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      We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turn

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      We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turn Andy Campbell has delivered a smart, well-written and brilliantly reported book about the street gang allied to Donald Trump and the GOP he commandsAndy Campbell has produced a smart, well-written and brilliantly reported book about another loathsome progeny of the most dangerous union of our time, the horror couple responsible for so many of the burgeoning threats to American democracy: Donald Trump and the internet.Proud Boys memo reveals meticulous planning for ‘street-level violence’Read moreIts subject is the Proud Boys, racist, beer-addled and violence-addicted street fighters who have become best friends with many of Trump’s warmest supporters, from Ann Coulter to Roger Stone.Coulter and Stone have both bragged about using these modern Brown Shirts as bodyguards. Stone even allowed himself to be filmed for a video in which he took the Proud Boys oath: “I’m a western chauvinist. I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”Coulter credited the group with saving her life when “2,000 antifa”, leftwing protesters, tried to shut down a speech at UC Berkeley. If she hadn’t invited 20 Proud Boys, she said, she “might not have made it to the campus at all”.The Proud Boys are “brawny, tattooed brutes”, Coulter cooed.As Campbell puts it, the Proud Boys have “proven that you can make it as a fascist gang of hooligans in this country, as long as you make the right friends”.The organization’s father is Gavin McInnes, 52, a child of Scots who moved to Canada. In Montreal in the early 1990s McInnes founded a magazine called Pervert, which in 1999 he and two others rebranded as Vice. He moved the magazine to New York a couple of years later, then left in 2008.In spring 2016, on his own talkshow, he declared his main priority: “I want violence. I want punching in the face. I’m disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough.”Not long after that, he “announced that he’d turned his audience into a gang”. He called them the Proud Boys.McInnes’s alliance with the GOP warmed up after he was invited to speak at the headquarters of the New York state Republican party in October 2018.Members were undaunted when their intended guest announced on Instagram that he planned to reenact an “inspiring moment … the political assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, the former leader of the Japan Socialist party, who was killed during a debate on live TV when a far-right ultranationalist rushed the stage and pushed a sword between his ribs”.Then he photoshopped an image of himself “with the eyes and clothing of the Japanese assassin”.Republicans loved it. On Facebook, they responded: “This Godfather of the Hipster Movement has taken on and exposed the Deep State Socialists and stood up for Western Values. Join us for an unforgettable evening with one of Liberty’s Loudest Voices.”After his speech, McInnes left the club with his sword. But Proud Boys “and their skinhead pals” attacked a handful of antifascist protesters after one knocked a MAGA hat from one of their heads.“They turned it into a pummeling,” a Huffington Post reporter remembered. “This was three people on the ground and people just kicking the shit out of them.”The two most violent attackers were each sentenced to four years in prison. The judge didn’t hesitate to draw the appropriate parallel to 1930s Germany. Mark Dwyer, of the New York state supreme court, said he knew what had happened then, “when political street brawls were allowed to go ahead without any type of check from the criminal justice system. We don’t want that to happen in New York”.Regardless, the New York brawl became another opportunity for the Republican establishment to normalize fascist behavior. Immediately after the attack, Fox News quoted Ed Cox, the Republican state chairman (and son-in-law of Richard Nixon) as “calling on Democrats to cease inciting these attacks”.As Campbell writes, the event at the Republican club was “a jumping-off point for the GOP into what would eventually become a full embrace of domestic extremist violence”.Kelly Weill, a reporter who covers domestic extremism, explained, the Proud Boys “really embody the political violence the GOP needs just a little bit of a proxy for. They can’t personally be out there doing it, so they have the Proud Boys”.It only took two more years for the Proud Boys to get an official, nationally televised presidential imprimatur, after Joe Biden suggested during a 2020 debate that they were one of the groups Trump should have denounced long ago. Trump said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”01:16Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a former FBI informant and convicted felon who had become the Proud Boys chairman, described the effect of Trump’s declaration.“We got mentioned, and my life has not been the same since,” Tarrio told Campbell. “My phone started blowing up off the hook. I had 10 fucking news trucks at my house the next morning. I didn’t sleep for … two days.”The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreTrump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, who turned on his former boss after pleading guilty to charges related to tax evasion and lying to Congress, was sure the president made his statement on purpose.“If you look at who the Proud Boys really are,” said Cohen, “they’re an army. This is Trump’s army … and when he loses he’s going to use them to try and keep control of power.”Which of course is what happened. Proud Boys were some of the most active players when Trump urged the crowd in front of him on 6 January 2021 to march on the US Capitol.Thirteen months after the deadly attack, the Republican endorsement of fascist violence became official: the Republican National Committee unanimously approved a resolution which memorialized the Capitol attack as nothing more than “legitimate political discourse.”Campbell’s book provides an indispensable account of exactly how the Grand Old Party reached that disgraceful destination.
