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      Former Trump White House adviser found guilty of contempt of Congress

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      A White House adviser to Donald Trump was found guilty of contempt of Congress on Thursday when he refused to cooperate with an investigation of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser during Trump’s presidency and who had promoted his baseless claims of mass voter fraud, was convicted in Washington’s federal courthouse after a short trial.He was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to a year behind bars.Judge Amit Mehta scheduled Navarro’s sentencing for 12 January.Navarro had been subpoenaed in February 2022 by the House committee investigating how and why Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, interrupting certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The committee thought he might have more information about any connection between those claims and the attack on Congress.But Navarro did not hand over any emails, reports or notes. When the date came for him to testify before the committee, he did not show up.A defense attorney, Stanley Woodward, told the jury Navarro did get in touch with committee staffers but asked them to talk to Trump to see what information he intended to be protected by executive privilege. That never happened, Woodward said.Prosecutors, though, said Navarro should have handed over what material he could have and flagged any questions or documents believed to be protected under executive privilege. They said much of the material the committee sought was already publicly available.“Peter Navarro made a choice. He chose not to abide by the congressional subpoena,” prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi said. “The defendant chose allegiance to former president Donald Trump over compliance to the subpoena.”Navarro, a former economics professor, was the second Trump aide to face criminal charges after refusing to cooperate with the House committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSteve Bannon, a sometime White House adviser and full-time far-right provocateur, was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. He has been free while appealing the verdict.On Thursday after Navarro was found guilty, Woodward moved for a mistrial, saying that the jurors had taken an outdoor break near where protesters and media regularly gather outside the courthouse and came back with a verdict shortly after. Mehta did not immediately rule, but said he would consider written arguments on the issue.The House January 6 committee completed its work in January, saying Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.Separately, the US justice department has charged Trump on four criminal counts related to his election subversion efforts. He also faces state 13 counts in Georgia, related to election subversion there.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Watchdog group sues to remove ‘insurrectionist’ Trump from 2024 ballot

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      A watchdog group is suing to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot, saying he violated the constitution and is disqualified from holding future office.The lawsuit is so far one of the strongest challenges to Trump’s eligibility to seek re-election.According to the lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the former president violated section 3 of the 14th amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, with his involvement in the January 6 US Capitol attack. The section bars any federal or state official that has “previously taken an oath” from holding office after they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”.Two prominent conservative legal scholars recently authored a lengthy law review article arguing that Trump is disqualified from holding office under the 14th amendment.“The bottom line is that Donald Trump ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ and gave ‘aid or comfort’ to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in section 3 of the 14th amendment,” William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St Thomas wrote in their 126-page article, which traces the history and original understanding of the amendment. “If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close.”Trump has dismissed attempts to remove him from the ballot as “election interference”, his umbrella cry against the long list of felony charges he faces in Georgia and in federal court for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.“Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump claimed in a post to his social media platform Truth Social on Monday, calling arguments based on the amendment a “trick” being used by leftists to “steal” an election.The DC-based group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), is representing six Colorado voters – who are either Republican or unaffiliated with a political party – seeking to remove Trump from their state’s ballot in next year’s general election.In addition to Colorado, other states are bracing for similar lawsuits challenging Trump’s eligibility including Arizona, Michigan and New Hampshire.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt’s unclear what the exact procedure will be for challenging Trump’s eligibility, and it could vary by state. Either way, the US supreme court is expected to weigh in soon on whether Trump is eligible.“If the very fabric of our democracy is to hold, we must ensure that the Constitution is enforced and the same people who attacked our democratic system not be put in charge of it,” said Crew’s president, Noah Bookbinder, in a statement on Wednesday.Last year, Crew represented New Mexico residents who successfully sued to remove their county commissioner, Couy Griffin, who participated in the January 6 riot. A federal judge ruled that the attack was indeed an insurrection, and that Griffin’s participation disqualified him from holding office. More

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      in Elections

      Latest E Jean Carroll lawsuit against Trump limited to damages in victory for writer – live

