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      Could Trump testify? Subpoena sets up prospect of dramatic political spectacle

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      Could Trump testify? Subpoena sets up prospect of dramatic political spectacleThe former president is considering granting the Capitol attack committee’s demand to appear – but would such a move be wise? The House January 6 select committee’s unanimous move to subpoena Donald Trump, demanding that he testify about his knowledge of the Capitol attack, sets up the prospect of a political spectacle as the congressional investigation races towards what could be an explosive conclusion.Donald Trump considers testifying before January 6 panelRead moreThe former US president may decide to ignore the subpoena and decide not to cooperate with the inquiry, or alternatively, believing that he is his own best spokesman and can answer for his actions to anyone, may agree to a dramatic deposition.But whatever path Trump chooses, the decision of constitutional consequence appears certain to also become a pitched political spectacle – with each side seeking to achieve their own goals as the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack prepares to finish its work.The driving factor pushing Trump to want to testify has centered around a reflexive belief that he can convince investigators that their own inquiry is a supposed witch-hunt and convince them that he committed no crimes over January 6, according to sources familiar with the matter.Trump has previously expressed an eagerness to appear before the select committee and “get his pound of flesh” as long as he can appear live before an audience, the sources said – a thought he reiterated to close aides on Thursday after the panel voted to issue him a subpoena.But Trump also appears to have become more aware about the pitfalls of testifying in investigations, with lawyers warning him about mounting legal issues in criminal inquiries brought by the justice department and a civil lawsuit brought by the New York state attorney’s office.The former president invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times in a deposition with the New York state attorney’s office before it filed a fraud lawsuit against him, three of his children, and senior Trump Organization executives.Trump also ultimately took the advice of his lawyers during the special counsel investigation into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, submitting only written responses to investigators despite initially telling advisers he wanted to testify in person to clear his name.The issue for Trump with the select committee remains whether the panel would accept a demand to testify live. The select committee has rejected testimony with conditions for virtually all witnesses, with the exception of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.If Trump does make his appearance contingent on conditions that the select committee cannot countenance, it is not clear what options are available to compel his testimony given his position as a former president.The chairman of the select committee, congressman Bennie Thompson, said in advance of the vote to issue Trump a subpoena that chief among the reasons the panel sought his testimony was because his singular role in driving events towards January 6 necessitated full accountability.Members on the select committee believe securing Trump’s testimony could answer several unresolved issues – such as his contacts with political operatives at the Trump war room at the Willard hotel, sources say – but Thompson added it went beyond evidence-gathering.“He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions,” Thompson said.But the select committee is expected to face difficulty should it seek to enforce its subpoena through the courts, with Trump’s lawyers focusing on the justice department’s office of legal counsel opinions contending that former presidents have absolute immunity from testifying to Congress.The panel’s previous attempts to force Trump White House officials to comply with subpoenas have resulted in protracted legal battles over executive privilege that were mostly resolved through some partial cooperation, such as with Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows.Attempts to seek judicial enforcement against Trump would be even more time-consuming and given the justice department’s internal position on absolute immunity – a stronger protection than executive privilege – the effort might be wholly unsuccessful, legal experts said.The select committee could alternatively refer the former president to the justice department for contempt of Congress as it did with former aides Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, but the justice department would probably decline to prosecute on the immunity standard, the experts said.The calculus appears to leave Trump with a political prisoner’s dilemma, one person directly familiar with the investigation said – adding that they believed the panel will be perceived in history as having done as much as it could to uncover Trump’s connection to the Capitol attack.TopicsUS newsUS politicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

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      A top FBI official was warned that a large number of bureau employees were sympathetic to Capitol rioters who threatened the lives of law makers. NBC News reported that Paul Abbate, number two at the FBI, was warned about agents within the bureau showing sympathy to 6 January participants.The email, sent from an unnamed person, read: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s no good way to say it, so I’ll just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol… Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of ‘political correctness.The email also added that several agents felt that the Capitol riots were no different than racial justice protests that happened in summer 2020. Abbate responded to the email with: “Thank you [redacted] for sharing everything below.”The FBI declined to comment on the email, reported NBC. Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.Here’s what happened today:
      The FBI’s No 2 waswarned that a number of its agents were sympathetic to the January 6 rioters. It’s unclear what impact that has had on the investigation into the attack.
      A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.
      Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.
      The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.
      Congress may finally repeal the authorizations justifying American involvement in the Gulf war and the invasion of Iraq.
