US Politics

US congressman urges Biden to ban six UK lawyers for ‘enabling’ oligarchsSteve Cohen says the US must establish ‘deterrents’ against lawyers accused of carrying out ‘unscrupulous work’ A US congressman has urged the Biden administration to ban six British lawyers from entering the US amid accusations that the lawyers have “enabled” “Putin’s” oligarchs by engaging in “abusive” lawsuits against journalists as part of an alleged effort to silence them.Steve Cohen, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee, said in a letter to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that the US needed to begin establishing “deterrents” against lawyers whom he accused of performing “unscrupulous work” that ultimately undermined democratic values.“Despite our close ties with the United Kingdom, the nature of its libel laws and the vast amount of blood money in its financial system make it an ideal place for oligarchs to abuse the law to harass and intimidate,” Cohen wrote. He also cc’ed the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.Most of the six lawyers named by Cohen have represented Russian interests who have pursued legal action against journalists, publishers and authors in the UK in connection to their reporting on Russia-related matters.Four lawyers named in the letter were involved in legal action against Catherine Belton, a former journalist at the Financial Times, and her publisher HarperCollins, who were sued following the publication of her book Putin’s People. The lawyers include: Nigel Tait of Carter-Ruck, John Kelly of Harbottle & Lewis, Hugh Tomlinson, and Geraldine Proudler of CMS.A letter published by 19 free press organisations last November expressed “serious concern” at the legal proceedings, which were brought at the time by the now-sanctioned Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich; Rosneft, the Russian energy company, and three other Russian billionaires. The organisations said they believed the cases against Belton and HarperCollins were so-called Slapps, a “form of legal harassment used by wealthy and powerful entities to silence journalists”.HarperCollins settled the claims, agreeing to make a number of changes to the text.Keith Schilling of Schillings was accused in Cohen’s letter of being “well known for bringing abusive suits against journalists” and working “tirelessly” to protect the Malaysian fugitive Jho Low, who has been accused by US prosecutors of running a money-laundering scheme in connection to the Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB.Another lawyer, Shlomo Rechtschaffen, who is representing Walter Soriano – who was accused by Cohen of being an “enabler” of Oleg Deripaska, Abramovich and Dmitry Rybolovlev – has according to Cohen filed an allegedly “abusive” lawsuit against the American journalist Scott Stedman.Cohen said the visa denials could be implemented under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act which calls for “anti-kleptocracy and human rights bans”, and that ideally the bans would be made public.All of the lawyers named in Cohen’s letter responded to the Guardian’s request for comment on the allegations set out by the congressman.A spokesperson for Carter-Ruck said the claims by Cohen against the firm were “misconceived and are rejected entirely”.“In addition to other matters, we are not working for any Russian individuals, companies or entities seeking to challenge, overturn, frustrate or minimise sanctions. We have never acted for Russian individuals, companies or entities seeking to challenge sanctions,” the spokesperson said, adding that Carter-Ruck condemned the Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine and said the firm would not be acting for any individual or company associated with the Putin regime.A spokesperson for Harbottle & Lewis, where Kelly is a litigator specialising in “reputation protection, privacy and defamation”, said in a statement that the firm had acted at all times in accordance with its professional and legal obligations and took these matters very seriously.Harbottle & Lewis added in connection to litigation involving Belton’s Putin’s People: “The firm has not engaged in an abusive lawsuit as alleged, and there was no such suggestion made when the proceedings were considered by a high court judge who reviewed the book and ruled that it contained a number of defamatory allegations. As such there is no basis for any such steps to be taken.”A representative for Tomlinson said: “Regulatory rules for lawyers are very strict and work to ensure equal entitlement to independent legal advice. Mr Tomlinson acted properly and in accordance with those rules throughout and has never acted as Mr Cohen suggests. There is therefore no proper basis for Mr Cohen’s request.”A spokesperson for Proudler’s firm, CMS, said it “strongly rejected” allegations of impropriety against CMS and Proudler. “We have reviewed the steps taken in our media litigation practice and are confident that these were compliant with all professional regulations as well as our wider responsibilities at the time.”The spokesperson added that CMS had, since the invasion of Ukraine, not accepted new instructions from Russia-based entities or individuals with connections to the Russian government.Proudler resigned last month from the board of the Guardian Foundation, the charitable arm of the media group’s parent company, as well as from the Scott Trust review panel, which adjudicates editorial complaints.A spokesperson for Schilling said the firm was not acting for any “sanctioned entities” and that it hoped sanctions would foreshorten the war in Ukraine.