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      Transcripts reveal Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured to protect Trump: ‘I was scared’

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      Transcripts reveal Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured to protect Trump: ‘I was scared’According to transcripts, Cassidy was conflicted ahead of the hearing: ‘I felt like Trump was looking over my shoulder’ “I’m about to be fucking nuked,” former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly told a January 6 committee staff member after meeting with investigators before her bombshell testimony to the committee in June. Her prediction turned out to be accurate.Within hours of Hutchinson’s surprise appearance, where she testified about a furious president who encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol, tried to grab the steering wheel of a presidential SUV and hurled his lunch against an Oval Office wall, the backlash began.Hutchinson had instantly become one of the star witnesses of the panel. Her testimony had been devastating to her former boss. But she was attacked by Donald Trump as a “total phony”. The Secret Service, through media back-channels, rejected her second-hand account of an altercation. Indiana Republican Jim Banks accused Hutchinson of being a “sham” star witness who had offered “hearsay” to the committee. “This is the Russia hoax playbook,” he said.According to additional transcripts of her closed-door testimony released last week, Cassidy had been conflicted ahead of the hearing and how much she had wrestled with the concept of effectively becoming a whistleblower. She’d already given two depositions in the months earlier, in which she’s played along with the Trumpworld narrative.They also reveal how much pressure Hutchinson was placed under to remain “loyal” and “in the family” ahead of testimony that established to many that the hearings were a telling and horrific examination of the events on or around January 6.Her lawyer had told her, “we just want to focus on protecting the president” and she was told, she informed the panel in testimony in September – two months after her public appearance – that she would be “taken care of” if only she followed their desired script.“I was scared,” she told investigators. “I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder.”Out-of-work, Hutchinson said she’d been unable to afford counsel. She’d asked for, and been refused, money from her estranged biological father. A request to her aunt and uncle also fell through.In her testimony, she said she’d accepted the help of former Trump White House ethics counsel Stefan Passantino who, Hutchinson claims, encouraged her to fail to recall some events during the interviews. That claim, made under oath, could provide federal investigators with evidence of witness tampering.“The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her. “Don’t read anything to try to jog your memory. Don’t try to put together timelines … Especially if you put together timelines, we have to give those over to the committee.”In a statement to the Washington Post this week, Passantino denied any wrongdoing. “As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me,” he said.Hutchinson also testified that an array of Trump officials, including her former boss and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had promised that loyalty would be beneficial to her. “We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world,” Passantino told her, Cassidy testified. “We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family”.““Look, we want to get you in, get you out,” Hutchinson said Passantino told her. “We’re going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role.”According to transcripts, Hutchinson has felt uneasy about Passantino’s advice to downplay what she knew and that she had struggled between repeating testimony she had offered in February and March, replete with “I cannot recall” statements.Without telling Passantino, Hutchinson contacted former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin to ask to act as a backchannel to the committee so they could call her back in a third time and know what questions to ask her. “If I’m going to pass the mirror test for the rest of my life, I need to try to fix some of this,” she testified in September, referring to wanting to be able to look at her own reflection without feeing shame.But, she said, she “knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything he would find disloyal,” she testified. “And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers.”She drove home to New Jersey where she read up on Nixon White House whistleblowers, including former Counsel John Dean and Alex Butterfield, who co-authored The Last of the President’s Men with journalist Bob Woodward.“I read it once. Then I read it again, underlined. And then I read it a third time, and I went through and tabbed it,” she said. “He talked about a lot of the same things that I felt like I was experiencing … but he ended up doing the right thing.”After the second session, Hutchinson said her testimony was shared with others in the Trump orbit. It was, she said, “the first clear indicator for me of he doesn’t care about what I want, he doesn’t care about what I think is best for me, he’s doing what he thinks is best for Trump and the people in Trump’s orbit”.When the panel indicated it might want to recall her a third time, Passadino told her: “We really think this is what’s best for you, Cass. Like, this needs to end at some point, and I think it just needs to end now”.Hutchinson later testified that she became unwilling “to let this moment completely destroy my reputation, my character, and my integrity for a cause that I was starkly opposed to”.Hutchinson changed attorneys to Jody Hunt, a longtime confidant of Jeff Sessions, the former Republican senator from Alabama who had served as Trump’s first attorney general.Speaking with CNN on Thursday, Griffin described Hutchinson as “a patriot who bravely upheld the oath she swore when she took a job in the White House. I’m grateful for her willingness to share the unvarnished truth with the American public”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did it

