US Politics

Raid of Jeffrey Clark’s home escalation of inquiry into election overturn effortFederal investigators seized his electronic devices in a pre-dawn search before the fifth public hearing by the Capitol attack panel Federal investigators raided the home of former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark early Wednesday in connection with the department’s sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.The search of Clark’s home in suburban Virginia and the seizure of his electronic devices suggested an escalating inquiry into his involvement in the purported election plot edging ever closer to Donald Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter and one of his associates.Capitol attack panel details Trump’s pressure on DoJ to support fraud claimsRead moreBut it was not immediately clear on Thursday what federal investigators were looking for, or which agencies were involved, though Clark was a key figure in Trump’s failed attempt to pressure the justice department into falsely declaring the election was corrupt.The raid on Clark’s home came a day before the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol convened its fifth public hearing, which focused on Trump’s effort to have the justice department declare the 2020 election “corrupt” and endorse discredited election fraud claims.In a statement, Russ Vought, the former head of the office of management and budget during the Trump administration and now the head of the Center for Renewing America – where Clark now also works – decried the search.“Yesterday more than a dozen DoJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas, and took his electronic devices,” Vought said, adding: “We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country.”The raid came as a federal grand jury in Washington continued to authorize subpoenas against people connected to a separate plot by Trump to apparently send fake slates of electors to Congress to obstruct its certification of Joe Biden’s election win.In recent days, according to sources familiar with the matter, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican party Kelli Ward, and her husband, Michael Ward, who both signed certificates falsely attesting to be the legitimate electors, received subpoenas.The federal grand jury investigation into the so-called fake electors scheme appears to be targeting a number of Trump’s lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, according to a copy of one of the grand jury subpoenas, which was obtained by the Guardian.The role played by Clark in Trump’s plot to oust the leadership of the justice department was among the top focuses of the hearing, with the select committee tracing the timeline of how Clark almost became the top law enforcement official in the county.Clark is a relatively unknown environmental lawyer who headed the justice department’s civil division, which defends the administration in court, among other things. He was introduced to the former president by Republican congressman Scott Perry, the panel said.He became a key figure in Trump’s election reversal efforts when Trump urged Clark to get the justice department leadership to sign on to a letter – referred to as a “Georgia proof of concept” letter – that falsely said the department would probe election fraud claims.The letter advised Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, to convene a special session of his state’s legislature to create a “separate slate of electors” in favor of Trump, in light of “significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election”.The letter was drafted by former Trump White House lawyer Ken Klukowski and Clark, the select committee said at the hearing.Clark conveyed the letter to his superiors, then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who both refused to sign the letter. The aim of the letter was to give otherwise nonsense claims of fraud the imprimatur of justice department legitimacy.Trump attempted on 2 January 2021 to strong-arm Rosen into signing the letter, according to notes of the meeting obtained by the panel, first suggesting he could dismiss Rosen, and then saying he would not fire Rosen as long as he sent the letter.The following day, the former president appeared to have decided to fire Rosen anyway, according to White House call logs obtained by the panel, which, by 4.19pm, had started referring to Clark as “Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Clark” instead of “Mr Jeffrey Clark”.Trump ultimately backed off from his intention to appoint Clark as acting attorney general later that afternoon on 3 January 2021, when Rosen warned him that he, Donoghue and the entire justice department leadership would resign.TopicsUS newsUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackReuse this content More

