US Politics

January 6 panel receives Trump lawyer emails about plan to block Biden victoryHouse panel receives 101 emails belonging John Eastman, concerning plans to obstruct certification of 2020 election result The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol has received a cache of emails belonging to Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, federal court documents filed on Tuesday show.The 101 emails were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled in federal court in California last week that Eastman, a hard-right supporter of the former US president, had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege.The cache of documents, sent between 4 and 7 January 2021, contains extensive communications between Eastman and others about plans to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.These included proposed efforts to pressure Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, to reject or delay counting electoral college votes and weaponizing false allegations of voter fraud in numerous state lawsuits.In one email, which includes a draft memo for Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recommending Pence reject some states’ electors during the 6 January congressional meeting, Carter ruled for disclosure as the communications were being used to plan criminal activity.“The draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act, and Dr Eastman’s later memos closely track its analysis and proposal,” the ruling says. “The memo is both intimately related to and clearly advanced the plan to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”Neither Trump nor Eastman have been charged with crimes relating to 6 January and the order on Eastman’s emails was made in civil court.Others references to emails in the judge’s ruling allude to other plans Eastman was involved in.“In a different email thread,” Carter writes, “Dr Eastman and a colleague consider how to use a state court ruling to justify Vice-President Pence enacting the plan. In another email, a colleague focuses on the ‘plan of action’ after the January 6 attacks, not mentioning future litigation.”The sprawling select committee investigation, chaired by the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson from Mississippi, has interviewed more than 800 people as part of its investigation into the events on January 6.On Tuesday, Thompson confirmed that Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, had appeared before the committee, marking the first time a member of the immediate Trump family had appeared.Reports indicated her testimony lasted about eight hours. The testimony followed an appearance before the committee by her husband, Jared Kushner, the previous week.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Dark money: the quixotic quest to clean up US campaign financing The supreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for special interests to pour money into elections. Could a constitutional amendment be the answer?It would, activists testify, restore the public’s waning trust in vital US institutions, curb the corrupting influence of big money in politics and give America’s ailing democracy a much-needed shot in the arm.It is also, they acknowledge, dead on arrival.Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack | Robert ReichRead moreAn amendment to the US constitution was last week proposed by Congressman Adam Schiff to overturn a 2010 precedent set by the supreme court, known as Citizens United, which opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour billions of dollars into election campaigns.Passing the amendment would, Schiff argues, enable Congress or individual states to propose reasonable limits on private campaign contributions and independent expenditures. “Let’s get dark money out of our democracy,” he tweeted. “And return power to the people.”Such a move has broad public support in America but little chance of getting through Congress itself. Amending the constitution requires support from a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate plus ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures.In today’s polarised America, where few Republicans have displayed an appetite for campaign finance reform, that remains a non-starter. Democrats including Schiff himself have made previous attempts at constitutional amendments and got nowhere. Citizens United appears to be here to stay.Its origins lie in a challenge to campaign finance rules by Citizens United, a conservative non-profit group, after the Federal Election Commission refused to allow it to broadcast a film criti­cising candid­ate Hillary Clin­ton too close to the Democratic pres­id­en­tial primar­ies.In one of the most controversial decisions in its history, the supreme court ruled 5-4 in Citizens United’s favor with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing that limit­ing “inde­pend­ent polit­ical spend­ing” from corpor­a­tions and other special interest groups viol­ates the first amend­ment right to free speech.It opened the way for them to spend unlim­ited money on elec­tion campaigns. In the 12 years since, outside groups have spent more than $4.4bn in federal elections – almost $1bn of which was “dark money”, typically through non-profits that do not disclose their donors. The biggest contributors have included banks, the pharmaceutical industry and the National Rifle Association (NRA).“Citizens United has been a disaster for the American political system even beyond what we expected,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) “We knew it was bad when it happened but the amount of money going into the political system has exploded since that decision, including a massive expansion in third-party spending, particularly unaccountable dark money spending.”The supreme court’s majority opinion in 2010 had assumed that outside spending would be inherently transparent and free from corruption. It has been proven wrong, Bookbinder argues, as the money is funneled through non-profits or shell corporations that conceal its origins.