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      Dominion is not done fighting 2020 election lies. A look at its other cases

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      When Dominion settled its closely-watched $787.5m defamation lawsuit against Fox last month, its lawyers made it clear that the company would continue to pursue legal action against those who spread false claims about the company and the 2020 election.The company still has major defamation cases pending against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne and Mike Lindell – all allies of Donald Trump who were some of the most prominent figures that spread election lies involving the voting machine company on television and elsewhere after the 2020 election.“Money is accountability and we got that today from Fox, but we’re not done yet. We’ve got some other people who have some accountability coming towards them,” Stephen Shackelford, a lawyer who represented the company, said outside the courthouse after the settlement was reached.Dominion also has ongoing defamation lawsuits against Newsmax and One America News Network, conservative outlets that prominently promoted lies about the 2020 election. Smartmatic, another voting company, is also suing many of the same figures and has its own $2.7bn defamation suit against Fox and its own cases against many of the same defendants.In order to win, Dominion will have to clear the high bar of showing that those responsible for making the defamatory statement knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Dominion built an unusually strong case against Fox, producing reams of evidence showing that executives and top hosts knew the claims about the election were false. The strength of its Fox case doesn’t necessarily mean it will have an ironclad case against OAN and Newsmax, said Anthony Glassman, a defamation lawyer.“There is no way to know whether you’re likely to get as strong a sense of the internal operations of each company as you did from Fox. Each company most likely operates in very different ways which may provide them with different defenses and make it more of a challenge to win,” he said.The cases against the individuals are at once both more simple and potentially more challenging than the ones against the news networks. Dominion only needs to show the individuals disregarded the truth and made false statements. But it may be harder to produce a paper trail showing that they genuinely knew what they were saying was false or recklessly disregarded the truth.“The trove of high-profile damning evidence – that key folks at Fox knew the election wasn’t stolen and thought the Dominion statements were ‘crazy’ – becomes less relevant,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah. “Dominion needs evidence that Guilani and Powell themselves either knew it was false or recklessly disregarded its falsity. We haven’t yet gotten a full look at what it might have gathered on that front.”Evidence is already emerging suggesting that at least Giuliani and Powell knew that their statements were false. In the Fox case, Dominion obtained an email in which one of Powell’s sources, who had no expertise in election administration, falsely claimed Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff and Diane Feinstein’s husband had an interest in Dominion and that the machines were flipping votes for Biden. The source claimed she had visions and said Antonin Scalia was murdered. She acknowledged some of what she had written was “wackadoodle”, but Powell passed it on to Fox host Maria Bartiromo, who asked Powell about similar claims on her show shortly thereafter.Abby Grossberg, a former Fox employee suing the network, also released a recording she made of Giuliani on 8 November 2020 in which he admits he doesn’t yet have evidence to support some of the outlandish claims he’s making about Dominion.Here’s a look at where Dominion’s cases stand:Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike LindellDominion separately filed suit against Giuliani, Powell and Lindell in federal district court in Washington DC. Giuliani and Powell represented Trump in court after the election, filing numerous lawsuits based on easily disprovable claims of fraud. Lindell is the CEO of MyPillow – the company is also named as a defendant in the suit – and a Trump ally who became one of the most prominent funders of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The company is seeking more than $1.3bn in damages from each. It is also seeking a court order against Powell and Lindell forcing them to remove any statements ultimately proven to be false and defamatory and blocking them from making any further false statements about Dominion.In August, US district judge Carl Nichols, a Donald Trump appointee, declined to dismiss the case against all three.Discovery in the case is ongoing (Lindell has tried to avoid complying with it) and will be completed in September. Nichols has set a February conference, to set a trial date, which could come as soon as the middle of next year.Patrick ByrneDominion is suing the former Overstock.com CEO, one of the biggest funders and propagators of election misinformation, for defamation in federal court in Washington DC. The company is seeking $1.6bn in damages as well as $1.3m in other expenses related to Byrne’s false claims about the election.The complaint, filed in August 2021, specifically cites Byrne’s efforts to produce a report analyzing data in Antrim county, Michigan, that falsely claimed Dominion machines were flipping votes. The document became a key source for those who made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Byrne was also a key funder of a widely-criticized review of votes in Maricopa county, Arizona, that further sowed doubt about Dominion equipment, but ultimately affirmed Biden’s victory there.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“After the election, Byrne manufactured and promoted fake evidence to convince the world that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a massive international conspiracy among China, Venezuelan and Spanish companies, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), prominent Republicans, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Dominion, which, Byrne falsely claimed, committed fraud and helped steal the 2020 presidential election,” the complaint says.Nichols allowed the case to go forward last year.Discovery is scheduled to be completed later this year. A trial date has not yet been set, but could take place as soon as the middle of next year.NewsmaxDominion is suing Newsmax in Delaware superior court for broadcasting false claims about the company after the 2020 election that are similar to the ones Fox broadcast. The case is being overseen by Eric Davis, the same judge who oversaw the company’s case against Fox. Dominion is seeking $1.6bn in damages, plus an additional $1.3m it says it had to spend on security and combating the false claims put out about the company.“Newsmax made the intentional and knowing choice to depict – and then publicize, endorse and fuel – the lies about Dominion as truth, creating and promoting an alternate reality that duped millions of Americans into believing that Dominion stole the 2020 election from President Trump,” the complaint, filed in August 2021, says. “It repeatedly broadcast the lies of facially unreliable sources – lies which Newsmax itself adopted, endorsed, promoted and manufactured. And it acted this way because the lies attracted Trump’s public stamp of approval, attention and admiration, along with huge ratings boosts and profit windfalls.”Davis declined to dismiss the case last year. “The complaint supports the reasonable inference that Newsmax either knew its statements about Dominion’s role in the election fraud were false or had a high degree of awareness that they were false,” he wrote in June.In 2021, Newsmax apologized to Eric Coomer, a Dominion employee, who it falsely said had rigged votesDiscovery in the case is ongoing.One America News NetworkDominion sued OANN in federal court in Washington, alleging that the company embraced and broadcast outlandish claims about the company in an effort to position itself as an alternative to Fox.“Spurred by a quest for profits and viewers, OAN – a competitor to media giant Fox – engaged in a race to the bottom with Fox and other outlets such as Newsmax to spread false and manufactured stories about election fraud,” Dominion lawyers wrote in their complaint, filed in August of 2021.“Dominion quickly became the focus of this downward spiral of lies, as each broadcaster attempted to outdo the others by making the lies more outrageous, spreading them further and endorsing them as strongly as possible.”Nichols, who is also overseeing the case, declined to dismiss the case last November. Discovery is ongoing. A trial date has not yet been set, but it could take place some time next year. More

