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    US historians sign brief to support Colorado’s removal of Trump from ballot

    Twenty-five historians of the civil war and Reconstruction filed a US supreme court brief in support of the attempt by Colorado to remove Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from running for office.“For historians,” the group wrote, “contemporary evidence from the decision-makers who sponsored, backed, and voted for the 14th amendment [ratified in 1868] is most probative. Analysis of this evidence demonstrates that decision-makers crafted section three to cover the president and to create an enduring check on insurrection, requiring no additional action from Congress.”Lawyers for Trump argue that the presidency is not an “office” as described in the 14th amendment, that only congressional action can stop someone from running, and that Trump did not incite an insurrection.Trump was impeached in Congress (for the second time) for inciting an insurrection: the Capitol attack of 6 January 2021, an attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden now linked to nine deaths, more than 1,200 arrests and hundreds of convictions.Impeached with the support of 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven Senate Republicans voted to convict, Trump now dominates his party and its presidential primary, 91 criminal charges (17 for election subversion), civil trials and ballot challenges notwithstanding.Maine has also sought to remove Trump from its ballot, a ruling delayed, like that in Colorado, while the supreme court considers the issue. Oral arguments are set for 8 February.Amicus briefs allow interested parties to make relevant arguments. Earlier this month, nearly 180 Republicans joined a brief in support of Trump.The 25 historians – among them James McPherson of Princeton, the pre-eminent civil war scholar – pointed to 1860s congressional debate.“Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, a Democratic opponent of the 14th amendment, challenged sponsors as to why section three omitted the president. Republican Lot Morrill of Maine … replied, ‘Let me call the senator’s attention to the words “or hold any office civil or military under the United States”.’ Johnson admitted his error; no other senator questioned whether section three covered the president.”The historians also cited Andrew Johnson, in 1868 the first president impeached, referring to himself as “chief executive officer”.Pointing out that section 3 of the 14th amendment is self-executing, and that “no former Confederate instantly disqualified from holding office under section three was disqualified by an act of Congress”, the historians also noted that Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, cited his own disqualification as reason an indictment for treason should be quashed.“Contemporary information provides direct evidence of the enduring reach of the 14th amendment,” the historians wrote. “Congress … chose to make disqualification permanent through a constitutional amendment.“Republican senator Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia said, ‘This is to go into our constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present.’ To this end, the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and 1898 did not pardon future insurrectionists.”The historians also said “adverse consequences followed” amnesty, many ex-Confederates winning office and “participat[ing] in the imposition of racial discrimination in the south that vitiated the intent of the 14th and 15th amendments to protect the civil and political rights of the formerly enslaved people.”The historians concluded: “The court should take cognisance that section three of the 14th amendment covers the present, is forward-looking, and requires no additional acts of Congress for implementation.”Some political and legal observers have suggested Trump should be allowed to run regardless of the constitution, because to bar him would be anti-democratic.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a forthcoming article for the New York Review of Books, seen by the Guardian, Sean Wilentz of Princeton – an eminent historian not part of the supreme court brief – calls such arguments “risible”.“By their reasoning,” Wilentz writes, “Trump’s misdeeds aside, enforcement of the 14th amendment poses a greater threat to our wounded democracy than Trump’s candidacy. In the name of defending democracy, they would speciously enable the man who did the wounding and now promises to do much more.”Trump and allies including Elise Stefanik of New York, a House Republican leader, have refused to commit to certifying the result should Trump lose in November.Wilentz continues: “Whether motivated by … fear of Trump’s base, a perverted sense of democratic evenhandedness, a reflexive hostility toward liberals, or something else, [commentators who say Trump should stay on the ballot] betray a basic ignorance of the relevant history and thus a misconception of what the 14th amendment actually meant and means. That history, meanwhile, has placed the conservative members of the supreme court in a very tight spot.”Wilentz says justices who subscribe to originalism, a doctrine that “purports to divine the original intentions of the framers [of the constitution] by presenting tendentious renderings of the past as a kind of scripture”, will in the Colorado case have to contend with evidence – as presented by the historians’ brief – of what the framers of the 14th amendment meant.Recently used to remove the right to abortion and to gut voting rights, originalism now threatens, Wilentz says, to become a “petard … exploding in the majority’s face.”He also writes: “The conservative majority of the supreme court and the historical legacy of the [Chief Justice John] Roberts court have reached a point of no return. The law, no matter the diversions and claptrap of Trump’s lawyers and the pundits, is crystal clear, on incontestable historical as well as originalist grounds … the conservatives face a choice between disqualifying Trump or shredding the foundation of their judicial methodology.”If the court does not “honour the original meaning of the 14th amendment and disqualify Donald Trump”, Wilentz writes, “it will trash the constitutional defense of democracy designed following slavery’s abolition; it will guarantee, at a minimum, political chaos no matter what the voters decide in November; and it will quite possibly pave the way for a man who has vowed that he will, if necessary, rescind the constitution in order to impose a dictatorship of revenge.” More

