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    Emil Bove’s confirmation hearing was a travesty | Sidney Blumenthal

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    In The Godfather, a Mafia turncoat appears before a Senate committee in order to testify as a protected witness about its operations. Frank Pentangeli, “Frankie Five Angels”, a capo allied with the old godfather, Vito Corleone, has had a falling out with the new one, his son Michael Corleone, who attempted to assassinate him. As Pentangeli is about to speak at the hearing, he notices his brother Vincenzo, a mafioso from Sicily, seated behind him. Michael has arranged his grim looming presence. Pentangeli is suddenly reminded of his oath of omerta, the code of silence. He recants on the spot, saying that he just told the FBI “what they wanted to hear”.On 25 June, Emil Bove, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, whom he had named associate deputy attorney general, and now after five months seeks to elevate as a federal judge on the US third circuit court of appeals, appeared before the Senate judiciary committee for his confirmation hearing. He faced, at least potentially, a far-ranging inquiry into his checkered career.There were charges of abusive behavior as an assistant US attorney. There was his role as enforcer of the alleged extortion of New York City Mayor Eric Adams to cooperate in the Trump administration’s migrant roundups in exchange for dropping the federal corruption case against him. There was Bove’s dismissal of FBI agents and prosecutors who investigated the January 6 insurrection. And there was more.On the eve of the hearing, the committee received a shocking letter from a whistleblower, a Department of Justice attorney, who claimed that Bove said, in response to a federal court ruling against the administration’s immigration deportation policy: “DoJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such order.”Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the committee chairperson, the ancient mariner of the right wing at 91 years old, gaveled the session to order by invoking new rules never before used with a nominee in a confirmation hearing. Instead of opening the questioning to examine the nominee’s past, he would thwart it. Grassley announced that Bove would be shielded by the “deliberative-process privilege and attorney-client privilege” from “an intense opposition campaign by my Democratic colleagues and by their media allies”. This was the unique imposition of a code of omerta.“My understanding is that Congress has never accepted the constitutional validity of either such privilege,” objected Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. “This witness has no right to invoke that privilege,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. But Grassley stonewalled.Prominently seated in the audience behind Bove were the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche. Never before had such top officials been present at a confirmation hearing for a judicial nominee. The federal government through the justice department would inevitably appear in cases before his court. The attorney general and her deputy created an immediate perception of conflict of interest, an ethical travesty.But Bondi and Blanche were not there to silence Bove. They were there to intimidate the Republican senators. If there were any dissenters among them, they knew that they would suffer retribution. “Their being here is for one reason – to whip the Republicans into shape,” said Blumenthal. “To make sure that they toe the line. They are watching.”The rise of Emil Bove is the story of how a lawyer from the ranks associated himself with Donald Trump, proved his unswerving loyalty to become a made man, and has been richly rewarded with a nomination for a lifetime federal judgeship, presumably to continue his service. In his opening statement, Bove said: “I want to be clear about one thing up front: there is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media. I’m not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer.”Bove began his career as a paralegal and then a prosecutor in the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York. He was known for his attention to detail, relentlessness and sharp elbows. Seeking a promotion to supervisor, a group of defense attorneys including some who had been prosecutors in his office wrote a letter claiming he had “deployed questionable tactics, including threatening defendants with increasingly severe charges the lawyers believed he couldn’t prove”, according to Politico. Bove posted the letter in his office to display his contempt. He was denied the promotion, but eventually received it.As a supervisor, Bove was known as angry, belittling and difficult. He developed an abrasive relationship with FBI agents. After complaints, an executive committee in the US attorney’s office investigated and suggested he be demoted. He pleaded he would exercise more self-control and was allowed to remain in his post. “You are aware of this inquiry and their recommendation?” Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, asked Bove about the incident. Bove replied: “As well as the fact that I was not removed.”In 2021, in the prosecution of an individual accused of evading sanctions on Iran, a team Bove supervised as the unit chief won a jury verdict. But then the US attorney’s office discovered the case was “marred by repeated failures to disclose exculpatory evidence and misuse of search-warrant returns” by the prosecutors handling the case, according to the judge. Declaring that “errors and ethical lapses in this case are pervasive”, she vacated the verdict and dismissed the charges as well as chastising those prosecutors for falling short of their “constitutional and ethical obligations” in “this unfortunate chapter” and criticizing Bove for providing sufficient supervision to prevent those failures.Bove became a private attorney, joining the law firm of Todd Blanche, whom Trump hired in 2023 to defend him in the New York case involving his payment of hush-money to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Blanche brought Bove along as his second chair. The qualities that made him a black sheep in the US attorney’s office recommended him to Blanche and his client. In Bove’s questioning of David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer, about his payments to women in his “catch-and-kill” scheme to protect Trump, Bove twice botched the presentation of evidence, was admonished by the judge and apologized. Trump was convicted of 34 felonies of financial fraud to subvert an election.Upon Trump’s election, he appointed Bove as acting deputy attorney general and then associate deputy once Todd Blanche was confirmed as deputy, reuniting the law partners, both Trump defense attorneys now resuming that role in an official capacity.On 31 January, Bove sent two memos, the first firing dozens of justice department prosecutors and the second firing FBI agents who had worked on the cases of January 6 insurrectionists, whom Trump pardoned on his inauguration day. Bove quoted Trump that their convictions were “a grave national injustice”. He also had his own history of conflict with fellow prosecutors and FBI agents.Asked about his actions by Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, Bove presented himself as even-handed. “I did and continue to condemn unlawful behavior, particularly violence against law enforcement,” he said. “At the same time, I condemn heavy-handed and unnecessary tactics by prosecutors and agents.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn February, Bove played a principal role in filing criminal charges claiming corruption in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The head of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office of the District of Columbia, Denise Cheung, believing there was no factual basis to the accusation, resigned with a statement praising those who are “following the facts and the law and complying with our moral, ethical and legal obligations”.When Whitehouse sought to ask Bove about the episode, Bove replied: “My answer is limited to: ‘I participated in the matter.’” Whitehouse turned to Grassley. “Do you see my point now?” he said. The code of omerta was working to frustrate questioning.Bove also deflected questions about his central role in the dropping of charges against Eric Adams. The acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, Danielle Sassoon, had resigned in protest, writing in a letter that Bove’s memo directing her to dismiss the charges had “nothing to do with the strength of the case”. She noted that in the meeting to fix “what amounted to a quid pro quo … Mr Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”Questioned about the Adams scandal, Bove denied any wrongdoing. Senator John A Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, played his helpmate. He asked Bove to “swear to your higher being” that there was no quid pro quo. “Absolutely not,” Bove said. “Do you swear on your higher being?” “On every bone in my body,” Bove replied. Hallelujah!Then Bove was asked about the letter sent by former justice department lawyer Erez Reuveni alleging that Bove planned the defiance of court rulings against the administration’s deportation policy. “I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove said.Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, repeatedly asked him if it was true he had said “fuck you” as his suggested plan of action against adverse court decisions. Bove hemmed and hawed, and finally said: “I don’t recall.” Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, remarked: “I am hoping more evidence is going to come out that shows that you lied before this committee.”Grassley, however, succeeded in protecting Bove. Bondi and Blanche stared down the Republican senators whose majority can put Bove on the bench. He is Trump’s model appointment of what he wants in a judge. In announcing his nomination, Trump tweeted: “Emil Bove will never let you down!”In another scene in The Godfather, Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo, another Mafia boss, comes to Vito Corleone, offering a deal to cut him in on the narcotics trade. “I need, Don Corleone,” he says, “those judges that you carry in your pockets like so many nickels and dimes.” It was an offer that the Godfather refused. He left the drugs, but kept the judges.

    Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      Right back at ya! Trump’s crude but effective rhetorical standby | Chris Taylor

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      Donald Trump and his allies wasted little time in branding the people protesting against immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles as “insurrectionists”. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy – particularly the vindictive kind – spoke darkly of a “violent insurrection”. JD Vance, the vice-president, inveighed against “insurrectionists carrying foreign flags” on the streets of the nation’s second-biggest city.It didn’t escape notice that an insurrection was exactly what the president was accused of instigating on 6 January 2021, when the flag being paraded through the Capitol was that of the Confederate secessionists. And that Trump hadn’t shown quite the same enthusiasm for sending in the troops then.But simply accusing the leader of the Maga movement of hypocrisy feels like such a 2015 move. It barely registers as news these days.What’s really notable is that this is the latest example of Trump’s well-honed tactic of repurposing criticisms of himself to attack his enemies.The world was first introduced to this manoeuvre on 19 October 2016 during a presidential debate in Las Vegas. When Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being Vladimir Putin’s puppet, Trump shot back: “No puppet, no puppet … No, you’re the puppet.”To many it sounded infantile, more proof of Trump’s lack of seriousness as a candidate. Back then, Twitter was the go-to platform to register reaction, as CBS reported:“‘NO, YOU’RE THE PUPPET!’ A presidential candidate just went straight up preschool on his opponent,” one person tweeted.“‘NO YOU’RE THE PUPPET’ shows how truly childish our election system has become,” someone replied.True, but these reactions underestimated the power of this simple, some would say puerile, tactic. After all, this was a time when the term “fake news” was still used in its original sense of fringe media stories that were deliberately untrue before Trump restyled it into a catch-all term for the mainstream media and anything it produces that he doesn’t like.The fact that people are now less likely to associate “fake news” with Pizzagate than with Trump’s attacks on the likes of CNN shows just how effective this switcheroo is.But its real power lies in the way it undermines the very notion of truth. If everyone’s an insurrectionist, no one is. As with Humpty Dumpty, words mean what Trump wants them to mean.The more you look, the more you see the tactic everywhere. It’s a pretty safe bet the phrase “election interference” had never tripped off Trump’s tongue before 2016, when the question of Russia’s role in helping secure his election ultimately led to the Mueller report. After he was charged with election interference following the 2020 vote, however, he accused, among others, the Biden administration, the Secret Service, Google, the British Labour party and Kamala Harris (on the – entirely false – grounds she had posted AI-created images of her rallies) of “election interference” in the 2024 contest.When Democrats accused Trump of trying to “weaponize” the Department of Justice in his attempts to illicitly stay in office after his 2020 election defeat, it was only a question of time before “weaponization” would re-emerge, rotated 180 degrees, as a favourite term in the Maga lexicon of vitriol. Once Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in 2023, it was they who set up a formal subcommittee on “weaponization” of the federal government, to castigate their enemies. And when the Trump 2.0 administration weaponized the federal government to fire justice department officials who had participated in Jack Smith’s “election interference” case against Trump on the grounds that they had weaponized the government … we had truly stepped through the looking glass.Accusing anti-racist campaigners of racism? Check. Denouncing Jews as antisemites? Check.And it’s all helped by another apparently childish but startlingly effective tactic: repetition. Why did a majority of Republicans in 2024 believe that Biden’s election victory four years earlier was rigged despite all evidence to the contrary? Probably because Trump spent fours years, day after day, saying it was. Why did so many Americans in the 2024 election campaign insist they had been better off four years earlier despite the demonstrable fact that Covid-hit 2020 had been an economic disaster? Well, maybe Trump’s constant bragging about presiding over the “greatest economy in the history of the world” had more than a little method to it. (As the musician Mark E Smith said in another context: “It’s not repetition; it’s discipline.” You can say that again.)Trump’s rhetorical tropes may display a certain reptilian genius but there is nothing new under the sun.“The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.” So claimed a 1941 article called Churchill’s Lie Factory written by one Joseph Goebbels, who had been accused of … exactly that.

      Chris Taylor is a subeditor at the Guardian US and author of The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna More

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      Trump says he fired National Portrait Gallery chief in latest conflict with arts

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      Donald Trump says he is firing the first female director of the National Portrait Gallery, which contained a caption that referenced the attack on the US Capitol that his supporters carried out in early 2021.The president announced the termination on Friday in a post on his social media platform that accused Sajet – born in Nigeria, raised in Australia and a citizen of the Netherlands – of being “a strong supporter” of diversity initiatives that his administration opposes as well as “highly partisan”. He cited no evidence for either claim.Legal experts, including Eric Columbus, a former litigator for the January 6 select committee, suggested Trump does not have the power to fire Sajet, since the gallery is part of the Smithsonian, which is not run by the executive branch.In its collection of portraits of American presidents, the gallery had this text about Trump: “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials. After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”Sajet arrived in the US with her family in 1997, held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and was appointed director of the National Portrait Gallery in 2013, according to a Guardian profile of her.The National Portrait Gallery is an art museum in Washington DC that opened in 1968 and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It boasts the only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House.After beginning his second presidency in January, Trump issued an executive order directing the removal of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the institution’s storied museums.Sajet had said the gallery under her leadership tried “very hard to be even-handed when we talk about people and that’s the key”.“Everyone has an opinion about American presidents, good, bad and indifferent,” Sajet said. “We hear it all, but generally I think we’ve done pretty well.” More

