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      Judge Rejects Trump’s Bid to Keep Papers Secret in Jan. 6 Inquiry

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      But a Trump lawyer has signaled an intent to appeal the ruling, which raises novel issues about an ex-president’s executive privilege powers.WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected a bid by former President Donald J. Trump to keep secret papers about his actions and conversations leading up to and during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.In a 39-page ruling, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Congress’s constitutional oversight powers to obtain the information prevailed over Mr. Trump’s residual secrecy powers — especially because the incumbent, President Biden, agreed that lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 riot should see the files.Mr. Trump “does not acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent president’s judgment. His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity,’” Judge Chutkan wrote. “But presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”Mr. Trump retained the right to assert that his records were privileged, she added, but Mr. Biden was not obliged to honor that assertion. The incumbent president, she said, is better situated to protect executive branch interests, and Mr. Trump “no longer remains subject to political checks against potential abuse of that power.”The ruling does not necessarily mean that the National Archives will turn over the materials to the House committee investigating Jan. 6 any time soon. The case raises novel issues about the scope and limits of a former president’s executive privilege authority, and it is likely that it will ultimately be resolved by the Supreme Court.In a posting on Twitter, Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said the case was destined to be appealed. He said Mr. Trump was committed to defending the right of past presidents — as well as present and future ones — to assert executive privilege and “will be seeing this process through.”The Jan. 6 committee has demanded that the National Archives and Records Administration turn over detailed records about Mr. Trump’s every movement and meeting on the day of the assault, when Mr. Trump led a “Stop the Steal” rally and his supporters then sacked the Capitol in an attempt to block Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory.Mr. Trump — who pursued a strategy of stonewalling all congressional oversight subpoenas while in office, running out the clock on such efforts before the 2020 election — has instructed his former subordinates to defy subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee and filed a lawsuit seeking to block the National Archives from turning over files from his White House.Last week, Judge Chutkan, a 2014 Obama appointee, had signaled skepticism about Mr. Trump’s legal arguments. Mr. Trump’s lawyer asserted that his residual executive privilege powers meant the courts should block Congress from subpoenaing the files, notwithstanding Mr. Biden’s decision not to assert executive privilege over them in light of the circumstances.Mr. Trump’s lawyer had argued that the public interest would be served by letting Mr. Trump keep the documents secret to preserve executive branch prerogatives. But Judge Chutkan wrote that his arguments did not “hold water” in light of Mr. Biden’s support for making them public and Congress’s need to investigate the attack without undue delays.Congress and the Biden administration, she noted, “contend that discovering and coming to terms with the causes underlying the Jan. 6 attack is a matter of unsurpassed public importance because such information relates to our core democratic institutions and the public’s confidence in them. The court agrees.”Earlier this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Jesse R. Binnall, demonstrated an intent to keep going by asking Judge Chutkan to impose an emergency injunction on the National Archives barring it from turning over the records while he appealed the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.Understand the Supreme Court’s Momentous TermCard 1 of 5The Texas abortion law. More

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      White House decries Republican over video depicting violence against AOC