      We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism is published in the US by Hachette
      TopicsBooksThe far rightUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More

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      South Dakota investigates governor’s use of state airplane

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      South Dakota investigates governor’s use of state airplane County prosecutor will decide whether Republican Kristi Noem broke an untested law to rein in questionable use of state plane South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, was returning from an official appearance in Rapid City in 2019 when she faced a decision: overnight in the capital of Pierre, where another trip would start the next day, or head home and see her son attend his high school prom?The Republican governor chose the latter, a decision that eventually cost taxpayers about $3,700 when the state airplane dropped her off near her home and then returned the next day to pick her up.Trump’s attempts to delay Mar-a-Lago inquiry largely fail as legal woes mountRead moreIt’s one of several trips that year where Noem, a potential 2024 White House contender, blurred the lines between official travel and attending either family or political events. The trips sparked a complaint to the state ethics board, which has referred the matter to the state’s division of criminal investigation. A county prosecutor overseeing the investigation will decide whether the governor broke an untested law enacted by voters in 2006 to rein in questionable use of the state airplane.The governor has also faced action by the same ethics board for intervening in a state agency shortly after it moved to deny her daughter a real estate appraiser’s license. As Noem’s political star rose in 2020, she began using private jets to fly to fundraisers, campaign events and conservative gatherings.But before that, in the first year of her term in 2019, Noem used the state plane six times to fly to out-of-state events hosted by political organizations including the Republican Governors Association, Republican Jewish Coalition, Turning Point USA and the National Rifle Association. Raw Story, an online news site, first reported the trips, which the governor’s office defended as part of her work as the state’s “ambassador” to bolster the state’s economy and intergovernmental relationships.State plane logs also show that Noem had family members join her on in-state flights in 2019.The 2006 ballot measure was a response to scrutiny of plane travel by the governor at the time, Mike Rounds, who attended events such as his son’s away basketball games while on trips for other official business.At the time, Rounds, now a US senator, used political funds to reimburse the state for those trips, as well as travel to political events.Democratic state senator Reynold Nesiba, who proposed the ballot measure before he became a lawmaker, said voters were clear in their intent.“When it’s been used for family members, this seems like a clear violation of not only the letter but the spirit of the law that was passed overwhelmingly,” he said.Noem campaign spokesperson Ian Fury said it was “fully within precedent” for family members to join governors on flights, adding that the “level of nitpickiness is ridiculous because she is doing this sort of thing less than Dennis Daugaard”, referring to Noem’s Republican predecessor.State plane logs from Daugaard’s last term show wife, Linda, often joined trips. Daugaard’s sister and daughter also joined one trip each in 2017 and 2016 respectively. Noem’s children – not counting daughter Kennedy Noem, on the governor’s staff as a policy analyst – joined nine plane trips during her first term.On another trip, Noem’s itinerary allowed her to return home for her son’s prom. On 5 April 2019, she rode the state plane from Watertown, near her home in Castlewood, to Rapid City for an announcement on Ellsworth air force base. On the return flight, the plane stopped in the capital city of Pierre to drop off Rounds, who had joined her for the trip, and several aides. But even though she had another trip from Pierre to Las Vegas for a Republican Jewish Coalition event planned the next day, Noem didn’t stay in the governor’s mansion there.She flew to Watertown, near her home, in time to watch her son take the stage at his prom, according to Noem’s social media posts. The state plane, meanwhile, returned to Pierre, only to make the trip back to Watertown for the governor the next day.Fury defended the trips because her travel started in Watertown, near where she had spoken at an event for her son’s school district the day before.“Part of official travel is returning from official travel,“ Fury said.TopicsSouth DakotaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US intelligence resumes national security review of Mar-a-Lago documents – as it happened

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      Biden is hitting back at House Republicans and the Commitment to America plan they announced today, calling it “a thin series of policy goals” and saying the GOP’s true goal is banning abortion nationwide.He cited the words of rightwing supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in his opinion overturning Roe v Wade that the decision “allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion.”“I don’t believe Maga Republicans have a clue about the power American women,” Biden said to applause in his speech stumping on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.Referring to the plan announced by top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, Biden said, “Here’s a few of the things we didn’t hear. We didn’t hear mentioned the right to choose. We didn’t hear mentioned Medicare. We didn’t hear mentioned social security.”He went on to link the upcoming midterms to continuing availability of abortion in America, saying, “In 46 days, America is going to choose Republicans when control the Congress and abortion will be banned. And by the way, it will be initially banned but if they went Congress, I will veto it.”With an eye to reclaiming their majority, House Republicans have released their Commitment to America – which is not to be confused with 1994’s Contract with America or 2010’s Pledge to America unveiled before the party won the chamber in those years’ midterms. Joe Biden responded to the plan by hammering the “Maga Republicans” he said want to ban abortion nationwide and slash social security.Here’s what else happened today:
      A Twitter whistleblower whose anonymous testimony was made public by the January 6 committee warned of the peril facing America’s democracy in an interview with The Washington Post.
      US intelligence agencies have restarted their assessment of the risk to national security posed by the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
      White House officials are said to be mulling an effort to oust the Trump-installed World Bank president after he quibbled over whether humans caused climate change.
      Former supreme court justice Stephen Breyer expressed remorse over its decision ending Roe v Wade.