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      FBI to reinvestigate 2023 White House cocaine find and leak of supreme court Dobbs draft

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      The FBI will launch new investigations into the 2023 discovery of a bag of cocaine at the White House during Joe Biden’s term, as well as into pipe bombs discovered at Democratic and Republican party headquarters before the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump, and the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion before the historic overturning of national abortion rights with the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on any progress in looking into the old cases. The incidents have been popular talking points on America’s political right wing and among conspiracy theorists.Bongino said that he and the FBI director, Kash Patel, had been evaluating “a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest” and had made a decision “to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases”.The FBI deputy director made an appeal for “investigative tips on these matters”.The discovery of a small, zippered bag of cocaine in a cubby near the entrance to the West Wing two years ago drew excited commentary from Republicans, including then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has said it was implausible the drugs could belong to anyone beyond Joe Biden or son Hunter Biden – even though the Biden family was away from Washington at the time.Bongino has previously alleged, without presenting any evidence, that he was in touch with whistleblowers who told him they were “suspicious” that evidence from the White House cocaine bag “could match a member of the inner Biden circle”.A formal laboratory test confirmed that the powder found was indeed cocaine and the Secret Service said the substance was found in a “highly trafficked” area of the White House and it was reviewing visitor logs to determine how it had gotten there.Then White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that public tours of the West Wing had taken place over the weekend when the discovery was made, prompting an evacuation of the executive mansion.“We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,” Jean-Pierre later said, referring to the Secret Service. A White House spokesperson said that the allegations that Hunter Biden was involved was “incredibly irresponsible”.But in his first interview as a president in February this year, Trump returned to the subject, arguing that forensic analysis should have revealed fingerprints but the evidence appeared to have been deliberately wiped clean. He described the cocaine discovery as a “terrible thing”.The pre-emptive publication of the supreme court’s opinion ending the constitutional right to abortion in Politico on 2 May 2022 provoked condemnation from Trump, who called the source of the leak “slime” and demanded that the journalists involved be imprisoned until they revealed who it was.Eight months later, the supreme court released a 23-page report into the leak saying the investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence”.Investigations into both cases ended without identifying who was responsible for the cocaine or the leak.Bongino also announced more resources for the FBI’s investigation into the placement of pipe bombs at the Democratic national committee and the Republican national committee in Washington.The bombs, which were later defused, had been planted the night before Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Trump officials reportedly reach $5m settlement in January 6 wrongful death suit