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      ReviewJanuary 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did it The House committee has done its work. The result is a riveting read, utterly damning of the former president and his followersWhether fomenting insurrection, standing accused of rape or stiffing the IRS, Donald Trump remains in the news. On Monday, the House select committee voted to issue its final report. Three days later, after releasing witness transcripts, the committee delivered the full monty. Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney and the rest of committee name names and flash receipts. At 845 pages, the report is damning – and monumental.January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportRead moreTrumpworld is a crime scene, a tableau lifted from Goodfellas. Joshua Green of Bloomberg nailed that in The Devil’s Bargain, his 2017 take on Trump’s winning campaign. The gang was always transgressive, fear and violence part of its repertoire.Brian Sicknick, the Capitol police officer who died after the riot. E Jean Carroll, who alleges sexual assault. Shaye Moss, the Georgia elections worker targeted by Rudy Giuliani and other minions. Each bears witness.The January 6 report laments that “thuggish behavior from President Trump’s team, including efforts to intimidate described elsewhere … gave rise to many concerns about [Cassidy] Hutchinson’s security, both in advance of and since her public testimony”.Hutchinson is the former aide to Trump and his final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, whose testimony may have been the most dramatic and impactful.In the same vein, the committee chronicles Trump’s demand that Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state in Georgia, “find 11,780 votes”. Trump reminded Raffensperger of the possible consequences if his directive went unheeded: “That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen.”Now, a Fulton county grand jury weighs Trump’s fate. Jack Smith, a federal prosecutor newly appointed special counsel, may prove Trump’s match too.Transcripts released by the committee show Stefan Passantino, Hutchinson’s initial lawyer, engaging in conduct that markedly resembles witness tampering.“Stefan said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to talk about that.’” According to Hutchinson, Passantino was talking about Trump’s fabled post-rally meltdown on January 6, when told he couldn’t go to the Capitol too.Hutchinson understood that disloyalty would mean repercussions. It took immense courage and conscience to speak as she did. Trump’s supporting cast was retribution-ready. She knew she would be “fucking nuked”.In a woeful prebuttal, Passantino claimed to have behaved “honorably” and “ethically”. He blamed Hutchinson. His advice, he said, was “fully consistent” with the “sole interests” of his client. He is now on leave from his law firm.To quote the final report, “certain witnesses from the Trump White House displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues”. Meadows, for one, is shown to have an allergy to the truth. The committee singles out The Chief’s Chief, his memoir, as an exercise in fabulism. Trump gave Meadows a blurb for his cover: “We will have a big future together”. In so many ways, Donald. In so many ways.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreThe book “made the categorical claim that the president never intended to travel to the Capitol” on 6 January, the committee now says, adding that the “evidence demonstrates that Meadows’s claim is categorically false”.He had needlessly cast a spotlight on himself and others. The report: “Because the Meadows book conflicted sharply with information that was being received by the select committee, the committee became increasingly wary that other witnesses might intentionally conceal what happened.”Then again, no one ever accused Meadows, a former congressman, of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Reptilian calculation is not prudence or prescience. Last year, Trump trashed Meadows as “fucking stupid”. He may have a point. After all, Meadows confessed to Trump of possibly putting Joe Biden’s life in jeopardy at the September 2020 debate, after positive and negative Covid tests that were covered up.Trump himself derided the Chief’s Chief as “fake news”. The committee referred Meadows to the justice department.“It’s easy to imagine Meadows has flipped and is cooperating with the justice department,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former Pentagon special counsel. The vicious cycle rolls on.The committee also gives Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s final press secretary, her own moment in the sun. She too attempted to cover the tracks of her boss.“A segment of McEnany’s testimony seemed evasive,” the committee concludes. “In multiple instances, McEnany’s testimony did not seem nearly as forthright as that of her press office staff, who testified about what McEnany said.”We saw this movie before – when McEnany stood at the West Wing lectern.“McEnany disputed suggestions that President Trump was resistant to condemning the violence and urging the crowd at the Capitol to act peacefully when they crafted his tweet at 2.38pm on January 6,” the report says. “Yet one of her deputies, Sarah Matthews, told the select committee that McEnany informed her otherwise.”Last year, McEnany delivered a book of her own, namely For Such a Time as This. The title riffs off the Book of Esther. McEnany repeatedly thanks the deity, touts her academic credentials and vouches for her honesty. She claims she never lied to reporters. After all, her education at “Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown” meant she always relied on “truthful, well-sourced, well-researched information”.She lauds Trump for standing for “faith, conservatism and freedom” and delivers a bouquet to Meadows. “You were a constant reminder of faith. Thank you for being an inspiring leader for the entire West Wing.”Whether Trump retains the loyalty of evangelicals in 2024 remains to be seen.The January 6 report often kills with understatement. For example, it repeatedly mocks Giuliani and his posse. The committee notes: “On 7 November, Rudy Giuliani headlined a Philadelphia press conference in front of a landscaping business called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, near a crematorium and down the street from a sex shop.”Like Giuliani’s three ex-wives, the members of the committee loathe him.“Standing in front of former New York police commissioner and recently pardoned convicted felon Bernard Kerik, Giuliani gave opening remarks and handed the podium over to his first supposed eyewitness to election fraud, who turned out to be a convicted sex offender.”If the debacle surrounding George Santos, the newly-elected New York congressman, teaches us anything, it is that you can never do enough background-checking.Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel saysRead moreGiuliani’s law license is suspended, on account of “false claims” in post-election hearings. A panel of the DC bar has recommended disbarment.Nick Fuentes, Trump’s infamous neo-Nazi dinner guest, also appears in the January 6 report, regarding his part in the insurrection. He is quoted: “Capitol siege was fucking awesome.” Recently, Fuentes reaffirmed his admiration for Hitler. Trump still refuses to disavow him.Trumpworld is a tangled web. Ultimately, though, the January 6 report is chillingly clear about the spider at its center.“The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”True.
      The Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol is available here.
      TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesreviewsReuse this content More

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      Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel says

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      Trump should be barred from holding office again, January 6 panel saysCommittee says Trump’s conduct on January 6 warrants implementation of constitutional ban on him holding office again The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has recommended in its final report that Donald Trump should be barred from holding office again.January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportRead moreThe former US president is again running for the White House and is seen as the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 nomination. However, his campaign has been a damp squib so far and his political fortunes battered by the poor performance of Trump-backed candidates in the November midterms and the emergence of rival figures within the party, notably Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Across 814 pages of the report, published late Thursday night, the Democrat-led committee laid out findings that placed blame squarely on “one man” for the violent events that engulfed the legislative seat of the US government for several hours in 2020.“The central cause of Jan 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” said the report, released overnight, in a punchy two-sentence summary. “None of the events of Jan 6 would have happened without him.”In extensive detail, the committee accused the former president of “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election”. Trump’s conduct on that day, it says, warrants implementation of a constitutional ban on the New York real estate developer from holding elected office again.Prior to Jan 6, it continued, Trump and his inner circle engaged in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation”, between Election Day and January 6.On Monday, the committee voted to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges, including insurrection and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress.The committee also placed blame on domestic law enforcement agencies.“Federal and local law enforcement authorities were in possession of multiple streams of intelligence predicting violence directed at the Capitol prior to January 6th,” the report says. “Although some of that intelligence was fragmentary, it should have been sufficient to warrant far more vigorous preparations for the security of the joint session.”Among the evidence presented in the panel’s final report was that there had been 68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls, or text messages aimed at pressuring state or local officials toward the goal of overturning the election’s results.“President Trump’s decision to declare victory falsely on election night and, unlawfully, to call for the vote counting to stop, was not a spontaneous decision. It was premeditated,” the report states.The committee also described how Trump, his campaign and Republican National Committee used claims that the election was stolen to collect more than $250m in political fundraising.In a bombshell video deposition released earlier this week, former White House communications director Hope Hicks said that Trump knew the claims were false and had dismissed lawyer Sidney Powell’s theories of foreign interference in the election as “crazy”.The committee, which conducted 1,000 interviews over nearly 18 months, cost taxpayers $3m to September this year, employed around 57 people, and spent hundreds of thousands more on outside consultants and services.After the findings were published, Trump hit back on his own social media platform with a typically mis-spelt message. “The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the ‘Peacefully and Patrioticly’ words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud”, Trump posted on Truth Social.Trump concluded his appraisal of the committee’s work with a question: “WITCH HUNT?”The January 6 committee’s report offers a clear analysis of the events leading up to that day and a path toward using the 14th amendment against insurrection to bar Trump and his allies from future office.“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” said Mississippi Democratic congressman and committee chair Bennie Thompson in the foreword.The findings, published days before Republicans take control of the lower legislative house, automatically dissolving the panel, offers the department of justice a comparative text to its own investigation.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final report

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      January 6 panel accuses Trump of ‘multi-part conspiracy’ in final reportHouse committee publishes report two days after recommending criminal charges against ex-president The congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has published its final report, accusing Donald Trump of a “multi-part conspiracy” to thwart the will of the people and subvert democracy.Divided into eight chapters, the report includes findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations and represents one of the most damning official portraits of a president in American history.A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for powerRead moreIts release comes just three days after the select committee recommended criminal charges against Trump and follows media reports that it is cooperating and sharing crucial evidence with the justice department.The panel, which will dissolve on 3 January when Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 public hearings – some televised in prime time – and collected more than a million documents since forming in July last year.Its report presents an in-depth and detailed account of Trump’s effort to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and what the panel says was his culpability for a violent insurrection by his supporters.It makes the case that Trump knew he lost but still pressured both state officials and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, then “was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob” and refused repeated entreaties from his aides to condemn the rioters or to encourage them to leave.“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the document’s executive summary says. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”The report adds to political pressure already on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who is conducting an investigation into the insurrection and Trump’s actions.The Punchbowl News website reported that the committee has begun “extensively cooperating” with the special counsel, sharing documents and transcripts including text messages sent by Mark Meadows, the then White House chief of staff.On Monday, at its final public session, the panel unanimously made four criminal referrals to the justice department against Trump for his role in the insurrection that started with his false claims of a stolen election and ended in the mob siege of the US Capitol. It was the first time in American history that Congress had taken such action against a former president.In unanimously adopting the report, the committee also recommended a congressional ethics investigations for the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, and other House members over defying congressional subpoenas for information about their interactions with Trump before, during and after the bloody assault.The members “should be questioned in a public forum about their advance knowledge of and role in President Trump’s plan to prevent the peaceful transition of power”, the report contends.While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the justice department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it was another blow to the former president’s already faltering 2024 election campaign.The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurrection. When that effort failed, the Democratic-controlled House formed an investigative committee of its own, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans: Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.During an 18-month investigation, the panel laid out evidence that the January 6 attack at the US Capitol was not a spontaneous protest, but an orchestrated “scheme” by Trump to subvert democracy and overturn the election.He urged supporters to come to Washington for a “big rally” on January 6. He whipped up supporters in a speech outside the White House. Knowing that some were armed, he sent the mob to the Capitol and encouraged them to “fight like hell” for his presidency as Congress was counting the vote. He tried to join them on Capitol Hill.All the while Trump stoked theories from conservative lawyer John Eastman to create alternative slates of electors, switching certain states that voted for Biden to Trump, that could be presented to Congress for the tally. Eastman also faces criminal referral by the committee to the justice department.Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, on federal officials and Mike Pence to object to Biden’s win. The committee has also described how Trump riled up the crowd at a rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television.Once they were inside the building, the committee notes, Trump showed no concern when they chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and for hours the then president resisted the pleas of advisers who told him to tell the rioters to disperse. “The final words of that tweet leave little doubt about President Trump’s sentiments toward those who invaded the Capitol: ‘Remember this day forever!’” the report states.More than 800 people have been charged in relation to the attack. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates were convicted of am obstruction charge last month. Rhodes, who was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, did not go inside the Capitol but was accused of leading a violent plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power.At Monday’s meeting, chairman Bennie Thompson said: “The committee is nearing the end of its work, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters. Nearly two years later this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”He added: “We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.”Cheney, the vice-chairwoman of the committee, said in her opening remarks that every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power “except one”.After that session, Trump remained defiant. “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me,” he said in a statement. “It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”The report includes recommendations for legislative changes, including proposals for updating the 19th century Electoral Count Act that was strained by Trump’s attempt to challenge the way Congress tallies the votes.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel releases transcript of key witness ahead of 800-page report

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      January 6 panel releases transcript of key witness ahead of 800-page report Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump, gave some of the most dramatic testimony during live hearings last summer Ahead of the release of its full report, the House January 6 committee published transcripts of witness testimony including that of Cassidy Hutchinson, a central figure in the investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion and the Capitol attack.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreOn Wednesday night, the committee released 34 transcripts from 1,000 interviews conducted over 18 months. Most interviewees invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. But Adam Schiff of California, a Democratic member of the committee, told CBS: “I guarantee there’ll be some very interesting new information in the report and even more so in the transcripts.”Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, gave some of the most dramatic testimony during live hearings last summer. Then, she described how Trump accosted a secret service agent and lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle when he was told he would not be driven to the Capitol himself.Further testimony, given by Hutchinson behind closed doors on 14 and 15 September, was released on Thursday. The first session lasted five-and-a-half hours, the second two-and-a-half. Early readings of more than 200 pages revealed a hitherto unknown episode aboard Air Force One early on 5 January 2021, as Trump was flying back to Washington after attending rallies in Georgia.The testimony would appear to allude to attempts to persuade the vice-president, Mike Pence, to deny certification of Joe Biden’s victory the following day.In a meeting attended by, among others, the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, allies talked up the scheme and assured Trump it would succeed, Hutchinson says. But she says she then saw Meadows take Trump aside and caution him: “In case we didn’t win this [the election] sir, and in case, like, tomorrow doesn’t go as planned, we’re gonna have to have a plan in place.”According to Hutchinson, Trump replied: “There’s always that chance we didn’t win, but tomorrow’s gonna go well.”The remark is potentially crucial evidence that Trump knew his defeat was not the result of fraud.Hutchinson also says she felt she had “Trump himself looking over my shoulder” as she discussed with her attorney her testimony earlier this year. The former White House aide outlines what she saw as sustained campaign of pressure by lawyers paid by Trump to get her to mislead the panel.CNN reported on Wednesday that Stefan Passantino, the top ethics attorney in the Trump White House, allegedly advised Hutchinson to tell the committee she did not recall details that in fact she did.According to the new transcript, Hutchinson said: “It wasn’t just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder. Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal.“And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be.”Hutchinson, then 26, said she thought she was “fucked” because she couldn’t afford a lawyer, but was hooked up with Passantino through White House contacts. It turned out Passantino was paid by a Trump-aligned political action committee.Hutchinson added: “I want to make this clear to you: Stefan never told me to lie. He specifically told me, ‘I don’t want you to perjure yourself, but ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury. They don’t know want you can and can’t recall’.That said, Hutchinson felt pressured into misleading the panel. The relationship with Passantino soured and ended, she said.Subjects of other transcripts included Jeffrey Clark, an official in the justice department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s attempt to stay in office. Each invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Also included in the release was testimony from members of extremist groups involved in the attack. The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, convicted last month of seditious conspiracy, and the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both testified. Tarrio and four other Proud Boys will appear in court this month.Committee members hope for criminal charges against Trump and key allies. Only the justice department has the power to prosecute, so the panel recommended investigation of Trump for four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.On Wednesday the Democratic committee chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, was asked if he had confidence charges would be pursued.He told MSNBC: “I am more comfortable with the fact that the special counsel” – Jack Smith, appointed last month – “has been actively engaged in pursuing any and all the information available. They have been in contact, asking us to provide various transcripts and what have you.”Thompson was asked if the committee was cooperating with the justice department. He said: “Yes … we made the decision [in] consultation with other members that we will cooperate.”He added: “There were people that we deposed that justice had not deposed. There were electors in various states that justice couldn’t find. We found them. We deposed them. And so we had a lot of information, but now we make all that information available. And if they come back and want to interview staff or any members, ask [for] any additional information, we’ll be more than happy to do it.”Trump is running again for the presidency but faces investigations including into the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate and his tax affairs. He has been blamed by Republicans for a poor showing in the midterm elections, leaving him politically vulnerable.Trump has slammed the House committee as “thugs and scoundrels”. In response to the criminal referrals, he said: “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.”Republicans take over the House on 3 January. The committee will be dissolved.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel releases transcripts of testimony ahead of 800-page report

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      January 6 panel releases transcripts of testimony ahead of 800-page reportMost of 34 witnesses whose transcripts have been released invoked fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination An 800-page report set to be released on Thursday by House investigators will conclude that Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and “provoked his supporters to violence” at the Capitol with false voter fraud claims.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreBefore the release, on Wednesday night, the January 6 committee released 34 transcripts from 1,000 interviews conducted over 18 months. Most of the interviewees were witnesses who invoked their fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.More transcripts and some video were also expected to be released.“I guarantee there’ll be some very interesting new information in the report and even more so in the transcripts,” Adam Schiff of California, a Democratic member of the committee, told CBS.Subjects of the interview transcripts released on Wednesday included Jeffrey Clark, a senior official in the Trump justice department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s last-ditch efforts to stay in office.Each invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.Also included in the release was testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups involved in planning the attack. The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, convicted last month of seditious conspiracy, and the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both spoke to the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group will appear in court on similar charges this month.Committee members hope for criminal charges against Trump and key allies. Only the justice department has the power to prosecute, so the panel sent referrals recommending investigation of Trump for four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.At the meeting on Monday to adopt the report and recommend charges, the Democratic chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said: “This committee is nearing the end of its work but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters.“We’ve never had a president of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power. I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”On Wednesday, Thompson was asked by MSNBC if he had confidence the Department of Justice would pursue charges.He said: “I am more comfortable with the fact that the special counsel” – the prosecutor Jack Smith, appointed last month – “has been actively engaged in pursuing any and all the information available. They have been in contact with our committee, asking us to provide various transcripts and what have you.”Thompson was asked if the committee was cooperating with the justice department.He said: “Yes … we made the decision [with] consultation with other members that we will cooperate. But early on … we felt we had to get the report done. We had to get it filed, which we’ll file on Thursday morning, so the whole public will have access to it.“There were people that we deposed that justice had not deposed. There were electors in various states that justice couldn’t find. We found them.“We deposed them. And so we had a lot of information, but now we make all that information available to [the justice department]. And if they come back and want to interview staff or any members, ask any additional information, we’ll be more than happy to do it.”According to the report’s executive summary, which was released on Monday, “the central cause of January 6 was one man, former president Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”The report’s eight chapters of findings will largely mirror nine hearings that presented evidence from interviews and millions of pages of documents. The 154-page summary detailed how Trump amplified false claims on social media and in public, encouraging supporters to travel to Washington and protest Joe Biden’s win, and how he told them to “fight like hell” at a rally in front of the White House then did little to stop them as they beat police, broke into the Capitol and sent lawmakers running.It was a “multi-part conspiracy”, the summary concluded.Trump is running again for the presidency but faces multiple investigations, including into his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns, documents he has fought to keep private. He has been blamed by Republicans for a poor showing in the midterm elections, leaving him politically vulnerable.Most Republicans have stayed loyal but the January 6 hearings were watched by tens of millions.Trump slammed the committee as “thugs and scoundrels”. In response to the criminal referrals, he said: “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.”Republicans take over the House on 3 January. The committee will be dissolved.TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel to release findings in 800-page report on Thursday

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      January 6 panel to release findings in 800-page report on ThursdayHouse committee to conclude Trump ‘provoked violence’ in criminal plot to overturn 2020 election An 800-page report to be released on Thursday by House investigators will conclude that Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and “provoked his supporters to violence” at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.The resulting 6 January 2021 insurrection by Trump’s followers threatened democracy with “horrific” brutality toward law enforcement and “put the lives of American lawmakers at risk”, according to the report’s executive summary.“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” reads the report from the House January 6 committee, which is expected to be released in full on Thursday. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”Before the report’s release, the committee released 34 transcripts on Wednesday evening from the 1,000 interviews it conducted over the last 18 months. Most of those released feature witnesses who invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Democrats praise January 6 panel’s work as Republicans call it ‘witch-hunt’Read moreThe report’s eight chapters will largely mirror nine hearings this year that presented evidence from the private interviews and millions of pages of documents. They tell the story of Trump’s extraordinary and unprecedented campaign to overturn his defeat and his pressure campaign on state officials, the justice department, members of Congress and his own vice-president to change the vote.A 154-page summary of the report released on Monday details how Trump amplified the false claims on social media and in public appearances, encouraging his supporters to travel to Washington and protest Joe Biden’s presidential election win. It also addresses how the then president urged supporters to “fight like hell” at a huge rally in front of the White House that morning and then did little to stop the violence as they beat police, broke into the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives.It was a “multi-part conspiracy”, the committee concludes.The report comes as Trump is running again for the presidency and facing multiple federal investigations, including inquiries into his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns in the coming days – documents he has fought for years to keep private. And he has been blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected showing in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since he won the 2016 election.It is also a culmination of four years of work by a House Democratic majority that has spent much of its time and energy investigating Trump and that is ceding power to Republicans in two weeks. Democrats impeached Trump twice – both times he was acquitted by the Senate – and investigated his finances, his businesses, his foreign ties and his family.But the January 6 investigation has been the most personal for the lawmakers, most of whom were in the Capitol when Trump’s supporters stormed the building and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.“This committee is nearing the end of its work, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters,” said the panel’s chairman, the Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, at the meeting on Monday to adopt the report and recommend criminal charges against Trump. “We’ve never had a president of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power. I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning.”The transcripts released on Wednesday include interviews with Jeffrey Clark, a senior official in the Trump justice department who worked to advance Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and an architect of Trump’s last-ditch efforts to stay in office. Each invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.Also included in the release is testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups that were involved in planning before the attack. The Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted last month of seditious conspiracy for his role in the planning, and the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both spoke to the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group are in court on similar charges this month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Release of House January 6 report expected to pile more pressure on Trump – as it happened

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      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreHello again, US politics live blog readers, we’re closing this blog now but we’ll be back on Thursday for all the news, including the House select committee January 6 report and any developments on Capitol Hill as Congress scrambles to pass at $1.7tn government spending bill before the holidays.The Guardian has its separate global Ukraine live blog going that will be following the press conference at the White House with Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. And there’ll be a special live blog launching seamlessly a bit later to cover the Ukrainian president’s address to the US Congress tonight.Here’s where things stand with US politics:
      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.
      Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.
      The US Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia.
      A Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, according to a report.
      The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreThe Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said passing the package, which includes $44.9bn in emergency assistance for Ukraine, and Nato allies, would be appropriate with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington DC on Wednesday:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}By passing this omnibus and confirming a new ambassador, we can send President Zelenskiy back to Ukraine with the message that the Senate, the Congress and the American people stand unequivocally behind the people of Ukraine.
      We’re backing that up with real dollars and real resources.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, is attempting to stave off a rebellion from GOP senators upset they haven’t had time to digest the 4,155 pages of the bill, which was released in the early hours of Tuesday.He cited the $858bn military spending element of the package as reason to pass it:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Republicans controlled this chamber, we would have handled the appropriations process entirely differently from top to bottom.
