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      Unchecked review: how Trump dodged two impeachments … and the January 6 committee?

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      Unchecked review: how Trump dodged two impeachments … and the January 6 committee? Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian’s account of how the Democrats failed to oust Trump is timely – and worryingOn Thursday, the House January 6 committee voted unanimously to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump. He has indicated he is considering testifying but surely the likelihood of him doing so under oath is nil. He lacks all incentive to appear. The committee’s long-term existence is doubtful.Trump a narcissist and a ‘dick’, ex-ambassador Sondland says in new bookRead moreIn their joint account of Trump’s two impeachments, Rachael Bade of Politico and Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post suggest the US is exhausted by the pandemic and perpetual investigation. The quest for “Capitol riot accountability became an afterthought to … other crises”, they write.Trump lost to Joe Biden by more than 7m votes nationally but only by the thinnest of margins in the battleground states. Trump is on the ballot this November, even if his name does not appear. The Republicans are primed to take the House and possibly the Senate.In other words, Trump’s future rests with the courts and the electorate, not Congress. For all the committee’s efforts, Trump remains either hero or villain depending on demographics, habits and preferences. Political identification is an extension of self.Against this dystopian backdrop, Bade and Demirjian deliver a granular examination of both Trump impeachments and the work of the January 6 committee. Their joint effort is a stinging indictment of what they see as Republican cravenness and Democratic ineptitude.The former allowed Trump to evade consequences, the latter failed to master the levers of power. The authors are alarmed but their words are measured. They worry about what might be next.“Even if they did not intend to, the Democrats’ efforts to oust Trump created a paradigm for hostile presidents to ignore subpoenas and buck [Capitol] Hill oversight,” Bade and Demirjian write.They also posit that “a party with congressional supermajorities may one day oust a president with no evidence at all”. Said differently, the impeachment process will become wholly debased, a cudgel to be deployed as the US careens through its cold civil war. House Republicans have raised the possibility of a Biden impeachment already.As is to be expected, Unchecked is well-sourced and noted. The book records the give-and-take between congressional leaders and members, at the same time helping the reader understand how the US reached this point.During the first impeachment, the authors capture Mitch McConnell as he rallies his Republican Senate troops. His pitch centers on power. He depicts impeachment over Ukraine as a smokescreen for the Democrats’ ambition to take the chamber.“This is not about this president,” McConnell said. “It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing,” Rather, “it has always been about 3 November 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”McConnell loathed Trump but understood their fates could not be separated. If McConnell were pitted against Trump in a Republican popularity contest, the Kentuckian would be squashed. He lacked Trump’s appeal and was overtly linked to the donor base. Banker’s shirts do not signal “man of the people”. For McConnell, populism was an acquired taste, if that. He could fake it, to a point. But in the Senate, he held sway.At the same time, there was the reality of Trump’s approaches to Ukraine. As much as Trump lawyers argued there was no quid pro quo, in private, Senate Republicans weren’t buying it.Before the first impeachment trial, Ted Cruz of Texas met Trump’s team. He argued it was irrelevant whether their client engaged in a quid pro quo. Rather, the issue was one of intent. If uprooting foreign corruption motivated the contemplated transaction, that would be legally permissible. Cruz failed to persuade the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. As the action shifted to the Senate, Trump’s lawyers angered Republican jurors. Alan Dershowitz equated presidential power to that of a king unchecked by parliament. “If the president does something which he believes will help get him elected, in the public interest”, that would be fine.Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of Republican leadership, was not amused. He demanded that Dershowitz be fired. The next day, the Harvard professor was gone.As for the Democrats, they failed to internalize that their audience was the Republican Senate. With Trump in the White House, Adam Schiff enjoyed a meteoric rise among Democratic House colleagues. But he left Senate Republicans unmoved. In the end, they were yawning.Fast forward to the second impeachment. Here, Bade and Demirjian depict Kevin McCarthy in all his oleaginous glory. The House minority leader devolves from someone who confronted Trump to an out-and-out sycophant.On January 6, McCarthy lambasted Trump over the riot. Within weeks, the man who would replace Nancy Pelosi as speaker traveled to Mar-a-Lago with hat in hand. He too realized that it was Trump’s party now.At its core, removing a president is about politics. For impeachment to succeed, it must transcend raw partisanship, a reality Pelosi expressed early on. Richard Nixon resigned because congressional allies would no longer protect him. The Watergate tapes were the smoking gun.Confidence Man: The Making of Trump and the Breaking of America review – the vain sadist and his ‘shrink’Read moreNow, with or without a criminal referral by the January 6 committee, justice department investigations of Trump are in full swing. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that a federal judge ordered Mike Pence to testify before a grand jury, and that earlier in the week the US Court of Appeals refused to block Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, from doing the same.But that is not the end of the story. Inflation continues, interest rates on home mortgages have shot above 7%, and Biden’s relationship to basic facts appears situational at best.With cost-of-living outstripping take-home pay, the saliency of abortion and the supreme court Dobbs decision diminishes. The Democrats also appear out of step on crime. In the midterms, shouting that democracy and the constitution hang in the balance will not be enough. Culture will always matter. Whether the Democrats can figure this out remains to be seen.
      Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump is published in the US by HarperCollins
      TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump administrationTrump impeachment (2019)Trump impeachment (2021)US politicsUS Capitol attackreviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riot

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      ‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riotHouse speaker continued to try to find a way for House and Senate to reconvene despite turmoilNew 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.Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’Read more“Do you believe this?” Pelosi said to another Democratic leader, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. The footage was from about 2.45pm, when rioters had already disrupted the planned certification of the 2020 presidential election results. It would be hours before the building was secure. Never-before-seen video footage played Thursday by the House of Representatives select committee investigating last year’s riot shows how Pelosi and other leaders, including Republican allies of Donald Trump, responded to the insurrection. The recordings offer a rare glimpse into the real-time reactions of the most powerful members of Congress as they scrambled to drum up support from all parts of the government, including from agencies seemingly ill prepared for the chaos, and vented anger over a president whose conduct they felt had endangered their lives. In the videos, Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer negotiate with governors and defence officials to try to get the national guard to the Capitol as police were being brutally beaten outside the building. The deployment of the guard was delayed for hours as Trump stood by and did little to stop the violence of his supporters. The footage, recorded by Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, a documentary film-maker, was shown during the committee’s 10th hearing as an illustration of the president’s inaction in the face of the grave danger posed by the rioters. “As the president watched the bloody attack unfold on Fox News from his dining room, members of Congress and other government officials stepped into the gigantic leadership void created by the president’s chilling and steady passivity that day,” said Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a committee member. The concerns were not theoretical. At roughly 3pm, as a Trump loyalist outside Pelosi’s office pointed her finger and shouted, “Bring her out now!” and, “We’re coming in if you don’t bring her out!” the speaker was in a room with Schumer, who said: “I’m gonna call up the effin’ secretary of DoD.”As the violence persisted at the Capitol – “Officer down, get him up,” a voice could be heard bellowing in one clip shown by the committee – the leaders kept making calls from Fort McNair. One went to Virginia governor Ralph Northam about the possibility of help from the Virginia national guard, with Pelosi narrating the events based on what she saw from television news footage. An angrier call followed with Jeffrey Rosen, the then acting attorney general. Days earlier, and unbeknownst at the time to Congress or to the public, Rosen and colleagues had fended off a slapdash attempt by Trump to replace him with a subordinate eager to challenge the election results. On that day, though, Schumer and Pelosi sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch and laid bare their frustrations with the country’s top law enforcement official.Throughout the footage, Pelosi maintains her composure, barely raising her voice as she urges Rosen, and later vice-president Mike Pence and others, to send help and tries to work out a way for the House and Senate to reconvene. “They’re breaking the law in many different ways,” Pelosi said to Rosen. “And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States.” Schumer weighed in too: “Yeah, why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr attorney-general, in your law enforcement responsibility? A public statement they should all leave.” It wasn’t until the evening that the Capitol would be cleared and work would resume. The news that Congress would be able to reconvene to finish its work in certifying the election results was delivered to the congressional leaders not by Trump but by Pence. The House January 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena Trump, demanding his personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video of close aides describing his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss that led to his supporters assault on the Capitol.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpChuck SchumerUS politicsNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

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      Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – as it happened

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      On January 6, “Republican tempers were running so hot against Trump that forcing them to choose sides in the Senate that week could easily have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from any future run for the White House,” The Intercept reported, based on the forthcoming book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.”It would have been a massive break if it happened. GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate had generally grinned and beared it through the four years Trump had been in the White House, even when he said or did things that went against their stated beliefs. But the up-close violence of the insurrection changed things, according to the book written by two reporters from The Washington Post and Politico. Had the House gone through with impeaching Trump that very evening, a vote to convict may have won the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to succeed, removing Trump from office and barring him from running again.Reality was much more tepid. The Democrat-controlled House did vote to impeach Trump a week after January 6, and a month later, when he had already left the White House, the Republican-held Senate took a vote on whether to convict him. While 57 senators, including seven Republicans and all Democrats, voted to do so, that was 10 votes short of the supermajority needed, meaning Trump escaped punishment for the insurrection – at least for now.The federal government once again avoided a shutdown hours before it was to start after the House passed a short-term funding bill, which now goes to Joe Biden’s desk. The president is back at the White House after attending the investiture of justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who joins a supreme court that a poll indicates is losing its public trust.Here’s what else happened today:
      Ginni Thomas spoke to the January 6 committee, but two of its members say the wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t appear to be involved in a wider plot to overturn the 2020 election.