      Lawyers for Donald Trump are citing legal privilege to try to stop former White House officials from answering questions before a federal grand jury investigating his attempts to meddle with the 2020 election, CNN reports.The effort shows how attorneys for Trump hope to seize on both executive privilege conferred on presidents as well as attorney-client privilege to frustrate the investigation by the grand jury in Washington. His attorneys had made similar claims when they successfully petitioned a judge to appoint a special master to review documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in a ruling that also temporarily halted the justice department’s probe into the materials found there.Here’s more from CNN’s story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Former President Donald Trump‘s attorneys are fighting a secret court battle to block a federal grand jury from gathering information from an expanding circle of close Trump aides about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter told CNN.
      The high-stakes legal dispute — which included the appearance of three attorneys representing Trump at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon — is the most aggressive step taken by the former President to assert executive and attorney-client privileges in order to prevent some witnesses from sharing information in the criminal investigation events surrounding January 6, 2021.
      The court fight over privilege, which has not been previously reported and is under seal, is a turning point for Trump’s post-presidency legal woes.
      How the fight is resolved could determine whether prosecutors can tear down the firewall Trump has tried to keep around his conversations in the West Wing and with attorneys he spoke to as he sought to overturn the 2020 election and they worked to help him hold onto the presidency.Michael Avenatti was once a firebrand attorney and darling of those who loathed Donald Trump. Now he’s been disgraced by a series of criminal convictions, and today was ordered to pay restitution to former client Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with the former president.Reuters reports that a Manhattan court ordered Avenatti to pay Daniels $148,750 after his conviction earlier this year on wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges for embezzling her book proceeds.He was sentenced to four years in prison in that case, and is also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to five federal charges in California.Michael Avenatti sentenced to four years for cheating Stormy DanielsRead moreAmerican intelligence agencies have again begun their review of the national security risks of classified documents found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after an appeals court overturned a judge’s order that had temporarily blocked it, Politico reports.The review is one of two that director of national intelligence Avril Haines said would be done of the documents the FBI found at Trump’s Florida resort last month: one focused on their classification levels, the other on what would happen if their contents were made public.Trump-appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon had granted a request from the former president to halt the review of the seized material, but that was thrown out by an appeals court earlier this week.Court lifts hold on classified records seized from Mar-a-Lago in Trump inquiryRead moreMore on Sinema: a recent poll on the senator found that she was viewed unfavorably by all political parties and across all demographic categories. A poll conducted by AARP Arizona on the current political environment found that a majority of voters in both political parties did not view Sinema favorably, including across all age categories, genders, as well as racial and ethnic demographics. The poll results can be viewed here.In other news, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will be giving a talk on Monday at the McConnell Center, an institution named after Republican senator Mitch McConnell that connects young people in Kentucky with political leaders. The center advertised the talk on Twitter, writing: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This Monday, Sept. 26, the McConnell Center is excited to welcome U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to give a talk titled “The Future of Political Discourse and the Importance of Bipartisanship.” Join via livestream at http://McConnellCenter.org at 10 AM.This Monday, Sept. 26, the McConnell Center is excited to welcome U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to give a talk titled “The Future of Political Discourse and the Importance of Bipartisanship.” Join via livestream at https://t.co/F7epAlno78 at 10 AM. #Leadership pic.twitter.com/t0LO0ZazOi— McConnell Center (@ULmCenter) September 23, 2022
      Reaction to Sinema’s upcoming talk was somewhat negative, as users criticized the first-time senator for agreeing to give a talk at McConnell’s namesake institution given McConnell’s voting record. With an eye to reclaiming their majority, House Republicans have released their Commitment to America – which is not to be confused with 1994’s Contract with America or 2010’s Pledge to America unveiled before they reclaimed the chamber in those years’ midterms. Joe Biden responded to the plan by hammering the “Maga Republicans” he said want to ban abortion nationwide and slash social security.Here’s what else has happened today:
      A Twitter whistleblower whose anonymous testimony was made public by the January 6 committee warned of the peril facing America’s democracy in an interview with The Washington Post.
      White House officials are said to be mulling an effort to oust the Trump-installed World Bank president after he quibbled over whether humans caused climate change.
      Former supreme court justice Stephen Breyer expressed remorse over its decision ending Roe v Wade.