      But given the reality of where we stand today, senators have two options this week, just two: we will either give our armed forces the resources and the certainty that they need, or we will deny it to them.Friday is the deadline for the bill to pass the Senate and House before parts of the government would have to shut down. Democrats also have incentive to get it through: Republicans will assume control of the House in January and could use a government shutdown to leverage political pressure on Joe Biden.The final report of the House January 6 select committee investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will run to only 800 pages, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, far fewer than expected.The news agency has published a preview of the report, which panel chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, is expected to present on the chamber floor imminently. Many analysts had expected it to run well beyond 1,000 pages, incorporating transcripts from interviews with hundreds of witnesses as well as appendices and other key documents.Here’s what the AP is saying:“An 800-page report set to be released by House investigators as soon as Wednesday will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and ‘provoked his supporters to violence’ at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.“The resulting January 6 insurrection of Trump’s followers threatened democracy with ‘horrific’ brutality toward law enforcement and ‘put the lives of American lawmakers at risk,’ according to the report’s executive summary.“‘The central cause of January 6th was one man, former president Donald Trump, who many others followed,’ reads the report from the House January 6 committee. ‘None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him’.”We’re watching proceedings in the House of Representatives, where Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson is expected to appear soon to present the final report of the January 6 select committee.There’s no sign of the panel’s chair yet, but a lot has happened since the House rose at 2pm. Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t there, and it was announced she’s passed over the gavel to a stand-in for the rest of the 117th Congress, meaning we won’t see her in the role again before she steps down when Republicans take over early next month.Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, is urging colleagues to support a bill providing equal compensation for all amateur athletes representing the US. The Equal Pay for Team USA Act, would bring equity, he asserts.“The we treat our women athletes is a reflection of our nation’s values,” Nadler says.“All to often they receive unequal pay or conditions of employment simply because of their gender.”The House has now moved on to discussing an immigration bill relating to visas for transiting cruise ship crew members. It may be a while before we hear from Thompson.The Biden administration on Wednesday sanctioned Iran’s chief prosecutor, four other Iranian officials and a company that supports the country’s security forces for their roles in an ongoing violent crackdown on anti-government protests.According to the Associated Press, the treasury department is targeting the country’s prosecutor-general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, two senior commanders in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards corps, and two members of the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer group that often enforces strict rules on dress and conduct.Also sanctioned is the Imen Sanat Zaman Fara Company, which produces armored vehicles and other equipment for the security forces.Iranian authorities have killed hundreds of peaceful protestors, including children, issued harsh sentences, including the death penalty following sham trials, and detained thousands. Today, we are sanctioning Iranian officials and an Iranian entity connected to these abuses.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 21, 2022
      “We denounce the Iranian regime’s intensifying use of violence against its own people who are advocating for their human rights,” the department said in a statement, noting that Montazeri has presided over prosecutions of protesters some of whom have been executed or condemned to death.It identified the IRGC commanders as Hassan Hassanzadeh, head of its forces in Tehran, and Seyed Sadegh Hosseini, who runs its Beit-al Moghadas Corps of Kurdistan province. The two Basij members are the group’s deputy coordinator, Hossein Maroufi, and Moslem Moein, its cyberspace chief.Iran has been rocked by protests since the 16 September 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the morality police. The protests have since morphed into one of the most serious challenges to the theocracy installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.The Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia, the Associated Press reports.The 93-2 voted came just ahead of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC on Wednesday, and his address to a joint session of Congress tonight.Tracy, currently US ambassador to Armenia, testified last month to the foreign relations committee, which advanced her nomination to the full Senate for today’s vote. The AP says her confirmation by an overwhelming majority will be seen as a reinforcement of the US commitment to war-torn Ukraine as it confronts Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the new ambassador will be tasked with “standing up to Putin”.Edward Helmore reports from New York…E Jean Carroll, the magazine columnist who says she was raped by Donald Trump in the changing rooms of a New York department store in the mid-1990s, said in a legal deposition that following the alleged incident, the “music stopped” in her love life.Carroll said she did not develop any romantic relationships after the alleged encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, and said she had not had sex for almost 30 years.“Looking back on it, it may have been what happened at Bergdorf’s,” she said.Trump denies the incident and has denied knowing Carroll, calling the allegation “a complete con job”. The former president has also made derogatory remarks about Carroll, who he said was “not my type”.Carroll sued Trump for defamation, claiming his denial of the event and disparaging comments damaged her reputation. She recently expanded her claim to include rape via a new New York state law that allows those who allege sexual assault to sue beyond the statute of limitations.Trump’s deposition has not been released. A civil trial could come next year.Excerpts of Carroll’s testimony were made public on Tuesday.Full story here.Ed Pilkington’s 2019 interview with Carroll, here:‘I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun’Read moreOver on the Guardian US features desk, Michael Harriott has taken a look at the rightwing ‘war on woke’, the role it played in US politics in 2022 and what might be to come next year. The piece is well worth your time this lunchtime…Having vanquished the manufactured menaces of vaccine mandates, the gay agenda and widespread election fraud, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, used his midterm election victory speech to position himself as a wartime leader. Now, he was preparing his constituents for the existential battle posed by their newest imaginary adversary: wokeness. In Churchillian tones, he announced: “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”DeSantis was summoning the resentment that produced the racial terrorism of Reconstruction, the pro-lynching Red Summer of 1919, and the pro-segregation states’ rights movement. This time, it was called anti-woke: a modern-day mixture of McCarthyism and white grievance.In 2021, the right became increasingly irate at what it described as “wokeness” but which tended to mean any attempt to engage in civil rights or social justice. In 2022, anti-woke became an ideology in itself, an attempt for the right to rebrand bigotry as a resistance movement.Read on…War on wokeness: the year the right rallied around a made-up menaceRead moreWorrying news for Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader trying to secure the speaker’s gavel but having a hard time satisfying the far right of the party: according to Politico, a plan is forming to have Steve Scalise, currently McCarthy’s righthand man, step in if the Californian cannot seal the deal.According to the website, “a group of lawmakers has quietly approached” Scalise “about running should McCarthy falter, according to multiple GOP members and aides..