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      US voting rights champion Jasmine Crockett: ‘I need everyone to feel a sense of urgency’

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      InterviewUS voting rights champion Jasmine Crockett: ‘I need everyone to feel a sense of urgency’Kira LernerThe congresswoman reflects on a whirlwind rise from Texas politics to Washington, and her hopes of passing a critical bill In July 2021, Jasmine Crockett entered the US Capitol for the first time. Then a state representative, Crockett was a lead architect of Texas Democrats’ unprecedented plans to board a flight and travel to Washington to break quorum in Texas and block Republicans from enacting the voting restrictions they were steamrolling in the state.Less than two years later, Crockett came back to the Capitol, this time to be sworn in to the House of Representatives – one of 22 women and 13 women of color in the class of 74 new freshmen.Back in her district in Dallas for the first time since officially becoming a member of Congress, Crockett has had to hit the ground running. “I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” she told the Guardian in a phone interviewy. “Everybody wants to get their meetings in, and I’m like, ‘Guys, we have a full two years. And it’s not like we’re going to be that legislatively aggressive this season, so we’ve got time.’”Will this Ohio judge’s retirement spell the end of fair elections in the state?Read moreCrockett saw her opening to join Congress in November 2021, when the Dallas Democratic congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson announced her retirement after almost three decades. Four days later, Crockett announced she would run for her seat, with Johnson’s support. She won the primary in May by over 20 points thanks to the name recognition and political prominence she earned by leading the plans to break quorum. Supporting a range of progressive policies from healthcare to workers’ rights, she went on to easily secure the seat in the solidly Democratic district in November.Coming into a chamber with a slim Republican majority, Crockett said she knows it will be important to keep the pressure on voting rights reform.A civil rights attorney and former public defender, Crockett was labeled the most liberal member of the Texas house in her freshman year. In her first year, she introduced more than 60 bills, including measures to create online voter registration and same day voter registration, increase ballot drop boxes, permanently allow drive-thru voting, and allow voters to vote in primaries if they turn 18 in time for the general election.None of her bills passed, but she made a name for herself as a defender of voting rights, which she has called the “modern-day civil rights movement”.Crockett said she came to voting rights accidentally. When she was a student at the University of Houston Law Center, she was late to sign up for a seminar class “so all of the ‘good ones’ were gone”, she said. She ended up in an election law seminar, and remembers thinking: “What am I going to do with this?”“Little did I know,” she said. “I always tell people that God had this amazing, beautiful plan that I was definitely not clued in on.”She wrote her final paper on felony disenfranchisement laws and their Jim Crow-era roots, a topic that got her thinking about the racist history of US voting policy. After law school, she volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign and was inspired to become engaged beyond her work as a public defender. “Obama made me feel like we could all fly,” she said. She became chair of the Democratic party in Texarkana, Texas, and worked to make sure that people waiting for trial in jail knew they were eligible to vote.Her next foray into voting rights came after she was elected to the Texas legislature and assumed office in January 2021. That session, Republicans prioritized pushing through legislation to protect “election integrity”, capitalizing on former president Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud. Crockett quickly found herself on the defensive, given the importance of defending Texans’ voting rights.But she would soon meet the legislative brick wall that was state representative Briscoe Cain, a conservative attorney who helped Trump attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Cain chaired the House’s elections committee in 2021 and blocked Democratic-sponsored bills.When asked what it was like to propose dozens of bills to protect voting but to watch them all fail, Crockett laughed. “Is this your way of asking me what it feels like to be a loser?“No, listen,” she said. “I went in and I told people all the time that I was green and I was excited and I was believing, and the Texas house has a way of showing you the realities of what it is to be in Texas.”After Republicans initially failed in an attempt to pass a sweeping bill they said would protect against widespread voter fraud, Governor Greg Abbott called a special session for July to address voting. Crockett said she knew then that it was time to take extreme action on behalf of her majority non-white constituents.“I always describe the Texas house as a kind of abusive relationship, and there are those that have gotten used to the abuse and conditioned – meaning senior members – and then there’s me, who’s hit over the head for the first time,” she said. She described Republicans’ effort to pass an omnibus restrictive voting bill as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.Though getting a large enough group of colleagues in agreement to take action took some time and negotiating, Crockett said she was grateful that the conversations happened. According to Texas House rules, at least two-thirds of the chamber’s 150 members must be present to conduct business – Crockett said they reached a point where there was enough interest to officially break quorum.Eventually, Crockett and a group of Democratic lawmakers chartered the plane to take them to Washington, where they held protests and met with members of Congress. Crockett spent weeks in the capital, refusing to return to Austin even as some of her colleagues struck deals to come back home.Now back in Washington, Crockett has no illusions about the possibility of passing an omnibus voting rights bill in this Congress. Despite the Democrats controlling the House for the last two years, their efforts to enact voting rights legislation were blocked in the Senate, where the party didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority.But she does see some room for compromise.“I am going to try to attack this from a very simple, singular, non-omnibus way,” she said. “Something simple like online voter registration is where I’m going to start.”Currently, 42 states and Washington DC allow people to register to vote online, but Texas is one of the small number that still don’t allow it, though lawmakers of both parties have shown support of moving it through the legislature. She said the infrastructure exists nationally to expand online voter registration across the nation. “We wouldn’t be burdening the states,” she said.She also said she plans to introduce legislation to allow young people to vote in primaries if they turn 18 by the time of the general election.While Crockett is in DC now, she’s still worried about what her former colleagues are doing in the legislature. Texas Republicans have introduced dozens of bills that would make voting more difficult, including one proposal that would give the attorney general power to prosecute alleged instances of voter fraud.“There is no reason for the AG’s office to handle these cases,” she said, adding that she knew it was part of a larger plan to “specifically target the large urban centers and those areas that make up the majority of the color in the state of Texas”.“They will pick on them and they will try to make sure that they’ve got an example so that more people of color are intimidated and afraid to go to the polls because even if they make a mistake, they can potentially go to prison,” she said.Crockett often compares the modern-day struggle for voting rights with the civil rights era. A few days after Martin Luther King Day, she lamented that there’s no one figure right now organizing people and pushing them to fight for their rights.“I need everybody in this country to feel a sense of urgency,” she said, especially during elections. “I need you to say, ‘I know I’m standing here for hours, but I have to because John Lewis marched and almost died just so I can have a chance to stand here.”TopicsUS newsThe fight for democracyUS politicsTexasDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, declares Senate run