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      Alexandria Ocasio-CortezWhite House decries Republican over video depicting violence against AOCPaul Gosar condemned for Twitter video that showed him striking congresswoman with sword and appearing to threaten Joe Biden Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellyTue 9 Nov 2021 15.26 ESTFirst published on Tue 9 Nov 2021 09.20 ESTThe White House on Tuesday condemned the Republican congressman Paul Gosar for tweeting a video which depicted him striking the New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and appearing to threaten Joe Biden.AOC says Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘deeply unwell’ after 2019 video surfacesRead more“There is no place for any type of violence or that type of language in the political system,” the principal deputy White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters at a daily briefing. “It should not be happening, and we should be condemning it.”The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said “threats of violence against members of Congress and the president of the United States must not be tolerated” and called on the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, to “join in condemning this horrific video and call on the ethics committee and law enforcement to investigate”.Twitter attached a hateful conduct warning to Gosar’s tweet, which was also posted to Instagram on Sunday, but kept it up online.“This tweet violated the Twitter rules about hateful conduct,” Twitter’s message said. “However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the tweet to remain accessible.”The roughly 90-second video presents an altered version of a Japanese anime series, interspersed with shots of border patrol officers and migrants at the US border with Mexico.In one section, characters whose faces are replaced with those of Gosar and fellow extremist Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado are seen fighting other characters.Gosar’s character strikes another, made to look like Ocasio-Cortez, in the neck with a sword. The video ends with an apparent threat to Biden.Ocasio-Cortez was in Glasgow on Tuesday, attending the Cop26 climate summit.On Twitter, she wrote: “A creepy member I work with who fundraises for neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me and he’ll face no consequences because [McCarthy] cheers him on with excuses … well, back to work because institutions don’t protect women of color.”Ocasio-Cortez listed other instances of threatening behavior from Republicans in Congress.“Remember when [Ted] Yoho accosted me on the Capitol [steps] and called me a f[uck]ing b[itch]. Remember when Greene ran after me a few months ago screaming and reaching. Remember when she stalked my office the first time with insurrectionists and people locked inside. All at my job and nothing ever happens. Anyways, back to business.”The congresswoman also called Gosar “just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway”.“White supremacy,” she said, “is for extremely fragile people and sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself.”Gosar is an ardent Trump ally who in 2018 was the subject of a campaign ad made by six of his siblings, exhorting voters to ditch him.He is also among lawmakers whose phone or computer records are sought by the House committee investigating the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January, in which Trump supporters sought to overturn the former president’s election defeat.On Monday, Eric Swalwell, a House California Democrat, said: “These bloodthirsty losers are more comfortable with violence than voting. Keep exposing them.”The Yale historian Joanne Freeman, author of The Field of Blood, a well-regarded history of violence in Congress before the civil war, wrote: “Threats of violence lead to actual violence. They clear the ground. They cow opposition. They plant the idea. They normalize it. They encourage it. They maim democracy. And run the risk of killing it.”The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The president and Senate are the oldest in US history – what’s stopping a younger generation breaking through? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      OpinionUS CongressThe president and Senate are the oldest in US history – what’s stopping a younger generation breaking through?Arwa MahdawiThere’s nothing wrong with senators being in their 70s and 80s – but perhaps it’s time to reassess our ideas of leadership Tue 9 Nov 2021 10.12 ESTLast modified on Tue 9 Nov 2021 14.12 ESTNikki Haley should have joined the circus, because she is great at walking a tightrope. Ever since she left her position as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the UN in 2018, Haley has kept on the right side of the former president, while simultaneously keeping a safe distance from Trumpism. She has criticised Trump just enough that she can cut ties with him should he become a liability; she has also backed him just enough to count him as an ally should he prove useful. Haley, who is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, alternates between throwing red meat to Trump’s base and keeping one foot in polite society. Hers is a very polished populism.Haley’s balancing act was on full display last week, during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, during which she was asked about the mental health of Joe Biden. Haley cannily avoided commenting directly on Biden, who turns 79 this month, but did make pointed remarks about the need for cognitive tests for ageing politicians. She was rude under the guise of reasonableness.“Let’s face it, we’ve got a lot of people in leadership positions that are old,” Haley said. “That’s a fact … this shouldn’t be partisan. We should seriously be looking at the ages of the people that are running our country and understand if that’s what we want.”Buried within the ageism, Haley has a point. Biden is the oldest sitting president in US history. Meanwhile, the current US Senate is the oldest in history, with an average age of 64.3 years. Dianne Feinstein, the oldest senator, is 88 and has held her California seat since 1992. She is closely followed by the Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, also 88, who has been in his job for four decades. Six senators are at least 80; 23 are in their 70s.There is nothing wrong with politicians being in their 70s or 80s. Experience can be an important asset, and, while we tend to associate youth with energy and innovative thinking, some of the oldest politicians in the US have the most dynamic ideas. Senator Ed Markey, 75, co-sponsored the green new deal. Bernie Sanders, 80, captured young people’s passion like no other US politician in recent years – as did Jeremy Corbyn, 72, in the UK. Meanwhile, fresh-faced Pete Buttigieg, 39, whose 2020 ambitions made him the first competitive millennial presidential candidate, ran on stale ideas. He is a McKinsey millennial, whose status quo platform resonates better with older voters than with his peers. You can sell out at any age.That said, it is worth asking if there is a reason why US leadership skews so old, particularly as the US is an outlier among the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in this respect. The New York Times noted last year that the average OECD leader is almost 25 years younger than Biden. Again, while it is good to have politicians above retirement age – there is a problem if it is because the political structure is making it hard for a new generation to rise to the top.The US system massively favours incumbents: members of the US Congress are typically re-elected about 90% of the time. That breeds complacency. It can also breed myopia. Barack Obama, for example, has admitted that fundraising for his 2004 Senate campaign made him more like his wealthy donors: “I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality and frequent hardship of the other 99% … I suspect this is true for every senator: the longer you are a senator, the narrower the scope of your interactions.”Ultimately, it is not the age of our politicians we need to worry about. What matters is having a government that represents the people it serves. Age limits won’t solve that, nor will cognitive tests, but reassessing our ideas about leadership might. Truly great leaders are not the people who cling to power the longest; they are the ones willing to pass the baton to a new generation.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsUS CongressOpinionUS politicsAgeingUS SenateHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More