      You might think Joe Manchin would enjoy all the power the 50-50 split in the Senate gives him, as a pivotal Democratic vote. You would be wrong, apparently.
      The White House hit back against Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, describing it as illegal and announcing new sanctions.
      Nancy Pelosi nixed an effort to impeach Donald Trump the evening after the January 6 insurrection, according to a new book that suggests a more immediate effort could have resulted in his conviction by the requisite two-thirds of the Republican-held Senate.
      Barack Obama worried about the justice department under Trump, but was convinced the country could make it four years with him in the White House, according to a meeting transcript obtained by Bloomberg.
      For a fee of $3 million, Donald Trump hired a former Florida solicitor general to help him deal with the justice department’s investigation into government secrets at Mar-a-Lago, but has ended up squabbling with the attorney instead.That’s the conclusion reached by a piece in The Washington Post that looks into the work of Christopher Kise, whom since joining Trump’s legal team has counseled him that the justice department just wanted to make sure no classified documents were at his Florida resort, and he’d be wise to try to reach a deal with them.Kise has found himself frustrated, the Post reports, as other lawyers on Trump’s team advocate a more aggressive approach that may get all involved into trouble. Here’s more from the story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A Wednesday night court filing from Trump’s team was combative, with defense lawyers questioning the Justice Department’s truthfulness and motives. Kise, whose name was listed alongside other lawyers’ in previous filings over the past four weeks, did not sign that one — an absence that underscored the division among the lawyers. He remains part of the team and will continue assisting Trump in dealing with some of his other legal problems, said the people familiar with the conversations, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private talks. But on the Mar-a-Lago issue, he is likely to have a less public role.
      It is a pattern that has repeated itself since the National Archives and Records Administration first alerted Trump’s team 16 months ago that it was missing documents from his term as president — and strongly urged their return. Well before the May 11 grand jury subpoena, and the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, multiple sets of lawyers and advisers suggested that Trump simply comply with government requests to return the papers and, in particular, to hand over any documents marked classified.
      Trump seems, at least for now, to be heeding advice from those who have indulged his desire to fight.Eight years of Trump would be bad, but four manageable. The justice department should be watched like “white on rice”. And despite his insults and bombast, Donald Trump had been nothing but polite to him in person.That was some of what Barack Obama told a group of columnists in an off-the-record conversation three days before he left the White House in 2017. Such conversations between an American president and the press are rare and intended never to be made public, but Bloomberg got their hands on a transcript through a Freedom of Information Act request, which they published today. The discussion touched on a number of topics. Here’s what Obama had to say about whether Trump would do lasting damage to the country:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I think that four years is okay. Take on some water, but we can kind of bail fast enough to be okay. Eight years would be a problem. I would be concerned about a sustained period in which some of these norms have broken down and started to corrode.Whether Trump would be inclined to start any new wars:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I think his basic view – his formative view of foreign policy is shaped by his interactions with Malaysian developers and Saudi princes, and I think his view is, I’m going to go around the world making deals and maybe suing people. But it’s not, let me launch big wars that tie me up. And that’s not what his base is looking from him anyway. I mean, it is not true that he initially opposed the war in Iraq. It is true that during the campaign he was not projecting a hawkish foreign policy, other than bombing the heck out of terrorists. And we’ll see what that means, but I don’t think he’s looking to get into these big foreign adventures.His fears for the justice department:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I would be like white on rice on the Justice Department. I’d be paying a lot of attention to that. And if there is even a hint of politically motivated investigations, prosecutions, et cetera, I think you guys have to really be on top of that.How Trump – who had promoted the lie that Obama was not born in the United States – had behaved around him since winning the 2016 election:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}His interactions with me are very different than they are with the public, or, for that matter, interactions with Barack Obama, the distant figure. He’s very polite to me, and has not stopped being so. I think where he sees a vulnerability he goes after it and he takes advantage of it.With hours remaining before the government would have shut down, the House of Representatives this afternoon approved a short-term spending bill that will keep it open through December 16.The measure was approved with 230 votes in favor and 201 against. All Democrats voted for it, along with 10 Republicans. The Senate passed the bill yesterday and it now heads to Joe Biden’s desk, where his signature is expected.Beyond just keeping the government open, the spending measure allocates another $12 billion or so in aid to Ukraine, as well as additional money for disaster relief in a swath of US states. Had Congress not reached an agreement, the federal government would have run out of money on Saturday.Ginni Thomas’s testimony before the January 6 committee was hotly anticipated amid a cascade of reports in recent months showing her efforts to pressure officials nationwide to take conspiracy theories about the outcome of the 2020 election seriously.As alarming as those reports were, considering they came from the wife of a sitting supreme court justice, Politico reports that committee members aren’t convinced she had much to do with the violence that unfolded at the Capitol or the legal effort to stop Joe Biden’s win. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chair, said Thomas’s views were “typical” of those who believe, baselessly, that Biden had stolen the vote nearly two years ago. Jamie Raskin, another Democratic committee member, replied “I can’t say,” when asked if Thomas had given the panel any new leads. “She absolutely has a First Amendment right to take whatever positions she wants, and that means she can take as deranged a position she wants about the 2020 election,” he added.Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election Read moreSpeaking of the January 6 committee, Fox News has some details of when it may hold its next public hearing, after one scheduled for this week was postponed due to Hurricane Ian’s approach:1/6 commitee Chairman Thompson says no hearing next week. But there will be a hearing before the election. Says interim report will come before November. No witnesses at next hearing— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 30, 2022
      Another factor fueling the decline in trust in the supreme court, at least among Democrats, may be Ginni Thomas, the wife of conservative justice Clarence Thomas and promoter of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. As Ed Pilkington reports, she stuck to those claims during an interview with the January 6 committee yesterday:Ginni Thomas, the hard-right conservative whose activities have raised conflict of interest concerns involving her husband, the US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, has told the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that she still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the committee, told reporters following the almost five-hour private interview with Thomas that she held fast to her claim that massive fraud in the 2020 election had put Joe Biden in the White House. When asked by reporters if Thomas still believed that to be true, Thompson replied: “Yes.”The stolen election conspiracy theory – widely propagated by Trump – has never been substantiated with evidence and has been thoroughly debunked over the past two years.Ginni Thomas still believes Trump’s false claim the 2020 election was stolenRead moreCiting a US Supreme Court decision earlier this year, gun rights groups and firearms owners have launched another attempt to overturn Connecticut’s ban on certain semiautomatic rifles that was enacted in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.A new lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court by three gun owners, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the Second Amendment Foundation. They are seeking to overturn the state prohibition on what they call “modern sporting arms” such as AR-15-style rifles like the one used to kill 20 first-graders and six educators at the Newtown school in 2012, The Associated Press reports..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We all deserve to live in safe communities, but denying ownership of the most commonly owned firearms in the country is not the way to achieve it. The recent US Supreme Court decision … has opened the door to this challenge, and we believe Connecticut will be hard pressed to prove its statutes are constitutional,” Holly Sullivan, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, said in a statement.Connecticut attorney general William Tong hit back..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Connecticut’s gun laws save lives, and we are not going back. We will not allow weapons of war back into our schools, our houses of worship, our grocery stores, and our communities. I will vigorously defend our laws against any and every one of these baseless challenges,” Tong said.In June, the Supreme Court broadly expanded gun rights in a 6-3 ruling by the conservative majority that overturned a New York law restricting carrying guns in public and affected a half-dozen other states with similar laws.President Joe Biden has had a busy one, bouncing from the supreme court, where he attended the investiture of new justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, then back to the White House, where he celebrated the Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah and is set to give an update about the damage done by Hurricane Ian. While it was a day for ceremony at the supreme court, a new poll reaffirmed that the court’s rightward shift has taken a toll on public trust.Here’s what else happened today:
      You might think Joe Manchin would enjoy all the power the 50-50 split in the Senate gives him, as a pivotal Democratic vote. You would be wrong, apparently.
      The White House hit back against Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, describing it as illegal and announcing new sanctions.
      Nancy Pelosi nixed an effort to impeach Donald Trump the evening after the January 6 insurrection, according to a new book that suggests a more immediate effort could have resulted in his conviction by two-thirds of the Republican-held Senate.