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Their message? ‘Steve, just be ready,’ according to one member currently backing McCarthy who spoke to us late last night on condition of anonymity. Scalise was uncontested in his bid for majority leader in the new Congress, the lawmaker noted, and ‘could be a good consensus leader if things don’t go well for Kevin’.Politico stresses that Scalise is in a “tough spot”, as “there’s a general consensus that if McCarthy falters, anyone with fingerprints on the knife would alienate the GOP conference and upend their own possible ascent”.But the site also says “some of the conservatives opposing McCarthy have privately relayed the same message” about running should McCarthy falter “to the affable Louisianan in recent days … while they’ve reiterated the same demands that have been laid out for McCarthy, they have signaled” – not least in comments to the New York Post by the Florida rightwinger Matt Gaetz – that they see Scalise as a more palatable option.”So far, so House of Cards. And there’s more, of course. Politico reports that while Scalise “has not been organising support or making calls for a potential run [and] his office declined to comment, instead pointing to the dozens of public statements he has made endorsing McCarthy and insisting he would never run against him”, Scalise has “kept a low profile and has been in what one ally called ‘listening mode’”.The site quoted a “person close to Scalise” as saying: “Does he want to be speaker? Absolutely. But is he going to screw Kevin? Absolutely not.”Some further reading about “the affable Louisianan”:Steve Scalise says attending white supremacist conference was a ‘mistake’Read moreThe former lawyer for a key witness at the January 6 committee hearings, whom the panel says influenced his client’s testimony, is pushing back against the accusation, and taken a leave of absence to do so, the New York Times reports.Sources say Stefan Passantino, a former deputy White House counsel and ethics lawyer under Donald Trump, was being paid by a Trump political action committee as he was advising Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows.Hutchinson gave some of the most revealing and dramatic testimony to the panel about Trump’s behavior during his insurrection, after she dropped Passantino and hired new legal representation.Passantino took a leave of absence from Milwaukee law firm Michael Best, the Times reports, the lawyer citing his involvement with the controversy as “a distraction”. By Wednesday his profile had disappeared from the company’s website.In its summary on Monday, the House committee did not mention Passantino or Hutchinson by name, but claimed a lawyer had influenced a witness to give false testimony, or at least to “forget” important testimony they were prepared to give.The Times says Passantino issued a statement insisting he had represented Hutchinson, as he had other clients, “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me”.The House panel’s full report will will released imminently.Ahead of the release of the January 6 report later today, Lawrence Douglas says the committee has done the right thing in making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice – and the DoJ must now move to prosecute Donald Trump.Over the course of 18 months, the intrepid patriots on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection tirelessly researched Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election through fraud, intimidation, harassment and violence. The committee’s public hearings were an exercise in civic education, presenting the nation with a gripping, granular and truthful account of an unhinged president seeking to cling to power at all costs. Now they have gone one crucial step further. They have referred the matter to the justice department, urging that Trump be prosecuted..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let us take stock of this astonishing moment. For the first time in American history, a congressional committee has recommended that a former president be criminally prosecuted – and not just for any crimes.
      The chief crimes at the heart of the referral – inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstructing an official act of Congress – involve nothing short of an elaborate effort to frustrate and upend the peaceful transfer of presidential power, the bedrock of our constitutional democracy.The referral powerfully reminds us that the assault on the Capitol was not a spontaneous spasm of violence. It was the culmination of a concerted effort to reject the results of a fair election, an effort that began on election day itself, when it became clear that Trump was headed to certain defeat.Read on:The January 6 committee is right. It’s time to prosecute the kingpin, Trump | Lawrence DouglasRead moreA Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, the Miami Herald reports.Former Hillsborough county circuit judge Jared Smith denied a 17-year-old girl access to an abortion in January, citing her low school grades as justification for his ruling that she lacked the maturity to make the decision for herself.His order was reversed in a 2-1 ruling by an appeals court that said Smith abused judicial discretion, the Herald reports, and his re-election bid was subsequently rejected by Hillsborough voters in August.DeSantis, however, is unwilling to let Smith go. According to the newspaper, the rightwing governor, who signed a 15-week abortion ban into Florida law and has hinted at his approval for a more restrictive “heartbeat ban”, appointed Smith to one of the three vacancies on the newly created 6th district court of appeal. His appointment takes effect on 1 January.Nancy Pelosi says Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address a joint session of Congress at 7.30pm Wednesday.In a tweet, the Speaker says Zelenskiy’s “courageous, patriotic, indefatigable leadership has rallied not only his people, but the world, to join the frontlines of the fight for freedom. We look forward to hearing his inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination”.It is with immense respect and admiration for his extraordinary leadership that I extend on behalf of bipartisan Congressional leadership an invitation for @ZelenskyyUa to address a Joint Meeting of Congress at 7:30 p.m. E.T. tonight.— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
