been “catastrophic”, Gen Keith Kellogg, Trump’s acting national security adviser, testified. “It would have been a debacle.”‘These are the highly consequential actions for a president who knows his term will shortly end,” Kinzinger said.As the panel weighs whether to directly subpoena Trump, this is the strongest evidence they have presented so far that he was fully aware of his defeat, even as he falsely alleged election fraud.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020January 6 hearingsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violenceVideo footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker shows Trump ally discussing violence after 2020 election The House January 6 committee on Thursday played as promised video footage of the Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone discussing the need for violence after the 2020 election, before 6 January 2021, the day of the deadly Capitol attack.“Let’s just hope we’re celebrating,” Stone said, in footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker.“I really do suspect that [the election result] will still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of law. ‘No we won, fuck you. Sorry, you’re wrong, fuck you.’”In another clip, Stone said: “I say fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”To laughter, an associate with Stone said: “Start smashing pumpkins, if you know what I mean.”In her opening statement at a hearing officially designated as a business meeting, to set up votes on further investigations, the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren laid out the committee’s interest in Stone.Stone, she said, “is a political operative with a reputation for dirty tricks. In November 2019 he was convicted of lying to Congress and other crimes and sentenced to more than three years in prison. He’s also a longtime adviser to President Trump, and was in communication with President Trump throughout 2020. Mr Trump pardoned Roger Stone on 23 December 2020.”Stone, she said, “apparently knew of Mr Trump’s intentions” to reject the election result long before election day.The congresswoman said: “Although we don’t yet have all the relevant records of Roger Stone’s communications, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Donald Trump on 27 December as preparations for January 6 were under way.”Stone, Lofgren showed, discussed the idea of appointing a special counsel to “ensure those who are attempting to steal the 2020 election through voter fraud are charged and convicted and to ensure Donald Trump continues as our president” – an idea the president is known to have discussed with allies and advisers.Lofgren mentioned links between Stone and the Capitol attack, including his attendance at the Willard hotel the night before January 6, as Trump allies planned their actions the next day, and his links with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, extremist rightwing groups who led the Capitol riot.“Individuals from both of these organisations have been charged with a crime of seditious conspiracy,” Lofgren said. “… Multiple associates of Roger Stone from both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have been charged with this crime.”Lofgren also played footage of Stone refusing to answer questions from the committee, invoking his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.The committee also played footage of Steve Bannon, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair who became a White House strategist, discussing what would happen on January 6, and revealed a hitherto unseen memo from Tom Fitton, another pro-Trump activist.“The select committee got this pre-prepared statement from the National Archives,” Lofgren said, displaying and describing the draft statement sent by Fitton on 31 October, three days before election day.According to Fitton’s proposed memo, Trump would simply “declare we had an election today and I won”.TopicsUS Capitol attackRoger StoneUS politicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

US majority believes misinformation is increasing political extremismNew poll reflects significant concerns by both Republicans and Democrats about false information ahead of the midterms Americans from across the political spectrum say misinformation is increasing political extremism and hate crimes, according to a new poll that reflects broad and significant concerns about false and misleading claims ahead of next month’s midterm elections.About three-quarters of US adults say misinformation is leading to more extreme political views and behaviors such as instances of violence based on race, religion or gender. That’s according to the poll from the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.