“We do not comment on client matters and indeed are not permitted to do so, but we fail to see how any representation of the Malaysian national named by Congressman Cohen could in any circumstances support the (in any event wholly misplaced) allegations that we are acting in the manner alleged in relation to Russian ‘oligarchs’,” the spokesperson said, adding that there was “no basis for any allegations that we have in any way behaved other than in the highest traditions of the legal profession in upholding the rule of law”.Rechtschaffen, who is representing Soriano in a case against Stedman, claimed he did not work for an oligarch or an enabler of an oligarch, and claimed that his case against Stedman was not abusive and not a case of “libel tourism” or any other abuse of process.In an letter published in February 2022, 15 free press organisations, including Index on Censorship, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, English PEN, and Reporters without Borders, argued that the case against Stedman had “many of the hallmarks of a Slapp”.The letter said Stedman’s website, Forensic News, had published six articles and a podcast about Soriano, a British-Israeli security consultant, after he had been summoned by the US Senate intelligence committee. The letter said all the defendants in the case were based in the US, but that the lawsuit had been brought in London. Soriano was born in Argentina, and immigrated to Israel before moving to London.The US letter comes as British MPs are engaged in a similar debate about “intimidation lawsuits”, with some arguing that expunging London’s alleged “dirty money” problem would require that oligarchs of any nation were not allowed to use the English legal system to silence free speech.Last month, MPs in the UK accused three of the lawyers named in Cohen’s letter – Proudler, Tait and Kelly – of deliberately filing oppressive legal actions against an investigative journalist in an attempt to intimidate her. Similar allegations were also made against Tomlinson. They all denied the allegations.Arabella Pike, HarperCollins’ publishing director, said in a tweet that she applauded the Cohen letter.Belton declined to comment on the Cohen letter but in recent testimony before the House of Commons said it was clear that a lot of journalists had faced “a barrage of threats and intimidation, and our democracy has been so much poorer for it” because the public had not been able to learn properly about the background of oligarchs until recently.“The entire population should have known the story about how Roman Abramovich won his fortune, but they had been deprived of that until now,” she said.TopicsUS newsUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were in touch before US Capitol attack, texts revealThe messages could strengthen a theory being explored by the House committee that January 6 included a coordinated assault Top leaders in the Oath Keepers militia group indicted on seditious conspiracy charges over the Capitol attack had contacts with the Proud Boys and a figure in the Stop the Steal movement and may also have been in touch with the Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, newly released text messages show.Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysRead moreThe texts – which indicate the apparent ease with which Oath Keepers messaged Proud Boys – could strengthen a theory being explored by the House January 6 committee and the US justice department: that the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault.Oath Keepers text messages released in a court filing on Monday night showed members of the group were in direct communication with the Proud Boys leader Enqrique Tarrio in the days before the Capitol attack.In an exchange on 4 January 2021, the Oath Keepers Florida chapter leader, Kelly Meggs, indicates an attempt to call Tarrio after learning of his arrest.“I just called him no answer,” Meggs texted a group chat. “But he will [call if] he’s out.”That close relationship is certain to be of interest to the House committee as it zeroes in on whether the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys coordinated an attack on the Capitol in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win over Donald Trump.As the Guardian first reported, the committee has amassed deep evidence of connections between the far-right groups which could play a role in establishing whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy as part of his attempt to hold on to power.The newly released text messages also show a new link between the Oath Keepers and an unnamed figure from the Stop the Steal movement, which has ties to the pro-Trump operative Roger Stone and to Ali Alexander, a prominent Trump ally and activist.On the evening of 1 January, Stewart Rhodes, the national leader of the Oath Keepers, texted to say he was adding an unidentified person affiliated with Stop the Steal to the group chat, to help them prepare for January 6.The name was redacted in the released texts but Rhodes described an “event producer for Stop the Steal. He requested I add him here. He can sort out who is doing what in the creative chaos that will be Jan 5/6.