      A reminder that you can find coverage of Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC, including his Oval Office meeting with Joe Biden, on our live Ukraine blog here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreHere’s an unexpected turn of events. After a single term of office defined by aggression, confrontation, bombast and abuse, Donald Trump left a “shockingly gracious” letter for Joe Biden at the White House. Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump wrote a “shockingly gracious” letter to Joe Biden on leaving office, a new book says, amid the unprecedented disgrace of a second impeachment for inciting the deadly Capitol attack as part of his attempt to overturn Biden’s election victory and hold on to power.According to excerpts published by Politico on Tuesday, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, by Chris Whipple, captures Biden saying of Trump’s note: “That was very gracious and generous … Shockingly gracious.”Presidents traditionally leave letters for their successors. George HW Bush’s note for Bill Clinton is generally held up as an ideal of civility between presidents from different parties.After Bush died, Clinton wrote in the Washington Post that the letter revealed “the heart of who he was … an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our constitution, our institutions and our shared future”.Trump refuses to admit Biden beat him fairly, faces extensive legal jeopardy for his election subversion attempts, and recently called for the constitution to be “terminated” so he could return to power.Biden has said Trump’s letter was “very generous” but he has not shared its contents. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of the book Peril, on discovering the note in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Biden “put it in his pocket and did not share it with his advisers”.Whipple’s book will be published in January. He told Politico writing it was “tough, because … this is the most battened-down, disciplined, leak-proof White House in modern times”.Read the full story:Trump left ‘shockingly gracious’ letter to Biden on leaving office, book saysRead moreIt’s a hugely significant day in Washington DC, where Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is visiting Joe Biden, and will address Congress this evening.I hope you’re having a good flight, Volodymyr. I’m thrilled to have you here. Much to discuss. https://t.co/SsRdsAnSDb— President Biden (@POTUS) December 21, 2022
      We’ll be following all the developments in the Guardian’s live Ukraine blog, which you can find here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreAmong the revelations to come from Tuesday’s House ways and means committee meeting, which voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns, was the bombshell that the IRS had failed to failed to conduct mandatory audits on the president during the first two years of his administration.The Associated Press has the details:The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional committee found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of such ongoing reviews.A report by the Democratic majority on the House ways and means committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating to 1977 that mandates audits of a president’s tax filings. The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on 3 April 2019, more than two years into his presidency and months after Democrats took the House. That date coincides with Richard Neal, the panel chairman, asking the IRS for information related to Trump’s tax returns.Required IRS audits of former President Donald Trump were delayed, according to a report issued by a Democratic-controlled House committee.A separate report suggested Trump paid a relatively modest share of his income to the federal government. https://t.co/m8y4Z2bJkE— The Associated Press (@AP) December 21, 2022
      There was no suggestion Trump, who has announced a third presidential run, sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his tax information. But the report found that the audit process was “dormant, at best”.The 29-page report was published hours after the committee voted on party lines to release Trump’s tax returns, raising the potential of additional revelations related to the finances of a businessman who broke political norms by refusing to voluntarily release his returns as he sought the presidency. The vote was the culmination of a years-long fight between Trump and Democrats, from the campaign trail to Congress and the supreme court.Democrats on the ways and means committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent.“This is about the presidency, not the president,” Neal told reporters.Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, said: “Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections. The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump spent much of Tuesday releasing statements unrelated to his tax returns. The IRS did not immediately comment. An accompanying report released by the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation also found repeated faults with the IRS approach to auditing Trump and his companies.IRS agents did not bring in specialists to assess the complicated structure of Trump’s holdings. They also determined limited examination was warranted because Trump hired an accounting firm they assumed would make sure Trump “properly reports all income and deduction items correctly”.Read more:IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentRead moreThe final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection for the last 18 months will drop today. And it’s unlikely to make very palatable reading for the former president.The document, running to more than 1,000 pages, will put flesh on the bones of Trump’s plotting and scheming to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Those efforts landed him a referral to the justice department for four criminal charges.And it comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release up to six years of his tax returns, documents Trump had fought for three years to keep secret.We already knew, including from a series of televised hearings on the January 6 panel this year, many of the details of the insurrection. Trump incited a mob that overran the US Capitol on January 6 2021 seeking to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory; tried to manipulate states’ election results in his favor; and attempted to install slates of “fake electors” to reverse Biden’s win in Congress.But what we’ll see today is the deepest of dives into his efforts: the panel interviewed countless witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of video evidence to compile the report and make recommendations.They include referrals to the House ethics committee for four Trump allies in Congress who refused to submit to the panel’s subpoenas to give evidence.We’re expecting the report to feature eight main chapters, detailed below, plus appendices that capture more aspects of the investigation, and findings from all of the select committee’s five investigative teams.We’ll bring you details when it drops.
      Donald Trump’s effort to sow distrust in the results of the election.
      The then-president’s pressure on state governments or legislatures to overturn victories by Joe Biden.
      Trump campaign efforts to send fake, pro-Trump electors to Washington from states won by Biden.
      Trump’s push to deploy the justice department in service of his election scheme.
      The pressure campaign by Trump and his lawyers against then-vice president Mike Pence.
      Trump’s effort to summon supporters to Washington who later fueled the 6 January mob.
      The 187 minutes of chaos during which Trump refused to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.
      An analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
      Good morning US politics blog readers, and welcome to what promises to be a hectic Wednesday. Donald Trump’s not-very-good week rolls into a third day with publication of the final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating his insurrection for the last 18 months.We learned the essentials through a final public meeting and executive summary on Monday, when the bipartisan panel referred the former president for four criminal charges. But the final report, at more than 1,000 pages, will be a much deeper dive into Trump’s scheming to reverse his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.We’ll bring you the details when we receive it.Here’s what else we’re watching:
      There’s ongoing fallout from last night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release six years of Trump’s tax returns.
      Joe Biden and Washington lawmakers are preparing for Wednesday’s historic visit from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his first trip outside his country since it was invaded by Russia 10 months ago. Biden meets his counterpart at 2.30pm, followed by a joint press conference.
      Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House minority leader, and congresswoman Suzan DelBene, nominee for head of the party’s congressional campaign committee, host a press briefing at 1pm on plans to retake the majority in 2024. More