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      US Capitol attack trial begins for Cowboys for Trump founder

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      US Capitol attack trial begins for Cowboys for Trump founderTrial of Couy Griffin is the second among hundreds of people charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riot An elected official from New Mexico went on trial on Monday with a judge, not a jury, set to decide if he is guilty of charges that he illegally entered the US Capitol grounds on the day a pro-Trump mob disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.That’s not the only unusual feature of the case against Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, an Otero county commissioner, whose trial in Washington DC, is the second among the hundreds of people charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riot.Griffin is one of the few defendants not accused of entering the Capitol or engaging in violent or destructive behavior. He claims he has been prosecuted for his political views.One of three members of the county commission in southern New Mexico, he is among a handful of defendants who either held public office or ran for a government post in the years before the attack.He is among only three defendants who have asked for a bench trial, which means a judge will decide his case without a jury. A US district court judge, Trevor McFadden, was scheduled to hear one day of testimony.Griffin, a 48-year-old former rodeo rider and pastor, helped found a political committee called Cowboys for Trump. He vowed to arrive at the courthouse on horseback. Instead, he showed up on Monday as a passenger in a pickup truck that had a horse trailer on the back.Griffin is charged with two misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. His attorney, Nicholas Smith, said prosecutors apparently believe Griffin engaged in disorderly conduct by peacefully leading a prayer on the Capitol steps.“That is offensive and wrong,” Smith told the judge in brief opening statements.Prosecutors didn’t give any opening statements. Their first witness was Matthew Struck, who joined Griffin at the Capitol as his videographer. Struck has an immunity deal with prosecutors.In a court filing, prosecutors called Griffin “an inflammatory provocateur and fabulist who engages in racist invective and propounds baseless conspiracy theories, including that communist China stole the 2020 presidential election”.Griffin’s attorneys say hundreds if not thousands of other people did exactly what Griffin did on January 6 and have not been charged.“The evidence will show that the government selected Griffin for prosecution based on the fact that he gave a speech and led a prayer at the Capitol, that is, selected him based on protected expression,” they wrote.More than 770 people have been charged with federal crimes. More than 230 have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and at least 127 have been sentenced. About 100 others have trial dates.Earlier this month, a jury convicted a Texas man, Guy Wesley Reffitt, of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun in the first trial for a riot defendant. Jurors also convicted him of obstructing Congress, of interfering with police officers guarding the Capitol and of threatening his two children if they reported him to law enforcement.Reffitt’s conviction could give prosecutors more leverage in negotiating plea deals or discourage other defendants from going to trial. The outcome of Griffin’s trial also could have a ripple effect, helping others decide whether to let a judge or a jury decide their case.In a video taken in a parking lot outside the Capitol on 5 January, Griffin said he came to Washington for “possibly the most historic day for our country in my lifetime” and trusted that the vice-president, Mike Pence, would “do the right thing” and stop certification of Biden’s win.After attending Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, Griffin and Struck walked over barriers and up a staircase to enter a stage under construction on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace for Biden’s inauguration, according to prosecutors.Struck is listed as one of three government witnesses. Prosecutors also intend to call a Capitol police inspector and a US Secret Service inspector. Prosecutors want to use Griffin’s own words against him. They plan to play video recordings of his statements and actions in Washington.After climbing over a stone wall and entering a restricted area, Griffin said: “This is our house. We should all be armed.” He called it “a great day for America” and added: “The people are showing that they have had enough,” prosecutors said.A key question is whether he entered a restricted area while Pence was on Capitol grounds, a prerequisite for the US Secret Service to invoke access restrictions. Griffin’s attorneys say Pence had departed before Griffin could have entered a restricted area.“The government responds that the vice-president’s precise location ultimately doesn’t matter,” the judge wrote on Friday. “Perhaps, although the lack of clarity about the metes and bounds of the restricted area and the vice-president’s movements on January 6 undermine this argument.”TopicsUS Capitol attackNew MexicoMike PenceUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      It’s Trump’s time to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth | Lloyd Green

