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    Ex-Trump adviser must report to prison on 19 March for defying January 6 panel

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    Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro must report to prison on 19 March to begin a four-month sentence for defying the House January 6 committee, his lawyers said.Navarro, 74, is an economist turned trade adviser who became closely involved in attempts to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, attempts that culminated in the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.Navarro openly boasted of his role in an election subversion plot he called the “Green Bay Sweep”. The House committee subpoenaed him. He refused to co-operate, claiming executive privilege covered interactions with Trump as president.Held in contempt by the House, Navarro was charged by the Department of Justice and found guilty last September. He was sentenced in January this year.“You are not a victim, you are not the object of a political prosecution,” the judge in the case said then. “These are circumstances of your own making.”Navarro asked to be spared jail while appealing his sentence, a request the judge denied.Late on Sunday, an attorney for Navarro said in court papers he had been “ordered to report to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, FCI Miami, on or before 2pm ET on March 19, 2024”.The lawyer referred to his client as “Dr Navarro”, highlighting an academic career which saw Navarro rise to prominence as a China hawk but also be exposed for extensively quoting a source, Ron Vara, that turned out to be an anagram of his own name.The lawyer wrote: “Dr Navarro respectfully reiterates his request for an administrative stay … should this court deny Dr Navarro’s motion, he respectfully requests an administrative stay so as to permit the supreme court review of this court’s denial.”The filing said Navarro was still citing executive privilege as reason not to comply with Congress. The justice department has called his arguments “meritless”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf Navarro does report to prison, he will be the most senior aide to Trump – who faces 91 criminal charges himself – yet to sit behind bars.The former Trump campaign chair and White Houses strategist Steve Bannon was given his own four-month sentence for contempt of Congress, for refusing to co-operate with the January 6 committee.A fedeal court is considering Bannon’s appeal. More

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      Liz Cheney: potential Trump running mate Elise Stefanik is ‘a total crackpot’

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      Elise Stefanik of New York, a top House Republican and a leading contender to be Donald Trump’s presidential running mate, is “a total crackpot”, the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said.Cheney threw the barb on Tuesday, in response to a statement in which Stefanik called the House January 6 committee on which Cheney was vice-chair “illegitimate and unconstitutional” and claimed it “illegally deleted records”.Cheney said: “This is what Elise Stefanik⁩ said, in a rare moment of honesty, about the … attack on our Capitol.”Cheney posted Stefanik’s statement from 6 January 2021, the day Trump supporters stormed Congress after he told them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, a riot now linked to nine deaths; she added: “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.”In her original January 6 statement, Stefanik lamented “truly a tragic day for America” and “condemn[ed] the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today”. The perpetrators, she said, “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.Stefanik also “prayed” that “colleagues on both sides of the aisle, their staffs, and all Americans … remain safe”, and thanked police, the national guard and Capitol staffers for “protecting the People’s House and the American people”.Trump was impeached for inciting the riot, with the support of 10 House Republicans, but acquitted at trial in the Senate when only seven Republicans voted to convict. He currently faces 91 criminal charges – 17 for election subversion – as well as civil suits and attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting an insurrection. Regardless, he dominates presidential primary polling.Stefanik is chair of the House Republican conference, the fourth-ranking Republican position.Earlier this month, she declined to commit to certifying the 2024 election and told NBC she had “concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages”, referring to the more than 1,200 people arrested over the riot, of whom hundreds have been convicted.Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who sat with Cheney on the House January 6 committee, put the “hostages” remark down to Stefanik’s ambition.“Does she no longer believe violence is ‘unacceptable’ and ‘must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law’?” Raskin asked. “Does her change of heart have anything to do with wanting to be Trump’s running mate?”Cheney – Stefanik’s predecessor as conference chair – was one of two Republicans who defied party leaders to join the January 6 committee. The other, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired. Cheney lost her position and then her Wyoming seat to a Trump-backed rival.Notwithstanding her status as the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, membership of the Republican establishment and strongly conservative views, she has not come back to the fold.On Tuesday, Stefanik did not immediately comment on Cheney’s “crackpot” remark. More