      The supreme court has released a photo of its new lineup, which includes Ketanji Brown Jackson:Here’s the new #SCOTUS. Photo Cred: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States pic.twitter.com/J3bocuG5Y0— Nicole Ninh (@nicninh) September 30, 2022
      Speaking alongside vice-president Kamala Harris at a White House ceremony to celebrate the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah, Joe Biden made a prediction: Harris may be the first female vice president, but she won’t be the last, and a woman may succeed him in the presidency as well.The speech just wrapped up, and you can watch it here:The president changed his schedule up a bit, and decided to speak at the new year ceremony before his planned speech on Hurricane Ian.While Joe Biden didn’t speak publicly at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s investiture to the supreme court, he offered a brief comment about it on Twitter:This morning, I attended Justice Jackson’s investiture. She’s a brilliant legal mind, extraordinarily qualified, and is making history today.In fact, we’ve appointed 84 federal judges so far. No group of that many judges has been appointed as quickly, or been that diverse.— President Biden (@POTUS) September 30, 2022
      While running for president, Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the court, and Jackson satisfied that promise. As for the 84 federal judges appointed, that’s a nod to the rapid clip of judicial confirmations Democrats have achieved in the Senate, where they have prioritized leaving their mark on the federal judiciary.President Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks on Hurricane Ian, which did terrible damage to Florida earlier this week, and now threatens Georgia and South Carolina.Here’s the White House’s live stream of the speech:For the latest news on the devastating storm, check out The Guardian’s live blog:Hurricane Ian: death toll in Florida rises as storm bears down on South Carolina – liveRead more More

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      Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – live

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      On January 6, “Republican tempers were running so hot against Trump that forcing them to choose sides in the Senate that week could easily have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from any future run for the White House,” The Intercept reported, based on the forthcoming book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.”It would have been a massive break if it happened. GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate had generally grinned and beared it through the four years Trump had been in the White House, even when he said or did things that went against their stated beliefs. But the up-close violence of the insurrection changed things, according to the book written by two reporters from The Washington Post and Politico. Had the House gone through with impeaching Trump that very evening, a vote to convict may have won the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to succeed, removing Trump from office and barring him from running again.Reality was much more tepid. The Democrat-controlled House did vote to impeach Trump a week after January 6, and a month later, when he had already left the White House, the Republican-held Senate took a vote on whether to convict him. While 57 senators, including seven Republicans and all Democrats, voted to do so, that was 10 votes short of the supermajority needed, meaning Trump escaped punishment for the insurrection – at least for now.The newest supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a star-studded investiture ceremony today, featuring president Joe Biden, who appointed her to the bench, vice-president Kamala Harris, attorney general Merrick Garland and the rest of the supreme court.The event was ceremonial, since Jackson had already been sworn in by Harris. It feature brief remarks from chief justice John Roberts, who administered an oath to Jackson. While cameras were not allowed inside the court during the ceremony, the pair later strolled down its front steps, where Jackson was greeted by her husband: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson photo following U.S. Supreme Court investiture ceremony. #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/bAlmg6omgg— CSPAN (@cspan) September 30, 2022
      Jackson is expected to join the court’s three-member liberal bloc, which often ends up in the minority in decisions written by the six-member conservative majority.The White House has strongly condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine, saying the move is “phony” and illegal under international law.Here’s the full statement from president Joe Biden:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The United States condemns Russia’s fraudulent attempt today to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory. Russia is violating international law, trampling on the United Nations Charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere. Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy. The United States will always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts to regain control of its territory by strengthening its hand militarily and diplomatically, including through the $1.1 billion in additional security assistance the United States announced this week. In response to Russia’s phony claims of annexation, the United States, together with our Allies and partners, are announcing new sanctions today. These sanctions will impose costs on individuals and entities — inside and outside of Russia — that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory. We will rally the international community to both denounce these moves and to hold Russia accountable. We will continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to defend itself, undeterred by Russia’s brazen effort to redraw the borders of its neighbor. And I look forward to signing legislation from Congress that will provide an additional $12 billion to support Ukraine. I urge all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.Washington responded to the move with a fresh battery of sanctions targeting hundreds of people and companies. The Guardian’s live blog has the latest on Russia’s decision, and the ongoing war in Ukraine:Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv applies for Nato membership after Putin annexes Ukrainian regionsRead moreIf you paid even a slight amount of attention to American politics over the past two years or so, you probably heard one name come up repeatedly: Joe Manchin. The Democratic senator representing West Virginia has become a one-man chokepoint for much of the legislation proposed by his party, whose control of the Senate is so slim they can’t afford a single defection on bills that Republicans refused to support. One of the party’s most conservative senators, Manchin is known for his opposition to changing the filibuster to make it easier to pass legislation in the chamber – a stand on which he was joined by Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema – and for opposing several proposals to fight climate change, which earned him the ire of activists who said he was beholden to the fossil fuel industry.Democrats also control the House, but it is the even 50-50 split in the Senate that