US Politics

Harris charts her own course as vice-president amid intense scrutiny Harris is navigating a position that comes with great influence but few formal responsibilities – and the stakes are even higher for her compared to past vice-presidentsEarlier this month, Kamala Harris convened the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council, an important summit that brought together cabinet secretaries and top space and military officials in the sun-drenched atrium of the US Institute of Peace. Over the course of nearly two hours, the vice-president engaged the panel in discussion with real, earthly implications for national security, the climate crisis and workforce development.But attention in Washington was diverted elsewhere. At the supreme court, the justices were weighing the future of abortion rights. Republicans in Congress were threatening a government shutdown over their opposition to Covid-19 mask mandates. And as Harris spoke, public health experts confirmed the first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the US.Such is the challenge of Harris’s mission: a historic first navigating an inescapably secondary role. Her work on the president’s most urgent priorities – combatting the coronavirus pandemic and enacting his legislative agenda – is often overlooked, while her efforts on her own policy portfolio often goes unnoticed. It is a dynamic that has frustrated past occupants of the office, which comes with great influence but few formal responsibilities. But the expectations – and the stakes – are even higher for Harris, both because she made history as the first Black, South Asian and female vice-president, and because she is next in line to Joe Biden, who, at 79, is the oldest president ever to hold office.Speaking to the space council, Harris shared a piece of wisdom given to her by an astronaut, offering it as a guiding principle for tackling the myriad challenges before them: “Just focus on what’s right in front of you. And from there, widen your view.”Nearly a year into her vice-presidency, Harris has plenty to focus on – and more than enough distractions.‘There is no playbook for this’Harris has been handed a portfolio packed with politically thorny issues, voting rights and the root causes of immigration from Central America, among them. That work comes in addition to a host of other assignments that includes selling the president’s infrastructure plan, advocating for his sprawling social policy bill, representing women in the workforce, highlighting maternal health disparities, combatting vaccine hesitancy and championing small businesses.Voting rights advocates frustrated by ‘same-old, same-old’ meeting with White House Read moreThe Biden administration continues to face a global pandemic that has not receded, rising inflation and uncertainty over the centerpiece of the president’s legislative agenda. Since taking office, her approval numbers have fallen precipitously alongside Biden’s, fueling early chatter about possible Democratic alternatives should Biden not run for re-election in 2024.She is a frequent target of attacks from conservative media outlets, where some pundits still willfully mispronounce her first name. But she has also come under pressure from activists frustrated by the slow pace of progress on issues like immigration and voting rights. And the recent departures of high-profile aides from her office have renewed scrutiny of her management style.In the churn, Harris has struggled to chart her own course in a position that can be simultaneously forgettable and highly visible.“When you are second in command, not first in command, no one understands your role,” said Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic strategist who is close to Harris. “So you have to constantly define your role and shape your own narrative. That is the challenge that she has.”The pandemic, and the possibility of being summoned to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, have made travel tricky. But Harris said recently she hopes to spend more time away from Washington next year, selling the president’s agenda. And she will surely be a sought-after surrogate for Democrats on the campaign trail ahead of November’s midterm elections.Already, Harris has made dozens of domestic trips, hosting roundtables and giving local interviews to spotlight the administration’s work.On recent trip to Charlotte to promote the infrastructure law, Harris was joined by the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. During a tour of a bus depot, Harris sought to keep the focus on infrastructure, quizzing a local transit official about the features of a brand-new electric-powered bus. But after the event, Harris was peppered with questions from reporters about 2024, the rumored rivalry between her and Buttigieg and reports of a “staff shake-up” in the vice-president’s office.Harris has expressed frustration with the breathless coverage, which includes a recent report on her skepticism of Bluetooth headphones and an interview with a body-language expert analyzing her interactions with Buttigieg during the North Carolina trip. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Harris called the coverage “ridiculous” and said she would not allow herself to be distracted.