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      Appeals court shields Trump ally Scott Perry’s phone in 2020 election inquiry

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      A federal appeals court has ruled that top House Republican Scott Perry’s text messages about efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were constitutionally protected and off-limits to prosecutors, according to the opinion in the case that was newly unsealed on Wednesday.The three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit found that Perry’s communications with congressmen and staff were protected under the so-called speech or debate clause, which shields members of Congress from legal proceedings connected to their official duties.“These are quintessential legislative acts entitled to the privilege, and we vacate the district court’s judgment with respect to those communications and remand,” the appeals court ruled.It also concluded the lower court was wrong to decide that Perry’s communications only qualified for the speech or debate clause protection if the fact-finding had been authorized by an official body, like a congressional committee, saying some “informal” fact-finding would be privileged.The opinion – written by the Trump-nominated circuit judge Neomi Rao and joined by Greg Katsas, also nominated by Trump, and Karen Henderson, nominated by George HW Bush – marks a setback for the special counsel Jack Smith investigating efforts in 2020 to stop the peaceful transfer of power.Still, the appeals court determined that some information gathered by Perry during his informal fact-finding might not be protected. For messages to qualify for the privilege, the appeals court ruled, they must be “integral” or “essential” to the legislative work in question.It also rejected Perry’s categorical position that all of his messages, including to people not working in the executive or legislative branches, were privileged.“We disagree with the district court’s holding that informal fact-finding is never a legislative act. But we also reject Representative Perry’s proposition that informal fact-finding is always a legislative act,” the appeals court found.The ruling instructed the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell to reconsider her initial decision allowing prosecutors to access some of Perry’s phone, and apply their reasoning on a communication-by-communication basis for his messages with executive branch and non-congressional officials.The case now goes back to federal district court in Washington, unless prosecutors ask for an en banc rehearing of the matter before the full DC circuit. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment whether prosecutors would take that step.For around a year, prosecutors have sought to trawl through 2,200 messages and documents on Perry’s phone related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat and to stop the January 6 congressional certification of the 2020 election results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe FBI seized Perry’s phone last August pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, even before Smith was appointed special counsel, but sought a second warrant to search through his texts and emails with members of Congress, executive branch officials and other third-parties.The interest in Perry, the chairman of the powerful and ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and one of Trump’s most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill, came because he introduced Trump to former justice department official Jeff Clark in 2020, according to people familiar with the matter.Clark subsequently became a central player in Trump’s efforts to decertify the election results in battleground states that he lost and infamously drafted a false memo saying the justice department was investigating election fraud in Georgia when it was not.That false memo, among other things, led to prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, charging Clark alongside Trump and others on racketeering charges alleging that he violated state law in trying to overturn the election results. Clark has pleaded not guilty in that case.Perry was also involved in meetings with Trump at the White House in the weeks before the Capitol attack, including a strategy session with other Republican members of Congress on 21 December 2020, where they strategized ways to stop the certification from taking place. More

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      Mitt Romney says he will not seek re-election as US senator – US politics live

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      From 4h agoUtah’s US Senator Mitt Romney, who as the Republican nominee lost the 2012 presidential election to incumbent Barack Obama, has announced that he won’t seek a second term. He told the Washington Post it was time for a new generation to “step up” and “shape the world they’re going to live in”.Romney twice voted to impeach Donald Trump and the 76-year-old told the Post that he believed a second term, which would take him into his 80s, would be “less productive” than his work now.More to follow. Here’s the report.
      Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he would not be seeking reelection as Utah senator. In an interview with the Washington Post, he offered harsh criticism of Joe Biden and his own party, which he said “is inclined to a populist demagogue message”.
      A day after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a long-shot attempt to impeach Joe Biden, it became clear that Donald Trump has been in discussions with influential House Republicans to push the effort. Trump was in contact with Elise Stefanik, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, and far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in the lead-up to McCarthy’s announcement.
      Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.
      The White House sent a letter to US news outlets, urging them to “scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims” surrounding their impeachment inquiry into Biden. The memo, which was sent by Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, and addressed to editorial leadership at media organizations.
      The federal judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case issued a protective order pertaining to classified evidence in the case, according a court filing.
      In the Georgia election subversion case, Trump waived his right to seek a speedy trial, according to a court filing. The move is in line with efforts he has taken in other cases to delay proceedings until after the November 2024 election.
      Eugene Peltola Jr, the husband of the Democratic Alaska congresswoman Mary Sattler Peltola, has died in a plane accident, a spokesperson said.Read more:
      A delegation of top tech leaders including Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman convened in Washington on Wednesday for the first of nine meetings with US senators to discuss the rise of artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated.Billed as an “AI safety forum,” the closed door meeting was organized by the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer who called it “one of the most important conversations of the year”. The forum comes as the federal government explores new and existing avenues to regulate AI.“It will be a meeting unlike any other that we have seen in the Senate in a very long time, perhaps ever: a coming together of top voices in business, civil rights, defense, research, labor, the arts, all together, in one room, having a much-needed conversation about how Congress can tackle AI,” Schumer said when announcing the forum.Several AI experts and other industry leaders are also in attendance, at the listening sessions, including Bill Gates; the Motion Picture Association CEO, Charles Rivkin; the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; the Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris; and Deborah Raji, a researcher at University of California, Berkeley.Some labor and civil liberties groups are also represented among the 22 attendees including Elizabeth Shuler, the president of the labor union AFL-CIO; Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; Janet Murguía, the president of UnidosUS; and Maya Wiley, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights.While Schumer describes the meeting as “diverse”, the sessions have faced criticism for leaning heavily on the opinions of people who stand to benefit from AI technology. “Half of the people in the room represent industries that will profit off lax AI regulations,” said Caitlin Seeley George, a campaigns and managing director at Fight for the Future, a digital rights group.“People who are actually impacted by AI must have a seat at this table, including the vulnerable groups already being harmed by discriminatory use of AI right now,” George said. “Tech companies have been running the AI game long enough and we know where that takes us – biased algorithms that discriminate against Black and brown folks, immigrants, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups in banking, the job market, surveillance and policing.”Read more:As he steps away from the Senate, Mitt Romney is critical of both Democrats and Republicans.Here are some of the key quotes from his interview with the Washington Post at a glance:Romney, a vocal Trump critic, condemned the increasing shift to the extreme right in the Republican party, saying:
      It’s pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message.
