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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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      in Elections

      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 Elections

      White House switchboard called phone linked to January 6 rioter after attack

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      White House switchboard called phone linked to January 6 rioter after attackClaim of call at 4.34pm made in book by former Republican congressman and adviser to House select committee The White House switchboard dialled a phone associated with a January 6 rioter after it was clear the deadly Capitol attack had failed to prevent the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, according to a new book.The book from former Republican congressman and House January 6 select committee adviser Denver Riggleman says the connection was an outgoing call routed through the switchboard at 4.34pm, and it was answered by an unnamed rioter who allegedly has since been charged by the justice department with a role in the storming of the Capitol.The January 6 committee has its sights on Ginni Thomas. She should be worried | Kimberly WehleRead moreRiggleman’s book, titled The Breach, was reviewed by the Guardian in advance of its scheduled publication on Tuesday, and it has already become controversial after the select committee decried the work as an incomplete account that lacked information to which he was not privy once he left the panel’s inquiry in April.But in describing his work for the investigation and how he led a team analyzing call detail records, Riggleman offers previously unreported details about the White House calls around January 6 as well as the contacts around Trump’s political operatives, including Roger Stone and Alex Jones.The White House switchboard call was identified because call detail records give information about “seizure times” that indicates whether a call is answered, the book explains. In this case, the book says, there was a seizure time, indicating the call was completed.Riggleman also details other instances of connections between the White House and people connected to the Capitol attack, writing that before January 6, the president of an organization known as Latinos for Trump – closely connected to the Proud Boys group – also received a call from the White House.The Latinos for Trump president, Bianca Gracia, had a total of five connections with White House root numbers starting 202-881 or 202-456, the book said: she placed four outgoing calls and received one incoming call.The significance of the calls was not immediately clear. Sources close to the select committee have insisted that investigators chased down the leads uncovered by Riggleman and his team, but the panel could not conclusively determine the calls’ content or whether their nature was nefarious.Despite being close with the former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, and meeting with him in an underground parking garage near the Capitol the evening before the insurrection, Gracia was also chief of staff for Latinos for Trump. Therefore, Gracia’s calls may have been innocuous.Among other possible explanations, the sources said, was that she may have been in touch with a person on the Trump campaign or a person helping organize the Ellipse rally, or perhaps the White House may have reached Gracia when she had a tour of the complex around Christmas.The book also describes some of the sources and methods that Riggleman used to create phone link maps of “persons of interest” in the investigation, including the extensive effort to try to unravel who Stone was speaking with in the post-2020 election period.Stone was one of more than 20 “high-priority targets” but the panel faced an uphill battle identifying his contacts after he refused to voluntarily allow the select committee to obtain his call detail records, forcing investigators to work backwards through associates, the book says.The select committee was able to construct a detailed map of Stone’s contacts after obtaining the call detail records of Kristin Davis, also known as the Manhattan Madam, who was with Stone at the Willard hotel in Washington DC on the day before and the day of the Capitol attack.And after investigators identified Stone’s number, the book says, they compiled an intriguing map: Stone called Tarrio both before and after January 6, and he called the former Oath Keepers chief Stewart Rhodes nine days after the riot. Both have since been charged with seditious conspiracy.The number for Stone also connected to a number of prominent Republicans who each played different roles in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, including the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, and Arthur Schwartz, an aide to Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s eldest son.Riggleman, co-authoring the book with journalist Hunter Walker for the publisher Macmillan, also uses the book to characterize the former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as being at the center of the efforts to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral college win through the thousands of texts he provided to the select committee.Though most of the texts sent to and from Meadows that the book includes have previously been reported by CNN and others, the book fills in some gaps about the effort to object to the certification as well as the additional role played by Republican members of Congress.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Trump claimed ‘I was not watching television’ on January 6, book says