“There is no playbook for this,” said Karen Finney, a longtime Democratic strategist who is close to the Harris team.Noting that Harris has broken barriers in every job she’s held, Finney said she came into office with her eyes wide open.“She’s tough,” Finney said. “She’s focused on the job.”Some stories are harder to dismiss. Stories about staff dysfunction have dogged Harris throughout her nearly two decades in elected office, from San Francisco district attorney to the US Senate to her 2020 presidential campaign, which fell apart amid reports of internal discord.Allies see overtones of sexism and racism in the coverage of Harris. They say the portrait of her as an overbearing boss is a trope used to diminish women in politics, and that male politicians are rarely subject to the same level of scrutiny over their leadership style. And former aides have come to her defense, saying she is demanding but not unfair.But critics say Harris stands apart. She burns through staffers who have a high tolerance for difficult work environments under both male and female bosses. They point to the high turnover in her office and the lack of longtime aides by her side, a sharp contrast with Biden, who is surrounded by advisers who have been with him for decades.Gil Duran, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, worked for Harris in 2013, when she was attorney general. He left five months later. In a recent column, he wrote that Harris was repeating the “same old destructive patterns”.Those concerns did little to slow her political rise, Duran told the Guardian, but now that she is seen as Biden’s heir apparent, they could color perceptions of her ability to manage the presidency.Is Kamala Harris being shunned by the US president? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead more“It’s important to put a stop to this narrative,” he said. If she can do that, he believes the stories of internal dysfunction will be “old news” by the time she might face voters again. “But if it continues to be refreshed by new drama,” Duran warned, “then I think it’s going to be hard to escape.”Rise to the presidency?Harris’s difficult portfolio has caused angst among supporters and allies who hope to see her rise to the presidency. Some have argued that tasking the vice president with politically sensitive – and potentially intractable – policy issues positions her poorly for future endeavors. Others have argued she is being sidelined in her current role, left to handle matters that are either unpleasant or peripheral to the administration’s priorities.When asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if she felt “misused or underused” by the White House, Harris disagreed. “No,” she said. “I don’t. I’m very, very excited about the work that we have accomplished.”Elaine Kamarck, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Picking the Vice President, says the concern is misguided.“The measure of a successful vice-president is whether or not the president trusts them enough to give them major duties,” she said. “That she has been given important jobs by the president means that he trusts her. And of course, they’re tough. If they weren’t tough, they wouldn’t be important.”But she has also frustrated immigration advocates and progressives, who consider the California Democrat, herself the daughter of immigrants, as a close ally. Many were upset that she used her first international trip to Central America to warn migrants: “Do not come.”They are also disappointed by the slow pace of progress on the administration’s long-promised immigration reform. For several days, immigrant rights activists protested outside Harris’s residence at the Naval Observatory, demanding the administration make good on their promise to deliver pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.Carving her own pathHarris has stressed that progress will be slow. Combating corruption and violence in Central America, not to mention addressing the threat of climate change, will take years to bear fruit. But she has made some headway. Harris recently announced a slew of new pledges from companies like ​​PepsiCo, Mastercard and Microsoft, as part of her efforts to improve economic opportunity in the region.Perhaps no issue in her charge is of more urgent concern for her party than voting rights. It is a task even Biden conceded would take “a hell of a lot of work”, but one that has personal resonance for Harris, who likes to say that she attended civil rights protests as a child, when she was still in a stroller.Activists have spent months pressuring Biden and Harris to use their bully pulpit more aggressively to push for voting rights legislation. A pair of voting rights bills are stalled in the Senate, where Republicans have used the filibuster to block the measures on four separate occasions.A recent meeting with Harris left leading voting rights advocates frustrated and alarmed that the White House did not have a strategy to pass federal voting rights legislation as Republicans roll back access to the ballot box in state legislatures across the country and enact new electoral maps designed to benefit them politically.“We need to see that sense of urgency as they have done with other priorities in administration,” said Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “We’ve not seen that level of urgency yet.”One of the few concrete duties the Constitution provides for the vice president is to serve as president of the Senate, casting tie-breaking votes when they arise. It’s a job that keeps her busy – and nearby – as she can be summoned to Capitol Hill at any hour of the day to push legislation or one of the president’s nominee through the evenly divided chamber.