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      House January 6 committee to consider holding two Trump aides in contempt

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      House January 6 committee to consider holding two Trump aides in contemptPanel to meet next week after former senior White House advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino refused to appear for depositions The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack will consider holding in criminal contempt of Congress next week two of Donald Trump’s most senior White House advisers, Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, the panel announced on Thursday.The move to initiate contempt proceedings against the two Trump aides amounts to a biting rebuke of their refusal to cooperate with the inquiry, as the panel deploys its most punitive measures to reaffirm the consequences of noncompliance.House investigators said in a notice that it would consider a contempt report against Scavino and Navarro in a business meeting scheduled for next Monday on Capitol Hill, after they defied subpoenas compelling them to provide documents and testimony.Republican says Trump asked him to ‘rescind’ 2020 election and remove Biden from officeRead moreThe select committee is expected to vote unanimously to send the contempt report for a vote before the House of Representatives, according to a source close to the panel, so that the Trump aides can be referred to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee took a special interest in Scavino, since, as Trump’s former deputy chief of staff for communications, he was intimately involved in a months-long effort by the Trump White House to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Scavino was also closely involved in the scheme to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election at the joint session of Congress on January 6, according to his subpoena, first issued in October last year.The select committee sought information from Navarro since he knew of that scheme to have Pence return Trump to office, through his contacts with the former president and the Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel in Washington that oversaw its implementation.Navarro was briefed on the scheme – called the “Green Bay Sweep” – by the political operatives responsible for the operation at the Willard, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who was also indicted for contempt last year for subpoena defiance.The Guardian has reported that Trump discussed ways to stop Biden’s certification from taking place with the Willard war room hours before the Capitol attack, based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud that originated in part from Navarro’s aides.However, the select committee’s move to consider contempt reports against the two Trump aides indicate neither one complied with their subpoena. Their contempt reports are expected to be made public Sunday, said a source familiar with the matter.The panel had sought to negotiate Scavino’s testimony for months, suggesting House investigators hoped he might be prepared to shed light on the nexus between the Willard operation and the White House in the days leading up to the Capitol attack.But the abrupt termination of talks suggests that the select committee now has enough information from more than 750 depositions with other witnesses that Scavino’s cooperation is no longer essential, and can now refer him for prosecution.The much shorter timeline between Navarro’s subpoena on 9 February and the contempt report may similarly indicate the panel no longer has a burning need for his testimony – or that it was worth spending time negotiating to get his insight.Navarro entirely skipped his deposition, scheduled for 2 March, claiming that as a former top White House aide, he enjoyed immunity from congressional subpoenas after Trump, as the former president, asserted executive privilege.A spokesperson for the select committee did not respond to a request for comment.Once the select committee adopts a contempt report, it is referred to the full House for a vote. Should the House approve the report, Congress can then send the request for a criminal referral to the US attorney for the District of Columbia.The move to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings against Scavino and Navarro marks the third time the panel has pursued such action. Bannon was held in contempt last October, and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was referred in December.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump White House aide was secret author of report used to push ‘big lie’