“We’re at a point now where the misinformation is so bad you can trust very little of what you read in the media or social media,” said 49-year-old Republican Brett Reffeitt of Indianapolis, who participated in the survey. “It’s all about getting clicks, not the truth, and it’s the extremes that get the attention.”The Pearson Institute/AP-NORC survey shows that regardless of political ideology, Americans agree misinformation is leaving a mark on the country.Overall, 91% of adults say the spread of misinformation is a problem, with 74% calling it a major problem. Only 8% say misinformation isn’t a problem at all.Big majorities of both parties – 80% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans – say misinformation increases extreme political views, according to the survey. Similarly, 85% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans say misinformation increases hate crimes, including violence motivated by gender, religion or race.Overall, 77% of respondents think misinformation increases hate crimes, while 73% say it increases extreme political views.“This is not a sustainable course,” said independent Rob Redding, 46, of New York City. Redding, who is Black, said he fears misinformation will spur more political polarization and violent hate crimes. “People are in such denial about how dangerous and divisive this situation is.”About half of respondents say they believe misinformation leads people to become more politically engaged.Roughly seven in 10 Americans say they are at least somewhat concerned that they have been exposed to misinformation, though less than half said they are that worried that they were responsible for spreading it.That’s consistent with previous polls that have found people are more likely to blame others than accept responsibility for the spread of misinformation.TopicsUS newsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

Saudi Arabia has screwed over the US – and the world – yet again. Enough is enoughMohamad BazziBy gouging global oil prices, Saudi Arabia has humiliated Biden and boosted Putin. The US must end this unofficial alliance In July, Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia and shared a fist bump with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. As a presidential candidate, Biden had promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for its human rights abuses and its seven-year war against Yemen. But a devastating global pandemic and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine forced him to set these concerns aside in favor of realpolitik. Biden needed the Saudis to increase oil production in order to lower gasoline prices for American consumers, so he swallowed his pride and treated the crown prince as the world leader he aspires to be.Unfortunately for Biden, that cringe-inducing fist bump photo op has backfired in spectacular fashion.Earlier this month, the Saudi-led Opec+ energy cartel agreed to cut oil production by 2m barrels a day, which will mean higher fuel prices this fall and winter. In the days leading up to the vote, the Biden administration invested significant political capital in its efforts to dissuade Saudi Arabia and its allies from cutting production. In the end, Biden’s wooing of Prince Mohammed yielded nothing but a 2% reduction of the world’s oil supply.In fact, the prince has inflicted political damage on the Biden administration a month before the US midterm elections. After soaring to $5 a gallon in June, US gasoline prices fell for more than three months. Now they are rising once again, increasing by an average of 12 cents a gallon over the past week, to $3.92.Rising prices threaten the Democrats’ hopes of maintaining control over both houses of Congress after the November elections. The prince and his Gulf allies clearly preferred dealing with Donald Trump, whose freewheeling Republican administration gave Prince Mohammed a blank check in exchange for stable oil prices and multibillion-dollar arms sales.The Saudis also sided with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who needs higher oil prices to help fund his war against Ukraine. As part of their economic sanctions against Moscow, the US and EU are trying to impose a cap on the price paid to Russia for its oil exports. But that effort could now collapse as global oil prices rise and Europe heads into a winter season when heating costs are expected to soar thanks to the Ukraine war.While Prince Mohammed may believe he outmaneuvered Biden and demonstrated his influence over the global oil market, his power play has upset the foreign policy establishment in Washington. Even so-called foreign policy “realists”, who for years ignored progressive criticisms of the US-Saudi partnership, must confront an uncomfortable question: if Washington can’t count on a steady supply of oil, what does it get in return for its decades of unwavering support for the House of Saud?Technically, the US and Saudi Arabia are not allies – they’ve never signed a mutual defense agreement or a formal treaty. For decades, the US-Saudi relationship has been largely transactional: the kingdom used its leverage within Opec (and later the larger Opec+ cartel) to keep oil production and prices at levels that satisfy Washington. The US used to import significant amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia, but now that Washington is the world’s largest oil producer, it no longer relies as heavily on Saudi imports. In return for guaranteeing a steady global supply of oil, successive US administrations supported the House of Saud politically, sold it billions of dollars in advanced US weapons, and provided military assistance whenever aggressive neighbors threatened the kingdom.In 1990, after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait, Washington