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      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.”
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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

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      Lawmaker who gave tours of Capitol will lead inquiry of January 6 panel

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      Lawmaker who gave tours of Capitol will lead inquiry of January 6 panelGeorgia Republican Barry Loudermilk denied giving tours related to the January 6 riots until video was releasedBarry Loudermilk, the Republican representative from Georgia who has been accused of giving tours of the Capitol building days before the January 6 insurrection, will lead a new House committee that will investigate the Democratic-controlled January 6 select committee.George Santos a ‘bludgeoning tool’ for Democrats, New York Republican saysRead moreOn Tuesday, Loudermilk criticized the select committee, saying: “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.”Loudermilk is expected to focus on what he considers “security failure” that led up to the riots two years ago, CNN reports.In an interview with the outlet, Loudermilk said: “I’m spending some time over there getting my hands wrapped around what we have. We’re going to be looking at what happened in the Capitol. What happened leading up to it? How did we have such a security failure?”“The January 6 committee, they didn’t take that approach. That should have been something that they looked it. I think they looked more on the political side of it,” he said.The launch of the new committee comes a week after Republicans established a portal to collect tips from the public regarding the events connected to the riots.Last year, the Democratic-led January 6 select committee released video footage revealing Loudermilk showing a group of individuals around House office buildings on an unofficial tour at a time when official tours were banned due to Covid-19. The video showed a man who took photos of the various tunnel entrances and the Capitol police checkpoints.According to the select committee, some of the individuals on the tour went on to attend the Save America rally on Capitol Hill on 6 January, where then president Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol.Loudermilk has previously denied that he led a tour that was related to the January 6 riots. The Republican congressman then said that he only gave a tour to families with young children before saying that he gave a tour to about 16 people.In a letter addressed to Loudermilk by the January 6 select committee, chairman and Mississippi Democratic representative Bennie Thompson wrote: “Individuals on the tour photographed and recorded areas of the complex not typically of interest to tourists.”“The January 5, 2021 tour raises concerns about their activity and intent,” it added.Earlier this week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson released exclusive January 6 security footage provided to him by House speaker Kevin McCarthy during a segment in which he minimized the gravity of the riots.“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” the conservative host said. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now infamous ‘QAnon Shaman’.”“More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” Carlson added, without airing footage of the more incriminating moments during the riots in which protesters and police fought violently.TopicsRepublicansJanuary 6 hearingsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

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      Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6

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      Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6Compulsion motion against former vice-president marks pre-emptive move to rebut executive privilege arguments, sources sayThe special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election issued a motion to compel testimony from Mike Pence in recent days – after the Trump legal team sought to block his appearance on executive privilege grounds, sources familiar with the matter said.The compulsion motion against Pence marks a pre-emptive move by the special counsel to rebut the executive privilege arguments before Pence had even made an appearance before the federal grand jury in Washington DC pursuant to a subpoena issued last month, the sources said.While Pence has suggested he would contest the subpoena, the Guardian has previously reported that is understood to involve him at least appearing before the grand jury and asserting the so-called speech or debate protection for congressional officials to specific questions.The Trump special counsel Jack Smith, however, appears to have issued the motion to compel – earlier reported by CBS News – not in response to Pence’s expected actions, but in response to a recent executive privilege motion filed in the case by Trump’s legal team seeking to stop Pence testifying in the investigation.Trump’s legal team has reflexively filed executive privilege motions to stop multiple top former Trump White House officials from testifying in the criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack.That has led to protracted litigation with federal prosecutors before the chief US judge in the District of Columbia, Beryl Howell. The executive privilege fight with Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short took at least four months – that is thought to have delayed parts of the investigation.Howell, who has generally ruled in favor of the government on executive privilege disputes, even if they do take months to resolve, is slated to step down on 16 March. She will be replaced as the chief judge by James Boasberg, who previously oversaw the secret foreign surveillance court.The Pence subpoena is more complicated than other legal battles over executive privilege because there are two privilege assertions at play: Pence’s own expected speech or debate assertions, as well as the standard executive privilege fight by the Trump legal team as intervenors in the case.Whether the special counsel filed the motion to compel in response to the Trump legal team, in order to deal with the privilege issues sequentially – executive privilege is also generally a weaker protection than the speech or debate clause – was not clear, and a spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.TopicsMike PenceDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges