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      Trump claimed ‘I was not watching television’ on January 6, book says Ex-president denied knowing his supporters were rioting and called them ‘fucking crazy’, Maggie Haberman writes in new book Donald Trump denied knowing at the time the January 6 attack on the US Capitol started that a mob of his supporters – whom he privately called “fucking crazy” – were rioting, the author of a forthcoming book on his chaotic presidency writes in what may stand as one of the most surprising, non-believable postscripts of his tenure in the Oval Office.“I didn’t usually have the television on. I’d have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening,” Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming account Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.“I had heard that afterward and actually on the late side. I was having meetings. I was also with [then-chief of staff] Mark Meadows and others. I was not watching television.”Trump’s comments on what Haberman describes as one of the persistent mysteries of January 6 – what he was doing during the deadly Capitol attack – comes despite congressional testimony that he was indeed watching events that day in early 2021 when his supporters tried desperately to prevent the certification of his defeat to Joe Biden in the presidential race weeks beforehand.In an extract published in the Atlantic, Haberman writes that she was given three post-presidential opportunities to speak with Trump and found that “his impulse to try to sell his preferred version of himself was undeterred by the stain that January 6 left on his legacy and on the democratic foundations of the country – if anything, it grew stronger”.At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s “Winter White House”, the former president appeared “diminished”, she writes.Haberman continued: “After the headiness of being at the center of the world’s gaze, his time after the White House made him seem shrunken.“He often played golf and then went to his newly built office at the club for meetings with whoever traveled down to seek his approval.“He would watch television before going to dinner, where club members would sometimes applaud him, and then it would start all over again the next day, so removed from the daily rhythms of the broader world that he was oblivious to holidays on the calendar and staff had to remind him.”Within the book’s pages, Haberman reports that Trump dissed his supporters to aides ( “They’re fucking crazy”) ; that she found it “difficult to discern, though, whether Trump actually believed what he was saying about the election”; that while president he considered he was doing two jobs: “running the country and survival”.Asked about a second run for the presidency, Haberman writes, Trump “was more comfortable looking backward than forward. When I told Trump I wanted to talk about 2024, he asked, quizzically, ‘2024?’”In typical Trump style, he insulted allies that he felt had turned against him, saying of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell that “the Old Crow’s a piece of shit”.The former president also ruminated that he would not be facing civil indictment for fraud in New York under ex-state attorney general Robert Morgenthau, and he claimed that he had not taken important documents from the White House at the end of his term.“Nothing of great urgency, no,” Trump told Haberman, except letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with whom, he hinted, he was still in touch.Asked if he would do it over again, Trump said that he gets asked that question more than any other. “The answer is, yeah, I think so,” he said, according to Haberman. “Because here’s the way I look at it. I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are.”Ultimately, Haberman concludes, Trump “works things out in real time in front of all of us. Along the way, he reoriented an entire country to react to his moods and emotions.”To understand him at all, she writes, one would first have to understand the New York from which Trump emerged – “its own morass of corruption and dysfunction”.“I spent the four years of his presidency getting asked by people to decipher why he was doing what he was doing, but the truth is, ultimately, almost no one really knows him,” Haberman writes. “Some know him better than others, but he is often simply, purely opaque, permitting people to read meaning and depth into every action, no matter how empty they might be.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel to take up key unanswered questions in final hearing