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      Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, declares Senate runCalifornia congressman makes play for Dianne Feinstein’s seat, which is being eyed by at least three other candidates Adam Schiff, the California congressman who became a household name as the lead prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, said he will seek the California Senate seat currently held by Dianne Feinstein.“I wish I could say the threat of Maga extremists is over,” said Schiff, 62, in a video announcing his campaign. “We’re in the fight of our lives – a fight I’m ready to lead as California’s next US senator”.Senate musical chairs: California prepares for political battle over Feinstein vacancyRead moreSchiff is joining fellow southern California Democrat Katie Porter in declaring his candidacy for the Senate seat before Feinstein has even announced her retirement. At 89, Feinstein is the oldest member of the Senate, and has told reporters this week that she will make a decision about 2024 in the “next couple of months” amid circling questions about her cognitive health.Schiff, who is close with Feinstein, said he had spoken to her a day earlier to inform her of his intention to run.“I want to make sure that everything I did was respectful of her and that I did so with her knowledge and her blessing,” Schiff told the Associated Press.Many will be clambering for her seat. Bay Area representative Barbara Lee has reportedly told colleagues and donors that she plans to run, and political analysts expect Silicon Valley representative Ro Khanna could also mount a competitive campaign.Schiff has proved to be a formidable fundraiser, with $20.6 m in campaign money at the end of November according to Federal Election Commission reports. His announcement comes after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, blocked Schiff from serving on the intelligence committee.He has launched his campaign emphasizing his antagonizing of Trump and his allies. “If our democracy isn’t delivering for Americans, they’ll look for alternatives, like a dangerous demagogue who promises that he alone can fix it,” Schiff said.“I think that record of leadership, that record of staunch defense of our democracy, and the way that I’ve championed an economy that works for everyone, I think are a powerful record to run on,” he said.Schiff was first elected to Congress in 2000 and represents parts of Hollywood. Before that, he was a federal prosecutor and served in California’s state senate, where his tough on crime record has been criticized by criminal justice and immigrants rights advocates.His record in Congress veers more centrist than that of Porter, Lee or Khanna.TopicsCaliforniaUS SenateDianne FeinsteinDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s return to Facebook will ‘fan the flames of hatred’, Democrats say

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      Trump’s return to Facebook will ‘fan the flames of hatred’, Democrats sayDemocrats and liberal groups deplored decision to revoke ban on former president who incited insurrection but ACLU defends move Donald Trump’s return to Facebook and Instagram will “fan the flames of hatred and division”, a Democratic congresswoman said, amid liberal outrage after parent company Meta announced its decision to lift a ban on the former US president imposed after the January 6 Capitol attack.Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts bode ill for his return to FacebookRead moreJan Schakowsky, of Illinois, said: “Reinstating former president Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will only fan the flames of hatred and division that led to an insurrection.”Trump was impeached for inciting the January 6 riot, a deadly attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Trump was also banned from major social media platforms. His ban from Twitter was lifted in November, after the site was purchased by the Tesla owner, Elon Musk. Trump has not tweeted since, although he is active on his own social media platform and would-be Twitter rival Truth Social.Announcing Meta’s decision, its president of global affairs, the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, told NBC “the rough and tumble of democratic debate should play out on Facebook and Instagram as much as anywhere else”.Schakowsky countered: “The reinstatement of Trump’s accounts show that there is no low [Meta chief executive] Mark Zuckerberg will not stoop to in order to reverse Meta’s cratering revenue and stagnant consumer growth, even if it means destroying our democracy.”Among other Democrats, Adam Schiff, a former House intelligence committee chair, said Trump had “shown no remorse [or] contrition” for January 6, and Facebook had “caved, giving him a platform to do more harm”.Eric Swalwell, like Schiff now barred from the intelligence committee by Republican leaders, said: “We know that [Trump’s] words have power and they inspire, and then the leaders in the Republican party, like Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy, they don’t condemn them. And so when they’re not condemned, they’re a green light and open lane for more violence to occur.”Some liberal groups also scorned the decision.Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, said: “Meta is refuelling Trump’s misinformation and extremism engine … one that will put us on a path to increased violence.”Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, pointed out that Meta was not bound by constitutional free speech protections.“Facebook is not the government,” he wrote. “The first amendment does not require it to give Donald Trump a platform for speech. And the first amendment does not protect speech to incite an insurrection or overturn an election. The justifications for this are nonsense.”But there was support for Meta among civil liberties groups.Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “Like it or not, President Trump is one of the country’s leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech.“The biggest social media companies are central actors when it comes to our collective ability to speak – and hear the speech of others – online. They should err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends.”Trump used his own platform, Truth Social, to celebrate.‘Reckless’: Fury among rights groups as Facebook lifts Trump banRead moreHe wrote: “Facebook, which has lost billions of dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite president, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!”CNN reported that Meta said Trump would be “permitted to attack the results of the 2020 election without facing consequences” but would face action if he “were to cast doubt on an upcoming election – like, the 2024 presidential race”.Crew, the ethics watchdog, was not alone in expressing skepticism. It said: “If anyone thinks Donald Trump will rejoin Facebook, then not do the same exact thing he did before, well, they clearly don’t know anything about Donald Trump.”TopicsDonald TrumpFacebookUS politicsDemocratsMetanewsReuse this content More

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      Pence discovery raises fresh questions over US handling of classified papers

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      Pence discovery raises fresh questions over US handling of classified papersBiden, Trump and Pence cases prompt calls to tighten government procedures as Republican congressman says ‘process is broken’ The discovery of classified documents at the home of former US vice-president Mike Pence, following similar incidents involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is bringing new scrutiny to government procedures for handling and securing its most delicate secrets.George Santos admits ‘personal’ loans to campaign were not from personal fundsRead moreThe justice department and FBI are looking into how about a dozen classified-marked papers came to be found last week in an unsecure location at Pence’s Indiana residence, two years after he and Trump left office.The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has meanwhile appointed independent special counsels to investigate what is thought to be around a dozen documents found at Biden’s Delaware home and Pennsylvania office, and many thousands of papers seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last year.The latest revelations have led to calls from politicians and analysts for a tightening of how classified documents are handled at the conclusion of a presidency, and a demand for more oversight of the federal agency responsible for securing and transporting them during the handover.There are also questions whether the US has a problem with over-classification of materials given the number of documents so far uncovered in the possession of senior current and former elected officials.“Clearly the process is broken,” the Florida Republican congressman Mike Waltz, a member of the House armed services committee, told Fox News.“We’ve got to take a hard look at GSA (General Services Administration) and how they and the intelligence community pack these documents [and] get them to wherever the president or vice-president is going.”Republicans seeking to gain political capital from the discovery of papers at Democrat Biden’s home and office, from his two terms as Obama’s vice-president, were quelled by the revelation that Pence, their own party’s most recent vice-president, also apparently took sensitive papers with him.In both cases, the politicians insisted they were unaware of the existence of the documents and, immediately upon their discovery, their lawyers contacted the National Archives, which in turn alerted the justice department.That contrasts sharply with Trump’s handling of more than 11,000 papers, including hundreds of classified and top secret documents, which he took from the White House in January 2021 and stored in boxes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.The former president resisted requests that he return the documents, which reportedly included a foreign power’s nuclear and military secrets, to the National Archives, prompting last summer’s FBI raid and, in November, the appointment by Garland of special prosecutor Jack Smith to look into the affair.“Quantitatively and qualitatively there are big differences between Trump’s situation on the one hand, and Biden and Pence on the other,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond.“The FBI says Trump had 11,000 documents mostly at Mar-a-Lago, and several hundred classified documents. So far with Biden it’s a tiny number compared to that, maybe 25, and only some were classified, and it seems even smaller with Pence.“Also the behaviour, if you look at Pence and Biden, it may be negligent, or just not careful. There isn’t any notion of intent to do something, which is apparently the case with Trump. Those differences are pretty important.”The episode, nevertheless, is embarrassing for Pence, who insisted: “I did not” when asked by ABC News in November if he had taken classified material from the White House.Political allies have rushed to defend him. New York congresswoman and Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik, the House Republican conference chair, told reporters Pence did nothing wrong, while claiming without evidence that a “weaponized” FBI was engaged in a cover-up to protect Biden.Tobias said the episodes also suggested an issue with how the government decides what should be classified.“Hundreds of thousands of classified documents are generated every year, it’s difficult to keep track of all that and we may have an over-classification problem. Maybe Congress would pass some legislation to try to address that,” he said.“There’s just so many documents that you can’t expect all of them to be tracked. People should be more careful with the documents, but also not classify everything so much that you can’t handle it.”Representatives of three living former presidents, Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, told CNN they handed over all classified documents to the National Archives before leaving the White House, as did the office of the late George HW Bush.Legal analyst Chris Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, told Fox he was concerned that three current and recent occupants of the White House appeared not to have done so.“These politicians need to understand where this information comes from. They can’t just take it home,” he said.TopicsUS politicsMike PenceJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Pence documents discovery sparks scrutiny on US classification system – as it happened