      A Democratic member of the January 6 committee said it will continue to wait for a response from Donald Trump to the subpoena it approved yesterday, which could compel his testimony before the panel investigating the Capitol attack.In a tweet, Adam Schiff rejected a letter Trump had sent to the committee’s chair that attacked its work and reiterated a number of baseless theories about alleged fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election:Trump’s unsworn “statement” about the work of @January6thCmte is not a substitute for testimony under oath.We await a serious response from the former president.Seven previous presidents have honored their responsibility to appear before Congress. Trump should do the same.— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 14, 2022
      Trump has not said if he will honor the subpoena, though reports have emerged that he is open to speaking to lawmakers. Should he choose to fight it, it’s unlikely the court battle would be resolved before the committee’s mandate runs out at the end of the year.Trump and his allies’ attempts to interfere with the election in Georgia is the subject of yet another investigation ensnaring the ex-president, and CNN reports one of his operatives has testified as part of the inquiry.Last week, Scott Hall spoke for more than three hours to a special grand jury empaneled by district attorney Fani Willis in Fulton county, Georgia to investigate the meddling campaign, CNN said. While it’s not known what he told the jurors, Hall, a Republican poll watcher in Fulton county, was part of a group who may have improperly accessed voter information in another county.Here’s more from CNN:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On January 7, 2021, the day after the attack on the US Capitol, Hall and others connected to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office, where they set up computers near election equipment and appeared to access voting data.
      Willis’s criminal investigation recently expanded to include the breach of voting systems in the deeply-red Coffee County by operatives working for Powell.
      Hall did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
      According to court documents obtained by CNN, Hall’s role investigating supposed voter fraud in Georgia is also referenced in a November 2020 email that the head of Trump’s election day operations in Georgia received from the state’s Republican Party Chairman.
      “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him,” David Shafer, the Georgia Republican Party chairman wrote on November 20, 2020, to Robert Sinners, the head of Trump’s Georgia election day operations.
      Shafer, who was among the 16 individuals who served as a fake Trump elector in Georgia, has been informed he is a target in the Fulton County DA’s criminal investigation.Trump has broadcast plans to run for president again in 2024 practically since leaving the White House last year, and many fear he would steamroll his opponents in the primaries to win the GOP nomination, as he did in 2016.But unlike the campaign that delivered his shock victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton six years ago, Trump is a known quantity by now, and some Republicans think he’s simply unelectable, no matter how popular he may be among a segment of the party. Republican former speaker of the house Paul Ryan made that very argument yesterday in an interview for the Teneo Insights Series:VIDEO: Former Speaker Paul Ryan says former President Donald Trump won’t be the Republican nominee in 2024, when the RNC gathers in Milwaukee: “We all know he’s much more likely to lose the White House than anybody else running for president on our side of the aisle.” pic.twitter.com/JCE2TsHu7A— Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) October 14, 2022
      The January 6 committee made clear in its hearing yesterday that it continued to have reservations about the Secret Service’s candor with its investigation.The agency tasked with protecting the president and other top officials has been under scrutiny ever since it was revealed it permanently deleted all of agents’ text messages from around the time of the insurrection, citing a pre-planned technology upgrade.MSNBC has a good rundown of the lawmakers’ comments about the Secret Service:Today, there was pushback, of sorts, from a spokesman for the agency, Politico reports:Some pushback from the Secret Service to yesterday’s 1/6 hearing and allegations witnesses weren’t forthcoming. Spox says they’re continuing to cooperate with the committee More on @politicongress: https://t.co/G4pTLfxAaT pic.twitter.com/yEbjvdSRB9— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 14, 2022
      Speaking of books, former vice-president Mike Pence will release a memoir about his time serving under Donald Trump on 15 November.The New York Times has obtained the book’s description included on its jacket, which pretty much lines up with what is known about his relationship with the former president:A day after the J6 hearing went over again the danger Pence was in that day, the jacket copy from his upcoming book is revealed. Includes this bit: pic.twitter.com/TiHtZOgVTD— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 14, 2022