The January 6 committee has concluded its hearing for the day, with the next sessions expected later in July, when House lawmakers return to Washington from a recess.In his closing remarks, committee’s chair Bennie Thompson outlined what the committee had found thus far and what it expected to show in the future..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Up to this point, we’ve shown the inner workings of what was essentially a political coup and attempt to use the powers of the government, from the local level all the way up, to overturn the results of the election. Send fake electors, just say the election was corrupt. Along the way, we saw threats of violence, we saw what some people were willing to do. In a service of the nation, the constitution? No. In service of Donald Trump.
When the Select Committee continues this series of hearings, we’re going to show how Donald Trump tapped into the threat of violence, how he summoned the mob to Washington, and how after corruption and political pressure failed to keep Donald Trump in office, violence became the last option.The testimony of the justice department officials who gave the bulk of the day’s evidence has concluded, but before they did, Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, told a tale familiar to those who have watched the committee’s hearings closely: he never heard from Trump on the day of the attack.“I spoke to a number of senior White House officials, but not the president,” Rosen said.What Trump was doing during the attack and who he was talking to are both expected to be focuses of later hearings of the committee.The committee has just unveiled evidence of more Republican congressmen requesting pardons from Trump in his final days in office. NEW on PARDONS: Republican congressman Mo Brooks sent an email on 11 January 2021 seeking pardons for “Every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania.”— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
Trump WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Brooks and Gaetz pushed for pardons for every Republican lawmaker who participated in Jan. 6 planning meeting — and Reps. Perry, Biggs, Gohmert asked for pardons. Jordan asked whether White House would pardon members.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
The testimony adds to the list of pardon requests that have emerged as the January 6 committee aired its evidence.Capitol attack pardon revelations could spell doom for Trump and alliesRead moreJeffrey Clark came very close to be the acting attorney general, a position in which he could have used his authority to disrupt the certification of Biden’s election win in several states, according to evidence the committee is airing.On January 3, three days before the attack on the Capitol, the White House had already begun referring to Clark as acting attorney general, according to Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican leading the committee’s questioning today.The committee then turned to exploring a meeting between Trump and the leaders of the justice department that day in the Oval Office, in which Trump repeated specific claims of fraud that had been debunked and expressed his will to see Clark take over the department.Richard Donoghue said he warned of mass resignations to follow if Clark took over the department. “You’re gonna lose your entire department leadership. Every single (assistant attorney general) will walk out. Your entire department of leadership will walk out within hours. And I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know what the United States attorneys are going to do,” Donoghue said. “My guess would be that many of them would have resigned.”Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general in the final weeks of the Trump administration, is now recounting Trump’s attempt to replace him with Jeffrey Clark, who was playing a major roles in his efforts to have states that voted for Biden overturn their results.In a meeting on a Sunday, Rosen said Clark “told me that he would be replacing me,” and had made the atypical request to ask to meet him alone, “because he thought it would be appropriate in light of what was happening to at least offer me, that I couldn’t stay on his his deputy.”“I thought that was preposterous. I told him that was nonsensical,” Rosen said. “There’s no universe where I was going to do that, to stay on and support someone else doing things that were not consistent with what I thought should be done.”However, Clark also said he would turn down Trump’s offer to replace Rosen if the acting attorney general signed the letter disputing the validity of Georgia’s electors for Biden. Richard Donoghue recounted that Rosen made the decisions to begin informing other department officials about the quandary, and almost all the assistant attorney generals said they would resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark.As this hearing has unfolded, the justice department officials testifying have said they investigated many of the claims of fraud in the 2020 election brought forward by Trump and his allies. The decision to look into these claims in the weeks after polls closed may be more significant than it appears at first glance.In video testimony aired earlier in the hearing, William Barr, Trump’s attorney general during the election, said be believes that the department’s ability to debunk the false claims of fraud as Trump was making them were essential to allowing Joe Biden to assume office.“I felt the responsible thing to do was to be… in a position to have a view as to whether or not there was fraud,” Barr told investigators.“I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if the position of the department was, we’re not even looking at this until after Biden’s in office. I’m not sure we would have had a transition at all.”The committee has returned, and is now asking Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, about a request from Trump to seize voting machines.“We had seen nothing improper with regard to the voting machines,” Rosen said he replied, noting that investigators had looked into allegations the machines gave fraudulent results and found nothing wrong. “And so that was not something that was appropriate to do … I don’t think there was legal authority either.”Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is recounting a meeting with Trump, in which he pushed him unsuccessfully to seize voting machines. By the end, “The president again was getting very agitated. And he said, ‘People tell me I should just get rid of both of you. I should just remove you and make a change in the leadership with Jeff Clark, and maybe something will finally get done,’” Donoghue said.Donoghue said he responded: “Mr President, you should have the leadership that you want. But understand the United States justice department functions on facts and evidence, and then those are not going to change. So you can have whatever leadership you want, but the department’s position is not going to change.”The committee is now in recess, but before they finished, Richard Donoghue described his reaction when he first learned of Jeffrey Clark’s proposed letter to the Georgia legislature asking them to convene to declare alternate electoral college voters.“I had to read both the email and the attached letter twice to make sure I really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me I had a hard time getting my head around it initially,” Donoghue said. He responded in writing to Clark’s letter, saying that its allegations were “not based on facts,” and, in his view, “for the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think, would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis. And I wanted to make sure that he understood the gravity of the situation because he didn’t seem to really appreciate it.”Clark himself made a brief appearance in video testimony the committee played before it took its break, responding to questions by asserting his fifth amendment rights and executive privilege.The committee will reconvene in a few minutes.One name that’s coming up a lot in this hearing is Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican congressman who the committee said took part in Trump’s plan to pressure the justice department, and in particular install Jeff Clark at its helm.The committee just showed text messages between Perry and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, which showed the lawmaker encouraging Meadows to work on promoting Clark. Richard Donoghue also detailed a phone call from Perry where the congressman claimed fraud in the results in Pennsylvania from the 2020 election – which the justice department determined unfounded.The committee had sought documents and requested an interview with Perry last year, but the Republican refused to comply. Last month, Perry was among a group of congressmen subpoenaed by the committee.Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented stepRead moreRichard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is outlining his efforts to convince the president that the justice department could not interfere with a state’s election.“States run their elections. We are not quality control for the states,” he recalled explaining to Trump. “The bottom line was, if a state ran their election in such a way that it was defective, that is to the state or Congress to correct, it is not for the justice department to step in.”But Trump wanted something simpler, Donoghue said.“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Donoghue told the committee Trump said after he explained the department’s position. “Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” the president said.Today’s hearing is focusing on the inner workings of the justice department, but as in previous sessions, the committee has tried to make sure the insurrection isn’t far from viewers’ minds.Case in point: lawmakers just aired video from the day of the attack showing marchers chanting “Do your job!” outside the justice department — evidence that Trump’s most ardent supporters were well aware of the president’s attempts to push government lawyers to interfere with Joe Biden’s victory.But as justice department officials tell it, they never believed in Trump’s fraud claims. Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, said Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone described the letter Clark wanted to send for Trump as a “murder-suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it.”The committee’s top Republican Liz Cheney is offering more details about the actions of justice department official Jeffrey Clark, who had his house raided today by federal investigators.According to Cheney, Clark and another justice department lawyer drafted a letter addressed to the Georgia state legislature, which would have said the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia”, and that the legislature should convene and consider approving a new slate of electors. Joe Biden had won Georgia, but Trump made baseless allegations of fraud in the polls, and the new electors would have presumably given him the state’s electoral votes.“In fact, Donald Trump knew this was a lie,” Cheney said. “The Department of Justice had already informed the president of the United States repeatedly that its investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”Cheney said Clark had met with Trump privately and agreed to help him sway these states’ legislatures without telling his bosses at the justice department. But Cheney said Clark’s superiors – who are the witnesses testifying today – refused to sign it. That was when Trump began considering installing Clark at the helm at the justice department – which he never ended up doing. The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has started its fifth hearing, which will focus on Donald Trump’s efforts to get the justice department to go along with his plans to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Testifying in the chamber will be:
Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s term, including during the attack on the Capitol.
Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, who appeared in a video aired at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing threatening to resign if Trump appointed Jeffrey Clark to head the justice department.
Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.
We’re about 10 minutes away from the start of today’s January 6 hearing, which my colleague Lauren Gambino reports will offer new evidence of how Trump pressured the justice department to take part in his plot to overturn the 2020 election:The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection plans to present new evidence on Thursday about Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to pressure the justice department to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost, aides said.After exhausting his legal options and being rebuffed by state and local elections officials, the president turned to the justice department to declare the election corrupt despite no evidence of mass voter fraud, the nine-member panel will seek to show in their fifth and final hearing of the month.Testifying from the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill are Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn electionRead more More

Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claimsFormer attorney general says ‘I am not sure we would have had a transition at all’ if investigation had not immediately taken place Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, thought Trump might have refused to leave office at all had the Department of Justice not immediately investigated and disproved his lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn electionRead more“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” Barr said, in startling video testimony played by the January 6 committee on Thursday.The hearing, the fifth in a series set to extend into July, focused on Trump’s attempts to pressure the justice department to aid his attempt to overturn the election result – an attempt which culminated in the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.In December 2020, Barr publicly rejected Trump’s claim of widespread fraud in the November election, and resigned.He was replaced, as acting attorney general, by Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen testified on Thursday alongside his deputy, Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who led the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel.Questioning led by Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans on the committee, focused on Trump’s pressure on the witnesses to go along with his increasingly outlandish claims of widespread fraud.Before that, the deputy committee chair, the Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, introduced Barr’s remarks.She said: “Millions of Americans have seen the testimony of Attorney General Barr before this committee. At one point in his deposition, [Barr] was asked why he authorised the Department of Justice to investigate fraud in the 2020 election.”Barr, Cheney said, was “asked why not just follow the regular course of action and let the investigations occur much later in time, after 6 January”, the day electoral college results were certified at the Capitol.Barr said: “I felt the responsible thing to do was to be in a position to have a view as to whether or not there was fraud. Frankly, the fact I put myself into the position that I could say we had looked at this and didn’t think there was fraud was really important to moving things forward.“I shudder to think what the situation would have been, if the position of the department was, ‘We’re not looking at this until after Biden is in office.’“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all.”In a previous hearing Barr was shown to have described Trump’s claims about electoral fraud as “bullshit”.He has also said he will still vote for Trump if Trump runs for the White House again.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Capitol attack panel details Trump’s pressure on DoJ to support fraud claimsEx-president told officials to declare election ‘corrupt’ and ‘leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen’ Donald Trump relentlessly pressured top officials at the justice department to pursue groundless claims of voter fraud in an extraordinary but ultimately unsuccessful effort to cling to power, according to testimony the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection heard on Thursday.Three former justice department officials who served during Trump’s final weeks in office, told the committee that the then-president was “adamant” that the election was stolen despite begin told repeatedly that none of the allegations raised about the vote count were credible.Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claimsRead moreOpening the hearing, the panel’s chair, congressman Bennie Thompson, said the hearing would show that the former president sought to “misuse the justice department as part of his plan to hold on to power”.“Donald Trump didn’t just want the justice department to investigate,” Thompson said. “He wanted the justice department to help legitimate his lies, to basically call the election corrupt.”After exhausting his legal options and being rebuffed by state and local elections officials, the panel said a desperate Trump turned to the justice department to declare the election corrupt despite no evidence of mass voter fraud, the nine-member panel will seek to show in their fifth and final hearing of the month.Testifying from the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill are Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.In one of the near-daily conversations Trump had with the agency’s leader, Rosen told the president that the Department of Justice “can’t and won’t snap his fingers and change the outcome of an election”.“I don’t expect you to do that,” Trump snapped back, according to Donoghue, whose handwritten notes of the exchange were displayed on a large screen during the hearing. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”At the center of Thursday’s hearing was Jeff Clark, a lower-level official at the department who embraced Trump’s myth of a stolen election. At the urging of Republican congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Trump contemplated replacing Rosen with Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade.“What was his only qualification?” congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican and member of the committee who led the questioning, asked rhetorically. “He would do whatever the president wanted him to do, including overthrowing a free and fair democratic election.”The panel voted unanimously to hold Clark in contempt of Congress after he failed to cooperate with its investigation. He later appeared before the committee but he repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.Just before the hearing began, it was revealed that federal investigators searched Clark’s home earlier this week, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.In new testimony from the committee’s taped deposition with Bill Barr, the former attorney general said he thought it was important for the department to investigate – and ultimately disprove – Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Had it not, Barr said he shuddered to think what might have happened. “I’m not sure we would have had a transition at all.”In previous clips played by the committee, Barr said he told Trump in no uncertain terms that his claims of election fraud were “bullshit”. At one point during his deposition, Barr burst into laughter as he recounted how absurd some of the theories were, including one purportedly orchestrated by Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan leader who died in 2013.The committee is building the case that Trump was at the heart of the sprawling conspiracy that led to the violence on January 6 – a lie that has only metastasized in the months since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol with pipes, bear spray and Confederate flags. Nine people died in the assault and its aftermath.The public hearings are the culmination of a yearlong investigation into the violence on January 6 and the events that led to it. The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 140,000 documents. But it continues to amass new evidence.Thompson told reporters this week that the committee had received “a lot of information”, including documentary footage of Trump’s final months in office. It also plans to speak with Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas who was in close contact with Trump’s chief of staff in the days leading up to the Capitol attack.The committee said it would resume public hearings in July, with at least two more sessions scheduled. Those hearings are expected to detail how extremist groups like the Proud Boys planned the attack on Congress and how Trump failed to act to stop the violence once it erupted on 6 January.“These efforts were not some minor or ad hoc enterprise concocted overnight,” said congresswoman Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice-chair. “Each required planning and coordination. All of them were overseen by President Trump.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law on June 23, 2022 that had imposed strict limits on carrying a handgun in public. It was a much anticipated decision, as the court continues to issue opinions ahead of wrapping its term in the next week or two.