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      From 1h agoThe judge presiding over E Jean Carroll’s second civil defamation case against Donald Trump said a forthcoming trial will only determine the damages she is to receive from the former president, in a major victory for the writer.Politico obtained a copy of the judgment:Earlier this year, Carroll prevailed in her first lawsuit against Trump when a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her, and ordered him to pay $5m in damages. According to Reuters, the second suit Carroll filed accused Trump of defaming her by denying in 2019 that he had raped her in the mid-1990s.Because of the jury’s finding earlier this year, New York-based federal judge Lewis Kaplan found that Trump made his 2019 statements with “actual malice”, and a jury will only need to decide how much in damages he should pay.Last month, the same judge dismissed a counterclaim filed by Trump against Carroll, an advice columnist.Opening arguments are starting today in the trial of a former White House aide to Donald Trump who is accused of contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas from the January 6 committee, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Federal prosecutors are expected to present the case on Wednesday that former Trump White House official Peter Navarro should be convicted of contempt of Congress because he wilfully ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.The only standard that prosecutors will have to reach is that Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was deliberate and intentional – and Navarro will not be able to argue in defense that he blew off the subpoena because he thought Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege.Navarro is about to face his contempt of Congress trial without what he had hoped would be his strongest defense, after the presiding US district court judge Amit Mehta ruled last week Navarro had failed to prove Trump had actually asserted executive privilege to block his cooperation.In an added twist, prosecutors also said the day before trial that they intend to argue that Navarro’s claim of executive privilege was actually self-incriminating because it reinforced his failure to comply with the subpoena was calculated and deliberate, according to court documents.That sets the stage for a trial in federal court in Washington which could end in a quick defeat for Navarro given his lack of defenses, though the consequential nature of the case could also mean it immediately becomes tied up for months on appeal.E Jean Carroll’s defamation suit is not the only instance where Donald Trump’s words are getting him into trouble. As the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports, attorneys for special counsel Jack Smith are complaining about the former president’s constant public comments as the federal case against him for trying to overturn his election loss moves forward:Donald Trump is making “daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool” in the federal criminal case dealing with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, attorneys for special counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing.Trump has not hesitated to criticize the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case. He has called her “highly partisan” and “VERY BIASED & UNFAIR,” pointing to her comments sentencing one of the January 6 rioters. Trump has also attacked Smith, calling him “deranged” and someone with “unchecked and insane aggression”.Chutkan has warned Trump’s attorneys about his comments. She has also imposed a protective order in the case, limiting what documents and other materials can be made with the public.“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” she said to John Lauro, one of his lawyers, during a hearing in August. “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”Here’s more from Reuters on E Jean Carroll’s latest lawsuit against Donald Trump, which seeks damages based on allegations that he raped her in the 1990s, then lied about it two decades later:A federal judge on Tuesday said E Jean Carroll, the New York writer who last month won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, can pursue a related $10m defamation case against the former US president.US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of the former Elle magazine columnist, after Trump had argued that the defamation case must be dismissed because the jury had concluded he never raped her.Kaplan said he may explain his reasoning later.Through a spokeswoman, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba maintained that Carroll should not be allowed to change her legal theory supporting the defamation case “at the 11th hour” to conform to the jury verdict.Habba was in Miami, where Trump pleaded not guilty in a separate case to federal criminal charges that he mishandled classified files.Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to Judge Kaplan, said: “We look forward to moving ahead expeditiously on E Jean Carroll’s remaining claims.”Both of Carroll’s civil lawsuits arose from Trump’s denials that he had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.On 9 May, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $2m for battery and $3m for defamation over Trump’s October 2022 denial.The judge presiding over E Jean Carroll’s second civil defamation case against Donald Trump said a forthcoming trial will only determine the damages she is to receive from the former president, in a major victory for the writer.Politico obtained a copy of the judgment:Earlier this year, Carroll prevailed in her first lawsuit against Trump when a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her, and ordered him to pay $5m in damages. According to Reuters, the second suit Carroll filed accused Trump of defaming her by denying in 2019 that he had raped her in the mid-1990s.Because of the jury’s finding earlier this year, New York-based federal judge Lewis Kaplan found that Trump made his 2019 statements with “actual malice”, and a jury will only need to decide how much in damages he should pay.Last month, the same judge dismissed a counterclaim filed by Trump against Carroll, an advice columnist.In an interview with the Associated Press, Kamala Harris broke the White House’s relative silence on the prosecutions of Donald Trump and others for trying to overturn the 2020 election, and said those responsible for the campaign should be held accountable.“Let the evidence, the facts, take it where it may,” the vice-president in an interview held during a trip to Indonesia, where she is attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” said Harris, a former attorney general of California. “I believe that people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability.”Biden and other top White House officials have generally stayed mum as prosecutors have indicted Trump for the Mar-a-Lago documents and his campaign to overturn the 2020 election. Two of the cases Trump is facing were brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, whom Biden nominated for the job.People typically hire lawyers to give them advice on how to handle legal matters. But as ABC News’s report this morning on Evan Corcoran’s recollections of his time representing Donald Trump shows, the former president was not immediately interested in his advice on handling a grand jury subpoena to return whatever classified documents he had at Mar-a-Lago:
      Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump. “The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
      But while sitting together in Trump’s office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran’s notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
      As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, “the great things” he’s done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little “kept returning to the boxes,” according to the transcripts.
      Corcoran wanted Trump to understand “we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena,” Corcoran said in the memos.
      …
      As Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing. “We’ve got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran recalled telling Trump.
      Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, “what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?”
      The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump. “Well, there’s a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here,” Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago.
      According to CNN, investigators from special counsel Jack Smith’s office are asking witnesses about fundraising done by Donald Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell, and whether it was used to fund efforts to breach voting systems in four swing states:
      According to sources, witnesses interviewed by Smith’s prosecutors in recent weeks were asked about Powell’s role in the hunt for evidence of voter fraud after the 2020 election, including how her nonprofit group, Defending the Republic, provided money to fund those efforts.
      Powell promoted Defending the Republic as a non-profit focused on funding post-election legal challenges by Trump’s team as it disputed results in key states Biden had won. Those challenges and fundraising efforts underpinning them were all based on the premise that evidence of widespread voter fraud was already in hand.
      But according to documents reviewed by CNN and witness testimony obtained by the House select committee that investigated January, 6, 2021, the group was used to fund a desperate search to retroactively back-up baseless claims that Trump’s lawyers had already put forward in failed lawsuits challenging the results in several states.
      A series of invoices and communications obtained by election integrity groups including The Coalition for Good Governance and American Oversight show Defending the Republic contributed millions of dollars toward the push to access voting equipment in key states.
      In a court filing after her indictment in Georgia, Powell denied involvement in the Coffee County breach but acknowledged that “a non-profit she founded” paid the forensics firm hired to examine voting systems there.
      Powell did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
      Smith’s investigators have also dived deep into the bewildering conspiracy theories that Trump allies pedaled following his election loss to try to convince his supporters that the polls were rigged:
      Smith’s team has specifically asked witnesses about certain conspiracy theories pushed by Powell including that Dominion Voting Systems had ties to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and featured software he used to rig his own election. The software company, Smartmatic, has previously said the turnout in those Venezuelan elections, not the voting system, was manipulated.
      Both Dominion and Smartmatic have said that they are competitors with no corporate links, knocking down the claim pushed by Powell.
      One witness who met with Smith’s team earlier last month, former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, spoke at length about how Trump allies accessed voting systems in Antrim County, Michigan, shortly after Election Day. Kerik also discussed the origins of a theory that voting machines could switch votes from one candidate to another, according to his lawyer Tim Parlatore.
      Kerik also acknowledged the breach of voting systems in Coffee County during his interview with federal prosecutors, Parlatore told CNN, adding that while his client raised the topic, the conversation did not delve into specifics.
      Kerik and another witness who met with Smith’s team in recent weeks were both asked if Powell was ever able to back-up her various claims of fraud, including conspiracy theories that foreign countries had hacked voting equipment.
      Both were also asked about Defending the Republic and how it was used as a source of funding efforts to find evidence of voter fraud, sources told CNN.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. New reports have emerged in recent days that offer more details of the legal peril that Donald Trump has found himself in. Weeks after he indicted Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election, CNN reports that special counsel Jack Smith is continuing his investigation, focusing in particular on attorney Sidney Powell’s activities in Georgia. Powell was last month among the 19 people – Trump included – who were charged by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis in a racketeering indictment over the campaign to block Joe Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes.Separately, ABC News reports this morning that another attorney for Trump, Evan Corcoran, specifically warned the president that if he did not comply with the government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, the FBI could search the property. But then another attorney for the former president warned Corcoran that if he continued to press him, Trump is “going to go ballistic”. In June of this year, Smith indicted Trump and his aides on charges related to the documents hidden at the resort.Here’s what’s happening today:
      Officials from border security agencies will appear before a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee to testify about the touchy subject of asylum law at 2.30pm eastern time.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken snuck away to Kyiv for a surprise visit. Follow our live blog for all the latest news from Ukraine.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 1pm. More