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      It’s Trump’s time to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truthLloyd GreenA New York judge has ruled Trump will have to testify in his fraud investigation, leaving Trump sweating and his investors shaking their heads Donald Trump’s bad luck continues. On Thursday afternoon, Arthur Engoron, a Manhattan judge, gave the thumbs up to subpoenas issued to Trump, favorite child Ivanka, and Donald Trump Jr, by Tish James, New York’s attorney general. The court’s ruling follows a decision by Trump’s accountants to walk away from the one-term president and disavow years of financial statements issued by his company.Much as the Trump trio tried, they could not shut down James’s investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, which could lead to a civil suit by James. Unlike a criminal prosecution, a civil action comes with a lower burden of proof for the government. At the same time, civil lawsuits can drag on – like right into 2024. Barring a stay, Trump and his two children have been ordered to appear at deposition within 21 days.Trump and two eldest children must testify in New York case, judge rulesRead moreIf they tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, who knows what liability may result? On the other hand, if they invoke their right to remain silent, they will probably be portrayed as criminals.“You see, the mob takes the fifth,” Trump observed on the campaign trail in 2016. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment?”Time sure flies. And if the Trump family refuses to appear at deposition or simply stays mum when grilled, they risk being charged with contempt, a distinction presently held by Steve Bannon, Trump’s White House counselor and 2016 campaign guru.At this moment, Trump must be sweating while his lenders have to be shaking their collective heads. How much is Trump worth and how bad can things get are no longer hypothetical issues. In the absence of operative financial statements, restructurings and bank-called defaults have spilled into the realm of the real.As one Trump insider confided: “Hey, this might be serious. Could Donald Trump [and his business] be screwed? I don’t know, but I’m not as confident as I once was in saying, ‘No’.”Meanwhile, 2024 Republican presidential aspirants are likely stifling a collective smirk. Trump’s legal woes stand to broaden the Republican party’s presidential field, and for some it is downright personal.For Mike Pence, Trump’s hapless vice-president, these recent developments may well trigger a sense of schadenfreude. It wasn’t that long ago when Trump’s loyalists came with makeshift gallows for Pence as they stormed the Capitol, and Trump said nothing to deter the mob. Instead, he demanded loyalty from his No 2.As for Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, Trump’s troubles could not come at a better time. Trump has all but called DeSantis a coward for refusing to say whether he was vaccinated. Beyond that, Florida’s recent per capita Covid mortality rate is the seventh highest in the US, and DeSantis is having a hard time denouncing neo-Nazi violence.“So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to do with that,” the Sunshine state governor declared. “We’re not playing their game.”To be sure, Trump’s Maga base would stick with him through thick-and-thin. The party’s deep-pocketed donors are a different story. Trump may have delivered them a trove of tax cuts and ambassadorships, but he’s emotionally draining.Beyond that, his antics in the run-up to the 2020 Georgia runoff elections cost the Republicans control of the Senate. There are reasons Mitch McConnell rejects Trump’s lie that the election was stolen and is seeking to bypass the 45th president.Thursday’s ruling was scathing. At one point, the court concluded that the attorney general had uncovered “copious evidence of possible financial fraud”. Elsewhere, the judge excoriated Trump & Co for their flight to fantasy and fiction, invoking Alice in Wonderland, 1984 and Kellyanne Conway all in a single sentence.“The idea that an accounting firm’s announcement that no one should rely on a decade’s worth of financial statements that it issued based on numbers submitted by an entity somehow exonerates that entity and renders an investigation into its past practices moot is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll (‘When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said … it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less’); George Orwell (‘War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength’); and ‘alternative facts.’”In the past, Trump managed to weather storms surrounding his finances and credibility. Trump University did not stop the ex-reality show host’s political ascent. What happens next remains to be seen.Right now, Joe Biden’s poll numbers are in the low 40s, inflation is on the loose, and Nancy Pelosi is poised to lose the speaker’s gavel. Against that tableau, Trump poses a distraction from Republican ambitions, an unwelcome detour from anticipated outcome.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsDonald Trump JrIvanka TrumpMike PenceKellyanne ConwayNew YorkcommentReuse this content More

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      Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide says

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      Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide saysFormer chief of staff Marc Short joins several senior Republicans to defend the former vice-president in escalating feud with Trump Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short joined several senior Republicans in rallying to defend the former vice-president on Sunday in his escalating feud with Donald Trump over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.Some of Trump’s advisers on the 2020 election were like “snake oil salesmen”, Short said on Sunday.Pence angered the former president this week by rejecting Trump’s false claim that he had the power to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by refusing to accept results from seven contested states.At a conference hosted by the conservative Federalist Society in Florida on Friday, Pence delivered his strongest rebuke to date of Trump’s election lies, declaring that it was “un-American” to believe that any one person had the right to choose the president.On Sunday, Short, and Republican senators John Barrasso, Lisa Murkowski and Marco Rubio, were among senior party figures who backed Pence’s position, adding their voices to a backlash by other prominent Republican figures apparently growing weary of Trump’s continued obsession with his election defeat and subversion of democracy.