US Politics

Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public? The first of eight congressional hearings will start on Thursday but emulating the impact of 1973’s Watergate sessions will be hard in today’s fractured media and political environmentOn Thursday the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will open the first of eight hearings, marking the turning point when “one of the single most important congressional investigations in history”, as the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney billed it, will finally go public.It will be the culmination of almost a year of intensive activity that, aside from a succession of leaks, has largely been conducted in private. More than 1,000 people have been called for depositions and interviews to cast light on the events of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in answer to Donald Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to prevent Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelRead moreThe committee has collected 125,000 documents, pursued almost 500 leads through its confidential tip line. It has examined text messages between Trump’s closest advisers and family members discussing how to keep the defeated president in power; reviewed memos from conservative lawyers laying out a roadmap to an electoral coup; and listened to recorded conversations in which top Republicans revealed their true feelings about Trump’s actions “inciting people” to attack the heart of US democracy.Now the nine-member committee, Cheney included, have a different – and arguably more difficult – job to do. They must let the American people into their deliberations, share with them key facts and exhibits, grill witnesses in front of them, and through it all begin to build a compelling narrative of how ferociously Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election – and how close he came to succeeding.“It’s important that we tell the American public, to the best we are able, exactly what happened,” said Zoe Lofgren, a congresswoman from California who is among the seven Democratic members of the committee. “The public need to understand the stakes for our system of government, and we need to devise potential changes in legislation or procedures to protect ourselves in future.”In an interview with the Guardian, Lofgren was hesitant to get into details of the investigation. But asked whether she has been surprised by the breadth and depth of the plot to overturn the 2020 election and the extent to which it was organized, she replied: “The short answer is yes.”Lofgren brings to Thursday’s opening session her deep personal understanding of the dynamic role played by congressional hearings in recent American history. She has had a ringside seat, initially as a staff observer and then as an elected participant, in many of the most significant hearings stretching back to Watergate.At the time of the Watergate hearings in May 1973, when she was still a young law student, Lofgren worked as an intern for Don Edwards, a Democrat on the judiciary committee. She sees similarities between today’s January 6 investigation and the way Nixon’s cover-up of the Watergate break-in was teased out by Congress, starting with inquiries behind closed doors and then bursting out into explosive televised Senate proceedings.“Much of what the judiciary committee did in Watergate – like January 6 – was behind closed doors,” Lofgren said. “I remember various Nixon functionaries being deposed in the committee back rooms.”Once sufficient intelligence was amassed, it was time to let the public in. “Ultimately, you have to let people know what you have found.”The Watergate hearings became a national obsession, with millions of Americans tuning in to ABC, CBS or NBC which scrapped normal scheduling to broadcast the deliberations live. The New York Times called them “the biggest daytime spectacular in years”.There was so much viewer demand that the networks ran replays at night. It was worth it, to experience such spine-tingling moments as the former White House counsel John Dean being asked: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”, or to be present when another assistant, Alexander Butterfield, revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes.Lofgren does not expect the January 6 hearings to grip the nation to the all-encompassing extent that Watergate did. Times have changed, not least the media.“During Watergate there were three TV channels and that’s how everybody got their news – if Walter Cronkite said it was true, it must be true, right?” Lofgren said. “Today people are getting their information from a multiplicity of sources, and we need to deal with that and make sure we are finding people where they are.”It’s not just how media is consumed that has changed, it’s also how media itself approaches public hearings. During Watergate, TV anchors responded to Nixon’s jibes that they were peddlers of “elitist gossip” – a foreshadow of Trump’s “fake news” – by keeping their commentary to a bare minimum.In today’s universe, by contrast, the January 6 hearings are likely to be subjected to heavy spin that will leave individual Americans with drastically different impressions according to which media bubble they are in.Kathryn Cramer Brownell, associate professor of history at Purdue University, has studied the measured way television handled the Watergate hearings. She said it stands starkly apart from, say, how Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House judiciary committee on his Russia investigation was transmitted to the American people in 2019.