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      Russian source for Steele’s Trump dossier arrested by US authorities

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      Trump-Russia investigationRussian source for Steele’s Trump dossier arrested by US authoritiesFive-page indictment released by justice department accuses analyst Igor Danchenko of lying to FBI Luke HardingThu 4 Nov 2021 15.34 EDTLast modified on Thu 4 Nov 2021 16.33 EDTA Russian analyst who was the main source for Christopher Steele’s dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow has been arrested by US authorities, the justice department said on Thursday.Igor Danchenko now faces charges as part of the investigation by John Durham, the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.Danchenko collected much of the intelligence behind Steele’s dossier during three trips to Russia in summer and autumn 2016. He was the chief source behind its most incendiary allegation: that Trump was compromised during a trip to Moscow in November 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.Trump has vehemently denied the claim. Last summer, however, a report by the Senate intelligence committee said that the FSB spy agency presided over a network of secret cameras inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel where Trump stayed, including in guest bedrooms. An FSB intelligence officer was permanently on site, it said.Trump in Moscow: what happened at Miss Universe in 2013Read moreThe five-page indictment released on Thursday accuses Danchenko of lying repeatedly to the FBI when interviewed in 2017 – a criminal offense. These include over his dealings with an unnamed US PR executive with close links to the Democrats. The executive’s information found its way into some of the dossier’s memos, a fact Danchenko allegedly concealed.The FBI further accuses Danchenko of making up a conversation with Sergei Millian, a Russian American property broker with links to Trump, who appears in the dossier as “source D”. He appears to have been credited by Danchenko with the claim that Trump watched sex workers perform “golden showers” by urinating on each other at the hotel. In 2019, the special counsel Robert Mueller said no criminal wrongdoing had taken place between the Trump campaign and Moscow. But Mueller noted that there were multiple contacts in 2016 between Russian spies and Trump aides. The Kremlin had run a “sweeping and systemic” operation to help Trump win, Mueller said.Trump’s justice department claimed the former president was the victim of a witch-hunt. It repeatedly cited the dossier as evidence that the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s relations with Russia was biased and unfair. But the FBI investigation began independently from the dossier, after it emerged Moscow had hacked thousands of Democratic party emails.Democrats believe Durham’s inquiries to be politically driven. But so far the Biden administration has not tried to stop him. Danchenko is the third person, and second in a two-month span, to face indictment with five separate counts on Thursday of lying. In September cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann was also accused of lying to the FBI.Speaking to the Guardian in October, Danchenko, who is based in Washington DC, defended his work on the dossier. “I stand by it,” he said. He said he did not resile from explosive allegations that Trump may have been secretly filmed with sex workers during his Moscow trip. “I got it right,” he declared.He said the “salacious” material in the dossier formed a small part of a 35-page document. The allegation would be “amusing”, he said, were it not for the fact that any covert FSB recording might be used for blackmail purposes. Trump’s false ‘Russian spy’ claims put me in danger, says Steele dossier sourceRead moreThe bipartisan report by the Senate intelligence committee was dismissive of Steele’s dossier, but corroborated key elements in it. It laid out multiple contacts between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager who features in the dossier, and Konstantin Kilimnik, described as a Russian intelligence officer. Speaking last year Danchenko said a campaign against him by leading Republicans was designed to deflect from the damaging Senate report. It included claims – which he denies – he was a Russian spy. “I think they thought I would be an easy target to discredit the dossier. By doubling down on this they would be able to discredit the whole Russia investigation,” he said.During his interviews with the FBI, Danchenko appeared to downplay the reliability of his own information – a point seized upon by Republican commentators. According to the justice department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, Danchenko told the bureau his work with sub-sources in Russia amounted to “hearsay” and “conversation had with friends over beers”. Statements about Trump’s sexual activities were “jest”, he said. A lawyer for Danchenko had no immediate comment.TopicsTrump-Russia investigationTrump administrationRussiaDonald TrumpEuropeUS politicsFBInewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel faces pivotal moment as Trump allies stonewall

