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      ‘I see things now that I’ve never seen before’: the Maricopa county attorney fighting false election claims

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      Interview‘I see things now that I’ve never seen before’: the Maricopa county attorney fighting false election claimsRachel LeingangTom Liddy, a lifelong Republican, is a target of his own party for fending off lawsuits against the county over blatant election lies Down the hall from Tom Liddy’s office in downtown Phoenix, a whiteboard tracks all the election law cases filed against Maricopa county, where he works as civil division chief. Liddy has defended the county against dozens of claims, including that the 2020 election was stolen and that only hand-counted ballots can be trusted.In his office, he keeps ammunition in a safe to protect himself should a threat, which have become more frequent, become reality at work. At his desk, he’s surrounded by photos of his family, who have also become a target.Republicans have already filed dozens of bills to restrict voting in 2023Read moreLiddy is the son of G Gordon Liddy, the longtime political operative who was sentenced to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. The 15-year veteran of the Maricopa county attorney’s office has run for Congress, hosted a conservative radio show, and defended the county in high-profile trials, including a racial profiling case that became a national flashpoint.The lifelong Republican, who calls himself a “student of politics”, still maintains his conservative principles, despite the pushback from members of his own party who have sued the county and made him a central character in their attacks. Before his work at the county, he worked as an attorney for the Republican National Committee.In recent years, he’s seen more cases based on flimsier facts. A barrage of suits after the 2022 election, when Democrats won key statewide races, contended that that year’s election was stolen as well. The county has succeeded in the courts – though it has come at a political cost for the largely Republican elected officials who run the county.As a result of his work defending Maricopa county, Liddy became the subject of a leaked video shared on social media by allies of Kari Lake, the failed Republican candidate for Arizona governor, which he says led to death threats. The FBI recently filed charges against a Texas man who threatened Liddy and his children.Known for his fiery comments and strongly worded legal letters, Liddy isn’t one to shy away from a fight.“I would hope that my friends would have kind things to say about me and the people who crossed me would be still pissed off about it,” he said.The Guardian spoke to Liddy about the rise in election lawsuits and how he’s protecting his family from violent threats against them.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.There were even more post-election lawsuits after the 2022 election than in 2020. Why do you think that is?In 2020, we saw a lot of lawsuits filed that would never have been filed before. I think it opened up the eyes of a lot of people. ‘Hey, you can contest these elections more often than if you just lose by 510 votes.’ What’s different is when you lose by more than a little bit, and you sue not to canvass or re-canvass or recount or contest, but just throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.What we’re seeing now, which I never saw before, is folks not just contesting the election, but rather demonizing county officials or state officials or entrepreneurs who are in the business of creating voting systems or voting machines. Prior to the end of the cold war, the Soviets were trying to convince the world that our system of government was no good and was no better than theirs. And now, I think that there are folks in this country that are starting to feel that way, or at least, trying to persuade others of that. I see things now that I’ve never seen before.In a few of the election lawsuits in 2022, Maricopa county asked for lawyers’ fees or sanctions – a rare move. What’s the thought process there?When lawyers go into the court, be it a state court or federal court, you may only bring facts forward and you’re obligated to do an investigation to determine that the facts that you’re getting ready to present to the court are true. We’ve been hearing a lot of stuff in 2020, 2021 and 2022 said in court that are not true. If somebody goes into court and says something that’s not true, egregiously so, the court has the power to call them on it.When we asked for sanctions, we got sanctions in federal court. The plaintiffs went in and said, ‘The elections Maricopa county is running are unconstitutional because they don’t use paper ballots.’ What? How can you say we don’t use paper ballots? The plaintiffs were two individuals that were running for office at the time. Each had voted for themselves on paper ballots for at least the last 10 years. So we asked for sanctions.I think the courts have a responsibility as well. We are a nation of laws. We adjudicate our differences peacefully in court. You can’t do it by lying to the judge or lying to the jury. If you think that’s the right way to do it, then you’re a Pino: Patriot In Name Only.Candidates have filed lawsuits over their losses even when the margins were wide. You mentioned two candidates, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake, who tried to outlaw tabulation machines. Can you seek sanctions against the plaintiffs themselves or is that atypical?Atypical, but there is a method to do it. Generally, sanctions are against the attorneys, not just because they should know better, but they must know better. It’s their obligation. There are rules of the court and rules of civil procedure. One of the rules is that if you make claims before court, you have to do at least a basic investigation to ensure that those facts are true. You can’t just be hired by a plaintiff, the plaintiff says, ‘up is down, down is up, black is white, white is black,’ and you write it in your brief and tell the court. The standards are not that high, but we’ve been hearing some things that aren’t even close to true in some of these lawsuits for three years. Somebody’s got to stop it. The courts have an obligation, in my view.Are you still a Republican?Oh, yeah.Most of the people filing these egregious lawsuits are Republicans. Has this affected how you see your politics or your beliefs?No. I’ve been a Republican since long before I could vote. One of the proudest days of my life was my 18th birthday when I went and registered to vote. I’m a real Republican and I will not change. I will be when they bury me. Now, other folks that come in here and claim to be Republican or claim to be conservative, they don’t even know what conservative is, really. I not only want smaller government, lower taxes, more personal responsibility, greater protections for the private ownership of firearms, I’m pro-life. Being a Republican and being a Democrat has never really been about being for one candidate. It’s always been for a basket of ideas.But that’s me, Tom Liddy the person, speaking, not Tom Liddy the government lawyer. My political beliefs don’t influence what I do. I defend my clients and my client is Maricopa county. I’m happy and pleased to do that. I think it would be an abuse of the public trust to hijack government power to benefit one party or the other. I just would never do that.How much does it cost the county to defend itself against these lawsuits? You mentioned that before the 2020 election, you helped the county bolster its election law team, increasing from one specialized lawyer to about eight people who dedicate at least some of their time on elections. It seems like it’s been expensive.No doubt that it’s expensive. I don’t have that figure. The real expense, much, much larger than just the legal expenses, is the time that the county employees, be they in the recorder’s office or in the elections office or support of the board of supervisors, have to put into it, because normally they’re doing the government’s business. My salary is what my salary is, whether I’m in court duking it out with somebody defending the county or not. These other folks have jobs to do. So you’ve got to ask yourself what they could have done that they weren’t able to do. The dollars and cents is a lot but I think the opportunity cost is much, much higher.The video that captured your phone conversation with the Lake campaign …[Interrupts] Captured 2min and 8sec of a 12-minute phone call.The video showed a heated conversation between you and lawyers for Lake and the Republican National Committee. It was posted online and spread among rightwing channels to imply you weren’t being helpful or transparent with the attorneys. Has something like that happened to you before?That’s an ethical violation for a lawyer to tape a conversation with another lawyer without telling the lawyer. So somebody put that on the internet and said that a Kari Lake campaign volunteer called me – that’s not true. I called a lawyer who was working for the Lake campaign and other candidates. We had many phone calls a day leading up to that. One of the other lawyers there was – and I didn’t know at the time – a lawyer for the Republican National Committee. After we’d had a conversation and they had asked me maybe three or four questions, I said, ‘let me go get the answers for you.’ And then this other guy came on the line and said, ‘Now it’s really important that we get these questions answered quickly … because there’s a lot of angry people out there that want to take to the streets, and I don’t want to have to tell them that Tom Liddy has not been cooperative.’I said, ‘That sounds like a threat.’ I said, ‘Tell them whatever you want to tell them, but if you’re not happy working with me, then don’t work with me, don’t call me, don’t ask me questions. But don’t think for a minute you could intimidate me, because you cannot, and you can’t intimidate Maricopa county, either.’ I admit I used colorful language. It was recorded, and they took only the last two minutes and put it out on the internet.Since then, I’ve been getting death threats. One of those death threats is very real, very specific. The Dallas field office of the FBI notified me of it. The FBI came in and met with my employer and my employer told me to arm myself and that the ammunition I had was not the correct ammunition. They issued me this [pulls out a box of bullets from a safe in his office] – that’s a hollow point. That’s a man-stopper. They issued me and my four children body armor, because this son of a bitch from Texas specifically threatened to kill my four children.The Texas man who made those threats was just charged recently, right?Arrested and denied bail in Lubbock, Texas. That’s the one who threatened to kill my four children, but there are plenty others that were not specific. That makes it difficult for my family to enjoy Thanksgiving, when I’ve got 24-hours-a-day armed security around my home, cameras all over my home and body armor for my kids, and I gotta pack iron everywhere