“There’s nothing in the 12th amendment or the Electoral Count Act that would afford a vice-president that authority,” Short told NBC’s Meet the Press, describing advisers who told Trump that Pence could send election results back to the states as “snake oil salesmen”.“The vice-president was crystal clear from day one that he didn’t have this authority.”Pence, as president of the US senate, certified Biden’s victory in the early morning of 7 January 2021, hours after a mob incited by the defeated president launched a deadly insurrection on the US capitol.Short, who sheltered with Pence in the Capitol as the mob outside erected a gallows and called for the then vice-president to be hanged, added that his boss had no alternative but to certify Biden’s win. “He was following what the Constitution afforded the vice-president … he was doing his duty, which was what he was required to, under an oath to the constitution to defend it,” he said.“Unfortunately the president had many bad advisers, who were basically snake oil salesmen giving him really random and novel ideas as to what the vice-president could do. But our office researched that and recognized that was never an option.”Short also attacked the Republican party’s position – crystalized this week in a widely derided censure motion for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two Republicans on the House committee investigating the insurrection, that the January 6 rioters were engaging in “legitimate political discourse”.“From my front-row seat, I did not see a lot of legitimate political discourse,” said Short, who along with the vice-president had to be hustled to a place of safety as the mob rampaged through the building.“They evacuated us into a secure location at the bottom of the Capitol. There was an attempt to put the vice-president into a motorcade but he was clear to say: ‘That’s not a visual I want the world to see of us fleeing.’ We stayed there and worked to try and bring the business back together and complete the work that night.”Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican and ranking member of the Senate foreign affairs committee, agreed with Short’s assessment in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.“I voted to certify the election, Mike Pence did his constitutional duty that day,” Barrasso said.“It’s not the Congress that elects a president, it’s the American people.”Rubio, a Republican Florida senator, told CBS’s Face the Nation that he had long known that Pence lacked the authority to bend to Trump’s will. “I concluded [that] back in January of 2021, when the issue was raised,” he said. “I looked at it, had analyzed it, and came to the same conclusion that vice-presidents can’t simply decide not to certify an election.”Rubio refused to say whether he thought the riot was political discourse, but added: “Anybody who committed crimes on January 6th should be prosecuted. If you entered the Capitol and you committed acts of violence and you were there to hurt people, you should be prosecuted.”Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, is among the supporters of an “aggressive” bipartisan effort in Congress, criticized by Trump, to overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act and enshrine in statute that a vice-president has no role in deciding a presidential election.“We’ve identified clearly some things within the act, the ambiguities that need to be addressed,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.TopicsMike PenceUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Mike Pence equates voting rights protections with Capitol attack

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      Mike Pence equates voting rights protections with Capitol attackEx-vice-president says Democratic push to expand voter access and 6 January effort to overturn the election are both ‘power grabs’ Mike Pence has equated Democratic efforts to pass voting rights protections with the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, writing in a staggeringly misleading and inaccurate op-ed that both were “power grabs” which posed a threat to the US constitution.Guns, ammo … even a boat: how Oath Keepers plotted an armed coupRead moreAs vice-president to Donald Trump, Pence refused to overturn the 2020 election, rebuffing pressure to reject valid slates of electors at the Capitol on 6 January 2021.Such an effort would have amounted to a coup d’état, the rightful winner of the presidential election – Joe Biden – denied the Oval Office.Some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” as they roamed the halls of Congress. Others erected a gallows outside.Fight to VoteSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterBut in the Washington Post on Friday, Pence argued that Democratic proposals to expand voter access – such as requiring mail-in ballot drop boxes, loosening voter ID requirements and allowing for same-day registration and voter access – were just as unconstitutional as an attempt to upend constitutional procedure with violence.The other Democratic proposal Pence said was akin to the Capitol siege was a proposal to restore a key piece of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required places with a history of voting discrimination to get changes approved by the federal government before they go into effect.