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      A Sacred Oath review: Mark Esper on Trump, missiles for Mexico and more

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      A Sacred Oath review: Mark Esper on Trump, missiles for Mexico and more The ex-defense secretary’s memoir is scary and sobering – but don’t expect Republican leaders or voters to heed his warningMark Esper was Donald Trump’s second defense secretary. Like James Mattis, his predecessor, he fell from Trump’s grace. Six days after the 2020 election, the 45th president fired him, via Twitter. Unlike Mattis, Esper now delivers a damning tell-all.This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for DemocratsRead moreA Sacred Oath pulls no punches. It depicts Trump as unfit for office and a threat to democracy, a prisoner of wrath, impulse and appetite.Over 752 pages, Esper’s Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times are surgically precise in their score-settling. This is not just another book to be tossed on the pyre of Trump-alumni revenge porn. It is scary and sobering.Esper is a West Point graduate and Gulf war veteran. No one confuses him with Omarosa Manigault Newman, Cliff Simms or Chris Christie. Esper ignores Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway and barely mentions Melania Trump. He is complimentary toward Jared Kushner.In general, Esper disliked what he saw. Trump’s fidelity to process was close to nonexistent, his strategy “narrow and incomplete”, his “manner” coarse and divisive. The ends Trump “often sought rarely survived the ways and means he typically pursued to accomplish them”.The book captures Trump’s rage when advised that Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, lacked command authority over the active-duty and national guard troops Trump wanted to deploy against protesters in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.“‘You are losers!’ the president unloaded. ‘You are all fucking losers!’”In addition to Esper, Milley and William Barr, the attorney general, Trump also targeted Mike Pence.Esper writes: “He repeated the foul insults again, this time directing his venom at the vice-president as well, who sat quietly, stone-faced, in the chair at the far end of the semi-circle closest to the Rose Garden.“I never saw him yell at the vice-president before, so this really caught my attention.”Esper explains why he didn’t resign: “I didn’t think it was the right thing to do for our country.”His wife, Leah, framed it this way: “As your wife, please quit. As an American citizen, please stay.”The government attempted to censor A Sacred Oath, as it did The Room Where It Happened, a memoir by John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser. Fortunately, the powers that be buckled after Esper filed suit in federal court. Here and there, words are blacked out. The core of the story remains.At one point, Trump proposed launching “missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs”. The then-president said: “No one would know it was us.” He would simply deny responsibility. Esper looked at Trump. He was not joking.According to reports, the censors found this inflammatory. They did not, however, deny its veracity. Confronted with the story, Trump issued a “no comment”. Donald Trump Jr asked if his father’s scheme was “a bad thing”. Hunter Biden isn’t the only troublesome first son.Trump’s reliance on underlings who put their boss ahead of country distressed Esper too. Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, Robert O’Brien and Ric Grenell all receive attention. Little is good.Esper found their bellicosity grating. After a meeting with Trump’s national security council, Esper commented to Milley about its lack of military experience and eagerness for war with Iran.“We couldn’t help but note … the irony that only two persons in the room that had ever gone to war were the ones least willing to risk doing so now.”Esper offers a full-throated defense of Trump’s decision to kill Qassem Suleimani. The Iranian general had American blood on his hands and was planning an attack on US diplomats and military personnel.Esper also writes about the state of the union.“I was worried for our democracy,” he says. “I had seen many red flags, many warnings, and many inconsistencies. But now we seemed on the verge of crossing a dark red line.”In the summer of 2020, the unrest that followed the murder of Floyd transported Trump to a Stygian realm. In the run-up to the election, Esper feared Trump would seek to use the military to stay in office.Esper met Milley and Gen Daniel Hokanson, the general in charge of the national guard, in an attempt to avert that outcome.“The essence of democracy was free and fair elections, followed by the peaceful transition of power,” Esper writes.Ultimately, Trump did not rely on the military to negate election results – a path advocated by Mike Flynn, his first national security adviser. Instead, the drama played out slowly. By early January 2021, Milley was telling aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” as Trump preached “the gospel of the führer”.On 6 January, Trump and his minions unleashed the insurrection.“It was the worst attack on the Capitol since the war of 1812,” Esper writes. “And maybe the worst assault on our democracy since the civil war.”The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of historyRead moreYet Trump and Trumpism remain firmly in the ascendant. In Ohio, in a crucial Senate primary, Trump’s endorsement of JD Vance proved decisive. In Pennsylvania, his support for Mehmet Oz may prove vital too.Down in Georgia, Herschel Walker, Trump’s choice, is on a glide path to nomination. Walker’s run-ins with domestic violence and death threats pose no problem for the faithful. Even Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has bought in.Days ago, Esper told the New York Times Trump was “an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service”.Most Republicans remain unmoved. Esper is only an author. Trump spearheads a movement.
