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      January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

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      Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.The January 6 insurrection continued to reverberate through Washington, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, began, while another rioter was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack postponed its hearing planned for Wednesday, citing Hurricane Ian’s approach towards Florida.Here’s what else happened today:
      The top Senate Republican said he would support a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, greatly raising its chances of passage.
      The Biden administration condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion laws after a university said its staff should only offer condoms for preventing STIs, not as birth control.
      Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seek care in other states.
      The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has endorsed a measure to change the procedures for counting electoral votes to prevent the types of legal strategies allies of Donald Trump attempted on January 6.“I look forward to supporting the legislation, as introduced in committee,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.While it was already thought to have the votes to pass, McConnell’s endorsement greatly increases the bill’s chances of passing the Democratic-controlled chamber, where most legislation requires the support of at least 10 Republicans in addition to all Democrats. The bill, called the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, clarifies the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which Trump’s allies cited loopholes in to try to convince vice-president Mike Pence to delay or overturn Joe Biden’s election win when Congress convened on January 6, 2021.Bipartisan Senate group reaches deal to reform Electoral Count ActRead moreThe leaders of the January 6 committee have issued a statement explaining their decision to postpone tomorrow’s hearing, citing the threat of Hurricane Ian.“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings. We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path,” the committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”Tomorrow’s hearing of the January 6 committee has indeed been postponed, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell confirms:New: Confirming Wash Post that the Jan. 6 committee hearing scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed, per source familiar— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) September 27, 2022
      The January 6 committee may reschedule its hearing set for tomorrow due to Hurricane Ian, which is expected to hit Florida’s west coast and could cause severe damage, The Washington Post reports:News: Tmrw’s @January6thCmte hearing is likely to be postponed due to Hurricane Ian, me & @jdawsey1 are told.— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) September 27, 2022
      The Wednesday hearing is the first since late July, and potentially the committee’s last public session before the 8 November midterms. The bipartisan committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol was expected to air a variety of new evidence, potentially touching on the actions of Trump ally Roger Stone as well as the Secret Service.The White House has condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion law after a university cited it when warning staff that condoms could be provided to prevent sexually transmitted infections, but not as birth control.Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the university’s warning is an indication that the legislation is intended to undercut rights:For years, GOP officials have gone after contraception and family planning services. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, GOP officials appear more empowered to strip Americans of their basic rights. https://t.co/3VNpW0dUgd— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      To be clear, nothing under Idaho law justifies the university’s decision to deny students access to contraception. But the situation in Idaho speaks to the unacceptable consequences of extreme abortion bans.— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in the right to birth control, as well as the right to abortion, without government interference. These policies are extreme and backwards.— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      University of Idaho says staff can offer condoms for STDs – not birth controlRead moreThe sentencing of Kyle Young, a January 6 rioter who pled guilty to a charge of assaulting the police, is underway in Washington.Two of the Washington police officers he assaulted have spoken at the Iowa man’s sentencing, including Michael Fanone, who was shocked by another rioter with a taser as Young restrained him. He’s asked for Young to be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, much more than federal prosecutors are seeking. Here’s more from Politico:HAPPENING NOW: MPD Officers Moore and Fanone are addressing Judge Amy Berman Jackson as she prepares to sentence Jan. 6 defendant Kyle Young, who participated in some of the most brutal violence that day at the Capitols’ Lower West Terrace Tunnel.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      DOJ is recommenting 86 months for Young, who brought his minor son into the melee and handed a taser to another rioter, who used it against Fanone. Fanone is speaking now, describing the events of the day. https://t.co/6jEktwy8WU pic.twitter.com/NaCK4tGTXU— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      YOUNG, addressing the court, turns to Officer Fanone, apologizes and breaks down crying.”I am so so sorry. And if I could take it back I would.”Turning to the judge, he says, “Whatever you give me as a punishment, I accept.”— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      The Secret Service took cellphones from 24 agents involved in its response to January 6 and turned them over to the homeland security department’s inspector general as he investigates the deletion of text messages and other data from around the time of the insurrection, NBC News reports.While it’s not clear what Joseph Cuffari has been able to obtain from the phones, NBC says the seizure of the government-supplied devices occurred in July, after the inspector general informed the Secret Service that he would launch a criminal probe into the deletion of the records. The missing data has become a major issue for the January 6 committee, which has taken evidence from a variety of people at the Capitol and in the Trump White House around the time of the attack. Interest in what the Secret Service knew about the insurrection was raised after Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson said that agents had witnessed alarming behavior by the then-president shortly before the attack, including a physical altercation for the steering wheel of his limousine. However, the agency said data from 5 and 6 January were lost in a pre-planned upgrade of its cellphones.Cuffari himself has also come in for criticism. Last week, staff of the homeland security watchdog called on president Joe Biden to fire him, accusing him in an anonymous letter of “poor decision-making”, the Project on Government Oversight reported. Appointed by Trump, Cuffari is a former aide to Republican Arizona governors Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer.Secret Service watchdog suppressed memo on January 6 texts erasureRead moreThomas Zimmer writes…As the January 6 hearings are about to resume, it is unlikely that our basic understanding of what happened between the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the Capitol will significantly change. That is a testament to the crucial work the committee has already done and to which we owe much of our detailed knowledge of the weeks long, multi-level coup attempt and the evolving strategies of those involved in this deliberate campaign to nullify the election results, prevent the transfer of power and end constitutional government in America.And yet, the committee’ job is far from done. It still has an important role to play in determining the meaning and role of January 6 in US history. Was the attack on the US Capitol a failed, desperate, last-ditch effort by delusional extremists? Or will it be remembered as a milestone in America’s accelerating descent into authoritarianism – an assault on the system that didn’t succeed initially but played a key role in democracy’s demise? The answer to these questions is not decided by facts and past events. In a very real sense, January 6 isn’t over yet, and the success or failure of the Trumpian coup attempt will be decided by what happens next.If that sounds counter-intuitive, it is helpful to examine how the meaning of another infamous historical event to which January 6 has often been compared – the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler’s failed coup attempt in November 1923 – changed significantly over time.More:January 6 changed America. Here are two directions the country could go now | Thomas ZimmerRead moreGloria Oladipo writes…The Department of Justice has pushed back on the unsubstantiated claims from Donald Trump that the agency planted evidence during its search of Mar-a-Lago in August, submitting a slightly amended list of seized materials and an affidavit that the list reflects what was taken.The FBI submitted a first version of the inventory list several weeks ago. It only had one business day to compile that list but had more time to submit the most recent version, CNN reported. The agency also said that in the updated version it filtered out potentially privileged items.Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to review the case, requested that the FBI provide a “full and accurate” picture of what was obtained in the search.Dearie’s request came after Trump and several allies claimed, without evidence, that the FBI planted items during its search of the Florida mansion.Dearie has given Trump’s lawyers until Friday to provide evidence to back up the accusation that the agency is “incorrectly describing” any materials.DoJ pushes back on Trump’s claims it planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago Read moreDonald Trump has a legal – if incremental – win to celebrate.Earlier today, the 2nd circuit court of appeals ruled that a lower-court judge was wrong when he said Trump, as president, was not covered by a federal law that can shield federal employees from liability in incidents related to their work.The case involved is the defamation suit brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump raped her in a New York department store changing room in the 1990s, which Trump vehemently denies.As Politico reports today, “Under Trump, the justice department belatedly invoked that law – known as the Westfall Act – in a bid to shut down the defamation case Carroll filed in 2019 stemming from statements Trump issued denying that he raped Carroll, including a declaration that ‘She’s not my type.’ .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Last year, under President Joe Biden, the justice department stirred controversy by reaffirming the department’s earlier stance that Trump was essentially immune from suit because he was acting within the scope of his duties when fielding media questions about the alleged rape at the Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996.”On Tuesday, two of three judges on the appeals court said there was “manifest uncertainty” about whether Trump was covered by the Westfall Act. The third judge said the law did not apply.As Politico reports, any resolution is likely “many more months, if not years” away.Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said: “We are extremely pleased … This decision will protect the ability of all future presidents to effectively govern without hindrance. We are confident that the DC Court of Appeals” – the next stop for the case – “will find that our client was acting within the scope of his employment when properly repudiating Ms Carroll’s allegations.”Carroll and the justice department did not immediately comment.Carroll has said she plans to directly accuse Trump of rape under a new New York law that allows civil claims over alleged sex crimes otherwise subject to a 20-year statute of limitations.More:Writer E Jean Carroll to file new lawsuit after accusing Trump of rapeRead moreAs Hurricane Ian churns towards Florida’s west coast, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has joined the White House press briefing.She’s talking about the preparations for the latest storm, as well as Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Fiona last week. .@FEMA_Deanne live in the press briefing room: “I can tell you our biggest concern as we wait for the storm to make landfall is storm surge. It is a leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities. If people are told to evacuate by their local officials, listen to them.” pic.twitter.com/HTqa0RUxp3— Jaclyn Rothenberg (she/her) (@FEMAspox) September 27, 2022
      You can watch the briefing below:The January 6 insurrection continues to reverberate through Washington today, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, begins, while another rioter is sentenced after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack is preparing to hold its first public hearing in more than two months tomorrow, with Trump ally Roger Stone said to feature prominently, among other evidence.Here’s what else happened so far today:
      The Senate appears ready to pass a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, a Democratic lawmaker sponsoring the bill said.
      Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seeking care in other states.
      The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan have cast it as expensive and potentially illegal, and the Associated Press reports that a California law firm has taken the plan to court to see whether it will hold up.The libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation sued over the plan in Indiana, where an employee of the firm lives and where the state government said it intends to levy taxes on any canceled debt, according to the AP. The lawsuit challenges the plan on the grounds that the employee is set to get his debt erased through a federal program for civil servants, and thus he will face a tax burden under the White House program.Here’s more from the report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. He said it’s illegal for the executive branch to create the policy “by press release, and without statutory authority.”
      The suit’s plaintiff is Frank Garrison, described as a public interest attorney who lives in Indiana and is employed by the libertarian group.
      Garrison is on track to get his student debt erased through a separate federal program for public servants. Although most borrowers will need to apply for Biden’s plan, Garrison and many others in that program will automatically get the relief because the Education Department has their income information on file.
      Biden’s plan would automatically cancel $20,000 of Garrison’s debt, which in turn would trigger an “immediate tax liability” from the state of Indiana, according to the suit. Under the debt forgiveness program he’s enrolled in now, canceled debt cannot be taxed.
      “Mr. Garrison and millions of others similarly situated in the six relevant states will receive no additional benefit from the cancellation — just a one-time additional penalty,” the suit argues.
      Any student debt forgiven under Biden’s plan would also be subject to state taxes in Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina and Wisconsin, unless lawmakers in those states change their current laws.
      Biden’s plan promises to cancel $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers with incomes of less than $125,000 per year or households making less than $250,000. Those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college would get an additional $10,000 erased.
      An application to receive the benefit is expected by early October.Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millionsRead moreThe United States is one of the world’s richest countries, but many people struggle to put enough food on the table. Nina Lakhani reports on a new White House plan to change that:The Biden government has launched a new strategy to end hunger in the US by 2030 through the expansion of benefits such as free school meals and food stamps.One in 10 households struggled to feed their families in 2021 due to poverty – an extraordinary level of food insecurity in the richest country in the world which has barely budged in the past two decades amid deepening economic inequalities and welfare cuts.The plan, published on Tuesday, also aims to cut diet-related diseases by increasing access to healthy food and exercise as new data shows that more than 35% of people in 19 states and two territories are obese – more the double the number of states in 2018 – while one in 10 Americans have diabetes. It includes proposals to reform food packaging and voluntary salt and sugar reduction targets for the food industry, as well as working to expand Medicaid and Medicare access to obesity counselling and nutrition.US launches effort to end hunger by 2030 by expanding benefits and access to healthy foodsRead more More

