US Politics

US Capitol attack panel seeks interview with Scott Perry Republican pushed Justice officials to overturn election and met Trump before attack, say investigators The House panel investigating the US Capitol insurrection on 6 January has requested an interview and documents from Scott Perry, the Republican representative of Pennsylvania, marking the first time the committee has publicly sought to interview a sitting member of Congress.The latest request launches a new phase for the lawmakers on the committee, who have so far resisted reaching out to one of their own as they investigate the insurrection by former president Donald Trump’s supporters and his efforts to overturn the election.Why Trump appears deeply unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes inRead morePerry and other congressional Republicans met Trump before the attack and strategised about how they could block the results at the 6 January electoral count.In a letter to Perry, Mississippi Rep Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel, said the panel had received evidence from multiple witnesses, including the then-acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and the then-acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, that Perry had “an important role” in efforts to install Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general.The letter requests an interview with Perry, who pushed the Justice Department to overturn the election and met Trump ahead of the violent attack, according to investigators. The panel also asked for any documents and correspondence between Perry and Trump, his legal team or anyone involved in the planning of the events of 6 January.A request for comment left with Perry’s office was not immediately returned.The lawmaker representing Pennsylvania’s 10th District was cited more than 50 times in a Senate Judiciary report released in October outlining how Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat brought the Justice Department to the brink of chaos and prompted top officials there and at the White House to threaten to resign.Perry, who has continuously disputed the validity of Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, has said he obliged Trump’s request for an introduction to Clark, then an assistant attorney general whom Perry knew from unrelated legislative matters. The three men went on to discuss their shared concerns about the election, Perry has said.The Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud in Pennsylvania or any other state, and senior Justice officials dismissed Perry’s claimsThe recent Senate report outlined a call Perry made to Donoghue last December to say the department was failing to do its job with respect to the elections. Perry encouraged Donoghue to elicit Clark’s help because he’s “the kind of guy who could really get in there and do something about this”, the report said.Perry had previously said his “official communications” with Justice Department officials were consistent with the law.The letter sent on Monday night is the first time the panel has publicly released a request to a fellow member of Congress as it investigates Trump’s communications with his Republican allies. But the panel notably did not subpoena Perry, as it has other witnesses close to Trump whom lawmakers believe have relevant information.In his letter to Perry, Thompson added that the panel “has tremendous respect for the prerogatives of Congress and the privacy of its members. At the same time, we have a solemn responsibility to investigate fully all of these facts and circumstances.”The panel voted in November to hold Clark in contempt after he showed up for a deposition yet declined to answer questions. But Thompson has said he will hold off pursuing the charges and allow Clark to attend another deposition and try again. Clark’s lawyer has said Clark intends to assert his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself, but the deposition has been repeatedly postponed as Clark has dealt with an unidentified medical condition.The panel has already interviewed about 300 people as it seeks to create a comprehensive record of the attack and the events leading up to it.Trump at the time was pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud and lobbying the vice-president, Mike Pence, and Republican members of Congress to try to overturn the count at the 6 January congressional certification. Election officials across the country, along with the courts, had repeatedly dismissed Trump’s claims.An angry mob of Trump supporters were echoing his false claims as they clashed with Capitol police and broke into the building that day, interrupting the certification of Biden’s victory.In his request for a meeting with Perry, Thompson wrote: “We would like to meet with you soon to discuss these topics, but we also want to accommodate your schedule.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

New York attorney general vows Trump investigation will proceed ‘undeterred’Former president sues Letitia James on grounds of political bias in effort to halt inquiry into his business affairs

Trump unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes in