      A Sacred Oath is published in the US by William Morrow
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      Meadows texts reveal just how tight the Fox News-Trump embrace is

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      Meadows texts reveal just how tight the Fox News-Trump embrace is Messages show a staggering level of coordination between hosts such as Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo with the White House after the 2020 electionThrough the end of 2020 and the early part of 2021, as Donald Trump’s political world fell apart in the wake of his election loss, the former US president was receiving advice and aid from a range of sources.As Trump raged against non-existent election fraud, he took counsel from his actual staff. He also had help from acquaintances and associates like Rudy Giuliani.Chris Wallace: working at Fox News became ‘unsustainable’ after electionRead moreBut, less conventionally, Trump’s White House was also getting guidance from some of Fox News’ best-known personalities, in a level of coordination rarely, if ever, seen in top-level politics.The direct interactions between Trump’s administration and the Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo were revealed in leaked text messages from the phone of Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the November election and the January 6 insurrection.The texts, revealed by CNN, show how the lines between Fox News and the Trump White House had become jarringly blurred in Trump’s final months. On election day 2021 Hannity, the second-most watched host on Fox News, was texting Meadows asking which states he particularly needed to “push” – to encourage people to vote.On 29 November, an hour before Trump was to sit down for a first interview since losing the election, the president received a bit of help with his preparation; from Bartiromo, who sent her list of questions to Meadows, along with a suggestion.“Pls make sure he doesn’t go off on tangents,” Bartiromo wrote, a request that ultimately would go unheeded.In total, Meadows exchanged more than 80 text messages with Hannity between 3 November and 20 January, when Joe Biden was inaugurated. CNN obtained 2,319 of Meadows’s texts, which the former chief of staff had provided to the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.They show Hannity variously giving and asking for advice from the White House. After seeking direction on where he should help get out the vote, Hannity would later give Meadows suggestions on how Trump could fight the election results.The implications of a Fox News-Trump White House alignment are “scary”, said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, a media watchdog.“Because you cannot have any kind of functional authoritarian or anti-democratic environment unless you have some really powerful propaganda tools. And once you have this kind of synchronization, then basically what you have is a pretty important ingredient in order to drive a whole range of policies,” Carusone said.Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Brian Kilmeade were also in contact, to varying degrees, with Meadows over the three-month period, meaning a slew of Fox News personalities had their own lines into the White House. The select committee had previously released texts which showed Ingraham and Kilmeade pleading with Trump to intervene as his supporters swarmed the Capitol.“Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Ingraham wrote.In the wake of the texts being published Hannity, who was lightly reprimanded by Fox News in 2018 after he appeared on stage at a Trump rally, obliquely addressed the texts on his nightly show.“Yes, I’m a member of the press,” Hannity said.“I’m on the Fox News Channel – which is a news channel – but I don’t claim to be a journalist. I claim to be a talkshow host.” (“I’m a journalist,” Hannity said in an interview with the New York Times in 2017. “But I’m an advocacy journalist, or an opinion journalist.”)Coordination between rightwing media and Republican administrations is not necessarily new. Scott McClellan, press secretary under George W Bush, admitted working with Fox News on “talking points” during the 2004 presidential campaign, while Rolling Stone reported that John Moody, a top Fox News executive during the Roger Ailes era, wrote a memo to staff that Bush’s “political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting throughout the day”.What’s different this time, Carusone said, is that even though the network and Bush’s team “were in close alignment” in 2004, “they still felt independent”. As chairman and CEO of Fox News, Ailes had close control over the network’s editorial policy, and he alone would make decisions on direction. As Trump flailed in the dying days of his presidency, there was no Ailes-like figure to steer the coverage.“There was no gatekeeper. It’s not like the White House was coordinating with all the hosts back in the day,” Carusone said.“They were coordinating with Roger Ailes, who was doing the editorial meetings. He was functioning as the conduit for coordination. In this case, it was like a free-for-all.”The interaction between Fox News and Trump’s White House appears to have flowed both ways. Under Bush’s administration, it seemed to be the politicians leading the line, with Fox News supporting the president’s policies.Under Trump, it wasn’t so clear who was in charge of policy. According to Media Matters, Trump “tweeted in response to Fox News or Fox Business programs he was watching” 1,146 times from September 2018 through August 2020.To journalists, Bartiromo’s handing of questions to Trump’s team might seem to be the most egregious action.