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      Witness says E Jean Carroll called her ‘hyperventilating’ after alleged rape by Trump

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      A close friend of E Jean Carroll has told a New York jury that she received a distressed call from the advice columnist within minutes of Donald Trump allegedly raping her.Lisa Birnbach testified at Carroll’s civil action against the former president on Tuesday that she was feeding her children at home when Carroll called “breathless, hyperventilating, emotional” in the spring of 1996.“She said: ‘Lisa, you’re not going to believe what happened to me’,” she said.Birnbach, a magazine writer and editor, described Carroll giving a brief description of meeting Trump at the entrance to the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman and how they decided to shop together. Birnbach said that Carroll then described Trump pinning her to a changing room wall and assaulting her.“E Jean said to me many times: ‘He pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights,’ almost like she couldn’t believe it had just happened to her,” she said.Birnbach said Carroll then described Trump forcing first his fingers and then his penis into her vagina.“As soon as she said that, even though I knew my children didn’t know the word, I ducked out of the room and I whispered: ‘E Jean, he raped you, you should go to the police’. She said: ‘No, no I don’t want to go to the police.’ I said: ‘He raped you. I’ll take you to the police,’” Birnbach recounted.Birnbach said that Carroll remained adamant.“She said: ‘promise me you will never speak of this again and promise me you will tell no one,’” Birnbach testified. “And I promised both of those things.”Carroll, 79, is suing Trump for battery for allegedly raping her in a New York department store changing room in 1996, and for defamation for calling her a liar after she went public about the alleged assault in 2019.Birnbach is one of two women expected to testify that the advice columnist told them about the alleged assault shortly after it occurred.Birnbach said she was stunned when Carroll described going into the dressing room with Trump.“I was surprised that she did that,” Birnbach said. “I thought it was kind of nutty.”But Birnbach added that she did not think at the time that Trump was dangerous.One of the questions that has hung over the trial was why Carroll chose to call Birnbach immediately after the alleged assault when the two were no more than “work friends”, although they now describe themselves as very close.Birnbach said she believes it was because a few months earlier she had visited Trump to write an article about his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Birnbach said she met Trump at a party in 1995, and he asked if she would be interested in seeing Mar-a-Lago.“He called me about once a month for five or six months to make sure I still wanted to write the article,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump flew Birnbach down on his private jet in January 1996, and she stayed two nights at the estate while he gave her a personal tour. The article was published the following month.“I believe E Jean called me, of all her friends and acquaintances, because she knew I had just been at Mar-a-Lago,” she said.Another of Carroll’s friends, Carol Martin, is also expected to testify that the advice columnist told her about the alleged rape at the time. Carroll has said that Martin advised her not to go to the police because Trump was a powerful businessman. Carroll said that was the advice she wanted to hear at the time.Birnbach said she never spoke to Carroll about the assault again until the advice columnist went public with her allegations against Trump in 2019.“It was her life, her story, not my story. She clearly didn’t want to tell anyone what happened and I honoured that,” she said.Birnbach said she “worked not to think about it”.“I buried it,” she said. “As life went on, it was easier not to think about it.”Birnbach acknowledged that she has been a fierce and vocal opponent of Trump over the years, calling him an “infection”, a “madman”, a “Russian agent”, and a “malignant sociopath”. She acknowledged feeling “hatred” for the former president.Asked why she was testifying, Birnbach said: “I’m here because I’m her friend and I want the world to know she’s telling the truth.”The trial continues.
      Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html. More

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      CNN’s planned town hall with Donald Trump faces pushback

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      The announcement that CNN will host a New Hampshire town hall event for Donald Trump was met with widespread criticism on Monday.Angelo Carusone, chief executive of Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog, said: “The transparent attempt to goose their ratings does feel at least a little odious. But all the more reason that they need to get this right.”Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, said: “First, CNN systematically purged anyone on the network who was deemed too anti-Trump. Now this.”Keith Olbermann, a Trump critic and former MSNBC host, said: “I think we can say Chris Licht’s conversion of CNN into a political and journalistic whorehouse is complete.”Licht took over from Jeff Zucker as CNN’s chief executive last year, with a mission to remodel.Announcing the event to be held at St Anselm College on Wednesday 10 May, CNN said: “The former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate will take questions from [anchor Kaitlan] Collins and a live audience of New Hampshire Republican and undeclared voters who say they intend to vote in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.”Trump and CNN were at odds throughout Trump’s run for the White House and his presidency, over what he deemed its hostile coverage and liberal slant. Collins, a morning show anchor, formerly worked for the Daily Caller, a website cofounded by Tucker Carlson, the far-right anchor fired by Fox News last week.In polling regarding the Republican nomination next year, Trump enjoys commanding leads.He continues to peddle the lie that Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud. On 6 January 2021, he used that lie to incite an attack on Congress now linked to nine deaths and carried out by supporters seeking to block Biden’s win.More than 1,000 arrests have been made and hundreds of convictions secured, some for seditious conspiracy. Trump was impeached a second time but acquitted when Republican senators stayed loyal to him.He now faces a federal investigation of his election subversion and incitement of the Capitol attack, as well as a state election subversion investigation, in Georgia, in which indictments are expected this summer.In New York, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges over a hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels. In the same state, a civil rape case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll is at trial while a civil lawsuit brought by the state continues, over Trump’s tax and business practices.Jack Smith, a federal special counsel, is also investigating Trump’s retention of classified materials.CNN said it had “a longstanding tradition of hosting leading presidential candidates for town halls and political events as a critical component of the network’s robust campaign coverage”.It also said the Trump event would be “the first of many in the coming months as CNN correspondents travel across the country to hear directly from voters”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCarusone said: “Donald Trump is the frontrunner for Republican nomination; it benefits no one to pretend otherwise.“But this is risky business and CNN should go into this clear-eyed: Trump will lie and he will attack. Trump has been repeating the same torrent of lies in his speeches and interviews with rightwing media figures for months. Nothing he will say will be new.“So if CNN lets him get away with it unchallenged, they have no excuse. CNN isn’t being graded on a curve here.”Carusone also pointed to cable networks’ struggles since Trump left office.“I can’t help but notice that this comes just as Fox’s ratings are in freefall and CNN’s shift hasn’t born any fruit,” he said.David Rothkopf, a Daily Beast columnist and author of Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump, called CNN’s decision “irresponsible”.The town hall, he said, would be “a sham if it does not lead with the question, ‘You lead an insurrection against the government of the US, why should any American voter support a candidate who sought to undermine the constitution, institutions and values he was sworn to uphold?’”A CNN spokesperson said: “There is certainly a lot of news to cover with him and we’ll do that next Wednesday.” More