I go. Listen, I’m a second amendment guy – I got plenty to protect myself, all sorts of different calibers. Come at me from up close or far away, I’m prepared. But that’s not how you want to live. That’s not how you want to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving. So this guy was arrested I think shortly after Christmas, but that’s what my family had to deal with.Did it give you any sense of relief when he was arrested?Definitely a sense of relief, but also just happiness that the system works, somebody’s going to pay the piper. Now, he’s entitled to defense counsel, he’s entitled to a trial, a jury of his peers. I’m looking forward to flying to Texas to testify against him. I’ll be happy to do it because that’s the way the system works.Do you still have security at your home?I’m not going to comment on that. This office will provide me whatever my family needs to keep us safe. I will say, the threat level has changed since this guy was not only arrested, but denied bail. But there are still security at my home, and we still have body armor, and I still carry a firearm with me.Is it accurate to say that this was not happening before the past couple of years? Or have you experienced similar levels of threats at other times in your career?I have experienced levels of threats before in my career, but nowhere near this volume. This is the only time that the FBI contacted me.Elections have become so polarized, with threats against elections officials and lawyers like yourself and endless lawsuits after a candidate loses. What gets us out of this situation as a country?I would say the same thing that got us out of previous problems that we’ve had. Sometimes the troublemakers are either held responsible, or they fade away, or they disappear in a flash. I think there’ll be more than just lawsuits to change it. I am very optimistic that we will come together again, and we will move forward, and our best days are ahead of us. But I’m not so naive as to think we can solve this problem by one lawsuit here, one Bar complaint there.Do you think things will get better or worse in the short term, in terms of the amount of misinformation and disinformation after elections?I think better. I think that a lot of the stuff we saw in 2020 was very chaotic. Some of the stuff we have seen in 2022 was a little bit more organized. Not necessarily well founded, but a little bit more organized. My fear is that this sort of thing becomes an industry and that if people can make a name for themselves or make money, then that’s an incentive to keep doing it. Election contests are an important part of the law, but just suing for the sake of suing, and suing so you can say you’re suing and then set up a defense fund and raise millions of dollars – that’s not healthy for our society.TopicsUS newsThe fight for democracyRepublicansArizonaUS elections 2020US midterm elections 2022Donald TrumpLaw (US)interviewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand jury

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      Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand juryPanel that considered whether ex-president committed crimes in trying to overturn 2020 election defeat could recommend prosecution Even as Donald Trump prepares to dial up his campaign to take back the White House, the former US president’s political and personal fate may already have been decided by the secret workings of a grand jury in Georgia.The 23-member panel, convened to consider whether Trump and others committed crimes in trying to overturn his defeat in Georgia when it appeared the state might decide the outcome of the entire 2020 presidential election, was dissolved on Monday after submitting its conclusions and asking that they be made public.Two years on from the Capitol riot: the toxic legacy of Trump’s big lieRead moreIf the grand jury’s report recommends prosecution, a county district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, will face the most consequential decision of her career – whether, for the first time in American history, to charge a former president with a criminal offence.That could result in Trump sitting behind bars in Georgia when he expects to be out on the campaign trail. Provided he is not already serving time as the result of a federal investigation into his attempts to pressure election officials in several other states to rig the vote and his part in the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.A judge has scheduled a hearing later this month to consider arguments over whether the grand jury’s report should be made public while Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, scrutinises its findings.In November, the day before Trump announced he was again running for the White House, the Brookings Institution in Washington published a report that concluded he is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia including for improperly influencing government officials, forgery and criminal solicitation. The report said Trump may even be vulnerable to charges under anti-racketeering laws written to combat the mafia.Norman Eisen, the lead author of the Brookings report and former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, said he thinks charges against Trump are “highly likely”.“The evidence is powerful and the law is very favourable to the prosecutors in Georgia,” he said. “I believe the [special grand jury] report very likely calls for the prosecution of Trump and his co-conspirators.”Eisen said that the federal case is not as far along but that the congressional committee investigating the events of January 6 laid out a “powerful case” for charges against Trump.He said that the prosecution of a former president would be “momentous”.