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      Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message

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      With their majority at stake, Democrats plan to use the six high-profile hearings to refocus voters’ attention on Republicans’ role in the attack.WASHINGTON — Seventeen months after a mob of Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol with false claims of a stolen election, House Democrats plan to use a landmark set of investigative hearings beginning this week to try to refocus voters’ attention on Jan. 6, aiming to tie Republicans directly to an unprecedented plot to undermine democracy itself.With their control of Congress hanging in the balance, Democrats plan to use made-for-television moments and a carefully choreographed rollout of revelations over the course of six hearings to remind the public of the magnitude of Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election, and to persuade voters that the coming midterm elections are a chance to hold Republicans accountable for it.It is an uphill battle at a time when polls show that voters’ attention is focused elsewhere, including on inflation, rising coronavirus cases and record-high gas prices. But Democrats argue the hearings will give them a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.“When these hearings are over, voters will know how irresponsibly complicit Republicans were in attempting to toss out their vote and just how far Republicans will go to gain power for themselves,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democratic campaign chair.The select committee investigating the attack, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, says it has approached its work in a sober, apolitical manner and will present its findings as such. But it is clear that the hearings, coming five months before midterm elections in which Democrats are bracing for big losses, carry high political stakes.The hope among Democrats is that the committee’s findings, collected from 1,000 witnesses and over 140,000 documents, will do most of the messaging work for them. Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, has promised the hearings will “blow the roof off the House.”They have retained an experienced television executive to ensure that happens and organized scores of watch parties across the country in hopes of generating interest. But they are facing an onslaught from Republicans who are bent on denying, downplaying and obfuscating the truth of what happened in their own messaging operation aimed at discrediting the inquiry.And Democrats are up against the reality that the raw emotions in the aftermath of the attack have faded, even among voters who care about the facts, as attention has turned to an ongoing war in Ukraine, gun violence at home and a deep pessimism about the state of the economy.Their task is to persuade voters that the Jan. 6 attack revealed bigger and more important issues at stake, including the Republican Party’s alignment with violent extremists and its decision to make adherence to the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen a test of membership.Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, said on Twitter that the hearings would “fully expose the cult’s extreme effort to overthrow the U.S. government.”A significant portion of the first hearing on Thursday evening will focus on the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the storming of the Capitol, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.It is scheduled to include testimony from a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the group during the storming of the building, and a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured in an assault said to be triggered by the Proud Boys.The goal is to provide the public with a more in-depth portrait of what unfolded on Jan. 6 than the images that played out on television that day, and to reveal the extent of what the panel called a “coordinated, multistep effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.”Norman L. Eisen, who was hired by the Judiciary Committee to serve as special counsel during the first Trump impeachment, said Democrats had learned from some of their successes and misfires during those hearings, but still faced challenges.“They need to have three things: the attention-grabbing power of new evidence, the spontaneous drama created by live witnesses and the oldest trick in the book: telling a good story,” Mr. Eisen said. “The risk is, there’s an enormous amount of anticipation and buildup.”Still, some Democratic operatives believe the political payoff could be substantial, both in energizing the party’s core supporters and in appealing to independent voters who may turn against Republicans based on what they see and hear.Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications, a progressive political consulting firm, has been conducting focus groups with voters. She said both Democratic “base surge voters” and “swing voters” were motivated by increased attention on the Capitol riot.“Jan. 6 is very much salient and highly negative to these likely midterm voters,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio told activists on a recent call promoting the hearings.Democrats have met with networks about carrying the hearing live in prime time. Activists have scheduled more than 90 watch events in various states, including a “flagship” event at the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon in Washington, where a large screen will be set up and attendees will get free ice cream.“It’s everything from a family-gathering-in-the-living-room-type event to hosting it in a union hall to hosting it on a big field with a Jumbotron,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the progressive group Public Citizen.In an attempt to keep the hearing from becoming too dry and disconnected from the visceral reality of the attack, the committee is tentatively planning to play video of the Capitol attack and considering airing clips of key testimony from high-profile witnesses, such as the former White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.As it tries to deliver the equivalent of the Watergate hearings for the streaming era, the committee has brought on the former president of ABC News, James Goldston, a move reported earlier by Axios, to help fit the hearings into six tight episodes, running between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours.The committee has brought on the former president of ABC News, James Goldston, to help create six tight episodes from the hearings.Bennett Raglin/Getty ImagesRepublican lawmakers have already begun pushing a counternarrative to dismiss the hearings as nothing more than political theater at a moment when Americans are more concerned with kitchen-table issues like the rising price of gas and a baby formula shortage.“Instead of focusing on $5 gas, 6,000 illegal immigrants a day, record fentanyl deaths, or the violent criminals terrorizing America democrats use taxpayer money on a TV producer for the prime time political infomercial from the Jan 6th circus,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said on Twitter on Monday.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican who was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during the first impeachment hearing, will oversee the effort to discredit the committee’s findings, coordinating with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They plan to book Republican lawmakers on television to push a debunked claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for the attack.Representative Elise Stefanik, who emerged as Mr. Trump’s chief defender during the first impeachment hearing, has begun referring to the committee’s work as a “political sham witch hunt.”Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMs. Stefanik has begun referring to the committee’s work as a “political sham witch hunt,” echoing the same language Mr. Trump used to try to undermine Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. A person familiar with Republican plans said they also had a “rapid response” operation to try to counter the committee’s revelations.The hearings are expected to flesh out various aspects of the investigation, including Mr. Trump’s promotion of a lie of a stolen election, despite being told his claims were false; his attempts to misuse the Justice Department to cling to power; the pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to persuade him to throw out electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.; how the mob assembled and descended onto D.C. on Jan. 6; and how Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the violence for more than three hours while the assault was underway.The Jan. 6 committee is tentatively planning to play video of the Capitol attack and considering airing clips of key testimony from high-profile witnesses.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThe committee has not yet nailed down the full slate of witnesses and is still discussing the possibility of public testimony with several high-profile Trump-era officials.The panel is waiting for Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, to respond to formal requests to testify, according to two people briefed on the matter.Both Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue have already told multiple congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to say falsely that it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the results.The committee is still in informal talks with Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, as well as Byung J. Pak, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who abruptly resigned on Jan. 4, 2021, after learning that Mr. Trump planned to fire him for not finding voter fraud, according to those people familiar with the discussions.Katie Benner More