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      in Elections

      Trump should be held accountable for January 6, says Kamala Harris

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      Donald Trump should “absolutely” be held accountable for inspiring the January 6 attack on Congress, said Kamala Harris, speaking after a former leader of a far-right group involved in the riot was sentenced to 22 years in jail.“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” the vice-president told the Associated Press. “I believe people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability. And I support it when it happens.”Asked, “Does that extend to the former president?”, Harris said: “Well, everyone has their right to their day in court. But absolutely, people should be held accountable under our system of law, right? Let the evidence and facts take it where it may.”More than 1,100 people have been arrested over the deadly attack of 6 January 2021, which happened after Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, according to his lie the result of electoral fraud. Hundreds have been convicted and sentenced.In Washington on Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, was given the longest sentence yet. Others convicted of seditious conspiracy have been given terms ranging from 10 to 18 years.Trump faces four federal criminal charges related to election subversion. He also faces 13 charges related to election subversion in Georgia; 40 related to his retention of classified information; and 34 regarding hush-money payments in the 2016 election.He denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution, including in civil cases regarding his business affairs and a defamation claim arising from an allegation of rape. In the Republican presidential race, he leads national and key state polls by wide margins and seems set to face Biden again. Trials are set for primary season but convictions would not stop Trump running.Harris spoke to the AP in Jakarta, Indonesia, during a regional summit. She said: “Democracies are very fragile. They will only be as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”She dismissed concerns that Biden is too old. In 2021, at 78, the former senator and vice-president was the oldest president ever inaugurated. If re-elected he will be 82 when his second term starts and 86 when it ends.Polling shows more than three-quarters of Americans believe Biden is too old, a concern less strongly expressed regarding Trump, who is 77.Harris said: “I see [Biden] every day. A substantial amount of time we spend together is in the Oval Office, where I see how his ability to understand issues and weave through complex issues in a way no one else can to make smart and important decisions on behalf of the American people have played out.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“And so I will say to you that I think the American people ultimately want to know that their president delivers. And Joe Biden delivers.”In a new book, the journalist Franklin Foer not only describes aides’ concerns about Biden’s age but also Harris’s struggles in a role John Nance Garner, vice-president to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, famously said was “not worth a pitcher of warm piss”.Harris is the subject of Republican attacks, focused on the possibility of her succeeding Biden. Asked about her readiness to be president, Harris told the AP: “Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition.“But let us also understand that every vice-president … understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president.” More

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      in Elections

      Ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro faces trial on contempt of Congress charges

