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      Trump's Republicans have dumped Lincoln – they're the Confederacy now | Lloyd Green

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      On Wednesday, the Republicans’ transition to the party of the Confederacy will be complete. A day after Georgia’s runoff elections, at least a dozen lawmakers in the Senate and more than half of the party’s House membership will seek to overturn the results of the 2020 election and disenfranchise the majority of US voters. A coup attempt in all but name, this is how democracy dies.Sadly, a statement issued on Saturday by seven sitting senators and four senators-elect dispelled any doubts about the nexus between the end of the US civil war, more than 150 years ago, and Donald Trump’s desperate attempt to cling to power. Predictably, America’s racial divide again stands front and center.After regurgitating for the umpteenth time unproven and unsubstantiated charges of electoral fraud, the senators invoked the election of 1876. Back then, the Democrats contested the outcome, conceding after the Republicans agreed to halt Reconstruction.As framed by Ted Cruz and his posse, “the most direct precedent” for their actions “arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race”. In their telling, “elections in three states” were “alleged to have been conducted illegally”. Left unsaid is that after the end of Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the toxic legacy of “separate but equal” followed.To these Republicans the right to vote is only for some of the people, some of the timeTo quote Mississippi’s William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Senators from states that were part of the Confederacy, or territory where slaveholding was legal, provide the ballast for Cruz’s demands. At least one senator each from Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas is on board.Apparently, Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, formerly vice-president to the first black man in the White House, and Kamala Harris, a black woman, is too much for too many to bear. Said differently, to these Republicans the right to vote is only for some of the people, some of the time – those people being this president’s supporters.Trump’s equivocation over Charlottesville, his debate shoutout to the Proud Boys and his worship of dead Confederate generals are of the same piece. The vestiges of an older and crueler social order are to be maintained, at all costs.Likewise, the reluctance of Trump appointees to the federal judiciary to affirm the validity of Brown v Board of Education, the supreme court ruling that said school segregation was unconstitutional, is a feature not a bug.As for the Declaration of Independence’s pronouncement that “All men are created equal”, and the constitution’s guaranty of equal protection under law, they are inconveniences to be discarded when confronted by dislocating demographics.“Stand back and stand by,” indeed.Since the civil war, there has always been a southern party, frequently echoing strains of the old, slave-owning south. Practically, that has meant hostility towards civil rights coupled with wariness towards modernity.To be sure, southern did not automatically equal neo-Confederate, but the distinction could easily get lost. And to be sure, the Democrats were initially the party of the south. During debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republicans gave Lyndon Johnson the votes he needed. Not anymore.Cruz and Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who kicked off the attempt to deny the electoral college result, are the products of places like Harvard, Stanford and Yale. John C Calhoun, the seventh vice-president, argued in favor of slavery and the right of states to secede. He went to Yale too. Joseph Goebbels had a doctorate from Heidelberg. An elite degree does not confer wisdom automatically.For the record, Cruz also clerked for a supreme court chief justice, William Rehnquist. Hawley did so for John Roberts.On Sunday, as the new Congress was being sworn in, a recording emerged of Trump unsuccessfully browbeating Georgia’s secretary of state into finding “11,780 votes, which is one more than we have”. From the sound of things, Trump’s fear of prosecutors and creditors, waiting for him to leave the White House, takes precedence over electoral integrity.Back in May, after Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, predicted 240,000 deaths from Covid, and as armed protests to public health measures grew, an administration insider conveyed that Trump’s America was becoming a “bit” like the “late” Weimar Republic. Eight months later, the death toll is past 350,000 and climbing unabated.Come nightfall on 6 January, the party of Abraham Lincoln will be no more. Instead, the specters of Jim Crow and autocracy will flicker. Messrs Trump, Cruz and Hawley can take a collective bow. More

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      'Traitors and patriots': Republican push to keep Trump in power seems doomed

