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      'Shame on you': Democrats attack Barr for carrying out Trump agenda

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      Democrats clashed angrily with Donald Trump’s attorney general on Tuesday, over the aggressive deployment of federal agents to US cities three months before a presidential election.William Barr faced a difficult grilling during a hearing in Congress that proved combative, contentious and indicative of Washington’s bitter divide.Democrats on the House judiciary committee pointed to the use of federal law enforcement to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, Washington, last month so Trump could stage a photo op, and a harsh crackdown on protests in Portland, Oregon.“The president wants footage for his campaign ads, and you appear to be serving it up to him as ordered,” Jerry Nadler, the committee chairman, told Barr.“You use pepper spray and truncheons on American citizens. You did it here in Washington. You did it in Lafayette Square. You expanded to Portland. Now you are projecting fear and violence nationwide in pursuit of obvious political objectives. Shame on you, Mr Barr. Shame on you.”The attorney general denied the interventions were motivated by Trump’s re-election.“I just reject the idea that the department has flooded anywhere and attempted to suppress demonstrators,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, if you take Portland, the courthouse is under attack.“The federal resources are inside the perimeter, around the courthouse defending it from almost two months of daily attacks where people march to the court, try to gain entrance and have set fires, thrown things, used explosives and injured police, including just this past weekend, perhaps permanently blinding three federal officers with lasers.”Barr added: “We are on the defence. We’re not out looking for trouble.”Like so many other hearings of the Trump era, the session highlighted America’s debilitating polarisation. Barr sat expressionless as Nadler delivered a scathing opening statement.“Your tenure is marked by a persistent war against the department’s professional core in an apparent effort to secure favours for the president,” the Democrat said. “In your time at the department, you have aided and abetted the worst failings of this president.”Barr’s justice department, Nadler continued, has violated constitutional rights, downplayed the effects of systemic racism, expressed open hostility to Black Lives Matter, spread disinformation about voter fraud and failed to enforce voting rights laws, amplified the president’s conspiracy theories about the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and interfered with criminal investigations to protect the president and his allies.“The message these actions send is clear: in this justice department, the president’s enemies will be punished and his friends will be protected, no matter the cost,” said Nadler, whose involvement in a minor car accident had caused a delay.Jim Jordan, a close Trump ally and the top Republican on the committee, gave a radically different account.“Spying. That one word. That’s why they’re after you, Mr Attorney General.”Jordan said Barr has spoken “the truth” that Barack Obama’s administration spied on the Trump campaign, a claim that has repeatedly been debunked.He then proceeded to play a selectively edited video for nearly eight minutes which showed TV hosts and Obama saying the words “peaceful protests”, then cut to the grieving family of David Dorn, an African American retired police captain killed last month in St Louis, Missouri, then to undated, unlocated footage of people jumping on cars, buildings ablaze, an injured officer, a looted shop and people yanking and chainsawing a fence.The clips echoed talking points by Trump and conservative media.In his own opening statement, Barr acknowledged that “the horrible killing” of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by police in Minneapolis “jarred the whole country” but insisted police forces were more diverse than ever before.“According to statistics compiled by the Washington Post, the number of unarmed black men killed by police so far this year is eight. The number of unarmed white men killed by police over the same time period is 11 … And the overall number of police shootings has been decreasing.”Trump has quoted similar statistics, which fail to acknowledge that black people, who make up about 13% of the US population, are disproportionately affected by deadly police violence.Barr added: “Unfortunately, some have chosen to respond to George Floyd’s death in a far less productive way – by demonising the police … and making grossly irresponsible proposals to defund the police … Violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests to wreak senseless havoc and destruction on innocent victims.”Pressed by Nadler, Barr acknowledged that Trump’s re-election comes up at cabinet meetings but denied he had discussed it in connection with operations in Portland, Chicago and elsewhere.“I would like to pick the cities based on law and enforcement need,” he argued.Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas questioned Barr on whether he considered the killing of Floyd to be indicative of a systemic problem in policing. He said: “I don’t agree there is systemic racism in police departments generally in this country.”The attorney general faced hard-hitting questions for pushing for a more lenient prison sentence for Trump’s ally Roger Stone, convicted of witness tampering and making false statements, a move which prompted the entire trial team’s departure. Trump eventually commuted Stone’s sentence, sparing him prison.Barr said: “Stone was prosecuted under me. I said all along I thought that was a righteous prosecution. I thought he should go to jail.”But prosecutors were advocating for a sentence twice as long as justice department policy would recommend, he contended.“I agree that the president’s friends don’t deserve special breaks but they also don’t deserve to be treated more harshly than other people and sometimes that’s a difficult decision to make, especially when you know you’re going to be castigated for it.”Jordan’s video stunt provoked widespread criticism. Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer in George W Bush’s White House, tweeted: “When do we get to the part where they set fire to the Reichstag and Bill Barr comes to the rescue?” More