The New York attorney general, Letitia James, said on Monday her investigation of Donald Trump’s business affairs would continue “undeterred”, despite Trump suing to stop it on grounds of political bias, “because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump”.How Trump’s $50m golf club became $1.4m when it came time to pay taxRead moreThe New York Times first reported Trump’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Syracuse, New York. It alleges that James, a Democrat, “is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent”.James is investigating whether the Trump Organization manipulated valuations of its real estate properties.In one such instance, as Trump ran for president in 2016, the Guardian reported on differing valuations of a golf club outside New York City. The headline: How Trump’s $50m golf club became $1.4m when it came time to pay tax.The Washington Post and other outlets have reported similar alleged practices at other Trump properties.Last year, investigators working for James interviewed Eric Trump, one of the former president’s sons and a Trump Organization executive. James went to court to enforce a subpoena and a judge forced the younger Trump to testify, after his lawyers canceled a deposition.In an investigation that could only result in civil charges, James recently said she would seek to question Donald Trump under oath.It is rare for law enforcement agencies to issue a civil subpoena for testimony from a person also the subject of a related criminal investigation, partly because the person could simply cite their fifth amendment right to remain silent.It is unlikely Trump’s lawyers would allow him to be deposed unless they were sure his testimony could not be used against him in a criminal case.Trump’s business and tax affairs are also the subject of a criminal investigation run by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, which has been in progress for more than three years. James joined that investigation in May.The Manhattan case includes a focus on whether the Trump Organization overstated the value of some real estate assets to obtain loans and tax benefits.In their lawsuit against James, who recently announced a run for governor of New York before stepping back, Trump and the Trump Organization claim the attorney general has violated their rights under the US constitution by pursuing a politically motivated investigation.Trump and the company pointed to public statements James made before she was elected as attorney general.The lawsuit also made a plainly political play of its own, echoing Trump’s language in office and on the campaign trail when it said: “Rather than diligently prosecuting actual crimes in the state of New York – which are steadily on the rise – James has instead allocated precious taxpayer resources towards a frivolous witch hunt.”Trump and the Trump Organization are seeking a court order barring the investigation from going forward.In a statement, Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said: “By filing this lawsuit, we intend to not only hold her accountable for her blatant constitutional violations, but to stop her bitter crusade to punish her political opponent in its tracks.”In her own statement, James said: “The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings and now Donald Trump and his namesake company have filed a lawsuit as an attempted collateral attack on that investigation.“To be clear, neither Mr Trump nor the Trump Organization get to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions. Our investigation will continue undeterred because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump.”James also noted that in August 2020 she “filed a motion to compel the Trump Organization to provide … documents and testimony from multiple witnesses regarding several, specific Trump Organization properties and transactions.“Since then, the court has ruled in Attorney General James’ favor multiple times.”Last month, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen – who served a three-year sentence for offences including campaign finance violations relating to a payoff to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims an affair with Trump – was asked about the prospect of Trump being indicted in the criminal investigation in Manhattan.Cohen said he was confident prosecutors could “indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted and be successful”.Asked if he was “confident you did help Donald Trump commit crimes”, Cohen told NBC: “I can assure you that Donald Trump is guilty of his own crimes. Was I involved in much of the inflation and deflation of his assets? The answer to that is yes.”In July, the longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in what a prosecutor in Vance’s office called a “sweeping and audacious” 15-year tax fraud.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsNew YorkUS taxationnewsReuse this content More

Schumer vows vote on Build Back Better despite ‘no’ from ManchinSenate majority leader says Democrats will keep working on Biden plan ‘until we get something done’ Democrats will keep working on Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan “until we get something done”, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer told colleagues on Monday – a day after a stunning move by Joe Manchin of West Virginia drew accusations of betrayal from the White House and seemed to leave the president’s agenda dead in the water.Joe Biden must use his presidential powers to deliver on his promises | Ross BarkanRead moreIn a letter to colleagues, Schumer wrote: “We are going to vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act – and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.”He also put senators on notice that they will “consider voting rights legislation as early as the first week back” next month, a timeline for another part of Biden’s agenda and an olive branch to disillusioned progressives.Build Back Better had been delayed as the White House and Democrats in Congress sought accommodation with Manchin and fellow centrist Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, key votes in a Senate split 50-50 and controlled by Vice-President Kamala Harris.In his letter, Schumer spoke of “moments of deep discontent and frustration” before Manchin’s decision to use Fox News Sunday to say he was a “no” on the spending plan, which is valued at about $1.75tn and would expand health and social care and seek to combat the climate crisis, among other priorities.Manchin cited the cost of the plan and worries including inflation, the debt and the Omicron coronavirus variant, and said: “I’ve always said this … if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it.