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      Trump White House aide was secret author of report used to push ‘big lie’Report on Dominion voting machines produced after 2020 election was not the work of volunteer in Trump’s post-election legal team Weeks after the 2020 election, at least one Trump White House aide was named as secretly producing a report that alleged Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden because of Dominion Voting Systems – research that formed the basis of the former president’s wider efforts to overturn the election.The Dominion report, subtitled “OVERVIEW 12/2/20 – History, Executives, Vote Manipulation Ability and Design, Foreign Ties”, was initially prepared so that it could be sent to legislatures in states where the Trump White House was trying to have Biden’s win reversed.Trump lawyer knew plan to delay Biden certification was unlawful, emails showRead moreBut top Trump officials would also use the research that stemmed from the White House aide-produced report to weigh other options to return Trump to the presidency, including having the former president sign off on executive orders to authorize sweeping emergency powers.The previously unreported involvement of the Trump White House aide in the preparation of the Dominion report raises the extraordinary situation of at least one administration official being among the original sources of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The publicly available version of the Dominion report, which first surfaced in early December 2020 on the conservative outlet the Gateway Pundit, names on the cover and in metadata as its author Katherine Friess, a volunteer on the Trump post-election legal team.But the Dominion report was in fact produced by the senior Trump White House policy aide Joanna Miller, according to the original version of the document reviewed by the Guardian and a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.The original version of the Dominion report named Miller – who worked for the senior Trump adviser Peter Navarro – as the author on the cover page, until her name was abruptly replaced with that of Friess before the document was to be released publicly, the source said.The involvement of a number of other Trump White House aides who worked in Navarro’s office was also scrubbed around that time, the source said. Friess has told the Daily Beast that she had nothing to do with the report and did not know how her name came to be on the document.It was not clear why Miller’s name was removed from the report, which was sent to Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani on 29 November 2020, or why the White House aide’s involvement was obfuscated in the final 2 December version. Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Dominion report made a number of unsubstantiated allegations that claimed Dominion Voting Systems corruptly ensured there could be “technology glitches which resulted in thousands of votes being added to Joe Biden’s total ballot count”.Citing unnamed Venezuelan officials, the report also pushed the conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems used software from the election company Smartmatic and had ties to “state-run Venezuelan software and telecommunications companies”.After the Dominion report became public, Navarro incorporated the claims into his own three-part report, produced with assistance from his aides at the White House, including Miller and another policy aide, Garrett Ziegler, the source said.Ziegler has also said on a rightwing podcast that he and others in Navarro’s office – seemingly referring to Trump White House aides Christopher Abbott and Hannah Robertson – started working on Navarro’s report about two weeks before the 2020 election took place.“Two weeks before the election, we were doing those reports hoping that we would pepper the swing states with those,” Ziegler said of the three-part Navarro report in an appearance last July on The Professor’s Record with David K Clements.The research in the Dominion report also formed the backbone of foreign election interference claims by the former Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, who argued Trump could, as a result, assume emergency presidential powers and suspend normal law.That included Trump’s executive order 13848, which authorized sweeping powers in the event of foreign election interference, as well as a draft executive order that would have authorized the seizure of voting machines, the Guardian has previously reported.The claims about Venezuela in the Dominion report appear to have spurred Powell to ask Trump at a 18 December 2020 meeting at the White House – coincidentally facilitated by Ziegler – that she be appointed special counsel to investigate election fraud.Miller’s authorship of the Dominion report was not the last time the Trump White House, or individuals in the administration, prepared materials to advance the former president’s claims about a stolen election and efforts to return himself to office.The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack revealed last year it had found evidence the White House Communications Agency produced a letter for the Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark to use to pressure states to decertify Biden’s election win.TopicsUS elections 2020Trump administrationUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      One Damn Thing After Another review: Bill Barr’s self-serving screed