“1Q You’ve said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED… And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here. Then I will drill down on the fraud including the statistical impossibilities of Biden magic (federalist). Pls make sure he doesn’t go off on tangents. We want to know he is strong he is a fighter & he will win. This is no longer about him. This is about ????. I will ask him about big tech & media influencing ejection as well Toward end I’ll get to GA runoffs & then vaccines,” Bartiromo texted to Meadows an hour before the November interview.The interview, as CNN reported, mirrored the questions in Bartiromo’s message.Heather Hendershot, a professor of film and media at MIT who studies TV news and conservative media, said the advent of cable TV news, which began in the 1980s and accelerated through the 1990s – the Fox News channel was launched in 1996 – had prompted a change in acceptable, or permitted, journalistic standards.“In the pre-cable, network era, an anchorperson or reporter would obviously be fired – with no room for discussion – if it was found that he or she had provided questions in advance of an interview with a politician,” said Hendershot, who is writing a book about how coverage of protests at the 1968 Democratic convention contributed to a shattering of faith in US media.“This would be seen not simply as a political gaffe but perhaps even more strongly as a professional gaffe. The norms of journalistic practice dictated against this sort of behavior.“In 1963, Walter Cronkite of CBS interviewed JFK. Immediately following the interview, the president said he was unhappy with the interview and wanted a ‘do-over’. Cronkite did not hesitate: that was out of the question. They would run the interview as it had happened.”Today, Hendershot said, one can easily imagine the same scenario, where a president or politician was unhappy with an interview question, and requests another go at answering.“Would a network correspondent allow this?” Hendershot said.“Probably not. Would Fox News allow it? Definitely yes, but only for a Republican politician.”TopicsFox NewsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump sought strike on top Iran military figure for political reasons – Esper book

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      Trump sought strike on top Iran military figure for political reasons – Esper bookRobert O’Brien told top general shortly before 2020 election that Trump wanted to kill unnamed official, according to Esper memoir Shortly before the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, “stunned” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff by saying the president wanted to kill a senior Iranian military officer operating outside the Islamic Republic.“This was a really bad idea with very big consequences,” Mark Esper, Trump’s second and last secretary of defense, writes in his new memoir, adding that Gen Mark Milley suspected O’Brien saw the strike purely in terms of Trump’s political interests.I warned national guard of possible coup, Trump defense secretary saysRead moreA Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Throughout the memoir, Esper presents himself as one of a group of aides who resisted bad or illegal ideas proposed by Trump or subordinates – such as the proposed strike on the Iranian officer.Among other such ideas that were discussed, Esper says, were sending “missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs”; sending 250,000 troops to the southern border; and dipping the decapitated head of a terrorist leader in pig’s blood as a warning to other Islamist militants.Trump made belligerence towards Tehran an important part of his administration and platform for re-election, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and regularly warning in bombastic terms of the cost of conflict with the US.He also ordered a drone strike on a top Iranian general blamed for attacks on US targets. In January 2020, Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Quds force, was killed in Baghdad.At a meeting in July 2020, Esper writes, O’Brien pushed for military action against Iran over its uranium enrichment – work that accelerated after Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.Esper’s book is subject to occasional redactions. In this case, it says “O’Brien was pushing for” one blacked out word “and military action”. Esper says the vice-president, Mike Pence, “subtly lean[ed] in behind” O’Brien, who said: “The president has an appetite to do something.”Esper writes that Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, “jumped in to contradict this statement” and the moment passed.However, a month or so later, on 20 August, Esper says Milley told him O’Brien had called the evening before, to say “the president wanted to strike a senior military officer who was operating outside of Iran”.Esper writes: “Milley and I were aware of this person and the trouble he had been stirring in the region for some time. But why now? What was new? Was there an imminent threat? What about gathering the national security team to discuss this?