“He’s a good egg.”It was not clear whether Rhodes misattributed an affiliation to Stop the Steal, given the January 6 rally at the Ellipse was a Save America event. Neither Alexander nor Stone appeared to message the group chat or were otherwise involved.New Republican connectionThe Oath Keepers text messages also show a connection to Ronny Jackson that allowed one of its members to learn that the Texas congressman – Trump’s former White House doctor – needed protection as the Capitol attack unfolded.The potential connection between the Oath Keepers and a Republican member of Congress could mark a new investigatory direction for the committee and the justice department: whether Jackson or others might have had advance knowledge of the Oath Keepers’ plans.In the exchange on January 6, an unidentified Oath Keeper texts the group chat that “Ronnie Jackson (TX) office inside Capitol – he needs OK help. Anyone inside?”The same Oath Keeper provides an update less than 10 minutes later: “Dr Ronnie Jackson – on the move. Needs protection. If anyone inside cover him. He has critical data to protect.”Rhodes quickly responds: “Give him my cell.”In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson said Jackson “is frequently talked about by people he does not know. He does not know nor has he ever spoken to the people in question”.Asked if Jackson was never in contact with the Oath Keepers, the spokesperson did not answer.The House committee has not given any indication that Republican members of Congress were connected to a potential conspiracy overseen by Trump that would connect his plan to have then-vice president Mike Pence overturn the election with the Capitol attack.The Oath Keepers texts were included in a motion for release from pre-trial detention by Ed Vallejo, one of 11 group members facing charges of seditious conspiracy. On January 6, prosecutors say, Vallejo was at a Comfort Inn in Virginia with a cache of weapons, meant to act as a quick reaction force.The messages show the Oath Keepers discussed providing security for prominent Trump allies including Stone, Alexander, Alex Jones, Lin Wood and Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.‘Election integrity summits’ aim to fire up Trump activists over big lieRead moreOne week before January 6, Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, mentioned requests to provide security for Bianca Garcia, president of the group Latinos for Trump, for which Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader, was also chief of staff.The next day, Meggs, the Florida Oath Keepers leader who would ultimately lead Stone’s security detail, boasted that he had spoken to Stone the night before. Jessica Watkins, another member of the Oath Keepers, said she was also in touch with Stone.“Roger Stone just asked for security,” Watkins texted the group chat on 1 January, to which Meggs responded: “Who reached out to you? I [spoke] to him Wednesday.”Meggs – using the alias “OK Gator 1” – added: “I just texted him.”Though the Oath Keepers discussed providing security for other Trump allies, the extent of their voluntary services remains unclear. Alexander said in a recent statement that the Oath Keepers did not perform security duties for him on January 6.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

US supreme court rules against air force officer who refused Covid vaccine Majority of court sides with Pentagon over challenge by lieutenant colonel who cited religious grounds for refusal to get vaccine The supreme court has allowed the US Department of Defense to take disciplinary action against an air force lieutenant colonel who refuses to get a Covid-19 vaccine.In a brief, two-sentence ruling on Monday, a majority of the court sided with the Pentagon. Three justices in the conservative majority – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – dissented.The ruling was merely the court’s latest on challenges to Covid-19 vaccine mandates.In January, the court blocked a Biden administration requirement that employees of large businesses be vaccinated and wear masks on the job.The court ruled in March that the US navy had the authority to determine the job assignments of 35 service members who refused to get vaccinated.The case in question on Monday involved Lt Col Jonathan Dunn, previously commander of a 40-member squadron in California, according to court documents filed by the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar.Prelogar argued that while Dunn cited religious grounds for his refusal to get vaccinated, he did not “assert that the Covid-19 vaccine or compulsory vaccination in general is inconsistent with his Christian faith”, noting that he has received other vaccinations without objection.Dunn instead cited a speech given by Joe Biden that led him to conclude that “the vaccine ceased to be merely a medical invention and took on a symbolic and even sacramental quality”.His religion, he said, forbade him from participating in such “religious ritual”.Upon denial of his exemption request, Dunn sent to a major general “a one-word memorandum that simply read: ‘NUTS!’”