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      The Trump administration has reportedly reached an agreement to pay nearly $5m to the family of the woman who was fatally shot by police while participating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol carried out by the president’s supporters.Citing multiple sources, the Washington Post reported on Monday that the Trump administration had agreed to pay the family of Ashli Babbitt to settle the wrongful death lawsuit they filed after the attack.Babbitt was attempting to force her way into the lobby of the US House speaker at the time, Nancy Pelosi, when the Trump supporter was shot dead by a Capitol police officer. The payment of about $5m at the center of the settlement is meant to resolve the litigation from Babbitt’s estate, which initially sought $30m in damages.Attorneys for both Babbitt’s family and the federal government each informed a judge earlier in May that they had agreed to settle the case in principle. The case was scheduled to be tried in July 2026.Although a binding agreement had not yet been signed and details of the settlement were not revealed during a court hearing on 2 May,Judge Ana Reyes of the US district court in Washington DC instructed both parties to provide an update by Thursday.Sources with knowledge of the agreement told the Post that Trump’s justice department would pay just less than $5m, with approximately one-third allocated to the family’s legal team, which includes Judicial Watch, a politically conservative organization, and attorney Richard Driscoll of Alexandria, Virginia. These sources requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing case, the Post reported.Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, reacted to the news of the settlement by calling it a “slap in the face” to the American people.Jeffries said that the settlement was “totally done without any communication to the chief of the Capitol police or his lawyers, and appears solely the result of a political determination that Donald Trump and Republicans are going to try to whitewash what happened on January 6.“This settlement is just an extension of what they’ve previously done, which is to pardon violent felons who violently attacked the Capitol on January 6, including police officers, and now have all been pardoned and sent back to communities across the country where in some cases they’re re-engaging in criminal activity,” he added.“Donald Trump and the extreme Maga Republicans are not going to be able to erase what happened on January 6, no matter how hard they try.”The January 6 Capitol attack that Babbitt chose to partake in was a desperate attempt by a pro-Trump mob to keep him in the White House despite his first presidency ending in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The attack has been linked to at least eight other deaths, including the suicides of police officers who were left traumatized having defended the Capitol that day.Babbitt’s social media activity showed that she was deeply engaged for months with a conspiracy theory that painted Democratic lawmakers as evil pedophiles with whom Trump was locked in mortal combat. And she also believed lies from Trump and his allies that electoral fraudsters had handed Biden the 2020 election.For weeks before she joined the mob in DC, Babbitt had been retweeting those false claims from Trump himself, as well as the pro-Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, alleging massive voter fraud before his decisive electoral loss to Biden.Trump then clinched a second presidency after defeating Kamala Harris in November’s election. More

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      Trump 100 days: tariffs, egg prices, Ice arrests and approval rating – in charts

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format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal} More

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      Trump pardons January 6 loyalist and commutes jail time of Hunter Biden associate

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      Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s scandal-plagued son.Thomas Caldwell, 69, of Berryville, Virginia, has been granted a pardon for his alleged role in the Capitol attack following a series of pardons Trump has given out to those involved with or present during the events on 6 January 2021.Caldwell, a navy veteran, stood trial earlier this year alongside leaders of the Oath Keepers militia. He was acquitted by a jury in Washington’s federal court of seditious conspiracy and two other conspiracy offenses, but was sentenced in January to time served with no probation.At the time, the sentencing was thought to be the ending of a years-long saga for one of the first defendants charged in the government’s largest January 6 case.The Oath Keepers, founded in 2009, is a far-right anti-government extremist militia group. Eleven members of the organization, including its founder and leader, Stewart Rhodes, were indicted for seditious conspiracy for their role in the insurrection.The US Department of Justice previously described the actions of the Oath Keepers militia as “terrorism”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring the trial, prosecutors said that Caldwell helped coordinate “quick reaction force” teams that prosecutors allege the Oath Keepers stationed outside the capital city, with the purpose of getting weapons into the hands of extremists if they were needed. The weapons were never deployed, and lawyers for the Oath Keepers said they were only there for defensive purposes in case of attacks from leftwing activists.On the day of his inauguration, Trump issued “full, complete and unconditional” presidential pardons for about 1,500 people who were involved in the January 6 attack on Congress, including some convicted of violent acts.Trump has also issued a commuted sentence for Jason Galanis, who had been serving a 14-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to a multimillion-dollar scheme involving fraudulent tribal bonds. He is the second former business partner of Hunter Biden to be granted clemency. More

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      Trump’s January 6 pardon doesn’t cover FBI murder plot conviction, judge rules

