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      'Intoxicated' Giuliani wanted Trump to declare victory on election night, investigation told – video

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      An ‘apparently inebriated’ Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump to declare victory on election night in 2020 despite Fox News calling Arizona for Joe Biden and with votes yet to be fully counted in other states, former advisers to the then president told the House select committee investigating the 6 January riot. The hearing presented testimonies given by Giuliani, the former Trump campaign chair Bill Stepien, the former Trump senior adviser Jason Miller, and Ivanka Trump that detailed the former New York mayor’s actions on election night

      January 6 hearings: latest updates More

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      Jan 6 hearings: Trump ‘lit the fuse that led to horrific violence’, committee chair says – live

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      The January 6 committee is beginning its second hearing into “the conspiracy overseen and directed by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power, a scheme unprecedented in American history,” as committee chair Bennie Thompson put it in his opening statement.The Mississippi Democrat is making clear today’s hearing will deal specifically with the former president’s actions.“This morning, we will tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy and attack on American people, trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy, and in doing so lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of January 6,” Thompson said.Trump claimed that there was “major fraud” on election night, his former attorney general William Barr told the January 6 committee, according to video the committee aired.“Right out of the box on election night, the president claimed that there was major fraud underway,” Barr said.The commission is discussing the “red mirage” that often occurs on presidential election nights, when Republicans who vote on election day have their votes counted first but Democrats, who often vote early or by mail, sometimes have their votes counted later, creating the impression that Republicans are leading early in the night only to have their share eroded as more Democrats have their votes counted.Barr testifies that though this dynamic was familiar and Trump had been warned about it, the president seized on it to allege fraud.“That seemed to be the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud. And I didn’t think much of that because people had been talking for weeks and everyone understood for weeks that that was going to be what happened on election night,” Barr said.The committee’s first witness of the day Chris Stirewalt, a former politics editor for Fox News, has been sworn in, and the hearing is now showing a montage of clips from interviews with Trump’s lawyers and other officials.These include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who became one of Trump’s most notable attorneys. Jason Miller, another former Trump attorney, described Giuliani as being “intoxicated” on election night.Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien testified by video that he did not think the president should declare victory on election night, but said the president disagreed with him.It looks like William Barr, Trump’s final attorney general during the time of the 2020 election, will be playing a major role in the today’s hearing.The committee last Thursday aired video in which he said he thought Trump’s claims of election fraud were “bullshit,” and committee members say he will reappear today to elaborate on his views.“You’ll hear detailed testimony from attorney general Barr describing the various election fraud claims the department of justice investigated. He’ll tell you how he told Mr. Trump repeatedly that there was no merit to those claims. Mr. Barr will tell us that Mr. Trump’s election night claims of fraud were made without regard to the truth, and before it was even possible to look for evidence of fraud,” Democratic representative Zoe Lofgren said as the hearing began.Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, is showing videos from lawyers who worked for Trump’s campaign that are testifying they never saw evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.“The Trump campaign legal team knew there was no legitimate argument, fraud, irregularities or anything to overturn the election. And yet, President Trump went ahead with his plans for January 6 anyway,” Cheney said.The Wyoming representative accused Trump of using this evidence to deceive his supporters into attacking the Capitol. “As one conservative editorial board put it recently, ‘Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on January 6, and he is still doing it,’” she said.The January 6 committee is beginning its second hearing into “the conspiracy overseen and directed by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power, a scheme unprecedented in American history,” as committee chair Bennie Thompson put it in his opening statement.The Mississippi Democrat is making clear today’s hearing will deal specifically with the former president’s actions.