      In August, Vermont’s Democratic senator Patrick Leahy – the most senior lawmaker in all of Congress – published a memoir reflecting on his decades in Washington politics.That included the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he opposed. Longtime Washington journalist Garrett M. Graff read Leahy’s book and noted that the senator’s opposition to the invasion had won the attention of some mysterious, like-minded individuals who sought the senator out:1) In the midst of the Iraq War debate, Leahy was one of the few Senators pushing back against the Bush admin race to war and the threats of WMDs. He’d been reading the classified intel that the Bush admin was providing to Congress and had real doubts that it justified war….— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      2) The Sunday after he read the intel, he was out walking with his wife in his McLean neighborhood when “two fit joggers trailed behind us. They stopped and asked what I thought of the intelligence briefings I’d been getting.”…— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      3) The joggers asked Leahy if the briefers had showed him “File Eight”? Leahy writes, “It was obvious from the look on my face that I had not seen such a file. They suggested I should and that I might find it interesting.”….— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      4) Leahy went back to the intel officers at the Capitol SCIF and requested “File Eight,” and it contradicted what the Bush administration was saying publicly about the WMDs….— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      5) A few days later, Leahy and his wife are out walking in the neighborhood again and the same two joggers pass by, stop, and say, basically, “We heard you read Five Eight. Isn’t it interesting? Now you should ask for File Twelve” ….— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      6) [[Leahy explained to me when I asked him about this incident this month that “File Eight” and “File Twelve” are pseudonyms for specific secret codeword names the joggers told him to ask for.]] ….— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      7) The next day, Leahy again goes to the Capitol SCIF and asks for “File Twelve.” It again contradicts what VP Cheney was saying publicly. Leahy decides to vote against the war based on these secret reports and tips…— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      8) I asked @senatorleahy about this incident when I interviewed him at @bearpondbooks earlier this month, if he knew the joggers ever, and he said, “You don’t understand—I didn’t *want* to know who they were.” …— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) October 14, 2022
      A movement is gathering in the Senate to repeal Congress’ authorizations allowing the United States to attack Iraq.Democratic senator Tim Kaine and Republican senator Todd Young are backing a renewed effort to pass a bill repealing the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force enacted in 2002 and 1991, which gave legal justification for America’s involvement in the Iraq and Gulf wars, respectively. On October 16, 2002, Congress voted to authorize the use of military force against the regime of Saddam Hussein.As we mark the 20th anniversary, @TimKaine and I are calling for repeal of the 2002 AUMF, which the United States no longer requires. https://t.co/6zkMPx34o2— Senator Todd Young (@SenToddYoung) October 14, 2022
      The current war authorities are outdated, unnecessary, and could be subject to misuse by future presidents.Our bipartisan legislation will repeal the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs and reinstate Congress’ constitutionally-mandated oversight role of declaring and ending wars.— Senator Todd Young (@SenToddYoung) October 14, 2022
      We owe it to our nation’s service members, military families, and veterans to pass this legislation repealing the 2002 AUMF and formalize the end of the Iraq War.— Senator Todd Young (@SenToddYoung) October 14, 2022
      A similar attempt passed the House last year and had Joe Biden’s support, but ultimately didn’t make it through the Senate. The latest effort is expected to be included in a defense spending bill that will be a top priority when both houses of Congress reconvene next month.Few have embraced the baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election like Donald Trump, and he’s widely expected to run again for the presidency in 2024. The big question is: when will he announce it? Democrats hope he does so before the midterm elections, so they can refocus voters’ attention on all that went on during his administration.Politico reports that the former president is keeping it vague:Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser last night that a ‘24 announcement was coming “very soon” and that people would be “very happy,” per two attendees— Alex Isenstadt (@politicoalex) October 14, 2022
      Meanwhile, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Tim Scott have both taken steps indicating they are contemplating a 2024 run, according to Politico.More than two-thirds of Republicans seeking office this November have cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, reported the New York Times..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}They include candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, and the state offices of governor, secretary of state and attorney general — many with clear shots to victory, and some without a chance. They are united by at least one issue: They have all expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And they are the new normal of the Republican Party.
      More than 370 people — a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November — have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a monthslong New York Times investigation. These candidates represent a sentiment that is spreading in the Republican Party, rupturing a bedrock principle of democracy: that voters decide elections and candidates accept results.Read the full article here.Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden released a statement on a Thursday shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, where five people were killed and two were injured.The suspect, a 15-year old white male, is in custody and in critical condition.From the White house press office:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer.As we mourn with the people of Raleigh, we are grateful for the law enforcement and other first responders, including federal law enforcement who were on the scene last night and into this morning. My Administration is working closely with Governor Cooper to assist local authorities in this investigation to the fullest extent needed. Enough. We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever. This year, and even in just the five months since Buffalo and Uvalde, there are too many mass shootings across America, including ones that don’t even make the national news.