“So much of that money comes from sources that are difficult or impossible to identify. The public doesn’t know who’s responsible for this money in American politics. It’s been catastrophic and it does need to be fixed.”This, campaigners say, has had a corrosive effect on democracy and explains why politicians who benefit from the money so often fail to tackle healthcare reform, gun control, the climate crisis and other urgent issues.Bookbinder added: “It certainly does give more power to powerful interests like the fossil fuel companies, the drug companies, the major banks and all the biggest money industries as well as individual billionaires who can put a great deal of money into the political system, often in ways that the public doesn’t know about but that elected officials do know about and feel beholden to.“That’s a real problem. When you see a lack of progress on issues like climate change, how much of that is due to the fact that so many elected officials are beholden to powerful figures connected to industries that don’t want progress?”This, in turn, feeds public frustration with Washington a place where nothing gets done except measures that favour the rich and powerful – a recipe for voters to turn to outsider candidates such as Donald Trump who promise to shake up the system and “drain the swamp”.Bookbinder said: “The other piece that is really dangerous is that the American people understand that there is so much money going into politics from very wealthy people and from industries and they feel like the democracy is not working for them.“It makes people lose their faith in democracy and become more willing potentially to either support leaders who don’t believe necessarily in democracy – we’ve seen that in recent years – or to be less concerned with defending the democracy from threats. That’s another way in which it can be kind of existential in the effect that it has.”Pacs (polit­ical action commit­tees) raise and spend money for campaigns that support or attack polit­ical candid­ates or legis­la­tion. Pacs are allowed to donate directly to a candid­ate’s offi­cial campaign but subject to limits on what contributions they can give or receive.In the wake of Citizens United, however, a federal appeals court ruled that outside groups could accept unlim­ited contri­bu­tions as long as they do not give directly to candid­ates. These Super Pacs are allowed to spend money to endorse or oppose candid­ates with adverts that are produced independently.But Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the democracy reform group Common Cause, said: “The reality since that decision shows that it is not necessarily independent – we see lots of coordination between candidates and Super Pacs – and it causes enormous damage to our imperfect democracy where wealthy mega-donors, corporations, special interest groups not only impact and influence elections but, once elected, lawmakers feel like they need to grant favours for those who funded their campaigns.”Super Pacs are obliged to disclose their donors but these can include non-profits which make the original source of the money hard to track. More than 2,000 Super Pacs operated in each of the last two election cycles.The negative consequences have been felt not only in Washington but at state level, added Flynn, whose long fight for campaign finance reform in Connecticut bore fruit in 2008. “It has created a huge amount of cynicism that Congress and state legislatures are corrupt because they benefit from outside groups spending money on their behalf and that people’s voices do not matter.“The money has also led to further polarisation, driving more extreme kinds of measures, particularly on the right where we’ve seen money supporting those who want to overturn a fair and free election. If you look at the top 10 Super Pacs and their outside spending so far just in 2022, you’ll see nine out of the top 10 Super Pacs are conservative or support Republican candidates. It isn’t like, ‘Hey, both sides do it and it’s equal and it’s not a problem.’”Super Pacs are not all-powerful. Jeb Bush enjoyed their backing to the tune of $100m in 2016 but was defeated for the Republican nomination by Donald Trump’s improvised insurgent campaign. Everyone from Trump to Bernie Sanders to Marjorie Taylor Greene has shown the potency of small donations.And Congress could still take action. Its recently proposed Free­dom to Vote Act would have ensured that Super Pacs are truly inde­pend­ent and illuminated “dark money” by requir­ing any entity that spends more than $10,000 in an elec­tion to disclose all major donors.But the legislation stalled in the evenly divided Senate after Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema rejected efforts to reform a procedural rule known as the filibuster, which would have enabled their party to thwart Republican opposition. A dark money group had run a $1m ad campaign in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia to pressure him to keep the filibuster intact.For critics of Citizens United, it was back to the drawing board once more. Rio Tazewell, director of strategy at People for the American Way, said: “Unfortunately there are very limited options in terms of what can be done. The supreme court could decide to weigh in on another case and reverse itself; given the current makeup of the court for the foreseeable future, that does seem unlikely.”But Tazewell noted that 22 states and more than 830 municipal localities have passed resolutions supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. “There’s a lot of pressure building and coalition building that’s happening so that we can ultimately get the type of bipartisan support that we probably will need to pass an amendment,” he added.“Ultimately, I think the most realistic solution – and possible, perhaps not overnight – is for there to be somewhat of a sea change at the national level and a greater recognition that this is not and should not be a partisan issue.”TopicsUS political financingUS politicsUS CongressDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