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      My donations are principled – unlike the Democrats who support Maga candidates | Letter

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      My donations are principled – unlike the Democrats who support Maga candidatesKenneth C Griffin defends his financial support for politicians and attacks ‘hypocritical and cynical’ spending by Democrats to influence Republican primaries Robert Reich (History will judge Republicans who stay silent about the big lie, 11 September) criticises me and others who have supported Republican candidates.Conspicuously, Mr Reich fails to make the same criticism of Democratic donors. Across the country, the Democratic party and its affiliates have given generously to support Maga candidates again and again. In Illinois, for example, the billionaire Democratic governor JB Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association just spent $35 million to promote the Maga credentials of one Republican candidate. The transparent strategy was engineered to defeat a moderate Republican candidate. This is politics at its most hypocritical and cynical.I proudly spend money to support politicians whose ideas, I believe, will secure a better future for America – and encourage others to do the same. I have supported politicians from both parties who are focused on education, thoughtful economic policies, crime prevention and national security. I will continue to use my resources to support the men and women who work to stop foolish policies that are destroying lives, devastating communities and weakening America.If my actions in the public arena can play a small role in better educating our children, making our cities safer, and creating a thriving economy that rewards hard work by all, I’m more than happy to be judged on these results. I would submit that the issues of education, safety, and economic prosperity are far more important to ordinary Americans – and to the future of democracy – than Mr Reich’s partisan attacks.Kenneth C GriffinChief executive officer, CitadelTopicsRepublicansUS politicsDemocratsDonald TrumplettersReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Oath Keepers leader to stand trial on seditious conspiracy charges for US Capitol attack – live

