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      ‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in book

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      ‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in bookEx-chief of staff downplays Trump involvement in insurrection and says mob had ‘absolutely no urging’ from the president

      Trump tested positive before first debate, says Meadows
      In his new memoir, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows blames just “a handful of fanatics” for the 6 January attack on the Capitol – over which nearly 700 people have now been charged.Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey ClarkRead more“No one would [focus] on the actions of … those supporters of President Trump who came [to Washington on 6 January] without hate in their hearts or any bad intentions,” he writes. “Instead, they would laser in on the actions of a handful of fanatics across town.”Throughout his book, Meadows seeks to play down Donald Trump’s role in an insurrection regarding which Meadows himself will now co-operate with the investigating House committee.The former chief of staff writes extensively, supportively and selectively about Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, of which the Capitol attack was the deadly culmination.But while enthusiastically repeating Trump’s lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud, Meadows skates over attempts to stop the certification of electoral college results, the cause in which the mob attacked the Capitol.For example, Meadows does not mention Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official whose attempt to persuade Trump he could legally overturn his defeat landed him in legal jeopardy.Reporting by Jon Karl of ABC News has placed Meadows in the Oval Office on 3 January, when Clark tried to persuade Trump to fire the acting attorney general, Jeffery Rosen, who rejected the scheme.In his book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, Karl details how Trump was deterred by the threat of mass resignations at the DoJ.On Wednesday, the 6 January committee recommended a contempt charge for Clark. The issue now moves to the House.Karl also reports that aides to the then vice-president, Mike Pence, who would oversee certification of results at the Capitol on 6 January, “began to suspect” Meadows himself was pushing schemes to overturn the process.Meadows, Karl says, sent the vice-president’s staff a memo written by the campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis which argued that Pence could declare results in six key states to be under dispute.Reporting another memo written by Johnny McEntee, Trump’s director of the presidential personnel office, Karl writes: “This was all madness. There was no other way to put it.”Karl concurs with other reporters in saying Meadows was not in the Oval Office when on 4 January a constitutional scholar, John Eastman, presented his own memo on how Pence could supposedly stop certification.Two days later, in a few chaotic hours at the Capitol, offices were ransacked, rioters paraded Trump and Confederate flags through the halls of Congress and lawmakers were hustled to safety. Some rioters chanted that Pence should be captured and hanged. Five people died, including a Trump supporter shot by law enforcement and a Capitol police officer who collapsed the next day.Meadows, however, insists the mob had “absolutely no urging from President Trump”.The Guardian obtained a copy of the book, The Chief’s Chief, as Meadows reversed course under threat of a contempt charge and agreed to testify before the House select committee investigating 6 January.Also this week, lawyers for Trump argued in court that executive privilege means records from his White House should not be released to the panel. The former president contends the same doctrine should apply to former aides.Last weekend, the California Democrat Adam Schiff said the 6 January panel wanted to establish “the complete role of the former president” in the Capitol riot.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders knew about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?” Schiff stated.On Tuesday, citing sources close to Trump, the Guardian reported that hours before the Capitol attack, Trump made several calls from the White House to allies at a Washington hotel and talked about ways to stop certification.Meadows’ book, however, will provide few further answers.As he rode with Trump to a rally near the White House on 6 January, Meadows writes, Trump “was in mourning for the second term he had been unfairly denied”.Trump took the stage following an exhortation to “trial by combat” from his attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Trump’s own words featured his instruction to supporters to “fight like hell”.But Meadows claims the speech was “more subdued than usual”.He also claims that when Trump told the crowd “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on” Republicans objecting to electoral college results, it was all an “ad lib”.Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead moreMeadows said Trump told him immediately after the speech that when he said he would march on the Capitol himself, he had been “speaking metaphorically” – but only because he “knew as well as anyone that we couldn’t organise a trip like that on such short notice”.In their own Trump book, Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post describe what happened next.“Following Trump’s hour-long speech, thousands of attendees took his advice. They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, and when they arrived, they … surged closer and closer to the Capitol despite pleas from [law enforcement].“By 1.30pm, parts of the crowd had become a mob, pounding on the doors and demanding entry. At 1.50pm [police] declared a riot. Possible pipe bombs had been found nearby.“Shortly after 2pm, windows at the Capitol began to shatter. They were in. Many were looking for Mike Pence … outside, a makeshift gallows had been erected.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey Clark