Oklahoma lawmakers pass bill to make performing an abortion illegal State house approves bill that would make performing an abortion a felony and punishable by 10 years in prison Oklahoma lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill to make performing an abortion a felony punishable by 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. That is likely to land the bill on the desk of the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, who has promised to sign all anti-abortion legislation.Oklahoma’s bill is just one in a raft of Republican bills to severely restrict or ban abortion, all timed before a widely anticipated supreme court case that disrupts nearly 50 years of established protections for abortion rights. If Oklahoma’s bill passes into law, it will take effect this summer.“When [patients] hear this is happening, and probably will happen soon, they are in shock,” said Dr Iman Alsaden, medical director of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.“The implications of all of this is there’s going to be a few states that are relied on to provide abortion care to people, and those people who do not live in those states will have to wait enormously long wait times,” said Alsaden. “You’re just looking at really making people jump through extraordinary hoops.”More than 781,000 women of reproductive age live in Oklahoma. However, the bill is also expected to have an outsized impact on the nearly 7 million women of reproductive age who live in Texas. Thousands of pregnant Texans have relied on legal abortion in Oklahoma since Texas outlawed abortion after six weeks gestation in September 2021.Since Texas outlawed most abortion services, Planned Parenthood Great Plains’s caseload of Texas patients has gone from about four dozen from September to December 2020, to more than 1,100 in the same three-month period in 2021. Demand from patients in Texas has been so great it has already displaced some Oklahoma patients, Alsaden said, who she has seen travel to Kansas for care.Alsaden said Planned Parenthood Great Plains intended to challenge any abortion bans in court. However, the fate of any such challenge and others like it are uncertain.Before former president Donald Trump took office, federal courts routinely blocked abortion bans. However, Trump was able to confirm three conservative justices, which tipped the balance of the supreme court to the right.Since then, the supreme court has shown a willingness to severely restrict or perhaps overturn the right to terminate a pregnancy, even though the majority of Americans support legal abortion. A supreme court decision in a crucial abortion rights case is expected in June.“These legislators have continued their relentless attacks on our freedoms,” said Emily Wales, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, a related reproductive rights advocacy group.“These restrictions are not about improving the safety of the work that we do. They are about shaming and stigmatizing people who need and deserve abortion access.”Republican legislators who sponsored the bill emphasized that the punishments outlined were for doctors, “not for the woman”, said the Oklahoma state representative Jim Olsen.Notably, the bill was also unusual for being revived from the 2021 legislative session. During hearings in 2021, Olsen said he felt ending abortion was a moral duty and compared terminating a pregnancy to slavery.Also Tuesday, the Oklahoma house adopted a resolution to recognize aborted fetuses as lives lost and urged citizens to fly flags at half-staff on 22 January, the day the supreme court established a legal right to abortion through the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade.“All of these laws are rooted in paternalism and racism and white supremacy, and they disproportionately affect people who are Black and brown and low-income, and they do that under the guise of quote-unquote helping people,” said Alsaden.“If you wanted to help someone, there is something basic you need to do when you are helping them – which is listen to what they need,” she said.TopicsOklahomaAbortionHealthRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, spoke via video to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Donald Trump attempted in vain to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said on Tuesday afternoon that she had been answering investigators’ questions on a video teleconference since the morning and was not “chatty” but had been helpful. “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Thompson said.Ivanka Trump, who was with her father in the White House that day, is one of more than 800 witnesses the committee has interviewed as it works to compile a record of the attack, the worst on the Capitol in more than two centuries.She is the first of Trump’s children known to speak to the committee and one of the closest people to her father.Whether she gave the committee new information or not, her decision to cooperate was significant for the panel, which has been trying to secure an interview with her since late January.The nine-member panel is particularly focused on what the former president was doing as his supporters broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s victory for several hours as lawmakers and staff fled for their lives.The Guardian had earlier confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, would speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony came after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.Also in Washington on Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, pleaded not guilty to felony charges including conspiracy to block the certification by Congress of electoral college results on January 6. The January 6 committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for the day of the Capitol attack.