“But, of course, so was Trump’s decision to lead an attempted coup. That was momentous in a very negative way. This is momentous as a defence of the rule of law and American democracy,” said Eisen.Georgia prosecutors have warned at least 18 other people that they are targets of the investigation and could be charged, including Trump’s close ally and lawyer, the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani who has, among other things, been accused of spreading conspiracy theories in testimony to the Georgia legislature.Willis launched her investigation into “a multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results” just weeks after the former president left office. The investigation initially focused on a tape recording of Trump pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to conjure nearly 12,000 votes out of thin air in order to overturn Joe Biden’s win.Willis expanded the investigation as more evidence emerged of Trump and his allies attempting to manipulate the results, including the appointment of a sham slate of 16 electors to replace the state’s legitimate members of the electoral college. The fake electors included the chair of the Georgia Republican party, David Shafer, and Republican members of the state legislature who have been warned that they are at risk of prosecution.The Fulton county district attorney has told state officials that her office is investigating an array of crimes against Trump and others, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, intentional interference with the performance of election duties, conspiracy and racketeering. Convictions potentially carry significant prison sentences.Fulton superior court approved the appointment of the special grand jury last year at Willis’s request. She reflected on the consequence of investigating a former president as the jurors began their work.“I don’t want you to think I’m naive or I don’t get the gravity of the situation,” Willis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I get the gravity of it … But it’s just like every other case. You just have to do your due diligence.”Special grand juries are rare in Georgia. Unlike the regular kind, they cannot indict. But they can sit for much longer and have wider powers to subpoena. Willis recognised that if she was to build a case against such a divisive political figure as Trump, and convince a jury in a criminal trial, the evidence would have to be rock solid, and that would take time and depth.Willis used the grand jury’s powers to good effect. She called a parade of witness, including many of Trump’s closest allies and lawyers. Some fought their subpoenas including Senator Lindsey Graham who went all the way to the US supreme court in a failed attempt to avoid giving evidence.The star witness was Raffensperger, a Republican who voted for Trump and oversaw his state’s elections. When the numbers stacked up against the president in Georgia, Trump knew where to turn.Raffensperger spoke to the special grand jury for several hours in June. Georgia’s secretary of state has not commented publicly about his testimony but in his book, Integrity Counts, Raffensperger recounts receiving a call from Trump as he sat in his kitchen with his wife, Tricia, on 2 January 2021. He put the president on speakerphone.Raffensperger had an idea what to expect. Trump had already “tweeted insults and threats at me and Georgia governor Brian Kemp”. For an hour, the president tried to persuade Raffensperger to overturn the vote.“So, we’ve spent a lot of time on this and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia,” Trump said on the call.Raffensperger said he was tempted to interrupt and disagree but did not out of respect.Trump went on: “I just want to find 11,780 votes … because we won the state.”Raffensperger told the president he “could not do that because the data did not support it”.Trump tried to claim that the vote had been rigged by alleging that ballot boxes were stuffed and other irregularities. Then the president said: “All of this stuff is very dangerous stuff when you talk about no criminality. I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”Raffensperger saw that for what it was.“I felt then – and still believe today – that this was a threat,” he wrote. “Others obviously thought so, too, because some of Trump’s more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat.”Raffensperger said he and his wife were subject to death threats.Willis had more than the witness’s word for it. Raffensperger recorded the call, providing powerful and indisputable evidence.The Fulton county district attorney brought a parade of other witnesses before the grand jury including the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Graham, who placed calls to Raffensperger to suggest he should throw out some absentee ballots.Giuliani is likely to have been asked about false testimony he gave to Georgia legislators the month after the presidential election, including claims that voting machines were rigged and that thousands of teenagers below the voting age had cast ballots. A New York court suspended his licence to practice law last year over his “demonstrably false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results”.Willis has also gathered evidence about attempts to pressure a Fulton county poll worker and her daughter to wrongly say they committed election fraud by ballot stuffing, the