But people were being kept waiting about when exactly the court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which could overturn Roe v. Wade, will be issued.

The court announces what days it will release rulings and is only scheduled to announce more on June 24. No one outside the court knows which major rulings will be published when – or if the court could decide to release more opinions into early July.

There’s a reason the court remains so secretive and why its abortion ruling appears likely to be one of the last before the court lets out for the summer. We asked constitutional scholar and Supreme Court expert Stefanie Lindquist to explain what’s behind the court keeping a tight lid on its work.

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas talks with his legal clerks in 2002.
Dave Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Does research back up this idea that the court saves the most high-profile rulings for last?

There has been very careful research done by very distinguished scholars and judges who tested the proposition that the court’s most important decisions are handed down late in the term. They measured importance based upon the extent to which the New York Times covered that case. And their research confirmed that it is absolutely true that the most highly important decisions the court renders – ones that overturn precedent, for example – aren’t announced until the end of the term.

One reason may be because the court is being particularly careful about the content of those decisions. And because they might have involved more negotiations over the content of the opinion itself, or involved the extra work of writing dissents and concurrences.

Is it clear why they release these major decisions at the end of the term?

There’s been some speculation they want to wait to issue these opinions right before they leave town. Because they’re social creatures as all of us are, some speculate that they don’t want to have to discuss these cases in their social circles. But I think it’s most likely that it is a combination of workload and because these cases are more time intensive. The justices also understand the public impact these cases can have. But, ultimately, it’s not clear exactly why they do it.

The court is known for its secrecy. What’s the point of the court being so tight-lipped about its decisions?

The court is an institution that has, over time, very carefully husbanded its legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia required his clerks to sign an agreement respecting the privacy of the court’s deliberations. He told them that if they violated this secrecy, he would do everything he could to undermine their future careers.

The court is very careful about ensuring that once it issues an opinion, it is the final opinion. Revealing any internal and potentially divisive dynamics related to the court’s decision-making process could undermine the force and effect of a Supreme Court decision.

Police stood guard outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in June as protestors marched past his home.
Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Why do they not even say when a specific decision will be announced?

I think it’s probably difficult for them to predict the exact timing of decisions, frankly. Remember, the court’s final opinions are the result of a negotiation among the individual justices. And until they’re ready, they can’t necessarily say, “This is the day we’re going to sign off,” especially at the end of the term when many of these very important decisions are announced.

There may be negotiations and proofreading up to the very last minute. The justices no doubt appreciate that these highly important decisions are going to end up in law school textbooks. They’re going to be carefully read by journalists. And the justices are a highly professional group of individuals.

So they’re concerned about every opinion they issue. But with these opinions they issue at the end of the term, that tend to be the most important decisions they render – they’re even more concerned about being precise in every sentence they write More

Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the futureExperts warn cutting the 18 cents will take a toll on highway upkeep and cause prices to rise further when the holiday ends America’s hard-pressed drivers may be about to receive a holiday. On Wednesday Joe Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal tax on gas and diesel until September as the country struggles with soaraway costs at the pump. But experts warned the tax holiday is unlikely to have a major impact on prices and will probably further harm the US’s already battered roads and bridges. If the tax cut even gets passed.Biden’s ‘cursed presidency’: gas prices are latest headache as midterms loomRead moreBlaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the surge in gas prices Biden proposed cutting the 18-cents-a-gallon federal taxes on fuel until September and called on states to cut their gas taxes too. “Together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” said Biden.The tax cut’s first obstacle may be its last. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, called the plan an “ineffective stunt” and other critics in his own party may join Republicans in blocking any cut.But with prices still soaring and midterm elections looming the administration is increasingly looking for ways to spare the public from prices at the pump, currently averaging at just under $5 a gallon.The non-partisan Tax Foundation called the plan a “uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices”. Pointing out that the money from the tax is the primary funding source for highway construction and its suspension could cost $10bn in funding.“Anything that could help the price at the pump is good, but it’ll come at a significant cost to the federal government that supposedly uses that money for the highway fund to maintain highways,” said Mark Finley, fellow in energy and global oil at the center for energy studies at Rice University.US energy economists also warn that dropping taxes on gasoline – a similar program has been suggested in the UK and other countries – does not address the fundamental issues of high demand.In a February report, the committee for a responsible federal budget found a federal gas tax holiday could “further increase demand for gasoline and other goods and services at a time when the economy has little capacity to absorb it”.“Gas prices are high because supply and demand are tight in the US and around the world both for oil and refined products. The prices are a signal that producers should produce more and consumers should consume less. You don’t fix the problem and you may exacerbate it, if you try to hide those signals,” said Finley.Moreover, prices may surge when the tax is lifted, according to a study released from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, Maryland introduced a month-long gas tax holiday. The study found that prices rose when it expired and the tax may have cost the state $100m.Other states have tried similar measures. New York suspended its 16-cents-a-gallon tax this month for the rest of the year. Others, including Georgia, Florida and Connecticut, are cutting the tax but for shorter periods. California may send $400 to every registered vehicle owner.The debate over energy prices threatens to become one of the most contentious of the election season. This week, Exxon Mobil said global oil markets may remain tight for another three to five years, largely because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began. Biden has responded to rising prices at the pump – and a decline in his approval rating – by lobbying Opec+ countries, which include Russia, to accelerate production increases.Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia next month to ask the kingdom to turn on the spigots. But studies indicate that the Saudis are themselves at the limits of current capacity. The venture comes with a political cost, undercutting the administration’s commitment to renewable energy and an election pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Other measures that the administration has undertaken to reduce energy costs, including releasing millions of barrels of crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and greater ethanol blending, have not turned the tide on rising prices. According to Ed Hirs at the University of Houston’s department of economics, Biden’s actions, including a stern letter to refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel, will not keep the average price at the pump from reaching $6 by September.The debate over energy has in a sense been misframed, said Hirs. “We don’t see lines at the pump, there is no shortage of oil, all we see is a higher price and that’s in essence because Opec wants a higher price,” Hirs says.The message to the US consumer is equally blunt. After 2008, when oil hit $147 a barrel, US automakers had to accept government bailouts as the consumers jumped away from gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks.“If the war in Ukraine continues we could easily see the same thing by this time next year,” Hirs predicted. “We have to think of this in a different way. A lot of folks in the west think we’re entitled to gasoline and diesel, in the same way we’re entitled to iPhones. But we haven’t operated the economy like that.”Put plainly, there’s little the administration can do. “We’ve reached a point where supplies of gasoline, diesel and crude oil are below our five-year averages, so it appears we’ve been exporting as much as we can,” said Hirs. “As long as the conflict, really between the US and Russia, persists, the EU nations will be additional buyers. So the fellow in London looking to fill his car, and the woman in France, are competing with someone on I-95.”TopicsOilUS politicsBiden administrationanalysisReuse this content More

