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      Trump endorses Pence’s brother after sparring with ex-vice-president

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      Trump endorses Pence’s brother after sparring with ex-vice-presidentEndorsement for Congress comes after Mike Pence rejected Trump’s claim that he could have reversed his election defeat Even though Donald Trump recently sparred with Mike Pence over whether the former vice-president could have done more to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, Trump on Friday handed an endorsement to Pence’s brother in an Indiana congressional race.Trump’s endorsement of Greg Pence, who is seeking a third term as the US House representative for Indiana’s sixth congressional district, is politically intriguing for a couple of reasons.Trump defended rioters who threatened to ‘hang Mike Pence’, audio revealsRead moreIt comes a little more than a year after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and demanded – among other things – Pence’s hanging. A bipartisan Senate committee has connected seven deaths to the attack, which delayed a joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s win by several hours.And the endorsement comes a couple of months after Mike Pence, in a rare stand against the former president, rejected Trump’s claim that Pence could have reversed Trump’s election defeat during the joint congressional session that was temporarily interrupted by the Capitol insurrection.At one point that day, Secret Service agents tried to drive Pence away from the Capitol, where he was tasked with leading lawmakers’ certification of the presidential election results. But Pence wouldn’t leave, signaling his opposition to the mob’s goal of keeping Trump in power, the Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, who serves on a House panel investigating the Capitol attack, said recently.“President Trump is wrong,” Pence told the conservative Federalist Society in February, according to National Public Radio (NPR). “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion any one person could choose the American president.”When asked later about his brother’s remarks, Greg Pence stopped well short of agreeing with them, highlighting how reluctant Republicans are to speak out against Trump while it remains unclear how much power his still-coveted endorsements carry.“I stand by my brother and always will, and I’ll let him speak for himself about his remarks,” Greg Pence told NPR, in part.US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 JanuaryRead moreGreg Pence earlier this month also voted against referring criminal contempt charges against Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino to the US justice department. Congress ultimately ended up making the referral, saying Navarro and Scavino ignored subpoenas issued to them as part of the investigation into the Capitol attack that put Mike Pence in jeopardy.That stance on Friday helped the former vice-president’s brother net a statement from Trump reading: “Greg Pence has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”Trump also hailed the Republican congressman for opposing Biden’s immigration policies on the southern border, keeping guns accessible, opposing abortion and supporting the military.Greg Pence’s office didn’t immediately issue a statement in response to Trump’s endorsement. The former oil executive and Marine Corps veteran is facing a challenger in James Dean Alspach in the Republican primary on 3 May.The victor would advance to an 8 November runoff against the winner of the Democratic primary, whose candidates are George Thomas Holland and Cynthia Wirth.TopicsDonald TrumpMike PenceUS politicsRepublicansIndiananewsReuse this content More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack case