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      E Jean Carroll says she sued for rape on advice of Trump adviser’s husband

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      The advice columnist E Jean Carroll sued Donald Trump for rape after she was encouraged to take legal action by George Conway, the husband of a top aide to the then president.On her third day on the witness stand, Carroll told the jury hearing her lawsuit for battery and defamation over the alleged sexual assault in a New York department store changing room in 1996 that she did not intend to sue Trump until he called her a liar when she went public with her accusations more than two decades later.Shortly afterwards she met Conway, a lawyer who was at the time married to Kellyanne Conway, one of the Trump White House’s most visible officials. George Conway was a vocal critic of the then president, to the embarrassment of his wife.Carroll said that they spoke at a party where Conway laid out the difference between criminal case and civil cases.“George said: you should seriously think about this,” she told the jury of six men and three women.Two days later, Carroll filed her first lawsuit against Trump, for defamation, after he called her a liar in denying the alleged rape at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman store.Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, sought to characterise the lawsuit as politically motivated, in part through the association with Conway who went on to recommend a lawyer to Carroll.Tacopina contrasted that move – and a second more recent civil lawsuit for rape after a change in the law allowed for it – with Carroll’s decision not to take legal action against the former head of CBS, Les Moonves, who she also accused of sexual assault in an elevator.Carroll said that Moonves had not called her a liar.“He simply denied it,” she said. “He didn’t call me names. He didn’t grind my face into the mud like Donald Trump did.”Carroll said Moonves was accused of sexual abuse by a dozen women and that his denial of her allegation was one among many.Under cross-examination, Carroll defended her decision not to call the police after the alleged rape, as the typical response of women of her generation who are “ashamed” to have been sexually assaulted.She acknowledged that she frequently advised people to go to the police in her Elle column, Ask E Jean.“I was born in 1943. I’m a member of the silent generation. Women like me were taught to keep our chins up and to not complain,” she said. “I would never call the police about something I am ashamed of.”Carroll acknowledged she did call the police on one occasion, when she saw “loutish behaviour by some kids”.Tacopina responded: “So your testimony is you’ll call the police if a mailbox is attacked but not if you are attacked?”Carroll said it was.“I will never, ever go to the police,” she said.Asked why, then, more than two decades after the alleged rape she decided to go public, Carroll said that times had changed.“I reached a point in my life at 76 where I was no longer going to stay silent,” she testified.Tacopina pressed Carroll about her continued shopping trips to Bergdorf Goodman where she spent thousands of dollars in the following years.“Bergdorf’s is not a place I’m afraid to enter,” she responded.Tacopina also highlighted Carroll’s complimentary comments about Trump’s television show The Apprentice. Carroll said she was praising the construct of the programme as “witty”.On Monday afternoon, in re-cross-examination, Tacopina asked Carroll if she was happy now and she responded that she was “with undertones of unhappiness”.Then after three days of intense testimony, Carroll’s stint on the witness stand ended.Later this week, Carroll’s legal team is expected to call her friend, Lisa Birnbach and another woman, Carol Martin, to testify that Carroll told them about the alleged assault shortly after it occurred. Both have since corroborated the account.Carroll testified that Birnbach told her the alleged attack was rape and to call the police. But Martin advised her to keep quiet because Trump was a powerful businessman who would “bury” her.Carroll kept her silence for more than two decades but changed her mind as other women came forward to recount their experiences of sexual assault and harassment as the #MeToo movement swept the US. She wrote a book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, detailing abuse of one kind or other by a number of men, including Trump. Excerpts were published in New York magazine in 2019.Trump called Carroll’s allegations “a complete con job” and said her book “should be sold in the fiction section”.“She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City department store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a hoax and a lie,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Carroll’s legal team is also expected to call two other women. Natasha Stoynoff, a writer for People magazine, is expected to testify that in 2005 Trump led her into an empty room and forcibly kissed her until he was interrupted. Jessica Leeds accuses Trump of assaulting her on a plane in 1979 by grabbing her breasts and trying to put his hand up her skirt. More

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      The pro-Trump pastors embracing ‘overt white Christian nationalism’