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      It started in August when the FBI carried out an unprecedented search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and carted away boxes of what the government revealed were secret materials he should not have left the White House with.It appeared the former president was in serious legal peril, particularly once it emerged that he’d sidestepped efforts by the National Archives to retrieve the materials, and after attorney general Merrick Garland said special counsel Jack Smith would look into the matter.But then, in January, it was revealed Joe Biden had found classified documents from his time as vice president at a former office in Washington DC, and later at his home in Delaware. When it was revealed that the White House discovered this just prior to the November midterm elections but didn’t make the news public, Republicans pounced. Earlier this month, Garland announced the appointment of another special counsel, Robert Hur, to handle the investigation into the Biden case.Then yesterday, news broke that the former vice president under Trump, Mike Pence, also found classified materials in his home in Indiana. That discovery has prompted something of a tonal shift in Washington, with both Democratic and Republican politicians now wondering if there isn’t a larger issue to be addressed with the government’s classification process – or perhaps its procedures for presidential transitions.Joe Biden announced that the United States will send Ukraine its Abrams battle tank, as western allies mobilize to provide Kyiv with the armor it argues is necessary to defend against Russia’s invasion. Back in Washington, lawmakers and experts are reacting to the cascade of classified documents discovered at the properties of former White House occupants, most recently ex-vice president Mike Pence’s home in Indiana.Here’s what else happened today:
      Barack Obama’s office wouldn’t say whether the former president planned to check if he had any classified material in his possession.
      A Georgia district attorney says a decision on prosecuting people involved in Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the state’s 2020 election result is “imminent”.
      House speaker Kevin McCarthy has made good on his promise to boot two Democrats from the intelligence committee, and plans to seek a vote on removing a third from the foreign affairs committee.
      Former transportation secretary Elaine Chao responded to Trump’s repeated racist attacks.
      George Santos’s former roommate went public with the tale of his brief and crowded time living with the admitted liar turned congressman.
      Republican House representative Victoria Spartz had some harsh words for Kevin McCarthy and his quest for remove three Democratic lawmakers from committees:Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) criticizes Speaker Kevin McCarthy for kicking Democrat Reps. Eric Swalwell, Ilhan Omar, and Adam Schiff off House committees:“I want to defend the due process of this institution because we’re becoming like a theater full of actors in the circus.” pic.twitter.com/ZErT2iaBiP— The Recount (@therecount) January 25, 2023
      Spartz’s complaints are not to be taken lightly. The GOP only has a four-vote margin of control in the House. Elaine Chao was Donald Trump’s transportation secretary from the start of his term until her resignation following the January 6 insurrection, but despite her lengthy service, the former president has repeatedly targeted her with racist insults.In a statement to Politico, Chao – who is married to the top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell and also served as labor secretary under George W Bush – made a decision that was unusual for her: she responded to Trump’s attacks.“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation. He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans,” Chao said.Politico notes that Chao’s decision to speak out comes in the wake of two mass shootings targeting Asian Americans. In the past, Chao has avoided political bickering, but wound up in Trump’s crosshairs anyway due to his disagreements with McConnell. Trump has made social media posts suggesting that McConnell has inappropriate ties to China because of his wife. Chao was born in Taiwan, and immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old.CNN pounded the pavement of the Capitol to try to figure out what House Republicans make of the news that Mike Pence has joined the ranks of those possessing classified documents they should not have.Prior to the development, the GOP was gearing up to hold Joe Biden’s feet to the fire for keeping secret documents from his time as vice president and senator in two locations. They still plan to do that, but have yet to spell out how they’ll handle the similar conduct from Pence, a Republican former vice president who may run for the White House in 2024:GOP pressing ahead after Pence classified doc newsComer says Biden and Pence to be treated “exact” same way. Jordan sees a difference over how FBI treated Biden vs. TrumpWaltz says House Intel needs to learn “was there any damage” from the records Pence, Trump and Biden had pic.twitter.com/d7mgvtyrjW— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 25, 2023
      You know it’s bad when new outlets are willing to publish an interview with your former roommate about what it was like to live with you.But that’s the situation George Santos finds himself in, after telling a whole bunch of lies in his successful quest to be elected to Congress. New York Magazine secured an interview with Yasser Rabello, who recounted a brief stay in a crowded, two-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York that he found through his acquaintance with Santos – who he knew as Anthony Devolder.Even then, Santos was murky about his affairs. From the interview:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}So he was always in the common space. What did he do all day?
      He was home all day on his computer, just browsing the web, probably chatting with people. He said he was a reporter at Globo in Brazil.
      Which was a lie, it seems.
      Then he told me he was a model and that he worked at New York Fashion Week and that he met all the Victoria’s Secret models and would be in Vogue magazine.The $500-a-month apartment started out crammed and grew worse, with Rabello sleeping in one bedroom, Santos’s mother in the other and the future congressman on a couch in the living room, with his sister elsewhere in the apartment. The future congressman’s boyfriend later moved in and slept on a mattress, but the family would often have friends over, too.Rabello recounts how tensions rose as the Santos/Devolder clan at first occasionally offered to share meals with him, before cutting him off, saying it was getting too expensive, and later even hiding bottles of water from him. Matters reached a peak when the family – who did not take the property’s keys with them when they’d go somewhere – grew upset with Rabello when he didn’t answer the door quickly enough:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}None of them carried their own keys, which is stupid. I don’t know who does that. So I wake up one day with my phone next to me ringing. They were yelling at me to let them in. They had been ringing the buzzer for the intercom, but it was broken, so I didn’t hear it. I let them in, and Fatima starts shouting in Portuguese for me to get out of her apartment. So I stopped staying there. But I had one more month on my lease, so I kept going in day by day to get my stuff.
      How did that go?
      I arranged with my friend who has a driver’s license to rent a truck so we could get my Ikea dresser. I arranged with Anthony a time to come. He said, “Okay.” I tried to take my dresser, and a fight started. His mother said, “You’re not gonna take my dresser.” I was like, “Excuse me, how come this is yours? Did you buy it? Do you have the receipt? The neighbors were coming to their doors because of the disturbance. It wasn’t that expensive, so I let it go. Later on, my friend with the truck helped me to write a letter to the property manager explaining that they were putting a lot of roommates in the apartment, which is illegal.
      They were eventually evicted. Where do you think the dresser is now?
      I don’t know. Ikea furniture is not sturdy enough for multiple moves. It probably broke a long time ago.Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy has pledged to remove Democrat Ilhan Omar from her seat on the foreign affairs committee over allegations she used antisemitic language.At a press conference today, the Minnesota lawmaker hit back McCarthy:Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) rebukes Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “purely partisan” decision to remove her from House committee assignments:“Not only [is it] a political stunt, but also a blow to the integrity of our democratic institution and a threat to our national security.” pic.twitter.com/AGefau1Eka— The Recount (@therecount) January 25, 2023
