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Barr: it would be ‘big mistake’ for Republicans to nominate Trump in 2024‘I don’t think he should be our nominee,’ ex-president’s attorney general tells Newsmax William Barr, Donald Trump’s former attorney general, said in an interview on Thursday that it would be a “big mistake” for the Republican party to nominate Trump for president in 2024.Appearing on the Newsmax television channel, Barr said Trump, who has hinted that he will run again, would not be a sound choice.Capitol attack panel set to issue letters to Kevin McCarthy and other key RepublicansRead more“I don’t think he should be our nominee – the Republican party nominee,” Barr said.“And I think Republicans have a big opportunity – it would be a big mistake to put him forward.”In a poll in January 57% of Republican voters said they would choose Trump in 2024. Trump also won the less scientific Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, in February, by a large margin.Trump, who was impeached twice during his four years in the White House, has repeatedly teased his supporters with suggestions he will run again.“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump told a crowd at the CPAC convention – claiming again that he won the 2020 election.“We’re going to be doing it again a third time.”Still, Barr’s remarks will be sure to anger Trump, who has repeatedly clashed with his former attorney general since losing the 2020 election.In Barr’s book, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, he wrote that Trump had “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed”.Trump, Barr said, has surrounded himself with “sycophants” and “whack jobs from outside the government, who fed him a steady diet of comforting but unsupported conspiracy theories”.Trump responded by calling Barr “slow” and “lethargic”.“When the Radical Left Democrats threatened to Hold him in contempt and even worse, Impeach him, he became virtually worthless to Law and Order and Election Integrity. They broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse.”Trump had previously called Barr a “swamp creature” and a “Rino [Republican in Name Only] … afraid, weak and frankly … pathetic”.TopicsWilliam BarrDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More
Capitol attack panel set to issue letters to Kevin McCarthy and other key RepublicansMarjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert among those poised to receive letters requesting voluntary cooperation, sources say The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is expected to issue letters requesting voluntary cooperation from House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and around a dozen other Republican members of Congress, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The panel intends to issue a letter to McCarthy – the top House Republican – and is considering further letters to Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, as well as some Republican senators, the sources said.Biden asks Congress for $33bn Ukraine aid packageRead moreCongressman Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, is expected to authorize the list of Republican members of Congress caught up in the investigation potentially as soon as this week. The letters may come either this week or next week, the sources said.The scope and subjects of the letters are not yet finalized, and the sources cautioned that the members of Congress approached for cooperation may still change. On Thursday, Thompson said only that he would send letters to McCarthy and other Republicans.But the select committee’s move to seek cooperation from some of Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill – and for some members like McCarthy, Jordan and Perry, the second such request – marks a new gear for the inquiry as it reaches its final stages.The new letters are being discussed internally as a final chance for cooperation before the select committee considers ways to compel their assistance, the sources said: once reluctant to pursue subpoenas against members of Congress, the mood on panel is changing.The panel has a renewed interest in McCarthy’s cooperation after new reporting this week showed he had told the Republican leadership days after January 6 that Trump admitted to him at least partial responsibility for the Capitol attack, the sources said.The select committee is particularly focused on whether Trump might have indicated to McCarthy why he believed he was culpable for the Capitol attack, the sources said, and whether the former president knew he may have acted unlawfully on January 6.Thompson is also considering letters to Greene and Perry and other Republicans who played an outsize role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and pressed the White House about Trump declaring martial law to stay in office, the sources said.The select committee wants to learn more information from members of Congress who were in constant text-messages communication with Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, described by one of the sources as “those in the text message traffic”.A spokesman for the select committee declined to comment.Greene messaged Meadows on 17 January, according to one of more than 2,000 texts Meadows turned over to the investigation and obtained by CNN, that some members of Congress were calling for Trump to impose martial law to remain in power.“In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law,” Greene said in the text. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”Meadows did not appear to respond to Greene’s text. But the messages Trump’s top White House aide was receiving shows the extraordinary ideas swirling around Trump after he and his operatives were unable to stop the certification of Biden’s election win on January 6.The newly-released text messages also show Perry, now the chairman of the ultra-conservative House freedom caucus, lobbying Meadows to replace the justice department leadership with Jeffrey Clark, a DoJ official sympathetic to Trump’s effort to undo the 2020 election.Greene and Clark were among the leading Republicans determined to overturn Trump’s defeat to Biden, according to the text messages – as well as testimony provided to House investigators by Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump White House aide who worked for Meadows.The select committee appears to believe the time is right to request voluntary cooperation from the members, the sources said, capitalizing on the public outrage surrounding McCarthy’s remarks and the texts sent by the Republican members of Congress.Thompson on Thursday confirmed to reporters that he would certainly issue a second letter to McCarthy to appear before House investigators, as well as to Jordan and Perry, but declined to name other targets or how he would proceed if the requests were rejected.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
US politics live with Joan E GreveUS politics‘We’re not attacking Russia,’ Biden says as he asks for $33bn in Ukraine aid – as it happened
‘We’re helping Ukraine defend itself,’ says president
Full report: Biden asks Congress for more Ukraine aid
Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates
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Updated 1h agoJoan E Greve in WashingtonThu 28 Apr 2022 16.03 EDTFirst published on Thu 28 Apr 2022 09.13 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyThat’s it from the US politics live blog today. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington:
Joe Biden asked Congress to provide Ukraine with $33bn of additional funding to assist its fight against Russian aggression. The request includes another $20bn in military aid, as well as $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief. “The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said at the White House today.
Biden emphasized America’s ongoing assistance to Ukraine should not be taken as an attack on Russia. “We’re not attacking Russia. We’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden said. “Russia is the aggressor — no ifs, ands or buts about it.” Russia has warned the US against providing Ukraine with more weaponry, but the White House has insisted it will continue to aid its ally.
Nancy Pelosi said she expected a “strong, bipartisan vote” in the House to approve the next Ukraine aid bill. “The assistance appropriated by Congress has made a significant difference for Ukraine, but much more is needed to fight back against Putin’s brutal aggression,” the Democratic House speaker said in a statement.
The White House dodged a question about whether it was now a US policy goal for Ukraine to win its war against Russia. “We’re not going to define that from here,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her daily briefing.
The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, contracting by -0.4% in the first quarter, marking its weakest performance since the early days of the pandemic. Biden blamed the contraction on “technical factors” caused by the ongoing pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The Guardian’s live blog on the war in Ukraine is still running, so be sure to follow along with that for more updates:Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv rocked by missile strikes as UN chief visits Ukraine capital – liveRead moreOne reporter asked Jen Psaki whether it was now a policy goal of the United States for Ukraine to beat Russia in the war.“We’re not going to define that from here,” the White House press secretary said, adding that the question of strategic goals was a matter for Ukrainians to determine.“What we are going to do from here is to continue to provide them with a range of security and military assistance, as evidenced by the package that the president proposed and put forward to Capitol Hill today,” Psaki said.Joe Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said earlier this week that the US hoped the war in Ukraine would result in a “weakened” Russia.“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said. A reporter asked Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, about the expected timeline for Congress approving the requested $33bn in Ukraine aid, as well as additional pandemic response funds.“I’m not here to set new deadlines, but I can tell you that both needs are urgent,” Psaki said.Psaki underscored the crucial need to provide Ukraine with more resources as it fights off Russian attacks more than two months after the war began.“In order to continue to help assist them, help make sure they have the the weapons they need, the artillery they need, the equipment they need, it is certainly urgent to move forward on this funding,” Psaki said.The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing, and a reporter kicked off today’s questioning by asking about student debt cancelation.Joe Biden said earlier today, “I am not considering $50,000 [student] debt reduction, but I am in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness.”Asked whether the White House has concluded that Biden can cancel student debt via executive order, Psaki replied, “There’s been no conclusion of any process internally yet.”The president said today that he would provide an update on his student debt policies “in the next couple weeks”. Progressives have called on Biden to cancel all federal student debt, but Biden has signaled opposition to that proposal.Republican Senator Rick Scott has released a statement denouncing Joe Biden’s criticism of his tax proposals after the commerce department reported the US economy contracted during the first quarter of 2022.