“This morning, we will tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy and attack on American people, trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy, and in doing so lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of January 6,” Thompson said.Meanwhile in the Capitol, we may have more developments today on the gun control compromise reached over the weekend, which could attract enough Republican support to pass. Richard Luscombe has this look at what exactly the measure would do.Joe Biden has urged US lawmakers to get a deal on gun reforms to his desk quickly as a group of senators announced a limited bipartisan framework on Sunday responding to last month’s mass shootings.The proposed deal is a modest breakthrough offering measured gun curbs while bolstering efforts to improve school safety and mental health programs.It falls far short of tougher steps long sought by Biden, many Democrats, gun reform advocates and America citizens. For example, there is no proposal to ban assault weapons, as activists had wanted, or to increase from 18 to 21 the age required to buy them.Even so, if the accord leads to the enactment of legislation, it would signal a turn from years of gun massacres that have yielded little but stalemate in Congress.US senators reach bipartisan gun control deal after recent mass shootings Read moreCould Trump face criminal charges over January 6? As my colleague Richard Luscombe reports, some members of the committee investigating the assault believe the evidence is there.Members of the House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat called on Sunday for the US justice department to consider a criminal indictment for the former president and warned that “the danger is still out there”.Their comments on the eve of the second of the panel’s televised hearings into the January 6 2021 insurrection and deadly Capitol attack will add further pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, who has angered some Democrats by so far taking no action despite growing evidence of Trump’s culpability.“There are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the election, that I don’t see evidence the justice department is investigating,” committee member Adam Schiff, Democratic congressman for California, told ABC’s This Week.Capitol attack panel members urge DoJ to consider criminal charges for TrumpRead moreThe January 6 committee will soon continue building its case against former president Donald Trump, with today’s hearing looking at the motivations behind the attack on the Capitol.However, a wrench has already been thrown into their plans: the ex-president’s former campaign manager has a family emergency, and won’t be able to testify as planned, and the hearing has been pushed back to 10:30 am eastern time.The second hearing of the committee will have some important differences from the first, held last Thursday. First of all, it’s taking place during work hours, not during the primetime TV hour, as in the case of last week’s hearing. Committee member Zoe Lofgren is also set to question witnesses, rather than the body’s counsel.As for the goal of these hearings, my colleague Joan E Greve describes it in the words of committee chair Bennie Thompson:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If the committee is successful in building its case against Trump, the hearings could deliver a devastating blow to the former president’s hopes of making a political comeback in the 2024 presidential election. But if Americans are unmoved by the committee’s findings, the country faces the specter of another attempted coup, Thompson warned.
      “Our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” Thompson said on Thursday. “January 6 and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here.”Protesters are gathering outside the supreme court, with the justices less than a half hour away from releasing rulings in which the conservative majority could make major changes to abortion access, gun rights and environmental regulation.Opposing protestors face to face right now. pic.twitter.com/epObAVwJnp— Whitney Wild (@WhitneyWReports) June 13, 2022
      Scene outside the Supreme Court this morning. Two small groups of protesters have gathered with a group of police on bicycles separating the two groups. T-minutes 40 minutes until opinions. ⁦I’m standing by with ⁦@fox5dc⁩. Join us live on ⁦@SCOTUSblog⁩ TikTok. pic.twitter.com/PNPQifGuD2— Katie Barlow (@katieleebarlow) June 13, 2022
      Last month, the court was rocked by the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion showing conservatives were poised to strike down Roe v Wade and end abortion rights nationwide. Those same justices may also opt to expand the ability to carry concealed weapons and curb the government’s regulatory powers.Bill Stepien, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump who was to be a main witness in today’s hearing of the January 6 committee, will not attend due to an emergency.The hearing is now delayed by 30 minutes to 10.30am, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Just in: Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is no longer appearing at the second Jan. 6 committee hearing this morning due to a family emergency — and hearing has been delayed to around 10:30a ET— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 13, 2022
      The development throws a wrench into the plans for the committee’s second hearing, which was to look deeper into the conspiracy theories that fueled the attack on the Capitol.Lies are going to be the subject of this morning’s January 6 committee hearing, specifically those that motivated Donald Trump’s supporters to attack the Capitol, the Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports:The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection in 2021 will reconvene Monday to scrutinize the conspiracy theories that led a group of Donald Trump’s supporters to attack the US Capitol.The Democratic chair of the committee, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, has said the second hearing will focus on “the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol to try to stop the transfer of power”.“We’re going to take a close look at the first part of Trump’s attack on the rule of law, when he lit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of January 6,” Thompson said on Thursday.House panel to scrutinize conspiracy theories that led to Capitol attackRead moreGood morning, everybody. Today could be a very big day in Washington, with the inquiry into the January 6 insurrection continuing, the supreme court releasing opinions and the Senate considering a proposal to restrict gun access following a spate of mass shootings.Here’s a rundown of what to expect:
      Senators have reached a deal on a framework for gun control legislation meant to respond to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, which looks like it could get the support of enough Republicans and Democrats to pass the chamber.