.Prelogar noted that while Dunn maintains he meant no disrespect, “NUTS!” has a “well-known ‘military historical connotation’”.She cited the case of Anthony McAuliffe, a key US military officer in the second world war who responded to a German message requesting American surrender with the one-worded answer. The American officer who delivered McAuliffe’s message to German officers clarified that, “If you don’t understand what ‘nuts’ means, in plain English, it is the same as ‘Go to hell.’”The court documents say that the air force took disciplinary action against Dunn, including his removal from command and non-punitive disciplinary measures, citing his commanding officer who said he had “lost trust in [Dunn’s] leadership and judgment” due to the memorandum and that he displayed a “pattern of a lack of respect for military authority”. Prelogar said that Dunn’s actions independent of his refusal to be vaccinated warranted the measures against him.The US solicitor general also said that Dunn’s unit has to be ready to be deployed anywhere in the world with as little as three days’ notice, including countries that require proof of vaccination for entry. Prelogar also noted that the military has a long history of requiring vaccinations and currently requires nine vaccinations for service members.The deadline for air force members to get vaccinated was 2 November. In December, an air force spokesperson told NBC News that the military branch discharged 27 active-duty members who refused to get the vaccination and were not exempted. The US military that same month said 97% of its service members had received the Covid-19 vaccine.TopicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)CoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Joe Biden told Barack Obama he will run again in 2024 – reportPresident ‘thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump’, source tells the Hill, as Trump is readying his own third run Joe Biden has told Barack Obama he will run for re-election in 2024, according to a Washington website, the Hill.Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysRead moreThe site cited two anonymous sources. One was quoted as saying Biden “wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know”.It was not clear when Biden told Obama his plans. But Obama visited the White House earlier this month, to celebrate the Affordable Care Act.Introducing his host, Obama called him “Vice-President Biden”.“That was a joke,” he said, to laughter.Biden was vice-president to Obama from 2009 to 2017. He won the presidency on his own third attempt in 2020 (after short-lived campaigns in 1988 and 2008), beating Donald Trump.00:55At 78, Biden was the oldest president ever inaugurated. If he won again he would be 82 at the start of his second term.Amid competing crises, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the coronavirus and rampant inflation at home, Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted. Most observers expect Republicans to retake Congress in November. But the president has dropped plenty of hints that he does plan to run again.In September, it was widely reported that Biden and aides had told allies he planned to run again. In December, Biden said he would run if he stayed in good health. He has also said Kamala Harris, his vice-president, would be on the ticket again.In his December interview with ABC News, Biden said another Trump candidacy would “increase the prospect of running”.In Brussels in March, Biden referred to Trump again when he said: “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”Trump, 75, is readying his own third run for the presidency.One of the sources who spoke to the Hill said Biden “thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor.”In 2020, Biden surged to victory in the Democratic primary on the back of support from Black voters – and a quickly gathering sense that he was indeed the party’s best hope of beating Trump.According to books and reportage about the 2020 campaign, Obama doubted whether Biden could win.Edward-Isaac Dovere, author of Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump, reports: “Obama was doubtful about [Biden’s] prospects. He didn’t think Biden could be a disciplined enough candidate.”Dovere also says Obama doubted Biden’s stamina for the race, was not sure he had the requisite “swagger” for an American president, and worried his vice-president had “trouble … connecting with crowds”.But Dovere also quotes Jen Psaki, now Biden’s White House press secretary, as saying Obama “undervalued Biden’s political abilities because they had such different styles”.TopicsUS elections 2024Joe BidenDonald TrumpBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about it For Black women in Congress, maternal mortality hits close to home. The Black Maternal Health Caucus seeks changeWhen Alma Adams’s daughter complained of abdominal pain during a difficult pregnancy, her doctor overlooked her cries for help. The North Carolina congresswoman’s daughter had to undergo a last-minute caesarean section. She and her baby daughter, now 16, survived. “It could have gone another way. I could have been a mother who was grieving her daughter and granddaughter,” Adams told the Guardian, following a week in which the White House highlighted the crisis of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women die at three times the rate of white women.For Adams and other Black women in Congress, who formed