“Their plan to end the filibuster to allow Democrats to pass a bill nationalizing our elections would offend the founders’ intention that states conduct elections just as much as what some of our most ardent supporters would have had me do one year ago,” Pence wrote.“The notion that Congress would break the filibuster rule to pass a law equaling a wholesale takeover of elections by the federal government is inconsistent with our nation’s history and an affront to our constitution’s structure.”The characterization was inaccurate. The US constitution explicitly gives Congress a role in setting the rules for federal elections.Article I, Section IV reads: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”Pence also falsely wrote that Democratic proposals would require states to adopt “universal mail-in voting”, a term typically used to describe the process in states like Colorado and Washington that automatically mail ballots to registered voters.Legislation proposed by Democrats would require states to allow anyone who wants to vote by mail to be able to request a ballot, but would impose no requirement that states automatically send them to all voters.The former vice-president has previously downplayed the Capitol attack by saying there was too much focus on “one day in January”. In his column for the Post, he said: “Lives were lost and many were injured.”Seven people, law enforcement officers among them, died in connection with the attack. More than 100 officers were injured.More than 700 people have been charged in connection with the attack. On Thursday, 11 members of the Oath Keepers militia were charged with seditious conspiracy.Democrats charge that elections laws passed in Republican-run states since 6 January 2021 seek to restrict voting by groups liable to vote Democratic, African Americans prominent among them.Biden has spoken forcefully on the issue, saying federal voting rights protections are needed to counter such racist moves. Republicans have protested the president’s rhetoric.Republican legislators have also sought to make it easier to overturn election results, while Trump allies seek to fill key elections posts from which they would control the counting of votes in future elections.‘Breeding grounds for radicalization’: Capitol attack panel signals loss of patience with big techRead moreVoting rights bills proposed by Democrats would increase protections for election officials who have faced an unprecedented wave of harassment over the last year. They would also prevent partisan actors from removing elections officials without cause and make it easier for voters to go to court to ensure valid votes are not rejected.In short, Democrats aim to put in place legal standards to guarantee that no other vice-president is put in the position Pence was on 6 January 2021.While Biden has made a strong push in support of the voting rights legislation, its prospects look dim. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, staunch defenders of the filibuster, the 60-vote rule required to advance most legislation in the Senate, said on Thursday they would not vote to amend the requirement.Because no Republicans support doing away with the filibuster, the Democratic voting rights bills cannot pass right now.TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteMike PenceUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 January

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      US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 JanuaryDeputy chair of special House committee hails then-vice-president for ‘doing his duty’ and certifying election results
      US politics: follow live The special House committee investigating the 6 January 2021 insurrection by extremist supporters of then-president Donald Trump are hoping to secure the cooperation of the former vice-president, Mike Pence, who certified Joe Biden’s election victory despite pressure from the White House and the violent mob that broke into the US Capitol.Congresswoman Liz Cheney, deputy chair of the bipartisan panel, called Pence a hero for standing up to Donald Trump’s efforts to “overthrow the will of the people” that day and said that the committee is “looking forward” to working with him.‘I was there’: Democrat recalls horror and fury on day of Capitol attackRead more“We look forward to continuing the cooperation we’ve had from members of the former vice-president’s team and look forward to his cooperation,” Cheney said in an interview with the NBC Today show on Thursday morning.She said: “Former vice-president Pence was a hero on 6 January. He refused the pressures of the former president, he did his duty and the nation should be very grateful for the actions he took that day.”The panel is chaired by the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who told CNN: “We came perilously close to losing our democracy” when thousands of supporters of Trump, egged on by the then-president in the dying days of his one-term presidency, charged the US Capitol on 6 January last year trying to stop members of Congress, who had to flee, from officially certifying Biden’s election victory in November 2020.The election result was certified hours later after the Capitol had been cleared, with the official act being presided over by Pence, in the vice-president’s role as president of the Senate.Cheney, the Republican congresswoman representing Wyoming, and the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, who served in the George W Bush administration, spoke of Trump putting Pence under pressure to refuse to certify Biden’s victory and of the then-president’s failure to demand that the mob leave the Capitol even as he watched the violent insurrection on live television at the White House.Asked if the panel was considering recommending criminal charges against Trump, Cheney said: “Certainly we will be looking at that, there are important