      But he was also critical of Biden’s record:
      Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.
      In what seemed to be a veiled dig at Biden and Trump’s age (80 and 77 respectively), Romney said he was stepping down to make way for a younger crop of leaders:
      He called for a new generation to ‘step up [and] shape the world they’re going to live in’.
      And Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he worried that his party had veered too far right, and lost touch with young voters:
      I know that there are some in MAGA world who would like Republican rule, or authoritarian rule by Donald Trump. But I think they may be forgetting that the majority of people in America would not be voting for Donald J. Trump. The majority would probably be voting for the Democrats…
      Young people care about climate change…They care about things that the MAGA Republicans don’t care about.
      Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.The 13-page suit, filed in federal court in California, accuses Ziegler of improperly “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own” in violation of the state’s computer fraud laws.The lawsuit describes in detail how Ziegler and 10 additional unnamed defendants allegedly obtained data belonging to Hunter Biden and disseminated “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” on the internet, ABC News reported.Ziegler, a former aide to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, has emerged as one of the Biden family’s most outspoken critics. Navarro himself has been convicted of contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with an investigation of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.The suit reads:
      Garrett Ziegler is a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against [Hunter Biden] and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda.
      Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has continued his running-against-Trump-but-not-really campaign with a speech at the former US president’s favourite Washington thinktank.The biotech entrepreneur, who made a splash at the first Republican debate last month, praised Trump several times during remarks at the America First Policy Institute, which spun out of the Trump administration. He also gave a shout out to Matt Gaetz, a congressman from Florida who endorsed Trump for 2024 and was among the guests.Ramaswamy declared his wildly unrealistic plan to slash a million government jobs if elected. In a turbo charged version of Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “deconstruction of the administrative state”, he would reduce the federal employee headcount by 75%, rescind a majority of federal regulations and shut down government agencies including the Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The candidate theatrically tore down posters supposedly showing “myths” to reveal supposed “truths” about a president’s power to take such action – an argument rejected by legal experts. “Do we want incremental reform or do we want revolution?” the candidate asked.
      I stand on the side of a revival of those 1776 ideals, on the side of yes, we created a government accountable to the people, not the other way around.
      Democrats reacted to the plans with scorn. The Democratic National Committee said in a press release:
      Ramaswamy’s not the only MAGA Republican running for president who wants to gut support for federal law enforcement and public education as the GOP hopefuls continue racing to be the most extreme candidate in the field.
      Here’s more from that Washington Post interview with Mitt Romney, in which the Republican Utah senator announced he would seek reelection in 2024.Asked how he sees a 2024 election rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Romney said “it could go either way” but that “so much can happen between now and then”. He added that talk by the centrist group No Labels of mounting a third party candidacy would be a mistake and only help to reelect Trump.Romney said he doubted the criminal charges pending against Trump, saying he believe people “don’t respond to old news”. Instead, he believed the investigation of Hunter Biden has the potential for political impact that could harm the president.Former vice president Mike Pence, who has been campaigning in Iowa, was forced to backtrack on earlier comments after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he would open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden without a floor vote.On Monday, Pence said he did not think an impeachment inquiry should “ever” be started unilaterally, as he praised McCarthy because he made it clear that if there is to be an impeachment inquiry, he would submit that to a vote on the floor of the Congress”, NBC reported.Less than two days after he made those comments, Pence told a reporter he would have “preferred” a vote on an inquiry but would defer to House Republicans, the Hill reported. He said:
      I want to respect Speaker McCarthy’s authority and decision to be able to initiate an impeachment inquiry. The American people have a right to know whether or not President Biden or his family personally profited during his time serving as Vice President.
      Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands.According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings.McCarthy said during a brief press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday:
      These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.
      Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.McCarthy previously indicated an impeachment inquiry “would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person”, in a statement to rightwing Breitbart News earlier this month. But he declared the launch of an impeachment probe just a week and a half later, without a House floor vote, which likely means he does not have the support.GOP presidential hopeful Mike Pence was heckled during a campaign stop in Iowa earlier this week by a man who yelled:
      Get the fuck out of our country and the fuck out of Iowa!
      “Thank you,” the former vice president responded, before addressing the others in attendance.
      I’m going to put him down as a ‘maybe’.
      Utah Republican senator Mitt Romney is the sixth incumbent senator to announce plans to retire after the end of the term in 2025, AP reported.He joins Republican senator Mike Braun of Indiana, as well as Democrats Tom Carper of Delaware, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dianne Feinstein of California and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.Romney, who ran as the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, became the first US senator in history to vote to convict a president of their own party in an impeachment trial. He was the only Republican to vote against Donald Trump in his first impeachment and one of seven to vote to convict him in the second. Romney has also been an outspoken critic of Joe Biden.Romney’s decision to retire effectively surrenders his senate seat to a GOP successor who could be more closely aligned with Trump and the hardline conservative politics of Utah’s other senator, Mike Lee, Reuters reported.Utah senator Mitt Romney, who told the Washington Post he will not be seeking reelection in 2024, also announced his intentions in a video statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, said it was “time for a new generation of leaders”.The 76-year-old said:
      At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.
      Romney said neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump are leading their parties to confront issues on deficits and debt, and took aim at Trump for calling global warming “a hoax”.