“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there … This is a no on this piece of legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”Manchin also put out a statement. The White House responded with a fierce rebuke, accusing the senator of going back on his word – an accusation reportedly included at Biden’s insistence.In a local radio interview on Monday, Manchin said he had reached “wit’s end” over the negotiations but refused to blame Biden either for the talks breaking down or for the angry statement.“This is not the president, this is staff … they drove some things that are absolutely inexcusable,” he told West Virginia Radio, without further explanation. “I just got to the wit’s end of what happened.”Manchin also claimed to have been “far apart, philosophically” with Democratic leaders for months.“We’re in a 50-50 Senate, you all are approaching legislation [like] there is 55 or 60 Democrats,” he said.On Monday, Schumer said Manchin’s move would not “deter us from continuing to try to find a way forward”. Listing provisions including a child tax credit, he said: “We were elected to address these many needs and we will not stop fighting until we do.”Also on Monday, the progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked Manchin’s “betrayal of working class families” but said she did “not believe the situation is beyond repair”.Speaking to MSNBC, she said the White House and Democratic leaders had the tools to move legislation.“It’s really about time we take the kid gloves off and we start using them to govern for working families in this country,” she said.“Our leadership needs to step up. It takes the president of the United States, who I believe needs to be more forceful on the filibuster, he also needs to lean on his executive authority and say, ‘If you’re going to get in the way, we’re going to find other ways to do it. You’re either with us or not, but this train is moving.’”Ocasio-Cortez said it was a “farce” that Manchin held so much sway.“This idea that we can just go on Fox News and legislate through television … and threaten to vote no is unacceptable.”Manchin holds one card which would change the rules of the game. Should he decide to switch parties – thereby ceasing to be the only Democrat in high office in a state that voted solidly for Donald Trump – Republicans would regain control of the Senate. That would stymie Biden’s agenda for good and remove the option of a supreme court pick next year.It has happened before. Most recently, in June 2001, Jim Jeffords of Vermont changed affiliation from Republican to independent and caucused with the Democrats, giving them the majority 51-49.Some analysts doubt Manchin would take such a drastic step but concede that his stance makes it harder for Democrats to know the best way forward. On Monday, the website Axios cited “people close to” Manchin as saying if he did leave the party, he would probably become an independent but still caucus with the Democrats.In his radio interview, Manchin was asked if there was still a place for him inside the Democratic party. He said he “would like to hope there was still Democrats that I feel like I do”, but added that could change, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, tweeted.An analysis by Politico listed ways in which Build Back Better could progress, for example by breaking it into chunks more palatable to the centrists.But it also warned: “Manchin doesn’t give a lick if the Democratic party doesn’t like him. Biden lost West Virginia by nearly 40 points, and his constituents aren’t inclined to support anything with the president’s name attached to it, [so] being assailed by the left only helps Manchin politically.”White House rebukes Manchin after ‘no’ to Biden spending plan deals huge blowRead moreIn his statement on Sunday, Manchin alluded to Republican claims that Build Back Better is “socialist” in intent, saying: “My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society.”On Monday, the Huffington Post cited two sources when it said Manchin told “several” Democrats “he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children”.The site also said the senator believes Americans would “fraudulently use … paid sick leave” to “go on hunting trips”.Schumer’s pronouncement that the Senate would consider voting rights legislation next month is also significant, not least because it indicates a stronger line on reforming the filibuster, which requires 60-vote majorities for most legislation. Manchin and Sinema are both opposed to changes.Schumer said continued Republican opposition to voting rights efforts – guaranteed given it is being pushed in answer to Republican moves to restrict voting and make it easier to overturn elections – would prompt consideration of filibuster reform.