“Joe Biden is clearly obsessed with my plan to rescue America and very confused about his own agenda that is devastating American families. Unlike Joe Biden, I’m a proven tax cutter,” Scott said.The Florida senator noted a recent Washington Post analysis concluded the White House had made false claims about Scott’s proposal, which has even attracted some criticism from fellow Republicans. “As long as Biden and the Democrats keep trying to destroy this great country, I’ll be fighting to rescue it,” Scott said.Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said he would probably support a bill appropriating another $33bn in aid to Ukraine, as Joe Biden has requested.“Very likely yes,” McConnell told ABC News.Asked @LeaderMcConnell if he is supportive of the $33 billion Ukraine aid supplemental request the administration has put forward.“Very likely yes,” he said.— Allison Pecorin (@AllisonMPecorin) April 28, 2022
However, some Senate Republicans have warned Democrats against trying to combine the Ukraine aid and pandemic response funding into one bill, as the Covid money remains tied up over a dispute about a controversial border policy known as Title 42.Asked earlier today whether he thought the two proposals should be linked in one bill, Biden said, “I don’t care how they do it. I’m sending them both up. They can do it separately or together, but we need them both.”Joe Biden is now meeting with small business owners to “discuss the small businesses boom under his leadership,” per his official schedule.The president was joined at the White House meeting by Isabella Casillas Guzman, administrator of the Small Business Administration.“These enterprises and entrepreneurs know the American economy is strong because America’s small businesses are strong,” Biden said at the start of the meeting.In an instance of rather bad timing, the meeting came hours after the commerce department reported the US economy contracted in the first quarter of 2022, marking its worst performance since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.At the meeting, Biden once again attacked Republican Senator Rick Scott’s plan to raise income taxes for millions of Americans, a proposal that has divided Scott’s own party and become a Democratic punching bag.“It’s just not right,” Biden said. “Our administration wants to make it easier to start a business, easier for a small business to succeed.”Nancy Pelosi said she expected a “strong, bipartisan vote” in the House to approve the next Ukraine aid bill, which Joe Biden has requested.“The assistance appropriated by Congress has made a significant difference for Ukraine, but much more is needed to fight back against Putin’s brutal aggression,” the Democratic House speaker said in a statement.“The forthcoming supplemental package will deliver critical funding including for more defensive systems and weaponry, support for Ukraine’s energy and healthcare infrastructure, and food assistance to address a growing hunger crisis around the globe stemming from this conflict.”Biden has asked Congress to approve another $33bn in assistance to Ukraine, including $20bn in military funding and $3bn in humanitarian relief.“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said at the White House earlier today.Joe Biden reiterated his message that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, even as the Kremlin tries to villainize the West over its efforts to aid Ukraine.“Despite the disturbing rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin, the facts are plain for all to see: We are not attacking Russia,” Biden said on Twitter. “We are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. And just as Putin chose to launch this brutal invasion, he could make the choice to end it.”Earlier today, Biden asked Congress to approve another $33bn in aid to Ukraine, including $20bn in military funding. Russia has warned the US to stop providing arms to Ukraine, but the White House has remained firm in its commitment to helping its ally.Despite the disturbing rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin, the facts are plain for all to see: We are not attacking Russia. We are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. And just as Putin chose to launch this brutal invasion, he could make the choice to end it.— President Biden (@POTUS) April 28, 2022
US FDA moves forward with proposal to ban menthol cigarettesThe Food and Drug Administration on Thursday issued a long-awaited proposal to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.The move is a major victory for anti-smoking advocates but one that could dent sales at tobacco companies.The proposal, which comes a year after the agency announced the plan, still needs to be finalized and can take years to implement as it is likely to face stiff opposition from the tobacco industry. “The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said the health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, Reuters reported. For decades, menthol cigarettes have been in the crosshairs of anti-smoking groups who have argued that they contribute to disproportionate health burdens on Black communities and play a role in luring young people into smoking.