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      January 6 panel to take up key unanswered questions in final hearingWednesday’s session is committee’s last chance to show potential culpability of Donald Trump before midterm elections The House January 6 select committee is expected to hold its final public hearing next Wednesday, with the congressional investigation into the US Capitol attack nearing its conclusion as staff counsel prepare to produce an interim report of its findings before the 2022 midterm elections.The specific topic of the final hearing that the panel’s chairman, Congressman Bennie Thompson, will convene starting at 1pm is unclear.But the select committee is expected to make headway on some of the most pressing questions about January 6 that remain unanswered since the panel last convened in July and made the case that Donald Trump violated the law by refusing to take action to call off the Capitol attack, sources said.Virginia Thomas agrees to interview with House January 6 panelRead moreThe principal issues at play include whether there was a concrete through-line from the former president to political operatives like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, who were in close contact with the far-right extremist groups – including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers – that stormed Congress.The select committee has found some circumstantial evidence about such ties and previously revealed that Trump directed his then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to call both Stone and Flynn the night before January 6 as the extremist groups finalized their plans for the day.Another issue for House investigators is whether Trump’s ouster of former defense secretary Mark Esper was an effort to install in his place a loyalist who might have had no objection to using the national guard to seize voting machines or delay their deployment to stop the Capitol attack.The select committee has viewed the plot to seize voting machines – suggested by Flynn during a contentious White House meeting in December 2020, hours before Trump sent a tweet urging his supporters to attend a “wild protest” on January 6 – as a crucial moment in the overall timeline.House investigators have also spent time in recent weeks examining Microsoft Teams chats and emails sent between Secret Service agents on security details for Trump and former vice-president Mike Pence that day, as well as discussions about invoking martial law even after the Capitol attack.The hearing on Wednesday is likely to touch on some of those issues, the sources said, in the last opportunity for the select committee to show potential culpability by Trump and Republican members of Congress on national television before the midterm elections take place in early November.Trump’s attempts to delay Mar-a-Lago inquiry largely fail as legal woes mountRead moreWith their control of the House and Senate hanging in the balance, this hearing is also widely being seen on Capitol Hill as the final chance for Democrats to persuade voters that the midterms are a referendum on the Republican party’s role in January 6.Part of the reason the Wednesday hearing is expected to be the final one is because next week is the last that the House is in session until the midterms, and the panel was reluctant to schedule an event during campaign season, when committee members like Elaine Luria face uphill re-election battles.The select committee is also starting to shift its focus away from the made-for-television hearings – which have required time-consuming preparation and rehearsals – and towards putting together an interim report in the coming weeks as well as a final report by the end of the year.The panel remained undecided on the final direction of each of the reports, the sources said, as well as whether to make a criminal referral to the justice department against Trump and key aides, including his former lawyer John Eastman, who orchestrated the fake elector scheme.Once a major priority, the need for such a referral appears to have diminished in recent weeks. Subpoenas reviewed by the Guardian show the justice department is pursuing at least three investigations examining January 6 and issued more than 30 subpoenas to top Trump aides.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turn

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      We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turn Andy Campbell has delivered a smart, well-written and brilliantly reported book about the street gang allied to Donald Trump and the GOP he commandsAndy Campbell has produced a smart, well-written and brilliantly reported book about another loathsome progeny of the most dangerous union of our time, the horror couple responsible for so many of the burgeoning threats to American democracy: Donald Trump and the internet.Proud Boys memo reveals meticulous planning for ‘street-level violence’Read moreIts subject is the Proud Boys, racist, beer-addled and violence-addicted street fighters who have become best friends with many of Trump’s warmest supporters, from Ann Coulter to Roger Stone.Coulter and Stone have both bragged about using these modern Brown Shirts as bodyguards. Stone even allowed himself to be filmed for a video in which he took the Proud Boys oath: “I’m a western chauvinist. I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”Coulter credited the group with saving her life when “2,000 antifa”, leftwing protesters, tried to shut down a speech at UC Berkeley. If she hadn’t invited 20 Proud Boys, she said, she “might not have made it to the campus at all”.The Proud Boys are “brawny, tattooed brutes”, Coulter cooed.As Campbell puts it, the Proud Boys have “proven that you can make it as a fascist gang of hooligans in this country, as long as you make the right friends”.The organization’s father is Gavin McInnes, 52, a child of Scots who moved to Canada. In Montreal in the early 1990s McInnes founded a magazine called Pervert, which in 1999 he and two others rebranded as Vice. He moved the magazine to New York a couple of years later, then left in 2008.In spring 2016, on his own talkshow, he declared his main priority: “I want violence. I want punching in the face. I’m disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough.”Not long after that, he “announced that he’d turned his audience into a gang”. He called them the Proud Boys.McInnes’s alliance with the GOP warmed up after he was invited to speak at the headquarters of the New York state Republican party in October 2018.Members were undaunted when their intended guest announced on Instagram that he planned to reenact an “inspiring moment … the political assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, the former leader of the Japan Socialist party, who was killed during a debate on live TV when a far-right ultranationalist rushed the stage and pushed a sword between his ribs”.Then he photoshopped an image of himself “with the eyes and clothing of the Japanese assassin”.Republicans loved it. On Facebook, they responded: “This Godfather of the Hipster Movement has taken on and exposed the Deep State Socialists and stood up for Western Values. Join us for an unforgettable evening with one of Liberty’s Loudest Voices.”After his speech, McInnes left the club with his sword. But Proud Boys “and their skinhead pals” attacked a handful of antifascist protesters after one knocked a MAGA hat from one of their heads.“They turned it into a pummeling,” a Huffington Post reporter remembered. “This was three people on the ground and people just kicking the shit out of them.”The two most violent attackers were each sentenced to four years in prison. The judge didn’t hesitate to draw the appropriate parallel to 1930s Germany. Mark Dwyer, of the New York state supreme court, said he knew what had happened then, “when political street brawls were allowed to go ahead without any type of check from the criminal justice system. We don’t want that to happen in New York”.Regardless, the New York brawl became another opportunity for the Republican establishment to normalize fascist behavior. Immediately after the attack, Fox News quoted Ed Cox, the Republican state chairman (and son-in-law of Richard Nixon) as “calling on Democrats to cease inciting these attacks”.As Campbell writes, the event at the Republican club was “a jumping-off point for the GOP into what would eventually become a full embrace of domestic extremist violence”.Kelly Weill, a reporter who covers domestic extremism, explained, the Proud Boys “really embody the political violence the GOP needs just a little bit of a proxy for. They can’t personally be out there doing it, so they have the Proud Boys”.It only took two more years for the Proud Boys to get an official, nationally televised presidential imprimatur, after Joe Biden suggested during a 2020 debate that they were one of the groups Trump should have denounced long ago. Trump said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”01:16Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a former FBI informant and convicted felon who had become the Proud Boys chairman, described the effect of Trump’s declaration.“We got mentioned, and my life has not been the same since,” Tarrio told Campbell. “My phone started blowing up off the hook. I had 10 fucking news trucks at my house the next morning. I didn’t sleep for … two days.”The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreTrump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, who turned on his former boss after pleading guilty to charges related to tax evasion and lying to Congress, was sure the president made his statement on purpose.“If you look at who the Proud Boys really are,” said Cohen, “they’re an army. This is Trump’s army … and when he loses he’s going to use them to try and keep control of power.”Which of course is what happened. Proud Boys were some of the most active players when Trump urged the crowd in front of him on 6 January 2021 to march on the US Capitol.Thirteen months after the deadly attack, the Republican endorsement of fascist violence became official: the Republican National Committee unanimously approved a resolution which memorialized the Capitol attack as nothing more than “legitimate political discourse.”Campbell’s book provides an indispensable account of exactly how the Grand Old Party reached that disgraceful destination.
      We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism is published in the US by Hachette
      TopicsBooksThe far rightUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More