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      One Damn Thing After Another review: Bill Barr’s self-serving screed Donald Trump’s attorney general wants you to know the bad stuff wasn’t his fault and the media and Democrats were nastyTake Bill Barr literally, but not too seriously. One day before his memoir was published, the former attorney general told NBC he would vote for Donald Trump for president in 2024, if Trump were the Republican nominee. For all Barr’s protestations about how the man was unsuited to the job, he continues to resist being banished from Trump’s garden.William Barr: Trump is full of bull – but I’ll vote for himRead moreSaid differently, Barr’s memoirs are best viewed as just one more installment of Trump-alumni performance art.As a read, One Damn Thing After Another delivers the expected. Barr gives Trump a thumbs-up for galvanizing the Republican white working-class base, satisfying social conservatives and meeting the demands of donors.At the same time, Barr lets us know suburbia came to find Trump offensive and insists that in the end, Trump crashed and burned despite Barr’s best efforts. Ultimately, like everyone else the 45th president ceased to find useful, Barr was simply spat out – a reality his memoir does at least acknowledge.The book is informative – to a point. As expected, Barr omits relevant facts and engages in score-settling. It’s a first-person tell-all, after all.Barr records the suicide in federal custody of Jeffrey Epstein, predator and friend of presidents Trump and Clinton. He makes no mention of the fact that his own father, Donald Barr, gave Epstein one of his first jobs, as a high-school math teacher at the Dalton school, a tony Manhattan establishment. Even then, former students have said, Epstein creeped out young women.Barr was attorney general for the first time under George HW Bush. In his book, he attacks Democrats and the media for their pursuit and coverage of “Iraqgate” and the US government’s extension of loan guarantees to Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the invasion of Kuwait. Barr singles out William Safire, the late Nixon speechwriter and New York Times columnist, for special condemnation.A Clinton administration investigation cleared Barr of legal wrongdoing – a fact he rightly emphasizes. But he neglects to mention that in October 1989, Bush signed National Security Directive 26, which effectively boosted Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran. From there, things didn’t exactly work out as planned. The president and his team overly emboldened Saddam. His unprovoked land grab was an unintended consequence of a policy pivot.Barr lets us know he grew up in a loving home, a product of a Catholic education, a player of the bagpipes. He attended the Horace Mann school in Riverdale, an affluent part of the Bronx. As Barr notes, the school was liberal and predominately Jewish.As a Columbia undergraduate, he stood against Vietnam war protesters. His antipathy toward the radical left is longstanding. He joined the Majority Coalition, a group of students and faculty members who defended the main administration building. As recorded by the late Diana Trilling, some rioters had no qualms about trashing the school, then demanding academic honors.Unstated by Barr is the operative campus divide, “Staten Island v Scarsdale”: conservative, often Catholic students from the blue-collar outer borough versus liberal, often Jewish students from the well-heeled suburbs. Though far from working class, Barr was firmly in the first camp.Barr came by his conservatism organically. His father served in the second world war. His older brother fought in Vietnam. In 1964, Barr helped his dad distribute campaign literature for Barry Goldwater’s ill-fated presidential campaign. Amid the turmoil of the 60s, Barr yearned for the stability of yesterday. He still does: he is a culture warrior in a Brooks Brothers suit.He takes shots at James Comey and Robert Mueller, key figures in the Russia investigation. Of course he does. He also takes aim at Lawrence Walsh, special counsel in Iran-Contra. Barr accuses Walsh, now dead, of torpedoing Bush’s campaign comeback in ’92 by filing election-eve charges against Casper Weinberger, Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary. Barr’s ire is understandable.But he also offers up a full-throated defense of his own decision to drop government charges against Michael Flynn, despite the Trump ally’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI and, later, demand for martial law. Furthermore, Barr says nary a word in response to the volley of criticism he earned from the federal bench.In spring 2020, Judge Reggie Walton, a George W Bush appointee, “seriously” questioned the attorney general’s integrity and credibility. To drive home the point, to describe Barr’s behavior over the Russia report, Walton deployed words like “distorted” and “misleading”.Emmett Sullivan scorned Barr’s legal gymnastics over Flynn. Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the government had to turn over a memorandum it relied upon in declining to prosecute Trump. Her take was lacerating. Not only had Barr been personally “disingenuous” by announcing his decision before Mueller’s report was released, Berman Jackson said, but the Department of Justice itself had been “disingenuous to this court”.Insurgency review: how Trump took over the Republican partyRead moreSuffice to say, Walton, Sullivan and Berman Jackson do not appear in Barr’s book.As luck would have it, though, Barr does take aim at Joe Biden for his stance on Russia. “Demonizing [Vladimir] Putin is not a foreign policy,” Barr writes, nor “the way grown-ups should think”.Really? Looks like Barr didn’t have an invasion of Ukraine on his bingo card. Trump’s admiration for Putin, of course, continues.As it turned out, Barr wasn’t alone in spilling his guts to NBC. In a letter to Lester Holt, its lead anchor, Trump wrote of his former attorney general: “He is groveling to the media, hoping to gain acceptance that he doesn’t deserve.”So true.