“As with BBB,” Schumer wrote, “members will be given the chance to debate on the Senate floor and cast a vote so that their choice on the matter is clear and available for everyone to see.”Numerous Republican-controlled legislatures have passed restrictive voting laws and redrawn district boundaries to make them more favorable to their party’s candidates.“If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy,” Schumer wrote, “then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the state level with only a simple majority, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policyBarak Ravid has written a fascinating account of four chaotic years in which some progress was nonetheless made Trump’s Peace is a blockbuster of a book. Barak Ravid captures the 45th president saying “Fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu and reducing American Jews to antisemitic caricatures. Imagine the Republican reaction if Barack Obama had done that. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham would plotz. But Trump? Crickets.The State of Israel vs The Jews review: fierce indictment of a rightward lurch Read moreRavid also delivers a mesmerizing tick-tock of the making of the Abraham Accords, the normalization of Israel’s relations with four non-neighboring Arab states.Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Yousef al-Otaiba – the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US – and members of Israel’s government took the time to talk. Ravid footnotes the receipts.The result is a well-paced and engrossing read, if in Hebrew only for now. Israel-born and based, Ravid writes for Axios and Walla, an Israeli website. He knows his subject. Netanyahu is caught telling Avi Berkowitz, Kushner’s deputy and a US negotiator, not to leak to the author. Instead, Berkowitz talked on the record.Technically, the Abraham Accords are a joint declaration signed by the US, Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Practically, the agreements represent the first major breakthrough in Middle East peace since the October 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan. Unlike the Hashemite kingdom, the UAE and Bahrain do not border Israel, are graced with petroleum reserves, and stare at Iran across the Persian Gulf.According to Ravid, the nuclear threat posed by Tehran and the unrest that followed the Arab Spring reshaped policies and thinking towards normalizing relations with Israel. The Palestinians no longer occupied center stage.Ravid reports that Netanyahu backtracked on a commitment to annex part of the West Bank after being subjected to US pressure. Apparently, the Trump administration made clear it would continue to shield Israel in the United Nations security council but would not at the International Criminal Court. Netanyahu got the message. It came down to a UAE ultimatum: settlements or peace. Netanyahu blinked.Ravid regards Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, also known as MBZ, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, as an unsung hero. He compares MBZ to Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who made peace with Israel then paid with his life.By the numbers, the Abraham Accords are yielding dividends. The UAE has announced a $10bn investment fund in key Israeli economic sectors and envisions more than $1tn in trade over a decade. Saudi Arabia looks to Bahrain as a conduit for investment in Israel and the Biden administration is “leaning” into the accords, after first hesitating.Ravid portrays Trump and Netanyahu as divisive leaders who threatened their countries’ democratic moorings. He recounts the 6 January insurrection in the US and Netanyahu’s resort to incitement. And yet, Ravid argues, fairness demands that both receive credit for this particular accomplishment.Understandably, Ravid is more ambivalent toward the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, a legacy of the Obama administration hated by Netanyahu and Trump. In Trump’s telling, his decision to pull out was not the result of Israeli urging. Rather, the deal was flawed and deserved to be scrapped.That verdict is not unanimous. Ravid quotes Udi Lavie, former deputy chief of the Mossad, who says the US withdrawal did not benefit Israel but hurt it. At the same time, Ravid observes that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, a former head of the Mossad, harbor no such regrets.Negotiations with the Iranian regime continue, with no tangible signs of progress. As Israel girds for possible conflict, its message is conflicted.A recent New York Times headline blared: Israeli Defense Officials Cast Doubt on Threat to Attack Iran. On the other hand, Amos Yadlin, a former air force general, told the paper his country has the capability for a successful strike.“Can the American air force can do it better? Definitely. But they don’t have the will.”Or necessarily the same strategic interests. Trump’s ascendance in 2016 was directly related to the Iraq war and its casualty count.Ravid also offers his take on Trumpworld. He stresses that Kushner was neither ideologue nor idealist. At heart he was a businessman, sympathetic to Israel but not seeing annexation as a personal cause. Nor, Ravid says, was Kushner driven by religious sentiment – as was Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state. The Messiah could wait.Nor, unlike Condi Rice, George W Bush’s secretary of state, did Kushner regard Palestinians stuck at Israeli check-points as – in Ravid’s words – “the reincarnation of Rosa Parks on a bus in Alabama”.In contrast to Kushner, David Friedman, Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and ambassador to Israel, viewed the two-state solution as an “illusion”. Before he took office, he derided Jews on the left as “worse than Kapos”. His nomination narrowly cleared the Senate.