“Every time I vote, we win,” Harris told NBC News after casting her 14th and 15th tie-breaking votes.Despite her time on Capitol Hill, she has not served as the administration’s lead negotiator on its legislative agenda, a role Biden relished as Barack Obama’s vice-president. Harris, who spent a large part of her nearly four years in the Senate running for president, lacks the deep bonds Biden forged with lawmakers over his decades in Congress.But Harris has worked to strengthen those relationships with her former colleagues. Earlier this year, she invited all 24 female senators for dinner at her residence. And during the fraught, final negotiations over the infrastructure law, she huddled with Biden at the White House, making late-night calls to members of Congress that helped seal the deal.Carving her own path, Harris has sought to use her ceremonial office to elevate issues and voices that are often underrepresented in Washington. Earlier this year, she met with disability advocates to discuss how the administration could make voting more accessible. She also recently convened the first White House’s first day of action on maternal health. During the summit, she highlighted the racial disparities in the nation’s maternal mortality rate, which is more than double that of most other developed nations.“I wonder what my mother would say today, had she been here to see this, or my grandmother or any other woman from that era, including Shirley Chisholm, who I had the great opportunity to work for,” Brazile, who was the first Black woman to manage a presidential campaign, said, becoming emotional.“What would they say if they got up every morning knowing that the person who is a heartbeat away from the presidency, the person who is second in command, is someone who looks like them?”On 19 November, Harris became the first woman in American history to hold presidential powers. The brief transfer of power occurred from 10:10 am to 11:35 am EST, while Biden was under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy. Harris spent the time working from her office in the West Wing and most would agree her stint in the role of president left the glass ceiling largely intact.Yet for her supporters, the moment was a glimpse of a future they still believe to be possible.History has shown that the best path forward for a vice president with higher ambitions is to ensure the success of the president, said Kamarck.“In the end, what matters is whether people end up liking the Biden years,” Kamarck said. “Do they want it to continue or are they sick of the Biden years and want something different?”TopicsKamala HarrisBiden administrationUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

Democracy Lives In Darkness review: how to take politics off the holiday dinner tableEmily Van Duyn’s study of a group of liberal women in rural Texas is thought-provoking reading for the holiday period

From Peril to Betrayal: the year in US politics books
In 2015, Saturday Night Live spoofed the rancorous political arguments besieging American social life.‘It’s who they are’: gun-fetish photo a symbol of Republican abasement under TrumpRead moreCast members seated around a dining table to celebrate Thanksgiving passed the side dishes and threw invective. The verbal heat rose and rose until a young girl pressed play on a cassette player and the Adele song Hello washed over the room. The combatants instantly ceased fire and began lip-synching the lyrics. Their rapture escalated until they physically entered a re-creation of the music video.A Thanksgiving Miracle aired before the Trump presidency and its violent subversive conclusion. This holiday season, it’s hard to think of a song capable of transporting Americans into a state of blissful unity. Masks and vaccines have become an issue and assault weapons have cropped up as accessories on congressional Christmas cards. But there is an alternative to mutually assured bad-mouthing. Americans can meet clandestinely among the like-minded, not just to commiserate but also to plan and participate in election campaigns.Emily Van Duyn, a political communications scholar, embedded with one such group in Texas in 2017. Her book chronicles the journey of 136 liberal women living in a rural and thus predominantly conservative Texas town who, determined to resist Trump, organized themselves into what Van Duyn anonymizes as the Community Women’s Group (CWG).They were middle-aged and senior white women (save one who was Black), afraid to speak their minds and put up yard signs. The author interviewed 24 of them multiple times, attended their monthly meetings on a dozen occasions, and examined meeting minutes from November 2016, when they were in tears and shock, until December 2020, at which point their politicking had yielded higher vote totals for Democrats in the previous month’s election, though not enough to prevail anywhere on the ballot.Van Duyn also conducted a national and statewide survey in 2018, from which she concluded that more than one in five American adults felt the need to hide their politics, and just under one in 10 operated in similarly self-obscured conversational settings.The study explains how social, geographic and political causes shaped the communication practices of the CWG.