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      Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas Flynn and Eastman, Scrutinizing Election Plot

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      The latest batch of subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot also includes officials from former President Donald J. Trump’s re-election campaign.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued new subpoenas on Monday for a half-dozen allies of former President Donald J. Trump, including his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, as it moved its focus to an orchestrated effort to overturn the 2020 election.The subpoenas reflect an effort to go beyond the events of the Capitol riot and delve deeper into what committee investigators believe gave rise to it: a concerted campaign by Mr. Trump and his network of advisers to promote false claims of voter fraud as a way to keep him in power. One of the people summoned on Monday was John Eastman, a lawyer who drafted a memo laying out how Mr. Trump could use the vice president and Congress to try to invalidate the election results.In demanding records and testimony from the six Trump allies, the House panel is widening its scrutiny of the mob attack to encompass the former president’s attempt to enlist his own government, state legislators around the country and Congress in his push to overturn the election.Mr. Flynn discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers after the election. Mr. Eastman wrote a memo to Mr. Trump suggesting that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from certain states during Congress’s count of Electoral College votes to deny Joseph R. Biden Jr. a majority. And Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who was also subpoenaed, participated in a planning meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington on Jan. 5 after backing baseless litigation and “Stop the Steal” efforts around the country to push the lie of a stolen election.“In the days before the Jan. 6 attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, said in a statement. “The select committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot and who paid for it all.”The panel also issued subpoenas for Bill Stepien, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, who supervised its conversion into a “Stop the Steal” operation; and Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign who participated at the Jan. 5 meeting at the Willard, where associates discussed pressuring Mr. Pence not to certify the Electoral College results.Also included in the group that received subpoenas on Monday was Angela McCallum, the Trump campaign’s national executive assistant, who left a voice message for an unknown Michigan state representative in which she said she wanted to know whether the campaign could “count on” the representative to help appoint an alternate slate of electors.The subpoenas — which bring to 25 the number issued by the committee — require that the witnesses turn over documents this month and sit for depositions in early December. More than 150 witnesses have testified in closed-door sessions with the committee’s investigators.In a statement on Monday evening, Mr. Kerik said his lawyer had accepted the committee’s subpoena, but he defended his actions. He said that Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, had brought him into the legal effort to investigate claims of voter fraud, but he argued that he had nothing to do with plans to try to sway Congress.“I was not hired to overturn the will of the people — only to look into the integrity of the process and ensure that the results accurately reflected the will of the people,” Mr. Kerik said. “As to the events of Jan. 6, I was not involved.”Mr. Flynn, Mr. Eastman, Mr. Stepien, Mr. Miller and Ms. McCallum did not immediately respond to requests for comment..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The panel’s latest move indicates that it is zeroing in on how — in the days and weeks before a throng of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’s counting of votes — the former president’s closest associates were planning an effort stretching from the Oval Office, the House and Senate to state officials across the country.Critical to that push, investigators believe, was the meeting the day before the riot at the Willard Hotel. The Washington Post reported that Mr. Kerik paid for rooms and suites in Washington hotels as he worked with Mr. Giuliani on “Stop the Steal” efforts.“They are really honing in on this strategy at the Willard Hotel,” said Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and a law professor at the University of Michigan. “If it’s a campaign war room, that’s one thing. But the question is: To what extent are they looking at blocking the certification of the election? The Eastman memo is a real smoking gun. It really appears to be a concerted effort here.”Even as the committee ramps up its inquiry, it is facing stonewalling from Mr. Trump and many of his allies, whom he has directed to defy the panel based on a claim of executive privilege.Mr. Trump has filed suit against the committee to keep secret at least 770 pages of documents concerning handwritten notes, draft speeches and executive orders, and records of his calls, meetings and emails with state officials. But the Biden administration has declined to support his claim to executive privilege, arguing that there is no such prerogative for documents related to an attempt to undermine democracy and the presidency itself.The Justice Department is weighing whether to charge Stephen K. Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress after the House voted last month to recommend his prosecution for defying its subpoena. Another witness, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was involved in frenzied efforts to overturn the election, refused to cooperate on Friday.Mr. Flynn, who spent 33 years as an Army intelligence officer, has emerged as one of the most extreme voices in Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the election.Mr. Flynn attended a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the false message that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud, the committee said. That meeting came after Mr. Flynn gave an interview to the right-wing site Newsmax in which he talked about the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.Mr. Stepien helmed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, which urged state and party officials to affect the outcome of the election by asking states to delay or deny the certification of electoral votes and by sending multiple slates of the votes to Congress to allow a challenge to the results, the committee said. In particular, Mr. Stepien supervised a fund-raising effort that sought to profit off the election challenges and promote lies about voting machines that campaign staff had determined to be false, the committee said.Mr. Trump and the Republican Party raised $255.4 million in the eight weeks after the election as he promoted unfounded accusations of fraud.Mr. Eastman has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent weeks after it was revealed that he wrote a memo to Mr. Trump suggesting that Mr. Pence could reject electors from certain states. Mr. Eastman is also reported to have participated in a briefing for nearly 300 state legislators, during which he told the group that it was their duty to “fix this, this egregious conduct, and make sure that we’re not putting in the White House some guy that didn’t get elected,” the committee said.He met with Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence to push his arguments, participated in the meeting at the Willard and spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, before the Capitol assault. As violence broke out, he sent a message blaming Mr. Pence for not going along with his plan. More

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      Lawyer John Eastman and Michael Flynn among six subpoenaed by Capitol attack panel