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      Federal prosecutors are expected to present the case on Wednesday that former Trump White House official Peter Navarro should be convicted of contempt of Congress because he wilfully ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.The only standard that prosecutors will have to reach is that Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was deliberate and intentional – and Navarro will not be able to argue in defense that he blew off the subpoena because he thought Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege.Navarro is about to face his contempt of Congress trial without what he had hoped would be his strongest defense, after the presiding US district court judge Amit Mehta ruled last week Navarro had failed to prove Trump had actually asserted executive privilege to block his cooperation.In an added twist, prosecutors also said the day before trial that they intend to argue that Navarro’s claim of executive privilege was actually self-incriminating because it reinforced his failure to comply with the subpoena was calculated and deliberate, according to court documents.That sets the stage for a trial in federal court in Washington which could end in a quick defeat for Navarro given his lack of defenses, though the consequential nature of the case could also mean it immediately becomes tied up for months on appeal.Navarro was indicted last June on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he was referred to the justice department for prosecution for defying the January 6 committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony about the former president’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.The former Trump adviser has long insisted he could not comply with the subpoena because Trump had asserted executive privilege and he was obliged to protect his confidential discussions with Trump when he was the president.But Navarro has faced a reckoning in the months since, unable to produce any direct evidence from Trump or Trump’s lawyers supporting his claims, and the judge found in recent hearings that even Navarro’s most compelling pieces of evidence lacked substance.The lack of actual evidence for the executive privilege assertion – even though Navarro swore to it under oath – was cited repeatedly by the judge when he ultimately decided that Navarro could not raise the executive privilege issue at all as a defense at trial.“There was no formal invocation of executive privilege by [Trump] after personal consideration nor authorization to Mr Navarro to invoke privilege on his behalf,” Mehta said, adding Navarro had not met his burden to show a valid assertion.The standard for a valid executive privilege assertion is three-fold, Mehta ultimately ruled: it must be made by the president or an authorized representative, it must be made after personal consideration, and it must be specific to the subpoena in question.One letter addressed to Navarro after his indictment from the Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran saying Navarro had an obligation to protect executive privilege was unsatisfactory because it notably did not say Navarro was authorized to invoke on Trump’s behalf, the judge found.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd a second letter addressed to Navarro informing him that Trump had asserted executive privilege over a different subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the Trump administration’s Covid response was not applicable to the January 6 committee subpoena, the judge found.Still, even if Navarro had been able to prove a privilege assertion, it was unclear whether he would have been in a different position. Mehta noted, for instance, that Navarro would have still needed to testify about non-privileged topics and produce a log of documents he was withholding.Last February, Navarro was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee after he played an outsized role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and was briefed on a plan to obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep”.After he skipped his deposition, the committee moved to hold him in contempt before the full House of Representatives voted to refer him to the justice department for criminal prosecution.Navarro became the second person indicted for his subpoena defiance after former Trump strategist Steve Bannon also ignored his January 6 committee subpoena. Bannon was convicted last year and sentenced to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines, but remains free pending appeal. More

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      Lawyer to appeal against former Proud Boys leader’s 22-year sentence – video

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      The former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Tuesday for his part in the failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 election. Tarrio’s attorney, Nayib Hassan, said his team had been ‘taken a bit off guard’ with the sentence and they would file an appeal.

      The judge handed down the longest sentence yet in a case relating to the January 6 Capitol attack. Tarrio was a top target in one of the most important cases prosecuted by the US justice department More

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      Former Proud Boys leader sentenced to 22 years over US Capitol attack

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      The former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Tuesday for his part in the failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 election.Prosecutors sought a 33-year term. The judge did not agree but nonetheless handed down the longest sentence yet in a case relating to 2020 and the January 6 Capitol attack. The longest sentence previously handed down was 18 years, to both Ethan Nordean, a member of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia.Tarrio was a top target in one of the most important cases prosecuted by the US justice department over the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.In May, Tarrio and three lieutenants were convicted of charges including seditious conspiracy, a civil-war-era offense previously rarely brought but now levied against members of far-right groups that took part in the January 6 attack.In remarks to the court in Washington, Tarrio said he was sorry for the events of January 6, and credited police officers for their bravery in resisting the attack.“What happened on January 6 was a national embarrassment,” Tarrio said, adding that he both now knew Trump lost to Joe Biden and blamed himself for actions that led to him losing his freedom.Becoming emotional, Tarrio said: “I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”He pleaded with the judge, Timothy Kelly, for leniency. “Please show me mercy,” Tarrio said. “I ask you that you not take my 40s from me.”Kelly emphasised the damage done.“That day broke our previously unbroken tradition of peacefully transferring power,” he said. “That previously unbroken tradition is broken now, and it’s going to take time and effort to fix it.”Before handing down the sentence, the judge said he did not see any indication that Tarrio was remorseful for what he was convicted of, adding that there was a strong need to send a signal to others.“It can’t happen again,” Kelly said.The case was one of the most significant prosecutions in the federal investigation of the attack on Congress, which saw supporters of Trump shock the world with their attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.The Proud Boys are a so-called “western chauvinist” group, often involved in street fighting with leftwing activists. Tarrio was involved in the run-up to the January 6 insurrection but did not take part in the violence. Before members of the Proud Boys joined thousands in storming the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Biden’s victory, Tarrio was arrested and ordered to leave Washington. But prosecutors showed he organised and led from afar.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Using his powerful platform, Tarrio has repeatedly and publicly indicated that he has no regrets about what he helped make happen on January 6,” prosecutors said.Tarrio’s lawyers denied the Proud Boys had any plan to attack the Capitol, arguing that prosecutors used Tarrio as a scapegoat for Trump, who spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on January 6, urging supporters to “fight like hell”.The justice department has charged Trump with conspiring to subvert American democracy. But the Tarrio case and hundreds of others stand as vivid reminders of the chaos fueled by Trump’s lies, including the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to thwart the peaceful transfer of power, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Urging a lenient sentence, Tarrio’s lawyers noted that he has a history of cooperating with law enforcement. Court records uncovered in 2021 showed that Tarrio worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012.During the riot, however, Tarrio posted encouraging messages on social media, expressing pride and urging followers to stay at the Capitol. He posted a picture of rioters in the Senate chamber with the caption “1776”, the year of the Declaration of Independence.Several days before the riot, a girlfriend sent Tarrio a document entitled “1776 Returns”. It called for storming and occupying government buildings, “for the purpose of getting the government to overturn the election results”, prosecutors said.More than 1,100 people have been charged in relation to the Capitol attack. More than 600 have been sentenced, more than half receiving prison terms.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio awaits sentencing for January 6 conspiracy – live