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      A Broken Redistricting Process Winds Down, With No Repairs in Sight

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      WASHINGTON — The brutal once-a-decade process of drawing new boundaries for the nation’s 435 congressional districts is limping toward a close with the nation’s two political parties roughly at parity. But the lessons drawn from how they got there offer little cheer for those worried about the direction of the weary American experiment.The two parties each claimed redistricting went its way. But some frustrated Democrats in states like Texas, Florida and Ohio sounded unconvinced as Republicans, who have controlled the House in 10 of the last 15 elections despite losing the popular vote in seven of them, seemed to fare better than Democrats at tilting political maps decisively in their direction in key states they controlled.At the least, political analysts said, Republicans proved more relentless at shielding such maps from court challenges, through artful legal maneuvers and blunt-force political moves that in some cases challenged the authority of the judicial system.And, to many involved in efforts to replace gerrymanders with competitive districts, the vanishing number of truly contested House races indicated that whoever won, the voters lost. A redistricting cycle that began with efforts to demand fair maps instead saw the two parties in an arms race for a competitive advantage.“Once the fuel has been added to the fire, it’s very hard to back away from it,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the advocacy group Common Cause. “Now it’s not just the operatives in the back room, which is where it started. It’s not just technology. It’s not just legislators being shameless about drawing lines. It’s governors and state officials and sometimes even courts leaning in to affirm these egregious gerrymanders.”Democrats pulled nearly even — in terms of the partisan lean of districts, if not the party’s prospects for success in the November midterms — largely by undoing some Republican gerrymanders through court battles and ballot initiatives, and by drawing their own partisan maps. But the strategy at times succeeded too well, as courts struck down Democratic maps in some states, and ballot measures kept party leaders from drawing new ones in others.New York is a particularly glaring example. In April, the seven Democratic justices on New York’s highest court blew up an aggressive gerrymander of the state’s 26 congressional districts that had been expected to net Democrats three new House seats. The court’s replacement map, drawn by an independent expert, pits Democratic incumbents against each other and creates new swing districts that could cost Democrats seats.Weeks later in Florida, where voters approved a ban on partisan maps in 2010, the State Supreme Court, comprising seven Republican justices, declined to stop the implementation of a gerrymander of the state’s 28 congressional districts. The ruling preserves the new map ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, that could net his party four new House seats. The ruling cited procedural issues in allowing the map to take effect, but many experts said there was never much doubt about the result.In New York, Democrats ignored a voter-approved constitutional mandate that districts “not be drawn to discourage competition” or favor political parties. And in Republicans’ view, Democrats sabotaged a bipartisan commission that voters set up to draw fair maps.“The Democrats seriously overreached,” said John J. Faso, a Republican and former New York state assemblyman and U.S. representative. The bipartisan commission, he added, “is what people voted for.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.But in Ohio, Republicans who gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts this spring also ignored a voter-approved constitutional ban on partisan maps. They not only successfully defied repeated orders by the State Supreme Court to obey it, but suggested that the court’s chief justice, a Republican, be impeached for rejecting the maps drawn by the state’s Republican-dominated redistricting commission.State Representative Doug Richey of Missouri, a Republican, showed fellow lawmakers a proposed congressional redistricting map in May.David A. Lieb, Associated PressOf the approximately 35 states where politicians ultimately control congressional redistricting — the remainder either rely on independent commissions or have only one House seat — the first maps of House seats approved in some 14 states fit many statistical measures of gerrymandering used by political scientists.One of the most extreme congressional gerrymanders added as many as three new Democratic House seats in staunchly blue Illinois. Texas Republicans drew a new map that turned one new House seat and eight formerly competitive ones into G.O.P. bastions.Republicans carved up Kansas City, Kan.; Salt Lake City; Nashville; Tampa, Fla.; Little Rock, Ark.; Oklahoma City and more to weaken Democrats. Democrats moved boundaries in New Mexico and Oregon to dilute Republican votes.Most gerrymanders were drawn by Republicans, in part because Republicans control more state governments than Democrats do. But Democrats also began this redistricting cycle with a built-in handicap: The 2020 census markedly undercounted Democratic-leaning constituencies, like Blacks and Hispanics.Because those missed residents were concentrated in predominantly blue cities, any additional new urban districts probably would have elected Democrats to both congressional and state legislative seats, said Kimball W. Brace, a demographer who has helped Democratic leaders draw political maps for decades.Undoing those gerrymanders has proved a hit-or-miss proposition.Lawsuits in state courts dismantled Republican partisan maps in North Carolina and Democratic ones in New York and Maryland. But elsewhere, Republicans seized on the Supreme Court’s embrace of a once-obscure legal doctrine to keep even blatant gerrymanders from being blocked. The doctrine, named the Purcell principle after a 2006 federal lawsuit, says courts should not change election laws or rules too close to an election — how close is unclear — for fear of confusing voters.Alabama’s congressional map, drawn by Republicans, will be used in the November election, even though a panel of federal judges ruled it a racial gerrymander. The reason, the Supreme Court said in February, is that the decision came too close to primary elections.The delay game played out most glaringly during the extended process in Ohio, where ballot initiatives approved by voters in 2015 established a bipartisan redistricting commission that Republicans have dominated. Federal judges ordered the gerrymandered G.O.P. maps of Ohio House and Senate districts to be used for this year’s elections, even though the state’s high court had rejected them.When a State Supreme Court deadline for the commission to submit maps of legislative districts for legal review came due last week, Republicans simply ignored it.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Democrats Can Win This Fall if They Make One Key Promise

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      Democrats hope to make November’s midterm elections a referendum on Roe v. Wade, the linchpin decision upholding abortion rights, which the Supreme Court is almost certain to strike down this summer. That strategy makes sense. Polls show that roughly two in three Americans oppose overturning Roe and almost 60 percent support passing a bill to set Roe’s protections in a federal law. What’s more, polls showed a rising number of voters listing abortion as their top midterm issue after news of Roe’s imminent demise leaked in the form of a draft court opinion published by Politico.Unfortunately, their current plan is almost sure to fail.After the Democrats came up with just 49 votes to bring a Roe-protecting bill before the Senate on May 11, they promised to keep fighting and, in the words of Senator Amy Klobuchar, “take that fight right to the ballot box” in November. But you can’t make an election into a referendum on an issue if you can’t point to anything winning the election would accomplish. To make the 2022 elections a referendum on Roe, Democrats have to put protecting Roe and abortion rights on the table.Here’s one way to do that: get clear public commitments from every Senate Democrat (and candidate for Senate) not only to vote for the Roe bill in January 2023 but also to change the filibuster rules to ensure that a majority vote would actually pass the bill and send it to the White House for the president’s signature.At present, there are likely 48 Senate Democrats who can make that pledge. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are dead set against any changes to the filibuster — a fact you likely know because most of President Biden’s agenda has been bottled up behind their refusal for the past year. Some claim that Senators Manchin and Sinema are just taking the public heat for a number of other Senate Democrats who are also unwilling to change the filibuster rules. That’s highly unlikely. But if any do have misgivings, that’s why the public commitments are so important. Getting a list of holdouts down to a publicly named handful is the first step to persuading them to fall in line.If my math is right and there are 48 Senate Democrats ready to make that pledge, they need two additional Democratic senators in the next Congress. And that is the party’s message that makes the 2022 midterms a referendum on Roe: “Give us the House and two more senators, and we will make Roe law in January 2023.”No ambiguity, no haggling, no living in Senator Manchin’s head for a year. You give us this, and we’ll give you that. That tells voters exactly what will be delivered with a Democratic win. It also defines what constitutes a win: control of the House and two more Senate seats.The campaign message is clear: If you want to protect Roe, give us those majorities. If this is your passion, here’s where to channel that passion. These are the Senate seats we need to hold (in New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada) and here are the ones we need to win (in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and possibly in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina). With those commitments in hand, one question should be on the lips of every Democratic candidate. Will you make a firm commitment to never vote for a federal law banning abortion nationwide?Few, if any, Republicans would be able to make that pledge. And their evasions wouldn’t just make them look ridiculous; that would put squarely on the table the very real threat that Republicans would enact a nationwide abortion ban as soon as January 2025. That could prove enough to win Senate races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio.In a way, though, this strategy isn’t so much about winning the 2022 midterms or even making Roe into a federal law, although it’s the best way to accomplish both. It’s just an example of how you win elections.Effective campaigns are built on connecting the intense beliefs of the electorate — their hopes and fears — directly to the hard mechanics of political power. You’ve got to connect those wires. If you were testing some new electrical contraption, that’s the first thing you’d do: make sure the energy supply is wired to the engine that makes it run. This is no different. Without tying a specific electoral result to a clear commitment to a specific legislative action after the elections, you’re not connecting those wires.What Democrats would be proposing is a classic small-c conservative solution in the best sense of the word. Codifying Roe would preserve the set of rights and protections that the vast majority of Americans have lived their entire adult lives with and that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want to change. The threat that the court will strike down such a law is real but overstated. And in any case, refusing to act because of what opponents might do is the definition of political paralysis.So how do Democrats get from here to there?They likely can’t rely on the party’s leaders, at least not at first. But they’re not essential. It’s really up to voters and activists and particularly committed members of Congress. Probably half the Democrats in the Senate would be happy to sign on this dotted line by the end of the day. Those who are up for re-election, even in safe races, will come around quickly.Some senators may resist at first. And that wouldn’t be surprising. Politicians seldom see any advantage to committing themselves in advance or reducing their room for maneuver. It’s always safer to keep your options open and be as general as possible until the final moment. That’s why assembling a clear public list of commitments is critical. Once the list gets down to a handful of hesitaters, the pressure from Democrats nationwide, focused on those members, will be overwhelming. If there are real holdouts, they’ll fold in short order.You don’t need to wait on Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or President Biden. You can get the ball rolling by calling up your Democratic senator today.Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) is the founder and editor in chief of the political news website TPM.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in US Politics

      Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public?

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      Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public? The first of eight congressional hearings will start on Thursday but emulating the impact of 1973’s Watergate sessions will be hard in today’s fractured media and political environmentOn Thursday the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will open the first of eight hearings, marking the turning point when “one of the single most important congressional investigations in history”, as the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney billed it, will finally go public.It will be the culmination of almost a year of intensive activity that, aside from a succession of leaks, has largely been conducted in private. More than 1,000 people have been called for depositions and interviews to cast light on the events of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in answer to Donald Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to prevent Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelRead moreThe committee has collected 125,000 documents, pursued almost 500 leads through its confidential tip line. It has examined text messages between Trump’s closest advisers and family members discussing how to keep the defeated president in power; reviewed memos from conservative lawyers laying out a roadmap to an electoral coup; and listened to recorded conversations in which top Republicans revealed their true feelings about Trump’s actions “inciting people” to attack the heart of US democracy.Now the nine-member committee, Cheney included, have a different – and arguably more difficult – job to do. They must let the American people into their deliberations, share with them key facts and exhibits, grill witnesses in front of them, and through it all begin to build a compelling narrative of how ferociously Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election – and how close he came to succeeding.“It’s important that we tell the American public, to the best we are able, exactly what happened,” said Zoe Lofgren, a congresswoman from California who is among the seven Democratic members of the committee. “The public need to understand the stakes for our system of government, and we need to devise potential changes in legislation or procedures to protect ourselves in future.”In an interview with the Guardian, Lofgren was hesitant to get into details of the investigation. But asked whether she has been surprised by the breadth and depth of the plot to overturn the 2020 election and the extent to which it was organized, she replied: “The short answer is yes.”Lofgren brings to Thursday’s opening session her deep personal understanding of the dynamic role played by congressional hearings in recent American history. She has had a ringside seat, initially as a staff observer and then as an elected participant, in many of the most significant hearings stretching back to Watergate.At the time of the Watergate hearings in May 1973, when she was still a young law student, Lofgren worked as an intern for Don Edwards, a Democrat on the judiciary committee. She sees similarities between today’s January 6 investigation and the way Nixon’s cover-up of the Watergate break-in was teased out by Congress, starting with inquiries behind closed doors and then bursting out into explosive televised Senate proceedings.“Much of what the judiciary committee did in Watergate – like January 6 – was behind closed doors,” Lofgren said. “I remember various Nixon functionaries being deposed in the committee back rooms.”Once sufficient intelligence was amassed, it was time to let the public in. “Ultimately, you have to let people know what you have found.”The Watergate hearings became a national obsession, with millions of Americans tuning in to ABC, CBS or NBC which scrapped normal scheduling to broadcast the deliberations live. The New York Times called them “the biggest daytime spectacular in years”.There was so much viewer demand that the networks ran replays at night. It was worth it, to experience such spine-tingling moments as the former White House counsel John Dean being asked: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”, or to be present when another assistant, Alexander Butterfield, revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes.Lofgren does not expect the January 6 hearings to grip the nation to the all-encompassing extent that Watergate did. Times have changed, not least the media.“During Watergate there were three TV channels and that’s how everybody got their news – if Walter Cronkite said it was true, it must be true, right?” Lofgren said. “Today people are getting their information from a multiplicity of sources, and we need to deal with that and make sure we are finding people where they are.”It’s not just how media is consumed that has changed, it’s also how media itself approaches public hearings. During Watergate, TV anchors responded to Nixon’s jibes that they were peddlers of “elitist gossip” – a foreshadow of Trump’s “fake news” – by keeping their commentary to a bare minimum.In today’s universe, by contrast, the January 6 hearings are likely to be subjected to heavy spin that will leave individual Americans with drastically different impressions according to which media bubble they are in.Kathryn Cramer Brownell, associate professor of history at Purdue University, has studied the measured way television handled the Watergate hearings. She said it stands starkly apart from, say, how Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House judiciary committee on his Russia investigation was transmitted to the American people in 2019.