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      All 12 Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college results on Wednesday, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend their move on television, a CNN host said on Sunday.
      “It all recalls what Ulysses S Grant once wrote in 1861,” Jake Tapper said on State of the Union, before quoting a letter the union general wrote at the outset of a civil war he won before becoming president himself: ‘There are [but] two parties now: traitors and patriots.’
      “How would you describe the parties today?” Tapper asked.
      The attempt to overturn Trump’s defeat seems doomed, a piece of political theatre mounted by party grandees eager to court supporters loyal to the president before, in some cases, mounting their own runs for the White House.
      Nonetheless on Saturday Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin led 11 senators and senators-elect in calling for “an emergency 10-day audit” of results in states where the president claims electoral fraud, despite failing to provide evidence and repeatedly losing in court.
      The senators followed Josh Hawley of Missouri – like Cruz thought likely to run for president in 2024 – in pledging to object to the electoral college result. A majority of House Republicans are also expected to object, after staging a Saturday call with Trump to plan their own moves.
      Democrats control the House and senior Senate Republicans are opposed to the attempt to disenfranchise millions – many of them African Americans in swing states – seemingly guaranteeing the attempt will fail. Nonetheless, Vice-President Mike Pence, who will preside over the ratification, welcomed the move by Cruz and others.
      A spokesman for Biden, Michael Gwin, said: “This stunt won’t change the fact that President-elect Biden will be sworn in on 20 January, and these baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trump’s own attorney general, dozens of courts, and election officials from both parties.”
      Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee now a senator from Utah, said: “The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our democratic republic.
      “…More Americans participated in this election than ever before, and they made their choice. President Trump’s lawyers made their case before scores of courts; in every instance, they failed.
      “…Adding to this ill-conceived endeavour by some in Congress is the president’s call for his supporters to come to the Capitol on the day when this matter is to be debated and decided. This has the predictable potential to lead to disruption, and worse.”
      Encouraged by Trump, far-right groups including the Proud Boys are expected to gather in Washington on Wednesday. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump's strategy: overturn result, cheat democracy | Editorial

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      This week, Donald Trump will undermine democracy in the US by supporting the claim that Democrat Joe Biden did not fairly win last November’s presidential election. A peaceful handover of power in a democracy requires losing candidates and their followers to admit defeat. But Mr Trump has manufactured a controversy purely to maintain power and to overturn a legitimate election.US courts have repeatedly thrown out Mr Trump’s evidence-free cases. This has not stopped the president’s accomplices in Congress. They, backed by Mr Trump’s vice-president, on Wednesday plan to challenge Mr Biden’s win to force a debate and votes in Congress. Some scholars point to a historical precedent as offering a slim, perhaps vanishing, chance that the nightmare will continue. Mr Trump will not let an opportunity pass to relitigate an election he lost.For the good of America, he must fail. The alternative is ultimately the collapse of political norms and civil strife. A classic demagogue, Mr Trump is signalling to his supporters that they, like him, should refuse to respect the election’s outcome and reject Mr Biden’s presidency. There is a well-grounded fear that protests could erupt, some of them armed. Mr Trump might call out the national guard or send federal agents to deal with demonstrations. This chaos, Mr Trump no doubt hopes, will pave the way for an autocratic takeover.Mr Trump is a sore loser who cannot stand that he was beaten in a fair election. He should move on but sees no reason why he should yield. After all, Mr Trump has not been punished for his transgressions against tradition, decency and the law. Instead, he has been rewarded. He thinks he can get away with almost anything. The Republican party has only itself to blame for incubating Trumpism, a parasitical ideology that threatens to take over the host.Mr Trump has thrown open the door to the argument of power rather than the power of argument in US electoral politics. With the help of social media, the president has polarised the electorate, building a “counter Republic” online, in which anger and fear are motivating emotions. In this world, the US apparently is being engulfed by socialism and liberal values. Mr Trump sells his chimerical fight as a necessary one, even if it cheats democracy itself. This has allowed him to frame the undoing of a presidential election as just an extension of other anti-democratic Republican tactics – such as gerrymandering and voter suppression – to constrain political opponents.Politicians in the US need to give up on the fantasy of a Trump second term. Questioning the integrity of the presidential election without proof of wrongdoing threatens the idea of liberal democracy. It leaves the US distracted by canards when its real problems are painfully obvious. No one outside of Trump’s orbit thinks that Washington DC ought to play host to rival inaugurations on 20 January. Mr Trump is not embracing chaos to express dissent. He is seeking to bring down the system that defeated him. More