      The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership. While I’m not running for re election, I’m not retiring from the fight. I’ll be your United States senator until January of 2025. I will keep working on these and other issues and I’ll advance our state’s numerous priorities. I look forward to working with you and with folks across our state and nation in that endeavour. It really is a profound honour to serve Utah and the country. More

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      The Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Biden is laughably cynical | Moira Donegan

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      When the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday, he subverted the normal procedures for doing so. Typically, the House would have to vote on whether to open an informal impeachment investigation: McCarthy just announced it, unilaterally, calling a press conference to say he was “instructing” the House to open such an inquiry.Maybe the procedures don’t matter, as the optics, more than the substance, seem to be the point of the impeachment. Faced with electoral prospects that have been deeply compromised by the massive political backlash following the reversal of Roe v Wade and the almost comically superlative corruption of the likely Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump – who has now been criminally indicted four times – Republicans need to create a stench around Biden comparable to the one that follows Trump, and increasingly all the other candidates who appear with an R next to their names on the ballot. The impeachment inquiry, then, can be understood as congressional Republicans’ effort, ahead of the 2024 election, to throw a stink bomb.Another appropriate metaphor might be herding cats. McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry came as far-right members of his coalition in the so-called House freedom caucus – most visibly Matt Gaetz of Florida, the congressman who was investigated for sex trafficking of minors but ultimately not charged – have increasingly made it clear that such an inquiry will be a precondition of their cooperation in upcoming budget negotiations that threaten to shut down the federal government at the end of the month.With the cooperation and guidance of Trump, these members have held the budget hostage in order to demand an inquiry – and, thanks to rule changes that McCarthy had to make in order to secure the speakership after a humiliating 15 rounds of leadership votes, the far right is able to threaten his own position, too. The impeachment inquiry, then, is the result of a weak speaker who cannot control his caucus, presiding over a deeply divided party that is in thrall to a vindictive and chaotic right flank. McCarthy looks a bit like a circus monkey, dancing on command: it’s the only way he can keep his job.But what exactly do House Republicans intend to impeach Joe Biden for? It’s not clear. House investigations into Biden have been ongoing for the past nine months, since Republicans took a narrow majority in the chamber, and so far they have not uncovered any notable misconduct by the president.The accusations against Biden are imprecise: it is noted that his son Hunter had some business dealings that seem unsavory, and that Biden may have been merged on to a call regarding one of these, though it’s not clear exactly what Republicans accuse him of doing on the call. Hunter Biden had a laptop with embarrassing material on it, and this is also supposed to indicate corruption on the part of the president, though Republicans never point to what the laptop specifically revealed about Biden himself.When pressed, sometimes Republicans will say that it is their own inquiries which have been targeted with wrongdoing, accusing Biden of interfering in investigations of his son. But this claim, too, has been discredited.At the press conference designed to maximize attention to the inquiry, McCarthy said that the House’s investigations, though they had turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself, had “painted a picture of a culture of corruption” around the Biden family. This is what the House’s new impeachment inquiry into Biden amounts to: not an actual accusation of malfeasance by the president so much as a supposedly very serious investigation of a bad vibe.Biden’s great crime, if he can be said to have committed one, is in having fathered a sleazeball. Hunter Biden has long been beset by addictions and self-destructive behaviors that he has not been willing or able to confront. He is accused of misdemeanor tax violations; once, when filling out a background check form to buy a handgun, he was asked whether he did drugs, and said no when the answer was yes. He fathered a child in Arkansas with a woman he then denied knowing, and sought to keep from having to acknowledge paternity; a DNA test proved the little girl was his daughter. His laptop was filled with pictures of him doing drugs and having sex, images which the right has gleefully published in acts of politically motivated revenge porn.Like a lot of famous men’s sons, Hunter seems content to make money by trading on his family name rather than cultivating his own talents. None of this reflects well on him. But none of it is particularly unique, either. Much of Hunter Biden’s poor character could also fairly be attributed to other children of privilege, other scions of the idle rich – including not a few Republican members of Congress.But it is Joe Biden, not Hunter, who is running for president, and it is Biden, not Hunter, whom the Republicans are truly eager to hurt. The new impeachment inquiry will give House Republicans subpoena power and an excuse to pursue their political agenda against Biden without any need for a pretext of legislative business.It will be a cudgel used to try and create the false impression that Biden’s misdeeds, if any, are equal to Trump’s, something like a re-do of the tedious and ultimately disastrous Hillary Clinton email server faux-controversy. Both federal law enforcement and the political media fell for that trick hook, line and sinker in 2016, allowing their desire to appear impartial to supersede their obligation to tell the truth.We don’t have to do that this time. This time, we can say the facts as they are plain: that Donald Trump is a singularly corrupt figure, that the Republican party is controlled by extremists, and that this new impeachment effort is an inquiry in search of a subject, a pretext and a fishing expedition. There simply is no equivalence between the ways that Trump routinely abuses his power and the misdeeds of any other politician. No number of press conferences will change that.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Christine Blasey Ford to release memoir detailing Kavanaugh testimony

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      Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, pitching the then conservative US supreme court nominee into huge controversy, will release a memoir next year that she sees as a call for people to speak out about wrongdoing.Publisher St Martin’s Press said Ford’s book would share “riveting new details about the lead-up” to her Senate testimony and “its overwhelming aftermath”, including receiving death threats and being unable to live in her home.The publisher also said Ford would discuss “how people unknown to her around the world restored her faith in humanity”. The book, to be called One Way Back, will be published in March.In a statement, Ford said: “I never thought of myself as a survivor, a whistleblower, or an activist before the events in 2018.“But now, what I and this book can offer is a call to all the other people who might not have chosen those roles for themselves, but who choose to do what’s right. Sometimes you don’t speak out because you are a natural disrupter. You do it to cause a ripple that might one day become a wave.”Kavanaugh, a former Republican operative, was the second of Donald Trump’s three nominees to the supreme court, tilting the court decisively in favor of conservatives and leading to rightwing rulings including the removal of the right to abortion.Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine.In September 2018, she told the Senate judiciary committee Kavanuagh sexually assaulted her at a high-school party in the 1980s.He pinned her on a bed, she said, pressing his hand over her mouth while trying to remove her clothes.In prepared testimony, Ford said: “I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help … I thought Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”Ford escaped when a friend of Kavanaugh jumped on the bed, she said, famously telling senators: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.”The assault, Ford said, “drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details”. She told “very few friends” and her husband, she added.Kavanaugh angrily denied the accusation, and others about alleged drunken behaviour which roiled confirmation proceedings in a way not seen since the scandal over Clarence Thomas’s alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill, in 1991.Backed by Republicans on the committee vociferously including the then chair, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kavanaugh was confirmed to the court by 50 votes to 48. Only one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, declined to support him. More