questions in front of the committee such as whether the action or inaction of former president Trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding of Congress, attempted to delay the count of electoral votes.”She added: “We also know that it was a supreme dereliction of duty, the president of the US refuses to take action to stop a violent assault on the Congress, to stop a violent assault on any of the co-equal branches of government, that’s clearly a dereliction of duty.”Trump has asked the US supreme court to block the release by the National Archives to the committee of relevant materials relating to his conduct on 6 January last year and in the run-up to that event, the most serious assault on the US Capitol since the war of 1812. Trump claims he is protected by executive privilege because he was president at the time, a claim rejected by the Biden White House and lower courts.Cheney said: “We will not let the former president hide behind these phony claims of privilege and we will get to the bottom of … everything that was going on that day.”Asked if the US came close to the results of the valid presidential election being overthrown, Cheney said the country “came very close”.“Our institutions held but they only held because of people who were willing to stand up against the pressure from former president Trump, people in his own Department of Justice … elected officials at the state level who stood up to him and the law enforcement officers here at the Capitol. We need to recognize how important it is … that it never happens again.”TopicsUS Capitol attackMike PenceUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Pence appears to set up a presidential run – can he win over Trump’s base?

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      Pence appears to set up a presidential run – can he win over Trump’s base?The former vice-president seems to be playing a long game for the 2024 election, possibly betting Trump’s influence over the Republican party will wane “Hang Mike Pence!” was the chilling chant of the mob at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Can the same constituency be persuaded to vote Mike Pence on 5 November 2024? He, for one, appears to think so.The former vice-president this week travelled across New Hampshire, host of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary elections, to meet local activists, raise money and deliver a speech attacking potential opponent Joe Biden.‘It’s who they are’: gun-fetish photo a symbol of Republican abasement under TrumpRead morePence, who has nursed White House ambitions since his teens, has also paid recent visits to the early-voting states Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, implying that a run is more likely than not. But there is one problem.Donald Trump.The ex-president, whom Pence served faithfully – or obsequiously, in the eyes of critics – has not forgiven him for ignoring his plea to overturn the result of the 2020 election. That Pence, presiding over the Senate at it certified Biden’s victory, had no such power has become irrelevant at this stage.Pence’s continued insistence that he did his constitutional duty on 6 January has done little to assuage the sense of betrayal among livid Trump supporters. In June he was heckled as a “traitor” during a speech to a gathering of religious conservatives in Orlando, Florida – hardly a positive omen.“His biggest challenge is the people that he’s going to need to vote for him – the Republican primary base – are also the people who wanted to hang him on January 6,” said Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee. “I don’t see how you overcome that.”Yet the former Indiana governor appears to be playing a long game, perhaps betting that Trump’s influence over the party will wane over the next three years. He may also be calculating that the stand he made for democracy on 6 January – a day on which he refused to flee the Capitol, taking cover in an underground car park – will resonate with moderate Republicans and independents.Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist in Indiana, said: “He’s doing everything he needs to set himself up to run and, if Trump is not the nominee or is not running, I think he’s clearly the frontrunner.”“I think people are realising that he was an unlikely hero on January 6. In the end, even for people who disagree with him for many other policy positions he’s taken, whether it was as a governor or as a vice-president, he did the right thing when the pressure was on on January 6.”Pence’s visit to New Hampshire was his second to the state, which has a huge say in choosing the party nominee, since leaving office. He attended holiday parties, raised money for state Republicans and posed for photos at at the Simply Delicious bakery in Bedford.In a speech hosted by Heritage Action, a conservative policy advocacy organisation, the 62-year-old accused Biden of fuelling inflation and lambasted the president’s social and environmental spending plan, warning: “Keep your hands off the American people’s pay cheques.”As is customary at this stage of an election cycle, Pence did not confirm or deny whether he was running for president, insisting that his priority was next year’s midterm elections for Congress.He told the Associated Press: “To be honest with you, all of my focus is on 2022 because I think we’ve got a historic opportunity for not just a winning election, but a realignment election. So I’m dedicating all of my energy to the process of really winning back the Congress and winning statehouses in 2022. And then in 2023, we’ll look around and we’ll go where we’re called.”The campaign-style tour did not go unnoticed by Trump, who released a statement that said: “Good man, but big mistake on not recognizing the massive voter fraud and irregularities” in the 2020 election. There is no