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseLawyers for groups challenging Republican say text Greene sent to Meadows, released by House panel, shows she lied in testimony Lawyers for voters seeking to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 insurrection have accused her of lying in a hearing in the case.JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican partyRead moreIn a filing Friday, lawyers for groups challenging Greene said a text from the Georgia congresswoman to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, released by the House committee investigating January 6, shows she lied in testimony.At the hearing in Atlanta earlier this month, a fractious affair in front of an administrative judge, Greene said she could not recall advocating for Donald Trump to impose martial law after the Capitol attack, as the then president sought to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.In the text message released this week, Greene told Meadows on 17 January 2021, 11 days after the riot and three days before Biden’s inauguration: “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.“I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”As reported by Bloomberg News, attorneys for Greene’s challengers said: “Greene’s testimony at the hearing that she could not remember discussing martial law with anyone was already dubious.“This text with President Trump’s chief of staff makes her testimony even more incredible because it seems like the kind of message with the kind of recipient that a reasonable person testifying truthfully would remember.”Greene’s lawyer, James Bopp Jr, told Bloomberg: “The text very clearly said she doesn’t know about those things. It couldn’t be clearer.“It’s just another outrageous fabrication that we have been seeing from the other side throughout this case, because they don’t have the law on their side.”The attempt to push Greene off the ballot in the Republican primary is based on section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. Ratified in 1868, shortly after the civil war, the amendment bars from office anyone who has taken an oath under the constitution but then engaged in insurrection.A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the Capitol attack, which occurred after Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in service of his lies about electoral fraud.Riot participants have tied Greene to their cause. She has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was stolen but also denied links to rioters and said she was not calling for political violence when she backed Trump’s claims.In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in the House and Senate who objected to electoral college results.The groups challenging Greene have challenged other Trump supporters.An effort to exclude Madison Cawthorn, from North Carolina, failed when a judge said an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive. Attempts to eject two Arizonans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, were also rejected.The judge in Greene’s case has said he will soon make a recommendation to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, who will then rule.Raffensperger is a conservative Republican but also the official who blocked Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in Georgia. Raffensperger has said that caused him to fear for his safety.Greene appears in This Will Not Pass, a hotly anticipated new book by two New York Times reporters, both in her relation to the January 6 attack and as a thorn in the side of congressional Democrats.“If there was one Republican who had shown she had no business serving in Congress,” Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns write, “Democrats believed it was” Greene.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, though, “thought it would be pointless to try expelling Greene from the House. Even if an expulsion vote succeeded, the speaker believed Greene would easily win a special election in her district and return.”TopicsGeorgiaUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The Right review: conservatism, Trump, regret and wishful thinking

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      The Right review: conservatism, Trump, regret and wishful thinkingMatthew Continetti’s history of 100 years of the American right is ambitious, impressive and worrying America’s tribes frequently clash but they rarely intersect. Over the past 60 years, the Democratic party has morphed into an upstairs-downstairs coalition, graduate-degree holders tethered to an urban core and religious “nones”. Meanwhile, Republicans have grown more rural, southern, evangelical and working class.Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow Read moreWithin the GOP, Donald Trump has supplanted the legacies of Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. According to Matthew Continetti, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, being a conservative in 2022 is less about advocating limited government and more about culture wars, owning the libs and denouncing globalization.Subtitled The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism, Continetti’s third book examines a century of intellectual and political battles. He seeks to explain how Trumpism became the dominant force within the Republican party. In large measure, he succeeds.The Right is readable and relatable, well-written and engaging. The author’s command of facts is impressive. For decades, he has lived around and within the conservative ecosystem.Continetti chronicles the tumult of 1960s, the emergence of Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” and the migration of blue-collar ethnic Catholics to what was once the home of the white Protestant establishment. He also looks back, at the pre-New Deal Republican party and at conservatism after the civil war.Continetti is sensitive to the currents that swirl in and around this country and its people. He laments that in the 21st century blood, soil and grievance have overtaken the conservative orthodoxies of free markets, personal autonomy and communal virtue. He is discomforted by how contemporary conservatism acquired a performative edge.On the page, his dismay is muted but present. He wistfully recalls the collapse of the Weekly Standard, where he worked for Bill Kristol, his future father-in-law. George W Bush’s war in Iraq was one thing that helped do-in the magazine.Similarly, the Republican establishment’s call for immigration reform left many Americans feeling unwanted and threatened. The US immigrant population hovers near a record high, almost 14%. More than 44 million people living here were born elsewhere. Even before the pandemic, the fertility rate hit a record low. The populist impulse is not going to disappear.Trump’s inaugural address, replete with images of “American carnage”, is illustrative of the new conservative normal. Continetti quotes George W Bush: “That was some weird shit.” Nonetheless, on 20 January 2017, Trump struck a nerve.Continetti is mindful of broader trends, and the havoc assortative marriage has brought to society and politics. On that point, he gives Charles Murray his due. Continetti is pessimistic. Marriage predicated upon educational attainment has helped concentrate intellectual capital and financial advantage within a narrow caste.Twenty years ago, David Brooks, once Continetti’s colleague, described an idyllic urban existence, Bobos in Paradise. Those who can’t get in, however, face life in purgatory. The meritocracy got what it clamored for, only to discover it wasn’t loved by those it left behind.Continetti seemingly attempts to downplay similarities between Trump’s Maga movement and the hard-right in Europe. He omits all reference to Nigel Farage in Britain and Marine le Pen in France. Farage led Britain to Brexit and made a cameo appearance in Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the US. Le Pen twice forced Emmanuel Macron into a run-off for president.On the other hand, Continetti does capture how part of the US right adores Vladimir Putin: his authoritarianism, his unbridled nationalism, his disdain for classic liberalism.“Putin held the same allure for the national populist right that Che Guevara held for the cold war left,” Continetti writes. “No wonder President Trump was a fan of the Russian autocrat.”Continetti also says conservatism “anchored to Trump the man will face insurmountable obstacles in attaining policy coherence, government competence, and intellectual credibility”. Here, he stands on shaky ground.In 2016, Trump assembled a winning coalition and beat Hillary Clinton. In power, he loaded the federal judiciary. Whether Jeb Bush could have replicated such success is doubtful. As for intellectual credibility, in 2008 Kristol, Continetti’s mentor, helped pluck Sarah Palin from obscurity. And we all know where that led.In 2009, Continetti himself wrote The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star. He now says “attacks on Palin” caused him “to rally to her defense”. Intellectual slumming, more like it. Palin was unfit for the top job. She resigned as Alaska governor 18 months before her term expired.Continetti also argues that conservatism needs once again to embrace the Declaration of Independence, the constitution and the Bill of Rights.“One cannot be an American patriot without reverence for the nation’s enabling documents,” he says.January 6 demonstrates otherwise. Conservatism’s commitment to democracy and the constitution appears situational. Members of the conservative establishment provided intellectual sinew for America’s Caesar. It wasn’t just about Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and folks dressed as Vikings.The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of historyRead moreJohn Eastman, a former clerk to Clarence Thomas; Ted Cruz, a former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Mike Lee, son of Rex Lee, Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general. Together with Ginni Thomas, the justice’s wife, they played outsized roles around the Capitol attack. Fifteen months later, Eastman is in legal jeopardy, Cruz is under growing suspicion and Lee looks like a weasel. Ms Thomas merits our scorn.The reckoning Continetti hopes for may never arrive. Gas prices surge. Crime rises. Together, they portend a Republican midterm landslide. Such realities ushered in Reagan’s 1980 landslide over Jimmy Carter.A one-term Biden presidency looms. A second Trump term is a real possibility. The latest revelations surrounding Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell teach us that inconvenient truths are quickly discarded. In politics, a win is a win.
      The Right is published in the US by Basic Books
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsUS CongressDonald TrumpRepublicansThe far rightreviewsReuse this content More