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      What Republicans are doing to Wisconsin is a warning sign to all Americans | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      If you need a reminder that the Republican party’s problem with democracy extends beyond the antics of Donald Trump, look no further than Wisconsin. A battle is under way there which began before the January 6 insurrection was even a twinkle in Trump’s eye, and which will do much to determine the future of democracy in America whether Trump ultimately answers for his crimes or not. It’s no exaggeration to say that Wisconsin and its state capitol, Madison, are now the front line of the battle to save American democracy.In 2011, Republicans gerrymandered Wisconsin’s state legislature so badly that the party can win supermajorities despite losing the popular vote, as it did in 2018. Voters have fought back, and earlier this year they elected Janet Protasiewicz to the state supreme court, ushering in a new liberal majority which looked poised to finally overturn the gerrymander and bring democratic regime change to Madison.But Wisconsin Republicans have no intention of seeing their undeserved power slip away. They’re proposing to impeach Protasiewicz on spurious charges before she has ruled on a single case, paralyzing the court and leaving the gerrymander intact.When Trump argued that he was the real winner of the election because the votes of people living in Democratic-leaning urban areas were somehow fraudulent and should not count, he was repeating arguments that Wisconsin Republicans had already honed. The speaker of the state assembly, Robin Vos, has explained that the state’s gerrymander is fair because “if you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority”. Because Madison and Milwaukee are the parts of the state with the largest concentration of non-white voters, Vos has revealed what the Wisconsin gerrymander is really about: race.There is a long history in the United States of skewed electoral systems being used to suppress the voices of minority voters, and Wisconsin’s is only the latest example. Like their predecessors in other states, Wisconsin Republicans have been remarkably frank about their intention of ensuring that minorities stay in their place. When Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers powered to victory in 2018 with massive wins in Madison and Milwaukee, the Republican legislature used a lame-duck session to strip him of much of his power. Not content with that, Evers’ Republican opponent in 2022, Tim Michels, promised that if he was elected then Republicans in Wisconsin “will never lose another election”.The latest target of this raw, racist power politics is the Wisconsin’s electorate new choice for the state supreme court. Protasiewicz won by more than 10% on record turnout, which was spurred by widespread voter dissatisfaction with the fruits of Republican rule. In particular, voters oppose the state’s harsh anti-abortion law, which makes abortion illegal unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother, with no exceptions for other medical problems or rape. A majority of Wisconsinites wanted a liberal state supreme court which would overturn that law, and they voted accordingly.By linking abortion rights to questions of democracy, Protasiewicz came up with a playbook that can be used across America to push back against attacks on basic constitutional rights, be they in the doctor’s office or the voting booth. That’s why Republicans are so scared of her and desperate to find a way to stop her from succeeding.Republicans’ plan to impeach Protasiewicz is nakedly hypocritical: They argue that Protasiewicz, who received Democratic campaign donations, cannot give unbiased rulings in gerrymandering cases – despite the fact that numerous other Wisconsin state supreme court justices, including Republicans, have also received party donations and ruled on cases with political implications.Their plan also bends democratic norms, in this case by impeaching Protasiewicz and then simply leaving her in limbo, legally unable to hear cases. Because the plan wouldn’t actually formally kick her from office, it denies the state’s Democratic governor the opportunity to replace her with another liberal. Democrats are fighting back, but their chances of success hinge on their ability to convince Republicans in the gerrymandered assembly to do the right thing.As Wisconsin goes, so goes America. Although sometimes referred to as a “moderate” state, it is more accurate to view Wisconsin as one very conservative state and one very liberal state jammed together. The fact that it is narrowly divided between the two parties is precisely why Republicans have resorted to constitutional and political skullduggery to give themselves an unfair advantage.The same is true of many other states, and indeed of America as a whole. What happens in Wisconsin is a crucial test case of whether the most brazen attempts to turn competitive elections into uncompetitive one-party control will fly.This challenge will remain whether Trump goes to jail or not. Wisconsin Republicans were some of the most fervent backers of Trump’s own undemocratic actions, but they needed no lessons from him in how to suppress the will of the people. The Republican party’s belief in its own god-given right to rule – and that of its white, rural electorate – found its most dangerous expression in Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, but it long predated him. It will outlive him unless it is chastened by accountability and defeat at every turn. All eyes are now on Wisconsin and Janet Protasiewicz to see if it will be. Good luck, your honor.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University. He hosts a podcast called America Explained and writes a newsletter of the same name More

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      Democrats need to realize that there is no alternative to Biden – and buck up | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Now ends our summer of discontent. Nearly half of Democrats fretfully tell pollsters that President Biden is “too old”. Fifty-eight percent of all Americans, including 30% of Democrats, do not approve of his handling of the economy. Twenty-one percent of Democrats rate him unfavorably. If these discontented were to change their opinion, his favorability would be near or above 50%. Depressed Democrats hold down his standing.Biden returns from the G20 economic conference in India triumphant, conducting complex diplomacy edging out China, and heralding a host of deliverables, notably a deal to build a rail and shipping network from India to Europe and the Middle East, running through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, a “game-changing regional investment”, he declares. He follows with an unprecedented pact with Vietnam as a strategic partner. Then at his press conference he wanders into a monologue about a John Wayne western and one of Biden’s favored expressions, “a lying dog-faced pony soldier”, to refer to disbelievers in the climate crisis.Biden gets no credit for his accomplishments. The Axios newsletter reports that he and Trump “are running dueling basement campaigns that make them look like they are in the witness protection program”. Actual events and policies are dismissed. The formulaic repetition of false equivalence, put forward as “balance”, prevails as conventional wisdom.All summer, the Biden administration touts his extraordinary achievements – his infrastructure bill, his Inflation Reduction Act, his Chips and Science Act. Political action committees launch a $13m advertising campaign documenting the revival of manufacturing. Yet the