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Sacramento: second suspect arrested over mass shooting that killed sixSmiley Martin, 27, brother of first suspect Dandrae Martin, facing gun-related charges but neither brother charged with homicide Police in Sacramento arrested a second person in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting in a bustling stretch of California’s capitol. Six people were killed in the shooting and at least 12 were injured.On Tuesday the department announced Smiley Martin, who was also injured in the shooting, would be booked in Sacramento’s county jail once his medical care is complete. Martin, 27, is facing charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. His brother Dandrae Martin, 26, was arrested on Monday and charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses.Neither have been charged with homicide as police say they are continuing to comb through hundreds of pieces of physical evidence as well as video footage and photos.01:19Detectives also were trying to determine if a stolen handgun found at the crime scene was connected to the shooting. The handgun was inspected and was converted to a weapon capable of automatic gunfire, authorities have said.More than 100 shots were fired early on Sunday in downtown Sacramento, creating a chaotic scene with hundreds trying desperately to get to safety. A day later police announced the arrest of Dandrae Martin as a “related suspect” on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and being a convict carrying a loaded gun. A court appearance was set for Tuesday.Detectives and Swat team members found one handgun during searches of three homes. The three women and three men killed were identified on Monday.The Sacramento county coroner identified the women killed as Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21. The three men were Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and De’vazia Turner, 29.The Sacramento mayor, Darrell Steinberg, read their names during a vigil on Monday evening attended by grieving relatives, friends and community members.Turner, who had three daughters and a son, was a “protector” who worked as the night manager at an inventory company, his mother, Penelope Scott, told the Associated Press. He rarely went out, and she had no reason to believe he would be in harm’s way when he left her house after he visited Saturday night.“I want people to know he is a great person and he loved his family,” Scott told KCRA, Sacramento’s NBC affiliate. “You took away somebody that meant a whole lot to a whole lot of community people. Our Facebook … everything is flooded with love.”Turner’s cousin Sergio Harris was also killed in the mass shooting. He had a wife and two young daughters. During a candlelight vigil on Monday, Harris’ cousin Jackie Henderson described him as “a great man”.“He had his life taken from him – shot in the back, unacceptable,” Henderson said, according to Sacramento’s local Fox affiliate. She also called for an end to the gun violence that ended the lives of the six victims.“The last time we had a mass shooting, we did the same thing, sat out here, held up our candles, talked about [how] the police are here for us now, the public officials are [here for us now] – they’re here for us. How are they here for us if we’re sitting here doing the same damn thing again?” Henderson continued.A friend of Melinda Davis said she was a “very sassy lady” who lived on the streets of Sacramento near the shooting site.Shawn Peter, a guide with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, told the Sacramento Bee he’d known Davis for 15 years. She had been homeless and lived in the area on and off for a decade. “Melinda was a very eccentric individual, a very sassy lady,” he told the newspaper. “This was her world, 24/7.”Officials had helped her find housing before the pandemic began but she had returned to the downtown business district in recent months, Peter said. A small bouquet of purple roses with a note saying “Melinda Rest In Peace” was left on the street.The family of Martinez-Andrade say they are still looking for answers.“Trying to get to the bottom of things without nobody knocking on our door, letting us know what really happened and stuff is kind of frustrating,” said Frank Gonzales, Martinez-Andrade’s stepfather, to KCRA. “It’s been rough. We’re still going through a hard time right now. “Hopefully we’ll get through this.”Alexander, who was also killed in the early morning shooting, was described as headstrong by her father, who spoke to the same news outlet.“She was outgoing, headstrong, spoke her peace whether you liked it or you didn’t,” said John Alexander.A father used a ghost gun to kill his three daughters. It’s a sign of a growing crisisRead moreThis mass shooting comes less than six weeks after a man shot himself after killing his three daughters – ages nine, 10 and 13 – and a man who was supervising a visit between the girls and their father at a Sacramento-area church. He was banned from owning a gun because of a domestic violence restraining order but was able to skirt the prohibition by getting a ghost gun, a firearm that is ordered in parts and can be assembled in a few hours with the help of a YouTube tutorial. They lack serial numbers and can be bought without a background check, making them nearly impossible to trace through traditional means.Police have not named the exact tool or accessory used to convert the firearm into a machine gun, but under state law it is considered an illegal weapon. Though it has faced many legal challenges, California’ assault weapon ban has been in effect since 1994. The longstanding rule prohibits the manufacturing, purchase, and possession of firearms that are considered assault weapons, which includes a gun that can expel multiple rounds with one trigger pull. Police suspect this type of weapon was used in Sunday’s melee because more than 100 shell casings were found.California has