      One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General is published in the US by HarperCollins
      TopicsBooksWilliam BarrUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More

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      William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignored

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      William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignoredThe two-time attorney general portrays himself as a bulwark against his former boss – but his accounts are highly selective In his new book, Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr complains that in the US, the “most educated and influential people are more attached to self-serving narratives than to factual truth”. Barr book reveals Trump’s secret to a ‘good tweet’: ‘just the right amount of crazy’Read moreBut in his own narrative of his tumultuous time as Trump’s top lawyer, Barr regularly omits inconvenient truths or includes self-serving versions of events previously reported with his evident input.Barr was only the second US attorney general to fill the role twice, working for George HW Bush from 1991 to 1993, then succeeding Jeff Sessions in 2019. His memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, will be published on 8 March. Excerpts have been reported by US news outlets. The Guardian obtained a copy.As widely reported, Barr defends himself from accusations that he was too close to Trump and acted to shield him over the Russia investigation and Robert Mueller’s final report on election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.He defends his decision to say Trump did not seek to obstruct justice during Mueller’s work, despite Mueller laying out 10 possible instances of such potentially criminal conduct.Barr also defends his decision to seek to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn and to lessen the sentence handed to Roger Stone, Trump allies convicted as a result of the Russia investigation.On other controversies, Barr’s accounts are often highly selective or noticeably incomplete.In June 2020, Barr was engulfed in controversy over the removal of Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney in the southern district of New York.Berman was investigating Trump’s business and allies including Rudy Giuliani. He was also supervising a case involving a Turkish bank which the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pressured Trump to drop.Shortly after John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, said Trump promised Erdoğan he would get rid of leaders in the southern district, Barr announced Berman was stepping down. When Berman said he would not quit, he was fired.The incident prompted calls for Barr to resign, including from the New York City Bar Association.In his book, Barr praises the “quality and experience of the group of US attorneys I inherited” and says he told them “to go full speed ahead on the department’s existing priorities”. He also says he regrets not installing an aide, Ed O’Callaghan, “into his dream job – US attorney in the southern district of New York”.But he does not mention Berman and how or why he fired him.Barr also defends his decision to restart federal executions after 17 years, which lead to 13 state killings in the final six months of Trump’s presidency. Barr describes, with apparent relish, the crimes of many of those killed.He does not mention Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years, whose lawyers argued she had brain damage from beatings as a child and suffered from psychosis and other mental conditions, having been sexually abused.Trump, the death penalty and its links with America’s racist history – podcastRead moreBarr also outlines why he thinks Trump lost the election and should not run again.His former boss’s volcanic anger is repeatedly described. Detailing Trump’s fury during protests against racial injustice outside the White House in June 2020 – after confirming that Trump was once hustled to a protective bunker, which Trump denied – Barr writes: “The president lost his composure.“Glaring around the semi-circle of officials in front of his desk, he swept his index finger around the semi-circle, pointing at all of us. ‘You’re all losers!’ he yelled, his face reddening … ‘You’re losers!’ he yelled again, tiny flecks of spit arcing to his desktop. ‘Fucking losers!’ It was a tantrum.”After that tantrum, peaceful protesters were violently cleared from Lafayette Square before Trump walked to a historic church to stage a photoshoot holding a Bible. Barr and other senior aides made the walk too.It was widely reported that Barr ordered the clearance. In his book, Barr says Trump told him to “take the lead” in dealing with the protesters. But he echoes an official report in saying the clearance was already planned by police.Barr portrays himself and other aides obstructing or defying Trump’s demands, including pressure to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, and the contents of a laptop obtained by Giuliani.“I cut him off again,” Barr writes, “raising my voice. ‘Dammit, Mr President! I can’t talk about that, and I am not going to!’“He was silent for a moment, then quickly got off the line.”Barr also gives space to his falling out with Trump over the president’s lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden – a rupture which happened after Barr controversially ordered the Department of Justice to investigate electoral fraud claims, a decision he now defends.A tempestuous meeting between Trump and Barr on 1 December 2021, at which the attorney general told the president no widespread fraud existed, has been widely reported. Such accounts do not say Barr attempted to resign. In his memoir, he says he did and that Trump accepted but was talked around.In his account of a meeting on 14 December 2020 at which he did resign, Barr says Trump first gave him a report which the president claimed contained “absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged [and] I won the election and will have a second term”.The House oversight committee released the report in June 2021, detailing