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      JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican party

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      JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican partyTrump’s primary endorsement has split voters and the party in Ohio in a race already defined by ‘meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness’ “America’s Hitler.” “A total fraud.” “A moral disaster.” Those were a few of the descriptions that JD Vance, bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, once offered for Donald Trump. But none of that past criticism was evident here last Saturday night, as Vance shared a stage with Trump to accept the former president’s endorsement in the Ohio Senate Republican primary.“He’s the guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump said of Vance during his rally at the Delaware county fairgrounds. “If I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.”Taking the podium as the rally crowd chanted his name, Vance said, “The president is right. I wasn’t always nice, but the simple fact is, he’s the best president of my lifetime, and he revealed the corruption in this country like nobody else.”In less than six years, Vance has gone from a Trump skeptic who openly contemplated voting for Hillary Clinton to a devoted loyalist who has endorsed finishing the border wall and denounced identity politics as a Democratic gimmick. Vance’s radical shift reflects the larger transformation of the Republican party, as it has become nearly impossible to succeed in a primary as a Trump critic.The stakes are high for Republicans in Ohio, as they try to hold on to retiring Senator Rob Portman’s seat and ultimately regain control of the evenly divided upper chamber of Congress. The Republican candidate who wins the 3 May primary will probably face off against Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in the general election. The Republican primary winner, whoever it is, will then be favored to win in November, considering Trump defeated Joe Biden in Ohio by eight points in 2020.Trump endorses Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance in Ohio Republican primariesRead moreFor Trump, the Ohio Senate election also represents the biggest test yet for his most influential tool as party leader: a primary endorsement. Trump’s endorsement of Vance was considered a gamble, given that he had been trailing in the limited public polling of the race. Before Trump’s announcement, former state treasurer Josh Mandel and businessman Mike Gibbons were widely considered the two frontrunners in the primary. But a new poll released this week showed Vance pulling ahead of Mandel and Gibbons.“Before the Trump endorsement, I think JD was probably top of the second tier behind Gibbons and Mandel,” said Mike Hartley, who previously served as a senior adviser to former Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich. “I believe that the former president’s endorsement has made this race an actual toss-up.”Now Vance is counting on Trump’s endorsement to carry him to victory. And Trump is counting on that, too.“Meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness”When Vance announced his Senate candidacy last year, he began his campaign with a remorse tour, seizing every opportunity to explain his change of heart about Trump.“I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016,” Vance told Fox News last July. “I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”Vance’s groveling was successful in convincing the person whose opinion mattered most in the race: Trump. The former president announced earlier this month that he would endorse Vance, even though several candidates, including Mandel and Gibbons, had been openly campaigning for Trump’s support.“Like some others, JD Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades,” Trump said in his endorsement. “He is our best chance for victory in what could be a very tough race.”But Vance’s critics have not been so easily convinced. As reports emerged of the likely endorsement, Ohio Republican leaders who had backed other candidates circulated a letter urging Trump to reconsider. The letter noted that Vance had previously attacked some of Trump’s supporters as racist and chose to support independent candidate Evan McMullin in the 2016 presidential election, after he considered voting for Clinton.“I don’t have a problem with somebody changing their mind about somebody, and JD Vance has expressed on any number of occasions that he changed his mind as Trump held office,” Gibbons told the Guardian during an event with supporters in Powell, Ohio, last week. “What troubles me is that he actually kind of played with voting for Hillary Clinton. And I don’t think you can have a shred of conservative ideology to think for one second about voting for Hillary Clinton.”Despite the last-minute effort to prevent the endorsement, Trump went ahead with his plans to publicly back Vance. Rather than inspiring unity among Ohio Republicans, the endorsement appears to have injected even more vitriol into a race that was already defined by, as one columnist said, “meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness”.The conservative group Club for Growth, which has thrown its support behind Mandel in the race, has continued to air ads highlighting Vance’s past negative comments about Trump. This week, the group released a new ad arguing Trump had made the wrong choice in backing Vance and highlighting the former president’s 2012 endorsement of Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama.When Trump learned that Club for Growth, with whom he has worked in the past, was standing by its endorsement of Mandel, he reportedly had his assistant text the group’s president, “Go fuck yourself.”Trump’s closest allies have engaged in similar mudslinging, intent on proving that the former president’s endorsement is enough to guarantee victory in a close race. Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, who has campaigned with Vance in recent days, attacked Mandel on Twitter as the “Club for Chinese Growth backed establishment candidate”.Both Mandel and Vance have the backing of super PACs that have spent millions of dollars to aid their campaigns, making it even easier to flood the airwaves with attack ads. The pro-Vance group Protect Ohio Values has been propped up by $13.5m in donations from the tech investor Peter Thiel, who reportedly lobbied Trump directly for his endorsement. Meanwhile, Gibbons has mostly self-funded his run, lending more than $16m to his campaign.The cost of the primary has given Ohio Democrats, who have relished the ugliness of the Republican race, another opening to criticize the entire field of candidates.“It was already a race to the bottom, and Trump’s visit will make it a photo-finish to the gutter for this nasty, chaotic and expensive primary,” Elizabeth Walters, chair of the Ohio Democratic party, said ahead of the former president’s rally. “No matter which one of them hobbles out of the primary, we are ready to fight back and show working families that we’re on their side.”“I don’t have to follow Trump’s every whim”Vance is hoping that Trump’s endorsement will be enough to ensure he is the candidate who “hobbles out of the primary”, and there are indeed signs that he has picked up support. A Fox News poll taken after Trump’s announcement showed Vance leading Mandel by five points, although that advantage is within the survey’s margin of error. Gibbons is now trailing Vance by 10 points, the poll found.“The endorsement’s already given us a ton of momentum,” Vance told reporters after his town hall last week in Huber Heights, just outside Dayton. “It’s my race to lose, but at the end of the day, we still have to do the work.”At Vance’s town hall, several attendees said Trump’s endorsement had brought their attention to Vance in a new way. Judy Coeling, a 59-year-old primary voter from Centerville, said she had previously been deciding between Mandel and Gibbons, but Trump’s endorsement had prompted her to reconsider Vance.“I came just to find out more information because I had two other people in mind that I was kind of debating,” Coeling said. “I think he’s probably a lot stronger than what I gave him credit for.”Despite his opponents’ efforts to smear him for his past criticism of Trump, some of Vance’s supporters also said that they understood his negative opinion because they also once had their doubts about the former president.“I thought Trump had no chance, and then I saw how skilled he was,” said Evron Colhoun, a retiree from Englewood who volunteers with the Vance campaign. “I would say that I identified with that, too, because we had a similar evolution [with Trump]. I mean, I was really surprised that Vance got his endorsement, but I see why.”“I get where he’s coming from,” Brian Kitchen, a 48-year-old voter from Huber Heights, said of Vance’s past anti-Trump views. “I was a Kasich supporter, so I still have a Kasich bumper sticker on my other car.”Vance’s opponents have attempted to downplay the impact of the endorsement, claiming they have not seen a significant decline in their support. “I literally have gotten – and I’m not exaggerating – hundreds of texts saying, ‘We’re with you,’” Gibbons said. “I’ve only had one person that said they were switching their vote.”Will Trump’s ‘reckless’ endorsements be a referendum on his political power?Read moreStanding outside an early voting site in Columbus last week, Drew Sample, 37, said he had still voted for Gibbons because of his misgivings about Vance. “I don’t completely dislike him. I just don’t think he’s qualified to be senator,” Sample said. “He’s an opportunist. I think most of these guys are opportunists.”At the Trump rally in Delaware, some of the former president’s most ardent admirers were not persuaded by his endorsement of Vance. Jessica Dicken, a 31-year-old voter from Logan, said she would instead be supporting Mark Pukita, who has bragged about being unvaccinated and was accused of making an antisemitic ad about Mandel. (He denied that charge.)“I kind of think for myself,” Dicken said as she lined up hours early to enter the rally grounds. “I definitely support Trump, but I’m going to vote for my own Ohio primary who I feel is fit and who’s best.”Laura Beringer, another Pukita supporter from Akron standing a bit behind Dicken in line, added, “I love Trump, but he’s not perfect. I don’t have to follow his every whim. I have to go by what I feel.”Democrats are hoping they will be able to capitalize on those internal divisions in November and flip Portman’s seat. “Trump’s visit won’t unite the party,” Walters said. “All it really does is throw more fuel on the dumpster fire that is the Senate and gubernatorial races in Ohio on the Republican side.”But Republicans in Ohio – and across the country – have a number of factors working in their favor for November. The president’s party traditionally loses seats in Congress during the midterm elections, and Biden’s approval rating continues to languish in the low 40s. The Cook Political Report has rated the Ohio Senate race as “lean Republican”.“I think any of the [top candidates] will beat Tim Ryan,” Hartley said. “With this political environment, if a Republican doesn’t win, it’s going to be their own damn fault.”TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump claims he doesn’t have documents New York attorney general is seeking – as it happened

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      US politics liveUS politicsTrump claims he doesn’t have documents New York attorney general is seeking – as it happened
      Full report: judge denies Trump’s request to end contempt order
      Capitol attack panel set to issue letter to Kevin McCarthy
      Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates
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       Updated 1h agoRichard LuscombeFri 29 Apr 2022 16.06 EDTFirst published on Fri 29 Apr 2022 09.15 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More

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      Barr: it would be ‘big mistake’ for Republicans to nominate Trump in 2024

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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

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      Capitol attack panel set to issue letters to Kevin McCarthy and other key Republicans

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      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