‘We are family’: the Israelis sharing life and hope with PalestiniansRead moreAs ambassador, Friedman was close to Netanyahu, sitting in on Israeli government meetings until he was tossed out by cabinet members. Ravid describes Friedman as “flesh of the settlers’ flesh”. Friedman has taken issue with portions of Ravid’s reporting – and has a book due in February.Earlier this year, Friedman told the Times he would not rule out becoming a US-Israeli dual national, but not until Trump’s plans for 2024 were known.“I’m going to stay American-only for at least four years,” he said. “I want to give myself every opportunity to return to government.”Maybe, maybe not. Trump remains on the stage, ready to kneecap any competitor for the Republican nomination. Netanyahu is standing trial on bribery and corruption charges while leading the opposition bloc in Israel’s Knesset.Paradoxically, his efforts to cling to power may be the best insurance policy for the current coalition government. One thing is certain: the two men created facts on the ground that will outlast them both.
Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East is published in Israel by Yedioth Ahronoth Books
TopicsBooksIsraelMiddle East and North AfricaUnited Arab EmiratesBahrainUS foreign policyTrump administrationreviewsReuse this content More

US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book saysAcademic and member of CIA advisory panel says analysis applied to other countries shows US has ‘entered very dangerous territory’

Robert Reich: Beware the big lie, big anger and big money
The US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”, a member of a key CIA advisory panel has said.The analysis by Barbara F Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who sits on the Political Instability Task Force, is contained in a book due out next year and first reported by the Washington Post.Why Trump appears deeply unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes inRead moreIt comes amid growing concern about jagged political divisions deepened by former president Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election.Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by mass electoral fraud stoked the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, over which Trump was impeached and acquitted a second time, leaving him free to run for office again.The “big lie” is also fueling moves among Republicans to restrict voting by groups that lean Democratic and to make it easier to overturn election results.Such moves remain without counter from Democrats seeking a federal response but stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that demands supermajorities for most legislation.In addition, though Republican presidential nominees have won the popular vote only once since 1988, the GOP has by playing political hardball stocked the supreme court with conservatives, who outnumber liberals 6-3.All such factors and more – including a pandemic which has stoked resistance to government – have contributed to the divide Walter has studied.Last month, she tweeted: “The CIA actually has a taskforce designed to try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out around the world. It’s just not legally allowed to look at the US. That means we are blind to the risk factors that are rapidly emerging here.”The book in which Walter looks at those risk factors in the US, How Civil Wars Start, will be published in January. According to the Post, Walter writes: “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war.But “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America – the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or Ivory Coast or Venezuela – you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely”.Capitol attack panel will determine if Trump committed crime – RepublicanRead more“And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”Walter, the Post said, concludes that the US has passed through stages of “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” and may now be in “open conflict”, beginning with the Capitol riot.Citing analytics used by the Center for Systemic Peace, Walter also says the US has become an “anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.The US has fought a civil war, from 1861 to 1865 and against states which seceded in an attempt to maintain slavery.Estimates of the death toll vary. The American Battlefield Trust puts it at 620,000 and says: “Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as 6 million souls.”On Sunday, Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln and Guardian contributor, said: “The secessionists in 1861 accepted Lincoln’s election as fair and legitimate.”The current situation, he said, “is the opposite. Trump’s questioning of the election, which was at first rejected by Republican leaders after the attack on the Capitol, has led to a crisis a genuine crisis of legitimacy.”With Republicans’ hold on the levers of power while in the electoral minority a contributing factor, Blumenthal said, “This crisis metastasises, throughout the system over time, so that it’s possible any close election will be claimed to be false and fraudulent.”Blumenthal said he did not expect the US to pitch into outright civil war, “section against section” and involving the fielding of armies.If rightwing militia groups were to seek to mimic the secessionists of the 1860s and attempt to “seize federal forts and offices by force”, he said, “I think you’d have quite a confidence it would be over very, very quickly [given] a very strong and firm sense at the top of the US military of its constitutional, non-political role.