‘I hope we’ll get through this’: the Ukrainian refugees arriving in TijuanaIn recent weeks Mexico has been the second-to-last stop on a journey to a semblance of normal life for some Ukrainian families hoping to get to safety in the United States. The Guardian has published a dispatch from Tijuana by Jo Napolitano who writes: Just over the zigzag pathway of the Tijuana border crossing, a mile or so from the taco and churros stands that feed locals and tourists alike, rests a pop-up encampment for Ukrainian and Russian refugees fleeing an invasion they could neither endure nor support.Tijuana has been a two- or three-day respite on their journey before trying to enter the US. There, these displaced families – a flight away from Washington state or Illinois or South Carolina – are fanning out across the country, staying with friends and relatives, applying for food stamps and social security cards and enrolling their children in school. While they are far further in their relocation than the Mexican, Central American and Haitian asylum seekers waiting years for that same opportunity, these newcomers still face many hurdles.“Everything is so different here in the US,” said Anastasiia Puzhalina, a Ukrainian refugee who arrived in the States in early April with her family. “We must learn so much. I hope we’ll get through this.”The piece is published in partnership with the the 74, a non-profit, non-partisan news site covering education in America. ‘I hope we’ll get through this’: the Ukrainian refugees arriving in TijuanaRead moreNAACP calls on Biden to cancel all student debt “President Biden, we agree that we shouldn’t cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. We should cancel all of it,” the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) said in a statement on Thursday.The statement came after the president told reporters he was open to cancelling some debt but poured cold water on the $50,000 number. “$50,000 was just the bottom line. For the Black community, who’ve accumulated debt over generations of oppression, anything less is unacceptable,” the NAACP said. The NAACP has a petition calling on Biden to take action to cancel student debt, which it says would :
Provide Black borrowers with opportunities to pursue homeownership
Develop economy-boosting discretionary income
Fuel upward mobility in the Black community and equitable efforts to close the racial wealth gap
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Joe Biden asked Congress to provide Ukraine with another $33bn in funding to assist its fight against Russian aggression. The request includes another $20bn in military aid, as well as $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief. “The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said at the White House today.
Biden emphasized America’s ongoing assistance to Ukraine should not be taken as an attack on Russia. “We’re not attacking Russia. We’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden said. “Russia is the aggressor — no ifs, ands or buts about it.” Russia has warned the US against providing Ukraine with more weaponry, but the White House has insisted it will continue to aid its ally.
The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, contracting by -0.4% in the first quarter, marking its weakest performance since the early days of the pandemic. Biden blamed the contraction on “technical factors” caused by the ongoing pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.Unrelated to the war in Ukraine, Joe Biden was asked whether he plans to cancel more student loan debt via executive order in the coming weeks.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday that the White House is “more open to it now than ever before” when it comes to canceling student loan debt.“There’s nothing done yet, but I am really hopeful that the goal that we have had, $50,000 of student loans canceled, is getting more and more likely,” Schumer said, per NBC News.President Biden: “I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction but I am in the process of taking a hard look on whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness. I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple weeks.” pic.twitter.com/gpwPf2ghs5— CSPAN (@cspan) April 28, 2022
Biden threw cold water on that idea today, telling reporters that he is not comfortable with the $50,000 number but is open to some debt cancelation.“I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction, but I am in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness,” Biden said. “And I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple weeks.”Biden has previously expressed openness to the idea of canceling up to $10,000 in student debt per borrower, but many progressives have criticized that proposal as insufficient.After finishing his prepared remarks, Joe Biden took several questions from reporters about his request to Congress for more Ukraine aid and other legislative matters.Asked for his message to Ukrainian refugees who are waiting at the southern border to enter the US, Biden said they are being allowed to come directly into the country.“We’ve said there’s no need to go to the southern border,” Biden said. “Fly directly to United States. We set up a mechanism whereby they can come directly with a visa.”Another reporter asked Biden about how the US will respond if Russia starts escalating its aggression toward Ukraine’s allies in response to their ongoing assistance to the country.“We are prepared for whatever they do,” Biden said.As he asked for more funding to assist Ukraine, Joe Biden also emphasized the importance of Congress appropriating more money for America’s pandemic response efforts.“That’s why I’m again urging Congress to act on our request for $22.5bn in emergency resources so the American people can continue to protect themselves from Covid-19,” Biden said.The president said the federal government would only be able to prepare more vaccine doses to help protect against future variants if Congress approves more money to preorder treatments.Noting that the US has also donated vaccine doses to other countries, Biden said, “Without additional funding, the United States won’t be able to help stop the spread around the world.”After concluding his prepared remarks, a reporter asked Biden whether he believed the Ukraine assistance and pandemic funding should be tied together in one bill, which lawmakers are currently at odds over.“I don’t care how they do it. I’m sending them both up,” Biden said. “They can do it separately or together, but we need them both.”NewestNewestPrevious1 of 2NextOldestOldestTopicsUS politicsUS politics live with Joan E GreveJoe BidenRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressUS foreign policyUkraineReuse this content More