sudden resignation of a US attorney in Atlanta under pressure from Trump officials to more aggressively investigate alleged election fraud, and of an IT services company hired by one of Trump’s lawyers that illegally copied confidential voter data from voting machines.Those who have worked with Willis say she is unlikely to shy from prosecuting Trump if she deems it appropriate. She is known to be a fan of anti-racketeering laws, having used them to prosecute public school teachers who were part of a cheating scandal.If Willis decides to press ahead with the case, she will need to convene a regular grand jury which has the authority to hand down indictments.Trump has dismissed the threat to his freedom with his usual bluster. He described his conversation with Raffensperger as “perfect” and the hearings as a “witch-hunt”. He has called Willis’s investigation a “political prosecution” and “racist”, presumably because she is Black.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS politicsUS elections 2020featuresReuse this content More

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      Federal prosecutors subpoena Giuliani over Trump campaign payments

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      Federal prosecutors subpoena Giuliani over Trump campaign paymentsThe order, issued in November, also asks the former New York mayor to provide testimony Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who helped to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors seeking documents about payments he received from Trump or his presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes workRead moreThe subpoena, which was issued in November, also asks Giuliani to provide testimony, said the person, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.The nature of the inquiry by the US attorney in Washington DC, which began before special counsel Jack Smith was appointed to oversee investigations into Trump, remains largely under wraps.Giuliani, who has served as Trump’s personal attorney, did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment.A spokeswoman for the US attorney for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The source said the subpoena sought, among other things, copies of any retainer agreements between Trump and Giuliani, or the Trump campaign and Giuliani, and records of payments and who made those payments.In December, a District of Columbia attorney ethics committee said Giuliani violated at least one attorney ethics rule in his work on a failed lawsuit by Trump challenging the 2020 election results.Giuliani’s New York state law license was suspended in June 2021 after a state appeals court found he had made “demonstrably false and misleading” statements that widespread voter fraud undermined the 2020 election won by his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpWashington DCNew YorkUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes work

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      Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes workFulton county district attorney to decide on any indictments after special grand jury heard from dozens of witnesses over six months The special grand jury convened by prosecutors in Atlanta to investigate whether Donald Trump committed crimes in his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia has finished its work.Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued an order on Monday that dissolved the special grand jury, after it completed a final report on its inquiries.The decision whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury will be up to the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis.🚨By order of Judge Robert McBurney, the Georgia special purpose grand jury investigating 2020 election interference by Trump and his allies is dissolved. The grand jury voted to make its report public. A hearing will be held on Jan. 24 to determine if it will be published. pic.twitter.com/mMBE7b2nEY— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) January 9, 2023
      Over the course of about six months, the special grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including numerous close Trump associates and assorted high-ranking Georgia state officials.The case is among several around the country that threaten legal peril for the former president as he seeks a second term in 2024.Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments but instead can issue a final report recommending actions to be taken.On 3 January 2021, Trump, the then US president, pressured the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call to “find” enough votes from the state’s electorate to overturn then president-elect Joe Biden’s victory there that Trump had refused to concede.The call was recorded and released and sparked widespread outrage, including calls for a second impeachment. That did not happen but Trump ended up confronted with a historic second impeachment for inciting the insurrection three days later, where his supporters broke into the US Capitol in Washington to try to stop the official congressional certification of Biden winning the presidency from Trump.After news of the call with Raffensberger broke, Bob Bauer, then a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”Georgia law says that grand juries are “authorized to recommend to the court the publication of the whole or any part of their general presentments” and that the judge must follow that recommendation. The special grand jury voted to recommend that its report be published.There