evidence of any such fraud or irregularities.Pence, however, may choose to borrow from the playbook of Glenn Youngkin, who recently won election as governor of Virginia by keeping Trump at arm’s length without overtly denouncing him, thereby reaping the best of both worlds: the party establishment and “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base.There are already signs of Pence having his cake and eating it too. In a radio interview on Wednesday he repeated a now familiar line that he and Trump may “never see eye to eye” on the events of 6 January, but he also told several news outlets “there were irregularities that happened at the state level” in the election. He also insisted that he parted with his boss on good terms.This Trump-lite approach might do just enough to satisfy the former president’s followers while promising other Republicans a lower political temperature.Michael D’Antonio, a Pence biographer, said: “What’s weird is he earned his bona fides with Trump by being so craven in his loyalty and then he expressed his independence in that one moment when it really mattered. So he could make a play in both directions and say, ‘Look, I’m Donald Trump but without the violence.’” There are signs of the Maga core “cooling off” or losing interest in politics, D’Antonio added. “I also knew a number of Trump voters who chose him in 2016 because of Pence. So Pence may have built up a lot of credibility with people. And I guess the last point is, you don’t need to win 50% to get the nomination.”Some Republicans, including former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have said they will not contest the primaries if Trump throws his hat in the ring. Others, such as ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie, have rejected the idea that a Trump candidacy should prevent others running.Florida governor Ron DeSantis, South Carolina senator Tim Scott and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo are seen as potential contenders to be party standard bearer. Pence, however, might hope that his status as a former vice-president would count in his favor, just as it did for Biden last year.Clues to his intentions include the fact he is writing a book and recording a regular podcast: in the latest episode of American Freedom, the devout Christian says “we hope and pray” the supreme court will overturn Roe v Wade, its 1973 decision upholding a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.Should he secure the nomination, however, Pence would be hard pushed to win over millions of Trump critics who have not forgotten how he failed to speak out or take a principled stand during four years of chaos. There are countless hours of footage of him giving speeches in which he mentions “President Trump” over and over again, praising his “leadership” and calling him “my friend”.Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide, said: “Mike Pence will be regarded for what he is, which is a coward void of any real moral conviction or principles.“The fact that he is turning around now, still trying to court the hearts and minds and votes of the very people who perpetrated the domestic terrorist attack on our country illustrates that he is the worst kind of political figure because, even though he may not believe these things, he’s still pandering and catering to those elements. I don’t believe that history will look back on him kindly at all.”TopicsMike PenceRepublicansUS elections 2024US politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report says

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      Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report saysEx-president’s chaotic style resulted in presidential daily briefing being delivered more regularly to Mike Pence Donald Trump’s “fact-free” approach to the presidency created unprecedented challenges for intelligence officials responsible for briefing him, according to a newly released account from the CIA.Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lieRead moreThe 45th president’s chaotic and freewheeling style, and his disinclination to read anything put in front of him, resulted in the presidential daily briefing, or PDB – a crucial security update including information about potential threats to the US – being delivered more regularly to Vice-President Mike Pence instead, the report states.By the middle of Trump’s term in office, his briefings were reduced to two weekly sessions of 45 minutes each. Briefings were discontinued altogether after the deadly insurrection of 6 January, which was sparked by Trump urging his supporters to march on the US Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The analysis comes in a 40-page unclassified update to the CIA’s Getting to Know the President, a publication that chronicles efforts to brief presidents-elect through transition periods and into office for every administration since 1952.“For the intelligence community (IC), the Trump transition was far and away the most difficult in its historical experience with briefing new presidents,” the new chapter, posted to the CIA website, concludes.