poll numbers are unmoved. “These are DARK DAYS in the life of America!” posts Donald Trump on his Truth Social account. He is more or less even with Biden. With every indictment, he rises further above his inconsequential rivals for the Republican nomination.On their panoply of “weaponization” of committees of the House of Representatives, Republicans play Inspector Clouseau as Javert, pursuing Biden as the diabolic boss of a crime family, his son Hunter Biden and his peccadilloes an instrument for prying the door to reveal the hidden Godfather. The fantasy gangster, Trump’s doppelganger, distracts from the indicted one. On Fox News, Biden is also the enfeebled, doddering and senile fool on his last legs. Which is the ruse? Fifty-five percent of Republicans in swing House districts believe Biden should be impeached even if there is “no evidence”. The poll did not offer the category of spectral evidence that was accepted in the Salem witch trials. Under pressure from the far-right House caucus that holds the Sword of Damocles over his head, speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the opening of an impeachment panel to conjure the works of the devil’s magic.But it is the Democrats who pull Biden underwater. They see his physical faults and shudder at his political fall. He is 80, his hair thinned, his gait slower and more careful. He is not eloquent. The slight hesitation of the stutter he overcame as a child seems occasionally to return. He is not Mick Jagger strutting at 80. The intensity of concern among Democrats about Biden is in direct proportion to their panic about Trump. They see in his fragility their own predicament. He is the screen on which they project their anxiety, insecurity and fear. They suffer from a crisis of bad nerves.The Democrats’ withholding creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. Spooked by the shadow of Trump, they react with disapproval of Biden, whose numbers are stagnant, flashing the sign that makes them more frightened. They do not censure Biden or dislike him. But they hope for a counter-factual scenario. There is none.Asked to name a specific person they would prefer to Biden, 18% of Democrats replied with a scattering of names. Bernie Sanders, 82, received the highest support at 3%. Sanders, who has twice run for the nomination, this time has early endorsed Biden. It has taken the democratic socialist to remind that perfect should not be the enemy of the good.If Biden were not to run, the counter-factual dream of a Hollywood ending with Michael Douglas from The American President materializing would be replaced with a ferocious primary of centrifugal force exposing the party’s fractured divides and the survivor most likely at no better rating than Biden at the current fraught moment. Biden’s presence leaves that bloodsport to another day.Rather than the counter-factual hypothesis, there are a number of factual realities. This older Biden, to those who have known him over the decades, is a more capable Biden than the younger Biden. That earlier incarnation was more impetuous, garrulous and conventional. He was always, though, a natural tactile politician, the senator from a state like a congressional district, with an open and caring touch, appearing at a 1001 gatherings.But he also carried a streak of insecurity, of being a son of the middle class, a middling student from the University of Delaware, and not from an Ivy League school. That self-doubt flared in self-undermining displays, abruptly ending his first campaign when he plagiarized speeches from Robert F Kennedy and British Labour leader Neil Kinnock.Biden’s judgment is not attributable to an abstract and amorphous category called “experience,” but rather particular concrete experiences, beyond bearing the weight of his unimaginable personal tragedies. His defeats and missteps, slights and belittlement, have accumulated onto the years of committee chairmanships, a lifetime in the Senate like no other president since Lyndon Johnson and the whole range of being vice-president involved in every major decision of the executive during the Obama administration.In the Senate, Biden surrounded himself with the most talented staff. He was not that insecure. As president, at the head of a vast government, his cabinet is an array of highly effective people. There has not been a single major scandal among them after the most corrupt administration in American history. The paradox of Biden’s poll numbers among Democrats is that there is no complaint about how he runs the government.The further paradox is that there is no movement to supplant Biden. There is no faction of the party that seeks to remove him. There is no group within the Congress that seeks to topple him. There is no credible person running against him or contemplating a campaign against him. There is no king across the sea. There is no Bonnie Prince Charlie ready to invade. There are no pretenders to the throne. There is none of that. The poll numbers as a party matter are hollow.And there is no rightful Kennedy succession to overthrow the second Irish Catholic president. After President John F Kennedy’s assassination, two Kennedys ran against incumbent Democratic presidents whom they somehow regarded as interlopers, Robert F Kennedy against Lyndon Johnson and Edward M Kennedy against Jimmy Carter. Robert F Kennedy Jr’s entry now is not a case of the first time as tragedy, the second as farce, but simply pathos.Of Robert F Kennedy Jr, a subject Democrats fervently do not want to discuss, in truth the feeling is the opposite of loathing for his spiraling descent into ever more baroque conspiracy theories, but instead profound sadness at the public display of his affliction. He rattles off barrages of science fiction and prejudice with an air of mastery of arcane knowledge that only persuades listeners that he is the sufferer of a disorder. For example, he offered, “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”There are no actual Democrats who view Kennedy as a political figure, representing a valid position that must be heard within the party, but a collateral victim of the tragedy of his father and uncle. His shoulder-rubbing with the Trump scum, Bannon and Flynn and Stone, his pocketing of funds from the Silicon Valley PayPal Mafia that also finances Ron DeSantis, and his insults hurled at Biden arouse a mixture of horror and sorrow. He states his identity is that of a recovering addict, claiming, “I was born an addict,” but his “candidacy” is less a campaign than a breakout from recovery. His wretchedness is a continual sight of dreadful infirmity. He threatens only himself. He inspires dismay and grief. His family members are beside themselves. Democrats wish to avert their gaze.The counter-factual scenario the Republicans originally pressed about Biden is the return of a cycle of failure. Four months into his administration, Congressman Jim Jordan, the Republican from Ohio, tweeted, “Joe Biden is the new Jimmy Carter.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page has periodically revived the trope, laying out its dream that another Ronald Reagan will appear as in 1980. “Will Mr. Biden suffer a similar fate?” wrote one of its columnists. “His agenda is creating a similar backlash. … The conservative movement has another chance to recapture the imagination of a malaise-beset public.”When Carter entered office in 1977, the inflation rate was 6.5%. Under the energy shocks of ruthless OPEC oil price rises and the Iranian revolution, from January 1979 to December 1980, inflation in that period spiked 23% to a 13.5% rate total. In the summer of 1979, a gasoline shortage caused long lines at the pumps. On 15 July, Carter delivered a speech proclaiming a “crisis of confidence”, the need for “sacrifice”, and a “rebirth” of “our common faith”. Two days later, he scuttled his message, firing five cabinet members, which appeared to prove the lack of confidence in the government. By October, his favorability fell to 29%.The Democratic leadership in the Congress disliked the cold technocrat in the White House. Their favorite son, Ted Kennedy, topped Carter by 59% to 19% in an October poll in New Hampshire, the first primary state. Kennedy declared his candidacy on 7 November, three days after US diplomats were seized as hostages in Tehran. Carter defeated Kennedy in New Hampshire by 11 points. The split party served the cause of Reagan and encouraged the entrance of a third candidate, liberal Republican John Anderson.The inflation that stoked those politics is not comparable to the inflation today. Driven largely by the distortions of supply and demand caused by the Covid crisis, recent inflation at its peak was less than half that of the Carter presidency. This year, from January to July, inflation went up only 1.9%, a greatly slowed rate, now hovering at around 3% total, and declining. Unlike in the 1970s, inflationary expectations are shifting strongly downward. Economic conditions that underlay the fall of Carter and rise of Reagan are fast receding. The analogy does not hold. Only a reflexively sado-monetarist Federal Reserve that insists on continuing to raise interest rates in order to slam the brakes on growth could create a moral hazard.Yet the political value of Biden’s successes remains diminished for another reason. His team attempts to persuade by operating on the tried-and-true premise that the election is a referendum on the incumbent. But in public perception Biden is not the only incumbent running. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that Trump won the 2020 election and Biden is an illegitimate president, according to an August CNN poll. Trump will be the Republican candidate running as the true incumbent in the eyes of the majority of his party.The only previous cases of defeated presidents running again for the office were Grover Cleveland, who won in 1888, Martin Van Buren, losing in 1848 on the Free Soil Party, and Millard Fillmore, losing in 1856 on the Know Nothing or American Party. Cleveland never claimed to have really won when he was defeated in 1884; nor did Van Buren in 1840. Vice-president Fillmore had acceded to the presidency in 1850 after the death of Zachary Taylor. He was not his party’s nominee in 1852. Trump again has no precedent.The election of 2024 will be the second referendum on Trump, but the first held on the attempted coup of January 6t. Just as the 2004 election, which President George W Bush won, was in effect a referendum on the terrorist attack on September 11, the only election since 1988 in which the Republican won the popular vote, January 6 is the overwhelming political factor that establishes Trump’s assertion to his party’s nomination by means of incumbency. His forthcoming trials are not peripheral, but central to his claim.When the illusion of a counter-factual alternative fades, and the choice is between the incumbent and the false incumbent, then Democrats may consider something other than the age of Biden and whether they wish to contribute to a new political age of Trump.
      Sidney Blumenthal is the author of The Permanent Campaign, published in 1980, and All the Power of the Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1856-1860, the third of a projected five volumes. He is the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton More

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      ‘Authoritarian regimes ban books’: Democrats raise alarm at Senate hearing

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      A Senate hearing on book bans and censorship on Tuesday spotlighted the growing phenomenon in America and highlighted a partisan split on the issue, with Democrats decrying censorship as Republicans and rightwing activists push for many works to be taken out of schools and libraries, claiming it should be parents’ rights to do so.Many of the most commonly banned books deal with topics such as racism, sexuality and gender identity. Conservatives also argue that some books, many exploring queer identity and LGBTQ+ themes, include sexually explicit content inappropriate for students. School librarians opposing such book bans have been attacked and harassed.Other books that have long been parts of school curriculums have also been challenged after complaints that they contained racist stereotypes, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, which also includes a depiction of rape.Between July and December 2022, the non-profit PEN America recorded nearly 1,500 instances of individual book bans, which it broadly defines as when books are deemed “off-limits” for students in school libraries or classrooms, or when books are removed during an investigation to determine if there should be any restrictions.“Instead of inheriting a debate over what more can be done with and for our libraries, I was confronted with a book-banning movement upon taking office,” testified Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois’s secretary of state since January who also serves as the state librarian, on Tuesday.“Our libraries have become targets by a movement that disingenuously claims to pursue freedom, but is instead promoting authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes ban books, not democracies,” Giannoulias said.Democratic lawmakers and education experts raised alarm bells over the rise in banned books.“Let’s be clear, efforts to ban books are wrong, whether they come from the right or the left,” said Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair and Democratic senator of Illinois. “In the name of protecting students, we’re instead denying these students an opportunity to learn about different people and difficult subjects.”Meanwhile, Republicans have widely backed the growing number of conservative activists seeking more control over school curriculums, including books – but also policies such as transgender students’ eligibility to use bathrooms – in the name of “parents’ rights”.“To all the parents out there who believe there’s a bunch of stuff in our schools being pushed on your children that go over the line, you’re absolutely right,” said Lindsey Graham, the committee’s top Republican.Graham briefly derailed the hearing, diverting the conversation to border security and migration, saying that fixing “Biden’s border crisis” should be the committee’s biggest priority.“The book issue is a parental awareness issue. It is not partisan to assert that children do better when their families know what’s going on in their lives,” testified Nicole Neily, the president of the conservative non-profit Parents Defending Education.According to its website, the group opposes “activists” who have sought to “impose ideologically driven curriculum with a concerning and often divisive emphasis on students’ group identities: race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArguing that parents and institutions should have the right to ban books containing sexually explicit content, Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute, read aloud a short passage recounting the author’s experience with child molestation from the book All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer that is one of the most banned books.The Louisiana senator John Kennedy also read aloud explicit passages from two of the most-banned books, All Boys Aren’t Blue and Gender Queer, during the hearing.“Is this OK for kids?” said Eden. “Judging by the thoughts made by the media, NGOs and some Democratic politicians, it seems there is a politically significant contingent that believes this is all actually very good for kids. But personally, I’m not at all troubled by the fact that some moms believe that this isn’t appropriate, and that some school boards agree.”But Democratic lawmakers maintain that banning books restricts children’s ability to think for themselves, and the information access researcher Emily Knox, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, testified that books can help change a reader’s attitude toward difference, adding that campaigns to censor books were unconstitutional.“Of course there are books that are not age appropriate. But that’s what being a parent is all about – doing your best to keep an eye on what your children read and what they consume,” said Giannoulias.“No one is advocating for sexually explicit content to be available in an elementary school library or in the children’s section of a library,” said Durbin. “But no parent should have the right to tell another parent’s child what they can and cannot read in school or at home. Every student deserves access to books that reflect their experiences and help them better understand who they are.” More

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      McCarthy ‘doing Trump’s bidding’ by backing Biden impeachment inquiry, president’s campaign spokesperson says – live

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      From 3h agoA spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign released a statement in response to House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement backing a formal impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”, the statement by Ammar Moussa reads.