“Fox News tried to spin the information as it was coming out of the Mueller proceedings, so people were receiving the information as it was filtered through that instant spin. That can change their understanding,” she said.Brownell has highlighted how the advent of the TV age elevated congressional hearings to another level. Before television, hearings such as those into the Titanic disaster in 1912 or the 1923 Teapot Dome scandal could still command the nation’s attention, but it was the small screen that supercharged them into major political events.By being beamed into millions of Americans’ living rooms, they had the power to turn individual Congress members into superstars. Ironically the beneficiaries included Nixon who came to prominence in the 1948 Red Scare investigation against Alger Hiss; he was followed soon after by Estes Kefauver in the 1950 investigation against organized crime.Oliver North became a bogey figure for progressives and a darling of the right after his appearance in the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.Hearings also have the reverse power to tear down politicians who go too far, as the Republican senator Joe McCarthy discovered to his cost in his 1954 televised hearings into alleged communist infiltration of the US army. McCarthy’s reign of terror was abruptly brought to a close when the army’s lawyer Joseph Welch challenged him with the now legendary refrain: “Have you no sense of decency?”In the end, congressional hearings are likely only to be as compelling as the matter they are addressing – whether anti-communism, organized crime or presidential misconduct. That should play to the January 6 committee’s advantage: it would be hard to imagine more essential subject material than an assault on democracy itself.“If we believe in the rule of law and democratic norms, then we have to make this effort,” said Jeannie Rhee, a partner in the law firm Paul, Weiss who frequently represents witnesses in congressional hearings. “What we do in this moment, how we proceed – that is imperative.”Rhee led the team investigating Russian cyber and social media interference in the 2016 presidential election within the Mueller investigation. She now represents the attorney general of Washington DC in the prosecution of far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their part in the January 6 insurrection.As an immigrant, Rhee said, for her, the upcoming hearings are deeply personal. Her father was a student protester in the 1960s fighting for democratic reforms in South Korea, and it was America’s free and fair elections and peaceful transition of presidential power that led him to relocate their family to the US.“I came to the US with my parents in 1977 and it was my father’s greatest dream to be able to stay here. I remember my mother dressing me up in my Sunday church clothes to pay respects to the nation’s Capitol. I live here now, and my father has passed away. I think about him often in relation to what is unfolding, and whether this is the country he knew.”Rhee sees the challenge facing the January 6 committee as bridging the growing political divide by laying out facts around which most Americans can coalesce. She thinks the best way to conduct the hearings is to let what happened on that fateful day speak for itself.“The less the members talk and the more the witnesses and victims and people who were there tell their own truth, the more powerful that will be,” she said.The job of letting the facts do the talking will be complicated, though, by the fact that the Republican leadership in the House is effectively boycotting the hearings. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, decided not to appoint members to the panel after the Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, rejected two of his choices.The two participating Republican members – Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – have both been censured by the Republican National Committee. The official view of the House leadership is that January 6 – which led to the deaths of seven people and injured more than 140 police officers – was “legitimate political discourse”.Many of the most important witnesses around Trump have refused to play ball with the investigation. Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino have all been held in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to respond to subpoenas, and Bannon and Navarro have been indicted by a federal grand jury (the justice department said on Friday it would not charge Scavino and Meadows).Many other top Republicans have invoked their fifth amendment right to silence in answer to every question they were posed. Those resisting testifying include five members of Congress, McCarthy among them.That’s a sign of how far the canker of political discord has spread within Congress, and how far the Republican party has shifted in a fundamentally anti-democratic direction. Consider by contrast the fact that the lethal Watergate question about what the president knew and when he knew it was asked by a senator from Nixon’s own Republican party, Howard Baker from Tennessee.“Congressional hearings have become increasingly partisan-driven,” said Stanley Brand, a former general counsel to the House who has legally represented numerous people called to testify before Congress spanning decades. “From the Clinton administration, through the Republican House’s investigation of the IRS and Benghazi, political lines are being drawn quicker and harder, and now there’s much more effort put on political point scoring.”Brand, who is representing Scavino in his battle to resist the January 6 committee, thinks that by opting out over the hearings the Republicans have fundamentally changed their nature. “Every party has to decide how much it wants to participate, but I’ve never known a big hearing like this with only one side represented – that’s a major difference.”Secret Service were warned of security risk to Pence day before Capitol attackRead moreBrand, a Democrat, thinks