      For the lives we’ve lost and the lives we can save, I took historic action to stop gun violence in our nation, including signing the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years. But we must do more. We must pass an assault weapons ban. The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets. House Democrats have already passed it. The Senate should do the same. Send it to my desk and I’ll sign it. May God bless our fellow Americans we lost and their families and may He grant the wounded the strength to recover in Raleigh, North Carolina.A top FBI official was warned that a large number of bureau employees were sympathetic to Capitol rioters who threatened the lives of law makers. NBC News reported that Paul Abbate, number two at the FBI, was warned about agents within the bureau showing sympathy to 6 January participants.The email, sent from an unnamed person, read: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s no good way to say it, so I’ll just be direct: from my first-hand and second-hand information from conversations since January 6th there is, at best, a sizable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol… Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of ‘political correctness.The email also added that several agents felt that the Capitol riots were no different than racial justice protests that happened in summer 2020. Abbate responded to the email with: “Thank you [redacted] for sharing everything below.”The FBI declined to comment on the email, reported NBC. Washington continues to feel the aftershocks from yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, and its vote to send a subpoena to Donald Trump. The congressional panel claims he was the singular figure responsible for the attack on the Capitol – but the summons is more of statement than an actual legal strategy. Nonetheless, it’s possible the former president may actually appear before the lawmakers. Reports indicate he would be open to doing so, but Trump has not publicly weighed in, yet.Here’s what has happened today so far:
      A new book argues that Democratic leaders missed an opportunity to get some Republicans onboard when they first impeached Trump in 2019, setting the stage for him to try to overturn the election the following year.
      Top lawmakers scrambled for help from the department of defense, the governor of Virginia and other parties after the Capitol was overrun on January 6, according to gripping footage shown at the congressional inquiry yesterday.
      The January 6 committee is investigating communications between a Secret Service agent and members of the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whom are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy charges in Washington.
      Many people testified to the January 6 committee. Doing so did not come without costs.Here’s what Alyssa Farah, a former communications director in the Trump White House, said on “The View” about happened after the panel aired her testimony:”When I spoke out: death threats, harassment, I’ve been called a whore … It was young women that stepped up and came forward and gave the facts.”— “The View” co-host and former Trump Communications Director Alyssa Farah details her experience testifying before 1/6 Committee pic.twitter.com/mG2roFTDov— The Recount (@therecount) October 14, 2022
      And here is what she told the committee:”He was looking at the TV and he said, ‘Can you believe I lost to this fucking guy?'”— Former Trump Communications Director Alyssa Farah recalling what she says Trump said to her about a week after the election was called. pic.twitter.com/ckRbuiyYBs— The Recount (@therecount) October 13, 2022
      Did the January 6 committee’s hearings change your mind about what happened that day?Were you surprised by the evidence presented? Or are you wondering what the big deal is?Whatever your answers to these questions, the Guardian’s community team is looking for readers’ input, and has a survey you can fill out at the link below:US residents: share your views of the January 6 hearingsRead more More

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      Donald Trump considers testifying before January 6 panel

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      Donald Trump considers testifying before January 6 panelSources tell Guardian ex-president may choose to appear before Capitol attack committee after Thursday vote to subpoena him Donald Trump is considering testifying in front of the House January 6 committee, which this week concluded a dramatic hearing establishing what it says is his culpability for the deadly Capitol attack by voting to subpoena the former president.‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riotRead moreOn Friday, sources close to Trump confirmed to the Guardian that he may choose to appear before the congressional panel. Such an appearance would set up an unprecedented, high-stakes political event.Trump, meanwhile, issued an angry and rambling public letter to Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the January 6 committee.Since June, Thompson’s committee has laid out in extraordinary detail the chaos, fear and violence of a day now linked to nine deaths.Regardless, under the title “Peacefully and Patriotically”, Trump reeled off a string of abuse, lies, unsubstantiated claims and outright conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and January 6.In a predictably intemperate introduction, Trump said the presidential election of 2020 “was rigged and stolen”. It was not. He also cited the Russia investigation (over 2016 election interference and links between Trump and Moscow); “Impeachment Hoax #1” (his impeachment for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt); “Impeachment Hoax #2” (for inciting the Capitol attack); “the atrocious and illegal spying on my campaign” (a debunked claim); “and so much more”.He called the members of Thompson’s committee “highly partisan political hacks and thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American patriots”.Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, rejected Republican attempts to place Trump allies on the January 6 committee, including congressmen implicated in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the fuel for the Capitol attack.Two anti-Trump Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, sit on the panel. Testimony presented has been overwhelmingly from Republicans and members of Trump’s White House and administration.Trump has sent cease-and-desist letters to media outlets including the Guardian that call him a liar in print. Nonetheless, his letter rehashed his big lie about election fraud, appendices listing debunked claims about Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan, key states in Joe Biden’s conclusive win.In an echo of Trump’s famous refusal to admit that the crowd for his inauguration in 2016 was smaller than that for Barack Obama in 2008, the former president also exaggerated the size of the crowd which heard him speak near the White House on January 6 – the speech in which he told supporters to “fight like hell”.Returning to another favorite subject, the former host of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice concluded: “Despite very poor television ratings, the unselect committee has perpetuated a show trial the likes of which this country has never seen before.