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      Healthcare to the electoral college: seven ways 2020 left America exposed | Robert Reich

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      If America learns nothing else from these dark times, here are seven lessons it should take from 2020:1 Workers keep America going, not billionairesAmerican workers have been forced to put their lives on the line to provide essential services even as their employers failed to provide adequate protective gear, hazard pay, or notice of when Covid had infected their workplaces. Meanwhile, America’s 651 billionaires – whose net worth has grown by more than $1tn since the start of the pandemic – retreated to their mansions, yachts and estates.Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, sheltered in his 165,000-acre west Texas ranch while Amazon warehouse workers toiled in close proximity, often without adequate masks, gloves or sanitizers. The company offered but soon scrapped a $2 an hour hazard pay increase, even as Bezos’ wealth jumped by a staggering $70bn since March, putting his estimated net worth at roughly $186bn as the year came to an end.2 Systemic racism is killing Black and Latino AmericansBlack and Latino Americans account for almost 40% of coronavirus deaths so far, despite comprising less than a quarter of the population. As they’ve borne the brunt of this pandemic, they’ve been forced to fight for their humanity in another regard: taking to the streets to protest decades of unjust police killings, only to be met with more police violence.Among Native American communities, the coronavirus figures are even more horrifying. The Navajo Nation has had a higher per-capita infection rate than any state but cannot adequately care for the sick, thanks to years of federal underfunding and neglect of its healthcare system.Decades of segregated housing, pollution, lack of access to medical care, and poverty have left communities of color vulnerable to the worst of this virus, and the worst of America.3 If we can afford to bail out corporations and Wall Street, we sure as hell can afford to help peopleThe Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, continues to insist the nation cannot “afford” $2,000 survival checks for every American. But the latest relief legislation doled out more than $220bn to powerful business interests that could have been used for struggling working families.Another way of looking at it: the total cost of providing those $2,000 checks ($465bn) would be less than half the amount America’s 651 billionaires added to their wealth during the pandemic ($1tn).4 Healthcare must be made a rightEven before this crisis struck, an estimated 28 million Americans lacked health insurance. An additional 15 million lost employer-provided coverage because they lost their jobs. Without insurance, a hospital stay to treat Covid-19 cost as much as $73,000. Remember this the next time you hear pundits saying Medicare for All is too radical.5 Our social safety nets are woefully brokenNo other advanced nation was as unprepared for the pandemic as was the US. Our unemployment insurance system is more than 80 years old, designed for a different America. We’re one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t provide all workers some form of paid sick leave.Other industrialized nations kept unemployment rates low by guaranteeing paychecks. Americans who filed for unemployment benefits often got nothing, or received them weeks or months late. Under new legislation they get just $300 a week of extra benefits to tide them over.6 The electoral college must be abolishedJoe Biden won 7m more votes than Trump. But his winning margin in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin totaled just 45,000. Had Trump won those three states, he would have gained 37 electoral votes, tying Biden in the electoral college. This would have pushed the election to the House of Representatives, with each state delegation getting one vote. Even though Democrats have a majority in the House, more state delegations have Republican majorities. Trump would have been re-elected.The gap between the popular and electoral college vote continues to widen. The electoral college is an increasingly dangerous anachronism.7 Government mattersFor decades, conservatives have told us government is the problem and we should let the free market run its course. Rubbish. The coronavirus has shown yet again that the unfettered free market won’t save us. After 40 years of Reaganism, it’s never been clearer: government is in fact necessary to protect the public.It’s tragic that it took a pandemic, near-record unemployment, millions taking to the streets and a near-calamitous election for many to grasp how broken, racist and backwards our system really is. Biggest lesson of all: it must be fixed. More

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      Biden seeks term-defining wins in Georgia runoffs Trump called 'illegal'