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      US Capitol attackCapitol attack panel faces pivotal moment as Trump allies stonewallQuestions about Trump’s role in 6 January may go unanswered unless House investigators can secure a breakthrough to obtain documents and testimony Hugo Lowell in WashingtonFri 29 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 16.20 EDTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is confronting a pivotal moment as resistance from top Trump administration aides threatens to undermine their efforts to uncover the extent of the former president’s involvement in the 6 January insurrection.The select committee remains in the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation that now encompasses at least five different lines of inquiry from whether Donald Trump abused the presidency to reinstall himself in office or coordinated with far-right rally organizers.These Trump fans were at the Capitol on 6 January. Now they’re running for officeRead moreBut unless House investigators can secure a breakthrough to obtain documents and testimony from Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and others in the next few weeks, the most pressing questions about Trump’s role in 6 January may go unanswered, two sources said.The select committee has designated its “gold” team to examine the extent of Trump’s personal involvement in the events that left five dead and more than 140 injured as his supporters stormed the Capitol in his name, the sources said.One major focus of the investigation is whether Trump had advance knowledge of the insurrection, the sources said – since if they uncover evidence of conspiracy to violently stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, that could constitute a crime.But to make that kind of case, which would then guide Congress on how to draft laws to avert a repeat of the Capitol attack, may be impossible without clear insight into Trump’s movements inside the White House both on 6 January and the days before, the sources said.The select committee, the sources said, effectively needs to know what Trump’s top aides know about what the former president thought would allow him to remain in office – and whether that extended to encouraging surrogates to physically stop the certification.To that end, House investigators last month subpoenaed Meadows, his deputy, Dan Scavino, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel, while asking the National Archives to turn over Trump White House records.Meadows is of special interest since he remained by Trump’s side as the Capitol attack unfolded and, in the final weeks of the administration, sat in on 6 January strategy meetings with the former president.The former chief strategist Bannon was similarly subpoenaed for documents and testimony as he was in constant contact with Trump in the days before the Capitol attack, and played a major role in drawing up the legal arguments for Pence to return Trump to office.Bannon also appeared to have prior knowledge of the Capitol attack, which former White House aides say would not have escaped Trump’s attention. “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said on his War Room podcast the day before the insurrection.The select committee, meanwhile, also asked the National Archives for Trump White House materials since they are the custodian for visitor logs and Oval Office memoranda – records that could shed light on the interactions Trump was having with Meadows and Bannon.But under orders from Trump to defy the subpoenas on grounds of executive privilege, the select committee is yet to obtain any materials or testimony from the four aides, while the National Archives is unable to release records until Trump’s lawsuit on the issue is resolved.The collective efforts from Trump and his aides mean that unless House investigators can find a way to circumvent the logjam, the gold team may ultimately find themselves unable to ever uncover whether 6 January was a White House-sponsored insurrection.Bannon, for instance, was last week referred to the justice department for prosecution after he defied his subpoena in its entirety, but a source at the US attorney’s office cautioned a decision on his case could take months of deliberations.The delay stems in part from the fact that the justice department is now examining whether they can successfully secure an indictment in the Bannon case and are indifferent to the select committee’s need to finish a report before the 2022 midterms, the source said.The US attorney’s office, the source added, may not be able to proceed with a potential prosecution against Bannon until the justice department first resolves other constitutional complaints raised by Trump in his lawsuit against the National Archives.Taken together, staff on the gold team are now starting to think the most likely avenue for securing Trump White House materials is not through the former president’s aides but through the National Archives request, since Biden has the final say over executive privilege.Still, given Trump’s pending lawsuit lodged against the National Archives – a move described by a source close to the Trump legal effort as a way to stymie the investigation – the select committee may run out of time before being able to examine the materials.Tim Mulvey, a spokesperson for the select committee, on Friday rejected the internal concerns, saying in a statement: “While we don’t comment on the specifics of our investigation, we are moving ahead expeditiously to uncover the facts, get answers for the American people, and make legislative recommendations to help ensure nothing like January 6th ever happens again.”“The select committee won’t be derailed by those seeking to obstruct our investigation, and we won’t be distracted by anonymous sources posing as experts and insiders,” Mulvey added.The select committee’s struggle to enforce orders against the Trump aides shows the lack of teeth carried by congressional subpoenas, with its power systematically eroded by a Trump administration that has found, since 2016, that defiance carries scant penalties.But the difficulty in obtaining any formal Trump White House materials – either through the former president’s aides or even through the National Archives – also underscores how what could be the most consequential lines of inquiry appear to be dangling by a thread.The select committee has had success eliciting information elsewhere, most notably with individuals connected to the Trump-supporting Women for America First organization that planned the 6 January “Stop the Steal” rally subpoenaed earlier in October.House investigators also heard voluminous testimony from Trump’s former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen over seven hours of voluntary testimony, that could help the gold team establish whether the former president unlawfully pressured the justice department.But without knowing what Trump’s top aides know of the former president’s connections to the Capitol attack, the sources said, it could mean that Congress is left unable to write legislation to avert a different effort to stop the certification in 2024.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      How a secretive conservative group influenced ‘populist’ Trump’s tax cuts