      On Tuesday, the House speaker removed two Democratic foes from the intelligence committee, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. McCarthy has the power to do that unilaterally, but to oust Omar from her post on foreign affairs, he’ll need the votes of a majority of the House. It’s unclear if he has enough support, as at least two Republicans oppose the move.The discovery of classified documents at the home of former US vice-president Mike Pence, following similar incidents involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is bringing new scrutiny to government procedures for handling and securing its most delicate secrets.The justice department and FBI are looking into how about a dozen classified-marked papers came to be found last week in an unsecure location at Pence’s Indiana residence, two years after he and Trump left office.The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has appointed special counsels to investigate what is thought to be around a dozen documents found at Biden’s Delaware home and Pennsylvania office, and many thousands of papers seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last year.The latest revelations have led to calls from politicians and analysts for a tightening of how classified documents are handled at the conclusion of a presidency, and a demand for more oversight of the federal agency responsible for securing and transporting them during the handover.There are also questions whether the US has a problem with over-classification of materials given the number of documents so far uncovered in the possession of senior current and former elected officials.“Clearly the process is broken,” Florida Republican congressman Mike Waltz, a member of the House armed services committee, told Fox News.“We’ve got to take a hard look at GSA (General Services Administration) and how they and the intelligence community pack these documents [and] get them to wherever the president or vice-president is going.”Discovery at Pence’s home brings question: why were classified documents left unsecure?Read moreTwo House Democrats have written to Kevin McCarthy, to demand that the Republican speaker deny George Santos the opportunity to access classified information.Santos is a New York Republican who won election in November but has since come under enormous scrutiny over his largely made-up résumé, his past conduct and his campaign finance filings.Republicans in New York have joined Democrats in calling for Santos to resign. He has said he will not. McCarthy and other Republican leaders have stood by their man – not least because Santos backed McCarthy through 15 votes for speaker and McCarthy must now fill that role with a very slim majority under constant threat from rightwing rebels.In their letter to McCarthy, Joe Morelle and Gregory Meeks, both New York Democrats, write: “It is clear that Congressman George Santos has violated the public’s trust on various occasions and his unfettered access to our nation’s secrets presents a significant risk to the national security of this country. “We urge you to act swiftly to prevent George Santos from abusing his position and endangering our nation.” McCarthy has named Santos to two House committees: small business and science, space and technology.On Wednesday, the speaker told reporters: “If for some way when we go through [the] ethics [committee it is found] that he has broken the law, then we will remove him, but it’s not my role. I believe in the rule of law. A person’s innocent until proven guilty.”Morelle and Meeks said: “The numerous concerning allegations about his behavior over decades put his character into question and suggest he cannot be trusted with confidential and classified information that could threaten the United States’ national security.“As the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, we call on you to limit to the greatest degree possible Congressman George Santos’s ability to access classified materials, including preventing him from attending any confidential or classified briefings for the foreseeable future.”More on Santos:George Santos admits ‘personal’ loans to campaign were not from personal fundsRead moreNBC News made a splash this morning by reporting that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right bomb thrower from Georgia who has gone from pariah in a Democratic House to power-player in a Republican chamber, wants to be Donald Trump’s presidential running mate in 2024.Caution is advised, not least because in citing “two people who have spoken to the firebrand second-term congresswoman about her ambitions”, NBC quoted by name Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist now a perennially controversial presence in far-right media and accused fraudster.“This is no shrinking violet, she’s ambitious – she’s not shy about that, nor should she be,” Bannon said. “She sees herself on the short list for Trump’s VP … when MTG looks in the mirror she sees a potential president smiling back.”The second source cited, unnamed, said Greene’s “whole vision is to be vice-president” and said she was likely to be on Trump’s shortlist.Greene has become an unlikely but key ally of Kevin McCarthy, the new House speaker, after backing him against a rightwing rebellion that forced him through 15 rounds of voting to secure the position.The New York Times reported that this week that McCarthy said of Greene: “I will never leave that woman. I will always take care of her.”Bannon told NBC Greene was “both strategic and disciplined – she made a power move, knowing it would run up hard against her most ardent crew. She was prepared to take the intense heat/hatred short-term for the long-term goal of being a player.”Greene did not comment. To the Times, she said McCarthy would over the next two years “easily vindicate me and prove I moved the conference to the right during my first two years when I served in the minority with no committees”.Here’s a reminder of some of Greene’s other comments, the sort of thing that got her kicked off committees when Democrats ran the House, and which McCarthy now thinks is no impediment to membership of panels on oversight and homeland security:
      She advocated that Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, be executed.
      She harassed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the prominent New York progressive.
      She harassed David Hogg, a Parkland survivor and gun control activist.
      She was condemned for racist and antisemitic videos made during her campaign.
      She repeatedly flouted public health measures against Covid-19.
      She repeated conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks.
      She said Jewish-controlled “space lasers” caused forest fires.
      She expressed sympathy for the QAnon conspiracy theory.
      She landed in the soup over comments about “Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police”.
      And so on. Vice-presidential material? In today’s Republican party, it would seem entirely possible. Trump dominates polling so far, with only Ron DeSantis of Florida anywhere close.Robert Draper of the New York Times, author of Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind, knows something of “MTG” and her rise. Here’s some further reading:‘A nutso proposition’: Robert Draper on Trump, Republicans and January 6 Read moreJoe Biden has announced that the United States will send Ukraine its Abrams battle tank, as western allies agree to provide Kyiv with the armor it argues is necessary to defend against Russia’s assault. Back in Washington, lawmakers and experts are reacting to the cascade of classified document discoveries at the properties of former White House occupants, most recently former vice president Mike Pence’s home in Indiana. Here’s what else has happened today thus far:
      Barack Obama’s office wouldn’t say whether the former president planned to check if he had any classified material in his possession.
      A Georgia district attorney says a decision on prosecuting people involved in Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the state’s 2020 election result is “imminent”.
      House speaker Kevin McCarthy has made good on his promise to boot two Democrats from the intelligence committee, and plans to seek a vote on removing a third from the foreign affairs committee.
      Washington has long been concerned about provoking Russia through its supply of weapons to Ukraine.Joe Biden nodded to that concern as he announced the United States would supply Kyiv with Abrams tanks.“That’s what this is about, helping Ukraine defend and protect Ukrainian land. It is not an offensive threat to Russia. There is no offensive threat to Russia,” the president said.As Biden wrapped up his announcement that the United States would provide Ukraine with Abrams tanks, a reporter asked if Germany had forced him to change his mind.Kyiv has been asking its allies for armor to blunt Russia’s invasion, but Biden had reportedly been hesitant to send the Abrams, arguing their training and logistics needs would make them unsuited for the conflict. Washington viewed Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks as a better option, partially because many of Ukraine’s neighbors had stocks that could be provided to Kyiv with Berlin’s permission. But German chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country would only green-light such transfers if the United States provided armor as well. The two leaders have spoken repeatedly in recent days, and Germany announced it would send some Leopards to Ukraine shortly before Biden made his announcement.“Germany didn’t force me to change (my) mind,” Biden said. “We wanted to make sure we’re all together. That’s what we’re going to do all along, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”Here’s the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino with more details on the Abrams tanks heading to Ukraine, and how the decision fits in with the overall western effort to supply Kyiv’s defenses:The Biden administration has approved sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as international reluctance to send tanks to the battlefront against the Russians begins to erode.The news came after Germany confirmed it will make 14 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks available for Ukraine’s war effort, and give partner countries its permission to re-export other battle tanks to aid Kyiv.By agreeing to send the Abrams, the US is able to meet the demand of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for an American commitment but without having to send the tanks immediately.“Today’s announcement shows the United States and Europe continuing to work hand in hand to support Ukraine, united in our common values and our ongoing support to Ukraine, which the President and other leaders, including in the G7 format, have reiterated will continue for as long as it takes,” a senior administration official said.Much of the US aid sent so far in the 11-month-old war has been through a separate program drawing on Pentagon stocks to get weapons more quickly to Ukraine. But even under that program, it would take months to get tanks to Ukraine and to get Ukrainian forces trained on them.Ukraine says heavily armored Western battle tanks would give its troops more mobility and protection ahead of a new Russian offensive that Kyiv expects in the near future. They could also help Ukraine retake some of the territory that has fallen to Russia.US approves sending of 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine Read moreThe United States will provide Ukraine with Abrams tanks, as part of a push by western allies to send Kyiv heavy armor to defeat Russia’s invasion, Joe Biden said in a White House speech.“I’m announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abram tanks to Ukraine, the equivalent of one Ukrainian battalion,” Biden said. Defense secretary Lloyd Austin “has recommended this step because it will enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve strategic objectives.” More