Feds seek delay in Proud Boys conspiracy case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiryThe two cases had managed to steer clear of each other as the justice department and House panel pursued the same ground The US justice department’s criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack collided with the parallel congressional investigation, causing federal prosecutors to seek a delay in proceedings in the seditious conspiracy case against the far-right Proud Boys group.The two January 6 inquiries had largely managed to steer clear of each other even as both the justice department and a House select committee pursued the same ground. But it all came to head on Wednesday.At a hearing in federal court in Washington, federal prosecutors and defendants in justice department’s seditious conspiracy case asked a federal judge to delay the August trial date of former Proud Boys national chairman Henry Tarrio, AKA Enrique Tarrio and other top members of the far-right group.January 6 panel to focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on justice departmentRead more“It is reasonably foreseeable that information relevant to the defendants’ guilt (or innocence) could soon be released,” assistant US attorney Erik Kenerson wrote on Tuesday. “Inability to prepare their respective cases … is potentially prejudicial – to all parties.”The request was granted “reluctantly” by US district judge Timothy Kelly, who said the trial will now start in December, agreeing that the select committee’s report and witness transcripts that are slated to be made public in September could upend preparations.The justice department has run into the issue that because it is conducting a criminal investigation, its federal prosecutors are bound by strict rules requiring high standards of proof before they start issuing subpoenas and collecting evidence.By contrast, the select committee, in conducting a congressional investigation examining the circumstances surrounding the Capitol attack, can issue subpoenas for documents and testimony whenever and however it likes, given the approval of a majority of its members.That has meant the panel has amassed more than 1,000 transcripts of closed-door depositions conducted with key witnesses related to the January 6 inquiries, some of which the justice department believes are relevant to its cases but the panel had declined to share.In a letter last week, Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, and assistant attorneys general Kenneth Polite and Matthew Olsen complained their inability to access transcripts was hampering criminal investigations, including in the Proud Boys case.“The select committee’s failure to grant the department access to these transcripts complicates the department’s ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” they wrote in the letter.The select committee relented and suggested it would not even wait until September but start making transcripts public as early as July. But lawyers for the Proud Boys took issue with both dates, saying the contents of the transcripts could bias a jury ahead of trial.Not all of the defendants sought a delay. Tarrio opposed the request because “an impartial jury will never be achieved in Washington DC whether the trial is in August, December, or next year”. Ethan Nordean, another prominent Proud Boys figure, opposed the request unless he was freed from pre-trial detention.The potential for the transcripts to influence a jury pool has been a recurring complaint for the Proud Boys lawyers, who argue the January 6 hearings – which started three days after Tarrio and others were charged with seditious conspiracy – will irreparably taint a jury.Federal prosecutors have pushed back, contending that people in Washington were no more likely to have seen the hearings than people in New York or Miami. Still, the government agreed for the need for breathing space between the trial and transcripts being made public.The justice department, meanwhile, has its own concerns with the transcripts’ release and would seemingly prefer to get the transcripts in private to compare what witnesses have told the select committee and what they have secretly told a grand jury.At least two members of the Proud Boys have testified before the select committee in closed-door depositions: Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes, and Jeremy Bertino, who has been mentioned in court filings but is currently not charged.Also on Wednesday, the justice department issued new subpoenas to at least three people connected to the Trump campaign’s potentially illegal plan to send fraudulent election certificates to Congress as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.The confirmed recipients of the grand jury subpoenas were Brad Carver, a Georgia Republican Party official who was a Trump elector, Thomas Lane, a Trump campaign official in Arizona and New Mexico, and Sean Flynn, a Trump campaign aide in Michigan, the New York Times reported.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsThe far rightHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the January 6 select committee in the House, said on Wednesday that the final set of hearings into the Capitol attack will take place in mid-July.The panel will conduct its fifth hearing – examining Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on top justice department officials to overturn the 2020 election results – as scheduled on Thursday, the chairman said.But Thompson said the final few hearings, which are expected to focus on the militia groups that stormed the Capitol and Trump’s lack of action to call off the rioters, will be pushed back until after the July recess.The chairman said the reason for the delay was because of new evidence that has arisen since the hearing started, including leads on its tip line, more records obtained from the National Archives, as well as video footage. The final set of hearings were originally on a collision course with a number of major supreme court decisions, including on abortion rights, that would probably have eclipsed the hearings if they happened simultaneously.The House is currently scheduled to leave Washington, DC for its next recess on 24 June and return on 12 July2. The timetable suggests that hearings would probably resume after that date.Thanks for reading our US politics blog today and we welcome you to strap back in on Thursday morning for a white-knuckle day – US Supreme Court decisions to be issued from 10am ET and the House January 6 committee’s fifth hearing at 1pm ET.Here are today’s highlights.
Senate majority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer wants the chamber to approve the gun control compromise introduced on Tuesday by “the end of the week”.
Joe Biden detailed two proposals to lower gas prices across the US: suspending the $0.18 per-gallon federal gas tax for 90 days and calling for state government to suspend their own gas taxes “or find other ways to deliver some relief” to consumers on prices at the pump.
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the January 6 select committee in the House, said that the final set of hearings into the Capitol attack will take place in mid-July.
Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives and a key witness at yesterday’s House January 6 committee hearing, said he could vote for Donald Trump again despite testifying to his having to flatly refuse pressure from Trump’s team to disrupt or overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory in Arizona.