“[T]he growing animosity between and within parties, the uncertainty about truth, the growing intersectional animosity around ideology, race, class, and gender, made for a political context that was not only unpleasant but risky.”Trump palpably threatened their sense of security as women. Locally, they feared ostracization, loss of business (especially the real estate agents), defacement of property and being run off the road by men in trucks with guns who noticed liberal bumper-stickers, as happened at least once and was talked about often.Van Duyn excels at detailing the evolution of CWG’s communications practices, a mix of private and public facing activities conducted through physical as well as digital channels. Many members had grown up deferring to men about matters political. But a week after Trump’s victory one of them sent an email to eight neighbors: “I would like to suggest that we get together for support and see where that takes us.”That got forwarded, and 50 showed up at the first meeting. In a remote location, with the blinds closed, they wrote a mission statement and formed committees by issue to educate themselves. That super-structure soon fell by the wayside. Their formalized confidentiality agreement held, however. Between meetings they relied on a listserv to communicate among themselves with a brief detour into a secret Facebook group.In their darkened space (the book title inverts the slogan of the Washington Post) they opened each meeting with talk about their fears. A few started sending letters to the editor of the local newspaper using their individual identity, often to register dissent with and fact-check other letter writers. Over the two years of the study, about half emerged as open Democrats. They worked on mobilizing other Democrats (even though not all were registered or comfortable with the party), leaving the heavy labor of persuasion to formal campaigns. Their work shored up the party in their county: they ran phone banks, filled district chairs, updated voter files and raised money. The group had served as a safe harbor to develop political skills and confidence.CWG falls into several political traditions, including the voluntary associations that De Tocqueville valorized, the hidden minorities who have suffered the weights of oppression and, for that matter, the collectives of oppressors and cultists.Women are a demographic majority in America, and the political positions of CWG would fit in the national mainstream. But these women were neither in the contexts of their lives. Even so, by the end of the period Van Duyn examines, their politicking mirrored that of more open demographic counterparts such as the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County, a group that helped first-time candidate Abigail Spanberger turn a central Virginia seat Democratic in 2018 – one that she now has to decamp for a newly re-drawn district.Some Republicans at holiday gatherings this year will continue to relish the opportunity to bait liberals (a practice that goes both ways). They may emulate Trump’s style of discourse, centered on a barrage of lies, exaggerations, accusations and taunts. Or they may not do any of these things; as Trump said about southern border-crossers in 2015 “some, I assume, are good people”. Indeed, some Republicans may feel intimidated by progressive majorities in workplaces and on campuses.All told, the risks of escalated, energy draining crossfire between America’s political tribes have risen and intensified. So this holiday season is no time for engaging others in political matters, for disputing the veracity of their claims and integrity of their motives. Far better to smile wanly, deflect provocations, change the subject, and then join or form a political support group. As Van Duyn’s book shows, good things can follow from going underground.
Democracy Lives in Darkness: How and Why People Keep Their Politics a Secret is published in the US by Oxford University Press
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Ex-Georgia election workers sue Giuliani and OAN, saying fraud claims put them in dangerRuby Freeman and daughter claim they became center of unfounded conspiracy theories and were singled out by Trump Two former Georgia election workers have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the rightwing One America News Network and several of its senior executives, claiming the workers became the target of vote-rigging conspiracy theories that put them in physical danger and threatened their livelihoods.During the 2020 election, Ruby Freeman and daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss worked as poll workers counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Fulton county, Georgia. They claim they became the center of a series of unfounded conspiracy theories promoted by former New York mayor Giuliani, who was then serving as an advisor to Trump, and several top employees at the California-based OAN news network.“As a result of their vital service, Ms Freeman and Ms Moss have become the objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment,” they said in Thursday’s complaint, filed in federal court in Washington.