US Politics

Trump is about to face a second impeachment. The outsider candidate has fallen into the snares of Washington DCA kinder fate might have cast Donald J Trump as a maitre d’ in the world of swank, careful to save the best tables for his best customers, warmly responsive to a good tip, the ultimate outsider as insider, being and also impersonating a man whose fondest memory of youth is the first time he heard “I Did It My Way.” But fate was not kind. It made him a billionaire of sorts with a trick of putting his name on vodka bottles and casinos, of growing richer through bankruptcies and bad debt, of enthralling the tabloids. And yet, despite all this, Manhattan seems to have remained unimpressed. A tower almost as tall as he said it was, remarkable hair, and yet he was the baffled outsider trying to figure out what he was getting wrong. What began as farce is ending as tragedy. Related: For Spaniards who remember 1981, the storming of the Capitol looked eerily familiar | Giles Tremlett Continue reading… More

Presenter helps dun-coloured pants also worn by President-elect Biden roar back into geek chic fashionSteve Kornacki, the MSNBC pundit who broke the internet in November with his khaki trousers, returned to TV screens for the Georgia Senate runoffs this week. Related: ‘You can’t lose a single vote’: can Biden navigate the 50-50 Senate? Continue reading… More

Analysis: The attack on the US Capitol shook America’s image of itself but is democracy really in its most precarious moment since the civil war?In the film Mr Smith Goes to Washington, James Stewart’s eponymous hero gazes with reverence and awe at the dome of the US Capitol, the near sacred citadel of American democracy. Continue reading… More

With the storming of the Capitol, the fired FBI director’s earnest attempt to help America recover has been overtaken by eventsComey: Trump should not be prosecuted after leaving officeA centuries-old norm has been broken. The inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not mark the peaceful transition of power. On Wednesday, American carnage arrived. Five people including a police officer are dead. Related: After Trump review: a provocative case for reform by Biden and beyond Continue reading… More

A swift impeachment is imperative but from Rudy Giuliani and Don Jr to Fox News and Twitter, the president did not act aloneInsurrection: the day terror came to the US CapitolCall me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Related: Saving Justice review: how Trump’s Eye of Sauron burned everything – including James Comey Continue reading… More

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Saturday said he was lifting restrictions on contacts between US officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, a move likely to anger China and increase tensions between Beijing and Washington in the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency.China claims democratic and separately ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and regularly describes Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its ties with the US.While the US, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, the Trump administration has ramped up support, with arms sales and laws to help Taiwan deal with pressure from China.In a statement, Pompeo said that for several decades the US state department had created complex internal restrictions on interactions with Taiwanese counterparts by American diplomats, service members and other officials.“The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing,” Pompeo said. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.”The US ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will visit Taiwan next week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, prompting China to warn on Thursday that the Trump administration was playing with fire.Chinese fighter jets approached the island in August and September during the last two visits: by US health secretary Alex Azar and under secretary of state Keith Krach.The US is Taiwan’s strongest international backer and arms supplier, and is obliged to help provide it with the means to defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.“Today’s statement recognizes that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy,” Pompeo said. More

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Efforts to remove Donald Trump from the White House gathered pace on Saturday, as Democrats announced that at least 180 members of Congress would co-sponsor an article of impeachment they intend to introduce in the House of Representatives on Monday.
The show of force by the president’s opponents comes amid continuing revulsion at Trump’s incitement of Wednesday’s deadly US Capitol riot and his attempts to overturn electoral defeat by Joe Biden.
One of the authors of the impeachment resolution, the California congressman Ted Lieu, repeated demands for Trump to resign or face the ignominy of being the first president to be impeached twice.
On Twitter, Lieu announced that the vast majority of the 222 Democratic House members were onboard for impeachment, and revealed a letter to the New York state bar demanding the disbarment of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who advocated “trial by combat” at a rally preceding the violent invasion of the US Capitol building by a mob of Trump supporters.
“We will hold responsible everyone involved with the attempted coup,” Lieu wrote.
Trump’s grip on the presidency appeared increasingly tenuous as impeachment plans advanced, allies continued to abandon him and Twitter banned him, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.
On Friday night one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, called for the president’s removal.
“I want him to resign,” she said. “I want him out. He has caused enough damage.”
Five people died around the chaos at the Capitol, including a police officer who confronted rioters and a rioter shot by law enforcement. Multiple arrests have been made, among them a Florida resident photographed walking off with the lectern of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Also arrested was a man from Arizona who styles himself as the QAnon shaman and who sat in the Vice-President’s chair in the Senate, dressed in horns and animal skins.
Amid reports the FBI was investigating whether some rioters intended to take lawmakers hostage, the Washington US attorney said a 70-year-old Alabama man was charged after his truck was discovered packed with homemade bombs and guns. Another man was alleged to have threatened to kill Pelosi and to have been heavily armed.
The article of impeachment, which charges Trump with inciting an insurrection and having “gravely endangered the security of the United States” and its institutions, prompted a flurry of legal activity at the White House, according to Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter. She tweeted that a defence team was beginning to take shape, including Giuliani and possibly Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer who has defended Trump before.