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    Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro sentenced to four months in prison

    Peter Navarro, a top former Trump administration official, was sentenced to four months in federal prison and fined $9,500 after he was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House select committee that investigated the January 6 Capitol attack.The sentence imposed by Amit Mehta in federal district court in Washington was lighter than what prosecutors recommended but tracked the four-month jail term handed to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was similarly convicted for ignoring the panel’s subpoena.“You are not a victim, you are not the object of a political prosecution,” the US district judge said from the bench. “These are circumstances of your own making.”Navarro, 74, was found guilty in September of two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to produce documents and testimony in the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack, claiming that executive privilege protections meant he did not have to cooperate.The committee took a special interest in Navarro because of his proximity to Trump and his involvement in a series of efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including to have members of Congress throw out the results in a plot he named “the Green Bay Sweep”.But Navarro’s subpoena defiance prompted a criminal referral to the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which brought the charges and ultimately asked for six months in jail because he brazenly ignored the subpoena even after being told executive privilege would not apply.“He cloaked his bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt behind baseless, unfounded invocations of executive privilege and immunity that could not and would never apply to his situation,” prosecutors wrote of Navarro in their sentencing memorandum.Within hours after the judge handed down the sentence, Navarro’s lawyers John Rowley and Stanley Woodward filed a notice of appeal to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit. As with Bannon, Navarro is expected to have his punishment deferred pending appeal.Navarro’s lawyers had asked for probation, saying the judge himself seemed to acknowledge at one point that Navarro genuinely believed Trump had invoked executive privilege, a separation-of-powers protection aimed at ensuring White House deliberations can be shielded from Congress.The privilege, however, is not absolute or all-encompassing. The January 6 committee had sought both White House and non-White House material, the latter of which would not be included, and the judge concluded in any case at a hearing that Trump had never formally invoked the privilege.Regardless of what Navarro may have believed, the judge found, he failed to prove the existence of a conversation or communication from Trump that explicitly instructed Navarro not to cooperate with the January 6 committee’s subpoena specifically.That proved to be the central problem for Navarro.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore charging Navarro, prosecutors decided not to bring charges against two other Trump White House officials – Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff , and Dan Scavino, former deputy chief – even though they also did not cooperate with the January 6 committee and were referred for contempt.The difference with Meadows and Scavino, as the record later appeared to show, was that they had received letters from a Trump lawyer directing them not to respond to subpoena requests from the panel on executive privilege grounds.Navarro received a similar letter from Trump directing him not to comply with a subpoena from around the same time issued by the House committee that investigated the Covid pandemic. But he was unable to produce an invocation with respect to the later January 6 committee.“Had the president issued a similar letter to the defendant, the record here would look very different,” the judge said at a hearing last year.The January 6 committee completed its work last January, writing in its final report that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the results of the 2020 election, conspiring to obstruct Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.Last year, the US justice department charged Trump on four criminal counts related to his efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat and impede the transfer of power. Trump was also charged in Georgia for violating the state’s racketeering statute for election interference efforts there. More

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    Proud Boys member gets six years in prison for Capitol riot after insulting judge