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      Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges House panel refers John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro to DoJ for offering Trump bogus legal coverFour lawyers who gave Donald Trump erroneous legal advice that aided his drive to overturn the 2020 US election now face heightened prospects of criminal charges after a House panel released an exhaustive report on the January 6 insurrection, and referred the lawyers for possible prosecution to the justice department, say ex-federal prosecutors.Brazil’s failed coup is the poison flower of the Trump-Bolsonaro symbiosisRead moreJohn Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro played overlapping roles, offering Trump bogus legal cover that included promoting a fake electors ploy to replace electors Joe Biden won with ones for Trump, in an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden on 6 January.The lawyers’ actions and schemes were cited in an 845-page report last month by the House select committee investing the events of 6 January, and in the referrals to the justice department, for giving various types of legal support to Trump that enabled parts of his attempted coup.The report accused Trump of criminally engaging in “a multi-part conspiracy”, and cited four criminal offenses: making false statements, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and aiding or comforting insurrection, all of which were referred to the DoJ for prosecution.The specific referrals to the DoJ differ somewhat for the four lawyers. All of them were referred for conspiring to defraud the United States. Except for Giuliani, the other three were referred for conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, a reference to Congress certifying Biden’s win on 6 January.Several legal schemes devised by the lawyers to further Trump’s botched coup were detailed in the referrals and in the panel’s exhaustive report. For instance, Eastman, a law professor in California, authored a “coup memo” that suggested avenues the former vice-president Mike Pence could take to help Trump reverse his election loss, including unilaterally throwing out certain state electoral college votes.Along with Giuliani, Eastman also addressed the “Stop the Steal” rally immediately before the Capitol attack, where he floated a baseless conspiracy theory about “secret folders” in voting machines that helped cast votes for Democrats.The panel’s report and referrals noted, too, that Clark, who was acting head of the DoJ’s civil division, “stands out as a participant in the conspiracy” to defraud the United States. The report cited evidence that Clark drafted a letter with false information urging some state officials to name new slates of electors, as part of a plan that involved Trump installing Clark as acting attorney general at the DoJ.Last summer, Clark and Eastman had their cellphones seized by federal agents, in an early indication of the serious scrutiny prosecutors were affording them.Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and pushed his false claims about widespread election fraud, was subpoenaed by the US attorney in DC in November to testify and provide documents about his payments from Trump and his campaign, according to a Reuters report this week.Although the House panel’s referrals to the DoJ are only recommendations and do not require filing charges against the lawyers, former prosecutors said the extensive evidence that they conspired with Trump to stop Biden from taking office could help spur DoJ legal action against them.“The corrupt involvement of lawyers in various aspects of the January 6 insurrection is surely one of the low points in the history of the legal profession in America,” said former DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich.“From filing bogus lawsuits, to trying to hijack the justice department, to devising the fake electors scheme – lawyers were at the center of the illegitimate attempts to keep Donald Trump in power. Any lawyer who cares about the reputation of the profession should be disgusted at their behavior, and hope they will be held accountable by the very legal system they abused.”Other former prosecutors offered scathing views about Trump’s legal loyalists.“While professional status often shields lawyers from criminal liability, I would expect prosecutors to use it as a sword here: this crew knew congressional procedures and concocted an attack on the weak spots, drawing in many others who knew far less,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Columbia law school.“While there may be prudential reasons not to make Trump a criminal defendant, those don’t argue against charging this group with a conspiracy to defraud the United States. The broad title of that offense doesn’t often capture the conduct of defendants charged with it, but it certainly does here, And a full factual presentation of this conspiracy might also reveal Trump’s own role.”Similarly, Michael Zeldin, an ex-DoJ prosecutor, said: “The Jan 6 committee’s referrals to the DoJ regarding the role Trump-aligned attorneys played in the run-up to the assault on the Capitol laid out a compelling case.”“[The] DoJ now has to test that evidence against a standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to determine whether indictments are warranted,” he added.Eastman and the other lawyers accused in the House panel’s referrals to DoJ have all denied improper conduct. But well before the panel’s referrals and report, evidence was mounting about the sizable roles Eastman and the other lawyers played in promoting Trump’s conspiracy to block Biden from taking office.Federal judge David Carter last March in a key ruling involving Eastman, stated that Trump “more likely than not” broke the law in his weeks-long drive to stop Biden from taking office.“Dr Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Carter wrote in a civil case that led to an order for Eastman to release over 100 emails he had withheld from the House panel.The panel last year also heard stunning testimony from Greg Jacob, Mike Pence’s counsel. Jacob testified that Eastman acknowledged to him that he was aware that his efforts to get Pence to reject Biden’s winning electoral college count would violate the Electoral Count Act, and that Trump, too, was informed it would be unlawful for Pence to block Biden’s certification.Clark’s role in trying to help Trump promote false claims of election fraud also prompted strong condemnation at a House panel hearing last year. Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue was scathing in recounting Trump’s efforts to replace the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, with Clark in late December 2020, to increase pressure on state legislators to reject Biden electors by pushing baseless charges of widespread fraud.Donoghue testified that he warned Trump at a bizarre 3 January White House meeting that drew Rosen, Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and other top lawyers. Elevating Clark to be acting AG would spark mass resignations, and Clark would be “left leading a graveyard”, at the DoJ, Donoghue saidCipollone, who testified before a federal grand jury last fall, also threatened to resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark.Former Georgia US attorney Michael Moore said he believes the panel assembled a “substantial” case against some of Trump’s leading lawyer loyalists, who “were actually involved in an unprecedented and unlawful effort to overturn the election, providing fallacious legal arguments as part of the conspiracy”.“A lawyer who tells his client how to crack open the vault is just as guilty as the robber who enters the bank,” Moore added.Still, Richman cautioned that DoJ prosecutors face challenges before charging any of the lawyers.“I suspect prosecutors would want to more clearly nail down the degree to which these lawyers were truly aware that their theories lacked the slightest factual support or legal basis. It helps, but may not be enough, that many around them were saying that.”Regardless of whether or not the DoJ charges some of the lawyers, they all should suffer professionally for scheming with Trump, Bromwich stressed.“Although it’s not yet clear which of the lawyers can be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal prosecutions, they all should become outcasts in their chosen profession, and at a minimum never practice law again.”TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its members