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      US Capitol attackLawyer John Eastman and Michael Flynn among six subpoenaed by Capitol attack panelPanel seeks documents and testimony from legal scholar said to have outlined scenarios for overturning election Hugo Lowell in WashingtonMon 8 Nov 2021 18.31 ESTFirst published on Mon 8 Nov 2021 17.58 ESTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued subpoenas to six of Donald Trump’s associates involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election from a “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony open a new line of inquiry into the coordinated strategy by the White House and the Trump campaign to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and whether it was connected to the 6 January insurrection.House investigators on Monday targeted six Trump officials connected to the Willard: the legal scholar John Eastman, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller, the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s campaign aide Angela McCallum, and the former New York police department commissioner Bernard Kerik.The select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials in order to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”.House 6 January panel to issue new round of subpoenas for Trump alliesRead moreThe six Trump officials compelled to cooperate with the select committee may have some of the most intimate knowledge of how the different elements of the former president’s effort to stop the certification – fit together.The subpoenas for Eastman and other Trump associates – first reported by the Guardian – show the select committee’s resolve to uncover the “centers of gravity” from which Trump and his advisers schemed to overturn the election, according to a source familiar with the matter.House investigators are taking a special interest in Eastman after it emerged that he outlined scenarios for overturning the election in a memo for a 4 January White House meeting that included Trump, the former vice-president Mike Pence and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.At the meeting, according to a source close to Trump, Eastman ran through the memo that detailed how Pence might refuse to certify electoral slates for Biden on 6 January and thereby unilaterally hand Trump a second term.The former president seized on Eastman’s memo, reviewed by the Guardian, and relentlessly pressured Pence in the days that followed to use it to in effect commandeer the ceremonial electoral certification process, the source said.Trump was not successful in co-opting Pence and Congress certified Biden as president. But House investigators are examining whether the memo was part of a broader conspiracy connected to the Capitol attack – and whether Trump had advance knowledge of the insurrection.The pro-Trump legal scholar also pressured nearly 300 state legislators to challenge the legitimacy of Biden’s win, reportedly participated at a “war room” meeting at the Willard on 5 January and spoke at a rally before the Capitol attack, the select committee said.House investigators also subpoenaed Stepien, the manager of the Trump 2020 campaign, after he urged state and Republican party officials to delay or deny the certification of electoral votes ahead of the joint session of Congress on 6 January.The select committee said it had subpoenaed Miller since he was in close and repeated contact with top Trump associates at the Willard and he too participated in the “war room” meeting that took place the day before the Capitol attack.At that meeting, the select committee said, Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani discussed how to subvert the election by having Pence follow Eastman’s memo and not certify the election for Biden.The select committee issued further subpoenas to Bernard Kerik, an aide to Giuliani based at the Willard, as well as Angela McCallum, who also pressured state legislators to challenge Biden’s win.House investigators sent a sixth subpoena to Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser fired in 2017 for lying to the FBI, after he attended an 18 December Oval Office meeting about whether Trump could invoke emergency powers based on lies about election fraud.The select committee was expected to send further subpoenas to Trump officials connected to activities at the Willard, the source said, noting that Thompson had told reporters last week that he had signed about 20 subpoenas that were ready to be issued.In the letters accompanying the six subpoenas, Thompson said Eastman was compelled to produce documents by 22 November and appear for a deposition on 8 December. The other Trump officials have until 23 November to produce documents and have deposition dates later in December.But it was not immediately clear whether the subpoenaed aides would comply with the orders. Other Trump administration aides subpoenaed by the select committee have slow-walked their cooperation, while Bannon ignored his subpoena in its entirety.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMichael FlynnnewsReuse this content More

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      Redistricting Explained: Your Questions Answered

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      Suppose a state has 25 voters who live in a perfect grid. Sixty percent of them belong to the Blue party, and 40 percent to the Red party.

      Say the state has five House seats. We need districts roughly the same size. We can draw them to fairly reflect the population: Blue gets three seats, Red gets two seats.

      But what if we want to give Blue the advantage? If we draw the districts like this, Blue holds a majority in all five districts.

      Now, let’s draw a map that helps the Red party. We’ll need to get creative, since it’s in the minority. But check out what happens if we draw the districts this way. More

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      Democrats ‘thank God’ for infrastructure win after state election warnings