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      Trump administrationHow a secretive conservative group influenced ‘populist’ Trump’s tax cutsRecordings from a 2019 panel discussion of the Council for National Policy reveal tax cuts were sparked by personal conversations Jason Wilson@jason_a_wMon 25 Oct 2021 03.01 EDTLast modified on Mon 25 Oct 2021 03.02 EDTDocuments and recordings obtained by the Guardian shed new light on a powerful and secretive rightwing network and the influence it was able to exert on Trump administration policies favoring the super-rich.The recordings include speeches given to the Council for National Policy (CNP) by conservative media stars including Dennis Prager, emerging Republican power players such as Charlie Kirk, and close economic advisers to Donald Trump.Some of the previously published recordings appear to no longer be publicly available.The Guardian’s independently sourced recordings offer an insight into how much influence conservative economic thinkers – from bodies representing the interests of some of the richest individuals in the country – were able to exert on the supposed populist Trump.Trump Organization and senior executive charged with tax crimesRead moreIn particular, a panel discussion at CNP’s February 2019 meeting suggests that Trump decided one of his most far-reaching economic policies on very limited evidence – on the basis of a personal conversation.The panel involved Bill Walton, president of CNP; the Washington Times columnist and former member of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority Richard Rahn; Jonathan Williams, chief economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec); and Stephen Moore, a one-time Trump nominee for the Federal Reserve board, whose nomination was withdrawn following revelations in the Guardian that he had failed to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony.The panelists offered a favorable assessment of the Trump administration’s economic performance, but also used the platform to claim credit for pushing the administration in the direction of radical free-market policies.Moore claimed that he, together with Larry Kudlow, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council from 2018, had persuaded the thenpresident to offer unprecedented corporate tax cuts.He described a meeting with Trump where they argued that the US’s corporate tax rate, relative to those among certain Asian and European competitors, was effectively a penalty on US companies, stating: “Look, you know, we’re at 40% – they are 20%. This is a big problem.”Moore said that they explained these tax differences using charts, “because Donald Trump likes to look at pictures, he doesn’t like to read”.According to Moore: “Trump looked at this and he said: ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’” instead proposing “not 20%. I want 15%,” with the number coming back to an effective 20% rate only after Senate negotiations.Trump’s tax cuts slashed effective corporate tax rates in half, while providing other measures benefiting wealthy corporations.The cuts have been blamed for widening inequality, and worsening deficits, with a large amount of the savings going to stock buybacks according to business reporters and economists. The Congressional Research Service pointed out that any positive effects, like wage or GDP growth, were transient, and had petered out by the end of the quarter in which the cuts were put into effect. This reveals the power of the CNP, a little known body whose members are deeply secretive about their meetings. CNP attendees’ access to this picture of the inner workings of the Trump administration, and the players who helped set its course, is the result of adherence to a strict code of silence. In introducing the panel, the CNP conference director,Mary Margaret Hathaway, enjoined participants to secrecy, reminding them to “not record any speaker remarks”.Hathaway continued: “CNP meetings are off-limits to the press. So please be aware of who you’re talking to.”She added, “Don’t grant any interviews and if you run into a reporter asking questions about the event, please let a member of the CNP staff or leadership team know.”Despite her warnings, the organization itself made the recordings obtained by the Guardian, and uploaded them on their website in a manner that made them accessible to any internet user.Other recordings obtained by the Guardian include talks at 2018 and 2019 meetings by senior Republicans including Senator Tom Cotton and the US congressman Steve Scalise; and former governors including Scott Walker and Sam Brownback.The CNP was founded in 1981 by influential, Christian-right activists, including Tim LaHaye, Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, who were also involved in founding and leading the Moral Majority.Initially, they were seeking to maximize their influence on the new Reagan administration. In subsequent years, CNP meetings played host to presidential aspirants like George W Bush in 1999 and Mitt Romney in 2007, and sitting presidents including Donald Trump in 2020.The Guardian previously reported on a leak of the group’s 2020 membership list.TopicsTrump administrationDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack records