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      in US Politics

      Special counsel to disclose Trump’s phone data at election interference trial

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      Special counsel prosecutors indicated on Monday they will call three expert witnesses at Donald Trump’s trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election who could potentially show how January 6 rioters moved on the Capitol in response to the former president’s tweets.The witnesses, according to a three-page filing, involve two experts on geolocation data to show the crowd’s movement during and after Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, and an expert on cellular phone data to testify about when and how Trump’s phone was being used, including over the same time period.Expert 3 will testify that they extracted data from official government phones belonging to Trump and one unnamed individual, how the phones were used in the post 2020 election period, including the websites visited, and when Trump’s phone accessed Twitter during January 6.The fact that the special counsel, Jack Smith, had obtained warrants for Trump’s phone and Trump’s Twitter/X account was disclosed in unsealed court filings. But the description of the anticipated testimony suggested they gathered more granular information than previously known.The notice of expert testimony in Trump’s federal 2020 election interference case – he is also facing a 2020 interference case in Fulton county, Georgia – also reveals how prosecutors intend to deploy the evidence they amassed during the criminal investigation at trial.In recent weeks, prosecutors have made it increasingly clear that they want to make the case that Trump sought to obstruct the January 6 congressional certification of the election results with the rioters by tying him to Capitol attack, as well as through political means.The notice about the subject of the expert witness testimony suggests prosecutors also intend to make the case that Trump – through his action and inaction – simultaneously advanced the physical obstruction of Congress as the Capitol attack progressed.Testimony from the first two geolocation experts will help to “aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech at the Ellipse”, the filing said.Still, the filing stopped short of claiming that the experts could definitely say who used the phones at any given moment, likely because Trump often used other people’s phones and had aide Dan Scavino compose tweets for him – something Trump’s defense lawyers are almost certain to focus on.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionProsecutors previously said in the 45-page indictment that they had evidence Trump knew of the significance of impeding the vote certification when he pressured his vice-president, Mike Pence, to interfere, saying he otherwise could not remain president.Trump took steps to obstruct the certification through political means by imploring Pence to accept fake slates of Trump electors to delay proceedings or reject the Biden slates, and asked senators to keep delaying the certification after it was interrupted by the riot. More

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      Mike Johnson to publicly release 44,000 hours of sensitive January 6 footage

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      House speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he plans to publicly release thousands of hours of footage from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, making good on a promise he made to far-right members of his party when he was campaigning for his current job.“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” Johnson said in a statement.The newly elected speaker said the first tranche of security footage, around 90 hours, will be released on a public committee website Friday, with the rest of the 44,000 hours expected to be posted over the next several months. In the meantime, a public viewing room will be set up in the Capitol.For the last several months, the GOP-led House Administration Committee has made the video available by appointment only to members of the media, criminal defendants and a limited number of other people. The video shows some of the fighting up close and gives a bird’s-eye view of the Capitol complex – one that visitors rarely see – as hundreds of president Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, violently attacking police officers and breaking in through windows and doors.By expanding this access to the general public, Johnson is fulfilling one of the pledges he made last month to the most conservative members of his party, including the representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who orchestrated the ouster of the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Both Gaetz and Trump – who is currently running for re-election as he faces federal charges for his role in the January 6 attack – applauded Johnson’s decision.In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump congratulated the speaker “for having the courage and fortitude” to release the footage.The move by Johnson will grant the general public a stunning level of access to sensitive and explicit January 6 security footage, which many critics have warned could endanger the safety of staff and Congressmembers in the Capitol complex if it gets into the wrong hands. The hours of footage detail not only the shocking assault rioters made on US Capitol police as they breached the building but also how the rioters accessed the building and the routes lawmakers used to flee to safety.A request for comment from Capitol police was declined.Johnson said Friday that the committee is processing the footage to blur the faces of individuals “to avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind”. He added that an estimated 5% of the footage will not be publicly released as it “may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture”.Gripping images and video from the Capitol attack by Trump supporters have been widely circulated by documentarians, news organizations and even the rioters themselves. But until this year, officials held back much of the surveillance video from hundreds of security cameras stationed in and around the Capitol.In February, McCarthy gave then Fox News host Tucker Carlson exclusive access to the footage, a move that Democrats swiftly condemned as a “grave” breach of security with potentially far-reaching consequences.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show in the spring, working to bend perceptions of the violent, grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Trump.It is all part of a larger effort by Republicans to redefine the narrative around the deadly insurrection after the findings of the House January 6 committee last year. The select committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans spent months painstakingly documenting, with testimony and video evidence, how Trump rallied his supporters to head to the Capitol and “fight like hell” as Congress was certifying his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.The committee’s final report released last December concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.The panel passed their investigation to the justice department, recommending that federal prosecutors investigate the former president on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection. In August, Trump was indicted on four felony counts for his role in the attack as the justice department accused him of assaulting the “bedrock function” of democracy. More