the Black Maternal Health Caucus, the issue hits close to home. Last week, during Black Maternal Health Week, they talked about how their experiences and the work of advocates had propelled legislation, known as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, to fight a healthcare crisis that disproportionately affects Black women regardless of income.The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries. Since 2000, the maternal mortality rate has risen nearly 60%, making it worse now than it was decades earlier. More than half of these deaths are preventable.Health experts point to the fact that other industrialized countries have significantly different approaches to motherhood than the US, including paid maternity leave, access to comprehensive postpartum care and enough maternity care providers, especially midwives, to meet the needs of their populations. Policy advocates add that the crisis among Black women is a symptom of racism in the nation’s healthcare system – from who has access to care to attitudes toward Black people and their bodies.“It doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. It doesn’t matter how much insurance you have, or how much education you have,” Adams said, adding that her daughter, Jeanelle Lindsay, had a master’s degree and health insurance. “Those things don’t matter. This could happen to anyone. Look at women like Beyoncé and Serena Williams, who had these near misses because the doctors really didn’t pay the kind of attention that they should have.”Black women in the House used the week of recognition to bring attention to several bills that are part of a sweeping Momnibus package to address the dangers of birthing while Black. Their efforts to elevate the longtime work of organizations such as the Black Mamas Matter Alliance showed the power of representation in putting issues affecting Black women on the congressional agenda, said Lauren Underwood, an Illinois congresswoman and registered nurse.“It takes women in these spaces to call out problems, set an agenda, and bring together a coalition of legislators, advocates, and community members to work toward comprehensive, evidence-based solutions that will save moms’ lives,” Underwood said in an email.In January 2019, after Underwood received her committee assignments, Adams met with her to see if she wanted to launch a caucus focused on Black maternal health. One of Underwood’s friends, an epidemiologist at the CDC, had died three weeks after she gave birth. “I was still grappling with her death when I came to Congress,” Underwood said.Three months later, they launched the caucus with 53 founding members, including Ayanna Pressley, Lucy McBath and Barbara Lee. Today, it has 115 members from both parties.After consulting with maternal health advocacy groups, Underwood and Adams introduced the Momnibus Act in March 2020, nine bills aimed at combating maternal health disparities through investment in community-based programs and other efforts to rectify social determinants of health – the conditions in which people live, work and grow up – that affect who lives and who dies in childbirth.Their legislative pursuit was timely, coming before a pandemic that would bring racial health disparities to the public’s attention. Between 2019 and 2020, the mortality rate for Black and Latina women and birthing people rose during the first year of the pandemic.Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black and South Asian female vice-president, amplified the issue last week during a speech at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank based in Washington DC. Harris called for “building a future in which being Black and pregnant is a time filled with joy and hope rather than fear”.As a US senator from California, Harris was lead sponsor for the Senate version of the Momnibus Act in 2020, which stalled in committee. Underwood and Adams, along with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, reintroduced the Momnibus bill in February 2021.Most of the proposals in the package are included in the Build Back Better Act, a social spending bill that is stuck in gridlock.“Were it not for Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus, there would not be a Black Maternal Health Caucus,” said the Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley. “When we say that we are the voice of Congress, we mean that.”Pressley lost her paternal grandmother, whom she never knew, when she died giving birth to Pressley’s uncle in the 1950s. “Decades later, the Black maternal mortality crisis continues to rob us of our loved ones and to destabilize families,” she said during the Century Foundation event.What explains the disparities in outcomes between Black and white mothers boils down to what Pressley called “policy violence”. It’s not just the discrimination that Black women and birthing people experience, but also the lack of access to quality healthcare and medical coverage.