will be a hearing on 24 January on whether to publish the special grand jury’s report and the district attorney’s office and news outlets will be given a chance to make arguments.Willis opened the investigation in early 2021. Willis is focusing on several different areas: phone calls made to Georgia officials by Trump and his allies; false statements made by Trump associates before Georgia legislative committees; a panel of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors; the abrupt resignation of the federal prosecutor in Atlanta in January 2021; alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton county election worker; and breaches of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney, confirmed before he was questioned by the special grand jury in August that they were told he faces possible criminal charges. The 16 Republican fake electors have also been told they are targets of the investigation, according to public court filings.Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read moreTrump and his allies have consistently denied any wrongdoing. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, former chief of staff to Trump Mark Meadows and Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, also all testified before the grand jury.It is unclear if Trump himself could face charges based on what the jurors determine.It is far from the only investigation into Trump. The Department of Justice is examining election interference that as well as Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, and both cases have been handed to special prosecutor Jack Smith.Smith is also expected to decided whether to bring charges against Trump and others over the government secrets discovered at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report says

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      Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report saysMike Lee of Utah made comment in text message to Trump aide on evening after the Capitol attack A senator who received a voice message meant for another Republican on January 6 described the caller, Rudy Giuliani, as “walking malpractice”.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThe piquant characterisation of the former New York mayor, then Donald Trump’s attorney and a leading proponent of his election fraud lie, was made in a text message sent by Mike Lee of Utah.The text was included in the final report of the House January 6 committee, which was released late on Thursday. Reporters immediately scoured its 845 pages for new details of Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat, leading to the attack on the Capitol.Lee’s comment is contained in a footnote to page 631. It says: “6 January 2021, text message from Senator Mike Lee to [national security adviser] Robert O’Brien at 10.55pm EST reading, ‘You can’t make this up. I just got this voice message [from] Rudy Giuliani, who apparently thought he was calling Senator Tuberville.“‘You’ve got to listen to that message. Rudy is walking malpractice.’”Giuliani was trying to contact Tommy Tuberville, from Alabama, before Congress reconvened to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, the process the rioters tried to stop.Biden’s win was certified, though not before 147 Republicans in the House and Senate objected to results in key states, shortly after rioters sought lawmakers to capture and perhaps kill, some chanting that they wanted to hang the vice-president, Mike Pence.The attack is now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.Giuliani’s message was reported at the time. Referring to the Trump team’s efforts in key states, he said: “I’m calling you because I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you.“And I know they’re reconvening at eight tonight, but … the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow – ideally until the end of tomorrow.“I know [Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell is doing everything he can to rush it, which is kind of a kick in the head because it’s one thing to oppose us, it’s another thing not to give us a fair opportunity to contest it.”McConnell would later vote to acquit Trump, in an impeachment trial arising from the Capitol attack, when conviction would have barred the former president from holding federal office again.In contrast, legal authorities now seem inclined to agree with Lee’s assessment of Giuliani’s unsuitability to practice as an attorney.Earlier this month, a preliminary disciplinary hearing of the Washington DC bar saw counsel argue that Giuliani, 78, should lose his license because of his attempt to undermine the election.Defending himself, Giuliani said: “I believe that I’ve been persecuted for three or four years, including false charges brought against me by the federal government.”Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackeyRead moreThough his activities in support of Trump’s election subversion are the subject of numerous investigations, Giuliani has not been charged with any crime.His license to practise law in New York, the city he once led, was however suspended in June last year.Numerous reports and books have described Giuliani’s increasingly bizarre behaviour in his role as Trump’s attorney.His biographer, Andrew Kirtzman, concluded that while Trump remains a political player, running for the Republican nomination in 2024, “Giuliani … [is] finished in every conceivable way.”TopicsRudy GiulianiJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse 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.