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      in US Politics

      Judge concludes hearing on Trump grand jury report without a decision – as it happened

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      At the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing, an Atlanta judge did not rule on whether to release a special grand jury’s report into the campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia.“This is not simple. I think the fact that we had to discuss this for 90 minutes shows that it is somewhat extraordinary,” Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney said. “Partly what’s extraordinary is what’s at issue here, the alleged interference with a presidential election.”“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups, the district attorney’s office and the intervenors, if I’ve got specific questions for which I’d like more input,” McBurney said, adding that if he does decide to make the report public, he will give notice before doing so. “No one’s going to wake up with the court having disclosed the report on the front page of the newspaper.”Several media organizations had asked McBurney to release the document, which could lay out whether the jurors believe Trump and his allies committed crimes when they unsuccessfully pressured officials in Georgia to prevent Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes in the 2020 election.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who began the investigation, argued against the report’s release, saying, “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”She also added that “decision are imminent” on the report’s findings.A judge in Atlanta heard arguments over whether to release a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in the state three years ago, but made no decision. In Washington, lawmakers are digesting news that classified documents turned up at former vice president Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana, as they have at properties linked to Biden and Trump. Will attorney general Merrick Garland appoint yet another special counsel to investigate the matter? Will documents be discovered in the hands of even more former White House occupants? It’s too soon to say, but one thing’s for sure: this story won’t be going away anytime soon.Here’s what else happened today:
      The United States is considering providing tanks to Ukraine, in a bid both to help its defense against Russia and to convince Germany to send its own armor.
      A Senate committee questioned Ticketmaster executives in a hearing announced after the sale of Taylor Swift tickets turned into a fiasco.
      Biden called for an assault weapons ban following another mass shooting in California.
      Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said he backs an effort to look at overhauling the government’s rules around classified material.
      With not one, but three former White House occupants in hot water for having stashes of classified documents that they should not have, some in Washington think it’s time to take a look at how the government manages its secrets.That includes the Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who said he supports a review of the government’s classification system. Here are his brief comments, from CNN:Schumer says he backs Sen. Peters’ look at bipartisan legislation to overhaul federal record-keeping laws. Adds that oversight will be done by special counsels — even as the House is trying to probe Biden’s handling of classified records pic.twitter.com/ykufsTmq1M— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023
      There has been much reacting on Capitol Hill to news that Mike Pence had classified documents at his home. Republican lawmakers have generally defended Pence, saying they doubt he did anything wrong. Senator Lindsey Graham is among that group, but he also seemed to indicate that he believed Joe Biden made the same mistake with the secret materials found at his properties:Here’s the video: pic.twitter.com/6QJI5N05aV— Ahtra Elnashar (@AhtraElnashar) January 24, 2023
      Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee is planning to meet on Wednesday with director of national intelligence Avril Haines, and Republican senator Marco Rubio said the classified document scandal is sure to come up:Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on Senate Intel, told us that his committee had already planned to meet Wednesday with Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, and they plan to press her about the handling of classified documents.“No way it doesn’t come up”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023
      Separately, attorney general Merrick Garland was asked about the affair, including whether he would name a special counsel to investigate the documents at Pence’s house, as he did for those found at Biden and Donald Trump’s properties.His answer was no surprise:AG Merrick Garland says he is “unable to comment” when asked about classified documents found at former VP Mike Pence’s home, if a special counsel will be named, and if a policy change is needed after Biden, Trump, and Pence all had classified materials at their homes. pic.twitter.com/qjHjGAfKc1— The Recount (@therecount) January 24, 2023
      As chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer is a leader of the Republican investigation campaign against the Biden administration – including the president’s possession of classified documents.He has sent demands to multiple government agencies for more details about the documents found in the president’s residence and former office, and who may have had access to them. But when news broke that Republican former vice president Mike Pence also had classified material in his home, Comer released a statement displaying a softer touch. Here’s what he had to say:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Former Vice President Mike Pence reached out today about classified documents found at his home in Indiana. He has agreed to fully cooperate with congressional oversight and any questions we have about the matter. Former Vice President Pence’s transparency stands in stark contrast to Biden White House staff who continue to withhold information from Congress and the American people.A judge in Atlanta heard arguments over whether to release a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in the state three years ago, but made no decision. In Washington, lawmakers are digesting news that classified documents turned up at former vice president Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana, as they have at properties linked to Biden and Trump. Will attorney general Merrick Garland appoint yet another special counsel to investigate the matter? Will documents be discovered in the hands of even more former White House occupants? It’s too soon to say, but one thing’s for sure: this story won’t be going away anytime soon.Here’s what else has been going on today:
      The United States is considering providing tanks to Ukraine, in a bid both to help its defense against Russia and to convince Germany to send its own armor.
      A Senate committee questioned Ticketmaster executives in a hearing announced after the sale of Taylor Swift tickets turned into a fiasco.
      Biden called for an assault weapons ban following another mass shooting in California.
      At the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing, an Atlanta judge did not rule on whether to release a special grand jury’s report into the campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia.“This is not simple. I think the fact that we had to discuss this for 90 minutes shows that it is somewhat extraordinary,” Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney said. “Partly what’s extraordinary is what’s at issue here, the alleged interference with a presidential election.”“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups, the district attorney’s office and the intervenors, if I’ve got specific questions for which I’d like more input,” McBurney said, adding that if he does decide to make the report public, he will give notice before doing so. “No one’s going to wake up with the court having disclosed the report on the front page of the newspaper.”Several media organizations had asked McBurney to release the document, which could lay out whether the jurors believe Trump and his allies committed crimes when they unsuccessfully pressured officials in Georgia to prevent Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes in the 2020 election.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who began the investigation, argued against the report’s release, saying, “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”She also added that “decision are imminent” on the report’s findings.Just two weeks ago, Mike Pence told CBS news he was “confident” no classified materials were taken when he left the White House in January 2021:As documents found in an office used by Pres. Biden are in the spotlight, fmr. VP Mike Pence tells CBS News’ @costareports he remains “confident” his staff ensured no classified materials were taken from his time in the White House and remain in his possession. pic.twitter.com/KntHXWNXTC— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 11, 2023
      CBS News reports Mike Pence discovered he had classified documents after an aide found the materials “in recent weeks”:SCOOP: Lawyer and longtime Pence aide Matt Morgan, based in Indiana, found the docs after reviewing them at Pence’s direction in recent weeks, per 2 people familiar @CBSNews— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 24, 2023
      Politico has obtained more details of the classified documents discovered at Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana.According to a letter from Pence’s attorney Greg Jacobs to the National Archives, the FBI sent agents to the former vice president’s home on the night of 19 January to collect classified documents found in his safe. Pence wasn’t in town at that time – he was in Washington DC for the anti-abortion March for Life. Jacobs also said he would turn over four boxes containing “copies of Administration papers” to the Archives on 23 January for them to review for secret material:NEWS: DOJ sent FBI agents to retrieve a “small number” of classified documents from Mike Pence’s Indiana residence last week, while Pence was in DC at the March for Life.Read the Jan. 18 + 22 letters from PENCE to NARA here: https://t.co/I1zCvXdn05https://t.co/VK2YCMYPuf pic.twitter.com/hVbxLrwGUu— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 24, 2023
      Back in Georgia, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis told the court she does not want the special grand jury’s report released.“We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released,” Willis said in arguments before judge Robert McBurney.Willis is expected to use the report to decide whether to bring charges against Donald Trump’s allies or perhaps the former president himself over the attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia. She told McBurney that “decisions are imminent.”A lawyer for former vice-president Mike Pence found classified documents at his residence in Indiana, CNN reports.The discovery at Pence’s Carmel, Indiana, home comes as the justice department investigates government secrets found at Joe Biden’s former office in Washington DC and residence in Delaware, as well as Donald Trump’s possession of similar material at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Attorney general Merrick Garland has appointed special counsels to handle both men’s cases.Citing multiple sources, CNN reports that the attorney for Pence, who served as Trump’s vice-president from 2017 to 2021, gave the documents found at his residence to the FBI.Judge Robert McBurney has convened the Fulton county superior court hearing that will decide whether to release the report of the special grand jury that investigated Trump’s election meddling campaign in Georgia.Follow this blog for the latest, or you can watch the live feed embedded above.Republican senator Lindsey Graham was one of the witnesses called by the special grand jury investigating the election meddling effort in Georgia.Georgia’s top election official Brad Raffensperger said that shortly after the 2020 election, the South Carolina lawmaker called him to ask if it was possible to throw out absentee ballots. Graham waged an unsuccessful court battle to avoid testifying before the special grand jury, before finally appearing in November.CNN reports he does not have much to say about the potential release of the panel’s report:Asked Lindsey Graham — who testified in this case — about the possibility the judge could release report from special grand jury probing Trump effort to overturn election. “Whatever the judge does will be fine,” he said. https://t.co/EE9qOc2Hz7— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023 More

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      in Elections

      Biden urges Congress to reinstate assault weapons ban after latest shooting – live