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      John Lewis: civil rights leader's body arrives at US Capitol to lie in state

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      The body of the late John Lewis arrived in the Rotunda of the US Capitol, where he will lie in state as lawmakers pay tribute to the longtime Georgia lawmaker and leader of the civil rights movement.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, led a delegation to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet Lewis’s flag-draped casket. The motorcade stopped at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House as it wound through Washington before arriving at the Capitol, where the late congressman becomes the first black lawmaker to lie in state in the Rotunda.As with others afforded the honor, Lewis’s casket rested on the catafalque built for Abraham Lincoln’s funeral in 1865.Pelosi and others will attend a private ceremony in the Rotunda before Lewis’s body is moved to the steps on the Capitol’s east side for a public viewing, an unusual sequence required because the Covid-19 pandemic has closed the Capitol to the public. Inside the Rotunda and outdoors, signs welcomed visitors with a reminder that masks would be required. More

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      Trump's national security adviser tests positive for coronavirus

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      The national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has tested positive for the coronavirus, but the White House insisted there was “no risk” of Donald Trump being exposed.However, O’Brien recently returned from a trip to Europe where he was photographed, without wearing a mask or social distancing, with several foreign officials, including his UK counterpart, Mark Sedwill; the UK ambassador to France, Edward Llewellyn; and the French national security adviser, Emmanuel Bonne.Several White House staffers have fallen sick from the disease over the past few months, but O’Brien is highest-level administration official so far to have tested positive.“He has mild symptoms and has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off site. There is no risk of exposure to the president or the vice-president. The work of the national security council continues uninterrupted,” the White House said in a statement.CNN cited officials as saying O’Brien abruptly left the White House last Thursday and has been working from home since then.It is unclear when O’Brien last had a meeting with the president. Their most recent public appearance together was during a visit to US Southern Command in Miami on 10 July.O’Brien has hired as national security adviser in September, despite having relatively light foreign policy experience, and has taken a low-profile approach to the job, certainly compared to his immediate predecessor, John Bolton.The news stirred a tense atmosphere in Washington, as Republicans prepared to unveil their latest stimulus and relief proposals and Donald Trump digested new polling showing disapproval of his handling of the pandemic and leads in key states for his challenger, Joe Biden.O’Brien is Donald Trump’s fourth national security adviser, a role naturally requiring close contact with the president. According to CNN, O’Brien was on White House grounds last Thursday, raising questions about potential exposure. It was also reported that White House staffers only learned of O’Brien’s test via press reports.Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg News reported that O’Brien came down with the virus after a family event and was “isolating at home while still running the NSC [national security council], doing most of his work by phone”.But CNN reported that O’Brien recently went to Europe with staffers and reporters and said “multiple pictures released from the trip showed O’Brien neither practicing social distancing nor wearing a mask”.The news will intensify scrutiny over Trump’s refusal to consistently wear a face mask in public, despite mounting evidence that masks help mitigate the spread of coronavirus. The president strongly urged Americans to wear masks for the first time last week, but he has since been seen in public not wearing a mask.Pressure was also mounting on Republicans in Congress on Monday, to finalise a new aid package and spare millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the pandemic from enduring dire hardship when $600-a-week additional unemployment benefits expire on Friday.With the so-called “income cliff” just four days away, Republican leaders have indicated that they will unveil a $1tn aid package agreed with the White House. But bitter partisan negotiations lie ahead, with a measure likely to pass only at the 11th hour.House Democrats, who passed a $3tn package in May, have accused Republicans of dithering and object to replacing the $600 weekly benefits, which they want to extend, with a more complicated formula based on 70% of wages. That calculation could in effect see support reduced to about $200 a week.Democrats are also unhappy about liability protections likely to be included in the Republican package that insulate employers from being sued by workers who contract coronavirus.The negotiations come at a febrile time. Last week 1.4 million Americans filed new unemployment claims, joining a pool of more than 30 million out of work.As the political crisis on Capitol Hill comes to a head, there is no sign of the public health crisis abating. According to the Covid Tracking project, 4.2m confirmed cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the US with the death toll close to 140,000. Johns Hopkins University puts the death toll closer to 150,000.The death rate across the states has exceeded 1,000 people a day over the past week, although on Sunday a figure of 558 was recorded.The infection rate is continuing to surge alarmingly, particularly in the south. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are all showing steep upward trajectories and many states have been forced to rein back on reopening their economies after the virus caused havoc in health systems.Florida now has more than 400,000 confirmed cases and has surpassed the tally in New York, a previous center of the contagion. California, struggling with a resurgence of its own, has recorded the most cases.Despite the prevalence of disease in Florida the vice-president, Mike Pence, was scheduled to visit Miami on Monday, to highlight phase three trials for a vaccine.The political fallout of the pandemic remains intense, both at state level and for the White House, where Donald Trump is dealing with the consequences of having presided over one of the worst impacts of the pandemic in the world. With fewer than 100 days to go before the presidential election, Joe Biden now holds a commanding lead in the polls.A new NBC News/Marist poll released on Monday underlined the danger of the current moment for Trump. It gave Biden a seven-point lead in the vital swing state of North Carolina, increasingly seen as a bellwether in presidential elections. Among registered voters in the state, Biden was supported by 51% to Trump’s 44%.Congressional horse trading over aid could have far-reaching implications for millions. Democrats have warned that any reduction in financial help to the unemployed could herald a wave of evictions as households struggle to meet rent.On Sunday, the Trump adviser Larry Kudlow pledged on CNN’s State of the Union that a moratorium on housing evictions, which has expired, will be extended. More