gives Manchin so much power. One might think he enjoys it, but NBC News reports today that is apparently not the case. “I’m just praying to God it’s not 50-50 again,” he told the network when they spoke to him in the run-up to the 8 November midterms, where voters could widen Democrats’ majority in the chamber, or return it to Republican control. “I’d like for Democrats to be 51-49. But whatever happens, I hope it’s not a 50-50.”Manchin didn’t open up much about why he felt this way, saying only, “It is what it is. You’ve got to do your job.”U-turn as Manchin agrees deal with Democrats on major tax and climate billRead moreSpeaking of the midterms, The Cook Political Report has a good summary of where things stand in the race for control of the House, which Republicans are generally seen as having a good chance of retaking:New @CookPolitical ratings (after #OH09 move): 212 seats at least Lean R, 193 at least Lean D and 30 Toss Ups. That means Rs only need to win 20% of Toss Ups to win control, Ds need to win 83% to hold the majority. pic.twitter.com/O85ruNfYxD— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) September 30, 2022
      The aftershocks from the January 6 insurrection extend far beyond Trump.In Arizona, Mark Finchem, a Republican running for the post of secretary of state overseeing elections, was on the defensive last night when his Democratic opponent accused him in a debate of being an insurrectionist for attending the rally preceding the January 6 attack on the Capitol.“The last time I checked, being at a place where something’s happening is not illegal,’’ replied Finchem, The East Valley Tribune reports. Finchem attended Trump’s speech before the crowd attacked the building, but there’s no proof he entered the Capitol itself. The Tribune reports that Finchem had earlier said he “went to Washington to deliver a ‘book of evidence’ to federal lawmakers about claimed irregularities in the 2020 vote in Arizona – material that came out of a hearing in Phoenix involving attorney Rudy Giuliani and other Trump supporters.” He also posted a photo of the Capitol rioters, writing, this is “what happens when people feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud.’’His Democratic opponent Adrian Fontes rejected Finchem’s explanation, saying, “What he did is engage in a violent insurrection and try to overturn the very Constitution that holds this nation together.”Arizona voters will decide the race in the 8 November midterm elections.A judge appointed by Donald Trump delivered a ruling in his favor yesterday amid the ongoing investigation of government secrets found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Hugo Lowell reports:A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump would not have to provide a sworn declaration that the FBI supposedly “planted” some of the highly-sensitive documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, as he has suggested, until his lawyers have reviewed the seized materials.The order from US district court judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the special master case and is a Trump appointee, also pushed back several key interim deadlines that consequently extends the review’s final date of completion from the end of November to mid-December.Cannon’s ruling means Trump does not have to confirm under oath his insinuations that the FBI manufactured evidence – one of several assertions he has made, without evidence, in recent weeks that could be used against him should he be charged over illegal retention of government documents.Trump not required to provide sworn declaration that FBI ‘planted’ evidenceRead moreHere’s a revelation from “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”, another forthcoming book on his presidency, about how Trump came up with his reason for keeping his tax returns secret. Martin Pengelly reports:According to a new book, Donald Trump came up with his famous excuse for not releasing his tax returns on the fly – literally, while riding his campaign plane during the 2016 Republican primary.Every American president or nominee since Richard Nixon had released his or her tax returns. Trump refused to do so.In her eagerly awaited book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman describes the scene on Trump’s plane just before Super Tuesday, 1 March 2016.Trump, she says, was discussing the issue with aides including Corey Lewandowski, then his campaign manager, and his press secretary, Hope Hicks. The aides, Haberman says, pointed out that as Trump was about to be confirmed as the favourite for the Republican nomination, the problem needed to be addressed.Trump made up audit excuse for not releasing tax returns on the fly, new book saysRead moreOn January 6, “Republican tempers were running so hot against Trump that forcing them to choose sides in the Senate that week could easily have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from any future run for the White House,” The Intercept reported, based on the forthcoming book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.”It would have been a massive break if it happened. GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate had generally grinned and beared it through the four years Trump had been in the White House, even when he said or did things that went against their stated beliefs. But the up-close violence of the insurrection changed things, according to the book written by two reporters from The Washington Post and Politico. Had the House gone through with impeaching Trump that very evening, a vote to convict may have won the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to succeed, removing Trump from office and barring him from running again.Reality was much more tepid. The Democrat-controlled House did vote to impeach Trump a week after January 6, and a month later, when he had already left the White House, the Republican-held Senate took a vote on whether to convict him. While 57 senators, including seven Republicans and all Democrats, voted to do so, that was 10 votes short of the supermajority needed, meaning Trump escaped punishment for the insurrection – at least for now.Good morning, US politics blog readers.Things could have gone very differently on January 6, a forthcoming book by journalists from Politico and the Washington Post reports. Enraged at Donald Trump’s apparent incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol, a group of House Democrats moved to impeach him that very evening at a moment when enough Republicans in the Senate may have voted to convict and remove him from office.But according to a report in the Intercept, which obtained Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump before its release, House speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed moving immediately against the then president, and the push to convict ultimately failed.The anecdote is the latest from the many books released since Trump left the White House exploring what went on behind closed doors during his presidency, but stands out for bringing to light a true turning point in American history, when one consequential course of action won out over another.Anyway, here’s what’s going on in politics today:
      Nancy Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference at 11am eastern time today in the Capitol, and you can bet she’ll be asked to comment on the Intercept’s report.