Andrew Gillum, the 2018 Democratic nominee for Florida governor, is facing 21 federal charges related to a scheme to seek donations and funnel a portion of them back to him through third parties, the US attorney’s office announced today, the Associated Press writes.Gillum, 42, and co-defendant Janet Lettman-Hicks, 53, face 19 counts of wire fraud. Gillum is also charged with making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).The US attorney’s office said the pair “conspired to commit wire fraud, by unlawfully soliciting and obtaining funds from various entities and individuals through false and fraudulent promises and representations that the funds would be used for a legitimate purpose.”Lettman-Hicks then used her company to fraudulently give money to Gillum disguised as payroll payments, the office said in a press release.Gillum issued a strong statement, via his lawyers..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Make no mistake that this case is not legal, it is political. Throughout my career I have always stood up for the people of Florida and have spoken truth to power. There’s been a target on my back ever since I was the mayor of Tallahassee. They found nothing then, and I have full confidence that my legal team will prove my innocence now,” he said. Gillum met with undercover FBI agents posing as developers while he was mayor and during his campaign for governor. His associates sought donations from the agents, and suggested ways to provide money without listing them as political contributions, including paying for a fundraising dinner, according to the indictment.The agents were asked to contribute $100,000 to Gillum’s campaign and said the money could be given to a private company in order to keep the agents’ names out of campaign finance documents.The agents said they would want favorable consideration on development projects and were told that wouldn’t be a problem, according to the indictment.Gillum lost to Republican governor Ron DeSantis in a race that required a recount.The former Tallahassee mayor had won a crowded Democratic primary against better funded candidates with 34.4% of the vote, stunning political observers. The charismatic politician won over the hearts of hardcore Democratic activists and ran a strong grassroots campaign, being seen as a rising star.In March 2020, Gillum was found intoxicated and unconscious in a hotel room with two men, including one who works as a male escort. Two days later he entered a rehabilitation center, and later did a television interview in which he said he’s bisexual.It’s not often that you find a poll that calls into question Donald Trump’s position as the most popular politician in the country among Republicans. Since his ascent through the ranks of the 2016 GOP primary crowd, the opposition he has faced from other Republicans during his time in the White House and after has proved to be either short-lived, or manageable.But now the University of New Hampshire Survey Center has released a poll showing Trump in a statistical tie with Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the swing state’s 2024 Republican primary. And it also shows DeSantis faring better against Biden in a hypothetical match-up than Trump, and notes “support for DeSantis has more than doubled since October”. “Trump slipping in pre-primary polls is part of a typical pattern,” the Survey Center’s director Andrew Smith said. While the losing candidate in a party’s previous election enjoys the spotlight for a while, “As the primary gets closer, new candidates emerge and attract more media attention, and therefore more voter attention, than the losing candidate from the previous election.”If the 2024 election were held today, the survey said Biden holds “an almost identical lead” over Trump as in the state’s 2020 race: 50 percent would vote for Biden, and 43 percent would vote for Trump.But when matched up against DeSantis, it would basically be a tie, the survey said. The Florida governor would win 47 percent of the vote, while Biden would end up with 46 percent, proof, perhaps, that DeSantis’s efforts to become a national figure for Republicans are paying off.Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer wants the chamber to approve the gun control compromise introduced on Tuesday by “the end of the week”. “After 64 senators voted to getting on the bill, senate’s now on the brink of passing the first significant gun safety bill in decades,” Schumer said today, speaking at a press conference of the Democratic leadership in the chamber. “It’s my intention to make sure this Senate bill passes before the end of the week. The American people have waited long enough.”The compromise negotiated between the two parties won the vote of every Democrat and 14 Republicans yesterday, which is enough support to overcome filibusters by lawmakers opposed to the compromise. The bill would tighten gun access and fund mental health care across the country in response to the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, though it isn’t as stringent as some Democrats would like.US Senators announce gun violence bill with bipartisan supportRead moreAnother Democrat has come out against Biden’s proposal to cut the federal gas tax, and this time it’s the head of the House transportation committee.Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio said Biden’s proposal would deliver “only miniscule relief” while taking revenue away from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and mass transit improvements nationwide:.@RepPeterDeFazio says the gas tax holiday “would at best achieve only miniscule relief while blowing a $10 billion dollar hole in the Highway Trust Fund.” pic.twitter.com/uorR26gcXM— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) June 22, 2022
Biden did address the concerns about the Highway Trust Fund in his speech announcing the tax cut proposal, saying, “With tax revenues up this year and our deficit down over $1.6 trillion this year alone, we’ll still be able to fix our highways and bring down the prices of gas. We can do both at the same time.”Speaking at the White House, Biden has detailed his two proposals to lower gas prices across the United States.He called for suspending the $0.18 per-gallon federal gas tax for 90 days, and channel that savings to lowering costs overall. “We can bring down the price of gas and give families just a little bit of relief. I call on the companies to pass this along, every penny of this 18 cents reduction to the consumers,” Biden said. However, as this blog reported earlier today, the proposal doesn’t have a lot of support in Congress.The president then called for state government to suspend their own gas taxes “or find other ways to deliver some relief.” Because of “our historic economic recovery” states are in a “strong position” to cut these taxes, Biden said, pointing to Connecticut and New York’s decision to temporarily suspend their taxes, among other states. These policies are, of course, are up to the state governors and lawmakers to implement.He again tried to focus Americans’ wrath over expensive gas towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the higher prices are the cost of “defending freedom.” “We could have turned a blind eye to Putin’s murderous ways; the price of gas wouldn’t have spiked the way it has. I believe that would have been wrong… I believe then and I believe now, the free world had no choice,” Biden said.“Together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” Biden said. “I’m doing my part. I want the Congress the states and industry to do their part as well.”High gas prices are part of an overall spike in inflation across the United States, and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was in the Capitol today, testifying about how the central bank will use its control of interest rates to fight the price hikes. Dominic Rushe has this report: The Federal Reserve will keep raising rates until it sees “compelling evidence” that inflation is coming down, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, told Congress on Wednesday.The US is wrestling with rates of inflation unseen in 40 years and Powell warned that “further surprises could be in store”.“Over coming months, we will be looking for compelling evidence that inflation is moving down,” Powell said. “We have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take to restore price stability.”Last week the Fed raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage-points – the largest hike since 1994. Powell and other Fed officials have signaled that further outsized increases are in the works as they try to drive inflation down to their 2% target from the current annual rate of 8.6%.Fed chief vows to keep raising rates until ‘compelling evidence’ of falling inflationRead moreBiden hasn’t even detailed his proposed three-month pause on the federal gasoline tax, which he is expected to do at a 2pm address, but it is already running into opposition in the Senate.Congress would have to approve the president’s proposal intended to deal with the high prices Americans are facing at the pump, but neither Democrats nor Republicans in the Capitol seem to have much time for it.Democratic senator Joe Manchin, who has acted as a spoiler to Biden’s agenda in the past, says he is opposed:NEW: Democrat Joe Manchin signals he won’t support Biden’s call for a gas tax holidayHe told he has several concerns.”I’m not a yes right now, that’s for sure,” Manchin said, just hours before Biden was set to speak Wednesday afternoon.On @ABC – https://t.co/G5YJGRljA2— Rachel Scott (@rachelvscott) June 22, 2022