“… You have not gone after the people that created the fraud, but rather great American patriots who questioned it, as is their constitutional right. These people have had their lives ruined as your committee sits back and basks in the glow.”More than 900 people have been charged in relation to the Capitol attack. Many have been jailed. Members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys far-right groups are charged with seditious conspiracy. Both groups have been linked to Trump aides and allies, prominently including the Republican operative Roger Stone, who was shown on film in Thursday’s hearing saying: “Fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, aides to Trump, face jail time for contempt of Congress, after refusing to cooperate with the January 6 committee.But though the panel made clear on Thursday that it holds Trump responsible for the insurrection, he has not been held to account.If Trump refused to comply with the subpoena issued by the committee – which seeks testimony and documents – he too could be charged with contempt of Congress.But that seems unlikely, given both his position as former president, de facto leader of the Republican party and possible 2024 presidential nominee, and the proximity of the midterm elections. If Republicans take back the House next month, as seems likely, the January 6 committee will in all probability be disbanded.Trump hinted at that outcome in his letter, writing: “The people of this country will not stand for unequal justice under the law, or liberty and justice for some. Election day is coming.”Knowing this, committee members may be hoping the subpoena draws Trump out, luring him into public testimony about his attempt to overturn an election.January 6 panel’s case against Trump lays out roadmap for prosecutionRead moreCommittee members have said that while they do not expect to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, they have sought to lay out their findings in a way that may help federal investigators.After the midterm elections, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, will have at least two more years to decide whether to indict Trump related to January 6.In a tweet after Thursday’s hearing, Kinzinger, of Illinois, said: “We just voted unanimously to subpoena Donald Trump. Our democracy demands it. Our constitution demands it. The truth demands it.”Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, said: “This final hearing was the most effective in years. Taken together with the committee’s prior hearings, it left no doubt that Trump deliberately tried to steal the 2020 election and committed major federal crimes in the process.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump reportedly wants to testify before January 6 committee – live

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      There are plenty of instances of former presidents testifying before congress, and in fact, even sitting presidents have done so, according to the US Senate.But such an appearance hasn’t been made in a while. The last former president to answer questions on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee on the constitution in 1983. He was also the last president in office to testify, during a 1974 House subcommittee hearing about his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon for various charges related to the Watergate scandal.Up until January 6, historians viewed Watergate as perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But the insurrection at the Capitol may well have eclipsed that – and Trump could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and appear before lawmakers to discuss his role in it.While sitting and former presidents have testified before Congress in the past, Politico reports that subpoenaing a former commander in chief is far more contentious.In 1953, former president Harry Truman defied a subpoena from the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. “It is just as important to the independence of the Executive that the actions of the President should not be subjected to questioning by the Congress after he has completed his term of office as that his actions should not be questioned while he is serving as President,” he said in a lengthy speech explaining his refusal to attend.The January 6 committee could, of course, go to court to force Trump to comply, assuming a judge – or more likely judges – agrees. But they simply don’t have the time. Their mandate expires at the end of the year, at the same time as this Congress terms out, and any court challenge would likely take months to resolve.Not all Trump administration scandals involve the former president. Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports a Senate committee leaders wants answers about a real estate property deal involving Jared Kushner, a top aide to the former president:A financial firm that operates billions of dollars in real estate properties around the world is facing new questions from the powerful chairman of the Senate finance committee about whether Qatar was secretly involved in the $1.2bn (£1bn) rescue of a Fifth Avenue property owned by Jared Kushner’s family while Kushner was serving in the White House.Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who leads the finance committee, has given the chief executive of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management until 24 October to answer a series of detailed questions about a 2018 deal in which Brookfield paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year lease on the family’s marquee 666 Fifth Avenue property.When the deal was announced in August 2018, it was seen as the end of a drawn-out saga surrounding the property. The rescue, it was said in media reports, generated enough money for the Kushner family to pay $1.1bn (£970m) of debt on the building and buy out a partner.In a statement on Thursday, Wyden accused Brookfield of stonewalling his committee and refusing to answer questions about the transaction, including whether Brookfield “intentionally misled” the public when it said that “no Qatar-linked entity” had been involved in the deal. In fact, it has since been alleged by Wyden that Brookfield used a Qatari-backed fund – called Brookfield Property Partners – to fund the transaction. At the time of the deal, Wyden said, the Qatari Investment Authority was the fund’s second largest investor.Top senator seeks answers over Qatar link to $1.2bn Kushner property rescueRead moreOne of the most gripping moments of the January 6 committee’s hearing yesterday came when the panel aired footage of congressional leaders scrambling for help after the Capitol was overrun. Here’s what the video showed:New footage of the January 6 riots at the US Capitol shows House speaker Nancy Pelosi calmly trying to take charge of the situation as she sheltered at Fort McNair, two miles south of the Capitol.