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      Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.When it holds its next public hearing on Wednesday, the January 6 committee will likely show footage of Trump ally Roger Stone discussing violence against left-wing protesters, and predicting that the 2020 election would be overturned by force, The Washington Post reports.The video was obtained from Danish filmmakers who followed Stone around from 2019 through 2021, and decided to cooperate with a subpoena from a congressional panel. “Being with Roger Stone and people around him for nearly three years, we realized what we saw after the 2020 election and Jan. 6 was not the culmination but the beginning of an antidemocratic movement in the United States,” Christoffer Guldbrandsen, director of the documentary titled “A Storm Foretold,” told the Post.Footage reported earlier this year shows Stone advocating for Trump to reject the official results and use federal judges allied with him to ensure his victory. In July 2020, he predicted that Democrats would try to steal the election, and said, “It’s going to be really nasty… If the electors show up at the electoral college, armed guards will throw them out.”“‘I’m the president. F— you… You’re not stealing Florida, you’re not stealing Ohio. I’m challenging all of it, and the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed.’ ” Stone says, mimicking what Trump would say.He also advocates for violence against antifascist protesters and other left-wing groups, saying “F— the voting, let’s get right to the violence. Shoot to kill, see an antifa, shoot to kill. F— ’em. Done with this bulls—.”Stone later added a caveat: “I am of course only kidding. We renounce violence completely. We totally renounce violence. The left is the only ones who engage in violence.”Roger Stone raged at ‘disgrace’ Trump over failure to overturn election – reportRead moreCongress is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to pass a short-term funding measure, or risk shutting down the government – which neither party wants. But as the Senate convenes today, it is also considering legislation that would tweak America’s election laws to stop the sort of plot attempted on January 6.The legislation, a version of which has also been introduced in the House of Representatives, needs the votes of all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to pass. Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told MSNBC today she believes it has that support:Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) says the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act already has “ten Republicans” and thinks it will have enough votes to pass:”We keep adding senators to this bill, Democrats and Republicans.” pic.twitter.com/yrRaGl2J5i— The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2022
      Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren to propose bill to stop another January 6 attackRead moreThe Oath Keepers trial is kicking off today with jury selection, as well as some last-minute moves by the group’s attorneys to delay the proceedings, which Politico reports have not panned out.Both sides have also given estimates of how long the trial will take:UPDATE from the Oath Keepers trial:Judge Mehta rejected another attempt by defendants to change venue. He noted that of initial 150 jury candidates, 40% had never even heard of the Oath Keepers, and vast majority expressed no prejudgment bias.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      Those numbers get even smaller, Mehta noted, after a round of jurors were struck by both parties, including one who was a Capitol Police officer and another who worked on the hill on Jan. 6He also said all prospective jurors will be told not to watch Jan. 6 hearing tomorrow.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      A masked Stewart RHODES was seated in the courtroom as the proceedings got underway. DOJ says it has prepped 40 potential witnesses for trial throughout August/Sept and is providing 302s of prep sessions to defense.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      Latest trial timing estimates:DOJ: 3-4 weeksDefense: 2-3 weeksIf trial gets underway next week, we’re looking at a mid- to late-November verdict— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      When a process server turned up at his house with a subpoena related to a case filed by abortion rights groups, Texas’s top law enforcement officer did what any reasonable person would do: fled the scene in a truck driven by his wife.The Texas Tribune reports that process server Ernesto Martin Herrera had a hard time getting legal documents to the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton, which would have compelled his testimony today in a lawsuit from abortion groups aimed at blocking Texas’s efforts to retaliate against them for facilitating access to the procedure out of state. Here’s how the encounter played out, according to the Tribune:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When Herrera arrived at Paxton’s home in McKinney on Monday morning, he told a woman who identified herself as Angela that he was trying to deliver legal documents to the attorney general. She told him that Paxton was on the phone and unable to come to the door. Herrera said he would wait.
      Nearly an hour later, a black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled into the driveway, and 20 minutes after that, Ken Paxton exited the house.
      “I walked up the driveway approaching Mr. Paxton and called him by his name. As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.
      Angela Paxton then exited the house, got inside a Chevrolet truck in the driveway, started it and opened the doors.
      “A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote. “I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck.”
      Herrera eventually placed the subpoenas on the ground near the truck and told him he was serving him with a subpoena. Both cars drove away, leaving the documents on the ground.Paxton attacked the report on Twitter, saying he worried he was in danger:This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves. All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media.— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
      It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family.— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
      Denver Riggleman’s book about his time serving as a staffer on the January 6 committee and in Congress comes out today, and while his revelations about the investigation have made headlines, the former lawmaker has plenty to say about his former Republican colleagues, Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack, that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may have had serious cognitive issues”.Denver Riggleman, once a US representative from Virginia, reports his impression of his former colleagues from Texas and Arizona in a new book.The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th is published in the US on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained an early copy.Riggleman is a former US air force intelligence officer who lost his seat in Congress after he officiated a same-sex marriage. In his book, he describes fallout beyond his primary defeat, including someone tampering with the wheels of his truck, endangering the life of his daughter.Republican ex-congressman suggests colleagues ‘had serious cognitive issues’Read moreBesides the Capitol itself, Mark Meadows’ cellphone is turning into perhaps the most important place for understanding the events around the January 6 attack, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, was at the center of hundreds of incoming messages about ways to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee that have been published in a new book.The texts included previously unreported messages, including a group chat with Trump administration cabinet officials and plans to object to Joe Biden’s election certification on January 6 by Republican members of Congress and one former US attorney, as well as other Trump allies.The book, The Breach, was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its scheduled publication on Tuesday. Written by the former Republican congressman and senior adviser to the investigation Denver Riggleman, the work has already become controversial after being condemned by the panel as “unauthorized”.Meadows was central to hundreds of texts about overturning 2020 election, book saysRead moreInflation is high in America, but one accused rioter in the January 6 insurrection has a plan to cut costs: go hunting.The Washington Post reports that Jon Mott, an Arkansas man facing charges over unlawfully breaching the Capitol’s rotunda, has been granted permission by a federal judge to uses firearms for hunting, though he can’t keep them in his home or office. Mott was arrested in May 2021 after being identified as part of the mob that attacked the Capitol, and his conditions of release prohibited him from possessing weapons. He’s charged with “entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building and two counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” according to the Post, and has pled not guilty.More than 2,000 people may face charges related to January 6, but the report notes this isn’t the first time gun possession issues have popped up. A Georgia defendant has asked for two of his firearms back so he can kill snakes on his property, while a Texas woman who had already been sentenced had her right to own a weapon restored by a judge who found she had a credible safety concern. Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The trial of one of the most notorious groups involved in the January 6 insurrection begins today in Washington, as five members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for allegedly plotting to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Separately, a judge will sentence Kyle Young, who pleaded guilty to charges related to violently assaulting a police officer during the attack. More than a year and a half after the insurrection, the cases could bring justice to some of its most high-profile participants.Here’s what else is happening today:
      The Senate is getting to work on two important bills, one to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month, and the other to reform America’s election laws to prevent another January 6.
      As Hurricane Ian moves towards Florida, Federal Emergency Management Agency head Deanne Criswell will appear at the White House press briefing beginning at 12pm ET.
      Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s efforts to lower healthcare costs and preserve social security at 11.30am ET. More

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      Former January 6 committee staffer says texts show evidence of ‘attempted coup’ – as it happened