      Hurricane Ian is moving towards South Carolina after ravaging Florida. Follow the Guardian’s live blog for the latest on the storm.
      President Joe Biden is attending the investiture ceremony for supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at 10 am eastern time, then will make a White House speech about the response to Hurricane Ian at 11.30am. More

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s green deal: leadership after Trump’s denialism | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s green deal: leadership after Trump’s denialismEditorialThe first major climate law passed in the US comes not a moment too soon for a burning planet When the House of Representatives passed landmark climate legislation on Friday, Joe Biden chalked up one of the surprise successes of his presidency. Only last month his ambitious agenda appeared sunk after a conservative Democrat and coal baron, Joe Manchin, refused to back it. His vote is crucial in an evenly divided Senate. However, the climate proposals were largely resurrected in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), co-authored by Mr Manchin, which Congress approved.The first major US climate law comes not a moment too soon. It is the country’s best and last opportunity to meet its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and, with it, a world where net zero by mid-century is possible. After Donald Trump, Mr Biden can reclaim the mantle of global climate leadership for the US. But the act reveals the limits of his power.The Democrats’ initial $3.5tn plan was to expand education, fight poverty, lower healthcare costs and tackle climate change. That was whittled down to a $1.75tn bill that the House passed last year. But it got nowhere in the Senate. Mr Manchin refused to back the social security programmes and his centrist colleague Kyrsten Sinema refused to back the tax rises. What was left was $490bn in climate and healthcare investments.This deserves a small cheer from progressives. Mr Biden is pursuing a muscular policy of state intervention in the economy. The act for the first time gives the federal government the power to negotiate lower drug prices. Significantly for the climate, it represents a new US industrial policy that subsidises zero-carbon power production via tax credits. It also recognises that the US is falling behind China in green technology – spending $152bn less on renewable investments last year – and focuses on ways to encourage clean-energy manufacturing.Politics in the US is unfortunately far too influenced by the power of vested interests. The US remains addicted to fossil fuels, which generate 61% of its electricity. Its shale gas industry is looking to replace Russia as the major energy supplier to Europe. The upshot was that fossil fuel lobbyists won concessions in the climate legislation. The compromise means linking renewable development to new oil and gas extraction for which many communities will bear the disproportionate cost.Nevertheless, for every one tonne of emissions caused by the act’s fossil fuel provisions, the non-partisan Energy Innovation thinktank says 24 tonnes of emissions are avoided by its green provisions. This ought to help energise Mr Biden’s base ahead of the midterm elections. Despite Republican antagonism, climate action enjoys broad support in the US. A Pew Research Center poll suggests that 58% of voters think the federal government is doing too little to “reduce the effects of global climate change, compared with just 18% who say it is doing too much”.To be a truly transformative president, Mr Biden will need to remake society. What the act demonstrates is that he does not have the votes – yet – in his own party for such a programme. Mr Biden’s climate plans may fall short because he is relying on the carrot of spending rather than the stick of taxes to underpin an energy transition. Yet the wasteful consumption of the wealthy will have to be reduced with progressive taxation to make resources available for socially-useful spending. Ultimately the climate emergency needs a fundamental economic restructuring. Mr Biden’s new environmental law is a good start, but there’s a very long way to go.TopicsClimate crisisOpinionUS politicsJoe BidenNancy PelosiDemocratsRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      Even the BBC Now Offers US-friendly Propaganda on Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Melodrama

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Pelosi’s ‘reckless’ Taiwan visit deepens US-China rupture – why did she go?