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      Campaigning continued in Georgia on Saturday in two Senate runoff elections which will define much of Joe Biden’s first term in office.Regardless of Donald Trump’s bizarre New Year’s Day decision to call the runoffs “illegal and invalid”, the contests on Tuesday will decide control of the Senate and therefore how far Biden can reach on issues such as the pandemic, healthcare, taxation, energy and the environment.Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock must win to split the chamber 50/50. Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, would then act as tiebreaker as president of the Senate. Responding to that threat, Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have placed themselves squarely behind Trump, making hugely exaggerated claims about the dangers their opponents supposedly pose.In Perdue’s and Loeffler’s telling, a Democratic Senate would “rubber stamp” a “socialist agenda”, from “ending private insurance” and “expanding the supreme court” to adopting a Green New Deal that would raise taxes by thousands each year.Besides misrepresenting the policy preferences of Biden and most Democratic senators, that characterization ignores the reality of a Senate in which centrist Democrats and Republicans are set for a key role.At one campaign stop this week, Ossoff said Perdue’s “ridiculous” attacks “blow my mind”. He also scoffed at the claim that his ideas, aligned closely with Biden, amount to a leftist lunge. But he agreed with his opponent on how much Georgia matters.“We have too much good work to do,” Ossoff said, “to be mired in gridlock and obstruction for the next few years.”Ossoff also made headlines this week with his response to a Fox News reporter about Loeffler’s claims that her opponent, Warnock – pastor of a church formerly led by Martin Luther King Jr – is “dangerous” and “radical”.“Here’s the bottom line,” Ossoff said. “Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman and so she is stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she’s been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”The claim was misleading: Loeffler was pictured with a former member of the Klan but did not campaign with him. Loeffler responded by calling Ossoff “a pathological liar” and “a trust-fund socialist whose only job has been working for the Chinese Communist party in recent years”, a reference to payments to Ossoff’s media company from a Hong Kong conglomerate.Perdue entered quarantine this week after exposure to Covid-19. He and Loeffler must also contend with a deepening Republican split over Trump’s refusal to concede defeat in the presidential election.Trump has spread unfounded assertions of voter fraud and blasted Georgia Republicans including the governor, Brian Kemp, who have defended the elections process, attacks which led to his Friday night tweet about the legality of the runoffs. As Perdue and Loeffler have backed up Trump’s claims, some Republicans have expressed concern it could discourage loyalists from voting. Others are worried the GOP candidates have turned off moderates repelled by Trump.“No Republican is really happy with the situation we find ourselves in,” said Chip Lake, a longtime Georgia Republican consultant. “But sometimes when you play poker, you have to play the hand you’re dealt, and for us that starts with the president.”Trump will visit Georgia for a final rally with Loeffler on Monday evening, hours before polls open. It is unclear whether Perdue will attend.Democrats are fine with their opponents’ decision to run as Trump Republicans and use exaggerated attacks.“We talk about something like expanding Medicaid. We talk about expanding Pell grants” for low-income college students, Ossoff said at a recent stop in Marietta, north of Atlanta. “David Perdue denounces those things as socialism?”Ossoff noted Perdue’s claims that a Democratic Senate would abolish private health insurance. Ossoff and Warnock in fact back Biden’s proposal to add a federal insurance plan to private insurance exchanges.“I just want people to have the choice,” Ossoff said.Biden beat Trump by about 12,000 votes out of 5m in Georgia, making him the first Democrat to carry the state since 1992. His record vote total for a Democrat in the state was fueled by racially and ethnically diversifying metropolitan areas but also shifts in key Atlanta suburbs where white voters have historically leaned Republican.Yet Perdue landed within a few thousand votes of Trump’s total and led Ossoff by about 88,000. Republican turnout also surged in small towns and rural areas and Democrats disappointed down-ballot, failing to make expected gains.“We’ve won this race once already,” Perdue has said. His advisers think they can corral the narrow slice of swing voters by warning against handing Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House.Biden sold himself as a uniter and a seasoned legislative broker. But even a Democratic-held Senate would not give him everything he wants, as rules still require 60 votes to advance most major legislation. Biden must win over Republicans.A Democratic Senate would, however, clear a path for nominees to key posts, especially on the federal judiciary, and bring control of committees and floor action. A Senate led by current majority leader Mitch McConnell almost certainly would deny major legislative victories, as it did in Barack Obama’s tenure.Biden will travel to Atlanta on Monday to campaign with Ossoff and Warnock. Harris will campaign on Sunday in Savannah. In his last visit, Biden called Perdue and Loeffler “roadblocks” and urged Georgians “to vote for two United States senators who know how to say the word ‘yes’ and not just ‘no’.” More