“They found themselves in this unenviable position not based on anything they did, but instead because of a campaign of malicious lies designed to accuse them of interfering with a fair and impartial election, which is precisely what each of them swore an oath to protect,” the suit said.The action targets San Diego-based Herring Networks, which owns and operates One America News Network, as well as the channel’s chief executive Robert Herring, president Charles Herring, and reporter Chanel Rion.Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer often appeared on OAN and spearheaded the drive to claim voter fraud in the aftermath of the election and was also named as a defendant.In the complaint, Moss and Freeman claim that OAN broadcast stories falsely accusing them of conspiring to produce secret batches of illegal ballots and running them through voting machines to help Trump, who ultimately lost the state by 12,670 votes.Election workers in states closely won by Joe Biden, in particular, have faced a barrage of abuse from extremists pushing a lie that Trump was denied a win last November because of widespread electoral fraud.‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassmentRead moreTrump himself pressured Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, in a phone call to “find” the necessary votes to wrongly secure him a win in the state in the November, 2020, presidential election.Meanwhile, in an interview, OAN chief executive Robert Herring Sr told Reuters he was not concerned about the lawsuit and that his network had done nothing wrong.“I know all about it and I’m laughing,” he said of the lawsuit. “I’m laughing about the four or five others who are suing me. Eventually, it will turn on them and go the other way.”The plaintiffs in the action have also filed a defamation suit against The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website, claiming that the site’s managers and writers, twins brothers Jim and Joe Hoft, “instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that has forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety”.Among the accusations levelled at Freeman in the month after the election a year ago, Gateway Pundit accused her of “counting illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table”.Trump also singled out Freeman during that phone call with Raffensberger, claiming she “stuffed the ballot boxes” and was a scammer.Giuliani accused Freeman and Moss of acting suspiciously, like drug dealers “passing out dope,” their lawsuit asserts.Georgia state officials have said such “suitcases” were standard ballot containers and votes were properly counted under the watch of an independent monitor and a state investigator.TopicsGeorgiaThe fight to voteRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpLaw (US)RepublicansUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

Our photographers captured many moving and inspirational moments in 2021. Here’s our pick of the most striking imagesby Gail Fletcher and Alvin ChangIn 2021, our photographers told some of the most profound stories in America. They captured personal moments, like a man assessing the remnants of his home after Hurricane Ida. There were inspirational stories, like how a majority Black high school created a girls lacrosse team during the pandemic. And there were historic scenes, like the lead-up to the presidential inauguration just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results. Thank you to all the photographers who worked with us this year.US cities are suffocating in the heat. Now they want retributionThe city of Baltimore is suing oil and gas companies for their role in the climate crisis, which has had an outsized impact on community of color. The image below shows Karen Lewis, who says her row house in Baltimore can get so hot that sometimes she has trouble breathing.Photographer: Greg KahnBallparks, stadiums and race tracks: US mass vaccination sites – in picturesPhotographer Filip Wolak took aerial photos of mass Covid-19 vaccination sites around the US. The Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta was selected as one of Georgia’s four mass vaccination sites beginning 22 February 2021.Photographer: Filip WolakAfter slavery, oystering offered a lifeline. Now sewage spills threaten to end it allRaw sewage leaks in Virginia have threatened the livelihoods of the few remaining Black oyster-people on the east coast. These leaks can be seen draining through neighborhoods, like this culvert that connects the historic African American Pughsville neighborhood to the larger drainage system. Below is five-year-old Braxton Miller swinging above the water.Photographer: Alyssa SchukarA quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosqueIn some mosques, women aren’t allowed to pray in the same room as men; in some mosques, women can’t even pray inside. But female imams in Los Angeles are pushing those boundaries with mixed congregation mosques and LBGTQ mosques, and using their sermons to talk about topics like sexual violence and pregnancy loss. Below are Nurjahan Boulden, Tasneem Noor and Samia Bano after praying together in Venice, California.Photographer: Anna BoyiazisThe preparation for an inauguration like no other – a photo essayThe Guardian asked photographer Jordan Gale to document the lead-up to the presidential inauguration, which happened just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results on 6 January 2021. Below are steel