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      Denver Riggleman’s interview with 60 Minutes is a rare breach in the carefully stage managed presentation the January 6 committee has given Americans over the past months about what happened during the insurrection at the Capitol.A former Republican congressman who was ousted by a more conservative opponent in 2020 and now considers himself independent, Riggleman acted as a technical adviser for the committee, poring through evidence such as text messages and emails obtained from people thought to have knowledge of the attack. His interview provided a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, most details about which have come from lawmakers’ comments or the public hearings themselves.Perhaps his most startling admission is his belief that text messages then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows voluntarily turned over the committee amounted to a “roadmap to an attempted coup.” But Riggleman shared other disquieting details in the interview, such as that a White House number called one of the rioters who had stormed the Capitol as it was happening.Then there were the text messages Meadows received containing an array of far-right conspiracy theories from Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.“What really shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wife’s efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the stop the steal movement,” Riggleman said on 60 Minutes.Ginni Thomas’s involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results has been well documented in recent months, leading to calls for the January 6 committee to compel her testimony – efforts Riggleman said he supported. Last week, a deal was reached for Thomas to speak to investigators.Virginia Thomas agrees to interview with House January 6 panelRead moreA former staffer for the January 6 committee went public with a claim that someone at the White House called a Capitol rioter on the day of the attack, while warning that evidence obtained from Donald Trump’s chief of staff looked like an “attempted coup”. The committee’s lawmakers downplayed Denver Riggleman’s interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program, and have been busy themselves, sending a subpoena to the Republican speaker of Wisconsin’s assembly.Here’s what else happened today:
      Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic senator known for bucking the party’s priorities, offered few reasons for her mysterious politics in a speech alongside the chamber’s top Republican.
      Joe Biden’s student loan relief plan will cost $400 billion, if not more, the independent Congressional Budget Office said, prompting criticism from budget hawks as well as defense from Democrats.
      Doug Mastriano, a Trump-backed 2020 election denier standing as the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, appears to be lagging on the campaign trail.
      Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows exchanged texts with another conspiracy theorist and 2020 election denier.
      The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer along with Wall Street foe Elizabeth Warren have issued a joint statement underlining their support of president Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, and drawing a contrast with Republican policies that slash taxes for the rich.The statement came after the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found the plan announced last month would cost a sizable $400 billion or more. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget seized on that estimate to say the plan was too expensive, and could push inflation higher.“Today’s CBO estimate makes clear that millions of middle class Americans have more breathing room thanks to President Biden’s historic decision to cancel student debt,” Schumer, who represents New York, and Warren, who represents Massachusetts, said in their statement.“In contrast to President Trump and Republicans who gave giant corporations $2 trillion in tax breaks, President Biden delivered transformative middle class relief by cancelling student debt for working people who need it most — nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year. We don’t agree with all of CBO’s assumptions that underlie this analysis, but it is clear the pandemic payment pause and student debt cancellation are policies that demonstrate how government can and should invest in working people, not the wealthy and billionaire corporations.”Idaho’s abortion law is being challenged in federal court, but The Washington Post reports that the impact of the strict measure is already being felt by the state’s universities.The University of Idaho has advised employees that because the law is not written clearly, it may prohibit employees from offering birth control, and thus they should refrain from doing so:University of Idaho employees were warned Friday that they could be charged with a felony for talking about abortion, because of the state’s new abortion law. They were also told *they could no longer provide birth control.*Not just Plan B, but regular birth control. pic.twitter.com/qHJoDRzMc2— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) September 26, 2022
      Idaho judge bars state from enforcing abortion ban in medical emergenciesRead moreThe fiscal hawks at the independent Congressional Budget Office have released their cost estimate for the student loan relief plan president Joe Biden announced last month, and found it comes in at $400 billion, but could vary.The plan partially satisfied Biden’s campaign pledge to provide relief for Americans struggling with loans from higher education, but was criticized both for not being generous enough, and for adding on to the country’s already mammoth federal budget deficit:CBO estimates that the cost of outstanding student loans to the federal government will increase by about $400 billion because of an executive action canceling some debt. https://t.co/FgEHBn2XP6— U.S. CBO (@USCBO) September 26, 2022
      The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates for restraint in federal spending, criticized the plan as simply too expensive:”.@USCBO’s new estimate confirms the outrageous cost of the White House plan to cancel large amounts of student debt, by executive order, to nearly all borrowers almost regardless of need.” https://t.co/KFs9DQ8KYp— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
      “The debt cancellation and pause alone will cost $420 billion – a bit more than we previously thought – and costs could reach $510 to $610 billion with their IDR changes. The Biden Administration’s failure to release their own cost estimate should have been a red flag.”— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
      “As @USCBO’s estimates help confirm, the President’s student debt plan would wipe out the ten-year savings from the #InflationReductionAct twice over, worsen inflationary pressures, and deliver benefits to millions of Americans with advanced degrees in upper-income households.”— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
      “This might be the most costly executive action in history. It’s unacceptable that the President would implement it without offsets and without Congressional approval. Including these actions, the President has now added nearly $4.9 trillion to ten-year federal deficits…”— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
      “…through legislation and executive actions.With #inflation at a 40-year high and the #nationaldebt approaching record levels, we shouldn’t be adding to deficits – certainly not by executive fiat.”Full statement: https://t.co/KFs9DPR9zP.— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
      Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millionsRead moreThe Biden administration is generally keeping mum about Russia’s decision to grant citizenship to Edward Snowden, who leaked National Security Agency documents and fled the United States.Here’s the little state department spokesman Ned Price had to say about it:State Department Spokesperson Ned Price reacts to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden being granted Russian citizenship:“Perhaps the only thing that has changed is … apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in the reckless war in Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/ZemSN8CVur— The Recount (@therecount) September 26, 2022
      Putin grants Russian citizenship to US whistleblower Edward SnowdenRead moreA Democratic member of the January 6 committee revealed details of the department of justice’s investigation into the attack and its interaction with the congressional inquiry, describing the government’s effort as plodding, thorough and bolstered by evidence the lawmakers had uncovered.“They have been very slow, though, on the much more comprehensive, and I believe, even more significant investigation of January 6,” California congressman Adam Schiff said of the justice department during an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival, according to CNN. However, he thought it was a mistake for the justice department to start their investigation with the individual rioters and proceed from there. “That works when you have one plot, one conspiracy. It doesn’t work when there are multiple lines of effort to overturn an election, multiple plots, that may be all part of the same whole, but nonetheless each operating independently,” Schiff said.The Democrat acknowledged federal investigators are matching the work of the January 6 committee, saying, “It does appear now that they have interviewed many of the same significant witnesses that we have.” He did note that the justice department had requested much of the committee’s materials, which he found “breathtaking”.“My first reaction when we got the request – ‘Turn over all your files to us’ – was: ‘Why don’t you have your own damn files? Why haven’t you been conducting your own investigation? Why do you need us to do it?” Schiff said.The lawmaker also found it strange that a district attorney in Georgia had been left to singlehandedly investigate Donald Trump and his allies’ involvement in trying to overturn the election there, but noted that situation might not last much longer. “That may be changing too, but it’s a long time coming,” Schiff said.A former staffer for the January 6 committee went public with a claim that someone at the White House called a Capitol rioter on the day of the attack, while warning that evidence obtained from Donald Trump’s chief of staff looked like an “attempted coup”. The committee’s lawmakers downplayed Denver Riggleman’s interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program, and have been busy themselves, sending a subpoena to the Republican speaker of Wisconsin’s assembly.Here’s what else happened today:
      Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic senator known for bucking the party’s priorities, offered few reasons for her mysterious politics in a speech alongside the chamber’s top Republican.
      Doug Mastriano, a Trump-backed 2020 election denier standing as the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, appears to be trailing on the campaign trail.
      Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows exchanged texts with another conspiracy theorist and 2020 election denier.
      There are few mysteries in Congress bigger than Kyrsten Sinema.Once a member of the Green Party, the Democratic senator from Arizona has seized on the party’s one-vote majority in the Senate to act a spoiler for progressive proposals, including changing the filibuster to get voting rights legislation passed, raising the national minimum wage to $15 per-hour and closing a tax loophole that benefited private equity firms. Unlike with Joe Manchin, the fellow Democratic senator and frequent holdout vote who already had a reputation for conservatism and support for the fossil fuel industry, Sinema’s reasons for acting this way aren’t quite clear, and somewhat inexplicable given her left-wing activism earlier in her career. The tactic doesn’t appear to have paid off, either. An AARP poll released last week showed that independents, Republicans and, most of all, Democrats in Arizona viewed Sinema unfavorably.The senator appeared today alongside the chamber’s top Republican Mitch McConnell for a speech in Kentucky, where she extolled the virtues of bipartisanship. While it certainly does not clear up the senator’s mysterious approach to politics, her comments here may give some hints as to why she does what she does in Washington:Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), speaking at the McConnell Center, describes her “friendship” with Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY):“While we may not agree on every issue, we do share the same values.” pic.twitter.com/2vz5ioNFeA— The Recount (@therecount) September 26, 2022
      “Not everyone likes me.”— Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) jokes with the audience at the McConnell Center, after saying Democrats will “likely” lose some control of Congress after the midterms. pic.twitter.com/naEjHhKO5D— The Recount (@therecount) September 26, 2022
      Democrats secure breakthrough with Kyrsten Sinema on climate billRead more“I signed a permission slip for a College and Career Day. What I got was indoctrination and trauma.” That sums up the experience of some of the more than 2,100 high school seniors bussed to a church in Louisiana last week on what was billed as a college fair but, as Maya Yang reports, turned into something else:More than 2,000 public school students in Louisiana were told earlier this week that they were going to a college fair. They were then shuttled to what parents later deemed a sexist and transphobic church event which left many of the students traumatized.On Tuesday, more than 2,100 high school seniors from the East Baton Rouge Parish School System – which serves residents of Louisiana’s capital – were taken to the local Living Faith Christian Center under the promise that they would receive college and career advice, as well as free food.The Christian nonprofit organization 29:11 Mentoring Program organized the event, calling it “Day of Hope,” the Baton Rouge Advocate reported. The permission slips distributed to students promised “free food”, “fun and games”, “college fair” and “special guest”.Louisiana school turned ‘college fair’ into transphobic church event, students sayRead moreThe New York Times sent a reporter to Pennsylvania to check on how the Republican candidate for governor is doing, and the verdict seems to be: not that well.Doug Mastriano is a Donald Trump-endorsed, 2020 election denier who chartered busses to Washington on January 6 and has pledged to completely ban abortion in the state if elected. However, he’s well behind in the polls, and as the Times reports, has shunned much of what amounts to modern campaign tactics.Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There is little indication that he has built a campaign infrastructure beyond the Facebook videos that propelled him to stardom in right-wing circles and to the vanguard of Christian nationalist politics.
      “I can’t even assess things because I don’t see a campaign,” said Matt Brouillette, the president of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, an advocacy group that is a major player in Pennsylvania Republican politics. “I’ve not seen anything that is even a semblance of a campaign.”
      Mr. Brouillette, who backed one of Mr. Mastriano’s rivals in the G.O.P. primary, added: “Now, maybe he knows something we don’t on how you can win in the fifth-largest state without doing TV or mail. But I guess we’re going to have to wait until Nov. 8 to see whether you can pull something like that off.”“The New York from which Trump emerged was its own morass of corruption and dysfunction, stretching from seats of executive power to portions of the media to the real-estate industry in which his family found its wealth,” writes Maggie Haberman in The Atlantic. “But Trump nevertheless stood out to the journalists covering him as particularly brazen.”Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times and longtime watcher of Donald Trump, is one of the best-known chroniclers of his presidency, and the Atlantic article is a good read for those who want to better understand what drives Trump. Adapted from her soon-to-be-released book “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”, the piece touches on some of the drivers of his inexplicable behavior, such as his insistence that the election was stolen, and that he could even return to office in August 2021.It also shows how Trump viewed the people around him, particularly his supporters, whose ardency appeared to take him by surprise. For more on that, take a look at how the piece starts:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Can you believe these are my customers?” Donald Trump once asked while surveying the crowd in the Taj Mahal casino’s poker room. “Look at those losers,” he said to his consultant Tom O’Neil, of people spending money on the floor of the Trump Plaza casino. Visiting the Iowa State Fair as a presidential candidate in 2015, he was astounded that locals fell in line to support him because of a few free rides in his branded helicopter. In the White House, he was sometimes stunned at his own backers’ fervor, telling aides, “They’re fucking crazy.” Yet they loved him and wanted to own a piece of him, and that was what mattered most. More