sent half a million troops to Saudi Arabia, which feared it would be Hussein’s next target. The US still deploys hundreds of troops and advisers to train the Saudi military and help it operate American weapons, including advanced warplanes, helicopters, and Patriot antimissile systems, which the kingdom has used to intercept drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.This oil-for-security arrangement has lasted through Democratic and Republican administrations, including multiple crises like the Arab-led oil embargo and Opec price increases in the 1970s and the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, where 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals recruited by Al-Qaida.Yet Prince Mohammed has now upended the decades-old understanding. Worse, he’s timed that decision so as to maximize Biden’s humiliation: a month before pivotal congressional elections, and as Washington and its allies are trying to maintain a united front against Russian aggression.If Biden doesn’t respond forcefully, he may embolden the crown prince to take more risks. So far, Biden has promised unspecified “consequences” in response to the Saudi maneuvering. But a growing number of Democrats in Congress, including centrists who hesitated to abandon the partnership despite the kingdom’s atrocious human rights record, are now demanding action.On 10 October, Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who chairs the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, called for an immediate freeze on “all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia”, and promised to block future US weapons sales. Senator Dick Durbin, another centrist and the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, was even harsher, writing on Twitter that the House of Saud “has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation. It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without their alliance”.Even before the ill-fated fist bump, Biden signaled to Prince Mohammed that he would carry out a business-as-usual relationship with the kingdom. In February 2021, weeks after taking office, Biden did follow through on a campaign promise to release a summary report of the US intelligence community’s findings on the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The report concluded that Prince Mohammed had approved the assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. But Biden, worried about harming the US-Saudi partnership, decided not to impose sanctions on the crown prince.By abandoning his promise to hold Khashoggi’s killers accountable, Biden convinced Prince Mohammed that he was too powerful to punish. At the time, Biden aides argued that banning the prince from visiting the US or targeting his personal wealth would accomplish little. But the lack of even symbolic US sanctions or response likely emboldened the prince to overturn the basic premise of the US-Saudi relationship.Since Prince Mohammed rose to power with his father’s ascension to the Saudi throne in 2015, he has presided over a series of destructive policies, including the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen and the kingdom’s campaign to blockade its smaller neighbor, Qatar. But the crown prince keeps failing upward, consolidating more control over Saudi Arabia. And he continues to be wooed by foreign leaders and business titans, thanks to the world’s sustained dependence on oil and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.Prince Mohammed had clearly concluded that he can get away with keeping oil prices high and undermining the US and EU campaign to isolate Russia – and still secure US protection and military assistance because Biden can’t get past the decades-old policy of American support for the House of Saud.This is no longer a case of Biden choosing realpolitik over the stated, but rarely enforced, US ideals of supporting human rights and democracy over autocracy. It’s time for Biden to acknowledge that his supposed realist approach toward Saudi Arabia has failed – and tear up the oil-for-security deal.
Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a journalism professor at New York University. He is also a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now
TopicsForeign policyOpinionSaudi ArabiaMohammed bin SalmanMiddle East and north AfricaJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicscommentReuse this content More

Two Democrat senators have called for a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia unless it reverses a Riyadh-led Opec+ decision to cut oil production. They said the decision to reduce production would help Russia’s war in Ukraine. 
‘The only apparent purpose of this cut in oil supplies is to help the Russians and harm Americans. It was unprovoked and unforced, as an error,’ the Connecticut senator, Richard Blumenthal, said. His statement was echoed by his Democrat colleague from California, Ro Khanna, who said: ‘When Americans are facing a crisis because of Putin, when we’re paying more at the pump, our ally, someone who we have helped for decades, should be trying to help the American people.’
The Biden administration said it was reviewing its ties with the Gulf kingdom. 