    A man who stormed the US Capitol with fellow Proud Boys far-right extremist group members was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison after he berated and insulted the judge who punished him.Marc Bru repeatedly interrupted chief judge James Boasberg before the sentence was handed down, calling him a “clown” and a “fraud” presiding over a “kangaroo court”.The judge warned Bru that he could be kicked out of the courtroom if he continued to disrupt the proceedings.“You can give me 100 years and I’d do it all over again,” said Bru, who was handcuffed and shackled.“That’s the definition of no remorse in my book,” the judge said.Prosecutors described Bru as one of the least remorseful rioters who assaulted the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when extremist supporters of Donald Trump, encouraged by the then outgoing US president broke into the Capitol to try to stop the certification by a joint session of Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.Lawmakers were chased out of the Capitol amid threats to their lives, as law enforcement came under siege and were physically attacked. Biden’s win was certified in the early hours of 7 January 2021, after the Capitol was cleared, and he was sworn in as president, peacefully, later that month after Trump left the White House but refused to attend the inauguration of his successor.Prosecutors said Bru planned for an armed insurrection – a so-called “January 6 2.0” attack – to take over the government in Portland, Oregon, several weeks after the deadly riot in Washington DC.“He wanted a repeat of January 6, only he implied this time would be more violent,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of his sentencing.Bru has been representing himself with an attorney on standby. He has spewed anti-government rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the sovereign citizen movement. At the start of the hearing, Bru demanded that the judge and a prosecutor turn over five years of their financial records.The judge gave him a 10-minute break to confer with his standby lawyer before the hearing resumed with more interruptions.“I don’t accept any of your terms and conditions,” Bru said. “You’re a clown and not a judge.”Prosecutors had warned the court that Bru intended to disrupt his sentencing. On Tuesday, he called in to a nightly vigil outside the jail where he and other rioters are being held. He told supporters of the detained January 6 defendants that he would “try to put on a good show” at his sentencing.Trump has taken to calling such defendants “hostages”, while out on the campaign trail as he aims to win the Republican nomination and take on Biden again in the 2024 presidential election.Boasberg convicted Bru of seven charges, including two felonies, after hearing trial testimony without a jury in October.Bru flew from Portland, Oregon, to Washington a day before Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. Before Trump’s speech, he joined dozens of other Proud Boys in marching to the Capitol and was one of the first rioters to breach a restricted area. Bru grabbed a barricade and shoved it against police officers. He later joined other rioters inside the Capitol and entered the Senate gallery, where he flashed a hand gesture associated with the Proud Boys as he posed for selfie photos. He spent roughly 13 minutes inside the building.More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes.
    The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    Liz Cheney: potential Trump running mate Elise Stefanik is ‘a total crackpot’

    Elise Stefanik of New York, a top House Republican and a leading contender to be Donald Trump’s presidential running mate, is “a total crackpot”, the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said.Cheney threw the barb on Tuesday, in response to a statement in which Stefanik called the House January 6 committee on which Cheney was vice-chair “illegitimate and unconstitutional” and claimed it “illegally deleted records”.Cheney said: “This is what Elise Stefanik⁩ said, in a rare moment of honesty, about the … attack on our Capitol.”Cheney posted Stefanik’s statement from 6 January 2021, the day Trump supporters stormed Congress after he told them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, a riot now linked to nine deaths; she added: “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.”In her original January 6 statement, Stefanik lamented “truly a tragic day for America” and “condemn[ed] the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today”. The perpetrators, she said, “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.Stefanik also “prayed” that “colleagues on both sides of the aisle, their staffs, and all Americans … remain safe”, and thanked police, the national guard and Capitol staffers for “protecting the People’s House and the American people”.Trump was impeached for inciting the riot, with the support of 10 House Republicans, but acquitted at trial in the Senate when only seven Republicans voted to convict. He currently faces 91 criminal charges – 17 for election subversion – as well as civil suits and attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting an insurrection. Regardless, he dominates presidential primary polling.Stefanik is chair of the House Republican conference, the fourth-ranking Republican position.Earlier this month, she declined to commit to certifying the 2024 election and told NBC she had “concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages”, referring to the more than 1,200 people arrested over the riot, of whom hundreds have been convicted.Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who sat with Cheney on the House January 6 committee, put the “hostages” remark down to Stefanik’s ambition.“Does she no longer believe violence is ‘unacceptable’ and ‘must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law’?” Raskin asked. “Does her change of heart have anything to do with wanting to be Trump’s running mate?”Cheney – Stefanik’s predecessor as conference chair – was one of two Republicans who defied party leaders to join the January 6 committee. The other, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired. Cheney lost her position and then her Wyoming seat to a Trump-backed rival.Notwithstanding her status as the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, membership of the Republican establishment and strongly conservative views, she has not come back to the fold.On Tuesday, Stefanik did not immediately comment on Cheney’s “crackpot” remark. More