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      Former January 6 committee staffer says texts show evidence of ‘attempted coup’ – live

      by

      Denver Riggleman’s interview with 60 Minutes is a rare breach in the carefully stage managed presentation the January 6 committee has given Americans over the past months about what happened during the insurrection at the Capitol.A former Republican congressman who was ousted by a more conservative opponent in 2020 and now considers himself independent, Riggleman acted as a technical adviser for the committee, poring through evidence such as text messages and emails obtained from people thought to have knowledge of the attack. His interview provided a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, most details about which have come from lawmakers’ comments or the public hearings themselves.Perhaps his most startling admission is his belief that text messages then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows voluntarily turned over the committee amounted to a “roadmap to an attempted coup.” But Riggleman shared other disquieting details in the interview, such as that a White House number called one of the rioters who had stormed the Capitol as it was happening.Then there were the text messages Meadows received containing an array of far-right conspiracy theories from Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.“What really shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wife’s efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the stop the steal movement,” Riggleman said on 60 Minutes.Ginni Thomas’s involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results has been well documented in recent months, leading to calls for the January 6 committee to compel her testimony – efforts Riggleman said he supported. Last week, a deal was reached for Thomas to speak to investigators.Virginia Thomas agrees to interview with House January 6 panelRead moreWhen the January 6 committee holds its Wednesday hearing, don’t be surprised if lawmakers have more to say about the Secret Service’s actions that day, particularly when it comes to agents’ communications that were deleted following the insurrection.What was on the Secret Service text messages that the agency erased following the insurrection and whether they could be recovered have emerged as two of the biggest outstanding questions of the investigation. Over the weekend, Liz Cheney said the committee had received a trove of evidence from the agency, but not as much cooperation as they would like:1/6 Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Saturday said the committee received “about 800,000 pages at least” of Secret Service communications on and around Jan. 6:“There are some [agents] who have not been forthcoming with the committee, and you will hear more about that.” pic.twitter.com/lqSrEkGD1f— The Recount (@therecount) September 26, 2022
      Secret Service watchdog suppressed memo on January 6 texts erasureRead moreIt’s one of the quieter trends in Congress, but The Guardian’s Chris McGreal reports on the slowly boiling outrage over the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, with a sizable number of Democratic lawmakers warning of consequences if Israel isn’t more forthcoming about her death:Israel has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago.The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israel’s failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporter’s killing could jeopardize America’s huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights.Nearly half of the Democratic members of the Senate have signed a letter calling into question Israel’s claim that Abu Akleh was accidentally shot by a soldier. The letter suggests she may have been targeted because she was a journalist.US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with IsraelRead moreMark Meadows was exchanging text messages with a lot of strange characters in the closing months of 2020. One of them was Phil Waldron, an election conspiracy theorist who texted the then-White House chief of staff about an effort to root out supposed voter fraud in Arizona.CNN reports that the news Waldron brought was that a judge in the state had dismissed the lawsuit from GOP legislators allied with Donald Trump to turn over voting equipment so they could be inspected for alleged election fraud. Waldron, an associate of Michael Flynn, the former Trump White House national security adviser who has lately been known for his Christian nationalist rhetoric, said the ruling meant Trump’s opponents could delay his allies’ efforts to get to voting machines and prove the supposed fraud.Meadows responded with one word: “pathetic”.CNN’s report gets further into Waldron’s activities in both the closing weeks of the Trump administration and in recent months, where he has continued efforts to try to prove that the 2020 election was stolen, without success.The January 6 committee clearly did not take the weekend off ahead of its hearing this Wednesday. Politico reports that investigators have subpoenaed Robin Vos, Republican speaker of the Wisconsin state assembly.They want to know about a phone call he had in July with Donald Trump and are giving him a short deadline to speak to them – today. Vos is suing to stop the subpoena, according to Politico:NEWS: The Jan. 6 select committee subpoenaed Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos over the weekend and is seeking his testimony by *today* about a July phone call he had with Donald Trump. https://t.co/ZQD9X84SK4 pic.twitter.com/gfOgHpdfgK— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 26, 2022
      Vos is suing to block the subpoena, saying the subpoena didn’t give him enough notice and oversteps the select committee’s authority. He’s seeking an injunction from a federal judge.https://t.co/ZQD9X84SK4— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 26, 2022
      Vos suit drew Judge Pamela Pepper, who issued a scorcher of a ruling against one of the many lawsuits aimed at overturning the 2020 election. https://t.co/hK9XMTEztb— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 26, 2022
      As eyebrow raising as Riggleman’s interview is, January 6 committee members have also gone out of their way to downplay it, saying he stopped working with them months ago and is not aware of what the investigation uncovered since then.“He does not know what happened after April and a lot has happened in our investigation,” Democratic committee member Zoe Lofgren told CNN. “Everything that he was able to relay prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn’t really peter out (sic), or there might have been a decision that suggested there was a connection between one number and one e-mail and a person that turned out not to pan out. So we follow up on everything, and, you know, I don’t know what Mr. Riggleman is doing really.”It’s also worth noting the Riggleman has a book out tomorrow called “The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th”.CNN has more details on the call from a White House number to the phone of one of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6.The nine-second phone call went to the phone of Anton Lunyk, a Brooklyn resident who had traveled to the city for the Donald Trump-hosted rally that preceded the attack, CNN reports. Lunyk, along with two friends who came with him from New York, pled guilty to charges of illegally protesting inside the Capitol, and earlier this month where sentenced to a few months of fines and probation.Who was on the other end of the call remains a mystery. CNN was not able to identify which White House official may have placed it, only that it took place at 4:17 pm, shortly after Trump tweeted at rioters to “go home”.Denver Riggleman’s interview with 60 Minutes is a rare breach in the carefully stage managed presentation the January 6 committee has given Americans over the past months about what happened during the insurrection at the Capitol.A former Republican congressman who was ousted by a more conservative opponent in 2020 and now considers himself independent, Riggleman acted as a technical adviser for the committee, poring through evidence such as text messages and emails obtained from people thought to have knowledge of the attack. His interview provided a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, most details about which have come from lawmakers’ comments or the public hearings themselves.Perhaps his most startling admission is his belief that text messages then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows voluntarily turned over the committee amounted to a “roadmap to an attempted coup.” But Riggleman shared other disquieting details in the interview, such as that a White House number called one of the rioters who had stormed the Capitol as it was happening.Then there were the text messages Meadows received containing an array of far-right conspiracy theories from Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.“What really shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wife’s efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the stop the steal movement,” Riggleman said on 60 Minutes.Ginni Thomas’s involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results has been well documented in recent months, leading to calls for the January 6 committee to compel her testimony – efforts Riggleman said he supported. Last week, a deal was reached for Thomas to speak to investigators.Virginia Thomas agrees to interview with House January 6 panelRead moreGood morning, US politics blog readers. There was a rare look into the January 6 committee’s investigative process yesterday evening when a former staff member spoke to CBS’ 60 Minutes program, and what Denver Riggleman had to say will do little to soothe the nerves of those fearing for America’s democracy. Among his revelations, Riggleman said text messages from Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s chief of staff during the time of the insurrection, amounted to a “roadmap to an attempted coup”. Expect to hear more about Riggleman’s interview today ahead of the January 6 committee’s first public hearing in more than two months on Wednesday.Here’s what else we can expect today:
      Republicans still have a good chance of winning a majority in the House of Representatives, but CBS News believes it won’t be a very large one.
      Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, will hold a re-election rally in Alpharetta at 3pm ET, where he will be joined by fellow GOP governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.
      Joe Biden is in Delaware but will return to the White House this morning to greet 2021 World Series champions the Atlanta Braves, then preside over the third meeting of the White House Competition Council in the afternoon. More