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      Biden administrationDemocrats ‘thank God’ for infrastructure win after state election warnings
      Concerns party will face disaster in midterm elections next year
      Trumpism without Trump: how Republicans won in Virginia
      0Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 7 Nov 2021 10.59 ESTLast modified on Sun 7 Nov 2021 13.56 ESTVoters in Virginia and New Jersey this week sounded a serious warning to Democrats, key players in the Biden administration and Congress said on Sunday: the party needs to get things done or it faces disaster in midterm elections next year.Biden hails ‘monumental step forward’ as Democrats pass infrastructure billRead moreThe energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said “we thank God” something was done on Friday night: a $1tn infrastructure deal sent to Joe Biden’s desk by the House.Three days after Democrats lost a race for governor in one state Biden won comfortably and barely held the other, House centrists and progressives managed to come together, with some Republican support.Biden hailed a “monumental step forward” and a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America”. He also said “the one message that came across” in Virginia and New Jersey was: “Get something done.”Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, echoed his boss, telling NBC’s Meet the Press the American people “wanted to see more action in Washington. They wanted to see things move more quickly, and three days later, Congress responded.”But Democrats punted again on the second half of the president’s domestic agenda, the 10-year, $1.75tn Build Back Better package to boost health and social care and to seek to mitigate the impact of the climate crisis.Granholm told CNN’s State of the Union: “I think that the Democrats in the House got the message very loud and clear. Pass the bill and pass the second part too, because these contain things that everyday people care about.“The governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, ran on the phrase ‘Fix the damn roads’. And that’s what this bill does. It fixes the damn roads. It fixes the bridges. It gets broadband to real people. It fixes your homes so that they’re not leaking energy.”Granholm also said the infrastructure bill did not help with childcare and other “costs of living for real people”. That, she said, is the job of Build Back Better, which now awaits analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a measure demanded by centrists.The New Jersey centrist Josh Gottheimer told CNN he and his allies wanted to make sure the bill was “fiscally responsible and paid for”. He said he was confidant it would pass but dodged when asked repeatedly if his group would vote no if CBO analysis differed from White House and congressional estimates.In New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, won by an unexpectedly narrow margin. Taking a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, the Republican Jack Ciattarelli has refused to concede.In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, suffered a devastating defeat by Glenn Youngkin, a businessman who kept Trump at arm’s length while campaigning on culture war issues including the place of race in education.Asked if Youngkin could have been beaten had major legislation been passed in Washington before election day, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, told CNN: “I wish the House would have moved earlier.”Warner also said voters needed to be told what was in the Biden bills, rather than what they cost. The bills’ cost is regularly condemned by Republicans – and by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who remains a key obstacle in the Senate.The White House adviser Cedric Richmond told Fox News Sunday Manchin was “a lot more conservative and everybody sees that but he’s been a willing partner to come to the table with constructive dialogue. And we’re confident in where we will go with our Build Back Better framework. We’re optimistic we’re going to get it done. And the truth is we need to get it done.”Richmond also rejected Republican claims that increased spending will add to inflation. Granholm said the administration saw current inflation as “transitory”.Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland and a Republican moderate with presidential ambitions, told CNN Biden had “nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory”.The infrastructure bill “should have been an overwhelming win back in August”, Hogan said. “And I think [Biden] should not have let it get sidetracked by the progressives in the House. I think that was bad for Joe Biden. I think that was reflected in the election results because I think they misread the mandate.Joe Biden’s best hope of retaining power is Trump, the ogre under the bed | Michael CohenRead more“You know, Joe Biden won a very narrow election by winning swing voters and they’re not where the progressive caucus is, I can assure you, and the vast majority of Americans are not for the second bill.”Progressives contend otherwise. In tweets on Saturday, the Washington state congresswoman Pramila Jayapal highlighted news from the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow and said: “This is EXACTLY why we need the Build Back Better Act. We will deliver climate action – for our communities, future generations, and our planet.”She also retweeted the Rev William Barber, the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. He said: “My prayer is that Congress will keep its word and vote to pass Build Back Better, because if not, that political betrayal will be a political crime and integrity breach.”Such a failure, Barber said, “would abandon over 140 million poor and low-wealth people who make up 43% of the nation and 30% of the voting population”.That, he said, “could split the Democratic party in ways that may be irreparable”.TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS domestic policyDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      House 6 January panel to issue new round of subpoenas for Trump allies