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      US Capitol attackTrump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack recordsEx-president challenges Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege that protects White House communications Associated Press in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 04.38 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 04.55 EDTDonald Trump has sought to block the release of documents related to the Capitol attack on 6 January to a House committee investigating the incident, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege.In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the committee’s request in August was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege.He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose”, according to the papers filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia.Bannon and other top Trump officials face legal peril for defying subpoenasRead moreTrump’s lawsuit was expected – as he had said he would challenge the investigation – and at least one ally, Steve Bannon, has defied a subpoena.But the legal challenge went beyond the initial 125 pages of records that Biden recently cleared for release to the committee.The suit, which names the committee as well as the National Archives, seeks to invalidate the entirety of the congressional request, calling it overly broad, unduly burdensome and a challenge to separation of powers. It requests a court injunction to bar the archivist from producing the documents.The Biden administration, in clearing the documents for release, said the violent siege of the Capitol more than nine months ago was such an extraordinary circumstance that it merited waiving the privilege that usually protected White House communications.Trump’s lawsuit came the evening before the panel was scheduled to vote to recommend that Bannon be held in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance of the committee’s demands for documents and testimony.In a resolution released on Monday, the committee asserts that the former Trump aide and podcast host has no legal standing to rebuff the committee, even as Trump’s lawyer has asked him not to disclose information.Bannon was a private citizen when he spoke to Trump before the attack, the committee said, and Trump had not asserted any such executive privilege claims to the panel.The resolution lists many ways in which Bannon was involved in the lead-up to the insurrection, including reports that he encouraged Trump to focus on 6 January, the day Congress certified the presidential vote, and his comments on 5 January that “all hell is going to break loose” the next day.“Mr Bannon appears to have played a multifaceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions,” the committee wrote.Once the committee votes on the Bannon contempt resolution, it will go to the full House for a vote and then on to the justice department, which will decide whether to prosecute.In a letter obtained by the Associated Press, the White House also worked to undercut Bannon’s argument. The deputy counsel, Jonathan Su, wrote that the president’s decision on the documents applied to Bannon, too, and “at this point we are not aware of any basis for your client’s refusal to appear for a deposition.“President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to these subjects applies to your client’s deposition testimony and to any documents your client may possess concerning either subject,” Su wrote to Bannon’s lawyer.Bannon’s attorney said he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it.While Bannon has said he needs a court order before complying with his subpoena, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel have been negotiating with the committee. It is unclear whether a fourth former White House aide, Dan Scavino, will comply.The committee has also subpoenaed more than a dozen people who helped plan Trump rallies before the siege, and some of them have said they would turn over documents and give testimony.Lawmakers want the testimony and the documents as part of their investigation into how a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a violent effort to halt the certification of Biden’s election win.The committee demanded a broad range of executive branch papers related to intelligence gathered before the attack, security preparations during and before the siege, the pro-Trump rallies held that day and Trump’s false claims that he won the election, among other matters.Trump’s lawsuit says the “boundless requests included over 50 individual requests for documents and information, and mentioned more than 30 individuals, including those working inside and outside government”.The files must be withheld, the lawsuit says, because they could include “conversations with (or about) foreign leaders, attorney work product, the most sensitive of national security secrets, along with any and all privileged communications among a pool of potentially hundreds of people”.The suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing an incumbent president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after they left office is inherently unconstitutional.Biden has said he would go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.While not spelled out in the constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.But that privilege has had its limitations in extraordinary situations, as exemplified during the Watergate scandal, when the supreme court ruled it could not be used to shield the release of secret Oval Office tapes sought in a criminal inquiry, and after 9/11.Monday’s lawsuit was filed by Jesse Binnall, an attorney based in Alexandria, Virginia, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful lawsuit last year seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada. Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.Trump’s suit quotes from the supreme court’s 2020 ruling in a case by House committees seeking the then sitting president’s tax returns and other financial records. But that case involved courts enforcing a congressional subpoena. The high court in that case directed lower courts to apply a balancing test to determine whether to turn over the records. It is still pending.The White House spokesperson Mike Gwin said: “As President Biden determined, the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the constitution itself.”The select committee did not have immediate comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsJoe BidenTrump administrationBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’