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      in US Politics

      Cassidy Hutchinson left DC amid ‘security concerns’ after January 6 hearings

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      The former Donald Trump White House aide who became a pivotal January 6 witness remembers wanting to make a last-minute run for it before delivering her crucial testimony about the US Capitol attack that the defeated president’s supporters staged.But Cassidy Hutchinson kept her nerve, and the cost of breaking ranks with Trump and his fanatical supporters was steep.“Security protocols and … concerns” forced her out of her Washington DC apartment and into hiding after testifying, she said in an interview airing Sunday at 9am ET.“My life changed – the way that I was living my life – for a while,” Hutchinson told CBS News Sunday Morning. “I could not go back to my apartment. I ended up moving down to Atlanta for several months.”Hutchinson, who was working forMark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, when January 6 occurred, also told CBS that she continues to consider herself a Republican. But she said she is not supporting Trump’s efforts to win the Republican nomination and return to the Oval Office in 2024 as he grapples with more than 90 criminal charges, many stemming from his attempts to overturn his electoral loss to Joe Biden weeks before the Capitol attack.“I would … like to make clear – I would not back the former president of the United States,” Hutchinson remarked to CBS News Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith during the interview. “He is dangerous for the country. He is willing – and has showed time and time again willingness – to proliferate lies, and to vulnerable American people, so he could stay in power.“To me, that is the most un-American thing that you can do.”Hutchinson gave some of the most dramatic testimony about the Capitol attack during live congressional hearings in the summer of 2022. One key moment she described was how Trump accosted a secret service agent and lunged for the steering wheel of the car the then-president was in when he was told he would not be driven to the Capitol.The Capitol attack carried out by supporters whom Trump had told to “fight like hell” was a desperate but failed maneuver meant to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory over him. The riot has been linked to nine deaths – more than 1,100 people have been charged in connection with the attack, and the majority of them have either pleaded guilty or been convicted by judges or juries.Hutchinson explained Sunday how it was a grueling decision to testify at the January 6 hearings conducted by a special House committee.“I almost ran out of – there’s a little hold room outside the Committee room – that we were about to walk in, and I almost darted,” Hutchinson told the program. “I heard the door click open, and I turned around and I looked at my attorney and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ And I started to walk, and he gently pushed my shoulders. And he said, ‘You can do this.’ And then we walked out.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHutchinson’s interview was meant to promote her memoir Enough, which was published by CBS’s sister company Simon & Schuster and is scheduled for release Tuesday.Enough has already attracted worldwide headlines after the Guardian reported that in it Hutchinson wrote about how she was groped by Rudy Giuliani – the Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor – on the day of the Capitol attack. The book mainly tracks the 27-year-old’s journey from Trump believer to disenchantment with him, echoing some of the comments Hutchinson made to CBS in Sunday’s interview.Giuliani and Trump have pleaded not guilty to charges that they illegally sought to overturn Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory in the state of Georgia. The pair are among 19 people charged in the case brought against state prosecutors based out of Atlanta.Those charges are contained in one of four criminal indictments filed against Trump this year. The others charge him for his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and other efforts to nullify his 2020 defeat that culminated in the January 6 attack.Trump has denied all wrongdoing and enjoys commanding polling leads over other candidates pursuing the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. More

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      in US Politics

      Perverse as it sounds, Donald Trump in a prison cell may be the worst possible outcome | Emma Brockes