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      US Capitol attackHouse 6 January panel to issue new round of subpoenas for Trump allies
      Focus on events at Willard hotel ‘command center’
      John Eastman among about 20 individuals in committee’s sights
      Roadmap to a coup: inside Trump’s plot to steal the presidency
      Hugo Lowell in WashingtonSat 6 Nov 2021 13.10 EDTLast modified on Sat 6 Nov 2021 13.12 EDTThe House select committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January is poised to issue subpoenas to top Trump lieutenants involved in attempting to subvert the 2020 election results from a “command center” at the Willard hotel in Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter.Trumpism without Trump: how Republican dog-whistles exploited Democratic divisionsRead moreThe subpoenas, which could be issued as soon as next week, reflect the select committee’s interest in events at the hotel just across from the White House, where Donald Trump’s most loyal aides plotted to keep him in office.The select committee is targeting about 20 individuals connected to the Trump command center at the Willard, among them the legal scholar John Eastman, who outlined ways to deny Joe Biden the presidency, the source said.The subpoenas seeking documents and testimony are aimed at obtaining the legal advice offered to Trump on how he could manipulate events on 6 January to stop certification of Biden’s election win, the source said.House investigators are moving to pursue Trump lieutenants who gathered at the Willard to uncover the “centers of gravity” from which Trump and his advisers conspired, the source said – and whether the former president had advance knowledge of the Capitol attack.The select committee appears to be seeking a full account of what transpired in several suites at the Willard in the days leading up to 6 January and during a final “war room” meeting the night before the Capitol attack.The select committee is targeting Eastman after it emerged that he outlined scenarios for overturning the election in a memorandum presented at a White House meeting on 4 January with Trump, former vice-president Mike Pence and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.At that meeting, according to a source close to Trump, Eastman ran through the memo that detailed how at the joint session of Congress on 6 January Pence might refuse to certify electoral slates for Biden and thereby hand Trump a second term.The former president seized on Eastman’s memo and relentlessly pressured Pence in the following days to use it to in effect commandeer the largely ceremonial electoral counting process, the Trump source said.Trump was not successful in convincing Pence to reject Biden’s election win – an outcome top Trump aides blamed on the then vice-president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, the Trump source said – and Congress certified Biden as president after the Capitol attack.Eastman has distanced himself from the memo, telling the Guardian the scenarios he outlined were not intended as advice. He also told the National Review he wrote the memo at the request of “somebody in the legal team” who he could not recall.But Eastman appears to be a witness of importance, given he regularly attended meetings at the Willard with Giuliani and former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, acting effectively as a liaison with the White House, the Trump source said.Eastman undermined his attempts to distance himself from the memo last week after he told the activist reporter Lauren Windsor that Pence declined to overturn the election, even though he had provided the legal reasoning, because “Pence is an establishment guy at the end of the day”.The select committee is also considering a subpoena for Giuliani, the source said, since the former New York mayor and Trump lawyer led the legal effort from the Willard that involved trying to find and publicize allegations of electoral fraud.Giuliani pressured state legislatures to challenge Biden victories and, even as the Capitol attack unfolded, cajoled Republican members of Congress to object to states’ electoral college votes, the Trump source said.A spokesperson for the House select committee declined to comment about the targets or scope of forthcoming subpoenas. Neither Eastman nor a lawyer for Giuliani immediately responded to requests for comment.The new line of inquiry centered on the Willard comes after the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, last week told reporters that he intended to subpoena Eastman, before later revealing that he had signed about 20 subpoenas.Thompson said on Friday that he had hoped to issue the subpoenas to Eastman and other Trump lieutenants, but the timeline slipped as Democrats became consumed with crisis talks before the House passed Biden’s $1tn infrastructure package shortly before midnight.Almost one in three of Republicans say violence may be necessary to ‘save’ USRead moreThe select committee remains in the evidence-gathering phase of its inquiry and has conducted interviews and depositions with more than 150 witnesses, according to the vice-chair of the panel, Liz Cheney.“It is a range of engagements – some formal interviews, some depositions,” the Wyoming Republican said. “There really is a huge amount of work under way that is leading to real progress for us.”Several former Trump officials, including Bannon, have resisted subpoenas. A former justice department official, Jeffrey Clark, on Friday refused to answer questions at a deposition, citing attorney-client privilege.In a statement, Thompson raised the possibility of holding Clark in contempt of Congress. “Mr Clark’s complete failure to cooperate today is unacceptable,” he said. “We are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable to meet his obligation.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More