that partisanship is also being displayed by the Democratic leadership. He accuses the January 6 committee of straying well beyond its official remit as laid down by the US supreme court – an oversight role in which Congress informs itself for the purpose of writing legislation.He interprets the committee’s aggressive pursuit of witnesses as an attempt to push the justice department into bringing charges against key Trump individuals. “This committee has acted more like a prosecutorial agency than a legislative agency of any congressional investigation in which I’ve been involved in 50 years,” Brand said.Lofgren disputes the claim. “We’ve made it very clear that we are a legislative committee and the Department of Justice are the prosecutors,” she said.Any consideration of bringing prosecutions after the hearings have concluded, she added, “is beyond our purview”.As she prepares for the momentous start of the public hearings, Lofgren had some tough words for the Republican holdouts. She noted that in Watergate Republican leaders were also initially resistant, disputing claims that Nixon had acted improperly. But as soon as he admitted key details, they changed tack.“The difference with the Republican leadership today is that they know they are lying. It’s pretty clear that some of my Republican colleagues – not all – are willing to lie for power,” Lofgren said.What does she hope the hearings will achieve?“I hope they will tell the complete truth about what happened in a way that can be accepted and understood by the broad spectrum of American society, leading to a reinvigorated love of our democratic republic and system of elections.”That is a tall order.“You know, you don’t get anywhere by thinking small,” she said. “We’ll do the best we can, that’s all we can do, and hope this will be an important moment for America.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

Bilderberg reconvenes in person after two-year pandemic gapThe Washington conference, a high-level council of war, will be headlined by Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general Bilderberg is back with a vengeance. After a pandemic gap of two years, the elite global summit is being rebooted in a security-drenched hotel in Washington DC, with a high-powered guest list that includes the heads of NATO, the CIA, GCHQ, the US national security council, two European prime ministers, a healthy sprinkle of tech billionaires, and Henry Kissinger.What a difference those two years have made. The western world order, which the Bilderberg group has been quietly nudging into shape for the best part of 70 years, is in all kinds of flux.Back in 2019, the last time Bilderberg met in the flesh, the conference kicked off with the optimistic topics “A Stable Strategic Order” and “What Next For Europe?” This year however, the agenda reeks of chaos and crisis. Top of the schedule is the blandly terrifying item “Global Realignments”, followed by “NATO Challenges”, the biggest of which is obviously Ukraine.To be sure, the Washington conference is a high-level council of war, headlined by the secretary general of NATO, Bilderberg veteran Jens Stoltenberg. He’s joined at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental hotel by the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, and the CEO of Naftogaz, the state-owned Ukrainian oil and gas company.They’ll be clinking bespoke cocktails in the Empress lounge with some of the allied war effort’s leading lights, among them Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s half-Ukrainian deputy prime minister.The summit is heaving with experts in Russia and Ukraine, including the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, and ex-deputy national security adviser Nadia Schadlow, who has a seat on the elite steering committee of Bilderberg.The conference room is rigged up with video screens for shy dignitaries to make a virtual attendance, and it’s highly likely that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will Zoom in for a T-shirted contribution to the talks. Just a few days beforehand, Zelenskiy met with a Bilderberg and US intelligence representative Alex Karp, who runs Palantir, the infamous CIA-funded surveillance and data analysis company.Palantir, which was set up by billionaire Bilderberg insider Peter Thiel, has agreed to give “digital support” to the Ukrainian army, according to a tweet by the country’s deputy prime minister.The participant list is rife with military advisers, one of which is a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and some hefty cogs from the Washington war machine. Among the heftiest is James Baker, head of the ominous sounding office of net assessment.Bilderberg is sometimes dismissed as a talking shop or crazed imagining of conspiracy theorists. But in reality it is a major diplomatic summit, attended this year as ever by extremely senior transatlantic politicians, from the US commerce secretary to the president of the European Council.Many consider it the older, less flashy Davos, staged annually by the World Economic Fund. The two events have a good bit in common: namely, three WEF trustees at this year’s conference, and Klaus Schwab, the grisly head of Davos, is a former member of Bilderberg’s steering committee. His “Great Reset” looms large over the Washington conference, with “Disruption of the Global Financial System” at the heart of the agenda.The conference troubles some ethicists, with politicians thrashing out an “Energy Security and Sustainability” talk with the CEOs of oil giants BP, Shell and Total. There’s also “Post Pandemic Health” with the CEOs of Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, who are locked away for days with Wall Street investors and no press scrutiny.Bilderberg gets scant coverage partly because of its connections