“Fox News tried to spin the information as it was coming out of the Mueller proceedings, so people were receiving the information as it was filtered through that instant spin. That can change their understanding,” she said.Brownell has highlighted how the advent of the TV age elevated congressional hearings to another level. Before television, hearings such as those into the Titanic disaster in 1912 or the 1923 Teapot Dome scandal could still command the nation’s attention, but it was the small screen that supercharged them into major political events.By being beamed into millions of Americans’ living rooms, they had the power to turn individual Congress members into superstars. Ironically the beneficiaries included Nixon who came to prominence in the 1948 Red Scare investigation against Alger Hiss; he was followed soon after by Estes Kefauver in the 1950 investigation against organized crime.Oliver North became a bogey figure for progressives and a darling of the right after his appearance in the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.Hearings also have the reverse power to tear down politicians who go too far, as the Republican senator Joe McCarthy discovered to his cost in his 1954 televised hearings into alleged communist infiltration of the US army. McCarthy’s reign of terror was abruptly brought to a close when the army’s lawyer Joseph Welch challenged him with the now legendary refrain: “Have you no sense of decency?”In the end, congressional hearings are likely only to be as compelling as the matter they are addressing – whether anti-communism, organized crime or presidential misconduct. That should play to the January 6 committee’s advantage: it would be hard to imagine more essential subject material than an assault on democracy itself.“If we believe in the rule of law and democratic norms, then we have to make this effort,” said Jeannie Rhee, a partner in the law firm Paul, Weiss who frequently represents witnesses in congressional hearings. “What we do in this moment, how we proceed – that is imperative.”Rhee led the team investigating Russian cyber and social media interference in the 2016 presidential election within the Mueller investigation. She now represents the attorney general of Washington DC in the prosecution of far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their part in the January 6 insurrection.As an immigrant, Rhee said, for her, the upcoming hearings are deeply personal. Her father was a student protester in the 1960s fighting for democratic reforms in South Korea, and it was America’s free and fair elections and peaceful transition of presidential power that led him to relocate their family to the US.“I came to the US with my parents in 1977 and it was my father’s greatest dream to be able to stay here. I remember my mother dressing me up in my Sunday church clothes to pay respects to the nation’s Capitol. I live here now, and my father has passed away. I think about him often in relation to what is unfolding, and whether this is the country he knew.”Rhee sees the challenge facing the January 6 committee as bridging the growing political divide by laying out facts around which most Americans can coalesce. She thinks the best way to conduct the hearings is to let what happened on that fateful day speak for itself.“The less the members talk and the more the witnesses and victims and people who were there tell their own truth, the more powerful that will be,” she said.The job of letting the facts do the talking will be complicated, though, by the fact that the Republican leadership in the House is effectively boycotting the hearings. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, decided not to appoint members to the panel after the Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, rejected two of his choices.The two participating Republican members – Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – have both been censured by the Republican National Committee. The official view of the House leadership is that January 6 – which led to the deaths of seven people and injured more than 140 police officers – was “legitimate political discourse”.Many of the most important witnesses around Trump have refused to play ball with the investigation. Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino have all been held in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to respond to subpoenas, and Bannon and Navarro have been indicted by a federal grand jury (the justice department said on Friday it would not charge Scavino and Meadows).Many other top Republicans have invoked their fifth amendment right to silence in answer to every question they were posed. Those resisting testifying include five members of Congress, McCarthy among them.That’s a sign of how far the canker of political discord has spread within Congress, and how far the Republican party has shifted in a fundamentally anti-democratic direction. Consider by contrast the fact that the lethal Watergate question about what the president knew and when he knew it was asked by a senator from Nixon’s own Republican party, Howard Baker from Tennessee.“Congressional hearings have become increasingly partisan-driven,” said Stanley Brand, a former general counsel to the House who has legally represented numerous people called to testify before Congress spanning decades. “From the Clinton administration, through the Republican House’s investigation of the IRS and Benghazi, political lines are being drawn quicker and harder, and now there’s much more effort put on political point scoring.”Brand, who is representing Scavino in his battle to resist the January 6 committee, thinks that by opting out over the hearings the Republicans have fundamentally changed their nature. “Every party has to decide how much it wants to participate, but I’ve never known a big hearing like this with only one side represented – that’s a major difference.”Secret Service were warned of security risk to Pence day before Capitol attackRead moreBrand, a Democrat, thinks that partisanship is also being displayed by the Democratic leadership. He accuses the January 6 committee of straying well beyond its official remit as laid down by the US supreme court – an oversight role in which Congress informs itself for the purpose of writing legislation.He interprets the committee’s aggressive pursuit of witnesses as an attempt to push the justice department into bringing charges against key Trump individuals. “This committee has acted more like a prosecutorial agency than a legislative agency of any congressional investigation in which I’ve been involved in 50 years,” Brand said.Lofgren disputes the claim. “We’ve made it very clear that we are a legislative committee and the Department of Justice are the prosecutors,” she said.Any consideration of bringing prosecutions after the hearings have concluded, she added, “is beyond our purview”.As she prepares for the momentous start of the public hearings, Lofgren had some tough words for the Republican holdouts. She noted that in Watergate Republican leaders were also initially resistant, disputing claims that Nixon had acted improperly. But as soon as he admitted key details, they changed tack.“The difference with the Republican leadership today is that they know they are lying. It’s pretty clear that some of my Republican colleagues – not all – are willing to lie for power,” Lofgren said.What does she hope the hearings will achieve?“I hope they will tell the complete truth about what happened in a way that can be accepted and understood by the broad spectrum of American society, leading to a reinvigorated love of our democratic republic and system of elections.”That is a tall order.“You know, you don’t get anywhere by thinking small,” she said. “We’ll do the best we can, that’s all we can do, and hope this will be an important moment for America.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Republicans Elevate Diverse Recruits in Bid to Win House Majority