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      It seems a long time ago, but there was a brief period, after Joe Biden’s inauguration and before the 6 January hearings and the start of campaigning for next year’s presidential election, when it was possible to avoid Donald Trump for days at a time. He was still there, obviously, wandering the corridors at Mar-a-Lago, Gloria Swanson-style, and posting screeds to Truth Social. But there was no real reason to think about him and, for that short period, he was returned to his essential state: just another person posting unhinged rants online.This is not where Trump is now – in the US, at least. Thanks to a raft of legal actions, culminating earlier this month in the justice department’s arraignment of the former president for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election result, Trump is not only front and centre every day, but in danger of ascending to a new position in the news cycle: political martyr and victim of a witch-hunt. Given the preposterousness of the events leading up to this moment – only recently, a jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse – it seems inevitable we should find ourselves here.Trump, of course, is keenly aware of the potential in his superficially dire situation and has already leaned fully into it. In campaign stops across the US, and with the threat of jail hanging over him, he is doing the thing we know from experience to be the man’s absolute forte: siphoning the heat and energy from any given charge against him and refracting it back on his enemies. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you,” he told a crowd in New Hampshire on Tuesday. As the New York Times pointed out this week, his new campaign message for the 2024 election is: “I’m being indicted for you”. (A woman at the New Hampshire event told the reporter, nonsensically but with heart: “What, am I next?”)It is an exceedingly weird and insoluble problem. From experience we know that the only blows that land on Trump are either ridicule – recall his face when Obama mocked him, all those years ago, during the White House correspondents’ dinner – or ignoring him. Of the two, only the latter really promises results. In the shocked days after Trump’s election in 2016, I recall that Obama’s moment of mockery was singled out as an example of precisely the kind of leftwing self-indulgence that dislodged the first pebble in Trump’s psychology, and ended in his run for the White House. It is a mistake to take the man seriously; indicting him on four criminal counts of allegedly attempting to overturn a democratic election is the very definition of taking someone seriously. And yet, in a functioning democracy, how on earth might one let this pass?As such, the unfolding of the latest and most serious legal action against Trump highlights a stark divide between the political and judicial rationales for pursuing him. As has already been observed, Trump is on exceedingly thin ice with Moxila A Upadhyaya, the judge who set the terms of his conditions for release pending trial. In the last week, Trump posted what might be construed as vague threats in the direction of any prospective juror (“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”), raising the possibility of a scenario in which he is yanked to jail and campaigns for the presidency from his cell.There is, in the current climate in the US, nothing pleasing about this image. In fact, with every passing day, and with a perversity no amount of exposure to Trump can ever quite normalise, Trump in jail seems like the worst possible outcome. Campaigning from a prison cell would lend Trump a righteousness exceeding even his present grandiose narrative, and widen the sweep of his supporters by offering them a wildly romantic and dramatic cause to join.What remains so hard to grapple with is that in spite of the deadly seriousness of the events that got us here – it is easy to forget, sometimes, that people died on 6 January – as ever with Trump, one senses the wink behind every gesture. When he tells supporters, as he did in March, “I am your retribution”, his language is like a biblical script with Mel Gibson behind it, a hokey narrative that serves two purposes: it offers a genuine cause for aggrieved supporters to latch on to and, simultaneously, it extends an invitation to join him in a cosmic joke against everyone else. One imagines Trump in jail, his demeanour unchanged, which is to say that of an after-dinner host, smirking and shrugging and rolling his eyes as he says: “I’m like Jesus Christ at this point.”
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s new indictment: America needs this trial | Editorial

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      The indictment served on Donald Trump on Monday marks the beginning of a legal reckoning that is desperately required, if American democracy is to properly free itself from his malign, insidious influence. Mr Trump already faces multiple criminal charges relating to the retention of classified national security documents and the payment of hush money to a porn star. But the gravity of the four counts outlined by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is of a different order of magnitude.Mr Trump stands accused of conspiring, in office, to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Following Joe Biden’s victory, the indictment states, Mr Trump “knowingly” used false claims of electoral fraud in an attempt “to subvert the legitimate election results”. A bipartisan congressional committee report last year came to similar conclusions and provides much of the basis for the charges. But this represents the first major legal attempt to hold Mr Trump accountable for events leading up to and including the storming of the Capitol by a violent mob on 6 January 2021.The stakes could hardly be set higher. Democratic elections and the peaceful transfer of power are the cornerstones of the American republic. The testimony given to Congress indicates that Mr Trump used his authority to try to bully federal and state officials into supporting his claims that the election had been “stolen” from him. Repeatedly told that his assertions were baseless, he then mobilised a hostile crowd on 6 January to intimidate lawmakers charged with ratifying Mr Biden’s victory.It is inconceivable that Mr Trump should not be made to answer for actions that imperilled the constitutional and democratic functioning of the United States. The prosecutors’ case will hinge on their ability to prove that he knew his claims of a stolen election were bogus. But beyond the trial itself, it would be foolish to underestimate Mr Trump’s ability to turn even this situation to his own political advantage.The legal fronts on which Mr Trump is now engaged will drain his financial resources. But a narrative of victimhood and persecution has become, and will remain, the galvanising theme of his campaign. Two previous criminal indictments saw his poll ratings lift, helping him to establish a huge lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024. Whatever the evidence to the contrary, a sizable proportion of American voters will continue to back Mr Trump’s self-serving version of reality.One of the most dangerously polarising elections in US history thus looms as, over the next 15 months, Mr Trump uses political cunning to evade the legal net that is closing around him. Through his lawyers, he will do all he can to delay matters, hoping eventually to dictate the course of events from the White House. For his part, Mr Smith said on Monday that the justice department will seek “a speedy trial”.It is in the interests of American democracy, to which Mr Trump represents a clear and present danger, that the justice department gets its wish. A healthy body politic cannot allow its founding values and core principles to be trashed with apparent impunity. Prosecutors will need to proceed with care and be alert to the complex political dynamics. But this climactic reckoning in court needs to take place before Mr Trump gets the chance to besmirch the country’s highest office all over again. More