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      'Family detention still exists': immigration groups warn the fight is far from over

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      Few people have been as closely involved with family separation and reunification as attorney Erika Pinheiro, one of the leaders of the immigration advocacy group Al Otro Lado.And though Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election puts an end to Donald Trump’s laser focus on restricting all forms of immigration, Pinheiro wants people to understand that the fight for immigrant rights in the country is far from over.“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Pinheiro, Al Otro Lado’s litigation and policy director, said. “It’s not a given that everyone will be reunified, or families, babies are going to be let out of cages – family detention still exists.”Al Otro Lado has offices on both sides of the border, where it assists immigrants with family reunification, detention, access to healthcare, asylum, deportation and other issues.It was founded in 2011 and was volunteer run until Trump won the 2016 election on an anti-immigrant platform. The group’s leaders then committed to the work as a full-time, paying job.It has been a grueling four years. Pinheiro said the Trump administration caused her to question how she could be an attorney when laws were changing each week and the government did not seem interested in following the ones which remained. “Just the baseline of being able to do our jobs as attorneys was thrown into chaos,” Pinheiro said.There was the added factor of responding to atrocities a tired, exhausted world didn’t want to, or couldn’t, process.“It felt in many instances that it was screaming into the ether about people dying at the border, people suffering all these horrific human rights violations,” she said. “And some of it got through to the public, like family separation, but a lot of it didn’t.”With Covid, the group’s work has expanded even more.“We also have had to do emergency food assistance, quarantine housing for medically vulnerable families,” Pinheiro said. “We’ve supported a dozen shelters in getting clean water and food and PPE, we have helped raise the capacity of several medical organizations here on the border to make sure our clients would have access to any care.”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bars asylum seekers and refugees from the US under an order called Title 42. People who attempt to cross the border are returned, or expelled, back to Mexico, without an opportunity to test their asylum claims. More than 250,000 migrants processed at the US-Mexico border between March and October were expelled, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.The situation is dire. Thousands of asylum-seekers are stuck at the border, uncertain when they will be able to file their claims. The camps they wait in are an even greater public health risk that before.Outside the border, Al Otro Lado has fought for detained migrants to get PPE and medical releases. Prisons are one of the worst possible places to be when there is a contagious disease and deaths in the custody of US immigration authorities have increased dramatically this year. They have also provided supplies to homeless migrants in southern California who have been shut out of public hygiene facilities.Pinheiro said there will be improvements with Trump out of office, but some of the Biden campaign promises to address asylum issues at the border will be toothless until the CDC order is revoked. It’s a point she plans to make in conversations with the transition team.A prime concern for advocates about the Biden administration is that it will include some of the same people from Barack Obama’s administration, which had more deportations than any other president and laid the groundwork for some controversial Trump policies.While it is a worry for Pinheiro, she has hope that the new administration will build something better. “I would hope a lot of those people, and I know for some of them, have been able to reflect on how the systems they built were weaponized by Trump to do things like family separation or detaining children,” she said.Family separation, which has left 545 children still waiting to be reunited with their parents, was a crucial issue for many voters and Pinheiro hopes that energy translates to other immigration policies.“How did you feel when your government committed the atrocity of family separation in your name?” Pinheiro said. “The next step is really understanding that similar and sometimes worse atrocities are still being committed in the name of border security and limiting migration.” More