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      The G.O.P.’s plan to win back the House rests on candidates of color who leaders hope can help broaden the party’s appeal. TUCSON, Ariz. — When Juan Ciscomani first brought his family to his new congressional campaign office in the Catalina foothills, his father asked him: “Do you know where we are?”This was the same upscale neighborhood where a teenage Juan and his father, who immigrated from Mexico and took a job driving city buses, used to come early in the mornings to wash expensive cars to help make ends meet. Years later, the younger Mr. Ciscomani is one of House Republicans’ top recruits in the country, running to flip a key congressional seat just blocks from where they once worked to scrape by. “Two blocks away — it dawned on us,” Mr. Ciscomani recalled in an interview. “Then he said his favorite phrase: ‘Only in America.’”If Republicans win back the House majority in the November elections, it will be because of candidates like Mr. Ciscomani. In the nation’s most competitive congressional districts, Republicans have aggressively recruited people of color with powerful personal stories to tell, betting that compelling candidates, equipped with disciplined messages that focus on kitchen table issues like inflation and public safety, will deliver them control of the House.Republicans saw the potency of the strategy in 2020, when handicappers and pollsters predicted that Democrats would expand their majority. Instead, Democrats did not gain a single new seat while Republican candidates — women, minorities and veterans — won 15. Party operatives attributed the success to their decision to follow Democrats’ winning formula in 2018, recruiting a diverse group of candidates who helped propel them to gaining control of the House. Now, Republicans say it is a crucial component of their strategy to build a lasting majority. “We made a significant effort to not just say we would do recruitment differently but to actually get stronger recruits, and forcefully engaging on behalf of stronger recruits, more diverse recruits, recruits that reflect their electorates and the country,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans’ super PAC. Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.It is a striking strategy for a party whose ranks are overwhelmingly white and male, and include some lawmakers who have lionized the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and embraced nativist, anti-immigrant language. The House Democrats’ campaign arm has spotlighted the influence of the hard right among Republicans, and has criticized Republican leaders for failing to confront extremists within their own conference. Republicans know that to meet predictions that they will win back the House this year, they must appeal not only to their core political base of right-wing and conservative voters, but also to college-educated people and independents in the suburbs who are likely to be alienated by such statements and stances. And party leaders are eager to continue to fix their diversity problem, with women composing only about 16 percent of the conference and people of color composing nine percent.In Texas, three Latina women are running in the Rio Grande Valley, including Mayra Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico at six years old, worked on the frontline of the pandemic as a respiratory therapist, and is married to a Border Patrol officer. Ms. Flores could come to Congress as early as this month if she wins the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired before the end of his term.Black Republicans with records of military service are running for several other key seats, in districts that Mr. Biden won by only a few points. There is John James in Michigan and Wesley Hunt in Texas, who both graduated from West Point and flew Apache helicopters in Iraq; and in Georgia, Jeremy Hunt, the son of two ministers who also graduated from West Point and who served as an active-duty Army intelligence officer in Ukraine. Wesley Hunt, a Republican candidate and Iraq war veteran, speaking to community members in Cibolo, Texas.Christian K. Lee for The New York TimesIn Indiana, Jennifer-Ruth Green, an Air Force veteran who deployed to Baghdad and served as a mission commander for counterintelligence activities, is looking to unseat Democrat Frank Mrvan in his northern district. Should all four prevail, they would triple the number of Black Republicans serving in the House.Here in Arizona, Mr. Ciscomani, a senior adviser to Gov. Doug Ducey, is vying to win the Tucson-based district held by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year. In a district evenly populated by Democratic, Republican, and independent voters, Mr. Ciscomani is running with a laserlike focus on inflation, border security, and an explicit appeal for unity. “We have to be very disciplined in saying there are more things we agree on than disagree on,” he said. “And if we stay focused on that — I think that’s what the voters want to see right now. They’re tired of the infighting and bickering. They want government to go do their job. To go actually protect our border, to handle this inflation, stop the overspending, and get things under control.”That type of message would put Mr. Ciscomani in the minority among his Republican colleagues should he be elected in November, and it stands in sharp contrast to the language used by other Republicans in the Arizona delegation. Representative Paul Gosar, who represents much of rural western Arizona, has allied himself with the white nationalist Nick Fuentes and was censured last year for posting an animated video that depicted him killing a Democratic congresswoman. Representative Andy Biggs, whose district is in the eastern portion of the state, has described the influx of migrants at the southwestern border as an “invasion,” and, like Mr. Gosar, participated in the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Navarro Indicted as Justice Dept. Opts Not to Charge Meadows and Scavino

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      The House had recommended contempt charges against all three Trump White House aides over their stonewalling of its Jan. 6 inquiry.A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, even as the Justice Department declined to charge Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino Jr., two other top officials who have also refused to cooperate.The indictment against Mr. Navarro, handed up in Federal District Court in Washington, marked the first time that an official who served in Mr. Trump’s White House during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, has been charged in connection with the investigation into the attack.Prosecutors charged Mr. Navarro, 72, with what amounted to a misdemeanor process crime for having failed to appear for a deposition or provide documents to congressional investigators in response to a subpoena issued by the House committee on Feb. 9. The indictment includes two counts of criminal contempt of Congress that each carry a maximum sentence of a year in prison, as well as a fine of up to $100,000.The Justice Department has declined to take similar steps against Mr. Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, and Mr. Scavino, the deputy chief of staff, according to people familiar with prosecutors’ decision and a letter reviewed by The New York Times informing the top House counsel of it.“Based on the individual facts and circumstances of their alleged contempt, my office will not be initiating prosecutions for criminal contempt as requested in the referral against Messrs. Meadows and Scavino,” Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to Douglas N. Letter, the general counsel of the House, on Friday. “My office’s review of each of the contempt referrals arising from the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation is complete.”Both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino — who were deeply involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election — engaged in weeks of negotiations with the committee’s lawyers, and Mr. Meadows turned over more than 9,000 documents to the panel, before the House voted to charge them with contempt.By contrast, Mr. Navarro and his ally Stephen K. Bannon, who has also been charged with contempt, fought the committee’s subpoenas from Day 1 and never entered into negotiations.Asked for comment, Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, said, “The result speaks for itself.”A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Scavino declined to comment.In a statement, the leaders of the committee applauded Mr. Navarro’s indictment but urged the Justice Department to provide “greater clarity” on its rationale for not charging Mr. Meadows or Mr. Scavino.“We find the decision to reward Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for their continued attack on the rule of law puzzling,” said the leaders, Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming. “Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino unquestionably have relevant knowledge about President Trump’s role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6.”For his part, Mr. Navarro appeared in court on Friday afternoon, speaking on his own behalf and telling a federal magistrate judge that the congressional subpoena he was served with was “illegal” and “unenforceable.”At the court hearing, he cast himself as a victim of an unfair system run by Democrats bent on destroying him and Mr. Trump.“There are bigger things at play than whether I go to prison,” Mr. Navarro said. “And that’s why I’m standing here.”He also complained that although he lives close to F.B.I. headquarters, federal agents arrested him at the door of an airplane as he was on his way to Nashville.“This is not the way that America is supposed to function,” he went on, adding, “They’re playing hardball.”A former White House trade adviser who undertook extensive efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office after the 2020 election, Mr. Navarro is the second high-ranking former presidential aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee. Mr. Bannon, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, was indicted in November on similar charges.The indictment against Mr. Navarro came nearly two months after the House voted mostly along party lines to recommend criminal charges against him. The same vote also recommended a contempt indictment against Mr. Scavino.The House voted in January to recommend that Mr. Meadows be charged with contempt.