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    Court rejects Trump’s request to reconsider appeal against gag order in election interference case

    A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request that it reconsider his appeal against a gag order imposed against him in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The move paves the way for a potential final challenge to the US supreme court.The decision by the US court of appeals to deny Trump an en banc rehearing – where the full bench of judges consider the matter – marks the latest setback for the former president after an earlier three-judge panel also rejected his appeal.For months, Trump has been attempting to free himself from a limited protective order entered by the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the criminal case in Washington. The order prohibits him from making inflammatory statements that could intimidate trial witnesses or poison the jury pool.The gag order came after special counsel prosecutors complained that Trump’s brazen public statements attacking them, court staff and potential trial witnesses could chill witness testimony and impede the fair administration of justice.The filing from prosecutors drew attention to Trump’s rally speeches and posts on his Truth Social platform. In one post, Trump attacked his vice-president, Mike Pence, wildly claiming he had “made up stories about me” and had gone over to the “dark side” by talking to prosecutors.Trump has also attacked Gen Mark Milley, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff and another likely trial witness, after his testimony was cited in the indictment. Trump suggested that Milley had committed treason and mused that people who committed treason have historically been executed.Chutkan agreed with prosecutors and issued an order preventing Trump from assailing prosecutors, court staff and trial witnesses. She allowed Trump only to have free rein to attack the Biden administration, the US justice department and allege the case was politically motivated.Trump appealed but had his challenge largely rejected by a three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which upheld the restrictions with the caveat that Trump would also be free to assail the special counsel Jack Smith and people involved in post-2020 election matters as long as he did not target their trial testimony.The panel rejected Trump’s position that there could only be a gag order after a statement by him had chilled a witness to be misguided, not least because the point of the gag order was to ensure no such harm would occur in the first place.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Mr Trump is a former president and current candidate for the presidency,” the appeals court wrote in a 68-page opinion. “But Mr Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants.”The defeat led Trump to seek a rehearing from the same three-judge panel of Patricia Millet, Cornelia Pillard and Brad Garcia – all Democratic nominees to the bench – as well as from the full court. On Tuesday, Trump had both of the rehearing requests turned down in single-page orders.The chilly reception that Trump has received from the DC circuit over his gag order appeals has been unsurprising. Protective orders are standard in criminal cases, and federal appeals courts are generally loath to interfere with the wide discretion enjoyed by trial judges. More

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    Ex-US army soldier convicted of Iraq manslaughter held over Capitol attack

    A former United States army soldier who was convicted of manslaughter for shooting a handcuffed civilian in Iraq to death was arrested on Monday on charges that he assaulted police officers with a baton during the US Capitol attack.Edward Richmond Jr, 40, of Geismar, Louisiana, was wearing a helmet, shoulder pads, goggles and a Louisiana state flag patch on his chest when he attacked police in a tunnel outside the Capitol on January 6, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.Richmond was arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was scheduled to make his initial court appearance on Tuesday on charges including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police with a dangerous weapon.Richmond’s Louisiana-based attorney, John McLindon, said he had not seen the charging documents and therefore could not immediately comment on the case.Aged 20, Richmond faced a court-martial panel which convicted him of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced him to three years in prison for killing a handcuffed Iraqi civilian near Taal Al Jai in February 2004. Richmond also received a dishonorable discharge from the army.Richmond initially was charged with unpremeditated murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. But the panel of five officers and five enlisted soldiers reduced the charge to voluntary manslaughter.The army said Richmond shot Muhamad Husain Kadir, a cow herder, in the back of the head from about 6ft away after the man stumbled. Richmond testified that he didn’t know Kadir was handcuffed and believed the Iraqi man was going to harm a fellow soldier.During the January 6 riot, body camera footage captured Richmond repeatedly assaulting police officers with a black baton in a tunnel on the Capitol’s lower west terrace, the FBI said. Police struggled for hours to stop the mob of people supporting Donald Trump from entering the Capitol through the same tunnel entrance.A witness helped the FBI identify Richmond as somebody who had traveled to Washington DC with several other people to serve as a “security team” for the witness for rallies planned for January 6, according to the agent’s affidavit.More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. About 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials.More than 750 have been sentenced, with nearly 500 receiving a term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by the Associated Press. More