“… But given the proliferation of guns, there could be any number of seemingly random acts of violence that come from these organised militias, which are really vigilantes and with partisan agendas, and we haven’t entered that phase.“The real nightmare would be that kind of low-intensity conflict.”Among academics, Walter is not alone in diagnosing severe problems with US democracy. In November, the International IDEA thinktank, based in Sweden, added the US to a list of “backsliding” democracies, thanks to a “visible deterioration” it dated to 2019.Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention? Read moreIt also identified “a historic turning point … in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results”.Polling has revealed similar worries – and warnings. In November, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if they agreed with a statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”The poll found that 18% of respondents agreed. Among Republicans, however, the figure was 30%.On Twitter, Walter thanked the Post for covering her book. She also said: “I wish I had better news for the world but I couldn’t stay silent knowing what I know.”TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS crimeAmerican civil warnewsReuse this content More

Why Trump appears deeply unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes in Flurry of recent revelations raises the specter that the committee is swiftly heading towards an incriminating conclusion

6 January panel will say if Trump committed crime – Kinzinger
Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious he might be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention? Read moreThe former president in recent weeks has complained more about the investigation, demanding why his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, shared so much material about 6 January with the select committee, and why dozens of other aides have also cooperated.Trump has also been perturbed by aides invoking the Fifth Amendment in depositions – it makes them look weak and complicit in a crime, he has told associates – and considers them foolish for not following the lead of his former strategist Steve Bannon in simply ignoring the subpoenas.When Trump sees new developments in the Capitol attack investigation on television, he has started swearing about the negative coverage and bemoaned that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, was too incompetent to put Republicans on the committee to defend him.The former president’s anger largely mirrors the kind of expletives he once directed at the Russia inquiry and the special counsel investigation when he occupied the White House. But the rapidly accelerating investigation into whether Trump and top aides unlawfully conspired to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory at the 6 January joint session appears to be unnerving him deeply. The portrait that emerges from interviews with multiple sources close to Trump, including current and former aides, suggest a former president unmoored and backed into a corner by the rapid escalation in intensity of the committee’s investigation.A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.But as Trump struggles to shield himself from the select committee, with public hearings next year and the justice department said to be tracking the investigation, the path ahead is only likely to be more treacherous.The former president is especially attuned to his potential for legal exposure, even as he maintains he did nothing wrong in conferring about ways to overturn the 2020 election and encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol. He has expressed alarm to associates about repeated defeats in court as he seeks to stop the select committee obtaining some of the most sensitive of White House documents about 6 January from the National Archives, on grounds of executive privilege.The reality is that with each passing day, the committee seems to be gathering new evidence about Trump’s culpability around the Capitol attack that might culminate with recommendations for new election laws – but also for prosecutions.“I think that the justice department will keep a keen eye on what evidence the committee has accumulated, as well as looking out for witnesses for a potential case,” said Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense now a law professor at New York University.