“Upon receiving each referral, my office conducted a thorough investigation and analysis of the individualized facts and circumstances surrounding each contempt allegation to determine whether to initiate a criminal prosecution,” Mr. Graves wrote to Mr. Letter. “Those investigations and analyses were conducted by and supervised by experienced prosecutors. Each referral has been analyzed individually based on the facts and circumstances of the alleged contempt developed through my office’s investigation.”The House subpoena that Mr. Navarro received sought documents and testimony about an effort to overturn the election that he had billed as the “Green Bay Sweep.” The plan called for lawmakers in key swing states to team with Republican members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the results that showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won the election and give Mr. Trump the victory.The subpoena also mentioned a call Mr. Navarro participated in with Mr. Trump and his lawyers on Jan. 2, 2021, in which they attempted to persuade hundreds of state lawmakers to join the effort.Mr. Navarro also wrote a 36-page report claiming election fraud as part of what he called an “immaculate deception” that he said he made sure was distributed to Republican members of Congress.There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and the Jan. 6 committee has described the claims in Mr. Navarro’s report as having been “discredited in public reporting, by state officials and courts.”The indictment comes days after Mr. Navarro filed a lawsuit against the House committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in which he questioned the authority and validity of the inquiry.In the lawsuit, Mr. Navarro also revealed that he had recently received another subpoena, this one from a federal grand jury in Washington. That subpoena sought documents from him related to any communications he may have had with Mr. Trump or his lawyers.Mr. Navarro has claimed that because Mr. Trump invoked executive privilege to bar the disclosure of information requested by the Jan. 6 investigators, he is prevented from complying with the subpoena. Prosecutors were most likely interested in how closely Mr. Navarro was in touch with the former president or his lawyers in order to assess that defense against the contempt of Congress charge.“The executive privilege invoked by President Trump is not mine to waive,” Mr. Navarro has repeatedly said.Mr. Bannon has also sought to argue that he does not have to comply with his own subpoena because of Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege. A trial in his case is tentatively scheduled for July.Mr. Bannon is arguing that the committee is not a legitimate investigative body but a politically motivated one, citing the fact that two of its members have written books that presuppose who is to blame for the Capitol riot even though the inquiry has not ended.While contempt of Congress charges are rarely brought, the cases filed against Mr. Navarro and Mr. Bannon suggest that the Justice Department is willing to take a tough stance against at least some of Mr. Trump’s former aides who have stonewalled the committee’s efforts.The decision not to charge Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino indicates that there are limits to that approach, particularly when it comes to top White House officials who could more plausibly argue that their communications with the president were privileged.The charges against Mr. Navarro come at a politically sensitive moment: one week before the committee is poised to begin a series of high-profile hearings on its findings.Mr. Navarro has taken an aggressive stance toward the committee, especially with regard to its Democratic members. In his lawsuit, he vowed payback against Democrats should Republicans retake the White House and Congress in 2024.“If I’m not dead or in prison,” he wrote, “I will lead the charge.”At his court hearing, Mr. Navarro expressed similar disdain for the legal proceeding.A federal magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, released him from custody with a standard set of conditions, mostly simple restrictions on Mr. Navarro’s travel privileges, noting that he understood the defendant was frustrated by them.Mr. Navarro rejected the idea that he was frustrated.“I am, let us say, disappointed in our republic,” he declared.Maggie Haberman More

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      Democrats and Republicans at an impasse over US gun control as Biden demands action – as it happened

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      Washington is ending its week on a quiet note, with few major developments in Congress or at the White House as officials continue grappling with the fallout from the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.Here’s what happened today:
      Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was taken into custody after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
      A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
      People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre.
      US Capitol police say they arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.
      May employment data confirmed that robust job growth is continuing in the United States, with the economy adding a better-than-expected 390,000 positions and the unemployment rate remaining at 3.6% – a hair above where it was before the pandemic caused tens of millions of people to lose their employment.
      John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic nominee for US Senate, said he “almost died” after suffering a stroke last month, the Washington Post is reporting.“The stroke I suffered on May 13 didn’t come out of nowhere,” Fetterman said in a statement. “Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well. As a result, I almost died.”He added: “I didn’t do what the doctor told me. But I won’t make that mistake again.”Fetterman did not give a date for his return to the campaign trail. On Friday he released a letter from his doctor saying he had been diagnosed with an irregular heart rhythm in 2017 , but had not scheduled a follow up appointment, and had not visited any doctor for five years since that 2017 appointment. John Fetterman, who has been criticized for not providing more details about his health following his stroke, releases a letter from his doc saying he was first diagnosed in 2017 with an irregular heart rhythm. Said he ignored doctor’s advice for five years until he had a stroke pic.twitter.com/1LpZ1J214S— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 3, 2022
      Pennsylvania is a crucial contest for Democrats as they aim to avoid losing the Senate in the November midterm elections. Fetterman, 52, had previously faced criticism for not providing a timetable on his return to campaigning.Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban transgender girls from school sports and require verification from a doctor if a student’s sex is called into question, Reuters reported.The Republican-sponsored legislation comes in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, with transgender rights emerging as a major front in the US culture wars.The bill next goes to a vote in the state Senate when it reconvenes in several months after a recess.Several other states have passed anti-trans sports bills in recent months, but few are as extreme as the Ohio legislation, which would require students whose sex is “disputed” to provide a physician’s statement verifying “internal and external reproductive anatomy” and other criteria.These provisions target “a handful of Ohio students and their families who simply want to play sports like everyone else,” LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Ohio said in a statement.People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken the initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre, Reuters reports. An attorney representing Alfred Garza, father of Robb Elementary School student Amerie Jo Garza, sent the Georgia-based gun manufacturer a request for information about its marketing to children and teens. “We ask you to begin providing information to us now, rather than force Mr. Garza to file a lawsuit to obtain it,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to the company.School employee Emilia Marin has also filed a petition in Texas state court to depose Daniel Defense over its marketing, and to turn over documents.Daniel Defense did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment. Remington Arms, manufacturer of the weapon used in the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead in 2012, agreed earlier this year to pay $73 million to some of the victims of that attack, though a federal law complicates many lawsuits against gun makers.Sandy Hook families reach $73m settlement with gun manufacturerRead moreImagine that you are wanted for a crime. Imagine that you are in the United States, perhaps in a state not far from the Mexican border. You may think, based on what you’ve seen in movies or read on the news, that if you can get to Mexico, you can go scot-free. You would be wrong, according to an excellent Washington Post article that profiles the “Gringo Hunters,” a Mexican police unit tasked with tracking down foreign criminals on the run in their country.American politicians, most famously Donald Trump along with other conservatives, have characterized Mexico as a source of criminals who flood over the border into the United States. The piece flips that stereotype on its head, as reporter Kevin Sieff goes on the hunt with the officers who go after the many alleged murderers, rapists and child abusers that pour into their country from their northern neighbor:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It was late March. The unit had been busier than at any other time in its history. While politicians in Washington argued over whether there was a crisis at the border, it felt to the Gringo Hunters that crime was spilling over in the opposite direction.