gates blocking off parts of Pennsylvania Avenue leading up to the US Capitol and a woman looking through a security checkpoint.Photographer: Jordan GaleSalmon face extinction throughout the US west. Blame these four damsFour closely spaced damns in eastern Washington state are interfering with salmon migration. Below, salmon are seen swimming through the viewing area at Lower Granite Dam Fish Ladder Visitor Center in Pomeroy, Washington.Photographer: Mason TrincaThe California mothers fighting for a home in a pandemic – photo essayIn this photo essay about the precarious nature of America’s safety net, Cherokeena Robinson, 32 – who lost her job during the pandemic – lays in bed with her son Mai’Kel Stephens, 6, at their transitional house in San Pedro, California that they share with one or two other families at a time.Photographer: Rachel BujalskiA tiny Alaska town is split over a goldmine. At stake is a way of lifeIn Haines, Alaska, a mining project promised jobs, but some are worried contamination from the mine could destroy the salmon runs they rely on. In the photo below, a seagull flies above hundreds of spawning chum salmon on a slough of the Chilkat River, just below the Tlingit village of Klukwan.Photographer: Peter Mather‘Sad and so unfair’: Palestinian Americans celebrate a painful EidFor Palestinian American Muslims, the conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is supposed to be a time of celebration. This year, the violence in Gaza and Jerusalem made it a somber event. The photo on the left is Tiffany Cabán, who would eventually win a seat on the New York city council. On the tight are Muslim greetings each other after morning Eid al-Fitr prayers.Photographer: Ismail Ferdous‘This is a spectacular chorus’: walk into the cicada explosionTrillions of periodic cicada emerged this year after a 17-year dormancy underground along the eastern US. In the photograph below, cicadas swarm the trees near a home in Columbia, Maryland.Photographer: Gabriella DemczukHow a majority Black school in Detroit shook up the world of lacrosseDetroit Cass Technical high school, where the student body is 85% Black, only offered three spring sports for girls – until a group of girls asked the administration to add lacrosse. It was a unique request; while it’s a Native American game, most participants are white. This story is about this team’s two-year journey to get on the field and, eventually, win. Below, clockwise, are Kayla Carroll-Williams, 15, Zahria Liggans, 18, Alexia Carroll-Williams, 17, and Deja Crenshaw, 18.Photographer: Sylvia JarrusA chemical firm bought out these Black and white US homeowners – with a significant disparityIn 2012, the South African chemical firm Sasol announced plans to build a complex in Mossville, Louisiana. They bought out the homes of people who lived on that land, but an analysis found that they offered significantly less money to Black homeowners than white homeowners. The image on the right shows Eyphit Hadnot, 58, and his older brother Dellar Hadnot, 61. The Hadnot family lived in Mossville for 80 years when Sasol offered them the buyout, which they rejected. On the left is a plot of land where a home used to stand before Sasol leveled the building.Photographer: Christian K Lee‘Ida is not the end’: Indigenous residents face the future on Louisiana’s coast – photo essayThe communities of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles suffered some of Hurricane Ida’s worst destruction. That left then with a hard question: Stay to rebuild, or leave? The photo shows Kip de’Laune searching for any salvageable items at his home in Point-Aux-Chenes after Hurricane Ida.Photographer: Bryan TarnowskiShe survived Hurricane Sandy. Then climate gentrification hitAfter Hurricane Sandy, Kimberly White Smalls hoped the city would help her rebuild her home in New York’s Far Rockaway neighborhood. Instead, the only option she was left with was to sell the house to the city. Below are Smalls’ grandsons – Donovan E Smalls, 9, left, and Kelsey E Smalls Jr, 8 – running down the street in Far Rockaway, Queens.Photographer: Krisanne JohnsonTopicsPhotographyUS politicsCoronavirusClimate crisisCaliforniaAlaskaReuse this content More

Can you beat Mastermind? It’s Clive Myrie’s Christmas quiz! Imagine yourself in the big black chair on the general knowledge round, with the G2 quiz of the yearTopicsLife and styleG2 quiz of 2021US politicsTelevisionquizzesReuse this content More

Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say Analysis: charges could be well founded given Trump’s incendiary remarks to a rally before the Capitol attack and aggressive pressuring of officials Expectation is growing that Donald Trump might face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election this year as a House panel collects more evidence into the 6 January attack on the Capitol, former prosecutors and other experts say.Speculation about possible charges against the former US president has been heightened by a recent rhetorical bombshell from Republican representative and 6 January panel vice-chair Liz Cheney suggesting the House panel is looking at whether Trump broke a law that bars obstruction of “official proceedings”.Former prosecutors say if the panel finds new evidence about Trump’s role interfering with Congress’ job to certify Biden’s election, that could help buttress a potential case by the Department of Justice.In varying ways, Cheney’s comments have been echoed by two other members of the House select committee, Republican Adam Kinzinger and Democrat Jamie Raskin, spurring talk of how an obstruction statute could apply to Trump, which would entail the panel making a criminal referral of evidence for the justice department to investigate, say DoJ veterans.Cheney’s remarks raising the specter of criminal charges against Trump came twice earlier this month at hearings of the committee. Experts believe the charges could be well founded given Trump’s actions on 6 January, including incendiary remarks to a rally before the Capitol attack and failure to act for hours to stop the riot, say former justice department officials.