The Trumpian right keeps pushing rule of law to the brink. But the law is winningNorman L Eisen and Dennis AftergutSome Republicans in Congress allegedly considered using martial law to keep Trump in office. Thankfully our institutions have held the line This week has seen developments in two important legal battles. At stake is whether we are a society ruled by law or not. Without law, we face not survival of the fittest but survival of the fiercest – those most willing to use intimidation, force and violence to get their way.First, a New York judge held Donald Trump in contempt for stiffing a subpoena from the state attorney general, Letitia James, for documents relating to her civil investigation of the Trump Organization. She is investigating Trump’s businesses for allegedly inflating financial statements to lenders.Judges do not hold parties in contempt lightly. There needs to be an act so egregiously contemptuous of the law’s authority that a court cannot ignore it.In this case, the New York state court found team Trump’s efforts to locate documents in response to the New York attorney general’s subpoena “woefully insufficient” and showing complete disdain for the legal process. Trump was fined $10,000 for every day he continues in noncompliance.That court stood up for the rules that make our society work.Second, and on the same day, we saw evidence of attempts to destroy those rules and put allegiance to Trump above allegiance to country. New text messages – uncovered by the House committee investigating the January 6 siege of the Capitol, and disclosed by CNN – revealed the extent of rightwing Republicans’ attacks on the US constitution.Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Trump chief of staff urging martial law to overturn electionRead moreThe most striking text was an exchange from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia. On 17 January, 11 days after the violent Capitol insurrection and three days before the scheduled transition of power to Joe Biden, she wrote: “In our private chat with only [House] Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law.”She wasn’t referring to Thurgood Marshall. Nor was she referencing the former secretary of state George Marshall. Rather, she was referring to “martial law”, the use of the military to control all features of American life and to shut down our constitutional system of government. Greene was telling the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that some Republican members of Congress were allegedly advocating to end the 225-year tradition of power transferring peacefully after elections and instead using force to keep the loser in office. By passing the idea along, she suggests she is willing to entertain it herself.Stop and think about that for a moment. Multiple elected federal officials sworn to uphold the constitution were contemplating abandoning it for the law of the jungle. We should not be so inured to extremism from the Republican right that such a text message fails to shock us.These texts take on an even more ominous cast when read together with emails disclosed by the January 6 committee’s recent legal filing in a civil suit Meadows brought to block the committee’s subpoenas. His meritless effort to rehash legal arguments already rejected by other courts is nothing more than a ploy to run out the clock, and the damaging evidence filed by the committee makes clear why.To pick but one example from almost 200 pages of exhibits, there is testimony that the secret service warned Meadows and others of the risk of January 6 violence, and they proceeded to discuss sending marchers to the Capitol. The evidence of efforts to overturn the election includes step-by-step plans which, taken together with yesterday’s texts, read like a recipe book for a coup, including all the ingredients and even the cooking instructions.For those on the American right who profess to believe in liberty, imposing martial law to put a strongman atop American government a la Putin should be unthinkable.But do not hold your breath waiting for outrage from the right over texts such as the one Greene was just revealed to have sent Meadows. Greene is a charter member of the anything-goes-for-Trump club. For its members, the end justifies any means.From ancient Greek democracy to the Roman republic to the French Revolution, history tells us again and again that gravitating to autocracy comes back to haunt a nation. As John Adams, signer of the declaration of independence and second president of the United States, wrote in 1775 to his wife, Abigail, “[A] Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.”This week, we were reminded again how close we came to a coup here in the US. Fortunately, a New York judge also showed us that the institutions of law remain strong and the impulse to autocracy is being held at bay.