to the transatlantic intelligence community.Formed in the mid-1950s as a joint project of British and US intelligence, the conference has kept its cards so close to its chest that the world’s press has given up trying to get a glimpse of them.This year’s conference lineup, led by CIA head William Burns, reflects those roots.Burns is a former US ambassador to Russia and was elected to Bilderberg’s steering committee just a few months before Joe Biden gave him the job, whereupon he discreetly resigned his seat.Three other active intelligence chiefs are attending: the head of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters; the director of France’s external intelligence agency, DGSE; the leader of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.Former spy chiefs at the talks include David Petraeus (CIA) and Sir John Sawers (MI6), now a board member of Bilderberg and BP.And of course, holding court at the hotel bar will be Klaus Schwab’s mentor, Henry Kissinger.Incredibly, Kissinger, 99, has been attending Bilderbergs since 1957.The prince of realpolitik has been the ideological godfather of Bilderberg for as long as anyone can remember. And he’s recently co-authored a book, The Age of AI, with Bilderberg steering committee member Eric Schmidt, the former head of Google, and this year’s Washington conference is noticeably rammed with AI luminaries, from Facebook’s Yann LeCun to DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis.Bilderberg knows that however the global realignments play out, and whatever a reset global financial system looks like, the shape of the world will be determined by big tech. And if the endgame is “Continuity of Government”, as the agenda suggests, that continuity will be powered by AI.Whatever billionaire ends up making the software that runs the world, Bilderberg aims to make damned sure that it has its hand on the mouse.TopicsBilderbergNatoUS politicsCIAGCHQnewsReuse this content More

Michigan baby formula maker resumes production after safety shutdownThe Abbott facility was closed in February after a recall involving bacterial infections in infants which led to a nationwide shortage The baby formula manufacturer Abbott announced that it would resume production at a key Sturgis, Michigan, plant on Saturday, months after a shutdown at the facility spurred a nationwide shortage. The company in February recalled baby formula made at that plant, after four infants who consumed products from there developed bacterial infections, with two of the babies dying.Food and Drug Administration officials said they had encountered Cronobacter sakazakii bacterium at this plant. FDA and Centers for Disease Control testing determined the genetic sequence of these Cronobacter did not match that of bacterium in these infants – meaning they did not find a connection to Sturgis, CNN reported.TopicsUS baby formula shortageMichiganChildren’s healthUS politicsNutritionChildrenReuse this content More

John Fetterman admits he ignored heart condition before his stroke: ‘I almost died’The Pennsylvania lawmaker’s condition is ‘stable’, says his doctor, and he should be able to return to the Senate campaign trail John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and Democratic senate nominee, said Friday that he “almost died” after suffering a stroke on 13 May. Fetterman, whose health problems have reportedly prompted concerns about his campaign, also revealed that he had cardiomyopathy, which makes it more difficult for the heart to pump blood throughout the body.In a statement, Fetterman admitted that he had neglected his health. “As my doctor said, I should have taken my health more seriously. The stroke I suffered … didn’t come out of nowhere,” he said in a note, according to CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe.Fetterman provided a timeline of his health issues – and lapses in caring for them – in his statement. “Back in 2017, I had swollen feet and went to the hospital to get checked out,” Fetterman said. “That’s when I learned I had a heart condition. Then, I didn’t follow up.”Can this offbeat tattooed Democrat flip a Pennsylvania Senate seat?Read more“I thought losing weight and exercising would be enough,” Fetterman continued. “Of course it wasn’t.”“I want to emphasize that this was completely preventable. My cardiologist said that if I had continued taking the blood thinners, I never would have had a stroke. I didn’t do what the doctor told me,” Fetterman also said.Fetterman said he wouldn’t make the same mistake again and is following his physicians’ advice to rest and focus on recovery.“It will take some more time to get back on the campaign trail like I was in the lead-up to the primary. It’s frustrating – all the more so because this is my own fault – but bear with me, I need a little more time,” he said. “I’m not quite back to 100% yet, but I’m getting closer every day.”Fetterman also made public a statement from his cardiologist. In 2017, the doctor diagnosed him with atrial fibrillation as well as a “decreased heart pump” – but Fetterman “did not go to any doctor for 5 years”.The doctor said that Fetterman’s present condition was “stable” and that he had a pacemaker-defibrillator, adding, “The prognosis I can give for John’s heart is this: if he takes his medications, eats healthy, and exercises, he’ll be fine.“If he does what I’ve told him, and I do believe that he is taking his recovery and his health very seriously this time, he should be able to campaign and serve in the US Senate without a problem.”Some Democrats previously told NBC News that they worried about Fetterman’s health and felt that his team hadn’t been transparent when he was admitted to hospital several weeks ago. In a report published Thursday on NBC News, an elected Pennsylvania Democrat pointed to the unclear timing of when Fetterman would campaign again, saying “a lot of us Democratic party types are very nervous about it”.