“Based on what is already in the public domain, there is powerful evidence that numerous people, in and out of government, attempted to obstruct – and did obstruct, at least for a while – an official proceeding – i.e., the certification of the Presidential election,” said former DOJ inspector general and former prosecutor Michael Bromwich in a statement to the Guardian. “That is a crime.”Although a House panel referral of obstruction by Trump would not force DOJ to open a criminal case against him, it could help provide more evidence for one, and build pressure on the justice department to move forward, say former prosecutors.Attorneygeneral Merrick Garland has declined to say so far whether his department may be investigating Trump and his top allies already for their roles in the Capitol assault.The panel has amassed significant evidence, including more than 30,000 records and interviews with more than 300 people, among whom were some key White House staff.The evidence against Trump himself could include his actions at the “Stop the Steal” rally not far from the White House, where he urged backers to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country any more”. Trump then resisted multiple pleas for hours from Republicans and others to urge his violent supporters to stop the attack.Recent rulings by Trump-appointed district court judges have supported using the obstruction statute, which federal prosecutors have cited in about 200 cases involving rioters charged by DOJ for their roles in the Capitol assault that injured about 140 police officers and left five dead.Still, experts note that the House panel’s mission has been to assemble a comprehensive report of what took place on 6 January and work on legislation to avoid such assaults on democracy. They caution that any criminal referral to DOJ documenting Trump’s obstruction of Congress will take time and more evidence to help bolster a DOJ investigation.Some DOJ veterans say that any referral to DOJ by the House panel for a criminal case against Trump – and perhaps top allies such as ex chief of staff Mark Meadows, whom the House last week cited for criminal contempt for refusing to be deposed – might also include Trump’s aggressive pressuring of federal and state officials before 6 January to block Biden’s win with baseless charges of fraud.Bromwich stressed that “the evidence is steadily accumulating that would prove obstruction beyond a reasonable doubt. The ultimate question is who the defendants would be in such an obstruction case. Evidence is growing that, as a matter of law and fact, that could include Trump, Meadows and other members of Trump’s inner circle.”Cheney teed up the issue about Trump’s potential culpability first at a House panel hearing last week, when she urged that Meadows be held in contempt for refusing to be deposed, and then hit Trump with a rhetorical bombshell.“We know hours passed with no action by the president to defend the Congress of the United States from an assault while we were counting electoral votes,” Cheney said.“Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceeding to count electoral votes?” Cheney’s comments about Trump were very precise, including language from the criminal obstruction statute, and she stated that her question is a “key’ one for the panel’s legislative tasks.Raskin too has told Politico that the issue of whether Trump broke the law by obstructing an official proceeding is “clearly one of the things on the mind of some of the members of the committee”.“The possibility of obstruction charges is legally valid,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former DOJ prosecutor who worked on Ken Starr’s team during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, noting that two district judges appointed by Trump “have recently said that the statute covers the efforts on January 6 to stop the electoral count”.For instance, Judge Dabney Friedrich in a recent opinion rejected the claim by some defendants who were challenging the DOJ view that the 6 January meeting of Congress fit the legal definition of an “official proceeding”.Rosenzweig posited that given Trump’s various attempts before 6 January to undermine the election results, a broader conspiracy case may be another option for prosecutors to pursue. Should DOJ look at broader conspiracy charges, Trump’s persistent pressures on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his top deputy for help blocking Biden’s victory wouldprobably be relevant, say ex-prosecutors.On one call on 27 December 2020, Trump pressed Rosen and his deputy to falsely state the election “illegal” and “corrupt” despite the fact that the DOJ had not found any evidence of widespread voter fraud.Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DOJ, said that Cheney’s statements were “carefully crafted and obviously based upon evidence the committee had seen. Should Congress ultimately refer the case to DOJ for investigation and prosecution, the DOJ’s investigation would not be limited to a single obstruction charge, but would more likely investigate broader conspiracy charges potentially involving Trump and other key loyalists.”The panel has accelerated its pace recently by sending out dozens of subpoenas for documents and depositions, some to close Trump aides. Meadows has become a central focus of the inquiry, in part over tweets he received on and near the insurrection that are among approximately 9,000 documents he gave the panel, much to Trump’s chagrin.As Trump’s efforts to thwart the panel from moving forward have had limited success, he has relied on sending out splenetic email attacks, including one last month that read: “The Unselect Committee itself is Rigged, stacked with Never Trumpers, Republican enemies, and two disgraced RINOs, Cheney and Kinzinger, who couldn’t get elected ‘dog catcher’ in their districts.”Despite Trump’s angry attacks on the panel, some ex-prosecutors say that prosecuting Trump – if enough evidence is found to merit charges – is important for the health of American democracy.Former Georgia US attorney Michael J Moore told the Guardian: “I hate to think of a legal system that would allow the most powerful person in the country to go unchallenged when he has abdicated his highest priority, that being to keep our citizens safe. Trump’s conduct that day was not unlike a mob boss.”TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

Report shows the extent of Republican efforts to sabotage democracyResearch identifies at least 262 bills were introduced in 41 states this year with the intent to hijack the election process The Republican assault on free and fair elections instigated by Donald Trump is gathering pace, with efforts to sabotage the normal workings of American democracy sweeping state legislatures across the US.A year that began with the violent insurrection at the US Capitol is ending with an unprecedented push to politicize, criminalize or in other ways subvert the nonpartisan administration of elections. A year-end report from pro-democracy groups identifies no fewer than 262 bills introduced in 41 states that hijack the election process.Of those, 32 bills have become law in 17 states.Alarm as Texas quietly restarts controversial voting programRead moreThe largest number of bills is concentrated in precisely those states that became the focus of Trump’s Stop the Steal campaign to block the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. Arizona, where Trump supporters insisted on an “audit” to challenge Biden’s victory in the state, has introduced 20 subversion bills, and Georgia where Trump attempted to browbeat the top election official to find extra votes for him has introduced 15 bills.Texas, whose ultra-right Republican group has made the state the ground zero of voter suppression and election interference, has introduced as many as 59 bills.“We’re seeing an effort to hijack elections in this country, and ultimately, to take power away from the American people. If we don’t want politicians deciding our elections, we all need to start paying attention,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center which is one of the three groups behind the report. Protect Democracy and Law Forward also participated.One of the key ways that Trump-inspired state lawmakers have tried to sabotage future elections is by changing the rules to give legislatures control over vote counts. In Pennsylvania, a bill passed in the wake of Trump’s defeat that sought to rewrite the state’s election law was vetoed by Democratic governor Tom Wolf.Now hard-right lawmakers are trying to bypass Wolf’s veto power by proposing a constitutional amendment that would give the legislature the power to overrule the state’s chief elections officer and create a permanent audit of election counts subject to its own will.In several states, nonpartisan election officials who for years have administered ballots impartially are being replaced by hyper-partisan conspiracy theorists and advocates of Trump’s false claims that the election was rigged. In Michigan, county Republican groups in eight of the 11 largest counties have systematically replaced professional administration officials with “stop the steal” extremists.Several secretaries of state, the top election officials responsible for presidential election counts, are being challenged by extreme Republicans who participated in trying to overturn the 2020 result. Trump has endorsed for the role Mark Finchem in Arizona, Jody Hice in Georgia and Kristina Karamo in Michigan who have all claimed falsely that Trump won and should now be in his second term in the White House.Jess Marsden, Counsel at Protect Democracy, said that the nationwide trend of state legislatures attempting to interfere with the work of nonpartisan election officials was gaining momentum. “It’s leading us down an anti-democratic path toward an election crisis,” she said.TopicsUS voting rightsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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