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      Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey ClarkFormer Trump DoJ official punished for refusal to comply with subpoena but gets last chance after 11th-hour statement The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack recommended on Wednesday the criminal prosecution of the former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.The select committee approved the contempt of Congress report unanimously. The resolution now heads to the full House of Representatives, which could refer Clark for prosecution in a vote that could come as soon as next week.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said at the vote to report Clark in contempt that the panel was seeking his criminal prosecution to demonstrate their resolve in enforcing subpoenas, and to warn other Trump aides about the penalties for non-compliance.Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead more“The select committee has no desire to be placed in this situation but Mr Clark has left us no other choice. He chose this path. He knew what consequences he might face if he did so. This committee and this House must insist on accountability,” Thompson said.But the select committee gave Clark one final opportunity to escape a referral to the justice department for prosecution by appearing at a new deposition on Saturday, after his attorney said in an 11th-hour letter that Clark now intended to claim the fifth amendment.“The committee would certainly consider that we will not finalize his contempt process if Mr Clark genuinely cures his failure to comply with the subpoena this Saturday,” the vice-chair of the select committee, Liz Cheney, said at the vote.The reprieve for Clark means that the select committee may ultimately take no action against him, even if he claims the fifth amendment – his right to protect himself against self-incrimination – for almost every question put before him at the deposition on Saturday.“The fifth amendment is part of the constitution. Our committee is here to defend the constitution against a violent assault,” said the select committee member Jamie Raskin. “So we’re not going to begrudge anyone an honest invocation of the fifth amendment.”“If he thinks that his communications with Trump or anyone else reveal criminal activity, and he has a reasonable fear that that can be used against him, then he’s got an opportunity to exercise the fifth amendment,” Raskin said. That could mean House investigators learn nothing more about Clark’s role in Trump’s scheme. But if Clark testifies under immunity, he would then have to respond truthfully to all questions asked by the select committee.Raskin told reporters after the vote that the contempt report would next go to the House rules committee, which would prepare it for a full House vote, which remains on the table should Clark not cooperate to a satisfactory degree at his new deposition.The select committee’s recommendation could bring grave consequences for Clark: if the report is passed by the House, the justice department is required to take the matter before a federal grand jury, which last month indicted the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon over his subpoena defiance.In his opening statement before the vote, Thompson noted that Clark’s attorney had sent a letter to the select committee late on Monday night stating that Clark had experienced a late change of mind and would claim fifth amendment protection.But Thompson said even though the select committee would provide Clark an opportunity to assert that protection at a second deposition on Saturday, he viewed the move as “a last-ditch attempt to delay the select committee’s proceedings” and would proceed with the vote to recommend his prosecution.The select committee would only move to halt the contempt of Congress proceeding if Clark demonstrated that he intended to fully cooperate with House investigators, Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the select committee said in her opening statement.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor offense may not ultimately lead to his cooperation, and pursuing the charge could still take years.The select committee subpoenaed Clark last month as it sought to uncover the extent of his role in Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January.Thompson said at the time that the subpoena, which followed a Senate judiciary committee report detailing Clark’s efforts to abuse the justice department for Trump, also sought to identify who else in the Trump administration had been involved in the scheme.But after Trump issued a directive to former aides to refuse to cooperate with the investigation, even though Clark agreed to appear before investigative counsel at a deposition, he declined to answer questions broadly citing attorney-client and executive privileges.The select committee on Tuesday rejected those arguments, saying Clark had no basis to refuse his subpoena on grounds of privilege because Trump had never formally asserted the protections – but also because Clark tried to use executive privilege for non-privileged material.“Mr Clark refused to answer questions regarding whether he used his personal phone or email for official business, when he met a specific member of Congress, and what statements he made to media,” the contempt report said, “none of which involve presidential communication.”The contempt report added that even if the select committee had accepted his executive privilege claim, the law made clear that even senior White House officials advising sitting presidents don’t have the kind of immunity from congressional inquiries being claimed by Clark.The select committee also objected to the argument by Clark’s counsel that he could not respond to the panel’s questions until the courts resolved whether Trump could use executive privilege to block the National Archives from turning over White House documents.“This is not a valid objection to a subpoena, and the select committee is not aware of any legal authority that supports this position,” the report said. “The issues raised in the National Archives litigation are wholly separate and distinct from those raised by Mr Clark.”Ahead of the select committee’s vote to recommend prosecution, Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougal, disagreed and told Thompson in a letter that Clark could not testify until the National Archives case was decided.