Norman L Eisen served as President Barack Obama’s ethics czar, was special impeachment counsel to the House judiciary committee in 2019–20 and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book is Overcoming Trumpery
Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy
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US politics liveRepublicansRepublicans in Congress give McCarthy standing ovation for defense of leaked audio – as it happened
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Updated 1h agoRichard LuscombeWed 27 Apr 2022 16.11 EDTFirst published on Wed 27 Apr 2022 09.19 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More
Republican can’t list himself as ‘The Patriot’ on ballot, state rulesState lawmaker claims it’s his nickname – but he struggles to spell it and opponent says he doesn’t use it A state Republican lawmaker who wanted to refer to himself as “The Patriot” on the ballot can’t use that nickname, the Oklahoma Election Board has ruled.Sean Roberts can still run for Oklahoma labor commissioner, but he can’t refer to himself using that nickname on the ballot, the board decided Monday.Oklahoma election rules allow a candidate to use a nickname if it’s a name the candidate is generally known by or if the candidate does business using the nickname. Roberts’ opponent, the Republican labor commissioner, Leslie Osborn, said there was no evidence Roberts was known as “The Patriot”.She pointed out in her petition to the board that Roberts had appeared on the ballot in seven successive elections as Kevin Sean Roberts or Sean Roberts.Roberts also struggled at one point in the proceedings to spell “patriot”, according to NonDoc.com, which the state representative Chris Kannady suggested was evidence that he was not, in fact, called The Patriot. “When asked to spell ‘patriot’, Representative Roberts had issues with spelling. Probably because he’s not used to spelling it out or writing it out as part of his legal name,” Kannady said.Roberts’s website describes himself as Sean The Patriot Roberts, without quotation marks, and says he “is a husband, father, Christian, small business owner, healthcare provider, former 2016 Trump delegate, and 12-year Oklahoma State Legislator”.It also says he has “promoted economically sound policies while defending Oklahoman’s freedom and liberties” – presumably referring to multiple people, rather than to one Oklahoman.“Using a campaign slogan as part of your name is inconsistent with ballot integrity,” said the former Oklahoma attorney general Mike Hunter, who is representing Osborn. “You don’t want a cascade of cases like this one in future elections.”When asked how many people know him as “The Patriot,” Roberts said roughly 200 to 600 people.His attorney cited evidence including a plaque naming him a “patriot” and a 46th birthday card which stated: “Thank you for picking up the torch of freedom and finally getting constitutional carry across the finish line. You truly are The Patriot.”After the verdict Roberts released a statement saying he was considering an appeal.TopicsOklahomaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
US politics liveRepublicansMcCarthy faces House Republican caucus following revelations in leaked audio – live
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LIVE Updated 8m agoRichard LuscombeWed 27 Apr 2022 11.14 EDTFirst published on Wed 27 Apr 2022 09.19 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More