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      US elections 2020Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’ Former assistant attorney general faces possible disbarment and charges after report details machinations on Trump’s behalfPeter Stone in WashingtonSun 17 Oct 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 02.01 EDTJeffrey Clark, a former top environmental lawyer at the Trump justice department accused of plotting with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is facing ethics investigations in Washington that could lead to possible disbarment, as well as a watchdog inquiry that might result in a criminal referral.Steve Bannon: Capitol attack panel to consider criminal contempt referralRead moreThe mounting scrutiny of the ex-assistant attorney general, who led the justice department’s environment division for almost two years and then ran its civil division, was provoked by a report from the Senate judiciary committee whose Democratic chairman, Richard Durbin, has asked the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel to examine Clark’s conduct and possibly sanction him.The panel’s exhaustive 394-page report followed an eight-month inquiry, and included voluntary testimony from former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, revealing how Clark schemed privately with Trump about ways to pressure Rosen to help launch an inquiry into baseless charges of voting fraud in Georgia and other states that Joe Biden won.The report noted Clark repeatedly tried to “induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme”, including by telling Rosen that if he agreed to join their cabal to overturn election results, Clark would turn down an offer Trump had made him to become attorney general in place of Rosen.Clark was asked by the Senate panel to testify voluntarily in July but declined, according to a source familiar with the matter.The Senate report was shared with the House select committee that has been investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, and Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. On 13 October, the committee issued a subpoena seeking deposition testimony, and it requested records from Clark on 29 October, after reportedly struggling to get his cooperation.“It’s no mystery why Clark is playing hard to get with Congress,” said former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich in an interview with the Guardian. “He faces a meaningful threat of criminal liability based on the facts contained in the Senate report.“The Senate report provides overwhelming evidence that Jeffrey Clark became a witting pawn of Trump’s in trying to launch a coup in the justice department, which would then serve as the launching pad for the broader coup whose aim was to overturn the results of the election.”Clark’s covert efforts to help Trump have been under scrutiny by the current inspector general at the justice department, Michael Horowitz, since January, when news reports surfaced about his machinations with Trump to help overturn the election results by spurring an investigation in Georgia focused on baseless claims of voting fraud.It’s unclear when the inspector general inquiry will be concluded, but depending on the findings, a criminal referral could result.The Senate report provided new details about the secretive pressure tactics deployed by Trump and Clark to persuade Rosen to accede to their schemes to help nullify Biden’s win, even after Trump staunch ally, attorney general William Barr, publicly stated on 1 December that the election results were not marred by fraud that “could have effected a different outcome in the election”.Strikingly, the report described a bizarre multi-hour White House meeting on 3 January that was attended by Trump, Rosen, Clark and other top administration lawyers, where Trump initially showed strong interest in ousting Rosen, who had been resisting pressures from Clark to open an inquiry into fraud allegations, and replacing him with Clark.According to Rosen’s testimony, Trump began the meeting by taking an aggressive posture and declaring: “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”At the end of the meeting, Trump dropped the covert scheme to oust Rosen after Rosen’s deputy Donoghue told Trump that he, Rosen and others, including the two top White House attorneys, would resign in protest.Pat Cipollone, the top White House lawyer, condemned Trump’s plan as a “murder-suicide pact,” according to the Senate report.The Senate report formally recommended that the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel “evaluate Clark’s conduct to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted”.Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a top Democrat on the judiciary panel, in a statement to the Guardian said: “Either Jeffrey Clark was an enterprising sycophant looking to score points with a transactional president, or he was a cog in a much larger election-theft scheme.