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      A familiar cycle occurs after American mass shootings, and by all appearances, it’s happening again after the twin massacres in California.It goes something like this: multiple people are killed by a gunman, as happened in California’s Monterey Park on Saturday and Half Moon Bay on Monday. Joe Biden calls for new restrictions on gun ownership, arguing they could have prevented the killer from getting their hands on a weapon. He’s backed by most, if not all Democrats in Congress, but rejected by most, if not all, Republicans. The demand goes nowhere.The one exception to that came after last year’s shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when Democrats managed to win enough Republican votes to get a package of modest gun control measures through Congress. But the legislation was not the ban on assault weapons Biden called on Congress pass, a demand he repeated in the months since, as mass shootings continued. With Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, it seems even less likely such a measure will get approved.The Senate judiciary committee has begun a hearing on the live event ticketing industry, after Ticketmaster last year bungled sales of tickets to megastar Taylor Swfit’s latest tour.“The issues within America’s ticketing industry were made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s new tour, but these problems are not new,” Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said in a statement last week announcing the hearing. “For too long, consumers have faced high fees, long waits, and website failures, and Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company faces inadequate pressure to innovate and improve.”“American consumers deserve the benefit of competition in every market, from grocery chains to concert venues,” her Republican counterpart senator Mike Lee said.When ticket’s for Swift’s first tour in five years went on sale in November, Ticketmaster’s website crashed, leaving customers for “presale” tickets stranded in line and forcing the cancellation of its public sale. The justice department is reportedly investigating the company in an inquiry that started before the problems with the Swift tour. Ticketmaster meanwhile spent nearly $1.3m on lobbying in 2021, targeting the justice department and Congress’s efforts to regulate its business.You can watch the hearing live here.Donald Trump’s foe today – and potentially for many months to come – is an Atlanta prosecutor with a history of taking on organized crime, the Guardian’s Carlisa N. Johnson reports:An Atlanta prosecutor appears ready to use the same Georgia statute to prosecute Donald Trump that she used last year to charge dozens of gang members and well-known rappers who allegedly conspired to commit violent crime.Fani Willis was elected Fulton county district attorney just days before the conclusion of the 2020 presidential election. But as she celebrated her promotion, Trump and his allies set in motion a flurry of unfounded claims of voter fraud in Georgia, the state long hailed as a Republican stronghold for local and national elections.Willis assumed office on 1 January 2021, becoming the first Black woman in the position. The next day, according to reports, Trump called rad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, urging him to “find” the nearly 12,000 votes he needed to secure a victory and overturn the election results.The following month, Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s interference in the state’s general election. Now, in a hearing on Tuesday, the special purpose grand jury and the presiding judge will decide whether to release to the public the final report and findings of the grand jury that was seated to investigate Trump and his allies.Could Trump be charged for racketeering? A Georgia prosecutor thinks soRead moreToday may be a big day for Donald Trump, and not in a good way, the Guardian’s Chris McGreal reports:A judge in Atlanta will hear legal arguments today to determine if he should make public a Georgia grand jury’s report into whether former president Donald Trump committed criminal offences when he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.Before the special purpose grand jury was dissolved two weeks ago after months of hearings, its members recommended releasing its findings while the Fulton county district attorney who launched the investigation, Fani Willis, decides whether to press charges against Trump.Legal scholars have said they believe Trump is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia over his attempts to strong-arm officials into fixing the election in his favour when it looked as if the state might decide the outcome of the presidential election. At least 18 other people have been told they also potentially face prosecution, including Trump’s close ally and lawyer, the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani.The Fulton county superior court judge who oversaw the grand jury, Robert McBurney, will hear from Willis but not lawyers for Trump, who said on Monday that they will not participate in the hearing. They said that Willis had not sought to interview the former president for the investigation.“Therefore, we can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump,” the lawyers said in a statement.Trump and allies face legal jeopardy in Georgia over 2020 election interferenceRead moreWhile mass shootings such as those that occurred over the past days in California may generate headlines and calls for action, the Guardian’s Oliver Holmes reports gun violence is distressingly common in the United States:Two horrific killings separated by just a few days have shaken California, but such nightmarish mass shootings cannot be considered abnormal in the US. With a week still left in January, this year there have already been 39 mass shootings across the country, five of them in California.Reports from the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit research group, show the predictability of American mass shootings. Nearly 70 people have been shot dead in them so far in 2023, according to their data – which classifies a mass shooting as any armed attack in which at least four people are injured or killed, not including the perpetrator.Broadened out to include all deaths from gun violence, not including suicides, 1,214 people have been killed before the end of the first month of this year, including 120 children. That is likely to increase to tens of thousands by the end of 2023 – the figure for 2022 is 20,200.In comparison, the latest data from the UK showed that in the course of an entire year ending in March 2022, 31 people were killed by firearms. The UK’s population is 67 million to the US’s 333 million.‘Tragedy upon tragedy’: why 39 US mass shootings already this year is just the startRead moreA familiar cycle occurs after American mass shootings, and by all appearances, it’s happening again after the twin massacres in California.It goes something like this: multiple people are killed by a gunman, as happened in California’s Monterey Park on Saturday and Half Moon Bay on Monday. Joe Biden calls for new restrictions on gun ownership, arguing they could have prevented the killer from getting their hands on a weapon. He’s backed by most, if not all Democrats in Congress, but rejected by most, if not all, Republicans. The demand goes nowhere.The one exception to that came after last year’s shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when Democrats managed to win enough Republican votes to get a package of modest gun control measures through Congress. But the legislation was not the ban on assault weapons Biden called on Congress pass, a demand he repeated in the months since, as mass shootings continued. With Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, it seems even less likely such a measure will get approved.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Joe Biden has called for Congress to again pass a ban on assault weapons, after seven people were killed in a mass shooting on Monday on the outskirts of the California town of Half Moon Bay. That was just days after a separate shooter killed 11 people in Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994 that expired 10 years later, and Biden has repeatedly called for renewing it, including after the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas last year. But many Republicans in Congress oppose such a measure, and just as in the aftermath of previous mass shootings, it seems unlikely to pass.Here’s what we can expect to happen today:
      A judge in Atlanta will at 12 pm eastern time convene a hearing to determine whether a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s campaign to meddle in Georgia’s 2020 election outcome will be made public, upping the legal stakes for the former president.
      Biden will hold a White House meeting with Democratic congressional leaders at 3 pm, and a reception for new lawmakers at 5:20 pm.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 pm, who will likely ask her questions abut the Biden classified document scandal that she will not answer. More

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      in US Politics

      Four Oath Keepers found guilty of seditious conspiracy in latest January 6 convictions – as it happened