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      Biden holds daunting lead over Trump as US election enters final stretch

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      One hundred days before the presidential election, Joe Biden has built a commanding and enduring lead over Donald Trump, whose path to victory has narrowed considerably in the months since the coronavirus pandemic began.The president’s fortunes appear increasingly tied to the trajectory of a public health crisis he has failed to contain, with the death toll past 145,000 and the economy in turmoil.A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month showed Biden far ahead of Trump, 55% to 40% among registered voters. That contrasted with March, when Biden and Trump were locked in a near tie as the virus was just beginning to spread.The same poll found Trump’s approval ratings had crumbled to 39%, roughly the same share of the electorate that approved of his response to the outbreak while 60% disapproved. Especially troubling for the president are a new spate of polls that suggest he is losing his edge on the economy, formerly Biden’s greatest vulnerability.“It is very hard to envision a scenario where you can make an argument for the president’s re-election if unemployment is well over 10% and there’s no sign that the pandemic is under control,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who was an adviser for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.“The political environment and the economic situation could look very different 100 days from now, but if the election were held today, it is very likely that the former vice-president would win – and pretty substantially.”Surveys show Biden ahead in a clutch of battleground states that secured Trump’s victory in 2016, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. A Quinnipiac University poll of Florida, seen as crucial for Trump, found Biden up by 13 points.Biden’s campaign is now eyeing an expanded electoral map that could also deliver control of the Senate, challenging Trump in traditionally Republican states like Arizona, where the president has consistently led in statewide polls, as well as in conservative strongholds like Texas, where a new Quinnipiac poll found the candidates neck-and-neck.Trump has dismissed polling that shows him losing as “fake”, adamant that he defied Beltway prognosticators in 2016 and is poised to do it again. “I’m not losing,” he insisted during a recent Fox News Sunday interview, when presented with the network’s latest poll showing him trailing Biden by eight points.Political strategists caution that much can – and almost certainly will – change in the coming months, especially in a race shaped so profoundly by the pandemic. There is a general expectation the contest will be closely fought, as presidential elections have been for decades in a deeply polarized climate.At the same time, widespread uncertainty hangs over the security and administration of an election again threatened by foreign interference and disinformation. The pandemic has raised new concerns about voting procedures, amid Trump’s escalating attacks on mail-in ballots and unprecedented efforts to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the result in November.Trump’s prospects likely hinge on his ability to persuade Americans he deserves a second term. Yet he remains almost-singularly focused on rallying a loyal but shrinking core of supporters. In recent weeks, he has sought to stoke white fear and cultural backlash with an aggressive response to anti-racism protests, a defense of Confederate monuments and a dark Fourth of July speech in which he claimed children are being taught to “hate” America. More