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      in US Politics

      White House restates call for abortion to be enshrined in law as Biden signs contraception protection – as it happened

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      From 5h agoSpecial counsel Jack Smith has offered limited immunity to at least two Republican fake electors in return for their testimonies to a grand jury over Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a new CNN report.Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that in instances where prosecutors granted immunity to witnesses, “The special counsel’s office arrived at the courthouse in Washington ready to compel their testimony after the witnesses indicated they would decline to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment.”Within the last two weeks, at least one other witness spoke with federal investigators outside of the federal grand jury with an agreement that the witness be granted limited immunity from prosecution, CNN reports.The testimonies in recent days have largely surrounded fake electors’ schemes that were designed by attorneys affiliated with the Trump campaign three years ago.According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN, “The numbers, profile of the witnesses and prosecutor tactics suggest a probe picking up its pace.”It is slightly past 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap up of the day’s key events:
      The supreme court has rejected Texas and Louisiana’s challenge to Biden deportation policy prioritizing groups of unauthorized immigrants, including suspected terrorists, convicts and those caught at the border for deportation. The states wanted the authority to fight the policy in court. The court holds that the states do not have legal standing to challenge the policy, another win for the Biden administration, especially since conservative justice Samuel Alito was the only dissent.
      Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday to protect access to contraception, one day before the anniversary of the supreme court decision that struck down the federal right to an abortion. In a statement, the president highlighted reproductive health as a top priority of his administration in the wake of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling from the conservative-led court that reversed the Roe v Wade abortion protections in place for half a century.
      Two Russian intelligence officers who attempted to interfere in a local election as part of Moscow’s “global malign influence operations” were sanctioned Friday by the US government. Yegor Sergeyevich Popov and Aleksei Borisovich Sukhodolov, both members of Russia’s federal security service, worked to undermine democratic processes in the US and other countries through a network of co-conspirators, the treasury department said in a statement, reported by Reuters.
      Special counsel Jack Smith has offered limited immunity to at least two Republican fake electors in return for their testimonies to a grand jury over Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a new CNN report. Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that in instances where prosecutors granted immunity to witnesses, “the special counsel’s office arrived at the courthouse in Washington ready to compel their testimony after the witnesses indicated they would decline to answer questions under the fifth amendment.”
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed the Biden-Harris administration’s support for reproductive healthcare rights. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jean-Pierre said: “President Biden and Vice-President Harris stand with the majority of Americans who believe the right to choose is fundamental. As the president has made clear, the only way to ensure women in every state have access to abortion is for Congress to pass a law, restoring the protections of Roe.”
      Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has rolled out a list of 15 endorsements from South Carolina lawmakers on Thursday. According to the Associated Press which reviewed the list, the endorsement includes 11 state House members and four state senators.
      Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has rolled out a list of 15 endorsements from South Carolina lawmakers on Thursday.According to the Associated Press which reviewed the list, the endorsement includes 11 state House members and four state senators.
      “Governor DeSantis’ leadership has made Florida a refuge for those seeking freedom in a nation where it is under attack,” said state senator Josh Kimbrell, one of DeSantis’s endorsers, the Hill reports.
      “No Republican in the country has beaten the radical left more than governor DeSantis, and he is the only candidate in this race who can defeat Joe Biden, put energy back in the executive, and deliver on a bold conservative agenda that Republicans across South Carolina are looking for,” he added.
      On Thursday, DeSantis campaigned in North Augusta, South Carolina, drawing a crowd of supporters whom he told, “You run this process, you compete and you respect the outcome of the process… I think I’m going to be the nominee no matter what happens I’m going to work to beat Joe Biden, that’s what you have to do.”GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie got booed on stage as he delivered his address at the Freedom and Faith Coalition in Washington DC.In his address, the former New Jersey governor criticized Donald Trump, saying:
      “I’m running because he has let us down. He has let us down because he’s unwilling to take any responsibility of the mistakes that were made, any of the faults that he has and any of the things he has done. And that is not leadership, everybody. That is a failure of leadership.”
      In response, the crowd quickly booed Christie.
      “You can boo all you want. But here’s the thing: Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do,” Christie continued.
      He addressed the boos in a later interview with CNN, saying:“I knew that’s what was going to happen when I accepted the invitation but I’m not changing my message and pandering to anybody. The truth matters and I’m telling the truth about Donald Trump…” Christie told host Dana Bash.This is the third executive order that Biden has passed to protect abortion access since the rollback of Roe v Wade last June.Read more on his first and second executive order here:Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.
      “President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been committed to fighting back against the onslaught of attacks against our reproductive freedom. And we need them to continue this critical work.
      Abortion is health care… We need leaders who are committed to protecting our freedoms, not taking them away. That is why we must re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris: people we can trust to keep rebuilding a path forward, because we know the journey to rebuilding our rights will be met with challenges,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
      NARAL-Pro Choice America echoed similar sentiments, with its president Mini Timmaraju saying:
      “President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the strongest advocates for reproductive freedom ever to occupy the White House, and NARAL Pro-Choice America proudly endorses their reelection. It’s as simple as this: Abortion matters to Americans. In elections since the Supreme Court took away our right to abortion, voters have mobilized in massive numbers to elect Democrats who will fight to restore it…”
      EMILYs List president Laphonza Butler released the following statement:
      “When the Dobbs decision ended a constitutional right for the first time in this country’s history, we were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for abortion rights across the government and across the country… For her work as a groundbreaker, tireless advocate for reproductive freedom, and inspiring change-maker, EMILYs List is thrilled to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection.”