“Milley said he was ‘stunned’ by the call, and he sensed that ‘O’Brien put the president up to this,’ trying to create news that would help Trump’s re-election.”Milley, Esper writes, told O’Brien he would discuss the request with Esper and others.“I couldn’t believe it,” Esper writes. “I had seen this movie before, where White House aides meet with the president, stir him up, and then serve up one of their ‘great ideas’. But this was a really bad idea with very big consequences. How come folks in the White House didn’t see this?”Fears that Trump might provoke war with Iran persisted throughout his presidency, stoked by reports of machinations among hawks on his staff. Such fears intensified as the 2020 election approached and Trump trailed Joe Biden in the polls.Esper book details Trump rage at Pence and proposal to hit Mexico with missilesRead moreIn September 2020, Trump tweeted: ““Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”In the case of O’Brien’s suggested strike on the Iranian officer, Esper writes that he told Milley he would do nothing without a written order from Trump.“There was no way I was going to unilaterally take such an action,” he writes, “particularly one fraught with a range of legal, diplomatic, political and military implications, not to mention that it could plunge us into war with Iran.”He also says the O’Brien call to Milley in late August was “the last time something involving Iran seriously came up before the election”.TopicsBooksIranMiddle East and north AfricaDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS national securitynewsReuse this content More

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of powerThe justice department has alleged that Oath Keepers leadership called the president’s confidant to allow them to use force Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, tried to get a Donald Trump confidant to ask the former US president to allow his group to forcibly stop the peaceful transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreThe previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Once the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership around 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington DC, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’s request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.Rhodes and his attorney were not immediately able to be reached for comment.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.Around 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson is the latest in a string of recent such indictments. In January, Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of powerJustice department alleges Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes called unidentified presidential confidant on January 6 to make request Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, asked an intermediary to get Donald Trump to allow his group to forcibly stop the transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.The previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreOnce the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership at about 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Rhodes, told the Guardian that he was uncertain about who his client called or whether the call took place.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.At about 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison – is the latest in a string of recent such indictments to members of the Oath Keepers. Wilson is cooperating with the the justice department in its criminal investigation into January 6.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump official interfered in report on Russian election meddling – watchdog

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      Trump official interfered in report on Russian election meddling – watchdogChad Wolf, then acting homeland security secretary, demanded changes and delayed report, risking perception of politicisation Chad Wolf, Donald Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, interfered with a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election by demanding changes, delaying its dissemination and creating a risk the report might be seen as politicised, a government watchdog said.Eventually declassified in March 2021, the report was a summary of foreign election interference into the 2020 election. It found that, as one headline put it, “Russia tried to help Trump in 2020, Iran tried to hurt him and China stayed out of it”.Chad Wolf: who is the Trump official leading the crackdown in Portland?Read moreBut before it was released, and two months before the election, an analyst in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) complained that Wolf, as well as his predecessor Kirstjen Nielsen and the deputy secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, had interfered with the report.According to the whistleblower, in mid-May 2020 Wolf instructed him “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran”.The analyst also said that in July 2020 he was ordered to delay the report because it “made the president look bad”.At the time, a DHS spokesman “flatly denied” the claim.On Tuesday, the office of the DHS inspector general released its own report. It found that DHS “did not adequately follow its internal processes and comply with applicable intelligence community policy standards and requirements when editing and disseminating an Office of Intelligence and Analysis [I&A] intelligence product regarding Russian interference in the 2020 US presidential election”.DHS employees, it said, “changed the product’s scope by making changes that appear to be based in part on political considerations”.Such changes, the report said, included the insertion of a “tone box” about China and Iran.