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” MacDougalsaid of Clark in the letter. “Mr Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”The Senate report found Clark had played a leading role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leveraging his role at the justice department to do Trump’s bidding and pressure the then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, to avow debunked claims of fraud.It detailed, for instance, a 2 January confrontation during which Clark demanded that Rosen send Georgia election officials a letter that falsely claimed the justice department had identified fraud – and threatened to push Trump to fire him if he refused.The move to recommend the criminal prosecution of Clark for contempt marks the second such confrontation, after the select committee last month voted unanimously to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress for also ignoring his subpoena in its entirety.Bannon also cited Trump’s directive, first reported by the Guardian, for former aides and advisers to defy subpoenas and refrain from turning over documents, in his refusal to cooperate with the select committee’s investigation.Bannon was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury earlier in November. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to “go on the offense” against Biden and the select committee.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before Capitol attack committee

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      Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before Capitol attack committeeMeadows will appear for a deposition and provide documents exempt from executive privilege before the committee The former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will testify before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack as part of an initial cooperation agreement reached with his lawyer, the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, announced on Tuesday.Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedRead moreThe agreement involves Meadows appearing for a deposition and providing documents that are not protected by executive privilege. The move is aimed at staving off the threat of criminal prosecution for defying a subpoena in its entirety.“Meadows has been engaging with the select committee,” Thompson said. “He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition. The committee will continue to assess his degree of compliance with our subpoena after the deposition.”The select committee is seeking to hear from Meadows since his role as White House chief of staff means he may hold the key to unlocking the extent of Trump’s involvement in efforts to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The select committee also believes that Meadows remained by Trump’s side for most of 6 January and was therefore in a unique position to know what the former president was privately thinking and doing at the White House as the deadly attack on the Capitol unfolded.But after Trump directed his former aides to defy subpoenas issued by the select committee on grounds of executive privilege, Meadows refused to appear for depositions or turn over materials while he negotiated the scope of his cooperation with the committee.That left Meadows vulnerable to criminal prosecution for defying his subpoena first issued in September, but Thompson said in a statement on Tuesday that the select committee had at least tentatively resolved that impasse.Still, the agreement is understood to be delicate and Thompson appeared to suggest that Meadows still risked facing contempt of Congress charges alongside the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Trump Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, if he violated the deal.As part of the deposition arrangement, the select committee did not agree to take any topics for questioning off the table. Meadows also retains the ability to invoke executive privilege and refuse to respond over the course of his testimony.“As we have from the beginning, we continue to work with the select committee and its staff to see if we can reach an accommodation that does not require Mr Meadows to waive executive privilege,” Meadows’s attorney George Terwilliger said in a statement.The acknowledgment of the agreement, first reported by CNN, means the select committee may depose its first Trump White House aide before the end of the year after struggling to compel the cooperation of any other top Trump administration official.The select committee is expected to vote unanimously on Wednesday to hold Clark, the former Trump DoJ official, in contempt of Congress after he ignored a subpoena demanding documents and testimony in its entirety, citing vague claims of attorney-client privilege.The full House of Representatives earlier referred Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, to the justice department for prosecution after he also defied a subpoena. Bannon pleaded not guilty to two contempt of Congress charges and is expected to fight his indictment.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victory

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      Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victory Sources tell Guardian Trump pressed lieutenants at Willard hotel in Washington about ways to delay certification of election resultHours before the deadly attack on the US Capitol this year, Donald Trump made several calls from the White House to top lieutenants at the Willard hotel in Washington and talked about ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lieRead moreThe former president first told the lieutenants his vice-president, Mike Pence, was reluctant to go along with the plan to commandeer his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress in a way that would allow Trump to retain the presidency for a second term.But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January, and delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.The former president’s remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification.Multiple sources, speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, described Trump’s involvement in the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 election.Trump’s remarks reveal a direct line from the White House and the command center at the Willard. The conversations also show Trump’s thoughts appear to be in line with the motivations of the pro-Trump mob that carried out the Capitol attack and halted Biden’s certification, until it was later ratified by Congress.The former president’s call to the Willard hotel about stopping Biden’s certification is increasingly a central focus of the House select committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack, as it raises the specter of a possible connection between Trump and the insurrection.Several Trump lawyers at the Willard that night deny Trump sought to stop the certification of Biden’s election win. They say they only considered delaying Biden’s certification at the request of state legislators because of voter fraud.The former president made several calls to the lieutenants at the Willard the night before 6 January. He phoned the lawyers and the non-lawyers separately, as Giuliani did not want non-lawyers to participate on legal calls and jeopardise attorney-client privilege.Trump’s call to the lieutenants came a day after Eastman, a late addition to the Trump legal team, outlined at a 4 January meeting at the White House how he thought Pence could usurp his role in order to stop Biden’s certification from happening at the joint session.At the meeting, which was held in the Oval Office and attended by Trump, Pence, Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short and his legal counsel Greg Jacob, Eastman presented a memo that detailed how Pence could insert himself into the certification and delay the process.The memo outlined several ways for Pence to commandeer his role at the joint session, including throwing the election to the House, or adjourning the session to give states time to send slates of electors for Trump on the basis of election fraud – Eastman’s preference.Then– acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, had already determined there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.Eastman told the Guardian last month that the memo only presented scenarios and was not intended as advice. “The advice I gave the vice-president very explicitly was that I did not think he had the authority simply to declare which electors to count,” Eastman said.Trump seized on the memo – first reported by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book Peril – and pushed Pence to adopt the schemes, which some of the other lieutenants at the Willard later told Trump were legitimate ways to flip the election.But Pence resisted Trump’s entreaties, and told him in the Oval Office the next day that Trump should count him out of whatever plans he had to subvert the results of the 2020 election at the joint session, because he did not intend to take part.Trump was furious at Pence for refusing to do him a final favor when, in the critical moment underpinning the effort to reinstall Trump as president, he phoned lieutenants at the Willard sometime between the late evening on 5 January and the early hours of 6 January.From the White House, Trump made several calls to lieutenants, including Giuliani, Eastman, Epshteyn and Bannon, who were huddled in suites complete with espresso machines and Cokes in a mini-fridge in the north-west corner of the hotel.On the calls, the former president first recounted what had transpired in the Oval Office meeting with Pence, informing Bannon and the lawyers at the Willard that his vice-president appeared ready to abandon him at the joint session in several hours’ time.“He’s arrogant,” Trump, for instance, told Bannon of Pence – his own way of communicating that Pence was unlikely to play ball – in an exchange reported in Peril and confirmed by the Guardian.But on at least one of those calls, Trump also sought from the lawyers at the Willard ways to stop the joint session to ensure Biden would not be certified as president on 6 January, as part of a wider discussion about buying time to get states to send Trump electors.The fallback that Trump and his lieutenants appeared to settle on was to cajole Republican members of Congress to raise enough objections so that even without Pence adjourning the joint session, the certification process would be delayed for states to send Trump slates.It was not clear whether Trump discussed on the call about the prospect of stopping Biden’s certification by any means if Pence refused to insert himself into the process, but the former president is said to have enjoyed watching the insurrection unfold from the dining room.But the fact that Trump considered ways to stop the joint session may help to explain why he was so reluctant to call off the rioters and why Republican senator Ben Sasse told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he heard Trump seemed “delighted” about the attack.The lead Trump lawyer at the Willard, Giuliani, appearing to follow that fallback plan, called at least one Republican senator later that same evening, asking him to help keep Congress adjourned and stall the joint session beyond 6 January.In a voicemail recorded at about 7pm on 6 January, and reported by the Dispatch, Giuliani implored Republican senator Tommy Tuberville to object to 10 states Biden won once Congress reconvened at 8pm, a process that would have concluded 15 hours later, close to 7 January.“The only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow – ideally until the end of tomorrow,” Giuliani said.A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to requests for comment on this account of Trump’s call. Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment. Eastman, Epshteyn and Bannon declined to comment. Trump made several calls the day before the Capitol attack from both the White House residence, his preferred place to work, as well as the West Wing, but it was not certain from which location he phoned his top lieutenants at the Willard.Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent Read moreThe White House residence and its Yellow Oval Room – a Trump favorite – is significant since communications there, including from a desk phone, are not automatically memorialized in records sent to the National Archives after the end of an administration.But even if Trump called his lieutenants from the West Wing, the select committee may not be able to fully uncover the extent of his involvement in the events of 6 January, unless House investigators secure testimony from individuals with knowledge of the calls.That difficulty arises since calls from the White House are not necessarily recorded, and call detail records that the select committee is suing to pry free from the National Archives over Trump’s objections about executive privilege, only show the destination of the calls.House select committee investigators last week opened a new line of inquiry into activities at the Willard hotel, just across the street from the White House, issuing subpoenas to Eastman and former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, an assistant to Giuliani.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials at the Willard to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol riot panel to vote for contempt charges against Trump DoJ official