more than 100 gun laws on the books that determine who can sell ammunition, where guns can be bought, and the number of rounds any single firearm can hold. And cities including San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland have banned ghost guns and lodged lawsuits against manufacturers of parts. Still, California lawmakers are continuing to create legislation, including a measure modeled after Texas’s abortion ban, that they hope will keep unregistered or illegally purchased guns out of people’s hands, cars and homes.But the longtime partisan stalemate and lack of a permanent head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are making it more difficult for Biden to put his campaign promises into practice, leaving gun regulation mainly to states.On Monday, Senator Dianne Feinstein joined the chorus of officials calling on Congress to pass new gun legislation. “Of course, this isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest in an epidemic of gun violence that continues to plague our country,” Feinstein said in a statement.“Enough is enough. We can no longer ignore gun violence in our communities. Congress knows what steps must be taken to stop these mass shootings, we just have to act.”TopicsCaliforniaGun crimeUS crimeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Fourth House Republican who voted to impeach Trump announces retirement Ex-president issues mocking statement after Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan says he will not stand in midterms The Michigan congressman Fred Upton has become the fourth of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol attack to announce his retirement in November.The others are Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the January 6 committee, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and John Katko of New York. The retirements are seen as further boosting Trump’s power and influence with Republicans.Republicans who let Trump ‘bully’ party will seal midterms defeat, GOP senator saysRead moreUnderscoring his control of the party, Trump issued a brief but celebratory statement, saying: “UPTON QUITS! Four down and six to go. Others losing badly, who’s next?”Liz Cheney of Wyoming, another member of the January 6 committee, is among the six remaining Republicans who voted to impeach and now face Trump-backed challengers.Upton made his announcement on the House floor. He did not refer to his impeachment vote.He said: “I work daily on all things Michigan, particularly with Debbie Dingell [a Democrat], and we’ve been hitting the road to push for civility.“Hopefully civility and bipartisanship versus discord can rule not rue the day.”Upton, whose close relationship with Joe Biden caused Biden a headache during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, also said he had “worked with seven administrations, seven House speakers, none of them would call me a rubber stamp.“If it’s good policy for Michigan, it’s good enough for all of us. As the vice-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, we have pushed the envelope to get things done.”Upton did mention Trump in reference to his vote last year for Biden’s “real, honest-to-goodness infrastructure bill which passed 69 to 30 in the Senate but then hit the rocks here in the House, barely surviving Trump’s opposition despite his call for a proposal twice as expensive with no pay-fors”.Upton’s support for the bill earned him death threats. In one message, which he shared, a man called him a “fucking piece of shit traitor” and said: “I hope you die. I hope everybody in your fucking family dies.”Parties that hold the White House often suffer in the first midterms after a presidential election. Republicans are favoured to take the House this year.Had Upton run for re-election, redistricting would have forced him to face off with another Republican congressman, Bill Huizenga, who has Trump’s endorsement.On Monday, Upton told NBC Trump was “a little bit on the scorched earth path”.Asked what message he would send Trump if he beat Huizenga, he said: “Well, it’s that he’s not as strong as he might have thought that he was.“But … if we run, we’re gonna run our own race. I’m not changing my votes. I don’t cast political votes. I’m not afraid to vote for or against my party when I think they’re right or wrong. Some of the folks here are so beholden to Trump that they don’t accept those of us that are willing to stand up.”He also reiterated his support for investigations of the Capitol attack and said: “If we’re going to be in the majority, we have to appeal to more than just the Trump [supporters]. They’re not a majority in the country. They may be a majority within our party, but not particularly in the midwest.“They are not a majority among all voters, and that’s why you’ve got to have the appeal that can reach across just that … hardcore party base that really is unforgiving.”The next day, however, he decided not to run.Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip, told reporters: “This was a decision [Upton] had to make looking at the dynamics of a member-on-member race.”Gonzalez, a former NFL player who nonetheless declined to face his own challenge, said he would step down last September. As he did so, he cited “toxic dynamics” inside the Republican party.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsMichiganDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Former Trump official voted in two states’ 2016 presidential primariesMatt Mowers’ double voting may have violated federal election law, at a time when Black voters have faced harsh penalties for unwitting violations A former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, possibly violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican party’s intense focus on “election integrity”.Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate hoping to unseat the Democratic representative Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state.Four months later, after Christie’s campaign fizzled, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary, using his parents’ address to re-register in his home state, documents the Associated Press obtained through a public records request show.The case comes amid increased scrutiny on racial disparities in punishment for voting crimes. While there is not comprehensive data on those punishments, there have been high-profile cases in recent years where Black people who unknowingly violated voting laws were sentenced to years in prison. Several white defendants who appear to have committed intentional fraud in 2020 received probation.Legal experts say Mowers’ actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election”. That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office”. It also puts Mowers, who was a senior adviser in Donald Trump’s administration and later held a state department post, in an awkward spot at a time when much of his party has embraced the former president’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and has pushed for restrictive new election laws.The issue could have particular resonance in New Hampshire, where Republicans have long advocated for tighter voting rules to prevent short-term residents, namely college students, from participating in its first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Trump claimed falsely that people were bussed in from out of state to vote in New Hampshire in 2016.“What he has done is cast a vote in two different states for the election of a president, which on the face of it looks like he’s violated federal law,” said David Schultz, a professor at the University of Minnesota law school who specializes in election law. “You get one bite at the voting apple.”Mowers’ campaign declined to make him available for an interview. In a brief statement that did not address the double-voting, campaign spokesperson John Corbett cited Mowers’ work for Trump’s 2016 campaign.“Matt was proud to work for President Trump as the GOP establishment was working to undermine his nomination,” Corbett said. “Matt moved for work and was able to participate in the primary in support of President Trump and serve as a delegate at a critical time for the Republican Party and country.”There is little chance Mowers could face prosecution. The statute of limitations has lapsed, and there is no record of anyone being prosecuted under this specific section of federal election law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks the issue.A separate New Hampshire law prohibits double-voting in two different states, but makes an exception if someone “legitimately moved his or her domicile”.Mowers is just the latest former Trump administration official to draw scrutiny for possibly violating voting laws.Mark Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who served as Trump’s chief of staff, was registered in two states and listed a mobile home he did not own – and may never have visited – as his legal residence weeks before casting a ballot in the 2020 election. North Carolina state officials are investigating.Not everyone agrees Mowers’ double-voting is a clearcut case of voter fraud. For starters, it’s an undeveloped area of law. Any court would have to contend with complicated issues such as whether a primary could be viewed as a public election or as an event held by a private organization that is administered with government help.“With the right set of facts, it could be construed as a violation, but it’s just not at all obvious to me that it is,” said Steven Huefner, an Ohio State University law school professor who specializes in election law. “It is a pretty murky question.”Charlie Spies, a longtime Republican election lawyer who contacted the AP at the request of Mowers’ campaign, called the matter “silly”. He said the double-voting was “at worst a gray area” of the law and “not the sort of issue anybody would spend time on”.Three Black voters recently have faced harsh punishment for voting errors.Earlier this year, Pamela Moses, a 44-year-old Black woman in Memphis, was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote in 2019 while she was still on probation for a felony. A probation officer and the local clerk signed off on a form saying she was eligible to vote. Even though Moses did not sign the form, prosecutors argued she knew she was ineligible. Moses, who says she didn’t know she was ineligible, was granted a new trial in February in part because prosecutors failed to turn over evidence to her defense.In 2018, Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Texas, was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. The ballot was rejected because Mason was on probation for a felony offense. Even though Mason said she did not know she was ineligible, and probation officials said they never told her she couldn’t vote, a judge found her guilty of illegally voting anyway. Her case is being appealed.Last year, Hervis Rogers, who is Black, was arrested for voting in a primary in Houston while still serving a felony sentence. He also says he didn’t know he couldn’t vote and is awaiting trial. He could face several years in prison.The New Hampshire congressional primary race has drawn a half-dozen Republican candidates. Among them is former Trump White House assistant press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has already attacked Mowers for being soft on the issue of “election integrity”.In September, after Mowers said President Joe Biden rightfully won the 2020 election, Leavitt said Mowers “rolled over and sided with Joe Biden and the Democrats by refusing to stand for election integrity”.Mowers’ campaign called her criticism “fake news” at the time.His own campaign website has leaned in on the issue, featuring a section dedicated to “election integrity”. It states that new rules are needed to “provide every American citizen with the certainty that their vote counts”.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2016newsReuse this content More