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      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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      Nick Clegg to decide on Trump’s 2023 return to Instagram and Facebook

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      Nick Clegg to decide on Trump’s 2023 return to Instagram and FacebookMeta’s president of global affairs said it would be a decision ‘I oversee’ after the ex-president’s accounts were suspended in 2021 Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, is charged with deciding whether Donald Trump will be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram in 2023, Clegg said on Thursday.Speaking at an event held in Washington by news organization Semafor, Clegg said the company was seriously debating whether Trump’s accounts should be reinstated and said it was a decision that “I oversee and I drive”.Judge asks Trump’s team for proof that FBI planted documents at Mar-a-Lago Read moreClegg added that while he will be making the final call, he will consult the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook board of directors and outside experts.“It’s not a capricious decision,” he said. “We will look at the signals related to real-world harm to make a decision whether at the two-year point – which is early January next year – whether Trump gets reinstated to the platform.”The former president was suspended from a number of online platforms, including those owned by Meta, following the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot during which Trump used his social media accounts to praise and perpetuate the violence.While Twitter banned Trump permanently, Meta suspended Trump’s accounts for two years, to be later re-evaluated. In May 2021, a temporary ban was upheld by Facebook’s oversight board – a group of appointed academics and former politicians meant to operate independently of Facebook’s corporate leadership.However, the board returned the final decision on Trump’s accounts to Meta, suggesting the company decide in six months whether to make the ban permanent. Clegg said that decision will be made by 7 January 2023.Clegg previously served as Britain’s deputy prime minister and joined Facebook as vice‑president for global affairs and communications in 2018. In February, he was promoted to the top company policy executive role.In the years since he began at Meta, Clegg has seen the company through a number of scandals, including scrutiny of its policies during the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook’s role in the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the revelations made by whistleblower Frances Haugen.TopicsDonald TrumpNick CleggMark ZuckerbergFacebookInstagramUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More