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      National Archives turns over Trump White House logs to January 6 panel

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      National Archives turns over Trump White House logs to January 6 panelSelect committee investigating Capitol attack also receives records from former vice-president Mike Pence The US National Archives has delivered White House visitor logs from Donald Trump’s administration to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of the then president, the committee said on Friday.The National Archives also turned over records from former vice-president Mike Pence, meeting a 3 March deadline.Trump strikes deal to evade deposition in New York investigation – for nowRead more“Yesterday, the select committee received additional production of records from the National Archives,” a House of Representatives select committee aide said. “This included records that the former president attempted to keep hidden behind claims of privilege.”Trump had tried to block the release of the visitor logs, but Joe Biden rejected his claim that they were subject to executive privilege “in light of the urgency” of the committee’s work and Congress’s “compelling need”.Several courts, including the US supreme court, have also ruled against the Republican ex-president’s efforts to block the release of various records to the committee.So far, more than 725 people have been charged with playing a role in the attack on the Capitol by mobs of Trump supporters, which left five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured, as, at Trump’s urgings at a rally that morning, they tried to prevent the US Congress certifying Biden’s win for the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.Another four police officers involved in defending the Capitol later killed themselves.The bipartisan January 6 committee chaired by Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi has been investigating the events surrounding the attack – and the former president’s role in it – for more than seven months, as well as allegations of a political conspiracy by Trump and key allies to get the results overturned.The committee has made more than 80 subpoenas public, including many issued to top Trump aides and allies, and interviewed more than 560 witnesses. It has also gathered records from social media and other telecommunications firms.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      Pressure on Justice Dept. as Jan. 6 Panel Lays Out Case Against Trump

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      Building a criminal case against the former president is very difficult for federal prosecutors, experts say, underlining the dilemma confronting the agency.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is facing mounting pressure to prosecute former President Donald J. Trump after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out its argument for a potential criminal case on Wednesday night, placing Attorney General Merrick B. Garland squarely in the middle of a politically charged debate over how to hold Mr. Trump accountable for efforts to overturn the election.Even as Democrats have criticized Mr. Garland for remaining silent on Mr. Trump’s actions, he has sought to insulate the agency from politicization, an effort he sees as a corrective to Mr. Trump’s pressure campaigns to force the department to bend to his agenda.Building a criminal case against Mr. Trump is very difficult for federal prosecutors, experts say, given the high burden of proof they must show, questions about Mr. Trump’s mental state and the likelihood of any decision being appealed, underlining the dilemma confronting the agency.The department has never said whether it is exploring a criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, though Mr. Garland has vowed to pursue wrongdoing “at any level,” keeping alive the possibility that federal prosecutors might someday charge the former president.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.“The Justice Department will have to ask that question: Is there a winning case here?” said Norm Eisen, a Brookings Institution fellow who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Mr. Trump. “If there is strong evidence, but prosecutors don’t think they can secure a conviction, they will have to use prosecutorial discretion.”That said, Mr. Eisen said the evidence that the committee produced in support of its argument could be powerful, and “support the idea that Trump and those around him are at risk of federal or state prosecution.”It was far easier for the committee to claim that Mr. Trump had committed a crime in the context of the court fight that prompted it — a dispute over a subpoena for documents written by a lawyer — than it would be for prosecutors to win a criminal conviction over the same facts, legal specialists said.The filing on Wednesday, which said that the committee had evidence to suggest that Mr. Trump might have engaged in a criminal conspiracy, is the work of three veteran Justice Department lawyers who would be deeply familiar with the complications that such allegations create for the agency.Losing such a case has far-reaching implications. It risks severely undermining the department’s credibility, empowering and emboldening Mr. Trump and his allies, and making it harder for the federal courts to hold future presidents accountable for misdeeds.In publicly sharing its work, the committee has only escalated expectations that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted, regardless of whether its evidence meets the standard that a federal prosecutor must clear to secure a unanimous guilty verdict.In its court filing, the panel suggested it had evidence to support allegations that Mr. Trump committed two crimes: obstructing an official proceeding by working to disrupt the electoral vote count and conspiring with his allies, including the conservative lawyer John Eastman, to defraud the United States by working to overturn the election results.