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      Capitol riot panel to vote for contempt charges against Trump DoJ officialCommittee to recommend criminal prosecution of Jeffrey ClarkClark defied subpoena and refused to turn over documents The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack announced on Monday that it will vote to recommend the criminal prosecution of top former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark after he defied a subpoena seeking his cooperation with the inquiry.Joe Biden says Omicron Covid variant a ‘cause for concern, not panic’ – liveRead moreThe move to pursue contempt of Congress charges against Clark reflects the select committee’s aggressive approach to warn recalcitrant witnesses against attempting to derail their investigation as Trump tried during his administration.Members on the select committee will convene on Wednesday evening to vote on the contempt report – which is expected to be unanimous, according to a source familiar with the matter – and send it to a vote before the full House of Representatives.The select committee issued a subpoena to Clark last month in order to understand how the Trump White House sought to co-opt officials at the justice department to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory from taking place on 6 January.“We need to understand Mr Clark’s role in these efforts at the justice department and learn who was involved across the administration. The select committee expects Mr Clark to cooperate fully with our investigation,” said the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson.In targeting Clark, House investigators followed up on a Senate judiciary committee report that detailed his efforts to abuse the justice department and threaten the then acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to support Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The Senate report found Clark had conversations with Trump about how to upend the election, and pressured his superiors to draft a letter that falsely claimed the justice department had identified “significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election”.The report also detailed a 2 January episode where Clark seemed to blackmail Rosen, suggesting that Trump could fire Rosen if he refused to do the former president’s bidding, and then said he would decline to replace him as attorney general if he sent the letter. Clark, citing executive and attorney-client privilege, refused to turn over documents demanded by the subpoena and declined to answer questions at his deposition, instead delivering a 12-page letter from his attorney defending his decision to not testify.The attorney, Harry MacDougald, said in the letter that Clark would not testify at least until the courts resolved a separate lawsuit brought by Trump challenging the select committee’s request to review documents from his administration held by the National Archives.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” MacDougald said of Clark in the letter. “Mr Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”But the Biden White House has declined to invoke executive privilege for matters involving the Capitol attack in most cases, and White House counsel Dana Remus has waived the protection for Trump administration materials being sought by House investigators.Thompson said at the time that Clark’s defiance would put him on the path towards a criminal referral – a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum penalty of $100,000 and a 12-month jail sentence.The move to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Clark marks the second confrontation, after the select committee last month voted unanimously to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for ignoring his subpoena.Bannon also cited Trump’s directive, first reported by the Guardian, for former aides and advisers to defy subpoenas and refrain from turning over documents in his refusal to cooperate with the select committee’s investigation.Bannon was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury earlier this month and surrendered himself to the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to “go on the offense” against Biden and the select committee.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lie

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      Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lie
      Former president issues typically rambling statement
      Capitol attack: Schiff says Meadows contempt decision soon
      Donald Trump has challenged leading editors and politicians to debate him in public over his lie that Joe Biden beat him in 2020 through electoral fraud.In a typically rambling statement on Sunday, the former president complained about “the heads of the various papers [and] far left politicians” and said: “If anyone would like a public debate on the facts, not the fiction, please let me know. It will be a ratings bonanza for television!”Can the Republican party escape Trump? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead moreDespite Trump’s insistence that “the 2020 election was rigged and stolen” – and his well-known fixation on TV ratings – it was not.Even William Barr, an attorney general widely seen as willing to run interference for Trump, publicly stated there was no evidence of widespread electoral fraud.Biden beat Trump by more than 7m in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college, a result Trump called a landslide when he beat Hillary Clinton by it in 2016. Clinton also beat him in the popular vote.Trump’s proposal of a public debate – which seemed unlikely to bear fruit – extended to what he called “members of the highly partisan unselect committee of Democrats who refuse to delve into what caused the 6 January protest”.The attack on the US Capitol, Trump said, was caused by “the fake election results”.In a way, he was right. It was his lies about the election which led to the deaths of five people around the attack on Congress by a mob seeking to stop certification of Biden’s win, some chanting that Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, should be hanged.At a rally near the White House shortly before the riot, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in his cause. He was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when only seven GOP senators found him guilty, not enough to convict.On Sunday, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee and a member of the 6 January panel, told CNN: “We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment. That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”To adapt the Tennessee Republican Howard Baker’s famous question about Richard Nixon and Watergate, the House committee is focusing on what Trump knew about plans for protest and possible violence on 6 January – and when he knew it.00:45Numerous Trump aides and allies have been served with subpoenas. Most, like the former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to contempt of Congress in the first such case since 1983, have refused to cooperate.‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violenceRead moreSchiff said a decision on a possible contempt charge for Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, would likely be made in the coming week.It seems unlikely any senior figure in the US media or among Democrats in Congress or state governments will take up Trump’s challenge to debate him in public.Observers including the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who helped Trump prepare for his debates against Biden, agree that a near-berserk performance in the first such contest did significant damage to Trump’s chances of re-election.At one point on a chaotic evening in Cleveland in September, Biden was so exasperated as to plead: “Would you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsUS CongressUS press and publishingDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent

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      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent
      House panel investigating Trump supporters’ deadly riot
      Former White House chief of staff has not co-operated
      Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
      The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is likely to decide this week whether to charge Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff, with criminal contempt of Congress, a key panel member said.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead more“I think we will probably make a decision this week on our course of conduct with that particular witness and maybe others,” Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chair of the House intelligence committee, told CNN’s State of the Union.Schiff also said he was concerned about the Department of Justice, for a perceived lack of interest in investigating Trump’s own actions, including asking officials in Georgia to “find” votes which would overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The 6 January committee is investigating the attack on the Capitol by supporters who Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Trump was impeached with support from 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven senators defected. The select committee contains only two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who broke with Trump over 6 January.“We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment,” Schiff said. “That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”Asked about Meadows – who is due to publish a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, on 7 December – Schiff said: “I can’t go into you know, communications that we’re having or haven’t had with particular witnesses.“But we are moving with alacrity with anyone who obstructs the committee, and that was really the case with Mr Bannon, it would be the case with Mr Meadows and Mr Clark or any others.”Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist, pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal contempt, the first pursued by Congress and the DoJ since 1982. Facing a fine and jail time, on Thursday Bannon filed a request that all documents in his case be made public.Like Bannon and Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official, has refused to co-operate with the House committee. Lawyers for Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege, the doctrine which deals with the confidentiality of communications between a president and his aides. Many experts say executive privilege does not apply to former presidents. The Biden White House has waived it.“It varies witness to witness,” Schiff said, “but we discuss as a committee and with our legal counsel what’s the appropriate step to make sure the American people get the information. We intend to hold public hearings again soon to bring the public along with us and show what we’re learning in real time. But we’re going to make these decisions very soon.”Schiff said he could not “go into the evidence that we have gathered” about Trump’s role in the events of 6 January, around which five people died and on which the vice-president, Mike Pence, was hidden from a mob which chanted for his hanging.“I think among the most important questions that we’re investigating,” Schiff said, “is the complete role of the former president.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders know about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead more“I think among the most, the broadest category of unknowns are those surrounding the former president. And we are determined to get answers.”Schiff was also asked about suggestions, including from Amit Mehta, a judge overseeing cases against Capitol rioters, nearly 700 of whom have been charged, that Trump might seem to be being let off the hook by the Department of Justice.Schiff said: “I am concerned that there does not appear to be an investigation, unless it’s being done very quietly by the justice department of … the former president on the phone with the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find, really demanding he find 11,780 votes that don’t exist, the precise number he would need to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that state.“I think if you or I were on that call and reported we’d be under investigation [or] indictment by now for a criminal effort to defraud the people in Georgia and the people in the country.“So that specifically I’m concerned about.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More