“These are the result of centuries of laws in a systematic, systematically racist health care system that too often discounts our pay, ignores our voices, disregards our lives,” Pressley said. “Birthing while Black should not be a death sentence.”In November 2021, Joe Biden signed into law one of the bills in the Momnibus package that invests $15m in maternity care for veterans. But other legislative efforts remain stalled in Congress. Eight bills that were part of the original Momnibus package are part of the Build Back Better Act, according to a tracker by The Century Foundation. They include awarding grants to community organizations to help pregnant people find affordable housing, documenting transportation barriers for pregnant and postpartum people, expanding food stamp eligibility and permanently expanding Medicaid coverage for mothers in every state for a year after childbirth.And on Friday, Booker and seven other lawmakers introduced Mamas First Act, which would expand Medicaid to cover services from doulas and midwives.“We’ve made historic progress, from the enactment of the first bill in my Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act to the recent cabinet meeting Vice-President Harris led, the first-ever White House cabinet meeting convened to address maternal health disparities as a national priority,” Underwood said.Adams pointed to another piece of the legislation that feels very close to home: the Kira Johnson Act, named after a 39-year-old Black mother who, after complaining of abdominal pain, died in 2016 from a hemorrhage following a routine caesarean section. The bill would direct the health and human services department to send grants to community groups focused on improving the maternal health outcomes for Black, Latino and other marginalized communities and for training to reduce racial bias and discrimination among healthcare providers.The connection between Johnson’s and her daughter’s situations resonated with Adams. The pain they experienced was dismissed – a familiar form of racial bias that the Momnibus package attempts to address.“Either you have a mother, you are a mother, or you know women who are moms,” Adams said. “When we raise the tide for Black women, who are among the most marginalized and the most vulnerable, we ultimately raise the tide for all women.”TopicsUS CongressParents and parentingFamilyKamala HarrisAyanna PressleyHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

InterviewJamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’Ankita Rao Progressive congressman from Maryland believes that no other crisis, even the existential threat of the changing climate, can be solved without first protecting the fabric of American democracyWhen it comes to fighting for democracy and climate change – two of Jamie Raskin’s top priorities – the whole thing feels a bit like a game of chicken and egg to the Democratic congressman.On the one hand there is the planet, heating up quickly past the limit that is safe and necessary for human survival, while Congress stalls on a $555bn climate package. On the other, a pernicious movement, spurred by Donald Trump and other rightwing conspiracy theorists, to upend voting rights protections and cast doubt on the current election system.But Raskin, a progressive congressman from Maryland, is clear about which comes first: he said America can’t fix the planet without fixing its government.“We’ve got to save the democracy in order to save the climate and save our species,” he said in an interview with the Guardian in collaboration with Reuters and Climate One public radio, as part of the Covering Climate Now media collaboration.Later Raskin added: “We’re never going to be able to successfully deal with climate change if we’re spending all our time fighting the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Ku Klux Klan, and the Aryan nations and all of Steve Bannon’s alt-right nonsense.”In the past two years Raskin’s popularity has surged, picking up fuel after his closing remarks at Trump’s second impeachment trial in early 2021, which he led on behalf of House Democrats. “This trial is about who we are,” he said then, in video clips shared millions of times. His impassioned and meticulous rhetoric are a clear intersection of his past as a Harvard-trained constitutional law professor and son of a progressive activist.But it was an exceptional speech also because of the circumstances in which it was given, which both took place in the span of just a week. The first – the loss of Thomas (Tommy) Bloom Raskin, the congressman’s oldest son, who died by suicide at the tail end of 2020 after a long battle with depression. Just six days later Trump’s followers stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to decertify the election results.Raskin, who said Tommy “hated nothing more than fascism”, was moved to help lead the response to the insurrection through the House’s January 6 select committee.His fight to convict Trump is not only about holding the former president accountable. It’s about sending a message to the country that no other crisis, even the existential threat of the changing climate, can be solved without first protecting the fabric of American democracy.“I think for me the struggle to defend the truth is a precondition for defending our democracy, and the struggle to defend our democracy is a precondition for taking the effective action that needs to be taken in order to meet the climate crisis in a serious way and turn it around,” he said.This concept plays out clearly in the country’s uneven political representation. The majority of Americans think the government should be doing more to reduce the impacts of climate change, including taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions. But issues like partisan gerrymandering, where politicians manipulate voting district lines, often allow rightwing politicians to retain disproportionate power across state governments.