      11 days ago, McCarthy unequivocally said he would not move forward with an impeachment inquiry without holding a vote on the House floor. What has changed since then?
      The Biden-Harris campaign added:
      Several members of the Speaker’s own conference have come out and publicly panned impeachment as a political stunt, pointing out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden as Republicans litigate the same debunked conspiracy theories they’ve investigated for over four years.

      The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings. House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and his father.
      The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members. While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen.
      A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign said McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”. Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach his successor, according to a report.
      Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, described McCarthy’s announcement as “extreme politics at its worst”, adding that House GOP members had uncovered “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the months-long investigation into Joe Biden.
      It is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment. McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment.
      James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the impeachment inquiry into Biden, spent “eight months of abject failure” in trying to prove the president guilty of wrongdoing, a watchdog released earlier this week said. The report by the Congressional Integrity Project offers an anatomy of a fake scandal, detailing a series of exaggerated assertions that have shriveled under scrutiny.
      Vladimir Putin described the recent indictments of Donald Trump as “political persecution” as the Russian leader waded back into a US presidential campaign for the third consecutive election cycle. “I believe that everything happening at the moment is good. Because it demonstrates the rottenness of the American political system,” Putin remarked during an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
      The tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has “had conversations” with No Labels, a group considering launching a third-party candidate in the 2024 election. Names linked to a No Labels candidacy have included Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland.You can read the full report on the impeachment inquiry here:
      Almost all the Republicans running for the presidential nomination have endorsed the impeachment inquiry.Donald Trump is notably the only one who’s called impeachment outright. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy have all expressed support for the inquiry.Meanwhile, Chris Christie said he supports investigations, but noted, “I think we’re cheapening impeachment by doing that kind of thing.”Will Hurd, meanwhile said an investigation was warranted, but warned that if no evidence is found “I worry Republicans are walking into a political trap.”Women who say they were denied abortions in medical emergencies have taken legal action in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in the latest attempt to challenge abortion bans that, abortion patients and doctors say, prevent people from getting care even when their health is in danger.The lawsuits in Idaho and Tennessee, along with a federal complaint against a hospital in Oklahoma, were filed on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of women in Texas earlier this year. Tuesday’s filings were first reported by the Washington Post.“I can’t stop bad things from happening to people’s pregnancies,” Jennifer Adkins, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Idaho, told the Post. “But I want other Idahoans to feel safe and cared for.”After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, states across the south and midwest enacted near-total abortion bans, many of which only allow abortions in cases of medical emergencies. However, doctors have repeatedly said that these bans, which contain non-medical language drafted by politicians, are too vague for medical providers to interpret. Instead, they are forced to wait until their patients get sick enough for them to intervene.Read more:It’s been a busy Tuesday so far. Here’s where things stand:
      The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings. House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and his father.
      The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members. While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen.
      A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign said McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”. Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach his successor, according to a report.
      Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, described McCarthy’s announcement as “extreme politics at its worst”, adding that House GOP members had uncovered “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the months-long investigation into Joe Biden.
      It is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment. McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment.
      James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the impeachment inquiry into Biden, spent “eight months of abject failure” in trying to prove the president guilty of wrongdoing, a watchdog released earlier this week said. The report by the Congressional Integrity Project offers an anatomy of a fake scandal, detailing a series of exaggerated assertions that have shriveled under scrutiny.
      Vladimir Putin described the recent indictments of Donald Trump as “political persecution” as the Russian leader waded back into a US presidential campaign for the third consecutive election cycle. “I believe that everything happening at the moment is good. Because it demonstrates the rottenness of the American political system,” Putin remarked during an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
      The tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has “had conversations” with No Labels, a group considering launching a third-party candidate in the 2024 election. Names linked to a No Labels candidacy have included Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland.
      Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach Joe Biden, including regularly speaking with a member of leadership in the lead up to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement on Tuesday, according to a Politico report. Trump has been speaking on a weekly basis with House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment, the report says.The former president had dinner on Sunday night with the far-right congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the topic of impeachment was discussed, the report says.Two Ron DeSantis hats put up for auction at a Republican dinner in Florida at the weekend received precisely no bids, according to local party officials, suggesting his presidential campaign in his home state is going as badly as it is nationwide.Details come in this story by Newsweek, which says nobody signed up to bid on either of the red and white caps at the St Johns county GOP founders dinner in Ponte Vedra Beach on Saturday. St Johns is where the Florida governor was born.A photo of the barren sign-up sheets was posted to X, formerly Twitter, by Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren, the image taken two and a half hours after the event began.Blake Paterson, chair of the county’s Republican party, confirmed to Newsweek that the hats had attracted no bidders, though he characterized the event as a giveaway in exchange for donations rather than an auction.Those in attendance at the dinner appeared to be overwhelmingly supporters of Donald Trump, DeSantis’s rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. They included Florida congressman Byron Donalds, a vocal Trump acolyte, and extremist conspiracy theorist Kari Lake, failed candidate for governor of Arizona in last year’s election.Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment, amid uncertainty over whether he even has the support of rank-and-file Republicans behind him.McCarthy is launching the impeachment inquiry on his own and without a House floor vote, as he may not have enough support from his slim GOP majority, AP reported.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has warned House Republicans off the effort, but on Tuesday he said:
      I don’t think Speaker McCarthy needs advice from the Senate.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer called the impeachment inquiry “absurd”. He told reporters:
      The American people want us to do something that will make their lives better, not go off on these chases and witch hunts.