“One of the outcomes of the committee’s work and the public hearings will be to demonstrate individuals who might be wanting to come forward as witnesses and that’s got to be very important to justice department prosecutors,” Goodman said.House investigators are expected to soon surpass more than 300 interviews with Trump administration officials and Trump political operatives as part of a process that has yielded 30,000 documents and 250 tips via the select committee’s tip line.The flurry of recent revelations – such as the disclosure of Meadows’s connection to a powerpoint outlining how Trump could stage a coup, as first reported by the Guardian – raises the specter that the select committee is swiftly heading towards an incriminating conclusion.Trump’s associates insist they are not worried, at least for the moment, since the select committee has yet to obtain materials covered by executive privilege either through Meadows or the National Archives that could ensnare Trump personally.The former president’s defenders are correct in that respect – the committee does not have messages that show Trump directing an attack on the Capitol, one source said – and Trump has vowed to appeal the National Archives case to the supreme court.House panel gathers mountain of evidence in Capitol attack investigationRead moreBut no one outside the select committee, which is quietly making progress from a glass office on Capitol Hill with boarded-up windows and electronically secured doors, knows exactly what it has uncovered and whether the inquiry ends with a criminal referral.The material Meadows turned over alone depicts an alarming strategy to stop Biden’s certification on 6 January, involving nearly the entire federal government and lieutenants operating from the Willard hotel in Washington.One member on the select committee described the events around 6 January as showing a coalescence of multiple strategies: “There was a DoJ strategy, a state legislative strategy, a state election official strategy, the vice-president strategy. And there was the insurrection strategy.”The text messages Meadows received on his personal phone implicate Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, and Republican members of Congress. Texts Meadows turned over to the committee might also be used by an enterprising prosecutor as evidence of criminal obstruction to stop a congressional proceeding if the White House knew election fraud claims to be lies but still used them to stop Biden’s certification.While Meadows never testified about the communications, a cadre of top Trump officials, from former acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg to Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short, have moved to cooperate with House investigators.The trouble for Trump – and part of the source of his frustration, the sources said – is his inability, out of office, to wield the far-reaching power of the executive branch to affect the course of the inquiry.The limited success of strategies he hoped would stymie the committee – ordering aides to defy subpoenas or launching legal challenges to slow-walk the release White House records – has been jarring for Trump.“I think what he’s finding is that as the ex-president, he has a lot less authority than he did as president. But his playbook doesn’t work if he’s not president,” said Daniel Goldman, former lead counsel in the first House impeachment inquiry into Trump.In a reflection of dwindling legal avenues available to undercut the investigation, Trump has returned to launching attacks-by-emailed-statement on the select committee, stewing over his predicament and what he considers an investigation designed only to hurt him politically.“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,” Trump vented last month.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreIn private, Trump is said to have reserved the brunt of his scorn for Meadows, furious with his former White House chief of staff for sharing sensitive communications on top of all the unflattering details about Trump included in his book this month.Trump’s associates, however, have focused more on questioning the legitimacy of the select committee and its composition, arguing the fact that the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, appointed both Republican members reduces the investigation to a partisan political endeavor.They also argue that none of the revelations to date – like the Guardian’s reporting on Trump’s call to the Willard hotel, during which he pressed operatives to stop Biden’s certification from taking place entirely – amounts to criminal wrongdoing.But in the meantime, Trump is left with little choice but to wait for the committee’s report.“The justice department seems to be more reactive than proactive,” Goodman said. “They might be waiting for the committee to wrap up its work to make criminal referrals.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker test positive for Covid amid US Omicron surge
Massachusetts and New Jersey senators confirm they have both been vaccinated
Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’
US senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker have confirmed they have tested positive for Covid-19, as the US deals with another surge in cases and the emergence of the Omicron variant.Doug Ericksen, state senator who fought vaccine mandates, dies at 52Read moreWarren, a progressive Democrat who ran for the presidential nomination in 2020, tweeted that she was vaccinated, had received her booster shot and was experiencing mild symptoms in a breakthrough case of the virus.“Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms and am grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated and boosted,” the Massachusetts senator wrote, using the occasion to also urge anyone not vaccinated to do so.Warren, 72, didn’t elaborate on where she might have contracted the virus but said she was regularly tested and had returned a negative result earlier this week.Her office did not respond to an email seeking comment.Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey who also ran for president in 2020, said in a statement on Sunday he had tested positive for Covid after feeling symptoms a day earlier.“Fortunately, my symptoms are relatively mild. I’m beyond grateful to have received two doses of vaccine and, more recently, a booster – I’m certain that without them I would be doing much worse. I encourage everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated and boosted,” he said.Warren was at the US Capitol this week along with other senators as Democrats sought to pass Joe Biden’s $1.75tn Build Back Better social and environment bill.That effort resulted first in delay and then, on Sunday, in fury, as the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, a centrist and therefore key vote in the 50-50 chamber, said he would not support the bill.TopicsElizabeth WarrenUS politicsDemocratsUS SenateUS CongressCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