“The evidence supports an inference” that Mr. Trump, Mr. Eastman and several others “entered into an agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the election certification process, disseminating false information about election fraud, and pressuring state officials to alter state election results and federal officials to assist in that effort,” the filing said.However, the filing was not necessarily a path to prosecution. The committee made its claim in the context of the court fight that prompted it — a dispute over a subpoena for documents written by Mr. Eastman. The standard it must meet to invoke crimes is much lower than it would be for prosecutors to win a criminal conviction, legal specialists said.Specifically, Mr. Eastman has invoked attorney-client privilege to block the subpoena, and the committee wants a judge to enforce it anyway under an exception for materials that involve crimes or fraud.It is asking the judge to view the disputed materials privately, and to do so it need only convince the court that it has a “good faith” reason to believe that such a private viewing “may reveal” evidence that the exception applies — a far lower bar than proving something to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.The central theory put forward by the Jan. 6 committee is that Mr. Trump tried to disrupt an official proceeding — Congress’s certification of the election results — by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to illegally reject the electoral votes from certain states.Samuel Buell, a Duke University law professor and former federal prosecutor, said that while the facts of what happened were largely clear, the challenge to convicting Mr. Trump would center on proving that he had a corrupt intent — essentially, that Mr. Trump knew that there was no valid lawful basis for Mr. Pence to do what he was demanding.At a trial, Mr. Trump’s defense team would have a powerful argument about his mental state: Even though government lawyers told him that Mr. Pence did not have that authority, Mr. Eastman told him that the vice president could lawfully do what he wanted. The defense could say this shows that Mr. Trump sincerely thought he was asking Mr. Pence to do something lawful — raising a possible reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds about whether his intentions were corrupt.Mr. Buell said that in an ordinary white-collar criminal case, it is not uncommon for corporate defendants to point to something their lawyers had said to maintain that they did not think they were doing anything criminal. Prosecutors sometimes go forward with such cases anyway, he said, knowing it will be an argument in trial they will need to try to defeat.But the “enormous political implications” of charging the immediate past president — and possible 2024 election contender — make that calculus all the more risky for Mr. Garland, he said.Federal charges against a former president would be a first in American history. While President Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid being impeached, President Gerald R. Ford pardoned him, absolving him of any criminal charges and sparing the Justice Department from prosecuting him.A case against a former president would always be mired in politics, a dynamic especially true now given how deeply polarized the nation has become.If the Justice Department were to criminally charge Mr. Trump, his supporters would most likely interpret it as President Biden’s handpicked attorney general deploying the department to attack the de facto leader of a rival party — particularly if they believe Mr. Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen.Should the Justice Department not bring charges, Mr. Trump’s opponents could feel that it had blatantly abdicated its duties. After the election, Mr. Trump continued to declare himself the winner, denying evidence compiled by his own administration. He pressured public officials to support his false claims, and he exhorted his followers to stop the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6.If the Justice Department does not respond to such overt acts, it risks fostering the idea that presidents and their allies cannot be held accountable for behavior that undermines democracy.“Here, it’s a totally different situation because there is an enormous political envelope around whether you would charge this guy,” Mr. Buell said. “At some level you can’t analyze this in terms of what a prosecutor would normally do.” More

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      Panel Suggests Trump Knew He Lost the Election, Eyeing Criminal Case

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      At the core of the theory of a possible criminal case against former President Donald J. Trump is the argument that he knew he had lost the election and sought to overturn it anyway.WASHINGTON — Shortly after the 2020 election, as ballots were still being counted, the top data expert in President Donald J. Trump’s re-election campaign told him bluntly that he was going to lose.In the weeks that followed, as Mr. Trump continued to insist that he had won, a senior Justice Department official told him repeatedly that his claims of widespread voting fraud were meritless, ultimately warning him that they would “hurt the country.”Those concerns were echoed by the top White House lawyer, who told the president that he would be entering into a “murder-suicide pact” if he continued to pursue extreme plans to try to invalidate the results of the 2020 election.Yet Mr. Trump — time and again — discounted the facts, the data and many of his own advisers as he continued to promote the lie of a stolen election, according to hundreds of pages of exhibits, interview transcripts and email correspondence assembled by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for a legal filing released late Wednesday.In laying out the account, the panel revealed the basis of what its investigators believe could be a criminal case