      The supreme court will release another batch of decisions at 10 am eastern time. There’s no telling what the court will opt to release, but major rulings on abortion rights, gun control and environmental regulation are expected before the term is out.
      At the same time, the January 6 committee will begin its second hearing following last Thursday’s blockbuster look into what happened at the Capitol that day. Today’s hearing will look deeper at the conspiracy theories that motivated the attack.
      Democratic senator Bernie Sanders and Republican senator Lindsey Graham will take part in a one-hour debate organized by The Senate Project, intended to build bridges between the two parties while also allowing the lawmakers to air their (very different) perspectives on politics. The event begins at 12 pm eastern time, and will be streamed on Fox Nation. More

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      Fox News will air January 6 hearings, reflecting split between news and hosts

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      Fox News will air January 6 hearings, reflecting split between news and hostsAnchor Bret Baier said Trump looked ‘really bad’ last week as hosts continue to call the proceedings a sham Last week, Fox News was the only major outlet not to air the primetime hearing hosted by the House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. But for the committee’s daytime session on Monday, Fox plans to join the rest of the pack.Fox officials are apparently justifying the switch by saying that the network’s hosts set the agenda for prime time, and they rejected live coverage of Thursday evening’s hearing, CNN reported. Daytime, however, is for news, opening the door for Fox to televise Monday’s session live at 10am ET.The decision by the conservative-leaning network to air the hearing comes amid a discernible split between the network’s news and commentary broadcasts about the meaning of what happened last week and the value of what’s in store.News anchor Bret Baier said Donald Trump looked “really bad” in a video presentation shown at Thursday’s January 6 primetime session“The focus seems to be the target of President Donald Trump, and he looks really bad in this presentation,” Baier said. “He’s just watching the TVs and kind of applauding what’s happening.”Baier also noted that the video of Trump’s speech was cut off before he told the crowd to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.At the same time, Fox News’ more politically attuned hosts have continued to disparage the hearings. Host Mark Levin described hearings as a “sham” over the weekend.“This will go down in history as a dark mark on the American political system,” Levin said, adding: “It’s an abomination to the American system, not just of justice but our congressional and representative system.”During Thursday’s hearings, host Tucker Carlson broadcast an hour-long, commercial-free discussion of alternative interpretations of the deadly riot, including that it had been instigated by FBI agents.“It tells you a lot about the priorities of our ruling class that the rest of us are getting yet another lecture about January 6 tonight – from our moral inferiors, no less,” Carlson said.“They are lying, and we are not going to help them do it,” he added.In Monday’s session, the second of six scheduled public hearings, the committee chair, Bennie Thompson, will lead a more traditional congressional hearing that will highlight the origins of the “big lie” – Trump’s claims that the election he lost to Joe Biden had been rigged – and how that claim was propagated between 4 November 2020 and 6 January, when Congress moved to certify the election results.The committee will seek to highlight evidence that the Trump campaign and the Republican party sought funds from supporters to bolster their claim and then inundated them with messages to reinforce it.“Some of those individuals … echoed those very same lies the former president peddled in the run-up to the insurrection,” a select committee aide said on Sunday evening.Those preparations, coupled with an effort to question the integrity of mail-in voting and attempts to pressure state legislators to appoint pro-Trump electors, were made alongside intensifying claims by Trump that he had actually won the election.The committee will hear from Chris Stirewalt, Fox News’ former political editor, who made the decision to call Arizona for Biden.It was supposed to also hear from Bill Stepien, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, but his appearance was canceled because his wife was reportedly in labor.Stepien “was present for key conversations about what the data showed about Mr Trump’s chances of succeeding in an effort to win swing states, beginning on election night”, according to the New York Times.A second panel features Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who helped orchestrate the Republican recount strategy in Florida after the 2000 election; BJ Pak, a former US attorney based in north Georgia pressured by Trump to establish election fraud claims; and Al Schmidt, a city commissioner in Philadelphia.“We’re going to hear testimony from government officials who were the ones who looked for the fraud, and about how the effort to uncover these baseless allegations bore no fruit,” a committee aide said on Sunday night. “Simply, the fraud that they were looking for didn’t exist.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsFox NewsnewsReuse this content More

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      House panel to scrutinize conspiracy theories that led to Capitol attack