      “Honestly, I think it’s all the drugs over there,” said Moises, the liaison unit’s commander. Like other unit members, he spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld so he can continue to work undercover.
      In its office, the unit keeps a whiteboard with the month’s apprehensions tallied by name, date and charge. In the first three weeks of March, there were eight accused of drug trafficking, two of murder and one of pedophilia.US Capitol police say they have arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.Officers encountered the man after he parked his Dodge Charger at Peace Circle on the US Capitol’s west side around 5am on Friday, the agency said in a statement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The man was identified as 53-year-old Jerome Felipe out of Flint, Michigan.
      Felipe, who is a retired police officer out of New York, presented the USCP officers with a fake badge that had “Department of the INTERPOL” printed on it. Felipe also made a false statement that he was a criminal investigator with the agency.
      Felipe gave officers permission to search his vehicle. The officers discovered a BB gun, two ballistic vests, several high capacity magazines, and other ammunition in the car. No real guns were found.
      Investigators are still working to determine the reason Felipe was parked near the US Capitol.
      Felipe is facing charges for Unlawful Possession of High Capacity Magazines and Unregistered Ammo.A top deputy to Mike Pence warned the Secret Service about a security risk to the then vice-president the day before the January 6 attack, the New York Times is reporting.The warning was conveyed by Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, to his main Secret Service agent, Tim Giebels, on 5 January, before a crowd of more than 2,000 people stormed the US capitol following a speech by Donald Trump. In their conversation before that happened, Short warned Giebels that Trump was going to publicly repudiate Pence, whom he had chosen as his running mate during his successful 2016 run for the White House.According to the Times:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr Trump on Mr Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr Trump’s defeat, Mr Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington. Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide saysRead more
      The need for meaningful gun control reforms, following the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, continues to dominate political conversation, but Republicans and Democrats appear no closer to a consensus.
      On Thursday Joe Biden asked: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” and called for a series of gun control measures. But Republicans snubbed serious discussion of stricter gun laws at a hearing on Thursday.
      A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
      Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
      Democrats are increasingly blaming Joe Biden’s climate office for holding up progress on measures that could cut US emissions, according to Politico. “Micromanaging” by the office of other government bodies has stalled a series of environmental efforts, Politico reported.
      With Biden having failed to get his major proposals to fight rising global temperatures through Congress, Politico reports that Democrats are increasingly blaming his climate office for holding up progress on other measures that could cut US emissions.The Climate Policy Office headed by Gina McCarthy has gotten in the way of actions that Biden could take without Congress’s approval, according to the article, which cited nine Democratic sources both inside and outside the Biden administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The office’s micromanaging of other government bodies has weakened the Interior Department’s efforts to rein in oil and gas leases on federal lands, stalled a redo of federal ethanol policies and slowed White House efforts to address pollution in low-income and minority communities, said the Democrats, who include congressional staff and current or former Biden administration officials.Much of Biden’s emissions-cutting strategy was contained in Build Back Better, his failed attempt to spend potentially trillions of dollars revamping American social services and also fighting climate change. Despite passing the House, it failed to win enough votes among Senate Democrats, and the fate of its proposals remains up in the air. Why the collapse of Biden’s Build Back Better would be a major blow to the climate fightRead moreA fourth-grader who survived last week’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas will testify before a US House panel next week, alongside the parents of victims killed in both the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.Miah Cerrillo, a student at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, will appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, as Congress faces calls to take meaningful action on gun control. Cerrillo will be joined by Felix Rubio and Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the parents of Lexi Rubio, who was ten-years-old when she was killed at Robb elementary.Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, who survived after being shot at the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, will also speak before the House committee.Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, said the hearing “will examine the terrible impact of gun violence and the urgent need to rein in the weapons of war used to perpetrate these crimes”.“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” Maloney said. “This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”Until the US senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun control | Osita NwanevuRead morePeter Navarro may not be the only former Trump official facing Washington’s wrath. My colleague Peter Stone has reported that there is evidence the Justice Department is looking into lawyers who advised the former president on how to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with a key criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel probing the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.
      While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.
      Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer, worked with other lawyers and some campaign officials to spearhead a scheme to replace Biden electors with alternative Trump ones in seven states that Biden won, with an eye to blocking Congress’ certification of Biden on January 6 when a mob of Trump loyalists attacked the Capitol.US Justice Department could be zeroing in on Trump lawyers, experts sayRead more More

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      Biden plans primetime address on gun violence following mass shootings – live

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      President Joe Biden will address Americans at 7.30pm eastern time following mass shootings across the country, including at a Texas elementary school last week that left 19 children and two teachers dead.Biden will deliver “remarks on the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day”, the White House said.The speech comes on the same day that the House judiciary committee is holding a hearing to mark up Democrats’ omnibus gun-control bill, the Protecting Our Kids Act.Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut who was sworn into office shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, has published an op-ed in Fox News calling for gun reform. Appealing to a conservative Fox News audience, he wrote: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I believe that the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to buy and own firearms. But I also believe that like every constitutional right, there are limits. I don’t believe the Constitution protects the right of criminals or people with serious mental illness to own weapons. And while all of us might draw the line in a different place, I think we all agree that the Constitution allows Congress to decide which weapons are so dangerous as to be kept exclusively in the hands of the military.
      And as I said on the Senate floor last week, I also acknowledge that in order to find common ground, I will need to agree to a smaller set of reforms than I would prefer. I’m willing to pass incremental change, like tightening up our background checks system and helping states pass laws to allow law enforcement to temporarily take guns away from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. I’m also very supportive of providing more mental health resources to help young men in crisis and more funding to pay for security upgrades at our schools.
      For me, the only thing we cannot do is nothing.