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      A far-right religious group with ties to Donald Trump loyalists Roger Stone and retired Army Lt Gen Michael Flynn, is planning events with pastors in swing state churches in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to spur more evangelical backing for the former US president’s 2024 campaign.But the group, Pastors for Trump, is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting Christian teachings and endangering American democracy, by fueling the spread of Christian nationalism.The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based evangelical pastor and businessman Jackson Lahmeyer leads the fledgling Pastors for Trump organization. Lahmeyer told the Guardian it boasts over 7,000 pastors as members and that he will unveil details about its plans on 11 May at the Trump National Doral in Miami, an event Trump will be invited to attend.Stone, a self styled “dirty trickster” who Trump pardoned after he was convicted of lying to Congress, is slated to join Lahmeyer in speaking on 11 May according to the pastor. Lahmeyer added he will talk more about his pro Trump group at a ReAwaken America evangelical gathering on 12 and 13 May at the Doral.Lahmeyer said the pastors group intends to sponsor a “freedom tour” with evening church meetings in key swing states this summer, an effort that could help Trump win more backing from this key Republican voting bloc which could prove crucial to his winning the GOP nomination again.Lahmeyer described the genesis of Pastors for Trump in dark and apocalyptic rhetoric that has echoes of Trump’s own bombast. “We’re going down a very evil path in this country,” he said. “Our economy is being destroyed. It’s China, the deep state and globalists.“China interfered in our 2020 elections,” he added. “This is biblical what’s happening. This is a spiritual battle.’But those ominous beliefs have drawn sharp criticism.“This kind of overt embrace of white Christian nationalism continues to pose a growing threat to the witness of the church and the health of our democracy,” said Adam Russell Taylor, the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners.“This pastor and this effort are trying to impose a Christian theocracy. It’s imperative that Christian leaders of all backgrounds including conservative ones speak out about this effort as a threat to our democracy and to the church.”Other religious leaders warn of dangers that Pastors for Trump poses by marrying Christian nationalism with political vitriol and election lies.“For years, Trump has tried to co-opt religious leaders to serve his campaign, even attempting to change long-standing tax law to allow dark money to flow through houses of worship,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.“Tragically, far too many pastors have confused political power with religious authority and have thrown their lot in with Trump, no matter the cost to their ministry. Pastors for Trump is the next step in this unholy alliance, mixing Christian nationalism, election lies and vitriolic language in a gross distortion of Christianity.”There’s ample evidence that Lahmeyer has embraced religious and political views replete with extremist positions.Lahmeyer has previously attacked former House speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “demon”, and former Covid 19 adviser Anthony Fauci “a mass murdering Luciferian”. To Lahmeyer, the attack on the Capitol on January 6 by a mob of pro Trump supporters was an “FBI Inside Job”.Besides his apocalyptic rhetoric, Lahmeyer’s effort has echoes of the two-year-old ReAwaken America tour that has combined election denialism with Christian Nationalism and regularly featured Flynn at its two day revival style meetings.In 2021, Flynn provided strong and early backing for Lahmeyer in an abortive primary campaign by the pastor to gain the Republican nomination for a Senate seat from Oklahoma.Flynn, who worked to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden by pushing bogus claims of election fraud and who Trump pardoned after he pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with Russians before briefly serving as Trump’s national security adviser, is a real hero in Lahmeyer’s eyes.“Flynn is a leader and general,” Lahmeyer told the Guardian. “I trust him and I have come to love him. He’s been like a father to me.”Those bonds were reinforced in early 2021 when Lahmeyer introduced Flynn to Clay Clark, an Oklahoma entrepreneur and a member of his church, who teamed up with Flynn to host some twenty ReAwaken revival-like gatherings over the last two years nationwide, all of which Lahmeyer said he’s attended.Late last year, Lahmeyer unveiled Pastors for Trump on Stone’s eponymous Stone Zone podcast, a relationship that was forged in 2021 when Stone served as a key paid consultant to Lahmeyer’s primary campaign.Pastors for Trump is “interwoven” with the Trump campaign, “but we’re a separate grassroots group”, Lahmeyer said, indicating it is a 501(c)(4) non profit social welfare, which is awaiting IRS tax status approval.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTo date, the pastors group has created a two person board that includes South Carolina pastor Mark Burns, a key Trump campaign religious adviser who backed Trump’s 2016 run and who told the Guardian that he’s a “spiritual adviser” to Trump.Lahmeyer said his group hopes to arrange an event in Las Vegas in August to coincide with a ReAwaken America gathering that’s scheduled there, and that he expects to start fundraising to increase his group’s membership and activism.Asked if Stone and Flynn may participate in the various swing state church gatherings, Lahmeyer said: “I’d be dumb not to ask them. Stone and General Flynn are huge supporters.”To push the group’s pro-Trump messages, Lahmeyer has arranged a few prayer calls in recent months that have included Stone, Flynn and ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, all of whom promoted bogus claims of election fraud in 2020 and tried to help Trump overturn his loss to Joe Biden.One call that included a segment with Trump in late March which Lahmeyer hosted and that Stone and Flynn participated in, went badly awry when the sound quality was interrupted for several minutes with Trump on the line.Lahmeyer told the Stone Zone the next day that trolls had infiltrated the “backstage” of the platform they were using, while Trump fingered the “radical left” for hacking his phone when he tried to join the call.The launch of Pastors for Trump came not long after an uptick in public criticism of Trump from some evangelical leaders that suggested waning support among evangelicals.Dr Everett Piper, the ex president of a Christian university, in November wrote an op-ed entitled “It’s time for the GOP to say it: Donald Trump is hurting us, not helping us.” Piper wrote that in the 2022 midterms Trump “hindered rather than helped the much-anticipated ‘red wave’”.Likewise, the Iowa based president and CEO of the Family Leader Bob Vander Plaats, has tweeted about Trump that “It’s time to turn the page. America must move on. Walk off the stage with class.”Little wonder that in January, Trump blasted evangelical leaders who publicly criticized his new campaign for their “disloyalty”.Some scholars and recent polls, however, suggest Trump still has very significant support in the evangelical circles, and that he should garner hefty support again from evangelical voters in the primaries if he’s the nominee.“Trump’s enduring appeal to evangelicals is the greatest single triumph of identity politics in modern American history,” David Hollinger, an emeritus history professor at Berkeley and the author of Christianity’s American Fate, told the Guardian. “The evangelicals who flocked to Trump have good reason to stay with him.”Still, Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee is alarmed at the Pastors for Trump campaign.“Most clergy avoid endorsing political candidates, even in their personal capacity, because they know the polarizing impact it would have on their congregations and the distractions it would cause from their calling and the mission of the church.”Similarly, Taylor of Sojourners says Pastors for Trump is particularly worrisome. “This is further evidence that the threat of muscular white Christian nationalism is real and needs to be counteracted.” More