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      House panel to scrutinize conspiracy theories that led to Capitol attackHouse committee’s second hearing on Monday will focus on ‘the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol’ The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection in 2021 will reconvene Monday to scrutinize the conspiracy theories that led a group of Donald Trump’s supporters to attack the US Capitol.House January 6 panel shows it still has surprises in store in televised hearingRead moreThe Democratic chair of the committee, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, has said the second hearing will focus on “the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol to try to stop the transfer of power”.“We’re going to take a close look at the first part of Trump’s attack on the rule of law, when he lit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of January 6,” Thompson said on Thursday.The select committee said ahead of the hearing that the panel would focus on how Trump embraced baseless claims of a stolen election starting on election night – when he falsely declared victory over Joe Biden – and seized upon those claims in the weeks that followed.Trump was told repeatedly on election night that he did not have the numbers to win, the panel is expected to say, relying on live witness testimony from former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt.The select committee will then show how Trump embraced election fraud claims despite being told otherwise by top officials, hearing from former US attorney BJay Pak, who resigned when he was told Trump would fire him for not pushing harder that fraud occurred in Georgia.Trump had an obligation to make court challenges if he believed there was fraud, the panel will say, and also accept the decisions of the courts – he lost virtually every case – but he instead chose to attack the “rule of law”.The select committee said it would also show how Trump and the Republican political apparatus used those baseless claims to rake in millions of dollars from unsuspecting Americans in fundraising, and how the Capitol attack was fueled by those claims perpetuated by Trump.The hearing on Monday, which will last around two hours and see select committee member Zoe Lofgren take a lead role in questioning witnesses instead of committee counsel, comes four days after the panel held its first hearing in primetime.At that first session, the select committee featured shocking and at times emotional testimony from key witnesses who have spoken to investigators over the past year as they conducted the first stage of their inquiry behind closed doors in Washington.Members of Trump’s inner circle testified that the former president was repeatedly told his claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that deprived him of victory over Democrat Joe Biden were entirely baseless, but he continued to spread those lies in the weeks leading up to the insurrection.“I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit,” William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, told investigators in a clip shared on Thursday.Last week’s hearing laid the groundwork for the committee’s argument that Trump played a central role in the planning of the insurrection and bears personal responsibility for the deadly attack. A mob overran the US Capitol on January 6 last year, the day that Congress was due to officially certify Biden’s win over Trump in the previous Novembers presidential election.The five remaining hearings are expected to build upon that argument, as committee members attempt to present a meticulous case for Trump’s culpability.“On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power,” Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said Thursday.“Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.”The Monday hearing will provide committee members with another opportunity to convince the country that America’s democracy is facing a threat from those who do not believe in free and fair election. The panel has accused Trump and his associates of having engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” and argues that the former president bears personal responsibility for the deadly attack on the US Capitol.Although Trump was impeached by the House for inciting the insurrection, he was acquitted by the Senate, leaving many of his critics feeling as though he was not held accountable for his actions.If the committee is successful in building its case against Trump, the hearings could deliver a devastating blow to the former president’s hopes of making a political comeback in the 2024 presidential election. But if Americans are unmoved by the committee’s findings, the country faces the specter of another attempted coup, Thompson warned.“Our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” Thompson said on Thursday. “January 6 and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here.”Hugo Lowell contributed to this reportTopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel members urge DoJ to consider criminal charges for Trump