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its membersIncoming majority also created new special subcommittee to investigate justice department and intelligence agencies House Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attackRead moreThe incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal probes into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry.The measures took effect as House Republicans narrowly passed the new rules package that included the changes for the next Congress, 220-213, setting the stage for politically charged fights with the Biden administration over access to classified materials and details of criminal investigations.Seeking to protect itself, the rules package first undercut the ability of the office of congressional ethics (OCE) to function, with changes that struck at its principal vulnerabilities to defang its investigative powers for at least the next two years, according to sources familiar with its operation.The changes to the OCE are twofold: reintroducing term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force out three of four Democratic-appointed members, and restricting its ability to hire professional staff in the first 30 days of the new congressional session.The issue with the changes, the Guardian previously reported, is that the OCE requires board approval to open new investigations, while new hires are typically approved by the board. The term limits would mean Democrats need to find new board members, which can take months – far longer than the 30 day hiring period.In essence, the changes mean that by the time the OCE has a board, it may have run out of time to hire staff, leaving it with one counsel to do possible investigations into the new House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers who defied January 6 select committee subpoenas.There would also only be that one counsel to investigate Republican congressman George Santos, who lied about his past during his election campaign; the OCE has the power to retrospectively examine violations of federal election law that arise during congressional election campaigns.Once an OCE investigation is complete, the body can refer the matter to the full House ethics committee, which conducts its own inquiry. Crucially, however, even if the ethics committee dismisses a case, it is required to release the full OCE report, creating a deterrent for lawmakers.Meanwhile, as House Republicans moved to shield themselves from potential ethics investigations, they expanded their own investigative ability through the adoption of the rules package that allows for the creation of the special subcommittee to probe the justice department and intelligence agencies.The text of the resolution creating the subcommittee – scheduled for a vote on Tuesday – on “the weaponization of the federal government” authorizes it to investigate any part of the federal government, including “ongoing criminal investigations”, which Republicans have indicated could extend to probes against Trump.The subcommittee will have subpoena power and receive materials provided to the House intelligence committee, meaning if the intelligence community were to ever give a briefing on the classified documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the panel would obtain that, too.And while the subcommittee will have its own chairman, it remains part of the House judiciary committee led by Jim Jordan, who maintains the ability to issue subpoenas on behalf of the panel and ultimately inherit all of its materials whenever it is dissolved, according to the resolution text.Whether Jordan and the special subcommittee will ever receive materials from the justice department about active criminal investigations in practice remains unclear.The department has long refused to provide to Congress confidential grand jury material, information that could compromise criminal investigations, and deliberative communications such as internal prosecution memos because of the risk of political interference in charging decisions.As the department explained in a letter to the House rules committee chair John Linder in 2000, its position has also been upheld by the supreme court in Nixon v United States (1974) that recognized making such materials public could have an improper “chilling effect”.Particularly with respect to cases involving Trump, current and former officials said the current justice department would likely adopt the same position as the Linder letter, which concluded: “The Department’s longstanding policy is to decline to provide congressional committees with access to open law enforcement files.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Will Donald Trump finally face criminal charges for January 6? | podcast

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      After interviewing 1,000 witnesses and compiling an 800-page report, the inquiry into the assault on the Capitol is complete. But what will it mean for Donald Trump in 2023 – and his presidential bid?