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      From Sarah Cooper to Fiona Hill: the ‘stars’ of the Trump era who emerged from obscurity

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      Millions of lives across America and the world were touched by Donald Trump’s unlikely candidacy and presidency.But some were upended completely, resulting in life-changing or career-ending experiences and instant fame or notoriety as four incredibly tumultuous and norm-shattering years played out.Here are 20 examples of those who emerged from relative obscurity to become “stars” of the Trump era.The lawyer: Michael AvenattiThe “smashmouth” lawyer represented Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor, in her lawsuits against Donald Trump and relished goading the US president’s children on social media with the hashtag “#Basta”, meaning “enough”. He even flirted with running for president. But his relationship with Daniels soured and his fall from grace was complete in February when he was convicted of trying to extort more than $20m from Nike. The political guru: Steve BannonThe former naval officer and rightwing media executive went from marginal status to arguably the second most powerful man in Washington. Chairman of Trump’s election campaign and briefly White House chief strategist, he was doomed by clashes with the president’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Branded “Sloppy Steve” by Trump, he faded into the background and in August was arrested and charged with fraud over an online fundraising scheme to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.The unexpected politician: Juli BriskmanA split-second decision changed everything. In 2017 Briskman gave the middle finger to Trump as she cycled alongside the president’s motorcade outside his golf club in Virginia. Photos of the incident went viral and the marketing company she worked for swiftly dismissed her. Two years later, Briskman ran for election to the Loudoun county board of supervisors and won, ousting a Republican. It was a neat symbol of how the Trump years caused a political awakening among ordinary citizens.The comic: Sarah CooperRelatively late in the Trump’s presidency, comedian Sarah Cooper became an internet sensation by posting videos of her lip-syncs to the president’s remarks, complete with hilarious facial expressions. Her meteoric rise earned her a slot at the virtual Democratic national convention. Cooper told the New York Times: “My success is forever linked to this person that I absolutely hate.”The odd couple: George and Kellyanne ConwayThe marriage of lawyer George Conway, one of Trump’s most ardent critics, and Kellyanne Conway, the first woman to run a winning presidential campaign, was the most intriguing in Washington. George gained attention with sardonic tweets and occasional interviews as Kellyanne staunchly defended the president’s “alternative facts” and other offences before quitting in August this year.The soldier: Michael FlynnThe retired three-star army lieutenant-general led a “Lock her up!” chant about Hillary Clinton at the Republican national convention but spent just 23 days as Trump’s national security adviser. He twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia and faced a possible prison term, only to be granted a pardon by Trump. He is now urging the president to declare martial law in an effort to overturn the 2020 election result.The heroine: Christine Blasey FordOne of the most divisive moments of a divisive presidency came in September 2018 when psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford appeared before a Senate committee to quietly but firmly accuse Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by Trump for the supreme court, of sexual assault in 1982. “I am here today not because I want to be,” she said. “I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty.” Kavanaugh was confirmed.The music man: Rob GoldstoneThe Manchester-born tabloid journalist turned music publicist was catapulted into the spotlight by his email setting up a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer in June 2016. Goldstone voluntarily testified to multiple congressional committees, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and a grand jury. He later published a memoir and launched a podcast.The Trump cheerleader: Kimberly GuilfoyleThe ex-wife of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and former Fox News personality became a prominent Trump cheerleader and girlfriend of his eldest son, Don Jr. She spoke often at campaign rallies but her greatest moment came at this year’s virtual Republican national convention when her high-octane speech (to an empty room) including a primal scream: “The best is yet to come!”The reporter: Maggie HabermanMedia columnist Ben Smith wrote that his New York Times colleague had “one of the most astonishing runs in the history of American journalism”. The hugely prolific Haberman, who joined the paper with little fanfare in 2015, produced many of the greatest scoops about Trump’s presidency, during which journalism never seemed more vital. She landed a book deal with publication due in 2022.The PR: Hope HicksA former model, she joined Trump’s election campaign in 2015 at the age of 26 and was with him all the way, eventually becoming communications director at the White House. She then left for the Fox Corporation, only to return earlier this year and, in October, she made rare public remarks at a Trump rally in Florida. She also tested positive for the