“I think people I’ve talked to – myself included – don’t know what to make of it,” a longtime Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania told NBC News. “It’s not like Fetterman has close institutional allies, so Dems are calling around wanting to ask the question, but no clue where to get a sense of how serious it is.”Several hours after Fetterman spoke about his health, David McCormick conceded Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary to Dr Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon backed by Donald Trump. Oz’s win sets the stage for a general election between him and Fetterman, which could easily turn into one of the US’s most important races, as the victor might determine which party controls the Senate.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022PennsylvaniaUS SenateDemocratsUS politicsReuse this content More

Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stanceRepublican congressman said he would support measures limiting access to highly lethal firearms used in recent mass shootings A Republican New York congressman who recently voiced support of gun control legislation announced on Friday that he will no longer seek reelection after receiving backlash over his stance.Chris Jacobs’ support of such legislation – which came in the wake of deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and Uvalde, Texas, elementary school – had prompted his conservative and GOP colleagues to withdraw their support.Jacobs, who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2020 and recently introduced legislation to protect bankrupt gun owners’ rights, did not back any policy that would dramatically impact gun ownership. Rather, Jacobs expressed his favor for several measures that would limit access to the particularly lethal weaponry used in recent mass killings.Grim body count unlikely to be enough for Republicans to act on gun reformRead more“A ban on something like an AR-15, I would vote for,” Jacobs said on 27 May. “So I want to be clear, I would vote for it.”“Individuals cannot buy beer, they cannot get cigarettes [until] 21,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s perfectly reasonable that the age limit, at least for these highly lethal, high capacity semi automatic weapons, should be 21.”Jacobs said that he planned on introducing legislation that would limit access to body armor and would name the bill after Aaron Salter, a retired police officer who was killed in the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo on 14 May, reported Ashley Rowe, an anchor with 7 Eyewitness News. Salter worked as a security guard at the supermarket and opened fire on the shooter in an attempt to stop him, but the gunman was wearing body armor and killed 10.In explaining his support of such measures, Jacobs told the Buffalo News: “Being a father and having young children and visualizing what those parents are going through and, I guess, being able to feel it more personally certainly has had an impact as well.”Jacobs’ comments on gun legislation stood in stark contrast to his GOP counterparts, who have often blamed mass shootings on mental illness and suggested that school safety hinged on armed security. Some conservatives and Republicans effectively framed Jacobs as a traitor to his party due to his comments.“This is not the person we endorsed. We did not endorse this Chris Jacobs … he’s actually to the left of [US House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi on this,” said Gerard Kassar, New York’s Conservative party state chair, to the New York Post on Thursday.The Erie county, New York, Conservative chairman, Ralph Lorigo, described Jacobs’ position as “very disappointing” and said “we can’t support him in this district”, according to Rochesterfirst.com.“‘Republican @RepJacobs already caved to the gun-grabbers whose proposals won’t do a single thing to protect our families & children from criminals & murderers,” Donald Trump Jr said on Twitter. “He knows this but he can’t resist getting a few glowing headlines from the mainstream media.”Jacobs insisted he did not decide to withdraw from the race over backlash, saying: “I didn’t feel any heat on this issue. No one called me about the assault weapon ban.”“This is purely a personal contemplation, prayer, and talking to people, that I felt this was the right thing to do,” he said. “And the time was now to do it.”Jacobs’ announcement came one day after Joe Biden made an impassioned plea for an assault weapons ban and prohibition on high-capacity magazines.Reactions to the president’s speech largely followed party lines, with Democrats supporting his proposals and Republicans slamming them as unduly politicized.Movement on gun control legislation at the state and federal levels suggests the prospect of mixed results rather than unified policy. While Maine Republican senator Susan Collins recently said that a bipartisan group of senators made significant progress in negotiating gun law reforms, GOP opposition in the senate could easily stymie these efforts.States have taken different approaches in addressing gun violence. New York’s legislature on Thursday passed a set of bills that barred most civilians from purchasing body armor and upped the age requirement for buying a semiautomatic rifle to 21, the New York Times reported.In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott asked his lieutenant and a high-level state legislator “to each convene a special legislative committee”. Abbott insisted “we must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence,” but Texas has historically eased firearms restrictions following mass shootings.TopicsUS gun controlNew YorkRepublicansUS politicsBuffalo shootingTexas school shootingReuse this content More

Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelNavarro in custody after indictment on two counts of contempt of Congress after he defied subpoena issued by January 6 committee Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was taken into custody after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.The indictment against Navarro marks the first time that the justice department has pursued charges against a Trump White House official who worked in the administration on January 6 and participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.Navarro is facing one count of contempt of Congress for his refusal to appear at a deposition and a second count for his refusal to turn over documents as demanded by the select committee’s subpoena, the justice department announced in a news release.The former Trump White House adviser, who was involved in the former president’s unlawful scheme to have the then-vice president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election win on January 6, was taken into custody at the airport – he had a pre-planned trip – Navarro told a magistrate judge.Navarro’s indictment comes just weeks after the full House of Representatives voted to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress for entirely defying the select committee’s subpoena, issued in February, demanding documents and testimony in the January 6 inquiry.The indictment is the latest twist in a series of developments surrounding Navarro’s position in the crosshairs of congressional and justice department investigators, who last week served him with a grand jury subpoena demanding his communications with Trump.In an attempt to block the justice department from prosecuting the contempt of Congress referral and to somehow invalidate the grand jury subpoena, Navarro on Tuesday filed a last-ditch, 88-page lawsuit seeking an injunction from a federal judge.It was not clear whether that grand jury subpoena – which also demanded records requested in the select committee subpoena – came as part of the contempt of Congress case, or whether he was being treated as a witness in a separate criminal investigation into the former president.But a potential benefit for the justice department is that through this indictment, it may be able to obtain those communications with Trump, according to a former assistant US attorney who spoke on the condition of anonymity.The status of the lawsuit is currently unclear and it was not clear whether the filing led the justice department to request Navarro’s indictment and arrest warrant will be placed under seal until the warrant was executed on Friday morning in Washington DC.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpUS CongressTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweetsFlorida governor defends vetoing funds for training facilityRays had joined Yankees in tweeting about gun safety The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding. “Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence. The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings.pic.twitter.com/9DpyuwEzJo— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 26, 2022
In Uvalde, an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. The shooting happened days after a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.“In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the Yankees said in a statement.“The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”The Rays said shootings “cannot become normal”.Throughout their game last Thursday, both teams posted facts about gun violence on their social media pages, with links to sources and helpline numbers. Neither team posted the result of the game.Following the Uvalde shooting, Steve Kerr, coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, refused to talk about basketball at a pre-game news conference, instead calling for stricter gun control legislation.02:55DeSantis has made culture war issues including gun control a calling card in his rise to prominence as a possible Republican candidate for president.On another front on Friday, DeSantis announced that the Special Olympics had dropped a coronavirus vaccine mandate for its forthcoming games in Orlando, after he moved to fine the organization $27.5m for violating a state law against such rules.The Special Olympics competition in Florida is scheduled to run from 5 to 12 June.At a news conference in Orlando, DeSantis said: “In Florida, we want all of them to be able to compete. We do not think it’s fair or just to be marginalizing some of these athletes based on a decision that has no bearing on their ability to compete with honor or integrity.”The Florida health department notified the Special Olympics of the fine in a letter on Thursday that said the organization would be fined $27.5m for 5,500 violations of state law, for requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination for attendees or participants.Florida law bars businesses from requiring documentation of a Covid-19 vaccination. DeSantis has strongly opposed vaccine mandates and other virus policies endorsed by the federal government.In a statement on its website, the Special Olympics said people who were registered but unable to participate because of the mandate could now attend.TopicsMLBTampa Bay RaysNew York YankeesBaseballUS sportsRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Washington is ending its week on a quiet note, with few major developments in Congress or at the White House as officials continue grappling with the fallout from the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.Here’s what happened today:
Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was taken into custody after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre.