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      in US Politics

      The Long Alliance review: sure guide to Biden and Obama’s imperfect union

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      The Long Alliance review: sure guide to Biden and Obama’s imperfect union Gabriel Debenedetti masters the crosscurrents of the Democratic party as well as relations between two presidentsGabriel Debenedetti is the national correspondent for New York magazine. His first book brings depth and context to the near-two-decade relationship between the 44th and 46th presidents. Under a telling subtitle, The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Debenedetti captures the two men’s closeness – and distance.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreThe Long Alliance emphasizes that the pair’s time in power together was not a buddy movie. Obama was the star. Biden played a supporting role until he too seized the brass ring, to send Donald Trump into exile.Obama was a first-term senator, just 47 years old, when he vanquished the Clintons, bulldozed John McCain and entered the White House. Biden’s trajectory was markedly different. Late in life, on his third quest for the presidency, he took down another septuagenarian amid a deadly pandemic.The union of Obama and Biden was always moored in intergenerational convenience. Obama was the agent of change, Biden a relic of an older time. Obama’s aides cast a wary eye toward the senator from Delaware. To Biden, politics was tactile. He did not readily inspire.Walloped by Obama in Iowa in 2008, Biden immediately withdrew. Over time, the two men bonded. There was greater warmth between them than between Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, let alone Bush and Dan Quayle. Obama always heard Biden out. On the other hand, the Obamas never invited the Bidens to the White House residence. Barack and Joe shared lunches, not dinners and movies with popcorn.Hiccups and speed bumps left marks. Biden got ahead of Obama on gay marriage. Hunter Biden made headlines with his schemes and hustles. Confronted with the younger Biden boy’s foray into Ukraine and the energy business, Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, expressed discomfort. Like Trump, Hunter’s fate now rests with federal prosecutors.Obama empathized with his vice-president. When Beau Biden, Biden’s older son, was dying, Obama offered a shoulder to lean on. He delivered a stirring eulogy. In their final days in office, Obama gave Biden the presidential medal of freedom. The honor, suffused with affection and tenderness, surprised its recipient. Biden’s successor as vice-president, Mike Pence, met a very different fate.Yet for all Obama’s smarts, he could get things terribly wrong. He failed to anticipate the magnitude of the backlash to the Affordable Care Act, the resonance of birtherism, abhorrent as it was, and the depth and breadth of the emerging national chasm beneath him. Democratic losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterms and the Tea Party with its tricorn hats presaged a sustained demand for a return to the past, the rise of Trump and a tolerance for autocracy within the Republican party.Obama also messed up by viewing Hillary Clinton as his rightful successor, if not his political heir. In 2008, competing against her for the nomination, he derided her as “likable enough”. In 2016, in hindsight, little had changed.Clinton lacked her husband’s capacity to emote and connect. Like Ted Cruz, the Republican Texas senator, there was something awkward, off-putting, which she could not shake. Her comments on Trump’s “deplorables” hurt her much as Mitt Romney’s take on the “47%” did him in 2012. Looking back, Obama miscalculated – much as his brain trust would do in 2020 with Biden.Under Trump, Romney showed a deeper appreciation of where the US stood. It wanted a president not named Trump. A shot at normalcy. Nothing else.On the night of the 2018 midterms, Romney urged Biden to wage one more campaign. “You have to run,” Romney said in a call. Anti-Trump sentiment cost the Republicans the House but at the same moment Utah was sending Romney to the Senate.During the 2020 primaries, Obama and Biden stayed in touch. But until the former vice-president emerged as the presumptive nominee, his president’s endorsement was not forthcoming. Biden lost Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada. Heading to South Carolina, he was low on cash and short on delegates. There, the backing of James Clyburn, the House whip, together with the state’s Black voters, righted Biden’s ship. Debenedetti shows mastery of the tugs and crosscurrents that shape the Democrats’ upstairs-downstairs coalition.African Americans could be among the most socially conservative components of the party. They were not clamoring for open borders or Medicare for All. Obamacare stood as the legacy of the first Black president. Their patrimony was the cruel lash of slavery, not the Harvard faculty lounge or the yoke of the tsar. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders did not speak to them or for them.Obama aides badmouthed Biden in print and on TV. David Axelrod, a senior Obama campaign and White House hand, never cottoned to Biden, and Biden knew it. And yet, behind the scenes, Obama helped clear the field.In the end, Covid and the need for national leadership put Biden over the top. No other Democrat could have beaten Trump.The Destructionists review: brilliant study of Republican rage pre-TrumpRead moreAs president, Biden’s record is uneven. The withdrawal from Afghanistan put a dent in his standing from which he has not recovered. In contrast, US support for Ukraine appears the product of thoughtful conviction. As for the economy, Biden’s efforts to placate his base may well have heightened inflation. Gas prices are coming down but the rest remains stubbornly up.Biden competes with Obama’s legacy and the ghost of FDR. The Democrats hold only 50 Senate seats, control on a knife-edge as the November election looms.“I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” Biden reportedly told one adviser, according to another big political book, This Will Not Pass by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, of the New York Times and CNN respectively.The two men still talk, though.
      The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama is published in the US by Macmillan
      TopicsBooksJoe BidenBarack ObamaBiden administrationObama administrationDemocratsUS elections 2020reviewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      US intelligence resumes national security review of Mar-a-Lago documents – as it happened