“Trump was like [Richard] Nixon, suspicious and insecure about the intelligence process, but unlike Nixon in the way he reacted. Rather than shut the IC out, Trump engaged with it but attacked it publicly.”Nixon, who resigned in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, refused to accept any intelligence from the CIA and received briefings instead from trusted insiders such as his national security adviser and later secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.Trump regularly assailed intelligence officials and famously chose to believe the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over agencies including the CIA which concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.The CIA report’s author, retired career intelligence officer John L Helgerson, said briefers achieved “only limited success” in their mission to deliver timely and relevant intelligence to Trump and to establish a working relationship with him.Pence, by contrast, “was an assiduous, six-day-a-week reader” who made efforts to try to keep Trump focused. The vice-president urged briefers to “lean forward on maps” in graphics-heavy presentations much shorter than those presented to Trump’s predecessors, and “would sometimes ask leading questions” during joint sessions with Trump “so the president would hear his concerns”.Pence’s efforts were largely unsuccessful, Helgerson suggests. James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, said Trump “was prone to fly off on tangents”, according to the CIA report, and said “there might be [only] eight or nine minutes of real intelligence in an hour’s discussion”.Additionally, Clapper said, while “the IC worked with evidence, Trump ‘was fact-free – evidence doesn’t cut it with him’.”Helgerson writes: “Trump preferred that the briefer take the lead and summarise the key points and important items from the days since they had last had a session. The PDB was published every day, but because Trump received a briefing only two or three times a week, he relied on the briefer to orally summarize the significance of the most important issues.”Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedRead morePerhaps unsurprisingly, the subjects to which Trump paid most attention were China and developments involving Russia and Ukraine. The first of the former president’s two impeachments was for pressing Ukraine to investigate Biden, then his likely 2020 election opponent. He was also investigated for allegedly colluding with Russia.“A few subjects and areas of the world were notable by their relative absence,” the CIA report states. “Regarding Europe, only Nato budget issues, Turkey and approaching elections in France and Germany stimulated much discussion. Latin America, Africa, and south-east Asia received almost no attention.”Overall, Helgerson believes, the briefing process barely survived Trump’s presidency.“[He] publicly criticised the outgoing directors of national intelligence and the CIA, and disparaged the substantive work and integrity of the intelligence agencies. From the outset, it was clear that the IC was in for a difficult time.“The system worked, but it struggled.”TopicsDonald TrumpMike PenceCIATrump administrationUS national securityUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claims

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      Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claimsTwo cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreThe amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.According to Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, by the ABC Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, talked to other cabinet members about using the amendment on the night of 6 January, the day of the attack, and the following day.Removing Trump via the amendment would have required a majority vote in the cabinet. Karl reports that Mnuchin spoke to Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state and an avowed loyalist.Mnuchin did not comment for Karl’s book, which is published on Tuesday. Karl writes that Pompeo responded only after Karl told Trump the former secretary of state had not done so.“Pompeo through a spokesman denied there have ever been conversations around invoking the 25th amendment,” Karl writes. “The spokesman declined to put his name to the statement.”Karl also reports that Pompeo asked for a legal analysis of the process for invoking the 25th amendment.“The analysis determined that it would take too much time,” Karl writes, “considering that Trump only had 14 days left in office and any attempt to forcefully remove him would be subject to legal challenge.”Karl says Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and Elaine Chao, transportation, might have supported invoking the 25th amendment but both resigned after the Capitol attack.Chao is married to the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell – who broke with Trump over the Capitol riot.Karl also says that “while the discussions did happen, the idea that Trump’s cabinet would vote to remove him was, in fact, ludicrous”.Pompeo is among Republicans jostling for position ahead of the 2024 presidential primary but that is a process which demands demonstrations of fealty to Trump, who continues to dominate the party in part by toying with another White House run.Trump is free to do so because he was acquitted at his second Senate impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the Capitol insurrection.At a rally near the White House on 6 January, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, by blocking certification of electoral college results. Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, eventually declined to weaponise his role overseeing the vote count, as Trump demanded he should.Karl reports that in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, around which five people died, “at least two cabinet secretaries” asked Pence, who had been holed up at the Capitol as rioters chanted for his hanging, to convene a cabinet meeting.Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguishedRead morePence did not do so, Karl writes, adding that there is no evidence to suggest Pence was involved in 25th amendment discussions.On 7 January, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, formally asked Pence to invoke the 25th amendment. Pence waited five days, then refused.Pence is also a potential candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024.TopicsDonald TrumpMike PompeoTrump administrationUS politicsMike PenceUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More