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      Four members of the Oath Keepers extremis group have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges for the involvement in the January 6 insurrection, Politico reports:JUST IN: All four Oath Keeper defendants — Ed Vallejo, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett and David Moerschel — have been found *guilty* of seditious conspiracy.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 23, 2023
      All four Oath Keeper defendants at this trial were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 proceeding and conspiracy to destroy federal property.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 23, 2023
      The verdict, handed down by a federal jury in Washington DC, comes after the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes and co-defendant Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy in November, however three other defendants were acquitted of the charge. Joe Biden is on the defensive again after investigators found more classified material at his Delaware home over the weekend, prompting some Democrats to express disappointment with the president. The House GOP is demanding information about visitors to Biden’s home from the Secret Service, though there are divisions within the party over how aggressive to be in their investigations.Here’s what else happened today:
      A jury found a January 6 rioter who kicked back at Nancy Pelosi’s desk guilty of all counts brought against him, while another defendant pleaded guilty to charges related to attacking police at the Capitol.
      Four members of the Oath Keepers extremist group were convicted of seditious conspiracy by a jury in Washington DC.
      We may find out more tomorrow about the legal hot water Donald Trump is facing in Georgia, when a judge determines whether to make public a special grand jury’s report into his campaign to meddle in the state’s 2020 election result.
      Democrat Ruben Gallego announced he will run for the Arizona senate seat currently occupied by independent Kyrsten Sinema.
      House Republicans want to kick three Democratic lawmakers from committee posts, but their leader Hakeem Jeffries wants to know why the GOP won’t do the same to admitted liar George Santos.
      A familiar scene is playing out in the White House briefing room, as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre bats away questions from reporters wanting to know more about the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former Washington DC office.The Guardian’s David Smith is there to see it for himself. Here’s Jean-Pierre trying to divert the press’s attention:Jean-Pierre: “The American people heard directly from the president on this… He says, ‘I take this very seriously’.” It is going to be up to the American people as to how they see this president. “We’ve created nearly 11 million jobs. The unemployment rate is at a record low.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 23, 2023
      And responding to complaints from Democrats:Asked about criticism of Biden from Democrats, Jean-Pierre replies: “They also said the president is handling this in an appropriate fashion.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 23, 2023
      And generally not commenting:Jean-Pierre on Biden saying he has no regrets about classified documents: “I’m not going to go beyond what the president said and I think it speaks for itself.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 23, 2023
      Donald Trump’s attorneys have no plans to attend a hearing in Georgia tomorrow where a judge will determine whether to release a special grand jury’s report into the former president’s election meddling campaign in the state.“On behalf of President Trump, we will not be present nor participating in Tuesday’s hearing regarding the possible release of the special purpose grand jury’s report,” Trump’s attorneys Marissa Goldberg and Drew Findling said in a statement.“To date, we have never been a part of this process. The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President. He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. Therefore, we can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump.”Tomorrow’s hearing will determine whether the report from the special grand jury tasked with looking into Trump’s attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia is made public. The investigation is seen as potentially a major legal threat to the former president.Democrats have seized on the House GOP’s protection of admitted fraudster George Santos to argue that the Republicans have no standing to kick three lawmakers off committees.House speaker Kevin McCarthy has threatened to remove Democratic representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the intelligence committee, and representative Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee. According to Axios, Schiff earned McCarthy’s ire for promoting the “Steele dossier”, Swalwell for his association with a Chinese spy and Omar for comments that were seen as antisemitic.On Saturday, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announced he would appoint Schiff and Swalwell back to their points on the intelligence committee, noting that McCarthy plans to seat Santos on unnamed committees in the House.“At the same time that Republicans have threatened to deny seats on the Intelligence Committee to clearly qualified democratic members, serial fraudster George Santos has been placed on two standing committees of the House and welcomed into your conference,” Jeffries wrote. “The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed in Congress.”Because it’s a select committee, McCarthy can remove Schiff and Swalwell from the intelligence panel unilaterally. Ousting Omar from foreign affairs would require a vote in the House, and it’s unclear if that would be successful.Four members of the Oath Keepers extremis group have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges for the involvement in the January 6 insurrection, Politico reports:JUST IN: All four Oath Keeper defendants — Ed Vallejo, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett and David Moerschel — have been found *guilty* of seditious conspiracy.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 23, 2023
      All four Oath Keeper defendants at this trial were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 proceeding and conspiracy to destroy federal property.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 23, 2023