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      ‘Excessive loyalty’: how Republican giant George Shultz fell for Nixon, Reagan … and Elizabeth Holmes

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      “Without Reagan the cold war would not have ended, but without Shultz, Reagan would not have ended the cold war.” This quotation of Mikhail Gorbachev – from the preface of In the Nation’s Service, a biography of George Shultz – now has a bittersweet taste. Reagan died in 2004, Shultz in 2021 (at 100) and Gorbachev in 2022. The cold war is having a renaissance that threatens the legacies of all three.Vladimir Putin has returned Russia to authoritarianism, suspended its participation in the last US-Russia arms control pact and, with the invasion of Ukraine, put the risk of catastrophic confrontation between major powers back on the table.This would have been heartbreaking for Shultz, a second world war veteran who as secretary of state was at Reagan’s side during the summits that ended the cold war. He was a statesman and Republican of the old school who endorsed the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. He was also complicated.In the Nation’s Service, which Shultz authorised but did not control, portrays a man who loved not wisely. He was loyal to Richard Nixon during Watergate, loyal to Reagan during Iran-Contra, loyal to his party when it was cannibalised by Donald Trump and loyal to Elizabeth Holmes when Theranos, her blood-testing company, was exposed as a fraud.“It’s a thread through his life, excessive loyalty, and it grew out of his service in the marines in world war two, where obviously if you’re in combat your life depends on the loyalty and support of your comrades in the Marine Corps,” says the book’s author, Philip Taubman, a New York Times reporter and bureau chief in Moscow from 1985 to the end of 1988.“But as he carried that on through his life, it was a very strong impulse and so he stuck with Nixon too long.”Shultz, who studied at Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became dean of the University of Chicago, was Nixon’s labour secretary and led an effort to desegregate southern schools systems. He was the first director of the Office of Management and Budget before becoming treasury secretary.He resisted many of Nixon’s requests to use the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate his “enemies” but did give in to the demand to pursue Lawrence O’Brien, a top Democrat. The Watergate scandal engulfed the White House but Shultz did not resign until May 1974, three months before Nixon himself.Speaking at a Stanford University office in Washington, Taubman, 74, says: “I pressed him on this involvement in the Larry O’Brien investigation. I said, ‘I don’t understand how you allowed that to happen and why you didn’t resign at that point.’“His basic defence was he understood Nixon was involved in misconduct and he thought that had he resigned and Nixon had put someone else in the treasury secretary’s job, there would have been less of an obstacle for Nixon to use the IRS in punitive ways. It was a kind of self-congratulatory explanation. He clearly should have resigned before he did.”Reagan brought Shultz into his cabinet in 1982. Shultz hoped to ease cold war tensions but met with opposition from anti-Soviet ideologues.Taubman, who spent a decade writing the book, with exclusive access to papers including a secret diary maintained by an executive assistant, explains: “It was incredibly brutal. It was probably, if not the most ferocious infighting of any postwar American presidency, certainly one of the top two. He just ran into a buzzsaw.“The people around Reagan who set the tone for foreign policy in the first year … were hardliners on the Soviet Union. What they wanted to do was not contain the Soviet Union, which had been the American strategy since the end of the second world war. They wanted to roll back Soviet gains around the world and Soviet influence.”Shultz rarely got to meet Reagan one-on-one. “He was mystified by Reagan and he was puzzled and unsettled by the turmoil in the administration. For a guy who’d lived through the Nixon administration, you’d think he would have been a hardened internal combatant.“He would come back to his office and tell the aide who recorded all this in his diary, ‘I can’t get through to the president. How is it that the secretary of state can’t meet with the president of the United States to talk about US-Soviet relations?’ … It took several years before he and Reagan began to kind of connect.“One of the things that was clear, as I did the research, was just how disengaged Reagan was. There would be decisions taken that he would sign off on and then they would be reversed by people under him. It was incredibly chaotic and he wouldn’t grasp it by the lapels and say, ‘OK, I agree with George, this is what we’re going to do.’ He just let this turmoil fester until the second term.”In February 1983, history was given a helping hand when a blizzard forced Reagan to cancel a Camp David weekend. He and his wife, Nancy, invited Shultz and his wife to dinner. Shultz could see that for all his hot rhetoric about the “evil empire”, Reagan hoped to ease tensions with Russia.“If you’re looking for the key moments in the ending of the cold war,” Taubman says, “you have … the realisation among the two of them that they have in common a fundamental desire to wind down the cold war, the ascension of Gorbachev, his appointment of Eduard Shevardnadze as Soviet foreign minister, and the beginning of real negotiations over a huge range of issues: arms control; issues involving countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola where there was proxy fighting going on; human rights issues, which Reagan felt very strongly about, as did Shultz, which Gorbachev and his predecessors had resisted but Gorbachev eventually began to agree to discuss.”The capitalist Reagan and communist Gorbachev held their first meeting in Switzerland in 1985. Shultz went to Moscow to negotiate the terms of the summit and made sure the leaders kept talking in private. He was pivotal in making another summit happen in Iceland the following year.But again he was deferential to a fault, this time over Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.Taubman says: “Shultz completely understood that the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), the space-based missile defence exotic technology, was unworkable but he wasn’t brought into the discussions until the last minute, just a few days before Reagan was going to give his speech about it on national television. He opposed it. He tried to get Reagan to back away.