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      From 2h agoHere’s more from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe on the sentencing of the two Proud Boys militia group members last Friday:Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, got 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding.Prosecutors had sought terms of 27 and 20 years, respectively, for Nordean and Pezzola.The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.With Mark Meadows’s plea, all but one of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case have pleaded not guilty and opted to skip tomorrow’s arraignment in Atlanta.The lone holdout is Misty Hampton, the former elections supervisor for Coffee county, Georgia, who was present when a Trump-aligned group sought to illegally access voting machines in search of fraud, and directed much of the group’s search.Mark Meadows, who served as Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff during the period when he lost re-election to Joe Biden, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to trying to overturn Georgia’s election result, Reuters reports.Meadows was among the 19 people indicted last month by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis for the campaign to keep Biden from collecting the swing state’s electoral votes three years ago. By entering his plea, Meadows has opted to skip the arraignment scheduled for tomorrow in Atlanta. Trump, along with several other defendants including attorney Rudy Giuliani, have also entered not guilty pleas.Republican lawmakers have been on a losing streak lately, as judges strike down congressional maps drawn by the party that disadvantage Black lawmakers, the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports:A judge in Florida has ruled in favor of voting rights groups that filed a lawsuit against a congressional redistricting map approved by Ron DeSantis in 2022. Voting rights groups had criticized the map for diluting political power in Black communities.In the ruling, Leon county circuit judge J Lee Marsh sent the map back to the Florida legislature to be redrawn in a way that complies with the state’s constitution.“Under the stipulated facts (in the lawsuit), plaintiffs have shown that the enacted plan results in the diminishment of Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in violation of the Florida constitution,” Marsh wrote in the ruling.The ruling is expected to be appealed by the state, likely putting the case before the Florida supreme court.The lawsuit focused on a north Florida congressional district previously represented by the Democrat Al Lawson, who is Black. Lawson’s district was carved up into districts represented by white Republicans.DeSantis vetoed a map that initially preserved Lawson’s district in 2022, submitting his own map and calling a special legislative session demanding state legislators accept it. Judge Marsh rejected claims from Florida Republicans that the state’s provision against weakening or eliminating minority-dominant districts violated the US constitution.“This is a significant victory in the fight for fair representation for Black Floridians,” said Olivia Mendoza, director of litigation and policy for the National Redistricting Foundation, an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, in a statement.A three-judge federal court panel struck down Alabama’s new congressional map, saying the Republican-dominated state again violated the Voting Rights Act. The judges wrote that they were “deeply troubled” the state’s effort to redraw its map did not fix issues it identified.The supreme court had in June ruled that Alabama must draw a second majority Black congressional district, which would likely give Democrats another seat on the southern state’s congressional delegation. But rather than go along, GOP lawmakers attempted to sidestep the ruling by approving new maps that still included only one district where a majority of voters are Black – an effort the federal judges just rejected.Meanwhile, in Texas, the state senate will today begin considering whether to impeach attorney general Ken Paxton, a staunch conservative who used his office to try to stop Joe Biden’s 2020 election win but has now attracted the ire of his fellow Republicans over corruption allegations.Texas’s house of representatives impeached Paxton in May, and he’s been suspended without pay ever since. If a two-thirds majority of senators convicts him, he will be removed from his position, but they will need to take another vote to decide whether to permanently bar Paxton from office, the Associated Press reports.Here’s more from the AP on what we can expect from his trial, which is expected to last between two and three weeks:
      Paxton is only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached. The House vote suspended the 60-year-old from the office he used in 2020 to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump.