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      Capitol attack panel members urge DoJ to consider criminal charges for Trump‘I’d like to see DoJ investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity,’ says Adam Schiff as pressure builds on Merrick Garland Members of the House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat called on Sunday for the US justice department to consider a criminal indictment for the former president and warned that “the danger is still out there”.Their comments on the eve of the second of the panel’s televised hearings into the January 6 2021 insurrection and deadly Capitol attack will add further pressure on attorney general Merrick Garland, who has angered some Democrats by so far taking no action despite growing evidence of Trump’s culpability.“There are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the election, that I don’t see evidence the justice department is investigating,” committee member Adam Schiff, Democratic congressman for California, told ABC’s This Week.“I would like to see the justice department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump.”Schiff, who led Democrats’ prosecution of Trump at his first impeachment trial in 2020, said Thursday’s primetime televised hearing, which attracted 20 million viewers, provided “just a sample” of the evidence the panel has gathered.During Monday’s daytime hearing, he said, the committee will “tell the story of how Trump knowingly propagated his big lie” that his election defeat by Joe Biden was stolen from him by fraud, and how that lie was used to spread disinformation by Trump and his allies.“Once the evidence is accumulated by the justice department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s,” Schiff said.“But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, another panel member, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union to assert his confidence that Garland “knows what’s at stake”.“One of the conventions that was crushed during the Trump administration was respect by politicians for the independence of the law enforcement function,” Raskin said.“Attorney general Garland is my constituent, and I don’t browbeat my constituents [but] he knows, his staff knows, US attorneys know, what’s at stake here.“They know the importance of it, but I think they are rightfully paying close attention to precedent in history as well as the facts of this case.”Raskin said Thursday’s televised hearing had “pierced the sound barrier” but that “Americans need to pay further attention because the danger is still out there”.It emerged that “multiple” Republican congress members had sought pardons from Trump, with Pennsylvania representative Scott Perry, the only one identified so far, denying he had done so.Perry was included in a meeting of congressional Republicans before the 6 January attack that strategized how to prevent lawmakers certifying Biden’s victory on that day.“The seeking of pardons is a powerful demonstration of the consciousness of guilt, or at least the consciousness that you may be in trouble,” Raskin said.“Everything we’re doing is documented by evidence, unlike the big lie, which is based on nonsense. Everything that we’re doing is based on facts.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpMerrick GarlandnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack pardon revelations could spell doom for Trump and allies

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      Capitol attack pardon revelations could spell doom for Trump and alliesDisclosure that many House Republicans sought presidential pardon may show they believed election fraud claim was false The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed at its inaugural hearing that Donald Trump’s top Republican allies in Congress sought pardons after the January 6 insurrection, a major disclosure that bolstered the claim that the event amounted to a coup and is likely to cause serious scrutiny for those implicated.The news that multiple House Republicans asked the Trump White House for pardons – an apparent consciousness of guilt – was one of three revelations portending potentially perilous legal and political moments to come for Trump and his allies.January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’Read moreAt the hearing, the panel’s vice-chair Liz Cheney named only one Republican member of Congress, congressman Scott Perry, the current chair of the ultra conservative House freedom caucus, who sought a presidential pardon for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.The select committee did not elaborate on which other House Republicans were asking for pardons or more significantly, for which crimes they were seeking pardons, but it appeared to show at the minimum that they knew they had been involved in likely illegal conduct.The extraordinary claim also raised the prospect that the Republican members of Congress seeking clemency believed Trump’s election fraud claims were baseless: for why would they need pardons if they really were only raising legitimate questions about the election.“It’s hard to find a more explicit statement of consciousness of guilt than looking for a pardon for actions you’ve just taken, assisting in a plan to overthrow the results of a presidential election,” Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee, told reporters.Willful blindnessThe disclosure about the pardons came during the opening hour of the hearing where the panel made the case that Trump could not credibly believe he had won the 2020 election after some of his most senior advisors told him repeatedly that he had lost to Joe Biden.Trump, according to videos of closed-door depositions played by the select committee, was told by his data experts he lost the election, told by former attorney general Bill Barr that his election fraud claims were “bullshit”, a conclusion Ivanka Trump said she accepted.The admissions by some of Trump’s top aides are important since they could put federal prosecutors one step closer to being able to charge Trump with obstructing an official proceeding or defrauding the United States on the basis of election fraud claims he knew were false.At the heart of the case the panel appears to be trying to make is the legal doctrine of “willful blindness”, as former US attorney Joyce Vance wrote for MSNBC, which says a defendant cannot say they weren’t aware of something if they were credibly notified of the truth.The potential case against Trump might take the form that he could not use, as his