“The key to understanding the collapse of civilizations is that you get a minority faction serving its own interests by dominating government,” he said, referencing Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. “And then everything collapses, usually through the exploitation of natural resources to a point where it’s unsustainable and untenable. That fits pretty perfectly the situation that we’re in with the GOP and climate change today.”Raskin was an early adopter of the Green New Deal, and during the pandemic he sought to block his fellow representatives from using Covid relief money to further fossil fuel interests. His commitment extends to his personal life, where – inspired again by Tommy – he is a devout vegetarian, convinced that new science and technology will render a meat-centric diet unnecessary.But the stakes for protecting the Democratic party’s climate agenda are especially high right now. The climate protections in Joe Biden’s ambitious “Build Back Better” framework have been drastically whittled down. With the midterm elections revving up, and Republicans expected to dominate in state and local races, Democrats face a small window of opportunity to advance their promise of new jobs and tax credits to incentivize a shift to cleaner energy.Those same midterm races are rife with candidates who are following Trump’s “big lie” – that the 2020 election was not legitimate – and continue to hack away at voting rights protections, such as mail-in voting and weekend voting hours.Raskin remained optimistic about Congress passing climate legislation, noting last year’s climate-friendly infrastructure bill, but said the party must always “be realistic” about what that means, even if it denotes considering alternative energy legislation via Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has stood in the way of several progressive bills in the Senate. (Manchin was also a critical roadblock in Raskin’s wife Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board.)“The democratic governments and democratic parties and movements of the world have got to confront this reality. Nobody else is going to do it,” Raskin said.There isn’t much leeway when it comes to enacting change. Storms are getting stronger, people are being displaced from their homes, and anti-science politicians are gaining more ground. But Raskin, armed with his father’s message to “be the hope” and his children’s sense of urgency around climate change, is confident his side is going to win.“We should cut the deals that need to be cut but from a position of power and strength by mobilizing the commanding majorities of people across America that believe in climate change and know that we need to act.”TopicsClimate crisisUS Capitol attackUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

‘Election integrity summits’ aim to fire up Trump activists over big lieThe Conservative Partnership Institute’s meetings promote poll watching and ‘clean’ voter rolls, sparking fears of vote suppression An influential conservative group that includes two Trump allies who helped push lies about voter fraud in 2020 is spearheading “election integrity” summits in battleground states, advocating for expanded poll watching, “clean” voter rolls and other measures watchdogs say could curb voting rights to help Republican candidates.The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) “election integrity network” is run by the veteran GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who helped to spread misinformation about supposed election fraud in 2020.Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, is a senior partner of the CPI and reportedly had a lead role in at least one of its summits.Mitchell, CPI’s senior legal fellow, has hosted multi-day summits, seeking to mobilize hundreds of conservative activists for elections this year in Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, all states that Trump lost to Joe Biden, and Florida, which he won.CPI is slated to hold summits this spring in Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin, as it seeks to build “election integrity” infrastructure in swing states.Powerful groups on the right such as Heritage Action and Tea Party Patriots Action have participated in previous summits.Ties between CPI and Trump were underscored last July, when the former president’s Save America leadership Pac donated $1m to the group weeks after the House voted to create a committee to investigate the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by Trump loyalists seeking to disrupt certification of Biden’s election victory.Mitchell’s election summits began in February this year. Previously, she and other conservatives worked with legislators in states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Texas to spur the passage of voting laws, including new voter ID requirements and curbs on absentee voting, that seem heavily aimed at Black voters, voting rights advocates say.A participant at the CPI Arizona event said falsehoods about voter fraud in 2020 were voiced to gin-up enthusiasm for more aggressive election monitoring in 2022.