      Paxton decried the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and said he expects to be acquitted. His lawyers have said he won’t testify before the Senate, but the trial remains fraught with political and legal risk.
      The attorney general is under federal investigation for the same conduct that prompted his impeachment, and his lawyers say removal from office would open the door to Paxton taking a plea in a long-stalled state fraud case.
      Here’s what Paxton is accused of and how the trial will work.
      WHY WAS PAXTON IMPEACHED?
      At the center of Paxton’s impeachment is his relationship with a wealthy donor that prompted the attorney general’s top deputies to revolt.
      In 2020, the group reported their boss to the FBI, saying Paxton broke the law to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul fight a separate federal investigation. Paul allegedly reciprocated, including by employing a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair.
      Paul was indicted in June on federal criminal charges that he made false statements to banks to get more than $170 million in loans. He pleaded not guilty.
      Paul gave Paxton a $25,000 campaign donation in 2018 and the men bonded over a shared feeling that they were the targets of corrupt law enforcement, according to a memo by one of the staffers who went to the FBI. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015 but is yet to stand trial.
      The eight deputies who reported Paxton — largely staunch conservatives whom he handpicked for their jobs — went to law enforcement after he ignored their warnings to not hire an outside lawyer to investigate Paul’s allegations of wrongdoing by the FBI. All eight were subsequently fired or quit and four of them sued under the state whistleblower act.
      Paxton is also accused of pressuring his staff to intervene in other of Paul’s legal troubles, including litigation with an Austin-based nonprofit group and property foreclosure sales.
      Jury selection has started today in the trial of Peter Navarro, a former aide to Donald Trump who was indicted for contempt of Congress after defying subpoenas from the January 6 committee, Politico reports:Last week, a judge rejected Navarro’s argument that Trump had asserted executive privilege in the case, clearing the way for him to stand trial.Trump confidant Steve Bannon was convicted of similar charges last year, after declining to cooperate with subpoenas from the committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. He is appealing the verdict.Yesterday, the White House announced that first lady Jill Biden had tested positive for Covid-19, but the president appears to have avoided the virus.“This evening, the first lady tested positive for Covid-19. She is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. She will remain at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware,” her communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement.“Following the first lady’s positive test for Covid-19, President Biden was administered a Covid test this evening. The president tested negative. The President will test at a regular cadence this week and monitor for symptoms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said minutes later.Both Joe and Jill Biden came down with Covid-19 in the summer of 2022, and recovered without side effects.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe on the sentencing of the two Proud Boys militia group members last Friday:Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, got 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding.Prosecutors had sought terms of 27 and 20 years, respectively, for Nordean and Pezzola.The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The comeuppance continues today for the the Proud Boys, a rightwing militia group whose members are blamed for organizing and perpetrating some of the violence on January 6, and have been convicted of serious federal crimes. The Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio will be sentenced today after being found guilty of seditious conspiracy, and prosecutors are asking he receive a 33-year prison term.Last week, a judge handed down an 18-year sentence to Ethan Nordean, a leader of the group, and a 10-year term for Dominic Pezzola – both penalties that were less than prosecutors had requested. We’ll see if that pattern continues when Tarrio goes before a judge in Washington DC.Here’s what else is going on today:
      The first big book providing an insider account of Joe Biden’s presidency is out today, and appears to be full of scoops.
      The Senate is back to work for the first time since July, and will today consider Philip Jefferson’s nomination as vice-chair of the Federal Reserve
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security adviser Jake Sullivan brief reporters at 1pm eastern time. More