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      Pelosi’s ‘reckless’ Taiwan visit deepens US-China rupture – why did she go? The speaker insisted she was promoting democracy but critics suggest a last hurrah before she loses the gavel in NovemberRoy Blunt lived up his surname when he said this week: “So I’m about to use four words in a row that I haven’t used in this way before, and those four words are: ‘Speaker Pelosi was right.’”The Republican senator was praising Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the first by a speaker of the US House of Representatives in a quarter of a century.But not everyone was so sure. In poking the hornets’ nest and enraging China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory, Pelosi deepened a rupture between the world’s two most powerful countries – and may have hurt the very cause she was seeking to promote.On Thursday, China fired multiple missiles into waters surrounding Taiwan and began a series of huge military drills around the island; the White House summoned China’s ambassador, Qin Gang, to protest. On Friday, China said it was ending cooperation with the US on key issues including the climate crisis, anti-drug efforts and military talks.It was yet another moment of peril in a world already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine and mass food shortages.So why did Pelosi go? The speaker is a fervent defender of Taiwan and critic of China’s human rights abuses. During the visit, she pointed to a global struggle between autocracy and democracy, a favourite theme of Joe Biden’s, and told reporters in Taipei: “We cannot back away from that.”But the 82-year-old may also have been rushing for a last hurrah before November’s midterm elections in which she is expected to lose the speaker’s gavel. Her televised meetings in Taiwan, sure to have registered in Beijing, appeared to some like a vanity project.Writing just ahead of the trip, Thomas Friedman, an author and New York Times columnist, described Pelosi’s adventure as “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible”, arguing that Taiwan will not be more secure or prosperous because of a “purely symbolic” visit.Friedman warned that the consequences could include “the US being plunged into indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time”, without the support of European allies in the latter.Biden himself had publicly admitted that the US military felt the trip was “not a good idea right now”, not least because President Xi Jinping is preparing to secure a third term at the Chinese Communist party’s national congress later this year.In a call last month, the White House has said, Biden sought to remind Xi about America’s separation of powers: that he could not and would not prevent the speaker and other members of Congress traveling where they wish.But Biden and Pelosi are close allies from the same political party, a different scenario from 1997 when Democrat Bill Clinton was president and Republican speaker Newt Gingrich went to Taiwan. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency, flew into the island on a US military aircraft with all the government heft that implies.It was perhaps telling that Biden and Democrats remained mostly silent, whereas the speaker’s loudest cheerleaders were rightwing Republicans and China hawks including Gingrich.Some commentators believe that a superpower conflict between America and China over Taiwan or another issue is one day inevitable. White Pelosi may have shaved a few years off that forecast, it could be argued that Biden himself has supplied some of the kindling.For months the president has sown doubts about America’s commitment to the “One China” policy, under which the US recognises formal ties with China rather than Taiwan. In May, when asked if the US would be get involved military to defend Taiwan, he replied forcefully: “Yes. That’s the commitment we made.”Although America is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has never directly promised to intervene militarily in a conflict with China. This delicate equilibrium has helped deter Taiwan from declaring full independence and China from invading. But some worry that Biden is supplanting this longstanding position of “strategic ambiguity” with “strategic confusion”.Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States thinktank in Washington, told a Council on Foreign Relations podcast this week: “There has been a lack of clarity, consistency, a lack of discipline, shall we say, and even a lack of coherency, I think, in US policy statements.“The Biden administration continues to say that the United States has a One China policy, that the United States does not support Taiwan independence, but then there are other things that the US does, which from China’s perspective and using their language, looks like we are slicing the salami. We are heading towards supporting a Taiwan that is legally independent.”Glaser added: “So Speaker Pelosi going to Taiwan doesn’t really, I think, in and of itself cross a red line, but I think the Chinese see a slippery slope … And then on top of all this, we have President Biden talking about policy toward Taiwan in confusing ways.”Other analysts agreed that, once news of Pelosi’s plan to visit Taiwan emerged, it would have been impossible to back down without handing Beijing a propaganda victory.Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank and former policy adviser to Clinton, said: “I can see the arguments on both sides. Argument on one side, this was probably an ill-timed gesture on her part. Argument on the other side, once the issue was joined, allowing the Chinese to bully her out of the trip would would have been a really bad sign to the region.“If she hadn’t put the issue on the table, that would have been one thing. But once she did and once it was clear that she was pretty firm in doing it, it would have been a mistake, say, for the president to put a lot of pressure on her not to go. That would have been both a substantive mistake and a political mistake.”Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank in Palo Alto, California, wrote in an email: “Pelosi wanted to convey our commitment and resolve. I respect her for that. However, I still think the trip was a mistake. It provoked a serious escalation of Beijing’s military intimidation without really doing anything to make Taiwan more secure.“What Taiwan really needs now is more military assistance, especially a large number of small, mobile, survivable and lethal weapons, like anti-ship missiles. To paraphrase [Ukraine’s Volodymyr] Zelenskiy, they don’t need more visits, they need weapons. And they have to do a lot more themselves to prepare for a possible attack.”TopicsNancy PelosiUS politicsUS foreign policyChinaTaiwanAsia PacificnewsReuse this content More

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      China not in control of US 'travel schedule', says Nancy Pelosi – video

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      US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said China ‘will not isolate’ Taiwan by preventing US officials from travelling there. Pelosi, who is currently leading a Congressional delegation to the Indo-Pacific region, with her last stop in Tokyo, said her visit was ‘not about changing the status quo’ but recognised China ‘made their strikes probably using our visit as an excuse’. Pelosi said the Chinese have tried to isolate Taiwan, adding, ‘we will not allow them to isolate Taiwan … They are not doing our travel schedule.’

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