Significantly, current White House counsel, including Jay Sekulow, Marty and Jane Raskins, Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, were reportedly unlikely to be involved in any Senate trial, which according to indications from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is almost certain to take place after Trump leaves office on 20 January.
The impeachment move is part of a multi-pronged approach by Democrats pressing for Trump’s removal ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Pelosi, who spoke to the leader of the US military, seeking to ensure Trump cannot launch a nuclear attack, has also called for Trump’s removal via the 25th amendment, which provides for the ejection of a president deemed unable to fulfil his duties.
The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was reportedly among officials to discuss such a course but it seems unlikely, particularly as cabinet members who might participate have resigned.
White House sources have asserted Trump will not resign or turn over power to Vice-President Mike Pence in order to seek a pardon, so a second and high-speed impeachment looms. In his first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, Trump was acquitted by a Republican-held Senate.
This time, more Republican senators are indicating support. Murkowski became the first in the open, telling the Anchorage Daily News: “I think he should leave.
“He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with Covid. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice-president. More

Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the storming of Capitol Hill on Wednesday continues to stoke fierce debate, supporters and critics split on partisan lines as they contest what the suspension means for a cherished American tradition: freedom of speech.Republicans – many using Twitter – decried Trump’s removal and claimed conservative beliefs and opinions are being censored.“Big Tech censoring [Trump] and the free speech of American citizens is on par with communist countries like China and North Korea,” tweeted Steve Daines, a senator from Montana.The president’s son Donald Trump Jr said: “Free speech is dead and controlled by leftist overlords.”Democrats argued that the company had the legal right to make the decision – which they said was long overdue.“It took blood & glass in the halls of Congress – and a change in the political winds – for the most powerful tech companies to recognise, at the last possible moment, the threat of Trump,” tweeted Senator Richard Blumenthal, from Connecticut.Trump’s suspension came two days after the US Capitol saw a violent attack by supporters of the president, who has for months spread false information about the election and encouraged his followers to contest the result.Two tweets the president posted on Friday proved the last straw. Trump tweeted that his supporters “will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future” and said he would not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration. Twitter said the tweets were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people” to replicate the Capitol attacks. Reports of secondary attacks have been spreading among extremist social media groups.Debate has been going on for years about the role social media companies should play in moderating content.Conservatives are adamant companies should be punished for what they say is censorship that the Republican Study Committee, a caucus in the House of Representatives, wrote on Twitter “runs contrary to the principle behind our first amendment”.Tiffany Trump, the president’s daughter, used the social media site Parler, popular among conservatives and also subject to controversy over its policies, to say: “Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”Republicans claim Twitter’s move violates the first amendment of the US constitution. Others argue that the first amendment says the government cannot restrict speech, but social media companies are private entities.“[The first amendment] doesn’t give anyone the right to a particular platform, publisher or audience; in fact, it protects the right of private entities to choose what they want to say or hear,” said Mary Anne Franks, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law – on Twitter.Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act exempts social media platforms from legal liability for user-generated content. Republicans including Trump say Congress could curtail social media companies through reform to the law.But Republicans are no longer in control of Congress and activists and Democratic lawmakers said actions taken this week – Facebook has banned Trump for at least two weeks and Google removed Parler from its app store – are what they have been advocating for years. The attack on the Capitol, they said, showed a breaking point had been reached.Misinformation experts and civil rights activists claimed that the platforms were culpable for the attack.“[The violence] is a direct response to the misinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech that have been allowed to spread on social media platforms,” Jim Steyer, who leads Common Sense Media, an advocacy group which organized the Stop the Hate for Profit campaign that encouraged advertisers to boycott Facebook over hate speech concerns, told the Guardian.Many Democratic lawmakers have been critical of social media companies but have yet to propose specific actions to curtail them.“It’s important to remember, this is much bigger than one person,” wrote Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, incoming chair of the Senate intelligence committee – on Twitter.“It’s about an entire ecosystem that allows misinformation and hate to spread and fester unchecked.” More