“There has to be some way,” she told colleagues, “we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function and that you can elect the president of the United States.”Then an unidentified voice interjected with alarming news: lawmakers on the House floor had begun putting on teargas masks in preparation for a breach. Pelosi asked the woman to repeat what she said.‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riotRead moreWhile Trump twice escaped conviction by Congress, The Guardian’s Sam Levine finds the evidence laid out by the January 6 committee could form the backbone of a criminal case against the former president:After more than a year of work that consisted of interviewing 1,000-plus witnesses and reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol chose a simple message for its final public hearing: Donald Trump was singularly responsible for the attack.Since its first hearing in June, the committee’s work has been aimed at two audiences. One of those has been the broad American public. Tactfully using video, the committee has told a disciplined, clear story of what happened on January 6, and the days leading up to it, filled with jaw-dropping soundbites from Trump’s closest aides.But the committee’s public coda on Thursday appeared more directed at its second audience: an audience of one, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.Garland will ultimately decide whether to bring criminal charges against Trump over January 6, and the committee’s work, which has run parallel to the justice department’s investigation, has made a public case for bringing charges, attempting to bring along public support for doing so.January 6 panel’s case against Trump lays out roadmap for prosecutionRead moreA new books argues that the way Democrats handled Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 laid the groundwork for the lawless streak he exhibited when he tried to overturn the following year’s elections, Politico reports.In “Unchecked,” written by Politico reporter Rachael Bade and Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian, House speaker Nancy Pelosi is shown as being caught between two wings of the Democratic party as it weighs how to respond to Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine’s government to investigate Joe Biden. One group, composed mostly of progressives, wanted a sprawling inquiry into all of the then-president’s alleged misdeeds, while another, made up of Democrats in vulnerable seats, wanted a narrowly tailored investigation into the Ukraine affair that wouldn’t take too long.The latter group won out, but according to the book, Pelosi missed opportunities to wrangle some Republicans into supporting Trump’s impeachment – though the book concedes the effort may well have been a long shot, even if she tried.The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump, and the book finds that decision emboldened Trump to attempt further schemes – like his plot to overturn the 2020 election. Here’s how Politico puts it:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the end, one political truism superseded all the others: What happens in January of an election year will be ancient history by the time voters cast ballots. This was especially true in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic seemed to emerge just as Democrats were licking their wounds from the impeachment trial acquittal.
      Soon after, Trump would begin sowing the seeds of what would become his effort to overturn defeat in the presidential election, and by November, impeachment seemed an asterisk in a year that had become chaotic for many other reasons.
      Ultimately, Democrats took the White House, even though Pelosi’s House majority shrank slightly after 2020. House managers of Trump’s first impeachment have insisted to this day that their existential warnings played a role in voters deeming him unfit for a second term.
      His actions to subvert his 2020 loss, they argue, were evidence that Republicans’ decision to acquit him had left him feeling unchecked.Trump hasn’t yet publicly said if he’d testify before the January 6 committee, as their subpoena compels him to.But his political action committee has today distributed to reporters this letter, dated yesterday and addressed to the committee’s chair. The 14-page epistle is mostly a rehash of his baseless theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and a defense of his conduct on January 6. It opens with this line: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”It’s unclear if Trump himself wrote it, but based on the prose, it’s difficult not to imagine his voice when reading it. Consider the second sentence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The same group of Radical Left Democrats who utilized their Majority position in Congress to create the fiction of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the $48 Million Mueller Report (which ended in No Collusion!), Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the atrocious and illegal Spying on my Campaign, and so much more, are the people who created this Committee of highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.There are plenty of instances of former presidents testifying before congress, and in fact, even sitting presidents have done so, according to the US Senate.But such an appearance hasn’t been made in a while. The last former president to answer questions on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee on the constitution in 1983. He was also the last president in office to testify, during a 1974 House subcommittee hearing about his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon for various charges related to the Watergate scandal.Up until January 6, historians viewed Watergate as perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But the insurrection at the Capitol may well have eclipsed that – and Trump could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and appear before lawmakers to discuss his role in it.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday’s big news was that the January 6 committee had issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, in an attempt to compel the testimony of a man they say was responsible above all others for the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. You’d be right not to get your hopes up that the former president would honor their summons – he’s stymied various attempts to compel his behavior or hold him accountable over the years with lengthy court challenges, and the congressional subpoena seems like it could meet the same fate. But media outlets including the New York Times and Fox News report that Trump actually would like to speak to lawmakers – assuming he can do so live. We may hear from him today on what course of action he’s decided to take.Here’s a look at what else is happening today:
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, will talk about defending democracy at Notre Dame University at 2.30pm eastern time.