“Additionally, the acting secretary [Wolf] participated in the review process multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product, resulting in the delay of its dissemination on at least one occasion.“The delays and deviation from I&A’s standard process and requirements [risked] creating a perception of politicisation. This conclusion is supported by I&A’s own tradecraft assessment, which determined that the product might be viewed as politicised.”Wolf is now head of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump thinktank. He told NBC News the watchdog “did not find any credible evidence that I directed anyone to change the substance of the report because it ‘made President Trump look bad’”.He also said it was “buried in the report … that the grossly false whistleblower complaint against me was withdrawn”.The withdrawal, “pursuant to an agreement with DHS”, is dealt with on page nine of 42 in the watchdog report.On page 11, the watchdog says: “Based on our interviews with relevant officials, as well as our document review, it is clear the acting secretary asked the acting USIA [under secretary for intelligence and analysis] to hold the product from its pending release.“We interviewed the acting USIA, who told us the acting secretary asked the product be held because it made President Trump look bad and hurt President Trump’s campaign – the concept that Russia was denigrating candidate Biden would be used against President Trump.“The acting USIA also told us he took contemporaneous notes of the meeting, a copy of which we obtained. The notes … read ‘AS1 – will hurt POTUS – kill it per his authorities’.“The acting USIA told us these notes meant that the acting secretary told him to hold the product because it would hurt President Trump.”The watchdog said Wolf and others denied that.Its report also included a 7 July email telling the acting USIA to “hold on sending this one out until you have a chance to speak to” Wolf. The watchdog said Wolf told it he wanted the delay because the report was poorly written.According to the watchdog, dissemination of the report was delayed again in August.TopicsTrump administrationUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel set to subpoena Trump allies, Republican Kinzinger says

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      Capitol attack panel set to subpoena Trump allies, Republican Kinzinger saysMembers of Congress involved in attempt to overturn election have refused to testify voluntarily before June public hearings

      This Will Not Pass review: Dire reading for Democrats
      The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will decide “in the next week or two” whether to issue subpoenas trying to force Republican lawmakers to testify about Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, one of two Republicans on the panel said on Sunday.‘A horrible plague, then Covid’: Biden and correspondents joke in post-Trump return to normalityRead more“If that takes a subpoena, it takes a subpoena,” Adam Kinzinger said.The Illinois congressman also told CBS’s Face the Nation public hearings planned for June will aim to “lay the whole story out in front of the American people … because ultimately, they have to be the judge” of Trump’s attempt to hold on to power.Kinzinger and nine other House Republicans voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol attack, which a bipartisan Senate committee linked to seven deaths.But Senate Republicans stayed loyal, acquitting Trump, and Kinzinger is one of four anti-Trump House Republicans who have since announced their retirements.He and Liz Cheney of Wyoming are the only Republicans on the January 6 committee.The June hearings, Kinzinger said, will involve laying out “what led to January 6, the lies after the election, fundraising, the 187 minutes the president basically sat in the Oval Office [as the Capitol was attacked] … the response by [the Department of Defense].“It’s important for us to be able to put that in front of the American people because ultimately, they have to be the judge. The Department of Justice will make decisions based on information but the American people … have to take the work we’ve done and decide what they want to do with it or what they want to believe.”Majorities of Republicans in Congress and in public polls believe – or choose to support and repeat – Trump’s lie that Biden stole the presidency via electoral fraud.Prominent Trump supporters in Congress who have advanced that lie and were involved in attempts to overturn the election before 6 January have refused to speak to the House committee.“I won’t say who I think we need to talk to yet,” Kinzinger said. “I mean, I think everybody needs to come and talk to us. We’ve requested information from various members.