      This speech has amounted to a point-by-point rebuttal of House Republicans’ Commitment to America, and as he wrapped up the speech, he turned to its call to “increase accountability in the election process”.“And finally, with a straight face, Kevin McCarthy says that Maga Republicans will restore faith in our elections. As we say in my faith, bless me father for I have sinned,” said Biden, a practicing Catholic. “Maga Republicans refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and the will of the people.“You can’t let the integrity of elections be undermined,” Biden said. “When one side believes there’s only two outcomes in an election, either they win or they were cheated, that’s not democracy. And that’s where the mass majority of Maga Republicans are today. They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: you can’t love your country only when you win.”Biden is hitting back at House Republicans and the Commitment to America plan they announced today, calling it “a thin series of policy goals” and saying the GOP’s true goal is banning abortion nationwide.He cited the words of rightwing supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in his opinion overturning Roe v Wade that the decision “allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion.”“I don’t believe Maga Republicans have a clue about the power American women,” Biden said to applause in his speech stumping on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.Referring to the plan announced by top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, Biden said, “Here’s a few of the things we didn’t hear. We didn’t hear mentioned the right to choose. We didn’t hear mentioned Medicare. We didn’t hear mentioned social security.”He went on to link the upcoming midterms to continuing availability of abortion in America, saying, “In 46 days, America is going to choose Republicans when control the Congress and abortion will be banned. And by the way, it will be initially banned but if they went Congress, I will veto it.”We’re about to hear from President Joe Biden at an event hosted by the Democratic National Committee, where he’ll no doubt stump for the party and potentially respond to House Republicans’ Commitment to America plan announced today.You can follow the event at the headquarters of the National Education Association here.“Without intervention we really are on this path to catastrophe.” Those are the chilling words of former Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli, whose anonymous testimony to the January 6 committee was shared last July, and who has now made her name public in an interview with the Washington Post.She recounted how the platform relished the attention brought by Trump as he turned Twitter into a bully pulpit to rival all others, and downplayed her concerns that he was inciting violence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}After Trump told the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, at a September 2020 presidential debate to “stand back and stand by,” Navaroli pushed for the company to adopt a stricter policy around calls to incitement.
      Trump “was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives,” she told the committee. “We had not seen that sort of direct communication before, and that concerned me.”
      She had also seen how his tweets were quickly sparking replies from other accounts calling for “civil war.” After Trump’s “will be wild” tweet in December, she said, “it became clear not only were these individuals ready and willing, but the leader of their cause was asking them to join him in … fighting for this cause in D.C. on January 6th.”
      The company, however, declined to take action, she told the committee. She pleaded with managers, she said, to face the “reality that … if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.”In the interview with the Post, Navaroli called on other whistleblowers to come forward while warning that America’s democracy may be irrevocably damaged:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“My fear within the American context is that we have seen our last peaceful transition of power,” Navaroli said. But “the same playbook,” she added, is being used around the world, “teeing up the idea that if an election is not in someone’s favor, it’s been rigged. Without intervention we really are on this path to catastrophe.” More

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      Special master asks Trump team for proof of claims that FBI planted evidence – as it happened

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      The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a senior federal judge demanded the former president’s lawyers provide proof of claims that the FBI planted documents.
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      A slew of polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken called on countries to speak out against Russia’s nuclear threats in a speech at the United Nations.
      Indiana’s abortion ban was blocked by a judge who found the state’s constitution likely protects access to the procedure.
      Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, activists declared that America was in a “moral crisis” as they called for more help for the poor, as Joan E Greve reports:A coalition of faith leaders gathered on Capitol Hill on Thursday to deliver an impassioned demand for more congressional action to combat poverty, telling lawmakers they have a moral obligation to improve life for low-income Americans.The faith leaders called on the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate to take at least three votes on major progressive issues before midterm elections in November.They emphasized the importance of putting lawmakers “on the record” about strengthening voting rights, raising wages and reinstating pandemic-era policies aimed at lifting families out of poverty.‘We’re in a moral crisis’: US faith leaders urge lawmakers to combat povertyRead moreEnvironmental leaders protesting against new legislation which would scale back regulations to expedite major energy projects have been arrested in the Senate.The sit-in was at the Hart building on Capitol Hill – where senate leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin both have their offices – to protest against their secret-deal to mandate fast track permits for energy and mining projects deemed to be of strategic national importance by limiting environmental and community review. Eleven of the 13 national and community leaders who participated in the act of civil disobedience were arrested. It’s not clear what charges – if any – will be brought. Among those was Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of Indigenous Environmental Network, who said: “We must uplift and protect our Mother Earth, not repeal the minimal provisions that do exist. We must continue to fight against climate greenwashing and false solutions. We must take real action to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”One of the most contested parts of the bill is pushing forward with construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline in central Appalachia, which has been suspended by the courts amid widespread community opposition and environmental violations.Lauren Maunus, advocacy director for the youth-led environmental justice group, Sunrise Movement, said: “I’m angry and frustrated that this is how we have to spend our time after the Inflation Reduction Act – less than 50 days before the midterms – when we could and should be devoting our full attention to helping Democrats expand the majority and fight fascism. Stop the permitting deal now.”Schumer wants to attach Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, released late on Wednesday, to a funding measure which must be passed by Congress by 1 October to avoid a government shutdown. It’s opposed by dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as a broad range of environmentalists, scientists and health professionals.