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      After 18 months, the inquiry looking into what happened on 6 January 2021 when a violent mob forced its way into the Capitol – is finally at an end. The committee released a damning report, more than 800 pages in length, and recommended that Donald Trump face four criminal charges. But will he? Hugo Lowell is a reporter in the Guardian’s Washington bureau and he told Hannah Moore what the committee set out to uncover and why its conclusion was so damning for the former president. Yet with the committee having no powers to press criminal proceedings, is it likely he will face charges for the events that happened two years ago? And what effect will it have on his presidential bid? More

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      Republican says he ‘fears for the future’ if Trump is not charged over Jan 6 riot

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      Republican says he ‘fears for the future’ if Trump is not charged over Jan 6 riotAdam Kinzinger said in an interview the former president should be charged with conspiracy over the insurrection Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said in an interview on Sunday that he believes the Department of Justice “will do the right thing” and bring criminal charges against Donald Trump for his role in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.“I think he will be charged, and I frankly think he should be,” Kinzinger told CNN’s State of Union political talk show on Sunday morning.Last month, the House select committee investigating the attack, on which Kinzinger sits, voted to refer the former president to the justice department on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to make a false statement and “incite”, “assist” or “aid or comfort” an insurrection.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThe recommendations relate to the former US president’s role in encouraging the insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington DC as thousands of his extremist supporters sought to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.“If he is not guilty of a crime, then I frankly fear for the future of this country because now every future president can say, ‘Hey, here’s the bar.’ And the bar is, do everything you can to stay in power,” Kinzinger said.Kinzinger was one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led January 6 select committee, which wrapped up its investigation prior to dissolving and the new Congress beginning on Tuesday, when Republicans will assume the majority in the House following last November’s midterm elections.Kinzinger led one of the committee’s sessions last June that focussed on pressure allegedly placed on the justice department by Trump or his allies as he strove to persuade them to overturn his 2020 defeat by falsely claiming the election was blighted by widespread fraud.He has represented Illinois in the House of Representatives since 2011 and was speaking following the last sessions held by the committee and on the eve of his departure from Congress.Kinzinger also slammed Republican leaders for maintaining Trump’s influence on the US political landscape, by playing down the significance of the Capitol attack and Trump’s incitement of the riot, and often backing Trump’s lies about elections being rigged in favor of Democrats.He blamed powerful House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who is currently battling to become the new speaker of the House, as the reason the former president remains such a force in politics.“He is the reason Donald Trump is still a factor,” Kinzinger said. “He is the reason that some of the crazy elements of the House still exist.”McCarthy, he said, had visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence shortly after the January 6 insurrection. That show of mutual support at a pivotal moment “resurrected” Trump’s relevance in politics, strengthening the right. In McCarthy making the trip, he said, Republicans went from not knowing what to do about Trump to “begrudgingly” defending him.“Donald Trump should consider Kevin McCarthy his best friend because Donald Trump is alive today politically because of Kevin McCarthy,” Kinzinger added.He noted that Senate then-majority leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans failed to convict Trump during his historic second impeachment for inciting insurrection. “The Republican party is not the future of this country unless it corrects,” he said. “If you think of a successful America in 20 years, that’s not going to be an America based on what Marjorie Taylor Greene wants or … some of these radicals want,” he added, referring to the far-right Georgia congresswoman, who is sympathetic to the QAnon conspiracy theory, and her ilk.As the 2024 presidential election gradually takes shape, Kinzinger said he was fearful for American democracy, given that “maybe a third of the country” believes the last election was stolen from Trump.The congressman said it was not his intention to run for the Republican presidential nomination. But he conceded that it would be “fun” to run against Trump, who in November declared his 2024 candidacy.“He stands up and just lies. He tells untruths. People love it because it’s entertaining but eventually people have a concern for their country. So, no, my intention is not to run in 2024. But it would be fun,” he said.TopicsRepublicansUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More