      The White House expects that Covid-19 vaccinations for children under 5 could begin as early as 12 June, said Dr Ashish Jha, Covid response coordinator. “Our expectation is that within weeks, every parent who wants their child to get vaccinated will be able to get an appointment,” he said. Children under 5 are the last remaining Americans who are not yet eligible for vaccines. Within weeks, “every parent who wants their child to get vaccinated will be able to get an appointment”, Jha said. A decision on authorizing the vaccine for young kids is expected soon after the panel of experts advising the US Food and Drug Administration meets 14 and 15 June. Donald Trump will “fight even harder” on the road to a possible White House run in 2024 because of the acquittal of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on a charge of lying to the FBI.“If anything, it makes me want to fight even harder,” the former president told Fox News Digital. “If we don’t win, our country is ruined. We have bad borders, bad elections and a court system not functioning properly.”Full story:Trump says Clinton lawyer acquittal fuels 2024 election ambitionsRead moreOhio is poised to allow teachers and other school employees to forgo hundreds of hours of training normally needed to carry a gun at work under a bill awaiting the governor’s signature.House Bill 99 will streamline the process for school employees to carry weapons on campus, and has been welcomed by Republican governor Mike DeWine. “My office worked with the general assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training,” he said in a statement.The bill, which passed the Senate Wednesday, has raised eyebrows given its passage following a wave of mass shootings, including at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The Associated Press reported that it’s opposed by teachers unions, gun control advocates and law enforcement groups, and supported by some police departments and school districts. Republicans who backed the law see it as a work around for a recent court ruling that said school employees must undergo a lengthy training process before coming to work armed.That’s it from me today. I’m handing the blog over to my west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, to cover Joe Biden’s speech tonight on gun violence. Here’s where the day stands so far:
      Biden will deliver a primetime address at 7.30pm ET on “the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence”, the White House said. The speech comes less than two weeks after a mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. The massacre has intensified calls for national gun-control legislation, but it remains unclear whether any bill can pass Congress.
      The House judiciary committee held a markup hearing on Democrats’ omnibus gun-control bill, the Protecting Our Kids Act. The bill would raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, and it would also establish severe restrictions on the sale and possession of high-capacity magazines, among other reforms. The committee hearing could set up a full House vote on the bill, but the legislation currently has no path to passage in the evenly divided Senate.
      Democrats on the House judiciary committee accused Republicans of being “complicit” in mass shootings by refusing to amend gun laws, while Republicans argued Democrats were moving too quickly to pass gun-control legislation days after the Uvalde tragedy. Noting that it has been 23 years since the shooting at Columbine High school, committee chairman Jerry Nadler asked his Republican colleagues, “What the hell are you waiting for?”
      Donald Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, met with the House select committee investigating January 6. Barr’s conversation with the lawmakers investigating the Capitol attack lasted for two hours, CNN reports, and he discussed his interactions with Trump before and after the 2020 election.
      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.A Florida legislative map that favors Republicans is set to stay in place during the state’s upcoming elections after a court declined on Thursday to block it.The ruling, reported by Politico, adds to the woes facing Democrats in Congress, where court rulings have given Republicans an edge in redistricting, while President Joe Biden faces low approval ratings. The Florida case centered on a Congressional district map drawn, in an unusual move, by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, rather than the legislature. Civil rights and voting groups had sued over the map, arguing it violates anti-gerrymandering clauses in the state’s constitution.The decision by the state supreme court not to intervene in the case means an appeals court will likely decide the matter, but not before the state’s August 23 primary. The map gives Republicans an advantage in congressional districts and also dismantles the district of House Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat representing North Florida.William Barr, who served as attorney general under former president Donald Trump, on Thursday met with the House select committee investigating January 6, CNN reports.Barr met for two hours with lawmakers investigating the assault on the US capitol, and discussed his interactions with Trump before and after the 2020 election, CNN said, citing sources familiar with the investigation. The network also saw him in the room where interviews are done. The meeting dealt with Barr’s interactions with Trump before and after the election, as well as his conclusion that the 2020 election was not affected by fraud, as the former president claims.The committee’s chairman Bennie Thompson said in January that the former attorney general had spoken to the panel repeatedly. Barr was accused of turning the Justice Department into the then-president’s tool during his time as attorney general, but ultimately resigned before the end of Trump’s term.John Hinckley, who shot and injured then-president Ronald Reagan in 1981, will have all court restrictions on him lifted later this month, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.Declaring 67-year-old Hinckley is “no longer a danger to himself or others,” US district court Judge Paul L. Friedman said as he decided to release Hinckley from court oversight on June 15, the Associated Press reports.A jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of mental insanity in the March 30, 1981 shooting that also partially paralyzed Reagan’s press secretary James Brady and injured a Secret Service agent and a Washington police officer. Hinckley was obsessed with actress Jodi Foster and the movie “Taxi Driver,” in which a character attempts to kill a presidential candidate.Hinckley spent more than two decades in a mental hospital following the shooting before being gradually allowed to visit and eventually live in his parents’ Virginia community. The remaining restrictions include giving notice before traveling more than 75 miles from his home, allowing officials access to his electronic devices and online accounts and avoiding travel to areas where someone under Secret Service protection might be present. Friedman had made the decision to end the restrictions in September of last year but delayed its effective date to ensure Hinckley was fitting in well to his community.Reagan died in 2004, and his foundation issued a statement objecting to the end of restrictions on Hinckley, particularly his plans to pursue a career in music. “We strongly oppose his release into society where he apparently seeks to make a profit from his infamy,” the Reagan Foundation and Institute said.President Joe Biden’s approval rating has risen by six percentage points from the low point it hit last week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found, but it still lingers at an unpopular 42 percent.A spike in inflation coupled with the chaotic US military pullout from Afghanistan sent Biden’s approval rating sinking last August, and it has struggled to recover in the months since. The poll conducted over two days of more than 1,000 US adults found that 52 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s performance.The low numbers have raised alarms that Biden’s Democrats, who control both the House and Senate by narrow margins, could lose control of one or both chambers in the midterm elections set for November. Abortion rights groups have filed a lawsuit in Florida to stop its ban on abortions after 15 weeks from taking effect next month.The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two Planned Parenthood affiliates and six abortion providers, attempts to block the law signed by governor Ron DeSantis from being enforced starting July 1, arguing it violates the state’s constitutional guarantee of privacy.The law “will force Floridians to remain pregnant against their will, violating their dignity and bodily autonomy, and endangering their families, their health, and even their lives,” the ACLU said in a statement announcing a suit.Florida’s law was one of a host of measures passed by states in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling expected later this month that could see the Roe v Wade decision allowing abortion in the United States reversed or greatly weakened. Flordia’s law is modeled on similar legislation approved in Mississippi, which is the subject of the supreme court’s deliberations. More