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreSeveral Senate Republicans don’t appear comfortable with Donald Trump’s claims regarding classified documents, particularly his assertion yesterday that he could clear them for release just by thinking about it.CNN has gotten several on the record saying that the former president should have followed procedures set out for handling government secrets.“I think it ought to be adhered to and followed. And I think that should apply to anybody who has access to or deals with classified information,” John Thune, the Republican whip in the chamber, said. “I think the concern is about those being taken from the White House absent some way of declassifying them or the fact that there were classified documents removed — without sort of the appropriate safeguards.”“I believe there’s a formal process that needs to go through, that needs to be gone through and documented,” said Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “And to the extent they were declassified, gone through the process, that’s fine… As I understand the Executive Branch requirements, there is a process that one must go through.”“I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed if they’re not stored properly,” said Mike Rounds of South Dakota.The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreIn August, Democratic senator Joe Manchin agreed to support the marquee Inflation Reduction Act – but only if party leaders would in turn put up for a vote a proposal to fast-track permitting for energy projects. The bill is here, and Nina Lakhani reports on advocates’ concerns it will gut environmental protections:Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.The permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreIndiana led the charge in tightening abortion access after Roe v Wade was overturned in June, but a judge today blocked the new law on grounds that the state’s constitution protects access to the procedure.The decision underscores the complications Republican-led states face as they move to take advantage of the conservative-led court’s decision, which cleared the way for states to ban the procedure.Here’s more from the Associated Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
      The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
      The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
      Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”Since 1978 Ray Fair, ​​professor of Economics at Yale University, has been using economic data to predict US election outcomes. His bare-boned, strictly by the numbers approach has a fairly impressive record, usually coming within 3% of the final tally.Sadly for Democrats – if Fair’s on track again this time – the Biden administration will struggle to keep control of Congress in November’s crucial midterm elections.Elections are noisy events and this year’s is no different. Recent polling suggests Joe Biden is on a roll, reclaiming some of the ground he lost earlier in his presidency. The Democrats have passed major legislation. There has been a surge in women registering to vote after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. Abortion rights drove voters to the polls in deep-red Kansas. Gas prices, if not overall inflation, are falling. In the meantime, Donald Trump and the candidates he has backed are dominating the headlines and helping Democrats’ poll numbers.But if Fair is right, we can largely set aside the personalities and the issues: the economy is the signal behind the noise and Biden is still in trouble.Democrats will struggle to keep control of Congress in midterms, expert saysRead moreGreg Norman faced accusations of promoting Saudi “propaganda” following meetings with Washington lawmakers in which the Australian golfer sought to garner support for the Saudi-backed LIV Series in its bitter dispute with the PGA Tour.Norman, who is LIV’s CEO and the public face of the breakaway tour, ostensibly came to the capital this week to criticise what he has called the PGA’s “anti-competitive efforts” to stifle LIV.But – apart from some lawmakers who allegedly sought to take their picture with Norman – the Saudi tour instead faced a considerable backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, who defended the PGA and accused LIV of being little more than a sportswashing vehicle for the kingdom.Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, left a meeting of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday at which dozens of his party colleagues had met with Norman, expressing dismay that members of Congress were discussing a golf league backed by Saudi funds. He also called Norman’s LIV pitch “propaganda”.“We need to get out of bed with these people. They are bad actors. We need to keep them at arm’s length,” Burchett told the Guardian. He cited the September 11 attacks on the US, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the kingdom’s treatment of gay people and women, which he called “just unacceptable”.US congressman accuses LIV CEO Greg Norman of pushing Saudi ‘propaganda’ Read moreThe US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke at the United Nations in New York earlier, seeking to “send a clear message” to Russia over its threats concerning the possible use of nuclear weapons during its war in Ukraine.“Every council member should send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately,” Blinken said during a security council session, adding: “The very international order we’ve gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes. We cannot – we will not – let President Putin get away with it.”Blinken also said it was critical to show that “no nation can redraw the borders of another by force” and said: “If we fail to defend this principle when the Kremlin is so flagrantly violating it, we send the message to aggressors everywhere that they can ignore it, too.”As the Associated Press reports, the session on Thursday was “called by France, the current council president, [and] focused on addressing accountability for alleged abuses and atrocities, and the US and other western members repeatedly accused Russia of committing them”.Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was not in the room when Blinken and others spoke. In his own remarks, he claimed Ukraine was oppressing Russian speakers in the east of the country and western allies of the Ukrainian government “have been covering up the crimes of the Kyiv regime”.Security council action against Russia is vastly unlikely, given Russia’s veto power.Here’s some more Ukraine-based reading, from Oliver Milman:How the gas industry capitalized on the Ukraine war to change Biden policyRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a slew of new polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.Here’s what else has happened so far:
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      The race to be the next governor of Arizona is shaping up to be a nailbiter, according to a new survey from AARP Arizona.The poll found Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake in a statistical tie at 49% and 48% respectively, with just 3% of voters in the southwest battleground state undecided.Among Arizonans aged 50 and over, who make up an estimated 60% of the state’s electorate, Lake narrowly leads Hobbs, 50% to 48%, respectively. Among political independents, who comprise roughly one third of voters in the state, Hobbs holds a 4-point edge.The picture is slightly brighter for Democrats in the state’s competitive senate race, where incumbent Mark Kelly leads his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, by 8-points. A Republican senator wants to seize on Joe Biden’s recent statement that the “pandemic is over” to pass a resolution ending the national emergency declared to combat Covid-19, The Wall Street Journal reports.The resolution to be proposed by Roger Marshall of Kansas would end the state of emergency that the administration has used to justify suspending student loans repayments and some procedures at international borders, among other uses.A previous attempt to end the declaration passed the Senate in March but went nowhere in the House. Both chambers are narrowly led by Democrats, but the White House promised then to veto the measure, if it made it to Biden’s desk.Biden says Covid ‘pandemic is over’, despite US daily death toll in the hundredsRead moreBack to the polls, Monmouth University has a new one on Georgia’s governorship race that shows Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams with a narrower path to victory but more dedicated support base than the Republican incumbent Brian Kemp as she again challenges him for the job.The race is among the more high-profile gubernatorial contests to be decided in the 8 November midterms, and could make Abrams Georgia’s first Black and first female governor if elected. Kemp, meanwhile, is known for resisting Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of Joe Biden’s election win there in 2020, though has backed a strict voting law. According to Monmouth, 34% will definitely and 15% will probably back Kemp, against Abrams’ slightly worse 33% definite support and 12% probable support. Kemp is also viewed more favorably at 54%, versus Abrams’s 48% favorability. However, Democrats are more fired up for Abrams than Republicans are for Kemp. Monmouth finds that 83% of Democrats will definitely vote for Abrams versus 73% of GOP voters for Kemp – perhaps a consequence of his clashes with Trump.“Some election conspiracists may still hold a grudge against Kemp for not stepping in to overturn the 2020 result, but it’s unlikely to cost him much support. They may not be enthusiastic, but they’ll still vote for him over Abrams,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said. More

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlash

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashScientists and environmental groups call proposed legislation a ‘giveaway’ to fossil fuel industry that will gut protections Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsRead moreThe permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Democratic leaders want to push through Manchin’s bill without debate or analysis, and are expected to attach the legislation to a funding measure Congress must pass before 1 October.Energy industry associations have widely welcomed the reforms but opposition from Democrats and Republicans could scupper the deal.Critics say the bill is a giveaway to the fossil fuel lobby, paving the way for oil and gas production that will stop the US meeting its obligations to cut greenhouse gases and lead to further environmental injustices for people of color, Indigenous communities and low-income areas. It slashes judicial and state powers and oversight, handing Washington greater control over major projects.“This is not permitting reform,” said the Greenpeace USA co-executive director Ebony Twilley Martin. “This is permitting a giveaway that benefits those who continue to line their pockets at the expense of those affected by climate disasters. Our country cannot afford any new oil, gas or coal projects if we’re going to avoid climate catastrophe.”On Thursday, more than 400 scientists, doctors and nurses delivered a letter imploring Schumer and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to reject the deal. “The scientific consensus is now crystal clear … fossil fuel projects carry enormous risks to public health … we need to leave oil, gas and coal in the ground and turn off the spigot of carbon pouring into the air.”Jennifer K Falcon, an Indigenous environmentalist from the Ikiya Collective, said: “Our communities have already lost so much from environmental racism but there is so much to save. [They] are not sacrifice zones for corrupt politicians like Manchin and Schumer who benefit from big oil’s windfall profits.“The science is clear about the worsening climate crisis. We have no time to waste on dirty side deals.”Manchin has received more campaign contributions from fossil fuel industries than any other lawmaker this election cycle, according to Open Secrets.The legislative side deal requires Biden to designate at least 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for federal review within 90 days of passage. The projects must include at least five that produce, process, transport or store fossil fuels or biofuels, as well as six that are not fossil fuels and four mining projects.The bill mandates a two-year limit on environmental reviews for major projects – regardless of their complexity and potential for harming the environment, water supplies and human health.According to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the bill contains the most significant loss of protections under the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and the Clean Water Act since at least the last Bush administration, when Republicans had full control of Congress.“Any member of Congress who claims this disastrous legislation is vital for ramping up renewables either doesn’t understand or is ignoring the enormous fossil fuel giveaways at stake,” Hartl said.The bill was negotiated under a cloak of secrecy. Passage through the Senate is far from assured. A small group of progressive Democrats are looking to separate Manchin’s legislation from the stopgap funding bill, so they can vote against the permitting bill without voting to shut down the government.Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has organised a letter to Schumer, with the support of Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont – a move that mirrors a similar plea by 77 House progressives earlier this month.The letter, which was leaked to Politico, states: “We have heard extensive concerns from the environmental justice community regarding the proposed permitting reforms and are writing to convey the importance of those concerns, and to let you know that we share them.”On Tuesday, Schumer said he planned to add permitting reform to the spending bill and “get it done”.But Republicans who want more radical regulatory and permitting reforms may also vote against the bill, which requires 60 votes to move to the House. Earlier this month, 46 Republicans signed on to an alternative permitting bill introduced by the other West Virginian senator, Shelley Moore Capito.Schumer’s decision to capitulate to Manchin has angered progressives.Manchin agreed to back his party’s historic climate legislation before the midterm elections but only after negotiating a side deal to fast-track the MVP, a shale gas pipeline which would stretch 303 miles across the Appalachian mountains from north-western West Virginia to southern Virginia.Before construction was suspended, the MVP had produced more than 350 water quality violations. Manchin’s bill exempts the MVP from the Endangered Species Act, which experts say will push two species – the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter – much closer toward extinction.On Wednesday, the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, said he could not support the “highly unusual provisions” regarding the MVP which “eliminate any judicial review”. Kaine said he had been excluded from talks, even though 100 miles of the pipeline would run through his state.Raúl Grijalva, chair of the House natural resources committee, said: “These dangerous permitting shortcuts have been on industry wishlists for years. And now they’ve added the Mountain Valley pipeline approval as the rotten cherry on top of the pile.“The very fact that this fossil fuel brainchild is being force-fed into must-pass government funding speaks to its unpopularity. My colleagues and I don’t want this. The communities that are already hit hardest by the fossil fuel industry’s messes certainly don’t want or deserve this. Even Republicans don’t want this. Right now, our focus should be on keeping the government open, not destructive, unrelated riders.”In favor of the bill Gregory Wetstone, chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said it “includes provisions that will help streamline the transmission approval process, improving our ability to meet our nation’s decarbonisation goals”.Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, said: “Our current permitting system is overly cumbersome and mired in delays, hamstringing our ability to grow the clean energy economy.”TopicsUS SenateFossil fuelsOil (Environment)Gas (Environment)Oil (Business)Gas (Business)Joe ManchinnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans won’t commit to honoring vote results this fall. That’s troubling | Robert Reich

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      Republicans won’t commit to honoring vote results this fall. That’s troublingRobert ReichMore and more Republican candidates are in effect inviting their supporters to contest electoral losses in the streets One of the most horrific legacies of Trump is the unwillingness of Republican candidates to commit to being bound by election results.Among Republican candidates for US Senate, Ted Budd in North Carolina, Blake Masters in Arizona, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, and JD Vance in Ohio have all refused to commit to accepting the election results this November, according to news reports. Democracy is under attack – and reporting that isn’t ‘violating journalistic standards’ | Robert ReichRead moreAmong Republican candidates for governor, Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts have also declined to be bound by the election results.It’s one thing to reserve the right to call for recounts if elections are close and irregularities are evident, and to appeal the results through the courts.But that was not the circumstance for Trump in the 2020 presidential election (recounts were taken but they showed the same results; he appealed through the courts but his appeals were rejected), and that’s not what Republican candidates are asserting in Trump’s shameful wake.If these Republican candidates are not bound by the election results, what are they bound to?These candidates are in effect issuing open invitations to their supporters to contest electoral losses in the streets.American democracy is based on our commitments to be bound by the outcomes of elections. These are commitments to democracy over any specific outcome we want. The peaceful transition of power depends on these commitments.Before Trump, these norms were assumed. And at least since the civil war they have been honored.When losing candidates congratulate winners and deliver gracious concession speeches, they demonstrate their commitment to democracy over the personal victory they sought.And that demonstration is itself a means of reasserting and re-establishing civility. It sends an unambiguous message to all the candidate’s supporters that the process can be trusted.Think of Al Gore’s concession speech to George W Bush in 2000, after five weeks of a bitterly contested election and just one day after the supreme court ruled 5-4 in favor of Bush:
      I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of the country … Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy. Now the supreme court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it … And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
      Gore thereby made the same moral choice made by his predecessors who lost elections, and for the same reason: the democratic process – even one that included the judgments of supreme court justices – was more important than winning.This all changed in September 2020, when Trump refused to commit to be bound to the results of that year’s presidential election.“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said when asked whether he’d commit to a peaceful transition of power. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster,” he added – presumably referring to mail-in ballots, which he baselessly claimed would lead to voter fraud.This is when his fascist poison began seeping directly into the bedrock of America.That poison spread deeper and faster after he lost the election and refused to concede – claiming, again without any basis in fact, that it had been “stolen” from him.The poison came to the surface on 6 January 2021, when a group of his supporters invaded the US Capitol and threatened the lives of members of Congress. Five people died.The same poison has now spread to senatorial and gubernatorial candidates who refuse to commit to November’s election results.The commitment to be bound by the results of an election is the most important pledge in a democracy. It is also the most important qualification for public office. It is the equivalent of an oath to uphold the constitution.Candidates who refuse to commit to being bound by the results of elections should be presumed disqualified to hold public office.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Mitch McConnell called Trump ‘crazy’ after Capitol attack, new book says