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against claims that president Joe Biden’s latest executive action on expanding contraception access is “largely symbolic”, saying:
      “It builds on the progress that we believe that we have made already and expanding contraception access for women. If you think about the Affordable Care Act, it helped millions of women save billions of dollars on birth control that they need and want. And so we understand that there are gaps still as it relates to that snd so that’s what this executive order does today.
      It does a couple of things. It’s strengthening access to affordable high quality contraception and family planning services, and increased contraception options. It lowers out-of-pocket costs. It maximizes contraception access through the following ways: insurance coverage for those covered under the Affordable Care Act … Medicaid, Medicare, federal funded healthcare programs, including community health centers …
      So we don’t believe this is symbolic. We believe that this is another step to really deal with this gap that we’re seeing across the country and to do everything that we can to continue to fight for fundamental rights.”
      In response to a question from a reporter on whether president Joe Biden calling China’s president Xi Jinping a “dictator” is the “official position” of the White House, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said:
      “The president spoke for himself. I’m just not going to go beyond what he said… The president is going to speak candidly. That will never change.”
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed the Biden-Harris administration’s support for reproductive healthcare rights.Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jean-Pierre said:
      “President Biden and vice president Harris stand with the majority of Americans who believe the right to choose is fundamental. As the president has made clear, the only way to ensure women in every state have access to abortion is for Congress to pass a law, restoring the protections of Roe.”
      Jean-Pierre also spoke of Biden’s new executive order on furthering contraception access, saying:“Access to contraception has become more important than ever following the Supreme court’s decision and ensuing crisis for women’s health. And today’s action helps ensure that women can make decisions about their own health lives and also their families.”Attorney general Merrick Garland has responded to concerns from Republicans over the justice department’s integrity, saying, “Nothing could be further from the truth.” In a press briefing on Friday, a reporter asked Garland:
      “Republicans in Congress have flirted with the idea with holding the FBI director in contempt, it’s become a talking point on the campaign trail, the alleged corruption in the FBI and federal law enforcement agencies. Do the American people have cause to be concerned about the integrity of components of this justice department and…how they’re acting?”
      In response, Garland said:
      “I certainly understand that some have chose to attack the integrity of the justice department as components and its employees by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy… Nothing could be further from the truth…
      We make our cases based on the facts and the law. These are not just words. These are what we live by…”
      Mike Pence pledged to end gender-affirming services amongst minors during his Faith and Freedom Coalition address today in Washington DC.
      “When I am President, American families will have a champion in the White House!
      We will give every parent the right to choose where their child goes to school, we will end the gender ideology that is running rampant in our schools and we will ban chemical and surgical gender transition treatment for kids under the age of 18!” he said.
      Pence’s comments come amid multiple Republicans’ pledges to end ‘wokeism,’ should they become president, including presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Special counsel Jack Smith has offered limited immunity to at least two Republican fake electors in return for their testimonies to a grand jury over Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a new CNN report.Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that in instances where prosecutors granted immunity to witnesses, “The special counsel’s office arrived at the courthouse in Washington ready to compel their testimony after the witnesses indicated they would decline to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment.”Within the last two weeks, at least one other witness spoke with federal investigators outside of the federal grand jury with an agreement that the witness be granted limited immunity from prosecution, CNN reports.The testimonies in recent days have largely surrounded fake electors’ schemes that were designed by attorneys affiliated with the Trump campaign three years ago.According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN, “The numbers, profile of the witnesses and prosecutor tactics suggest a probe picking up its pace.”An Arizona Republican election official has filed a lawsuit against unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate and staunch Donald Trump supporter Kari Lake who claims that she lost the 2022 race due to fraud.In an op-ed published in the Arizona Republic, Maricopa county recorder Stephen Richer said that as a result of Lake’s false claims, he has faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences.”
      “Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, she has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me,” Richer wrote.
      “She has gone far outside of the bounds of protected free speech as guaranteed under the First Amendment and the Arizona Constitution.
      That’s why I’m suing Kari Lake, her campaign and her political action committee for engaging in a concerted campaign to defame, threaten and isolate me,” he added.
      The lawsuit, filed in Maricopa county, Arizona on Thursday, names Lake, her political campaign, as well as her fundraising roup as defendants.According to the lawsuit, Richer is seeking unspecified monetary damages, as well as the removal of all false claims from Lake’s social media.The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s rejection of Texas and Louisiana’s challenge to the Biden administration’s deportation policy.
      “This decision soundly rejects the misguided attempt by Texas and Louisiana to force the government to implement the most draconian immigration enforcement policy,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
      In the case which ACLU filed an amicus brief, the supreme court ruled that the states lacked the standing to “order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests.”Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence appeared undeterred from his staunch anti-abortion stance, according to a new interview with Politico.The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports from Washington:Speaking one year since the US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion, Mike Pence said candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination should stand firm on the electorally unpopular issue and take a hard line on bringing in national limits.
      “For me, for our campaign, we’re going to stand where we’ve always stood, and that is without apology for the right to life,” the former congressman, Indiana governor and vice-president to Donald Trump told Politico.
      Later, addressing the Faith & Freedom conference in Washington, Pence said every Republican candidate “should support a ban on abortions before 15 weeks, as a minimum nationwide standard”.Claiming this was a “reasonable and mainstream standard”, Pence said:
      “American abortion policy has more in common with China and North Korea than it does with the nations of Europe – and it is time for that to change.”
      For the full story, click here: More