“When that failed, he tried to get Reagan to be less grandiose about the objectives – failed in all of that. Then … he got in line, saluted and supported it right through the summit in Reykjavik in 1986 where, had Reagan been more flexible about Star Wars, they might have achieved far-reaching arms control agreements. But Reagan wouldn’t give ground.”Gorbachev visited Washington in 1987 and signed a landmark deal to scrap intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Reagan went to Moscow in 1988. The tension drained out of the cold war and Shultz was “indispensable”, Taubman argues. “He was literally the diplomat-in-chief of the United States and he and Shevardnadze were the workers in the trenches who took the impulses of Gorbachev and Reagan and turned them into negotiations and then agreements.”But Shultz’s triumph was short-lived. “He was saddened when George HW Bush came into office because Jim Baker, the incoming secretary of state, and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser, decided Reagan and Shultz had gone too far too fast with Gorbachev. They put a pause in relations and that really annoyed Shultz and disappointed him.“He probably was somewhat hopeful under [Russian president Boris] Yeltsin, where things began to look more promising again. Then with Putin he was involved in so-called ‘track two’ diplomacy, where he and Henry Kissinger and some other former American officials would go to Moscow or Beijing and have consultations with Russian and Chinese leaders, talking about things that couldn’t be talked about in official diplomatic channels. He began to realise that Putin was taking Russia back into an authoritarian model.”Shultz’s loyalty was tested again when his beloved Republican party surrendered to Trump, who in 2017 became the first US president with no political or military experience. Trump’s “America first” mantra threatened alliances Shultz and others spent decades nurturing. Yet Shultz was reluctant to speak out.Taubman recalls: “I had a very tough interview with him about this because I knew he was no fan of Donald Trump and that he could see the Republican party was taking a dark turn. So I sat down with him and I said, ‘What are you going to say about Donald Trump? The election’s coming up. Do you feel any obligation to speak out publicly?’“He bobbed and weaved and didn’t really want to say anything and then eventually he said, ‘Henry Kissinger and I are talking about what, if anything, to say.’ A number of weeks later, they did say something. But being somewhat cynical, I’m afraid, I think it was calculated to have minimal impact. They issued a statement on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, which is notoriously a time when everyone’s gone home for the long weekend, saying, ‘We two Republican stalwarts do not plan to vote for either candidate.’“So that’s not bad … but they didn’t denounce Trump and they said, ‘We’re ready to serve if asked, not in an official position, but as an informal adviser to whomever gets elected.’ They sort of punted at that point before the election.“Trump comes into office and increasingly Shultz is concerned about the direction he’s going and the party’s going but he didn’t want to speak up publicly.”Taubman remembers a private meeting in San Francisco, where Trump came up.“Shultz pulls out of his pocket the text of a speech about immigration that Reagan had given, which was a fabulous, wholehearted endorsement of the role of immigrants in American history and how they had continually revitalised the country. He read that text to that group, I think, for as blunt a rebuff of Trump as he could muster at that time.“Then he spoke out later, critically of Trump’s foreign policy. But when all this crazy stuff went down in Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani, of all people, was over there trying to undermine the US ambassador, an outrageous intervention in American foreign policy, he said nothing about it at the time.“He was not unwilling to part company with the party and certainly with Trump but he never chose to take a public stand. I don’t know to this day whether he just didn’t want to anger the president. Probably to his dying day Shultz maintained a respect for the office. Maybe he was just too old to want to engage in a battle with the party and Trump. But there’s no question he and I had private conversations and thought the party had taken a dark turn.”Shultz took a position at Stanford but there was a sour postscript to his career. In his 90s, he threw his weight behind Holmes and her company, Theranos, which promised to revolutionise blood testing. He helped form a board, raised money and encouraged his grandson, Tyler Shultz, to work at the company.When Tyler took concerns about Holmes to the media, she set her lawyers on him and put him under surveillance. Shultz refused to cut ties with Holmes, causing a deep rift in the family. In 2018, Holmes was indicted on charges involving defrauding investors and deceiving patients and doctors. Last year, she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.Taubman says: “I think, frankly, he fell in love with Elizabeth Holmes. It was not a physical relationship but I believe he was infatuated with her and she understood that and played on it in a calculating way.“She got him to do all kinds of things to help her put together her board of directors: Henry Kissinger, Bill Perry, all kinds of senior national security officials, none of whom knew the first thing about biomedical issues. Then he played a major role in selling her to the media, and suddenly she’s on the cover of Fortune and Forbes. She’s the darling of Silicon Valley.“I learned … that he wanted to talk to her every day on the telephone and she would show up at his parties. He invited her to the family Christmas dinners. It was a shocking situation, especially in retrospect.”Taubman confronted Shultz. “He continued to defend her to my amazement and, frankly, my disappointment. I came at him pretty hard and he would not let go. He wouldn’t disown her. By this point, it was clear what was going on at Theranos. This was the ultimate expression of excessive loyalty.”Shultz’s family is still bitter.“Tyler continues to be hurt by his grandfather’s conduct. Puzzled by it. He attributed it in his own podcast to either colossal misjudgment or, ‘My grandfather was in love with her or he had a huge financial benefit invested in her.’ All of which was true.“It turns out she gave George Shultz a lot of Theranos stock and, at its peak valuation, that was worth $50m, so there may have been a financial motive too. At the sentencing, George’s son Alex [Tyler’s father] testified and talked about how she had desecrated – which is a wonderful word, a very apt word – the Shultz family.”Taubman reflects: “As I was working on the biography in those last years, when I would talk to people about Shultz, there were no longer questions like, ‘Tell me about his service as secretary of state, tell me what he did to end the cold war.’ It was all, ‘What’s he doing with Elizabeth Holmes?’ It stunted his last decade.“It shouldn’t overshadow what else he did. It was a sad coda at the end of his life. When you look back, he was a major figure in the latter half of the 20th century and pivotal figure in ending the cold war. And for that he deserves enormous credit.”
      In the Nation’s Service: the Life and Times of George P Shultz is published in the US by Stanford University Press More