US Capitol police say they arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.
May employment data confirmed that robust job growth is continuing in the United States, with the economy adding a better-than-expected 390,000 positions and the unemployment rate remaining at 3.6% – a hair above where it was before the pandemic caused tens of millions of people to lose their employment.
John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic nominee for US Senate, said he “almost died” after suffering a stroke last month, the Washington Post is reporting.“The stroke I suffered on May 13 didn’t come out of nowhere,” Fetterman said in a statement. “Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well. As a result, I almost died.”He added: “I didn’t do what the doctor told me. But I won’t make that mistake again.”Fetterman did not give a date for his return to the campaign trail. On Friday he released a letter from his doctor saying he had been diagnosed with an irregular heart rhythm in 2017 , but had not scheduled a follow up appointment, and had not visited any doctor for five years since that 2017 appointment. John Fetterman, who has been criticized for not providing more details about his health following his stroke, releases a letter from his doc saying he was first diagnosed in 2017 with an irregular heart rhythm. Said he ignored doctor’s advice for five years until he had a stroke pic.twitter.com/1LpZ1J214S— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 3, 2022
Pennsylvania is a crucial contest for Democrats as they aim to avoid losing the Senate in the November midterm elections. Fetterman, 52, had previously faced criticism for not providing a timetable on his return to campaigning.Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban transgender girls from school sports and require verification from a doctor if a student’s sex is called into question, Reuters reported.The Republican-sponsored legislation comes in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, with transgender rights emerging as a major front in the US culture wars.The bill next goes to a vote in the state Senate when it reconvenes in several months after a recess.Several other states have passed anti-trans sports bills in recent months, but few are as extreme as the Ohio legislation, which would require students whose sex is “disputed” to provide a physician’s statement verifying “internal and external reproductive anatomy” and other criteria.These provisions target “a handful of Ohio students and their families who simply want to play sports like everyone else,” LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Ohio said in a statement.People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken the initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre, Reuters reports. An attorney representing Alfred Garza, father of Robb Elementary School student Amerie Jo Garza, sent the Georgia-based gun manufacturer a request for information about its marketing to children and teens. “We ask you to begin providing information to us now, rather than force Mr. Garza to file a lawsuit to obtain it,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to the company.School employee Emilia Marin has also filed a petition in Texas state court to depose Daniel Defense over its marketing, and to turn over documents.Daniel Defense did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment. Remington Arms, manufacturer of the weapon used in the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead in 2012, agreed earlier this year to pay $73 million to some of the victims of that attack, though a federal law complicates many lawsuits against gun makers.Sandy Hook families reach $73m settlement with gun manufacturerRead moreImagine that you are wanted for a crime. Imagine that you are in the United States, perhaps in a state not far from the Mexican border. You may think, based on what you’ve seen in movies or read on the news, that if you can get to Mexico, you can go scot-free. You would be wrong, according to an excellent Washington Post article that profiles the “Gringo Hunters,” a Mexican police unit tasked with tracking down foreign criminals on the run in their country.American politicians, most famously Donald Trump along with other conservatives, have characterized Mexico as a source of criminals who flood over the border into the United States. The piece flips that stereotype on its head, as reporter Kevin Sieff goes on the hunt with the officers who go after the many alleged murderers, rapists and child abusers that pour into their country from their northern neighbor:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It was late March. The unit had been busier than at any other time in its history. While politicians in Washington argued over whether there was a crisis at the border, it felt to the Gringo Hunters that crime was spilling over in the opposite direction.
“Honestly, I think it’s all the drugs over there,” said Moises, the liaison unit’s commander. Like other unit members, he spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld so he can continue to work undercover.