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      Mitch McConnell called Trump ‘crazy’ after Capitol attack, new book saysRachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian’s Unchecked reports the Senate Republican leader vowed never to speak to Trump again The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said Donald Trump was “crazy” and vowed never to speak to him again after the Capitol attack – then voted both to call Trump’s impeachment unconstitutional and to acquit the former president in his second Senate trial.Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book saysRead moreMcConnell’s deliberations are reported in a forthcoming book, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, by Rachael Bade of Politico and Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post. An extract was published on Wednesday.According to Bade and Demirjian, on 6 January 2021, after the deadly attack on Congress by Trump supporters seeking to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win, McConnell spoke to staffers in his Capitol office.“We’ve all known that Trump is crazy,” he said. “I’m done with him. I will never speak to him again.”But, the authors add, “while McConnell was ready to be done with Trump, his party, it seemed, was not. To his chagrin, a large chunk of his members were once again coalescing around the former president. And they were about to put him in a bind.”Twenty days later, McConnell agonised over what he “knew would be one of the most pivotal votes of his career”.The vote was forced by Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, in an attempt to declare Trump’s impeachment over the Capitol attack unconstitutional, given that he had then left office.The authors report that McConnell and an aide argued about the issue. But though the Senate leader wasn’t convinced by Paul’s argument, he “had never led such a rebellion” against another Republican and “wasn’t sure he was up to the task”.McConnell voted to declare the impeachment unconstitutional. When Trump went to trial, Bade and Demirjian say, McConnell considered voting to convict. But he voted to acquit and only excoriated Trump in a speech on the Senate floor after the acquittal was confirmed.McConnell’s view that Trump was finished after the Capitol attack has been reported elsewhere. In their book This Will Not Pass Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns report that McConnell was “exhilarated” and told staffers Trump was a “despicable human being” he would fight politically.Burns and Martin also report that McConnell asked one of them about discussions of the 25th amendment, the constitutional process to remove a president incapable of the office.Mitch McConnell greatly damaged US democracy with quiet, chess-like moves | Gary GerstleRead more“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” they quote McConnell as saying. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”Burns and Martin also say McConnell believed he would regain control of his party, saying: “We crushed the sons of bitches [before] and that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.”That has not proved the case.Bade and Demirjian report that after the Capitol attack, McConnell consulted extensively with Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman who emerged as a figurehead for anti-Trump Republicans.Worried that Trump would use the Capitol attack to fuel another White House run, McConnell reportedly told Cheney Republicans should “just ignore him”.In August this year, Cheney lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Other anti-Trump Republicans have met the same fate – or retired.Trump continues to abuse and attack McConnell, seeking his replacement.TopicsBooksUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book says

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      Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book saysNews of ‘stunning’ attempt to rescind dramatic election night call contained in The Divider, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted the network to withdraw its famous call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020, citing pressure from Donald Trump’s campaign and saying the swing state should be “put back in his column”, a new book says.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreNews of Baier’s email is contained in The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, published in the US on Tuesday.The authors, Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, call Baier’s request “stunning”, as Arizona “was never in Trump’s column. While the margin of his defeat in the state had narrowed since election night, he still trailed by more than 10,000 votes.”Trump did win Arizona in 2016. Its call for Biden four years later did not give the Democrat the White House but it did signal Trump was in deep trouble. Accounts of his fury at the surprisingly early call, which other networks did not follow, are legion.According to the author Michael Wolff, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, both personally approved the call and said of Trump: “Fuck him.”Fox News denied that but Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, wrote in his own book that on election night, Murdoch told him Arizona was “not even close”.The election was called for Biden on 7 November, four days later, when he was agreed to have won Pennsylvania.But Baker and Glasser report that “turmoil” reigned at Fox News over Arizona, amid worries that rightwing rivals including Newsmax, firmly in the van for Trump, might take viewers away.“Fox executives were freaking out,” the authors write, adding that Suzanne Scott, the chief executive, wanted Fox News to stop calling any more states until they were certified by election authorities – a process that takes weeks.Baker and Glasser say Bill Sammon, the Washington managing editor, rejected that plan, saying: “Our enemies – and there are many – will portray this as follows: For the first time in its history, Fox News refuses to project the next president, who just happens to be the Democrat who defeated Donald Trump.”Baker and Glasser report that though Baier had “long insisted that he was different than the Trump-cheerleading opinion hosts” at Fox News, he felt White House pressure to rescind the Arizona call.In an email on Thursday 5 November, they report, the anchor said “the Trump campaign was really pissed” and added: “This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air.”Baier reportedly “accused the [Fox News] Decision Desk of ‘holding on for pride’ and added: ‘It’s hurting us. The sooner we pull it – even if it gives us a major egg – and we put it back in his column, the better we are in my opinion.’”They also say the Decision Desk was not allowed to call Nevada for Biden even after other networks did, because doing so would have made Biden Fox News’s projected winner, given the Arizona call.Broken News review: Ex-Fox News editor has broadsides for both sidesRead moreTrump continues to lie about mass voter fraud in Arizona, even after an “audit” by state Republicans did not find fraud – and instead slightly increased Biden’s margin of victory.In the aftermath of the Arizona call, Baker and Glasser write, Bill Sammon and Chris Stirewalt, senior members of the Fox News politics team, were “summarily fired”.Fox News insists Sammon retired while Stirewalt – who has written his own book – was let go because of “restructuring”.Baker and Glasser write: “Whatever they called it, Fox had decided that deference to Trump was more important than getting the story right.”Quoting another email, they say Jay Wallace, the Fox News president and executive editor, told Sammon: “I respect the hell out of you, but it’s turned into a war.”TopicsBooksFox NewsUS politicsUS elections 2020RepublicansPolitics booksUS television industrynewsReuse this content More