“In terms of whether we move forward with a subpoena, it’s going to be both a strategic tactical decision and the question of whether or not we can do that and get the information in time. Decisions we make every day.”Kinzinger added, “I think ultimately, whatever we can do to get that information. I think if that takes a subpoena, it takes a subpoena.“But I think the key is, regardless of even what some members of Congress are going to tell us, we know a lot of information … we’re going deeper with richer and more detail to show the American people.”Kinzinger said he would “love to see” Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president who ultimately refused to reject electoral college results on 6 January, testify before the committee.“I hope he would do so voluntarily,” he said. “These are decisions I think that we’re going to end up making from a tactical perspective in the next week or two, because we basically pinned down what this hearing schedule is going to look like, the content.“And as we go into the full narrative of this thing. I would hope and think that the vice-president would want to come in and tell this story, because he did do the right thing on that day. If he doesn’t, we have to look at the options we have available to us if there’s information we don’t already have.”Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseRead moreA lawyer for Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a far-right Republican congresswoman shown in court filings by the committee to have been in contact with the White House around 6 January, has claimed she was in fact a victim of the riot.“I’d love to ask her a few questions,” Kinzinger said. “We know some things. I won’t confirm or deny the text messages of course, but let me just say this.“For Marjorie Taylor Greene to say she’s a victim, it’s amazing … I mean, she assaulted I think a survivor … from a school shooting at some point in DC. She stood outside a congresswoman’s office and yelled through a mail slot and said [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] was too scared to come out and confront her.“And then when Marjorie Taylor Greene is confronted she’s all of a sudden a victim and a poor helpless congresswoman that’s just trying to do a job? That’s insane.“We want the information.”TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpMike PenceRepublicansUS politicsTrump administrationDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ him

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      Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ himArgument made in federal court filing in Washington, where Trump’s chief of staff sued to invalidate subpoenas Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has accused the congressional committee investigating the US Capitol attack of leaking all the text messages he provided in what he says is an effort to vilify him publicly.The argument was made in a filing on Friday in federal court in Washington, where Meadows sued in December to invalidate subpoenas issued for his testimony and to Verizon for his cellphone records.Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseRead moreIn the latest filing, lawyers asked a judge to reject the committee’s request for a ruling that could force Meadows to comply with the subpoenas. The committee requested an expedited briefing schedule on Wednesday after filing its motion the previous week.The lawyers say Meadows deserves a chance through the fact-gathering process known as discovery to gather information about questions still in dispute, such as the committee’s claims that Trump did not properly invoke executive privilege over the items subpoenaed because he did not communicate that position directly.“Mr Meadows cannot possibly know whether that unsupported contention is true without discovery – or whether the select committee had awareness of former president Trump’s assertions,” the motion states.It adds that Meadows must have the ability to obtain any communications between the committee and Trump and possibly to take depositions of people familiar with those discussions.The House voted in December to hold Meadows in criminal contempt after he ceased cooperating, referring the matter to the justice department, which has not said if it will take action. Meadows’ legal team has said he provided extensive cooperation but that the committee refused to respect Trump’s assertion of executive privilege.The motion by Meadows also accuses the committee of waging a “sustained media campaign” against him. Though it does not provide evidence, it says the committee has leaked all of the text messages Meadows has produced.“The congressional defendants, under the auspices of a legitimate subpoena, induced Mr Meadows to produce thousands of his private communications only to use them in a concerted and ongoing effort to vilify him publicly through the media,” Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, wrote in the motion.Court filings by the committee have shown Meadows was in regular contact before 6 January 2021 with Republican allies who advanced false claims of election fraud and supported overturning the race won by Joe Biden.A filing a week ago cited testimony from a White House aide who said Meadows was advised there could be violence on 6 January.The committee declined through a spokesperson to comment about Meadows’ accusations against the panel.TopicsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More