In its office, the unit keeps a whiteboard with the month’s apprehensions tallied by name, date and charge. In the first three weeks of March, there were eight accused of drug trafficking, two of murder and one of pedophilia.US Capitol police say they have arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.Officers encountered the man after he parked his Dodge Charger at Peace Circle on the US Capitol’s west side around 5am on Friday, the agency said in a statement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The man was identified as 53-year-old Jerome Felipe out of Flint, Michigan.
Felipe, who is a retired police officer out of New York, presented the USCP officers with a fake badge that had “Department of the INTERPOL” printed on it. Felipe also made a false statement that he was a criminal investigator with the agency.
Felipe gave officers permission to search his vehicle. The officers discovered a BB gun, two ballistic vests, several high capacity magazines, and other ammunition in the car. No real guns were found.
Investigators are still working to determine the reason Felipe was parked near the US Capitol.
Felipe is facing charges for Unlawful Possession of High Capacity Magazines and Unregistered Ammo.A top deputy to Mike Pence warned the Secret Service about a security risk to the then vice-president the day before the January 6 attack, the New York Times is reporting.The warning was conveyed by Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, to his main Secret Service agent, Tim Giebels, on 5 January, before a crowd of more than 2,000 people stormed the US capitol following a speech by Donald Trump. In their conversation before that happened, Short warned Giebels that Trump was going to publicly repudiate Pence, whom he had chosen as his running mate during his successful 2016 run for the White House.According to the Times:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr Trump on Mr Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr Trump’s defeat, Mr Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington. Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide saysRead more
The need for meaningful gun control reforms, following the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, continues to dominate political conversation, but Republicans and Democrats appear no closer to a consensus.
On Thursday Joe Biden asked: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” and called for a series of gun control measures. But Republicans snubbed serious discussion of stricter gun laws at a hearing on Thursday.
A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
Democrats are increasingly blaming Joe Biden’s climate office for holding up progress on measures that could cut US emissions, according to Politico. “Micromanaging” by the office of other government bodies has stalled a series of environmental efforts, Politico reported.
With Biden having failed to get his major proposals to fight rising global temperatures through Congress, Politico reports that Democrats are increasingly blaming his climate office for holding up progress on other measures that could cut US emissions.The Climate Policy Office headed by Gina McCarthy has gotten in the way of actions that Biden could take without Congress’s approval, according to the article, which cited nine Democratic sources both inside and outside the Biden administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The office’s micromanaging of other government bodies has weakened the Interior Department’s efforts to rein in oil and gas leases on federal lands, stalled a redo of federal ethanol policies and slowed White House efforts to address pollution in low-income and minority communities, said the Democrats, who include congressional staff and current or former Biden administration officials.Much of Biden’s emissions-cutting strategy was contained in Build Back Better, his failed attempt to spend potentially trillions of dollars revamping American social services and also fighting climate change. Despite passing the House, it failed to win enough votes among Senate Democrats, and the fate of its proposals remains up in the air. Why the collapse of Biden’s Build Back Better would be a major blow to the climate fightRead moreA fourth-grader who survived last week’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas will testify before a US House panel next week, alongside the parents of victims killed in both the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.Miah Cerrillo, a student at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, will appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, as Congress faces calls to take meaningful action on gun control. Cerrillo will be joined by Felix Rubio and Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the parents of Lexi Rubio, who was ten-years-old when she was killed at Robb elementary.Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, who survived after being shot at the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, will also speak before the House committee.Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, said the hearing “will examine the terrible impact of gun violence and the urgent need to rein in the weapons of war used to perpetrate these crimes”.“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” Maloney said. “This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”Until the US senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun control | Osita NwanevuRead morePeter Navarro may not be the only former Trump official facing Washington’s wrath. My colleague Peter Stone has reported that there is evidence the Justice Department is looking into lawyers who advised the former president on how to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with a key criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel probing the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.
While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.
Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer, worked with other lawyers and some campaign officials to spearhead a scheme to replace Biden electors with alternative Trump ones in seven states that Biden won, with an eye to blocking Congress’ certification of Biden on January 6 when a mob of Trump loyalists attacked the Capitol.US Justice Department could be zeroing in on Trump lawyers, experts sayRead more More