Nor does it appear the president can expect much support across the aisle:Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) deems the Biden administration calling for a three-month gas tax suspension “gimmicks”:“They have made it impossible to drill … They are hostile to the industry because they want everyone driving electric cars and riding buses.” pic.twitter.com/O87LZKU9fI— The Recount (@therecount) June 22, 2022
Opposition from top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell is always a bad sign:McConnell on gas tax holiday: “This ineffective Administration’s big new idea is a silly proposal that senior members of their own party have already shot down in advance.”— Doug Andres (@DougAndres) June 22, 2022
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the January 6 select committee in the House, said on Wednesday that the final set of hearings into the Capitol attack will take place in mid-July.The panel will conduct its fifth hearing – examining Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on top justice department officials to overturn the 2020 election results – as scheduled on Thursday, the chairman said.But Thompson said the final few hearings, which are expected to focus on the militia groups that stormed the Capitol and Trump’s lack of action to call off the rioters, will be pushed back until after the July recess.The chairman said the reason for the delay was because of new evidence that has arisen since the hearing started, including leads on its tip line, more records obtained from the National Archives, as well as video footage. The final set of hearings were originally on a collision course with a number of major supreme court decisions, including on abortion rights, that would probably have eclipsed the hearings if they happened simultaneously.The House is currently scheduled to leave Washington, DC for its next recess on 24 June and return on 12 July2. The timetable suggests that hearings would probably resume after that date.Guardian US columnist Robert Reich has been watching the January 6 committee hearings, and shares his thoughts on what they mean for the Republican party:We tragically fool ourselves if we believe that the televised hearings of the January 6 committee will change the Republican party or end Donald Trump’s attempted coup.The Republican party is becoming ever more divorced from reality, and Trump’s attempted coup continues unabated.The first four hearings of the committee have demolished the myths of voter fraud repeated incessantly by Trump.Yet the Republican response to those hearings has ranged from indifference to hostility. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, tweeted that the members of the committee “will not stop lying about their political opponents,” and called the committee “despicable.”On Friday, speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Nashville, Trump repeated his big lie – as if the hearings never happened.The lie is now so deeply entrenched in the Republican party that it has become a central tenet of Republican dogma.It is now the vehicle by which Republican candidates signal their fealty both to Trump and to a broad range of grievances (some imaginary, some derived from the so-called “culture wars”) that now constitute the Republican brand.So far, at least 108 Republican candidates who embrace the big lie have won their nominations or advanced to runoffs, and there is no sign that the hearings have reduced the intensity of their demagoguery.Republican voters have chosen eight big liars for the US Senate, 86 for the House, five for governor, four for state attorney general and one for secretary of state.These big lie candidates feel no pressure to respond to the findings of the committee because their districts or states already lean Republican, and most voters in them have dismissed or aren’t paying attention to the committee hearings.The January 6 hearings are damning. But Republicans don’t care | Robert ReichRead moreThe Democrat Bee Nguyen easily won her primary runoff in Georgia last night, and will now face off against Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who has attracted praise for his refusal to endorse Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.Raffensperger was among witnesses who testified at the January 6 committee hearing on Tuesday, about Trump and his allies’ pressure campaign on state officials. Raffensperger explained how Trump leaned on him to “find” enough votes to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, but he refused to do so. As a result, he and his family members were subjected to violent threats from some of Trump’s supporters.Nguyen, however, wants to dispel any notion that Raffensperger is a moderate just because he stood up to Trump. “The reality is Brad Raffensperger is a conservative Republican with a long track record of undermining our voting rights,” Nguyen said on a Wednesday press call.Nguyen, who currently serves in the Georgia house, noted that Raffensperger endorsed SB 202, the 2021 state law that imposed sweeping new restrictions on voting access.“That is not the pro-democracy secretary of state that Georgians deserve,” Nguyen said.Two Democratic senators, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jon Tester of Montana, have released a very strange video about their attempts to tackle “big ag consolidation”.In the phone-shot video, the senators repeatedly tackle each other around the Capitol. Chided by an aide, that “We’ve been through this before, you have to stop tackling each other”, Booker says: “All right. Then we’ll just tackle big ag consolidation.”Tester says: “Big ag consolidation is killing rural America. We need to get to work and help the cow-calf guys and the feeders and the consumers at the meat counter too. That’s why we introduced a couple bills, Booker. We need to get these bills done.”Booker says: “We’re gonna get them done, man. I appreciate you, you’re a good guy.”He throws a comedy elbow. Tester throws one back, and giggles. To cod-ragtime piano, the video ends with more tackles and a message: “Only 4 packers control 82% of the US beef market. Just 4 traders control at least 75% of the global grain market. It’s time to tackle big agricultural consolidation. Pass the Food & Agribusiness Merger Moratorium & Antitrust Review Act.”Tester’s last hit on Booker, from behind, is a big one. “Sorry,” he says.Consolidation in the agriculture industry is costing consumers and producers, so @SenBooker and I are teaming up to *tackle* it.pic.twitter.com/Ty6tSsXjvb— Senator Jon Tester (@SenatorTester) June 22, 2022
Booker knows how to hit and be hit, as it happens, being not just a former candidate for the presidential nomination, in 2020, but also once a high school wide receiver, tight end and safety who was recruited to play football at Stanford.Tester has the size to deal out some big hits but gripping his opponent might be a problem, given he lost three fingers to a meat grinder when he was only nine.Finally, the Guardian would like to observe that on the rugby field, which as the world knows is superior to the football gridiron, none of the “tackles” in Booker and Tester’s video would qualify for anything other than a yellow card, given how neither senator even remotely attempts to wrap his arms around the other and thereby bring him down with any sort of control.Booker and Tester may therefore wish to contact a fellow Democratic senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, for instruction. He played at Williams College, you see, confirming to the Guardian last month: “Although I wasn’t very good, I loved the sport and made lifelong friends.”With the supreme court taking the day off from releasing decisions and no hearings scheduled by the January 6 committee, much of the action today has been elsewhere in Congress, where lawmakers are weighing gun control legislation and president Joe Biden’s apparently imminent call for a gas tax holiday.Here’s what’s happened today thus far:
The supreme court has added Friday as an opinion issuance day. It was only scheduled to issue opinions on Thursday, and the extra day gives them the opportunity make public long-anticipated decisions on abortion rights, gun control and other contentious issues.
Rusty Bowers, an Arizona lawmaker who was one of the main witnesses at yesterday’s January 6 hearing, said he would likely support Trump again.
Biden is expected to propose a temporary holiday to the federal gas tax and will make remarks about the idea at 2 pm eastern time.
The senate has opened debate on a gun control compromise that appears to have enough support to pass with votes from both Republicans and Democrats. More