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      A man pardoned by Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection who also was convicted of plotting to kill federal agents investigating him is still legally liable for the plot, a judge ruled on Monday.Edward Kelley was pardoned by Trump for his role in the US Capitol riot, but he remained in prison on separate charges. The Tennessee man had developed a “kill list” of FBI agents who had investigated him for the Capitol attack.On his first day in office, Trump issued pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 people convicted for their roles in the January 6 insurrection, including militia members. But other rioters had separate charges that the courts and the justice department are working through.In Kelley’s case, the justice department argued he was not pardoned by Trump for the plotting charges. In Monday’s ruling, the US district judge Thomas Varlan deniedKelley’s motion to dismiss the charges, saying the case “involved separate offense conduct that was physically, temporally, and otherwise unrelated to defendant’s conduct in the D.C. Case and/or events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021”.The plotting charges stemmed from “entirely independent criminal conduct in Tennessee, in late 2022, more than 500 miles away from the Capitol”, Varlan wrote.Prosecutors allege Kelley – who was the fourth rioter to enter the Capitol on January 6 and was carrying a gun – was developing a plan to murder law enforcement agents. They produced recordings of his planning activity, including Kelley giving instructions to “start it”, “attack”, and “take out their office”.“Every hit has to hurt,” he allegedly says in one recording.A cooperating defendant testified against Kelley and said he and Kelley were planning to attack the FBI field office in Knoxville with car bombs and drones, and were strategizing over how to assassinate FBI employees at their homes or in public places.While most participants in the events of January 6 who were in prison have been released, some are still inside because of other charges, both related and unrelated to the Capitol riot. It is not yet clear what will happen to some rioters who were charged with gun crimes during searches of their homes when authorities were serving January 6 warrants. More

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      Pardoned January 6 rioter said ‘I’m shooting myself’ before Indiana deputy fatally shot him

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      The pardoned US Capitol attacker who was shot to death by an Indiana sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop in January had first told the officer: “I’m shooting myself,” before attempting to retrieve a gun from his car, according to officials as well as newly released video of the encounter.Matthew Huttle’s killing by the deputy – whose body-worn and dashboard cameras captured video of the traffic stop – was “legally justified” and would not lead to any criminal charges, prosecutors said in a statement published on Thursday.Huttle, 42, had traveled to Washington DC with his uncle, Dale, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a desperate attempt to prolong his presidency despite his losing the 2020 White House election to Joe Biden, according to federal prosecutors. Matthew Huttle entered the Capitol for about 15 minutes – recording it on video – and agreed to a plea deal that resulted in about six months of prison for him.Dale Huttle, meanwhile, received 30 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to using a long flagpole to jab a police officer protecting the Capitol.The Huttles were among more than 1,500 Capitol attackers who were pardoned by Trump on 20 January, his first day back in the Oval Office after retaking it by defeating Kamala Harris in November’s election.Six days after Trump’s mass clemency, a deputy stopped Matthew Huttle as he drove at 70mph (113km/h) in a 55mph zone near the line between the north-west Indiana counties of Jasper and Pulaski. The deputy told Huttle he would be arrested for being a habitual traffic offender, which prompted the motorist – who had been ordered out of his car – to say: “No, I can’t go to jail for this.”Huttle later sprinted for his car as the deputy shouted: “No, don’t you do it buddy! No, no, no, no, no!”The deputy and Huttle struggled in the latter man’s car. Video captured Huttle shouting: “I’m shooting myself”, and investigators said he “reached in a manner consistent with retrieving a weapon”.Prosecutors said the deputy fired multiple shots at Huttle – mortally wounding him – after seeing him raise a gun. Investigators subsequently found a loaded 9mm pistol as well as additional ammunition inside Huttle’s car, prosecutors also said.“Based on the evidence … the deputy’s actions were legally justified under Indiana law,” said the statement signed by prosecutor Chris Vawter, which called Huttle’s killing a case of self-defense. “This investigation is now closed, and no charges will be filed.”Attempts to contact an attorney for Huttle were not immediately successful. In court filings pertaining to the case against him in the January 6 attack, Huttle’s attorney, Andrew Hemmer, claimed that his client was “not a believer in any political cause” and only went to the Capitol that day “because he thought it would be a historic moment”.“He had nothing better to do after getting out of jail” in connection with a driving violation, Hemmer wrote of Huttle.Those who criticized the clemency that Trump granted the Capitol attackers included the US’s largest police union, which had endorsed him over Harris, a former prosecutor.The Fraternal Order of Police said in a joint statement with the International Association of Chiefs of Police: “Crimes against law enforcement are not just attacks on individuals or public safety – they are attacks on society and undermine the rule of law.”Huttle was one of multiple pardoned Capitol attackers who have since landed in news headlines over other legal issues.That group included a man left facing unresolved charges in Texas of having solicited a minor.Another pardoned January 6 participant was rearrested on federal gun charges. And yet another was handed a 10-year prison sentence for killing a woman in a 2022 drunk-driving crash, according to authorities. More