against Mr. Trump. At its core is the argument that, in repeatedly rejecting the truth that he had lost the 2020 election — including the assertions of his own campaign aides, White House lawyers, two successive attorneys general and federal investigators — Mr. Trump was not just being stubborn or ignorant about his defeat, he was knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the United States.It is a bold claim that could be difficult to back up in court, but in making it, the House committee has compiled an elaborate narrative of Mr. Trump’s extraordinary efforts to cling to power.In it, Mr. Trump emerges as a man unable — or unwilling — to listen to his advisers even as they explain to him that he has lost the election, and his multiple and varied claims to the contrary are not grounded in fact.At one point, Mr. Trump did not seem to care whether there was any evidence to support his claims of election fraud, and questioned why he should not push for even more extreme steps, such as replacing the acting attorney general, to challenge his loss.“The president said something to the effect of: ‘What do I have to lose? If I do this, what do I have to lose?’” Richard P. Donoghue, a former top Justice Department official, told the committee in an interview. “And I said: ‘Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose. Is this really how you want your administration to end? You’re going hurt the country.’”Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, also tried to get Mr. Trump to stop pursuing baseless claims of fraud. He pushed back against a plan from a rogue Justice Department lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, who wanted to distribute official letters to multiple state legislatures falsely alerting them that the election may have been stolen and urging them to reconsider certified election results.“That letter that this guy wants to send — that letter is a murder-suicide pact,” Mr. Cipollone told Mr. Trump, according to Mr. Donoghue. “It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don’t ever want to see that letter again.”The account is part of a court filing in a civil case in California, in which the committee’s lawyers for the first time laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against the former president. They said they had evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, the lawyer John Eastman and other allies could be charged with obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people and common law fraud.The committee’s filing shows how some of Mr. Trump’s aides and advisers repeatedly — and passionately — tried to get him to back down from his various false claims and plans to try to stay in power.It started almost immediately after the polls closed in November 2020, when members of Mr. Trump’s campaign data team began trying to break through to the president to impress upon him that he had been defeated.During a conversation in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump’s lead campaign data guru “delivered to the president in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose,” Jason Miller, another top campaign aide, told the panel. The president said he disagreed with the data expert’s analysis, Mr. Miller said, because he thought he could win in court.Mr. Miller also told the committee that he agreed with Attorney General William P. Barr’s analysis that there had not been widespread fraud in the election, and “said that to the president on multiple occasions,” the panel wrote in its filing.In the chaotic postelection period, Mr. Trump’s legal team set up a hotline for fraud allegations and was flooded with unverified accounts from people across the country who claimed they had evidence. A Postal Service truck driver from Pennsylvania asserted without evidence that his 18-wheeler had been filled with phony ballots. Republican voters in Arizona complained that some of their ballots had not been counted because they used Sharpie pens that could not be read by voting machines.Mr. Trump appeared to be aware of many of these reports, and would speak about them often with aides and officials, raising various theories about voting fraud even as they debunked them one by one.“When you gave him a very direct answer on one of them, he wouldn’t fight us on it,” Mr. Donoghue, the Justice Department official, told the committee. “But he would move to another allegation.”Mr. Donoghue recalled, for instance, how he told Mr. Trump that Justice Department investigators had looked into, and ultimately discounted, a claim that election officials in Atlanta had wheeled a suitcase full of phony ballots into their counting room on Election Day.Instead of accepting Mr. Donoghue’s account, Mr. Trump abruptly switched subjects and asked about “double voting” and “dead people” voting, then moved on to a completely different claim about how, he said, “Indians are getting paid” to vote on Native American reservations.Richard P. Donoghue, a former top Justice Department official, repeatedly informed Mr. Trump that both his specific and general claims of fraud were false.Richard Drew/Associated PressAfter Mr. Donoghue sought to knock down those complaints as well, he told the committee, Mr. Trump changed topics again and wondered aloud why his numerous legal challenges to the election had not worked.Jeffrey A. Rosen, another top Justice Department lawyer who became the acting attorney general after Mr. Barr left the agency, fielded this question, according to Mr. Donoghue’s account, telling the president that he was “free to bring lawsuits,” but that the department could not be involved.Even though none of Mr. Trump’s persistent claims about election fraud turned out to be true, prosecutors will most likely have to grapple with the question of his state of mind at the time — specifically, the issue of whether he believed the claims were true, said Alan Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department official who teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3The potential case against Trump. More