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      in US Politics

      Biden v Trump: US is unenthused by likely rematch of two old white men

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      It is the envy of the world for its diversity and vitality. Yet America appears on a likely course for a presidential election between a white man in his 80s and a white man in his 70s. And yes, they’re the same guys as last time.Joe Biden, the 46th president and oldest in history, this week formally launched his campaign for a second term in a video announcement. The 80-year-old faces no serious challenge from within the Democratic party and told reporters: “They’re going to see a race, and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it.”Donald Trump, the 45th president and second oldest in history, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. He holds a 46-point lead over Ron DeSantis in the latest Emerson College poll amid growing doubts over the Florida governor’s readiness for the world stage. Trump, 76, has chalked up far more endorsements from members of Congress.There is a very long way to go, and Trump faces myriad legal perils, but most pundits currently agree that a replay of the 2020 election is the most likely scenario next year – one that polls show voters have little appetite for.“I don’t think Americans want to see a sequel,” said Chris Scott, a 34-year-old Democratic strategist from Detroit, Michigan. “Americans are fed up with the Donald Trump saga, even though he still has a number of acolytes in the GOP. They’re just ready to be over that chapter and move on.“With Biden, there’s a lot of people that question: does he have the stamina to do another four years, even though there’s things in his record that have been effective and he’s gotten done? I don’t think anybody wants to see exactly the same rematch that we got four years ago.”Biden’s re-election bid was all but inevitable. This will be his fourth run for the presidency in four decades and, having finally achieved his ambition in 2020, he has little cause to walk away. He can point to arguably the most consequential legislative agenda since President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and sealed the deal with a better-than-expected performance in last year’s midterm elections, where abortion rights were a pivotal issue.Furthermore, he has no obvious challenger with the Democratic party and benefits from the same conditions as 2020: the fear that Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and the calculation and Biden is best placed to beat him.The president duly promised this week to protect American liberties from “extremists” linked to Trump. A video released by his new campaign team opened with imagery from the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.Biden said: “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we’re in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for re-election … Let’s finish this job. I know we can.”To retain the White House, Biden will need to enthuse the coalition of young voters and Black voters – particularly women – along with blue-collar midwesterners, moderates and disaffected Republicans who helped him win in 2020.But while the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders and most Democratic elected officials are backing him, voters have doubts about a man who would be 86 by the end of a prospective second term, almost a decade older than the average American male’s life expectancy.Some 44% of Democratic voters say he is too old to run, according a Reuters/Ipsos poll, although it showed him with a lead of 43% to 38% over Trump nationally. Trump also faces concerns about his age, with 35% of Republicans saying he is too old.The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that a majority of registered voters do not want either Biden or Trump to run again. But they may be stuck with it as both men are difficult to dislodge. Biden has the advantage of incumbency while Trump, as a former president with an iron-like grip on his party’s grassroots base, is a quasi-incumbent on the Republican side.Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Until both parties put something different on the ballot, what’s America going to do? Now the challenge becomes how to keep the respective party bases animated, how to engage independent voters and young people to participate in an election that they’re not thrilled about.”He observed bleakly: “There’s nothing inspirational about American politics today.”Bill Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: “I’ve believed for a long time we’re in for a rematch. There is not a lot of enthusiasm for the rematch but, in the end, people are going to choose sides very firmly and I do not expect it to be a low-turnout election.”America is diversifying culturally and racially but it is also ageing – since 2000, census records show, the national median age has increased by 3.4 years. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added: “It is still the case that people above the age of 50 vote in much higher percentages than people below the age of 50 and especially below the age of 30.“The new generation will become much more decisive when it begins to vote in numbers commensurate with its potential demographic clout. But not before.”Following Hillary Clinton v Trump in 2016, and Biden v Trump in 2020 (which saw the highest turnout in more than a century), a rematch between the two men would be the third consecutive election to foreground negative partisanship, with many voters animated by their dislike of other side’s candidate.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “Republicans have been worked into a frenzy about Biden and Democrats view Trump as the devil incarnate.“Significant numbers of ‘antis’ really hate the other person. That in itself is a driver. That helps turnout for both sides. At this moment I’ve got to think advantage Democrat. But there’s a long way to go here. There is pressure on Biden. He can’t stumble physically, he can’t make a horrible gaffe, and that’s enormous pressure.”A Biden v Trump rematch would also leave America facing its 250th birthday in 2026 with no female presidents and only one Black president in its history. It fares poorly by comparison with Australia, Britain, Finland, Germany, New Zealand and numerous nations that have elected women as leaders.Trump could choose a female running mate, with potential candidates including Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN and one of his rivals for the Republican nomination. Biden will be joined in his 2024 bid by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who features prominently in his campaign video.Bonnie Morris, a history lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, and author of books including The Feminist Revolution, said: “An interesting question is, given the concerns about Biden’s age or his possible frailty, it sets up the potential for a Black woman to take over should he be elected and fall ill.”The race is not a foregone conclusion, however. Some Republicans say they are weary of Trump’s grievance politics and boorish behaviour – and his repeated electoral defeats. DeSantis has not yet formally launched his campaign and Trump could also face competition from his former vice-president, Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott and others.Trump is uniquely vulnerable this time after becoming the first former president to face criminal charges and because of an array of investigations. In a jarring contrast to Biden’s campaign announcement, Trump was on trial in a civil lawsuit this week over writer E Jean Carroll’s accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. He has denied raping Carroll.But if Trump does prevail, Democrats insist that they can overcome voter fatigue.Malcolm Kenyatta, 32, the first openly LGBTQ+ person of colour elected to the Pennsylvania general assembly, said: “This campaign is going to be the clearest contrast that maybe you’ve ever seen because I do believe Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. A lot of times you have somebody who’s never been president running against the incumbent and they’ve talking about what they want to do. You have two presidents who have actual records.“Under Trump, you saw the most job losses of any president in American history, an economic moment of turmoil coming out of Covid. I’m excited to get out there and be a part of telling the story of what the president’s real successes have been. You don’t have to sadly vote for President Biden. I’m going to be happily, vigorously excited to vote for him because he has accomplished so much and frankly I don’t give a damn how old he is. I give a damn about what it would mean for working families like mine.” More