“The event definitely used the false allegations of fraud in 2020 as a call to action to rally support for vigilant engagement this year in the election process,” the participant told the Guardian, speaking on condition of anonymity.“There was a large focus on recruiting precinct officials to watch the polls and all of the other processes associated with elections.”Voting rights watchdogs voiced strong concern about the CPI summits.“Ongoing efforts to promote false claims of widespread voter fraud are dangerous and damaging to our democracy,” Wendy Weiser, vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, said.“There is a multi-pronged attack on the core principles of our democracy in the name of election integrity. The country’s history with these kinds of so-called ‘election integrity’ operations makes clear that they create a serious risk of racial targeting, voter intimidation, and vote suppression.”The push to forge state election “integrity” networks is occurring while Mitchell and Meadows face congressional scrutiny and other investigation of their efforts to help Trump stay in power.Mitchell participated in a 2 January 2021 call with the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump urged the state official to “find” 11,780 votes, in order to overturn Biden’s win in the state.The Fulton county district attorney and a special grand jury are investigating whether Trump and others broke laws barring the solicitation of election fraud and other statutes in Georgia. Last month, Mitchell was subpoenaed by the House January 6 committee that is investigating the Capitol attack.Meadows was a “keynote speaker” at a two-day CPI Georgia summit in February, where he was scheduled to discuss “what happened in Georgia in 2020 and what we must do to protect future elections”, according to the Citizen Times, a paper in Meadows’ home state, North Carolina.Meadows is now under scrutiny for alleged voter fraud in 2020. North Carolina officials announced last week the four-term congressman had been removed from voter rolls pending the outcome of an investigation prompted by a New Yorker report that in 2020 he registered to vote using an address he never lived at.In March, several days before the North Carolina inquiry was announced, Meadows pulled out of the CPI’s Arizona summit, where he had been billed as a top speaker. He has reportedly not participated in other events.Meadows also faces a criminal contempt of Congress referral to the US justice department, for refusing to comply fully with requests from the January 6 committee.‘Capitalizing on confusion’CPI declined to answer queries about the summits and about Meadows’ role.Watchdog groups say the summits are sham efforts based on the lie that the 2020 election was subject to widespread fraud.“The people who perpetrated the fraudulent notion that the 2020 election was stolen are capitalizing on the confusion they deliberately sowed to undermine the safety and security of future elections and, not coincidentally, rake in money in the process,” Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser to the government watchdog group American Oversight, said.Some details of CPI’s gameplan for the 2022 elections have been revealed by websites promoting state summits.In Pennsylvania, a three-day summit in late March was advertised to include sessions on how to form a “local election integrity taskforce”; how to protect “vulnerable voters from leftist activists”; “researching your local election office”; “monitoring voting equipment and systems”; and more.Some “election integrity” meetings have drawn powerful conservative groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity that have to varying degrees amplified false claims about the 2020 elections.Some groups at the summits have been bankrolled by donors including the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch, billionaire businessman Richard Uihlein and the conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, where Mitchell is a board member.CPI gatherings have also been attended by GOP figures including candidates running for governor in Pennsylvania and the sitting Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.According to the Center for Media and Democracy, at a secretive January meeting with leaders of Tea Party Patriots and conservative groups from several states, Mitchell and CPI distributed a “citizens’ guide to building an election integrity infrastructure” to promote the summits and her message.Mitchell was also tapped last March by FreedomWorks to spearhead what it billed as a $10m drive to push tougher voting laws in more than half a dozen states and to fight Democratic proposals to make voting easier.Some watchdog groups say the CPI summits pose several threats to voting rights in 2022.Sloan, of American Oversight, said the CPI agenda had echoes of “Jim Crow-style voter suppression techniques, and a recipe for more verbal and physical threats against election administration officials”, similar to ones that occurred in Georgia and other states after the 2020 elections.Weiser, of the Brennan Center, warned: “There is a growing risk that in the name of election integrity, partisans and vigilantes will mobilize to intimidate voters and thwart their participation.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS voting rightsfeaturesReuse this content More