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      Republicans try to reframe January 6 as a sightseeing tour – will it work?

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      Republicans try to reframe January 6 as a sightseeing tour – will it work?Now in control of the House, Republicans are making light of the violence of the day and assailing the investigation into the Capitol attackIt might be thought that Republicans would prefer not to remind Americans of the day their president nearly destroyed US democracy.But the party’s right wing is going all in to rewrite the history of the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters, and to make political martyrs of those imprisoned for assaulting police officers and sending politicians fleeing as the mob attempted to stop Congress from endorsing Joe Biden’s election victory.Fox News produced ‘zero’ evidence to back election lie, defamation case hearsRead moreTrump himself has waded in by appearing on a song sung by the “J6 Prison Choir” of men locked up for their part in the insurrection while Republican supporters in Congress are setting up a delegation to visit the prisoners in what will be seen as an act of solidarity.Meanwhile, after taking control of the House of Representatives in January, the Republicans have launched an investigation into the then Democratic-led original congressional investigation of the January 6 Capitol attack which recommended Trump’s prosecution for inciting the riot.But leading the charge in the Orwellian attempt to control the past in the hope that it will lead Republicans to control the future is the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who pressured Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House of Representatives, into releasing to him thousands of hours of video of Trump supporters swarming the Capitol.Carlson presented selected snippets on his nightly show that he claimed proved the rioters were really no more than tourists who “obviously revered the Capitol”.“These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers,” he said.Carlson, who has claimed that the January 6 attack was a “false flag” operation by the Washington establishment to discredit Trump’s supporters, said the video shows “mostly peaceful chaos”.“Taken as a whole the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” he said.Republicans in Washington are not universally happy with this revisionism. Senator Kevin Cramer said that the attack “was not just some rowdy protest of Boy Scouts” and that the Fox News interpretation was “a lie”. Senator Thom Tillis called Carlson’s description of events “bullshit”.Asked if it was a mistake for McCarthy to hand the footage over to Fox News, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, distanced himself from the consequences.“My concern is how it was depicted,” he said.McCarthy defended the release of the video in the name of transparency although that did not explain why he gave it only to Fox.Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said McCarthy was driven principally by thirst for power as the Republican right made release of the video a condition of support for his election as speaker in January.“Everybody knows that McCarthy, who was once very upset about what happened on January 6 and said so, is just using this for his own purposes. This was simply an action designed to get him the final few votes needed to become speaker. He sold out his country. It was absolutely spineless,” Sabato said.“Carlson and McCarthy have given the crazies, the far-right extremists, the neo-Nazi white supremacists who are obsessed with January 6, the counter reality they’ve been looking for of a bunch of patriots taking a tour in the Capitol.”Sabato said Carlson, who is working to shore up his own credibility with Trump’s followers amid revelations that the Fox News host regularly derided the then president and said “I hate him passionately”, was a driving force behind the move.“Tucker Carlson on his own show said that if McCarthy wants these votes to become speaker then show us by releasing all of the information on the film. Everybody knew from the instant Carlson got it he was going to put together snippets that were very misleading, and which excluded all of the real action that day, all of the criminal action that day. It was totally predictable,” he said.While Carlson’s selective interpretation of the video was rapidly derided by some Republicans, as well as by the Capitol police chief and the family of an officer who died after being assaulted as “unscrupulous and outright sleazy”, plenty of others were onboard.The House Republicans’ Twitter account said that Carlson’s take on the footage was a “MUST WATCH”.Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia said the clips were proof of the innocence of the more than 1,000 people charged with crimes as the mob stormed the Capitol. Hundreds have already been convicted including some jailed for violence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’ve seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now,” Collins tweeted to considerable derision.The attempt to turn the imprisoned rioters into martyrs gained steam after Trump appeared in a song by a choir of men jailed over their involvement in the January 6 attack. They sing the national anthem as the former president recites the pledge of allegiance. Trump has praised the insurrectionists and said that if he were to win the presidency again he would “very, very seriously” consider giving them all pardons.The prisoners’ cause has been taken up by other Republicans.The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was among those pressing McCarthy to release the January 6 video as a condition for her support for his election as speaker. She is expected to lead a congressional delegation to a Washington DC federal prison where some of the rioters are being held, ostensibly to check on their welfare, as the result of another of her conditions for supporting McCarthy.Meanwhile, after taking control of the House of Representatives in January, the Republicans have launched an investigation of Congress’s original investigation into the events of 6 January 2021, which recommended Trump’s prosecution for inciting the assault.The latest committee to look into the riot will be led by Congressman Barry Loudermilk, who contested Biden’s victory and likened Trump’s impeachment to the crucifixion of Jesus.Loudermilk was found by the earlier House investigation to have a given tours of the Capitol to a group of people the day before the insurrection even though it was closed to visitors. They included at least one man seen photographing corridors and staircases who was later identified outside the Capitol on 6 January making threats against members of Congress.Loudermilk tweeted that he intends to revisit the January 6 investigation because, he said, the earlier inquiry was politicised.“The J6 committee chose to ignore the facts and pursue a particular political narrative. I will not do this. As chairman of the subcommittee on oversight, I’m focused on finding out what really happened on J6 to ensure it never happens again,” he said.Former congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans who served on the January 6 committee, and who then lost a primary race against a Trump-backed rival, challenged Loudermilk, who declined to testify at the hearings she helped chair.“If @HouseGOP wants new Jan 6 hearings, bring it on. Let’s replay every witness & all the evidence from last year. But this time, those members who sought pardons and/or hid from subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence,” tweeted Cheney, who was hired by Sabato earlier this month as a professor at the Center for Politics.Whether revisiting what many Americans regard as a shameful day for democracy will work in the Republicans’ favor remains to be seen.Opinion polls show that views about what happened on 6 January 2021 have not shifted dramatically in the intervening two years. According to a Quinnipiac university poll in December, 45% of Americans said that Trump bears “a lot” of responsibility for the storming of the Capitol. Just 21% did not blame him at all. The country was almost evenly split over whether the former president committed a crime that day.Polls also show a deep divide over the significance of the January 6 Capitol attack, with 50% of Americans saying it represented an assault on democracy that should not be forgotten while 44% say events are being overstated.Sabato said that while the reimagining of events will play well with hardcore Republicans, it may ultimately not be good for the party as a whole.“This will stir some of the base. But it’s not all positive for Republicans because it helps Trump, the one guy who probably will lose to Biden if it turns out to be Biden versus Trump again,” he said.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesLiz CheneyKevin McCarthyfeaturesReuse this content More