      The verdict, handed down by a federal jury in Washington DC, comes after the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes and co-defendant Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy in November, however three other defendants were acquitted of the charge. Elsewhere in Washington, five members of the Proud Boys extremist group are in the middle of a trial over the January 6 attack that the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports is raising uncomfortable questions about the government’s strategy of seeking accountability for the insurrection:While federal prosecutors are casting the Capitol insurrection trial of five far-right Proud Boys leaders as an attempt to bring participants of an attack on US democracy to account, the members of the group are using the proceedings to ask one question even some of their opponents on the political left agree is valid.Why have prosecutors so far only focused their energy on the supporters of Donald Trump who are accused of a coordinated invasion of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the congressional certification of his defeat to Joe Biden in the previous year’s presidential election? Is it because they regard the former Republican president himself – who urged his supporters to “fight like hell” that deadly day – as too formidable and them as easier targets?Attorneys for the ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four of his lieutenants have sought to ingrain that question in the minds of jurors chosen after a particularly turbulent selection process which began last month and gave way to opening arguments and witness testimony beginning 12 January.They do so even as the strategy has not proven effective in other cases where it has been suggested that it is really Trump who is culpable for the Capitol attack – not his less powerful sycophants and camp followers.Proud Boys on defensive at sedition trial haunted by absent TrumpRead moreHe’s an admitted liar, but House Republicans nonetheless refuse to dump newly elected representative George Santos. Why? The Guardian’s David Smith tries to figure it out:“He didn’t just steal from a service dog. He didn’t just steal from a dying service dog. He stole from a disabled homeless veteran’s dying service dog. Oh my God. You evil and stupid!”That was how Leslie Jones, guest host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, summed up just one of this week’s revelations about US congressman George Santos, whose shameless fabulism has stunned Washington, a capital that thought it had smelt every flavour of mendacity from politicians.“What does this man have to do get thrown out of Congress?” Jones asked, echoing the thoughts of many. “He’s a fucking liar.”Yet the answer is that, far from being expelled from the House of Representatives, Santos, 34, was rewarded with assignments on two of its committees. The vote of confidence appeared to be an expedient calculation by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, aware Republicans have such a slim majority that even losing one seat would make it much harder to pass legislation.But it was also a decision, critics said, that showed the party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower has lost its moral compass. Stuart Stevens, a political consultant and author of It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump, said: “Santos is a perfect example of the collapse of the Republican party.“It shows that the party stands for nothing. It seems like a million years ago but there was a time when we said character was destiny. Nobody even knows who this guy is. We literally don’t know his real name.”‘We don’t know his real name’: George Santos’s unravelling web of liesRead moreJoe Biden is on the defensive again after investigators found more classified material at his Delaware home over the weekend, prompting some Democrats to express disappointment with the president. The House GOP is demanding information about visitors to Biden’s home from the Secret Service, but there are divisions within the party about how aggressive to be with their investigations.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      A jury found a January 6 rioter who kicked back at Nancy Pelosi’s desk guilty of all counts brought against him, while another defendant pleaded guilty to charges related to attacking police at the Capitol.
      We may find out more about the legal hot water Donald Trump is facing in Georgia on Tuesday, when a hearing is held to determine whether to make public a special grand jury’s report into his campaign to meddle in the state’s 2020 election result.
      Democrat Ruben Gallego announced he will run for the Arizona senate seat currently occupied by independent senator Kyrsten Sinema.
      The Democratic leader in the House Hakeem Jeffries has weighed in on gun control following this weekend’s mass shooting in California that left 10 people dead:Weapons of war used to hunt human beings have no place in a civilized society.— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) January 23, 2023
      Police today made public the identities of two victims of the shooting, but have yet to give a motive for attack.Another January 6 rioter has pleaded guilty to charges related to attacking the police, CBS News reports:NEW: Capitol riot defendant Jacob Therres has just pleaded guilty to assaulting/resisting police. He admits throwing 4×4 wooden plank and striking officer in the head. And he admits deploying chemical spray. Estimated sentencing range: 6-7 years in prison pic.twitter.com/WjZCqaaSlW— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 23, 2023
      Richard Barnett, who during the January 6 insurrection was pictured sitting in a chair with a foot on then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, has been found guilty of all charges against him, Politico reports:NEWS: Richard BARNETT has been *convicted* on all counts, including felony obstruction, civil disorder and theft of govt property (envelope from desk in Pelosi’s office. Total silence in courtroom as verdict was read. No visible reaction from Barnett.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 23, 2023
      As CBS News reports, Barnett testified in his own defense during the federal trial and directly addressed the jury, with no apparent effect:Bigo Barnett testified in his own defense. It was, at times, combative and there were some vulgarities. He directly addressed jurors during testimony.. with seeming attempts at humor & when seemingly caught in contradictionsJury returned guilty verdict with lightning speed— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 23, 2023
      Arrested two days after the insurrection, Barnett was often combative during his case’s lengthy journey through the court system. More