“Clark’s testimony under oath will be very important to arrive at the full truth, which is why it’s very hard to imagine he avoids testifying – either before Congress or a grand jury.”Before the release of the Senate report, ABC News unearthed emails revealing that Clark tried to get Rosen and his deputy to approve a letter he drafted on 28 December that would have pressed Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp to “convene a special session” of the state legislature to examine unfounded allegations of voting fraud before 6 January, when Congress met to certify the results.The Senate GOP’s minority in a separate report offered a tepid defense for Trump and Clark’s actions, stating that Trump “listened to all data points” at the White House meeting where several resignations were threatened, and “rejected” the path Clark promoted with Trump’s apparent blessings. Grassley also faulted the Democrats for issuing their report before hearing from Clark and receiving more documents.Still, two days before the majority report, about three dozen prominent lawyers and former DoJ officials signed an ethics complaint orchestrated by Lawyers Defending American Democracy which also asked the DC disciplinary counsel to investigate Clark’s conduct with an eye to sanctions.The lawyers wrote that Clark “made false statements about the integrity of the election in a concerted effort to disseminate an official statement of the United States Department of Justice that the election results in multiple states were unreliable”.Trump nominated Clark in mid-2017 to serve as assistant attorney general of the DoJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, but he was only narrowly confirmed in October 2018.During his tenure running the division, Clark reportedly often was at odds with veteran lawyers there, because of his narrow reading of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. By late 2020, Clark had become acting chief of the civil division at the DoJ.Previously, Clark had been a partner at the powerhouse law firm Kirkland & Ellis, where he defended BP in Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation and represented the US Chamber of Commerce in litigation that challenged the federal government’s power to regulate carbon emissions.Barr and Rosen were also top partners at the firm before their stints leading the Department of Justice.Clark’s distaste for strong environmental rules during his tenure at the department was presaged by some of his earlier comments about climate change in which he derided the need for more regulations to address it.Clark, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, gave a talk at its 2010 convention, where he bitterly denounced the Obama administration’s policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions as “reminiscent of kind of a Leninistic program from the 1920s to seize control of the commanding heights of the economy.”Given Clark’s anti-regulatory background in the private sector and his stint at the DoJ, it’s perhaps not surprising that he landed a top post working for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative law firm funded by the Charles G Koch Foundation.Clark was tapped in July to be the alliance’s chief of litigation and director of strategy. Two calls to the alliance’s press office to reach Clark and seeking comment about his status there in the wake of the Senate report did not get responses. But on Wednesday Clark’s name had disappeared from its website’s roster of staff.TopicsUS elections 2020Trump administrationUS politicsUS SenateDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden to reinstate Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ migrant policy

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      US immigrationBiden to reinstate Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ migrant policyDoJ says reinstatement depends on approval from MexicoCourt overturned Biden’s initial decision to suspend policy Amanda Holpuch@holpuchFri 15 Oct 2021 14.57 EDTLast modified on Fri 15 Oct 2021 15.55 EDTThe Biden administration said on Friday it plans to reinstate the Trump-era border policy known as Remain in Mexico, which forced at least 70,000 asylum seekers to stay in Mexico, many for extended periods and in deprived and dangerous conditions, while they waited for their cases to be considered US courts.Senior state department official calls Biden’s deportation of Haitians illegalRead moreJoe Biden suspended the policy formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) in his first days in office, but a federal judge ordered his administration to put it back into place.In a court filing late on Friday, the US justice department said the program’s reinstatement depended on approval from the Mexican government, which is asking for the asylum cases to be settled in six months and for the US to ensure the people affected have timely and accurate information as well as better access to legal counsel. The program is expected to be back in effect in mid-November.Donald Trump introduced Remain in Mexico in January 2019. From the beginning, advocates criticized the program because it put highly vulnerable migrants, mostly from Central and South America, at serious risk of physical harm and illness as they waited in some of the most dangerous cities in the world. It also fails to address the forces pushing people north to the US-Mexico border and the huge backlogs in US immigration courts.Campaign group Human Rights Watch said in a January report about the policy that affected asylum seekers it interviewed, including children, “described rape or attempted rape and other sexual assault, abduction for ransom, extortion, armed robbery, and other crimes committed against them”.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immigrants’ rights policy director, Omar Jadwat, said via Twitter that the news was “appalling” and acknowledged the Biden administration was required by a court order to make a “good faith” effort to restart it.“They had a lot of options here, including re-terminating MPP promptly and seeking to vacate the order,” Jadwat said.To restart the program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to spend $14.1m to reopen temporary courtrooms located in tents in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, which will cost $10.5m a month to operate, according to a court filing.In June, the DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, formally put an end to the policy and in a memo said: “MPP had mixed effectiveness in achieving several of its central goals and that the program experienced significant challenges.”TopicsUS immigrationMexicoAmericasTrump administrationUS politicsBiden administrationUS-Mexico bordernewsReuse this content More

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      The Senate’s findings on the last days of Trump’s presidency are grim. Will it matter?