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      Biden is hitting back at House Republicans and the Commitment to America plan they announced today, calling it “a thin series of policy goals” and saying the GOP’s true goal is banning abortion nationwide.He cited the words of rightwing supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in his opinion overturning Roe v Wade that the decision “allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion.”“I don’t believe Maga Republicans have a clue about the power American women,” Biden said to applause in his speech stumping on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.Referring to the plan announced by top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, Biden said, “Here’s a few of the things we didn’t hear. We didn’t hear mentioned the right to choose. We didn’t hear mentioned Medicare. We didn’t hear mentioned social security.”He went on to link the upcoming midterms to continuing availability of abortion in America, saying, “In 46 days, America is going to choose Republicans when control the Congress and abortion will be banned. And by the way, it will be initially banned but if they went Congress, I will veto it.”With an eye to reclaiming their majority, House Republicans have released their Commitment to America – which is not to be confused with 1994’s Contract with America or 2010’s Pledge to America unveiled before the party won the chamber in those years’ midterms. Joe Biden responded to the plan by hammering the “Maga Republicans” he said want to ban abortion nationwide and slash social security.Here’s what else happened today:
      A Twitter whistleblower whose anonymous testimony was made public by the January 6 committee warned of the peril facing America’s democracy in an interview with The Washington Post.
      US intelligence agencies have restarted their assessment of the risk to national security posed by the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
      White House officials are said to be mulling an effort to oust the Trump-installed World Bank president after he quibbled over whether humans caused climate change.
      Former supreme court justice Stephen Breyer expressed remorse over its decision ending Roe v Wade.
      Lawyers for Donald Trump are citing legal privilege to try to stop former White House officials from answering questions before a federal grand jury investigating his attempts to meddle with the 2020 election, CNN reports.The effort shows how attorneys for Trump hope to seize on both executive privilege conferred on presidents as well as attorney-client privilege to frustrate the investigation by the grand jury in Washington. His attorneys had made similar claims when they successfully petitioned a judge to appoint a special master to review documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in a ruling that also temporarily halted the justice department’s probe into the materials found there.Here’s more from CNN’s story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Former President Donald Trump‘s attorneys are fighting a secret court battle to block a federal grand jury from gathering information from an expanding circle of close Trump aides about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter told CNN.
      The high-stakes legal dispute — which included the appearance of three attorneys representing Trump at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon — is the most aggressive step taken by the former President to assert executive and attorney-client privileges in order to prevent some witnesses from sharing information in the criminal investigation events surrounding January 6, 2021.
      The court fight over privilege, which has not been previously reported and is under seal, is a turning point for Trump’s post-presidency legal woes.
      How the fight is resolved could determine whether prosecutors can tear down the firewall Trump has tried to keep around his conversations in the West Wing and with attorneys he spoke to as he sought to overturn the 2020 election and they worked to help him hold onto the presidency.Michael Avenatti was once a firebrand attorney and darling of those who loathed Donald Trump. Now he’s been disgraced by a series of criminal convictions, and today was ordered to pay restitution to former client Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with the former president.Reuters reports that a Manhattan court ordered Avenatti to pay Daniels $148,750 after his conviction earlier this year on wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges for embezzling her book proceeds.He was sentenced to four years in prison in that case, and is also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to five federal charges in California.Michael Avenatti sentenced to four years for cheating Stormy DanielsRead moreAmerican intelligence agencies have again begun their review of the national security risks of classified documents found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after an appeals court overturned a judge’s order that had temporarily blocked it, Politico reports.The review is one of two that director of national intelligence Avril Haines said would be done of the documents the FBI found at Trump’s Florida resort last month: one focused on their classification levels, the other on what would happen if their contents were made public.Trump-appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon had granted a request from the former president to halt the review of the seized material, but that was thrown out by an appeals court earlier this week.Court lifts hold on classified records seized from Mar-a-Lago in Trump inquiryRead moreMore on Sinema: a recent poll on the senator found that she was viewed unfavorably by all political parties and across all demographic categories. A poll conducted by AARP Arizona on the current political environment found that a majority of voters in both political parties did not view Sinema favorably, including across all age categories, genders, as well as racial and ethnic demographics. The poll results can be viewed here.In other news, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will be giving a talk on Monday at the McConnell Center, an institution named after Republican senator Mitch McConnell that connects young people in Kentucky with political leaders. The center advertised the talk on Twitter, writing: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This Monday, Sept. 26, the McConnell Center is excited to welcome U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to give a talk titled “The Future of Political Discourse and the Importance of Bipartisanship.” Join via livestream at http://McConnellCenter.org at 10 AM.This Monday, Sept. 26, the McConnell Center is excited to welcome U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to give a talk titled “The Future of Political Discourse and the Importance of Bipartisanship.” Join via livestream at https://t.co/F7epAlno78 at 10 AM. #Leadership pic.twitter.com/t0LO0ZazOi— McConnell Center (@ULmCenter) September 23, 2022
      Reaction to Sinema’s upcoming talk was somewhat negative, as users criticized the first-time senator for agreeing to give a talk at McConnell’s namesake institution given McConnell’s voting record. With an eye to reclaiming their majority, House Republicans have released their Commitment to America – which is not to be confused with 1994’s Contract with America or 2010’s Pledge to America unveiled before they reclaimed the chamber in those years’ midterms. Joe Biden responded to the plan by hammering the “Maga Republicans” he said want to ban abortion nationwide and slash social security.Here’s what else has happened today:
      A Twitter whistleblower whose anonymous testimony was made public by the January 6 committee warned of the peril facing America’s democracy in an interview with The Washington Post.
      White House officials are said to be mulling an effort to oust the Trump-installed World Bank president after he quibbled over whether humans caused climate change.
      Former supreme court justice Stephen Breyer expressed remorse over its decision ending Roe v Wade.
      This speech has amounted to a point-by-point rebuttal of House Republicans’ Commitment to America, and as he wrapped up the speech, he turned to its call to “increase accountability in the election process”.“And finally, with a straight face, Kevin McCarthy says that Maga Republicans will restore faith in our elections. As we say in my faith, bless me father for I have sinned,” said Biden, a practicing Catholic. “Maga Republicans refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and the will of the people.“You can’t let the integrity of elections be undermined,” Biden said. “When one side believes there’s only two outcomes in an election, either they win or they were cheated, that’s not democracy. And that’s where the mass majority of Maga Republicans are today. They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: you can’t love your country only when you win.”Biden is hitting back at House Republicans and the Commitment to America plan they announced today, calling it “a thin series of policy goals” and saying the GOP’s true goal is banning abortion nationwide.He cited the words of rightwing supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in his opinion overturning Roe v Wade that the decision “allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion.”“I don’t believe Maga Republicans have a clue about the power American women,” Biden said to applause in his speech stumping on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.Referring to the plan announced by top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, Biden said, “Here’s a few of the things we didn’t hear. We didn’t hear mentioned the right to choose. We didn’t hear mentioned Medicare. We didn’t hear mentioned social security.”He went on to link the upcoming midterms to continuing availability of abortion in America, saying, “In 46 days, America is going to choose Republicans when control the Congress and abortion will be banned. And by the way, it will be initially banned but if they went Congress, I will veto it.”We’re about to hear from President Joe Biden at an event hosted by the Democratic National Committee, where he’ll no doubt stump for the party and potentially respond to House Republicans’ Commitment to America plan announced today.You can follow the event at the headquarters of the National Education Association here.“Without intervention we really are on this path to catastrophe.” Those are the chilling words of former Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli, whose anonymous testimony to the January 6 committee was shared last July, and who has now made her name public in an interview with the Washington Post.She recounted how the platform relished the attention brought by Trump as he turned Twitter into a bully pulpit to rival all others, and downplayed her concerns that he was inciting violence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}After Trump told the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, at a September 2020 presidential debate to “stand back and stand by,” Navaroli pushed for the company to adopt a stricter policy around calls to incitement.
      Trump “was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives,” she told the committee. “We had not seen that sort of direct communication before, and that concerned me.”
      She had also seen how his tweets were quickly sparking replies from other accounts calling for “civil war.” After Trump’s “will be wild” tweet in December, she said, “it became clear not only were these individuals ready and willing, but the leader of their cause was asking them to join him in … fighting for this cause in D.C. on January 6th.”
      The company, however, declined to take action, she told the committee. She pleaded with managers, she said, to face the “reality that … if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.”In the interview with the Post, Navaroli called on other whistleblowers to come forward while warning that America’s democracy may be irrevocably damaged:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“My fear within the American context is that we have seen our last peaceful transition of power,” Navaroli said. But “the same playbook,” she added, is being used around the world, “teeing up the idea that if an election is not in someone’s favor, it’s been rigged. Without intervention we really are on this path to catastrophe.” More

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      Special master asks Trump team for proof of claims that FBI planted evidence – as it happened