Capitol attack panel will determine if Trump committed crime – Republican
Kinzinger promises to determine if criminal statute violated
‘He’s not a king. Former presidents, they aren’t former kings’
Robert Reich: Beware the big lie, big anger and big money
Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the deadly 6 January Capitol attack incited by Donald Trump, said on Sunday he was not “yet” ready to declare the former president guilty of a crime – but that the panel was investigating the likelihood that he is.Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offRead more“Nobody is above the law,” the Illinois congressman told CNN’s State of the Union. “And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on 6 January to happen, and, in fact, was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that.”The committee has been picking up pace in recent weeks with dozens of subpoenas issued, some to close Trump aides. The waters lapped at the doors of Trump’s Oval Office this week when his fourth and final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, became a focus of the investigation over tweets he received on and around the day of the insurrection.The committee voted unanimously to refer Meadows for criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress, after he withdrew his cooperation.Kinzinger, who alongside fellow Republican Liz Cheney has drawn the ire of Trump allies for serving on the committee, said he had no qualms about scrutinising how Trump incited supporters to try to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, which he says was the result of massive electoral fraud, which it was not.“He’s not a king,” Kinzinger said, “Former presidents, they aren’t former kings.”Kinzinger added that he feared the events of 6 January were “trial run” for Trump and his allies to attempt another coup.“We will get every bit of detail that we can possibly get on that, so that’s important for the president’s role,” he said. “I want to hold the people guilty accountable but I want to make sure this never happens again.“Otherwise, 6 January will have been, yes, a failed trial run, but, sometimes, a failed trial run is the best practice to get one that succeeds, a coup that would succeed in toppling our government.”Kinzinger’s comments are the strongest to date about the depth of the inquiry into Trump’s role.At a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on 6 January, the then-president urged supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country any more”.He was impeached a second time for inciting the insurrection that followed, but though Kinzinger, and nine other House Republicans and seven GOP senators voted with Democrats, Trump was acquitted in his Senate trial and remains free to run for office again.Pressed on whether he thought Trump was guilty of a crime, Kinzinger said: “I don’t want to go there yet, to say, ‘Do I believe he has’. But I sure tell you I have a lot of questions about what the president was up to.”Earlier this month at a sentencing hearing for one of the rioters, a district court judge, Amy Berman Jackson, said she believed Trump stoked the riot and should be held accountable. Jackson was one of a growing number of federal judges to speak out.Trump is also in legal jeopardy from investigations of his business affairs, with authorities in New York looking at tax issues in particular.Trump spoke to Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures but was not asked about the 6 January inquiry, instead riffing on subjects including the Taliban’s hatred of dogs and how Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, struggles to pitch a baseball. Bob’s Burgers bans actor over alleged involvement in Capitol attack – reportRead moreTrump also weighed in on a conspiracy theory popular on Fox News which says Biden is not running the country, based on an apparent gaffe in which he called his vice-president, Kamala Harris, “president” in a university commencement speech this week.On CNN, Kinzinger acknowledged the 6 January committee was working to complete its work before next year’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are likely to take back control and thereby kill the investigation.The Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, a Trump loyalist whose text messages were included in those released this week, was one of the Republicans rejected by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for a place on the 6 January panel.Regardless, Jordan has been tipped as a possible judiciary committee chair – who would therefore act to close the investigation of the Capitol attack.“He could not credibly head the [judiciary] committee,” Kinzinger said. “But he certainly could head the committee.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More