      Washington’s fury towards Saudi Arabia will be the subject when Democratic representative Ro Khanna, an advocate of cracking down on Riyadh over its backing of the recent Opec+ oil production cut, speaks with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft at 12pm eastern time.
      Joe Biden is continuing his trip out west with a speech in Orange county, California, about “lowering costs for American families” and a stop in Oregon. There, the president will campaign for the state’s Democratic candidate for governor, who appears to be struggling polls. More

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      The January 6 panel makes it clear: American democracy needs accountability | Lloyd Green

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      The January 6 panel makes it clear: American democracy needs accountabilityLloyd GreenSlavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away Thursday’s House select committee was one like no other. Shortly after 1pm, Liz Cheney, the daughter of a vice-president and Republican grandees, warned that the US, as a constitutional republic, was in danger. Two-and-a-half hours later, seven Democrats and two Republicans unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump. In all likelihood, he will never appear. Regardless, history had again been made.“Why would Americans assume that our constitution and institutions of our Republic are invulnerable to another attack?” Cheney pondered.The real story of January 6 isn’t what Trump did – it’s what he didn’t | Moira DoneganRead moreTrump yearned to be a modern-day Caesar. He knew that he had lost the election, yet he persevered.White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin testified that a week after the election Trump blurted out, “Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?” After his defeat in the supreme court, a wrath-filled Trump remained unbowed.Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide and a deputy to Mark Meadows, said that he was “just raging”. Trump seethed, futilely grasping for a way out.“I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark,” he told Meadows, his chief of staff and Hutchinson’s boss. “This is embarrassing.”“Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before election day,” Cheney said. This is not stuff of democracies, but of banana republics and strongmen.Right-wing stalwarts were there for Trump, offering aid and comfort along the way. “Let’s get right to the violence,” Roger Stone, the veteran Trump-hand, chuckled.Steve Bannon briefed Chinese associates over Trump’s election denial strategy. “And what Trump is going to do is just declare victory, right?” Bannon semi-asked, semi-stated.“He’s gonna declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.” Bannon later received a presidential pardon. He will be sentenced later this month for his contempt of Congress conviction and faces fraud charges in New York.Peter Navarro, another White House official, concocted the infamous “Green Bay Sweep”. His trial for contempt of Congress kicks off shortly. It’s a rogues’ gallery.Tom Fitton of the well-funded Judicial Watch helped script Trump’s defiance. In a 31 October 2020 email, he urged Trump to declare himself the winner. “We had an election today– – and I won,” Fitton’s email read. Fitton clamored for mass disenfranchisement too.His memo called for Trump to demand that only votes “counted by the election day deadline” be tallied. This time it went way beyond stripping minorities of their vote – a traditional but unstated Judicial Watch goal. Now he was gunning for urban moms and dads too, the bedrock of the Republican party of yesteryear.More broadly, the Republican party’s sedition wing has plenty of allies who wear suits and ties. Ginni Thomas and John Eastman, Justice Thomas’s wife and clerk, respectively, were definitely not alone. It’s not just about folks in camouflage.The armed mob had embraced Trump, and he loved them back. “I don’t care that they effing had weapons,” he muttered on January 6, according to Hutchinson. If blood were to be spilled and the constitution shredded, so be it. It was about clinging to power without legal justification.Documentary evidence presented by the committee revealed that some members of the Secret Service acted like modern-day praetorians, acting oblivious to threats posed by Trump’s supporters to the certification of the election.“Their plan is to kill people,” one message read. “Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.” Members of the Secret Service knew that a storm was brewing but turned a blind eye. Their loyalty ran to Trump the man, not the office he occupied.“The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6th was one man, Donald Trump,” Cheney made clear.Amid the hearing, the supreme court rejected Trump’s efforts to tamp down on the justice department’s investigation of his mishandling of presidential documents and classified records. Mar-a-Lago now looks ever more like a prison of the ex-game show host’s making, a custom-built gilded cage complete with gold leaf and dining room. Or a set of The Apprentice.After the 1787 constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin observed that the US was a republic if we could “keep it”. Slavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away.