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      The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a senior federal judge demanded the former president’s lawyers provide proof of claims that the FBI planted documents.
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      A slew of polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken called on countries to speak out against Russia’s nuclear threats in a speech at the United Nations.
      Indiana’s abortion ban was blocked by a judge who found the state’s constitution likely protects access to the procedure.
      Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, activists declared that America was in a “moral crisis” as they called for more help for the poor, as Joan E Greve reports:A coalition of faith leaders gathered on Capitol Hill on Thursday to deliver an impassioned demand for more congressional action to combat poverty, telling lawmakers they have a moral obligation to improve life for low-income Americans.The faith leaders called on the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate to take at least three votes on major progressive issues before midterm elections in November.They emphasized the importance of putting lawmakers “on the record” about strengthening voting rights, raising wages and reinstating pandemic-era policies aimed at lifting families out of poverty.‘We’re in a moral crisis’: US faith leaders urge lawmakers to combat povertyRead moreEnvironmental leaders protesting against new legislation which would scale back regulations to expedite major energy projects have been arrested in the Senate.The sit-in was at the Hart building on Capitol Hill – where senate leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin both have their offices – to protest against their secret-deal to mandate fast track permits for energy and mining projects deemed to be of strategic national importance by limiting environmental and community review. Eleven of the 13 national and community leaders who participated in the act of civil disobedience were arrested. It’s not clear what charges – if any – will be brought. Among those was Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of Indigenous Environmental Network, who said: “We must uplift and protect our Mother Earth, not repeal the minimal provisions that do exist. We must continue to fight against climate greenwashing and false solutions. We must take real action to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”One of the most contested parts of the bill is pushing forward with construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline in central Appalachia, which has been suspended by the courts amid widespread community opposition and environmental violations.Lauren Maunus, advocacy director for the youth-led environmental justice group, Sunrise Movement, said: “I’m angry and frustrated that this is how we have to spend our time after the Inflation Reduction Act – less than 50 days before the midterms – when we could and should be devoting our full attention to helping Democrats expand the majority and fight fascism. Stop the permitting deal now.”Schumer wants to attach Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, released late on Wednesday, to a funding measure which must be passed by Congress by 1 October to avoid a government shutdown. It’s opposed by dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as a broad range of environmentalists, scientists and health professionals.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreSeveral Senate Republicans don’t appear comfortable with Donald Trump’s claims regarding classified documents, particularly his assertion yesterday that he could clear them for release just by thinking about it.CNN has gotten several on the record saying that the former president should have followed procedures set out for handling government secrets.“I think it ought to be adhered to and followed. And I think that should apply to anybody who has access to or deals with classified information,” John Thune, the Republican whip in the chamber, said. “I think the concern is about those being taken from the White House absent some way of declassifying them or the fact that there were classified documents removed — without sort of the appropriate safeguards.”“I believe there’s a formal process that needs to go through, that needs to be gone through and documented,” said Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “And to the extent they were declassified, gone through the process, that’s fine… As I understand the Executive Branch requirements, there is a process that one must go through.”“I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed if they’re not stored properly,” said Mike Rounds of South Dakota.The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreIn August, Democratic senator Joe Manchin agreed to support the marquee Inflation Reduction Act – but only if party leaders would in turn put up for a vote a proposal to fast-track permitting for energy projects. The bill is here, and Nina Lakhani reports on advocates’ concerns it will gut environmental protections:Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.The permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreIndiana led the charge in tightening abortion access after Roe v Wade was overturned in June, but a judge today blocked the new law on grounds that the state’s constitution protects access to the procedure.The decision underscores the complications Republican-led states face as they move to take advantage of the conservative-led court’s decision, which cleared the way for states to ban the procedure.Here’s more from the Associated Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
      The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
      The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
      Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”Since 1978 Ray Fair, ​​professor of Economics at Yale University, has been using economic data to predict US election outcomes. His bare-boned, strictly by the numbers approach has a fairly impressive record, usually coming within 3% of the final tally.Sadly for Democrats – if Fair’s on track again this time – the Biden administration will struggle to keep control of Congress in November’s crucial midterm elections.Elections are noisy events and this year’s is no different. Recent polling suggests Joe Biden is on a roll, reclaiming some of the ground he lost earlier in his presidency. The Democrats have passed major legislation. There has been a surge in women registering to vote after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. Abortion rights drove voters to the polls in deep-red Kansas. Gas prices, if not overall inflation, are falling. In the meantime, Donald Trump and the candidates he has backed are dominating the headlines and helping Democrats’ poll numbers.But if Fair is right, we can largely set aside the personalities and the issues: the economy is the signal behind the noise and Biden is still in trouble.Democrats will struggle to keep control of Congress in midterms, expert saysRead moreGreg Norman faced accusations of promoting Saudi “propaganda” following meetings with Washington lawmakers in which the Australian golfer sought to garner support for the Saudi-backed LIV Series in its bitter dispute with the PGA Tour.Norman, who is LIV’s CEO and the public face of the breakaway tour, ostensibly came to the capital this week to criticise what he has called the PGA’s “anti-competitive efforts” to stifle LIV.But – apart from some lawmakers who allegedly sought to take their picture with Norman – the Saudi tour instead faced a considerable backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, who defended the PGA and accused LIV of being little more than a sportswashing vehicle for the kingdom.Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, left a meeting of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday at which dozens of his party colleagues had met with Norman, expressing dismay that members of Congress were discussing a golf league backed by Saudi funds. He also called Norman’s LIV pitch “propaganda”.“We need to get out of bed with these people. They are bad actors. We need to keep them at arm’s length,” Burchett told the Guardian. He cited the September 11 attacks on the US, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the kingdom’s treatment of gay people and women, which he called “just unacceptable”.US congressman accuses LIV CEO Greg Norman of pushing Saudi ‘propaganda’ Read moreThe US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke at the United Nations in New York earlier, seeking to “send a clear message” to Russia over its threats concerning the possible use of nuclear weapons during its war in Ukraine.“Every council member should send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately,” Blinken said during a security council session, adding: “The very international order we’ve gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes. We cannot – we will not – let President Putin get away with it.”Blinken also said it was critical to show that “no nation can redraw the borders of another by force” and said: “If we fail to defend this principle when the Kremlin is so flagrantly violating it, we send the message to aggressors everywhere that they can ignore it, too.”As the Associated Press reports, the session on Thursday was “called by France, the current council president, [and] focused on addressing accountability for alleged abuses and atrocities, and the US and other western members repeatedly accused Russia of committing them”.Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was not in the room when Blinken and others spoke. In his own remarks, he claimed Ukraine was oppressing Russian speakers in the east of the country and western allies of the Ukrainian government “have been covering up the crimes of the Kyiv regime”.Security council action against Russia is vastly unlikely, given Russia’s veto power.Here’s some more Ukraine-based reading, from Oliver Milman:How the gas industry capitalized on the Ukraine war to change Biden policyRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a slew of new polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.Here’s what else has happened so far:
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      The race to be the next governor of Arizona is shaping up to be a nailbiter, according to a new survey from AARP Arizona.The poll found Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake in a statistical tie at 49% and 48% respectively, with just 3% of voters in the southwest battleground state undecided.Among Arizonans aged 50 and over, who make up an estimated 60% of the state’s electorate, Lake narrowly leads Hobbs, 50% to 48%, respectively. Among political independents, who comprise roughly one third of voters in the state, Hobbs holds a 4-point edge.The picture is slightly brighter for Democrats in the state’s competitive senate race, where incumbent Mark Kelly leads his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, by 8-points. A Republican senator wants to seize on Joe Biden’s recent statement that the “pandemic is over” to pass a resolution ending the national emergency declared to combat Covid-19, The Wall Street Journal reports.The resolution to be proposed by Roger Marshall of Kansas would end the state of emergency that the administration has used to justify suspending student loans repayments and some procedures at international borders, among other uses.A previous attempt to end the declaration passed the Senate in March but went nowhere in the House. Both chambers are narrowly led by Democrats, but the White House promised then to veto the measure, if it made it to Biden’s desk.Biden says Covid ‘pandemic is over’, despite US daily death toll in the hundredsRead moreBack to the polls, Monmouth University has a new one on Georgia’s governorship race that shows Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams with a narrower path to victory but more dedicated support base than the Republican incumbent Brian Kemp as she again challenges him for the job.The race is among the more high-profile gubernatorial contests to be decided in the 8 November midterms, and could make Abrams Georgia’s first Black and first female governor if elected. Kemp, meanwhile, is known for resisting Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of Joe Biden’s election win there in 2020, though has backed a strict voting law. According to Monmouth, 34% will definitely and 15% will probably back Kemp, against Abrams’ slightly worse 33% definite support and 12% probable support. Kemp is also viewed more favorably at 54%, versus Abrams’s 48% favorability. However, Democrats are more fired up for Abrams than Republicans are for Kemp. Monmouth finds that 83% of Democrats will definitely vote for Abrams versus 73% of GOP voters for Kemp – perhaps a consequence of his clashes with Trump.“Some election conspiracists may still hold a grudge against Kemp for not stepping in to overturn the 2020 result, but it’s unlikely to cost him much support. They may not be enthusiastic, but they’ll still vote for him over Abrams,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said. More