      House GOP members have found an “overwhelming” amount of evidence showing Joe Biden “lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s influence peddling schemes”, according to a joint statement by James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith.Comer, Jordan and Smith chair the three committees expected to take the lead in the impeachment inquiry into the president. They are: the House committee on oversight and accountability, committee on the judiciary, and the committee on ways and means.The statement says the investigation into Biden uncovered “bank records, suspicious activity reports, emails, texts, and witness testimony” that showed the president “allowed his family to sell him as ‘the brand’ around the world”.
      Based on the evidence, we support the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The House Committees on Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means, will continue to work to follow the facts to ensure President Biden is held accountable for abusing public office for his family’s financial gain. The American people demand and deserve answers, transparency, and accountability for this blatant abuse of public office.
      House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and the president.Senate Republicans are unhappy with House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden and concerned that it will backfire on the party, according to the Hill.A Senate Republican, speaking on condition on anonymity, told the newspaper that even if the House did vote to impeach Biden after an inquiry, there is no way the Democrat-controlled Senate would vote to convict. Reports indicate McCarthy does not yet have enough votes in support of impeaching Biden.“It’s a waste of time. It’s a fool’s errand,” the GOP senator was quoted as saying.
      We know how this is going to end. It just creates tumult within the conference. I can see it already how people are going to react when they send a message over if they go that far.
      They noted that all the internal polling they had seen suggested GOP primary voters do not see impeachment as a priority. The senator added:
      It seems like we’re spending a lot of time on things that matter to them that don’t matter to the people I want to have a positive opinion of Republicans next November … This is not driving [general election] turnout.
      “They’re all acting like children,” the GOP senator added.Here’s a statement from Jamaal Bowman, a Democratic congressman from New York, who accused House speaker Kevin McCarthy of announcing a “sham” impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden in order to “bring attention away from the failures of House Republicans to be able to pass a budget and avoid a government shutdown”.The statement reads:
      Speaker McCarthy and the dysfunctional Republican party are wasting time with their comical impeachment inquiry into President Biden instead of focusing on passing appropriations bills. We’re just 3 weeks away from a government shutdown where millions of government employees won’t get paid, small businesses won’t be able to apply for federal loans, the NIH has to shut down most medical research, and more. We should be focused on doing our job by helping the American people & funding critical services, not forcing a shutdown & plotting baseless impeachment inquiries.
      It goes on:
      This is yet another example of Republican dysfunction and continues to show why many across the country do not want to trust or participate in our government.
      Ken Buck, a Republican congressman for Colorado and House Freedom caucus member, has previously expressed skepticism about an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.On Sunday, Buck said any evidence linking the president to any high crime or misdemeanor “doesn’t exist right now”. His recent comments against the House GOP’s investigative efforts and track record of bucking his own party have put a target on his back, according to a CNN report.A serious effort is now under way to find a candidate to mount a primary challenge against Buck in his eastern Colorado seat, the news channel reported, citing sources.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman from Georgia and ally of House speaker Kevin McCarthy, told the channel there is an “unbelievable” level of frustration with Buck inside the House GOP. Greene added that she didn’t think he should remain in his role on the House judiciary committee or the GOP whip’s team.“This is the same guy that wrote a book called ‘Drain the Swamp’, who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry,” Greene said.
      I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach … It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?
      A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign released a statement in response to House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement backing a formal impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”, the statement by Ammar Moussa reads.
      11 days ago, McCarthy unequivocally said he would not move forward with an impeachment inquiry without holding a vote on the House floor. What has changed since then?
      The Biden-Harris campaign added:
      Several members of the Speaker’s own conference have come out and publicly panned impeachment as a political stunt, pointing out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden as Republicans litigate the same debunked conspiracy theories they’ve investigated for over four years.
      A Virginia Democrat running in a closely contested legislative election has denounced reports that she and her husband engaged in sex acts livestreamed on an online platform in exchange for “tips”.Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and a first-time candidate seeking a seat in Virginia’s house of delegates, shared the videos on a platform called Chaturbate.The videos, which were first reported by the Washington Post and then confirmed by the Associated Press, show Gibson urging viewers to provide tips in the form of Chaturbate tokens in exchange for her performance of specific sex acts with her husband. The videos were archived in 2022, though it is unclear when the live streams occurred.According to the Post’s report, a Republican operative first alerted the newspaper to the existence of the videos, which had been archived on another site. In a statement, Gibson denounced the report as a form of “gutter politics” and “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family”.“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” Gibson said.
      My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.
      A lawyer representing Gibson, Daniel P Watkins, told the Post that the videos may have violated Virginia’s revenge porn law, adding: “We are working closely with state and federal law enforcement.”Gibson’s district, located just north-west of Richmond, is considered one of just a handful of competitive seats in the race to control Virginia’s house of delegates. In the last legislative session, Republicans narrowly controlled the chamber, while Democrats maintained a slim majority in the state senate.Peter Navarro’s contempt of Congress conviction has “everybody in that frigging White House” feeling as if they are grappling with “massive legal bills and … prison time”, the ex-Donald Trump administration official said on Monday.Navarro’s remarks came in an interview with the far-right media outlet Newsmax in which he used the term “SOBs” – short for sons of bitches – to refer to the US justice department prosecutors who secured a guilty verdict against him last week.Lamenting that prosecutors had pushed to “stick me in leg irons … [and] with half a million dollars of legal bills”, Navarro pledged to seek a reversal of his conviction from an appellate court. Navarro told the host Eric Bolling:
      We’re gonna win this fight – that’s why God created the appeals court.
      Navarro served as a senior trade adviser during Trump’s presidency, which ended in the Republican’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Congress subpoenaed him in February 2022 to answer questions about why Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, temporarily delaying certification of Biden’s electoral victory.A House committee convened to investigate the attack suspected Navarro had more information about any connection between false claims of voter fraud in that election which Trump allies had pushed and the assault on the Capitol. But Navarro refused to testify while also declining to turn over any emails, reports or notes.Navarro’s attorney argued that the defendant asked the committee to talk to Trump to see what information he wanted protected under executive privilege, which never happened. Prosecutors countered that Navarro should have handed over the materials he had while labeling those he believed were privileged.On Thursday, a jury convicted Navarro of two misdemeanor charges of contempt of Congress, each of which is punishable by between 30 days and a year in prison. His sentencing has tentatively been scheduled for 12 January. More