      Lloyd Green is a regular freelance contributor and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      The vote to subpoena Trump shows Democrats have found their fighting spirit

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      The vote to subpoena Trump shows Democrats have found their fighting spiritMoira DoneganDemocrats finally seem to realize that accountability is more important than risk aversion One of the first things that most pundits will tell you about Thursday’s January 6 committee broadcast – the first since August, and probably the last before the November midterms – is that the committee’s subpoena of Donald Trump won’t go anywhere.Sure, there were other notable moments in Thursday’s hearing. The committee presented a thorough summary of their findings, seemingly aiming to remind voters ahead of the midterms of the depth of Donald Trump’s commitment to his plan to overthrow our democracy in the service of his own ego.It bolstered its long-established findings with new evidence: we heard, for the first time, testimony from multiple sources who said that Trump acknowledged privately that he knew he had lost the election.Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’Read moreWe discovered, for the first time, that both the Secret Service and the FBI had much greater and much earlier knowledge of the plan to attack the Capitol than had previously been acknowledged (a revelation that calls those agencies’ actions on that day into question).We saw, for the first time, footage of the Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in hiding from the mob, secured in an off-site location while the looters raged and defecated through the Capitol, calling the Department of Justice and governors of the nearby states in an attempt to get some of the police and military’s help to clear the crowd that was not coming from the Trump administration.All of this was newly specific and remarkable, even if it wasn’t exactly new information. But the real event of the hearings was the subpoena vote. The committee leaked the news strategically, just before the broadcast, with the push notifications from various news outlets alighting on phone screens across America, reminding voters to tune in.The committee made much of their decision to subpoena Trump, performing a roll-call vote on camera (unanimously “aye”) and emphasizing throughout Wednesday’s hearing that he was the primary instigator and designer of the violent and cockamamie attempt to overturn the 2020 election by force.Just before the climactic vote, the committee played a montage of members of the Trump inner circle – John Eastman, the fringe law professor who became Trump’s legal guru in a series of failed attempts to undo his election loss; Roger Stone, the Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster” with ties to both the Trump administration and the violent far-right militias that led the Capitol violence – all taking the fifth in depositions with the committee, and refusing to provide vital information.The idea of this montage was to justify the subpoena of Trump himself. Look, the committee seemed to be saying to the American people, his friends won’t talk, so we need to go after the big guy. But the fifth amendment wasn’t just a justification, it was also a prediction: of course, Trump isn’t going to talk either.It’s this reality – that Trump probably won’t testify, that he will issue a series of legal challenges, lies, or, at best, non-answers that shed little light on his actions that day – that gets jumped on by members of the political commentariat who like to prove their own seriousness by pointing out all the ways that the Democrats can never accomplish anything. “The January 6 panel moves to subpoena Trump, an aggressive move that will likely be futile,” was the headline in the New York Times, a phrasing that almost suggested contempt for the attempt to embark on a fact-finding exercise at all. Some people are so determined not to come off as naive that they adopt a withering cynicism, or even a kind of learned helplessness – and unfortunately, a lot of those people work in political media, or for the Democratic party.But the vote to subpoena Trump, and the willingness to embark on the legal and political fights that will ensue, suggests that congressional Democrats may have a little fighting spirit in them yet. After a halting start to the Biden administration, in which it looked, for a while, as if the Democrats’ agenda would be hamstrung by the intransigence of Senator Joe Manchin, the party has had a remarkable series of wins over the past few months – especially, it should be noted, since the supreme court’s disastrous reversal of Roe v Wade in June angered women voters across the political spectrum and galvanized enthusiasm in the Democratic base.With this wind of popular outrage at their backs, the Democrats were able to pass the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act – really an infrastructure and climate bill – and to muster support for Biden’s student debt relief and mass federal marijuana pardon. But the January 6 committee hearings have been one of the feathers in the Democrats’ cap, and it is one of the rare achievements that the House Democratic caucus has made not as assistants and handmaids to the administration’s agenda, but on their own.This independence and risk-taking in going after Trump may be a sign of a congressional Democratic party that is shaking off its old habits of learned helplessness and beginning to feel more confident in a political landscape that is less about procedural victories – like, say, whether Trump will ever actually sit down for a deposition with the January 6 committee or not – and more about public demonstrations of commitment and confidence.According to a new book, the House committee that took the bold step of issuing a subpoena to Donald Trump, for instance, is very different from the group of House impeachment managers who made the gun-shy and timorous decision not to call witnesses in the January 6 impeachment trial under pressure from a Biden White House that wanted to move on.The January 6 committee hearings have been, altogether, a much bolder affair than the impeachment, much more cognizant of their audience – the American public – much better at communicating with them, and much more willing to state facts plainly. Maybe Trump will never testify. But subpoenaing him is still the right thing to do. The stakes are high, and when it comes to Donald Trump, the Democrats finally seem to realize that accountability is more important than risk aversion.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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      New video shows Pelosi and Schumer scrambling to take charge in Capitol attack – video

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      In previously unseen footage shared by the January 6 House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, top lawmakers are seen scrambling to respond. The footage shows House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and others trying to maintain order

      ‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riot
      January 6 hearing takeaways: Trump knew he lost and now faces subpoena More