defense against charges he violated the law to stop Biden’s certification on January 6, that he believed there was election fraud, when he had been credibly notified it was “bullshit”.Trump-Flynn-Powell meetingAlso in the first hour of the hearing, the select committee cast in a new light the contentious 18 December 2020 meeting Trump had at the White House with his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and former Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell.The Guardian has reported extensively on that meeting, where Powell urged Trump to sign an executive order to seize voting machines and suspend normal law, based on Trump’s executive order 13848, and to appoint her special counsel to investigate election fraud.Cheney confirmed the reporting by this newspaper and others, that the group discussed “dramatic steps” such as seizing voting machines, but also alluded to a potential discussion about somehow obstructing Biden’s election win certification.The basis for that characterization, based on how Cheney described the late night meeting in the Oval Office that later continued in the White House residence, appears to be how Trump, just hours later, tweeted that there would be a “wild protest” on January 6.It was not clear whether Cheney was laying the groundwork for the select committee to tie Trump into a conspiracy of some sort, claiming this represented two people entering an agreement and taking overt steps to accomplishing it – the legal standard for conspiracy.But the “wild protest” phrase would shortly after be seized upon by some of the most prominent far-right political operatives.Hours after Trump’s tweet, according to archived versions of its website, Stop the Steal changed its banner to advertise a “wild protest” before Ali Alexander, who led the movement, even applied for a permit to stage a rally on the east side of the Capitol on January 6.TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Fox News’ Sean Hannity pitched Trump on Hunter Biden pardon – report

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      Fox News’ Sean Hannity pitched Trump on Hunter Biden pardon – reportDaily Beast says rightwing host saw pardon for Joe Biden’s son as way to ‘smooth things over’ after Capitol attack The Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to sell Donald Trump on a novel way to heal the wounds of his presidency and the deadly Capitol attack: a pardon for Hunter Biden.The bizarre idea was referred to in texts released by the House January 6 committee, which on Thursday held its first primetime televised hearing.‘I’m not afraid of clowns’: Republican defends vote to impeach TrumpRead moreIn one message, Hannity told Kayleigh McEnany, then White House press secretary, Trump “was intrigued by the pardon idea!! (Hunter)”.The Daily Beast said a source familiar with the conversations between Hannity and Trump confirmed that Hannity was referring to Hunter Biden.Joe Biden’s surviving son has become a magnet for Republican attacks over his business affairs and personal life, including a collapsed marriage and struggles with addiction.A laptop he once owned was touted by Trump allies including Hannity as an “October surprise” to blow up the 2020 election. It did not explode but news outlets have since run stories based on information from the computer.Hunter Biden has confirmed that his tax history is under investigation, saying in December 2020: “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”His business dealings in China are reportedly part of the investigation.Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine were at the heart of Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, for soliciting dirt on political rivals in exchange for military aid.Trump was impeached a second time in 2021 for inciting the Capitol riot, a failed attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.After Trump’s defeat, a Hunter Biden pardon was floated in conservative circles.On 10 December 2020, the editor of the National Interest, a conservative magazine, wrote: “Trump himself might consider pardoning Hunter as well as his own family … as well as officials who worked for him.“The difficulty for Trump has been that any such pardons would not only look self-serving, but also raise questions about trying to foreclose criminal liability since no charges have been leveled against Hunter or Ivanka or Don Jr.“These issues might not be enough to deter him, and Hunter Biden’s predicament would allow Trump to inveigh against the federal justice system more broadly. He could show magnanimity and evenhandedness by pardoning Biden’s scapegrace son.”The source who spoke to the Beast said Hannity pitched the idea on 7 January, the day after the attack on Congress, as a way to help “smooth things over”.‘Biden blood only’: Hunter Biden’s ex-wife describes Secret Service exclusionRead moreBut the source said that like other suggestions, including an end to Trump’s lie about a stolen election and Trump attending Joe Biden’s inauguration, it went nowhere.“It died on the vine,” the Beast quoted the source as saying, adding that though Trump was briefly interested, the pardon was “never seriously considered”.Another source told the Beast Hannity “genuinely wanted some healing”.Fox News, McEnany and Trump did not comment.Trump issued last-minute pardons to aides and allies including Steve Bannon, his former campaign chair and White House strategist who was charged with fraud.Hannity has continued to attack Hunter Biden on his show.TopicsHunter BidenFox NewsUS politicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJoe BidenTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      The January 6 panel said Trump incited an ‘attempted coup’. Will it kill him or make him stronger?