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      Democrats Win Early Victory in Court Fight Over District Maps

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      A judge’s stance was good news for Democrats, who drew the maps that Republicans say are gerrymandered, but the case will proceed.A New York State judge indicated on Thursday that he would allow this year’s midterm elections to proceed using the state’s newly drawn district lines that heavily favor Democrats — rebuffing Republican requests to delay the election process while he considers whether the maps are an unconstitutional gerrymander.In a preliminary hearing in Steuben County Supreme Court, Justice Patrick F. McAllister, a Republican, said that even if he ultimately ruled that the maps were unconstitutional, it was “highly unlikely” that replacements could be ratified in a timely manner ahead of primaries in June and Election Day in November. That, in turn, would risk leaving the state without proper representation in Congress.“I do not intend at this time to suspend the election process,” the judge said. “I believe the more prudent course would be to allow the current election process to proceed and then, if necessary, allow an election process next year if new maps need to be drawn.”Justice McAllister’s conclusion delivered a sharp setback to state Republicans, who sued last month to try to stop the new congressional and State Senate lines drafted by the Democrat-controlled State Legislature from taking effect this year. The Republicans believe their party is well positioned to retake control of the House of Representatives in November, but every seat could count.The fresh New York boundaries would make that harder, giving Democrats an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts, while potentially cutting the current number of Republican House members from New York in half and effectively eating into gains won by redistricting measures in other states. Analysts have suggested the new State Senate lines could be just as favorable to Democrats, helping the party maintain its supermajority in Albany.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.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: A North Carolina court’s ruling to reject a G.O.P.-drawn map and substitute its own version further cemented the rising importance of state courts in redistricting fights.Legal analysts who study redistricting said that Justice McAllister or an appeals court could still conceivably rethink his approach, but a court-ordered delay to this year’s elections was an increasingly unlikely scenario, now that candidates have begun collecting petitions to get on the June primary ballot.“If I were a candidate, I think the smart bet is that the maps we have today are the maps that are going to be used in November,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There doesn’t seem to be the will to change them for this cycle.”Still, Republicans left the hearing room in Bath, N.Y., on Thursday with some reasons for optimism.Justice McAllister rejected motions to dismiss the case and indicated that he was open to arguments that the maps had violated language added to the New York Constitution in 2014 that barred mapmakers from drawing lines to benefit one political party or candidate.The judge also ordered Democrats to hand over a raft of documents by March 12 that might shed light on how the Democratic drafters settled on the lines, and he told both sides to appear a few days later to argue over the merits of the Republicans’ challenge.“The important thing here is that the court rejected all of the efforts by the State Legislature and the attorney general to dismiss the case,” said John J. Faso, a former congressman from New York who is serving as a spokesman for the Republican challengers — a group of New York residents backed by deep-pocketed national Republican groups.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      January 6 panel subpoenas Kimberly Guilfoyle, fiancee of Donald Trump Jr

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      January 6 panel subpoenas Kimberly Guilfoyle, fiancee of Donald Trump JrHouse select committee issues subpoena after Guilfoyle abruptly cut short interview with panel last week The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has subpoenaed Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald Trump’s eldest son. House investigators issued the subpoena Thursday, after she had abruptly ended a voluntary interview with the panel last week.The committee is investigating the events surrounding the insurrection at the Capitol last year, when a mob of Trump supporters violently attacked the building in a failed attempt to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in the subpoena letter to Guilfoyle that the panel was compelling her testimony because of her proximity to the former president and the rally that preceded the Capitol attack on January 6.Thompson said the panel had been left with no choice but to force her cooperation.“Because Ms Guilfoyle backed out of her original commitment to provide a voluntary interview, we are issuing today’s subpoena that will compel her to testify. We expect her to comply with the law and cooperate,” Thompson said.US Capitol attack committee plans April hearings to show how Trump broke lawRead moreGuilfoyle met virtually with the panel for an interview last week, but cut off questioning when she learned that select committee members Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin – in addition to counsel – had joined the call.After news of her appearance was leaked to news outlets, Guilfoyle refused to continue, and her lawyer accused the select committee of trying to “sandbag” her and not keeping participants limited to committee counsel, according to a source familiar with the interview.Members of the select committee are actively involved in the investigation, and are almost always present at depositions. But Guilfoyle’s lawyer said in a statement that the panel sought to use her cooperation as a “political weapon” against Trump.