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      Coronavirus US live: Georgia Senate candidate awaiting Covid-19 results after wife tests positive – as it happened

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      Jon Ossoff’s campaign says he is experiencing symptoms of virus
      More than 4.1m cases and 145,000 deaths recorded in US
      Sinclair stations to air interview with Plandemic researcher
      Testing shortages hit California’s vulnerable hardest
      America ‘staring down barrel of martial law’ – Oregon senator
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      Republicans continue Covid-19 relief talks as Democrat warns of catastrophe

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      The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, were on Capitol Hill on Saturday, for talks with aides to Senate Republicans over the next coronavirus relief package.The stakes are high. US unemployment rose again on Friday after months of falls, enhanced benefits are due to run out and Americans unable to pay rent are starting to be evicted. The expanded unemployment benefit officially expires on 31 July, but due to the way states process payments, the cut-off is effectively Saturday.On Friday Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House ways and means committee, said the US was on “the eve of an economic catastrophe”.Nonetheless the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sent members of his party home, promising a proposal by Monday.Facing re-election this year, McConnell also went home. At an event in Kentucky, he said: “This has been one heck of a challenge for everybody in the country. Hopefully we can come together behind some package we can agree on in the next few weeks.”In a joint statement, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said: “We call upon Leader McConnell to get serious.”In a tweet referring to the pandemic-inspired unemployment boost of $600 a week, Pelosi added: “The Senate must take up the House-passed Heroes Act and extend this critical lifeline for working families.”The Democratic-held House passed that $3tn relief package in May but the Senate is held by Republicans and has not taken it up.Among other issues, Republicans are debating reducing the special unemployment payments, which they say provide a disincentive to seek work. The White House has suggested cutting the payments to as little as $100.Many regular Americans counter that the funds are vital, not just to meet rent but to buy food and other necessary items.The economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic, which is now surging in mainly Republican-run states which reopened from late May. Democrat-run California, an early hotspot, is also seeing a resurgence.More than 4.1m cases have been recorded in the US and more than 145,000 people have died.The Trump White House sees economic recovery as key to the president’s hopes of re-election. But amid protests over police brutality and racism, and confrontations between protesters and federal agents in Portland, Oregon, Trump has also pivoted to law and order.On Friday, Trump added a new priority to the relief package: money to build a new FBI headquarters, across the street in Washington from his own hotel.McConnell’s proposal is expected to include new direct $1,200 cash payments to many Americans, $105bn to help reopen schools and $25bn for virus testing.The Senate leader’s top priority is a liability shield to protect businesses, hospitals and others against Covid-19 lawsuits. Trump is pressing to reopen schools, threatening to withhold funding from those which do not return fully in September.The White House was also pushing a payroll tax cut. Senate Republicans rejected the move, which would pull revenue away from social security and Medicare in the middle of an economic and public health disaster.“This is disarray,” Pelosi said on Friday at the Capitol.Her statement with Schumer said: “We had expected to be working throughout this weekend. It is simply unacceptable that Republicans have had this entire time to reach consensus among themselves and continue to flail.”Amid widespread criticism of his response to the pandemic, Trump trails Joe Biden in most national and battleground state polls. The nonpartisan Cook Report website recently said a “Democratic tsunami” may be on the way.But some observers counter that an election held amid social restrictions due to the pandemic, and subject to Republican voter suppression efforts, could give Trump a chance of a second win in the electoral college. More