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    Former Republican legislative candidate pleads guilty to January 6 role

    A former Republican legislative candidate has pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers during the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in the final days of his one-term presidency.Officials said that Matthew Brackley, 40, of Waldoboro, Maine, traveled to Washington DC, Trump’s Stop the Steal rally on January 6, prior to him encouraging the crowd to go to the Capitol.Brackley was among thousands who then stormed the building as part of an effort to stop the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory for the Democratic party in the 2020 presidential election.He entered the Capitol building as the mob broke in and asked for the location of then House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office before shouting “Let’s go!” and using his elbows to push past police officers, according to prosecutors.His group was stopped by police before chemical spray was used to break up the demonstrators, prosecutors said.Brackley will be sentenced 14 May in Washington DC, after reaching an agreement in which he pleaded guilty on Thursday to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers. The crime carries a maximum penalty of eight years in prison.The defense lawyer Steven Levin said his client has accepted full responsibility for his actions.“His aberrant conduct, which lasted less than an hour and for which he is extremely remorseful, stands in stark contrast to his otherwise lifelong law-abiding character,” Levin said on Friday in an email.Brackley tried unsuccessfully to unseat the Maine Democratic state senator and majority leader, Eloise Vitelli of Arrowsic, last year. His campaign website described him as a Maine Maritime Academy graduate whose approach would be to have “respectful, thoughtful conversations on the issues”.The violent storming of the US Capitol, which caused injuries and led to several deaths among police, delayed the official certification of Biden’s winning the White House until the early hours of 7 January after the Capitol was cleared and lawmakers returned to the floor.Trump was impeached over the insurrection and acquitted in the Senate but now faces a related federal criminal case, amid other legal troubles. More

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    Trump lawyers urge supreme court to reinstate him on Colorado ballot

    Donald Trump’s lawyers urged the US supreme court on Thursday to reverse a judicial decision disqualifying the former president from Colorado’s Republican primary ballot as the justices prepare to tackle the politically explosive case.Trump’s lawyers in court papers presented the former US president’s main arguments against a Colorado supreme court ruling on 19 December barring him from the primary ballot over his actions around the January 6 Capitol attack, citing the 14th amendment of the US constitution.The justices have scheduled oral arguments in the case for 8 February.Trump’s lawyers urged the court to “put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts”, noting that similar efforts were under way in more than 30 states.The lawyers said the 14th amendment provision does not apply to presidents, that the question of presidential eligibility is reserved to Congress, and that Trump did not participate in an insurrection.The brief adheres to an accelerated schedule set by the justices on 5 January when they agreed to take up the case. Colorado’s Republican primary is set for 5 March.Trump is the frontrunner for his party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden in the November 5 election.The plaintiffs – six conservative Republican or independent voters in Colorado – challenged Trump’s eligibility to run for office in light of his actions before the attack.They now have until 31 January to respond to Trump’s filing.The Colorado ruling marked the first time that section 3 of the 14th amendment – the so-called disqualification clause – had been used to find a presidential candidate ineligible.Section 3 bars from holding office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.The Colorado lawsuit is part of a wider effort to disqualify Trump from state ballots under the 14th amendment, so the ruling by the justices may shape the outcome of that drive.For instance, Trump also has appealed to a Maine court a decision by that state’s top election official barring him from the primary ballot under the 14th amendment. That case is on hold until the supreme court issues its ruling in the Colorado case.The 14th amendment was ratified in the aftermath of the American civil war of 1861-65 in which southern states that allowed the practice of slavery rebelled in a bid for secession.The Capitol rampage was a bid to prevent Congress from certifying 2020 Biden’s election victory over Trump, who gave an incendiary speech to his supporters beforehand, repeating his false claims of widespread voting fraud.Trump also faces criminal charges in two cases related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election outcome.The Colorado plaintiffs have emphasized the lower court‘s findings that Trump’s intentional “mobilizing, inciting, and encouraging” of an armed mob to attack the Capitol meets the legal definition in section 3. “This attack was an ‘insurrection’ against the constitution by any standard,” they said in legal papers. More