“Ms Guilfoyle, under threat of subpoena, agreed to meet exclusively with counsel for the select committee in a good-faith effort to provide true and relevant evidence,” Joseph Tacopina, Guilfoyle’s lawyer, said in a statement after she halted her interview.“However, upon Ms Guilfoyle’s attendance, the committee revealed its untrustworthiness, as members notorious for leaking information appeared,” Tacopina said, referring to the two congressmen Schiff and Raskin.The lawyer for Guilfoyle added that after he asked for a break to address the issue with House investigators, the select committee leaked the breakdown in proceedings to reporters. A spokesman for the select committee has denied Tacopina’s claim.The select committee did not address those complaints on Thursday. But the subpoena authorisation suggested the panel does not believe the matter precludes her from testifying about her contacts with Trump and rally organisers on January 6.The panel additionally noted that it had earlier informed her legal team that members would be present in her interview and even offered to reschedule Guilfoyle’s interview, but she declined.Guilfoyle was notably present for an Oval Office meeting that morning when Trump pressed then Vice-President Mike Pence to reject slates of electors for Biden at the joint session of Congress and thus return him to power, the subpoena said.House investigators added in the subpoena that they were also interested in Guilfoyle’s claims that she helped fund the “Save America” rally that preceded the Capitol attack, as well as discussions with Trump about who spoke at the rally.Guilfoyle told at least one rally organizer that she had “raised so much money for this. Literally one of my donors Julie at 3 million” – a reference to Julie Fancelli, who did in fact finance the event, the panel said.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald Trump JrUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack committee plans April hearings to show how Trump broke law

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      US Capitol attack committee plans April hearings to show how Trump broke lawCourt filing says public hearings will address ‘in detail’ Trump’s legal culpability for obstructing Congress and defrauding the US The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is hoping to show through public hearings in April how it believes Donald Trump came to violate federal laws in his efforts to overturn the 2020 US election results, the panel has indicated in court documents.The hearings are set to be a major and historical political event in America as the panel seeks to publicly show the extent of its investigations so far into the shocking events that saw a pro-Trump mob invade the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the election of Joe Biden by Congress.Keyword list for Trump lawyer hints at focus of US Capitol attack investigationRead moreThe panel alleged in a court filing on Wednesday that Trump and his associates obstructed Congress and conspired to defraud the United States on 6 January, arguing it meant the former Trump lawyer John Eastman could not shield thousands of emails from the inquiry.But the public hearings – which are likely to come late next month, the chair of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, told the Guardian – will address just how Trump came to interfere with the joint session of Congress through rhetoric he knew to be false or unlawful.“The president’s rhetoric persuaded thousands of Americans to travel to Washington for January 6, some of whom marched on the Capitol, breached security, and took other illegal actions. The select committee’s hearings will address those issues in detail,” the filing said.The panel also said in its court submission that the public hearings would address how Trump appeared to lay the groundwork for his rhetoric inciting the Capitol attack by promoting claims of election fraud in the 2020 election that he had been told were without merit.“Despite being repeatedly told his allegations of campaign fraud were false, the President continued to feature those same false allegations in ads seen by millions,” the filing said. “The select committee will address these issues in detail in hearings this year.”The select committee indicated the public hearings would serve as the opportunity to cast a light on Trump’s secret efforts to overturn the election, from his attempts to pressure the then vice-president, Mike Pence, to return him to office, to abuse of the justice department.“We want to paint a picture as clear as possible as to what occurred,” Thompson told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday. “The public needs to know what to think. We just have to show clearly what happened on January 6.”Thompson said that the select committee has witnesses who have volunteered to testify before the panel in public hearings, though he did not specify whether they included former Trump administration officials or Capitol attack rioters who had been charged.The clues as to what the panel will address in the much-anticipated public hearings, which will precede an interim report of its findings, came in a filing in which the select committee said for the first time they believed Trump had engaged in criminal activity.The Guardian first broke the news earlier this year that the select committee was investigating whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy that connected the “political elements” of his scheme to return himself to office with the violence perpetrated by far-right militias.The fact that the panel said it had evidence of criminality does not mean House investigators will ultimately refer Trump to the justice department for prosecution. But its inclusion in the brief suggested the panel thinks it has sufficient materials to convince a judge.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More