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      OpinionTrump administrationThe Senate’s findings on the last days of Trump’s presidency are grim. Will it matter?Lloyd GreenDon’t expect the report to change minds: for Republicans, fealty to Trump is the acid test Tue 12 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 12 Oct 2021 08.51 EDTLast week, the Senate’s judiciary committee released its staff report on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and bend the justice department to his will. Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election lays out in grim detail the ex-reality show host’s concerted effort to weaponize the government’s legal machinery in his desperate bid to cling to power.One conclusion reads: “President Trump repeatedly asked DOJ leadership to endorse his false claims that the election was stolen and to assist his efforts to overturn the election results.” Another informs us that “Trump allies with links to the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement and the January 6 insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ.”As if we didn’t already know. Don’t expect the report to change hearts or minds.On a Saturday night visit to Iowa, Trump told the crowd that he had not conceded defeat. Indeed, one day later, Steve Scalise, the No 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, refused to say that the election wasn’t stolen. Trump has the Republicans in a hammerlock. The impact of the Senate report is likely to be negligible.Since Trump’s backers pillaged Congress back in January, the Republican party has selectively forgiven and forgotten. By the numbers, 57% of Republicans now believe “too much attention” has been paid to the 6 January riot. Only roughly a third of Republicans concede that storming the Capitol was about overturning the election. Too many Republicans still blame it on antifa.The new normal is neither particularly normal nor new. As America’s cold civil war continues, hyper-partisanship is the rule, not the exception. And among Republicans, fealty to Trump is the acid test.Look at Mike Pence, Trump’s hapless vice-president and an aspiring 2024 presidential nominee. Even after having been kicked to the curb by his former boss and targeted for hanging by Capitol rioters, Pence continues to play political lapdog.He is all too aware that Trump remains the Republican party’s boss and that his future rests in Trump’s hands. “I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration’s failed agenda by focusing on one day in January,” Pence told Fox News.“One day in January” – really?Apparently, signs that screamed “Hang Mike Pence” were an illusion, as were the gallows near the Capitol. Then again, Pence’s brother Greg, a congressman from Indiana, voted against certifying the election despite his having seen first-hand what his sibling had endured.Although the report will not change the political landscape, it is likely to have real consequences for Jeffrey Clark, a former assistant attorney general and the most senior justice department official to plot with Trump. The report recommends that the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel “evaluate Clark’s conduct to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted”.Republicans overplayed their hand in California – and Democrats are laughing | Lloyd GreenRead moreIn plain English, the Senate’s Democrats are inviting the DC bar to strip Clark of his law license. Working for Trump frequently comes with a downside.Tellingly, the committee’s Republicans do not offer a particularly full-throated defense of Clark. Instead, Senator Charles Grassley, the committee’s ranking Republican, intimated that Clark had failed to receive sufficient due process. “Committee Democrats opted to release their report having not yet received requested government documents and having not yet heard from Jeffrey Clark,” Grassley said.Substantively, the Republican party appears ready to sacrifice Clark to spare Trump. The president “listened to all data points”, they wrote in a competing report, and the path advocated by Clark “would be rejected”. In all fairness, he wouldn’t be the first person to thrown in a front of the proverbial bus for the sake of a sitting president.Not surprisingly, where there’s a raging dumpster fire, Rudy Giuliani is close by.According to the committee, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, asked the justice department to investigate a theory pushed by Giuliani known as “Italygate”, which “held that the Central Intelligence Agency and an Italian IT contractor used military satellites to manipulate voting machines and change Trump votes to Biden votes”.Let that sink in.As the Senate report recedes from the voters’ consciousness, expect the House’s investigation to emerge as a focal point for all things Trump, with the ex-president seeking to block the cooperation and testimony of his former aides, including Meadows, all in the run-up to the midterms.Beyond that, Trump is also invoking “executive privilege” to keep Steve Bannon, his 2016 campaign chairman, from testifying. To be sure, Bannon was not a member of the administration when 2021 rolled around. He had left the White House in the summer of 2017.Instead, Bannon was goading Trump, telling him, according to Peril, the latest Bob Woodward book, co-authored with Bob Costa: “People are going to go, What the fuck is going on here? We’re going to bury Biden on January 6th, fucking bury him … We’re going to kill it in the crib, kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”For the record, Bannon had previously suggested that Anthony Fauci’s head be severed from its body. Whether Bannon is found to be in criminal contempt for refusing to testify before Liz Cheney and others is a live question.The bottom line remains that Trump was never going quietly into the political night. Short of his own re-election, he viewed the process as “rigged” and “corrupt”.How the House and the courts handle all this remains to be seen. Right now, the broader public is far from riveted, and the Republicans are either on board with Trump or simply cowed.TopicsTrump administrationOpinionRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS SenatecommentReuse this content More