Speaking to CNN, however, a Saudi minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said: ‘Saudi Arabia does not politicise oil. We don’t see oil as a weapon. We see oil as our commodity. Our objective is to bring stability to the oil market.’ Riyadh is not partnering with Russia, he added

Democrats issue fresh ultimatum to Saudi Arabia over oil production More

Trump a narcissist and a ‘dick’, ex-ambassador Sondland says in new bookEx-EU envoy Gordon Sondland derides Democrats and Pompeo, and recalls fallout from testifying in Trump’s first impeachment In a new book, the former US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland defends his conduct around Donald Trump’s first impeachment, derides Democrats for their investigation of Trump’s attempt to extract political dirt from Ukraine – and calls his former boss a narcissist and a “dick”.Sondland also takes aim at Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, who is now a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.Confidence Man: The Making of Trump and the Breaking of America review – the vain sadist and his ‘shrink’Read moreSondland criticizes Pompeo for firing him over his impeachment testimony and allegedly reneging on a promise to pay his legal fees. Sondland also hits Pompeo for not inviting Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, to Washington but inviting the Russian foreign minister twice.Sondland, a hotelier, donated $1m to Trump after the 2016 election and became EU ambassador two years later. His memoir, The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World – “pause here to allow 10,000 career diplomats to roll their eyes”, the Washington Post quipped in May – will be published on 25 October. The Guardian obtained a copy.Retelling Trump’s first impeachment, Sondland describes efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Trump’s enemies, including the role of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney.He rejects criticism from the whistleblower, Alexander Vindman, and ex-Trump advisers John Bolton and Fiona Hill, who in her own impeachment testimony famously said Bolton, the national security adviser, mentioned Sondland was helping to “cook up” a “drug deal” regarding Ukraine.In testimony, Sondland described Trump’s attempted quid pro quo: a White House visit for Zelenskiy and the release of military aid in return for investigations of targets including Joe and Hunter Biden.Sondland now insists there was nothing unusual about this, writing “Quid pro quos happen all the time” and quoting – bizarrely – as evidence both the comedian Jerry Seinfeld and “studies that show when married men pitch in and clean the bathroom, they have more sex”.But his testimony earned the ire of Trump loyalists including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who Sondland suspects may have told Pompeo to fire him.As for Pompeo, “I knew that the second I had mentioned the secretary’s name in my testimony, he would be pissed that I had dragged him in. But for me to have testified in any other way would have amounted to a series of false statements. Once I made clear Pompeo’s knowledge of what was going on related to Ukraine, I surmise the secretary … wanted me out.”Discussing his time as ambassador, Sondland says Trump was “essentially right about many things, including how out of whack our relationship with Europe has become”.But he also attributes Trump’s shortcomings as a leader, including an “inability to clearly explain things”, to factors including his narcissism. On that score, Sondland describes reminding Trump in 2016 that “you were kind of a dick to me when we first met”. Trump, he says, said he hadn’t thought Sondland important enough to be nice to.Working for Trump, Sondland says, “was like staying at an all-inclusive resort. You’re thrilled when you first arrive, but things start to go downhill fast. Quality issues start to show. The people who work the place can be rude and not so bright. Attrition is a huge problem. And eventually, you begin to wonder why you agreed to the deal in the first place.”In the vein of tell-alls by bigger Trump players and accounts by Washington reporters, Sondland describes instances of bizarre behavior.Trump is shown baffling a group of German auto executives by complaining that the seats in their cars have become too hard to use.“There’s too many damned buttons and knobs,” Trump said. “… What’s wrong with the old-fashioned grab bar, under the seat? Forward. Back. That’s all you need!”Sondland says the outburst met with “awkward silence”, before Dieter Zetsche, of Daimler, mollified Trump by saying facial recognition technology would soon negate the need for twiddling with buttons, knobs or bars.More seriously, in describing preparation for meeting the president of Romania in August 2019, Sondland describes how Trump dodged briefings.“When I get to the Oval Office,” he writes, “the door is open, country music blasting from inside. Trump, sitting at the Resolute Desk, catches a glimpse of me … and beckons, ‘Get in here and tell me which song you like.’“An aide is … with him, her face like a deer in headlights. ‘He’s choosing which song to use for his walk-on,’ she manages to yell over the noise. He’s vetting the theme music for his next rally. Really. Trump does focus on some details, and this is an important one. Never mind that the Oval Office sounds like a country western bar, and we are supposed to be prepping for a visit with a foreign leader. He skips forward through a couple of tracks.“‘Mr President, [Klaus] Iohannis is showing up any minute. Don’t you want to be brought up to speed?’ I yell, scanning my briefing paper. At this moment, a group of officials and dignitaries are gathered in the Cabinet Room for an advance discussion, waiting for us. DJ Trump gives me little further response, so I walk down the hall to meet the others.”Later, Sondland gave Trump “a few quick tidbits about the president of Romania and how we’re friends with them because we’re both opposed to a natural gas pipeline that Vladimir Putin wants to build from Russia to Eastern Europe”.As the two men waited for Iohannis to arrive, Sondland says, Trump “pull[ed] out a box of Tic Tacs” and “scarf[ed] them down”.Sondland said: “Aren’t you going to share?”“Slightly sheepish, Trump pulls out the white mints and shakes some into my hand. When you call him out on not acting like a normal person, it catches him off guard – and then he kind of likes it. People do it too infrequently.”TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump impeachment (2019)Trump administrationUS politicsPolitics booksRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Who is Roger Stone, the Trump ally in the January 6 panel’s crosshairs?Flamboyant rightwing strategist and self-confessed dirty trickster expected to be a focus of committee’s latest session At its hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, the House January 6 committee is expected to show footage of Roger Stone, shot by Danish film-makers.‘It’s a sham’: fears over Trump loyalists’ ‘election integrity’ driveRead moreAccording to the Washington Post, the clips will show that Stone “predicted violent clashes with leftwing activists and forecast months before the 2020 vote that [Donald Trump] would use armed guards and loyal judges to stay in power”.CNN said footage also showed Stone the day before election day saying: “Fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”So who is Roger Stone?A Republican strategist, consultant and author, he is most often described as a self-confessed political dirty trickster and longtime Trump adviser, given to flamboyance in tailoring and swinging as well as campaign stunts.Now 70, Stone started out as a student volunteer on Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972, “pulling … penny-ante tricks” against Democrats or, in the Nixonian vernacular, “ratfucking” the president’s opponents.Before Nixon’s downfall in 1974, amid the Watergate scandal, Stone worked for the Committee to Re-elect the President, or Creep.After Nixon, Stone – who has a tattoo of the 37th president on his back – worked with Paul Manafort and Charles Black to build a Washington lobbying firm that flourished in the 1980s, often representing clients other firms might have found unsavoury.Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire, was one. Donald Trump was another.Stone advised Trump during his flirtation with a presidential run in 2000. In the presidential election the same year, Stone played a prominent role in stopping a recount in Florida, thereby securing the White House for George W Bush. In the mid-2000s, Stone was involved in the downfall of Eliot Spitzer, a Democratic New York governor who used prostitutes.Stone was back at Trump’s side in 2015, when he finally ran for president. Stone was fired or resigned but remained in Trump’s orbit, an erratic asteroid endangering anyone in his path, during the billionaire’s campaign and time in power.In 2019, Stone was indicted by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Stone was convicted on seven counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, in relation to his links to Trump’s campaign and to WikiLeaks, which released Democratic emails obtained by Russian hackers.In February 2020, prosecutors recommended Stone be sentenced to between seven and nine years in prison. After Trump complained by tweet, the Department of Justice intervened, saying the recommendation was too harsh. Four prosecutors resigned in protest.Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison but never went to jail. In December 2020, in the midst of Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, Trump granted Stone clemency.In Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, Stone denies working with far-right groups including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys around the Capitol attack. But last week, such links came up at the start of the trial of the Oath Keepers leader, Stewart Rhodes, on seditious conspiracy charges.Trump ally Roger Stone: Americans can now choose ‘alternative’ truthsRead moreRandall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at George Washington University, told the Washington Post: “It seems like the prosecution is treating Stone as an un-indicted co-conspirator.”Stone’s decision to allow documentary film-makers to follow him in his efforts to “Stop the Steal” was characteristic – and landed him in characteristic trouble, in the sights of the January 6 committee and the justice department. Summoned to appear before January 6 investigators, Stone repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.Stone has recently teamed up with Michael Flynn, a retired general, ex-national security adviser and leading pro-Trump plotter.In July, Sean Morales-Doyle, a Brennan Center expert on voting rights and elections, told the Guardian Stone and Flynn’s attempts to train Republican canvassers and poll watchers were “a sham, aimed … at undermining public faith in our elections and setting the stage for future attempts to subvert the will of the people”.TopicsRoger StoneUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansprofilesReuse this content More