how Trump sent it to Barr’s replacement, Jeffrey Rosen, shortly after Barr left his resignation meeting.But accounts of that meeting in books by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (Peril) and Jonathan Karl (Betrayal), heavily informed by Barr, do not say Trump gave Barr the report and that Barr, in his own words, said he would look into it.William Barr uses new book to outline case against Trump White House runRead moreThe report was produced by Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG), which Barr says “described itself as a cybersecurity firm in Texas”, and purported to deal with events in Antrim county, Michigan, a Republican area where a clerking error appeared to give Biden victory before a Trump win was confirmed.The report, Barr writes, concluded that voting machines were “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results”.Barr calls the report “amateurish” and “sensational” and its conclusion “an ipse dixit, a bald claim without even the pretense of supporting evidence”.Dominion Voting Systems, the company which made the machines, has sued Trump allies including Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Fox News, seeking billions in damages.Trump has not commented on Barr’s book. But he has previously called his attorney general – who many saw as a ruthless “hatchet man”, determined to do the president’s bidding – “afraid, weak and frankly … pathetic”.TopicsBooksWilliam BarrDonald TrumpUS politicsTrump administrationRepublicansPolitics booksanalysisReuse this content More

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      Barr book reveals Trump’s secret to a ‘good tweet’: ‘just the right amount of crazy’

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      Barr book reveals Trump’s secret to a ‘good tweet’: ‘just the right amount of crazy’Ex-president made remark to his attorney general, according to William Barr’s forthcoming memoir Donald Trump told William Barr, his attorney general, that the secret to a “good tweet” was “just the right amount of crazy”.William Barr uses new book to outline case against Trump White House runRead moreThe detail from Barr’s forthcoming memoir leaked out on Monday, via Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post.The Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have reported on the contents of One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, which will be published on 8 March.Barr’s title is taken from a description of the job by Ed Levi, appointed by Gerald Ford after the Watergate scandal.Some critics responded to the news that Barr says Trump is unqualified to be president and defends his own handling of the Russia investigation by wondering if the world really needs one book after another by former Trump aides bent on self-justification.Barr, for example, describes a tumultuous Oval Office meeting on 1 December 2020, at which he refused to back Trump’s lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden. On the page, the former attorney general says he tried to resign.But the resignation offer is not described in books by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (Peril) and Jonathan Karl (Betrayal), which otherwise closely mirror Barr’s description of the meeting.Barr did quit nearly two weeks later, on 14 December.Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, a reporter who had a direct line to Trump during his time in power, has her own Trump book coming out in October.She said the revelations so far from Barr showed that “the cabinet member/person of stature most loved by Maga has become the latest person in a long string who worked for Trump to say he’s unfit”.Dawsey tweeted the tidbit about Trump’s tweets, tweeting: “One bit from Barr book: Trump told his former attorney general the ‘secret of a really good tweet’ was ‘just the right amount of crazy’.”Trump used Twitter as his primary means of communication but he has been suspended from it since the deadly Capitol riot, which happened after he told supporters to “fight like hell” in service of his lie about voter fraud in his election defeat by Biden.The Post reported that Barr and White House lawyers developed a system for dealing with Trump’s more extreme – or “legally problematic” – ideas, such as using an executive order to end citizenship for people born in the US to undocumented parents.The lawyers, Barr writes, “operated like a tag team, so that neither of us would provoke too much of the president’s ire at one time”.“We referred to this as choosing who would ‘eat the grenade’,” Barr says.TopicsBooksPolitics booksWilliam BarrDonald TrumpTrump administrationTwitterUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      William Barr uses new book to outline case against Trump White House run

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      William Barr uses new book to outline case against Trump White House runFormer attorney general also describes tempestuous Oval Office meeting in which he rejected electoral fraud claims

      Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in CPAC speech
      In a new memoir, the former US attorney general William Barr says Donald Trump must not be the Republican candidate for president in 2024.Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lieRead moreThe man he served between 2019 and 2020, Barr writes, has “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed”.Trump, Barr says, 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 hinted again on Saturday that he intends to run in 2024. He did not immediately comment on Barr’s analysis. Last summer, though, he called his former attorney general a “swamp creature” and a “Rino [Republican in Name Only] … afraid, weak and frankly … pathetic”.Barr’s book, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, will be published on 8 March, its title taken from a description of the job by Ed Levi, appointed by Gerald Ford after the Watergate scandal.The Wall Street Journal, like publisher Harper Collins owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, first reported Barr’s book on Sunday. The New York Times and Washington Post followed suit.A strong conservative, Barr was seen by most as a loyal servant to Trump, the second president he worked for after George HW Bush. The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren was among those who thought Barr way too loyal, calling him “a disgrace” and “not a credible head of federal law enforcement”.In his book, Barr rejects such accusations, prominently over the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Barr was accused of running interference for Trump, ultimately releasing a preemptory report summary which prompted an objection from the special counsel, Robert Mueller.According to the Times, Barr calls claims he interfered “drivel” and says it was a “simple fact that the president never did anything to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation”.Mueller, however, laid out extensive evidence of possible obstruction of justice by Trump, including the dangling of pardons. In his own report, the special counsel said he could not exonerate the president of trying to obstruct his work.Regarding Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russians, Barr writes: “Predictably our motion to dismiss the charges led to an election-year media onslaught, flogging the old theme that I was doing this as a favour to Trump.“But I concluded the handling of the Flynn matter by the FBI had been an abuse of power that no responsible AG could let stand.”A former judge appointed to review Barr’s move to dismiss disagreed, saying it was “clear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power” and represented “highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the president”.Flynn was eventually pardoned by Trump and became a key player in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Barr also sought a more lenient sentence for the Trump ally Roger Stone, convicted of trying to obstruct the Russia investigation. Four prosecutors resigned but Barr insists in his book it was “reasonable” to act as he did. Stone’s sentence was ultimately commuted by Trump.Barr also describes a previously reported Oval Office meeting on 1 December 2020, at which Trump pressed his lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.Barr had outraged many by using the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s claims. But no evidence of widespread fraud was found and Barr used an interview with the Associated Press to say so.The same day, according to Barr’s book, Trump shouted: “This is killing me – killing me. This is pulling the rug right out from under me.”Echoing accounts of the meeting in Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, and Betrayal, by Jonathan Karl, Barr says the president slipped into the third person.“He stopped for a moment and then said, ‘You must hate Trump. You would only do this if you hate Trump.’”Barr says he told Trump he had “sacrificed a lot personally to come in to help you when I thought you were being wronged”, but could not support the lie about electoral fraud.After Trump listed other grievances, Barr offered to resign – an offer not reported by Karl or Woodward and Costa.Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguishedRead moreTrump, Barr writes, yelled “Accepted!”, banged his palm on a table and said: “Leave and don’t go back to your office. You are done right now. Go home!”Barr says White House lawyers persuaded Trump not to allow him to quit. Barr finally resigned on 14 December, nearly two weeks later.On 6 January 2021, after Trump spoke at a rally near the White House, the Capitol was attacked. Seven people died around the riot and more than 100 police officers were hurt. More than 700 people have been charged, 11 with seditious conspiracy. Trump was impeached, for inciting an insurrection.In his book, Barr says: “The absurd lengths to which [Trump] took his ‘stolen election’ claim led to the rioting on Capitol Hill.”But he also says Trump’s behaviour did not meet the legal standard for an incitement charge.TopicsBooksWilliam BarrUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansAutobiography and memoirnewsReuse this content More

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      CDC contemplating change to mask guidance in coming weeks

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      CDC contemplating change to mask guidance in coming weeksDirector Rochelle Walensky notes recent declines in Covid cases, hospital admissions and deaths The leading US health officials said on Wednesday that the nation is moving closer to the point that Covid-19 is no longer a “constant crisis” as more cities, businesses and sports venues began lifting pandemic restrictions around the country.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing that the government is contemplating a change to its mask guidance in the coming weeks.Noting recent declines in Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and deaths, she acknowledged “people are so eager” for health officials to ease masking rules and other measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.“We all share the same goal – to get to a point where Covid-19 is no longer disrupting our daily lives, a time when it won’t be a constant crisis – rather something we can prevent, protect against, and treat,” Walensky said.With the Omicron variant waning and Americans eager to move beyond the virus, government and business leaders have been out ahead of the CDC in ending virus measures in the last week, including ordering workers back to offices, eliminating mask mandates and no longer requiring proof of vaccine to get into restaurants, bars and sports and entertainment arenas.The efforts have been gaining more steam each day.Philadelphia officials on Wednesday said the city’s vaccine mandate for restaurants was immediately lifted, though indoor mask mandates remain in place for now.At Disney World, vaccinated guests will no longer have to wear masks at the Florida theme park starting Thursday.Professional sports teams including the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards and Capitols have stopped requiring proof of vaccine for fans.Health commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Philadelphia’s average daily case count had dropped to 189 cases a day in the city of more than 1.5 million people.Bettigole said the plunge in infections has been steeper in Philadelphia than elsewhere in the state or the country, making it easier to lift the vaccine mandate for restaurants and other businesses announced in mid-December and that fully went into effect just this month.