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      in Elections

      Mike Pence interviewed by grand jury investigating Capitol attack – live

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      From 2h agoHere’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about Mike Pence’s interview with federal investigators, and why his testimony may be so important to any case against Donald Trump:Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury on Thursday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for around seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.His appearance is a moment of constitutional consequence and potential legal peril for the former president. Pence is considered a major witness in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, since Trump pressured him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at the White House meeting with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win.The Biden administration announced on Thursday a set of new initiatives to discourage immigrants from illegally crossing into the US via the US-Mexico border.The measures include harsher crackdowns on those who do come and new pathways that offer an alternative to the dangerous journey, the Associated Press reports.Such alternatives include setting up migration centers in other countries, increasing the amount of immigrants allowed in, and faster processing of migrants seeking asylum. Those not eligible for asylum who cross over will be penalized, AP further reports.The policies come as May 11 approaches, which will end the public health rule instituted amid the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed for many migrants to be quickly expelled.The Montana governor was lobbied by his non-binary child to reject several bills that would harm transgender people in the state, according to the Guardian’s Sam Levine.
      The son of the Republican governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, met their father in his office to lobby him to reject several bills that would harm transgender people in the state, the Montana Free Press reported.
      David Gianforte told the paper they identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns – the first time they disclosed their gender identity publicly. They told the outlet they felt an obligation to use their relationship with their father to stand up for LGBTQ+ people in the state.
      “There are a lot of important issues passing through the legislature right now,” they said in a statement. “For my own sake I’ve chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights, as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends … I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly a violation of human rights.”
      Read the full article here.A Tennesee lawmaker who was previously outsted for calling for gun control after a Nashville mass shooting has spoken about Zephyr being silenced.In an interview with Democracy Now, Tennessee representative Justin Jones spoke with Zephyr about the need for continued solidarity.“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said Zephyr, after Jones said that several communities stood with Zephyr amid attempts to silence her.Earlier this week, Republicans in Montana barred the state’s sole transgender lawmaker, Democrat Zooey Zephyr, from the floor of the state House of Representatives.Their justification? That Zephyr’s interaction with protesters who were demonstrating against her earlier silencing by the House’s Republican majority amounted to “encouraging an insurrection.” The Associated Press reports that such claims have become increasingly common in recent months in state legislatures where Republicans rule. Case in point, the rhetoric used by GOP lawmakers to briefly expel two Democrats from the Tennessee state House of Representatives earlier this month.Here’s more from the AP:
      Silenced by her Republican colleagues, Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr looked up from the House floor to supporters in the gallery shouting “Let her speak!” and thrust her microphone into the air — amplifying the sentiment the Democratic transgender lawmaker was forbidden from expressing.
      While seven people were arrested for trespassing, the boisterous demonstration was free of violence or damage. Yet later that day, a group of Republican lawmakers described it in darker tones, saying Zephyr’s actions were responsible for “encouraging an insurrection.”
      It’s the third time in the last five weeks — and one of at least four times this year — that Republicans have attempted to compare disruptive but nonviolent protests at state capitols to insurrections.
      The tactic follows a pattern set over the past two years when the term has been misused to describe public demonstrations and even the 2020 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. It’s a move experts say dismisses legitimate speech and downplays the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Shortly after, the U.S. House voted to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection.”
      Ever since, many Republicans have attempted to turn the phrase on Democrats.
      “They want to ring alarm bells and they want to compare this to Jan. 6,” said Andy Nelson, the Democratic Party chair in Missoula County, which includes Zephyr’s district. “There’s absolutely no way you can compare what happened on Monday with the Jan. 6 insurrection. Violence occurred that day. No violence occurred in the gallery of the Montana House.”
      This week’s events in the Montana Legislature drew comparisons to a similar demonstration in Tennessee. Republican legislative leaders there used “insurrection” to describe a protest on the House floor by three Democratic lawmakers who were calling for gun control legislation in the aftermath of a Nashville school shooting that killed three students and three staff. Two of them chanted “Power to the people” through a megaphone and were expelled before local commissions reinstated them.
      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the latest steps in Florida authorities’ march to tighten down on voting access, as the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis edges closer to announcing a presidential campaign:Florida Republicans are on the verge of passing new restrictions on groups that register voters, a move voting rights groups and experts say will make it harder for non-white Floridians to get on the rolls.The restrictions are part of a sweeping 96-page election bill the legislature is likely to send to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk soon. The measure increases fines for third-party voter registration groups. It also shortens the amount of time the groups have to turn in any voter registration applications they collect from 14 days to 10. The bill makes it illegal for non-citizens and people convicted of certain felonies to “collect or handle” voter registration applications on behalf of third-party groups. Groups would also have to give each voter they register a receipt and be required to register themselves with the state ahead of each general election cycle. Under current law, they only have to register once and their registration remains effective indefinitely.Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports that a 2018 investigation that played a role in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the supreme court was less thorough than it appeared. If you read one Guardian story today, make it this one:A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about Mike Pence’s interview with federal investigators, and why his testimony may be so important to any case against Donald Trump:Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury on Thursday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for around seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.His appearance is a moment of constitutional consequence and potential legal peril for the former president. Pence is considered a major witness in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, since Trump pressured him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at the White House meeting with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win.Good morning, US politics blog readers. On Thursday, former vice-president Mike Pence appeared before the grand jury empaneled by special counsel Jack Smith to consider charges against Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection. The possibility that Trump could face a federal indictment over the attack, as well as his involvement in plots to stop Joe Biden from taking office and the classified materials found at Mar-a-Lago, is a major unknown in the presidential race, particularly since polls show Trump as the most popular Republican candidate. There’s no saying when Smith could make his charging recommendation, but Pence’s testimony is a reminder that the investigation remains a real threat to the former president.Here’s what’s going on today:
      House Democratic leadership will hold their weekly press conference at 10.30am eastern time. Expect plenty of railing against the debt limit proposal Republicans passed earlier this week.
      Joe Biden is keeping it low key, presenting the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy to the Air Force Falcons, champions of last year’s Armed Forces Bowl, at 2.30pm, then heading to a Democratic fundraiser in the evening.
      Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat representing deep-red West Virginia, yesterday afternoon again called on Biden to negotiate with Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy on an agreement to raise the debt limit. The president has thus far refused to do so. More