coronavirus.The witness: Fiona HillA coalminer’s daughter from County Durham in the UK, she became senior director for Europe and Russia in the White House national security council and an eyewitness to Trump’s encounters with President Vladimir Putin. Hill became a political star during Trump’s impeachment hearings with her cool, meticulous testimony, urging Republicans to stop pushing the “fictional narrative” that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.The dignified father: Khizr KhanBefore the 2016 election, Khan stood at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia and told how his son, an American Muslim and army captain, died in Iraq, then delivered a searing critique of Trump’s threats to ban Muslim immigrants. Spurred into action, he carried out more than 280 speaking engagements in America and beyond, including the Democratic convention in 2020.The pillow guy: Mike LindellThe chief executive of pillow maker MyPillow became a major Trump donor and cheerleader at his campaign rallies. He chaired the president’s re-election effort in Lindell’s native Minnesota. When that effort failed, Lindell reportedly said he had spent more than $1m to bankroll efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory and called for Trump to declare martial law in Minnesota.The late-night host: Trevor NoahThe South African comedian had big shoes to fill, taking over from Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in 2015. But Noah won plaudits not only for his sense of humor but his deadly serious monologues – and global perspective – on topics such as the Black Lives Matter protests and interviews with figures such as Barack Obama.The FBI agents: Lisa Page and Peter StrzokStrzok was among leaders of the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But he was fired from the FBI when it revealed he had been swapping anti-Trump text messages with Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair (she also left the FBI). After lying low, Stzrok published a memoir, entitled Compromised, and Page resurfaced on Twitter.The Mooch: Anthony ScaramucciThe little-known banker and hedge fund founder was hired by Trump as communications director in 2017, despite the objections of the press secretary, Sean Spicer, who resigned in protest. Scaramucci’s debut in the briefing room was flamboyantly swaggering and ended with an air kiss to the press corps. “The Mooch” lasted just 11 days, felled by an indiscreet interview, but re-emerged as a trenchant Trump critic.The press secretary: Sean SpicerTrump ran through four White House press secretaries but none captured the imagination like Spicer, with an assist from Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live. His debut briefing in an ill-fitting suit included the false claim that Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd ever. Spicer went on to write books and become a host on the pro-Trump TV channel Newsmax.The interviewer: Jonathan SwanThe Australian political reporter, formerly at the Sydney Morning Herald, moved to the US in 2014 to work as a congressional aide. He joined the Axios website in 2016 and became a must-read for both political news and palace intrigue. Swan won plaudits in 2020 for subjecting Trump to a grilling rivalled only by Chris Wallace of Fox News; Swan’s perplexed expressions proved irresistible to meme makers.The immigrant: Alexander VindmanThe national security aide, whose family fled the Soviet Union when he was three, offered key testimony during the Trump impeachment hearings and, in apparent retaliation, was ousted from his job on the national security council. Vindman announced his retirement in July and is writing a memoir called Here, Right Matters: An American Story. More

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      Trump's Blackwater pardons an affront to justice, say UN experts

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      Donald Trump’s pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated US obligations under international law, United Nations human rights experts have said.Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter over an incident in which US contractors opened fire in busy traffic in a Baghdad square and killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.The four contractors, who worked for the private security firm Blackwater, owned by the brother of Trump’s education secretary, were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House.“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, the chair of the UN working group on the use of mercenaries.The group said the Geneva conventions obliged states to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they are acting as private security contractors. “These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level,” it said.By allowing private security contractors to “operate with impunity in armed conflicts”, states would be emboldened to circumvent their obligations under humanitarian law, the group said.The pardons have been strongly criticised by many in the US. Gen David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, respectively the commander of US forces and the US ambassador in Iraq at the time of the incident, called Trump’s pardons “hugely damaging, an action that tells the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous crimes with impunity”.In a statement announcing the pardons, the White House said the move was “broadly supported by the public” and backed by a number of Republican lawmakers. More