“Our goal has always been to be the least restrictive as possible while ensuring safety,” she said.She added that the vaccine mandate helped spur “a very large” increase in pediatric vaccinations, pushing the city way ahead of the national average for first doses among kids ages five to 11. More than 53% of Philadelphia residents in that age group have received a first dose, compared with closer to 30% nationally, she said.In Provincetown, Massachusetts, a seaside town that became a coronavirus hot spot with an early outbreak of the Delta variant last summer, officials on Tuesday lifted a mask mandate and vaccine requirement for indoor spaces like restaurants and bars.Town manager Alex Morse said the community of about 3,000 recorded zero active cases last week among Provincetown residents – something that hasn’t happened since the surge following last year’s July 4 celebrations.“We are learning to live with, and mitigate, the impact of the virus on our community,” Morse said.Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations have fallen sharply in the US, with the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases dropping from about 453,000 two weeks ago to about 136,000 as of Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.Hospitalizations are at levels similar to September, when the US was emerging from the Delta variant surge. Almost 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated.“As a result of all this progress and the tools we now have, we are moving to a time where Covid isn’t a crisis but is something we can protect against and treat,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.Walensky said the CDC “will soon put guidance in place that is relevant and encourages prevention measures when they are most needed to protect public health and our hospitals”.She suggested any changes will take into account measures of community transmission, as well as hospitalization rates or other gauges of whether infected people are becoming severely ill. They also would consider available bed space in hospitals.Several states with indoor mask mandates announced last week they would be lifted in coming weeks, also citing promising numbers.Two music festivals that draw thousands of people to the California desert town of Indio in April and May, Coachella and Stagecoach, also said this week there will be no vaccination, masking or testing mandates, in accordance with local guidelines.Walensky said the CDC wants to give most people “a break from things like mask-wearing” when circumstances improve, though be able to mask up again if things worsen.TopicsCoronavirusTrump administrationUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s interior secretary misused position and lied to ethics official, watchdog says

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      Trump’s interior secretary misused position and lied to ethics official, watchdog saysRyan Zinke lied to agency ethics official about his involvement with foundation to advance project in his Montana home town Government investigators say the former US interior secretary Ryan Zinke misused his position to advance a development project in his Montana home town and lied to an agency ethics official about his involvement.The interior department’s inspector general said in a report made public on Wednesday that Zinke continued working with a foundation on the commercial project in the community of Whitefish, Montana, even after he committed upon taking office to breaking ties with the foundation.The report also says Zinke gave incorrect and incomplete information to an interior department ethics official who confronted him over his involvement and that Zinke directed his staff to assist him with the project in a misuse of his position.The Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation was established by Zinke and others in 2007. Zinke and his wife were in negotiations with private developers for the use of foundation land for a commercial development project.Zinke is a candidate in the June Republican primary for an open Montana congressional seat, a position he held before joining Trump’s cabinet.He stepped down from his role as interior secretary in the Trump administration in December 2018 following a series of scandals in which he was accused of using his position for personal gain.On Wednesday Zinke’s campaign called the report “a political hit job” and said his family’s involvement in the land deal led to the creation of a children’s sledding park.Investigators referred the matter to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution but they declined to pursue a criminal case, according to the report.The investigation into the land deal was one of several focused on Zinke that began when he was in Trump’s cabinet.In another case, investigators found that he violated a policy that prohibits non-government employees from riding in government cars after his wife traveled with him, but he said ethics officials approved it.Zinke was cleared of wrongdoing following a complaint that he redrew the boundaries of a national monument in Utah to benefit a state lawmaker and political ally.Under Zinke’s leadership, the interior department sought to advance oil and gas drilling and mining on or near public land, rolled back protections for threatened species and shrank national monuments.“Zinke’s days of plundering our lands and enriching himself and his friends are over,” said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager for Friends of the Earth, said at the time he stepped down. Trump had praised him saying he had “accomplished much during his tenure”.Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsTrump administrationUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More