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      The January 6 panel said Trump incited an ‘attempted coup’. Will it kill him or make him stronger? If Merrick Garland acts on the committee’s revelations and decides to prosecute, Trump will play the victim of a deep state conspiracy Donald Trump achieved another first in US presidential history on Thursday night. He was, in front of millions of people, accused by a congressional panel of attempting to overthrow the US government.“January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup,” said Bennie Thompson, chair of the House of Representative’s select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” added his vice-chair, Liz Cheney.The political and legal implications could be devastating, just as the Watergate hearings were for President Richard Nixon half a century ago. But today America, and its media, are bitterly divided, and Trump, who once boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose voters, has repeatedly shown that what does not kill him makes him stronger.The former president wrote defiantly on his Truth Social platform: “So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and Irregularities that took place on a massive scale. Our Country is in such trouble!”Like a criminal trial, the first January 6 hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington clinically outlined the case that will be made against Trump with the help of vivid eyewitness testimony and breathtaking video footage. Although many of the details had previously emerged in media reports, it was nevertheless compelling to hear them woven together in an august setting on primetime television.Cheney argued that Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power. He encouraged the insurrection, refused to call off the mob and was content for his own vice-president, Mike Pence, to be assassinated for refusing to overturn the election.“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence’, the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.”The words of Trump’s inner circle, including Pence, were turned against him. There was a clip of former attorney general William Barr saying that Trump’s claims of a stolen election were unfounded “bullshit”, then one of Trump’s daughter and senior adviser Ivanka telling the committee: “I respected attorney general Barr. I accepted what he was saying.”The sense of family betrayal presumably enraged Trump. It also demonstrated that trusted aides were advising him that he had lost the election fair and square. This could be used to build a criminal case that he pushed the Big Lie of voter fraud knowing it to be just that – meaning that he made a deliberate effort to subvert democracy.The January 6 committee, however, has no power to prosecute Trump or anyone else. That would be a decision for Merrick Garland, the attorney general, at the justice department, and fraught with risks in a polarised environment: Trump allies would doubtless cry foul and accuse him of a politically motivated witch-hunt.Such a prospect might actually make it more likely that Trump run for president again in 2024 because he knows the justice department would be reluctant to go after an active candidate. He would seek to weaponise such a move while on the campaign trail, casting himself as the victim of a deep state conspiracy, just as he did with the Russia investigation.If Trump does run, could he win again despite the mountain of damning evidence that now stands in the public record? No one is writing him off just yet. He remains the dominant force in the Republican party, where many continue to push his big lie, a point underlined by its leadership’s protests that the hearings are an illegitimate, partisan show trial aimed at deflecting attention from Joe Biden’s crises such as inflation and crime.It is true that there are two Republicans on the January 6 committee, but both are outliers who have been censured by the party. Adam Kinzinger is not seeking re-elecction and Cheney knows her work could well cost her her seat in Wyoming, where a Trump-backed primary challenger is polling strongly against her.Cheney said on Thursday: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonour will remain.”Meanwhile Fox News, which has long had a marriage of convenience with Trump, did not even broadcast the hearing live. Instead host Tucker Carlson described it as “propaganda” from the “ruling class” and told viewers: “They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”It is possible that this and subsequent hearings will break through with a sliver of undecided voters in the middle who had not been paying attention to the drip feed of January 6 stories. But not even Democrats expect it to rescue them in November’s midterm elections. History will remember Trump’s plot against America – but memory alone cannot guarantee democracy.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More