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      Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final session

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      ExplainerFive key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionThe House committee has issued the first sections of its report and recommended criminal referrals for Trump The House January 6 committee has staged its final public hearing and issued the first sections of its report. According to its chairman, Bennie Thompson, it will both release “the bulk of its non-sensitive records” before the end of the year and transmit criminal referrals, for Donald Trump and others, to the Department of Justice by the end of business on Monday.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreHere are some key conclusions after the final session on Capitol Hill.Trump is in troubleThe committee has decided to make four criminal referrals of Trump, his associate John Eastman and others to the justice department.In the hearing, the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin introduced referrals for obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection.The referrals received unanimous support and may not be the last. Raskin said: “Depending on evidence developed by the Department of Justice, the president’s actions could certainly trigger other criminal violations.”The report discusses other conspiracy statutes, including seditious conspiracy, which it says could be considered. It also says the committee has “substantial concerns regarding potential efforts to obstruct its investigation”, and “urges the Department of Justice to examine the facts to discern whether prosecution is warranted”.Noting the need for accountability, the report points to recent developments including Trump’s stated desire to “terminate” the US constitution and says: “If President Trump and the associates who assisted him in an effort to overturn the lawful outcome of the 2020 election are not ultimately held accountable under the law, their behavior may become a precedent and invitation to danger for future elections.”The justice department is already investigating, under a special counsel, the notably aggressive prosecutor Jack Smith, who was appointed last month.In messages seen by the Guardian on Monday, former Trump officials acknowledged the strength of the case against Trump. A former administration official said the committee had made “a very solid recommendation” while a former White House official said: “The facts are compelling. These charges are coming.”Trump’s aim was clearly to stop BidenIn its final hearing and its report, the committee seeks to rebut Republican claims it has overstated its case. It makes clear the Capitol attack was not an isolated and chaotic event but the culmination of a concerted attempt, fueled and guided by Trump, to stop Joe Biden becoming the 46th president.As the section on the recommended referral for conspiracy to defraud the United States puts it, “the very purpose of the plan was to prevent the lawful certification of Joe Biden’s election”.House Republicans are breathing easierThe report considers the activities of House Republicans prominently including Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Of such figures’ refusal to cooperate with subpoenas, it says: “The rules of the House of Representatives make clear that their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline.” Therefore, the committee “is referring their failure to comply with the subpoenas … to the ethics committee for further action”.Raskin said the committee was seeking “appropriate sanction by the House ethics committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas”.But Republicans will take the House in January. Jordan, who the report labels “a significant player in President Trump’s efforts”, is on course to chair the judiciary committee. Unlike other panels the ethics committee is split equally but it will be led by a Republican. In all likelihood, Jordan, Perry and others are sitting pretty for now.Ivanka Trump and others were less than forthcomingThe report names Trump’s daughter as a witness “from the Trump White House [who] displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or [was] not otherwise as frank or direct” as other, less senior aides.Describing an exchange between Donald Trump and Mike Pence on January 6, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff said Trump called his vice-president a “pussy” for not going along with election subversion.The report says: “When the committee asked Ivanka Trump whether there were ‘[a]ny particular words that you recall your father using during the conversation’ … she answered simply: ‘No.’”Other aides are singled out. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, refused to testify but did produce a book in which he claimed Trump was “speaking metaphorically” when he told supporters he would march to the Capitol.The committee says: “This appeared to be an intentional effort to conceal the facts. Multiple witnesses directly contradicted Meadows’ account … This and several other statements in the Meadows book were false, and the select committee was concerned multiple witnesses might attempt to repeat elements of these false accounts.”“A few did,” it says. One was Anthony Ornato, a deputy chief of staff who said Trump’s desire to march on Congress “was one of those hypotheticals from the good idea fairy” and who denied Trump was “irate” when told, by Ornato in the presidential SUV, he couldn’t go to the Capitol.The report says other witnesses cited Ornato as their source for accounts of how Trump “was ‘irate’, ‘heated’, ‘angry’ and ‘insistent’. But Ornato professed that he … had no knowledge at all about the president’s anger.”The committee says it has “significant concerns about the credibility” of Ornato’s testimony, including his claim not to have known of information which suggested violence at the Capitol was possible. As Thompson indicated, Ornato’s interview will be among materials released.Trump paid lawyers and pressured witnessesIn findings detailed by the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, the committee says it uncovered “efforts to obstruct” its investigation including a lawyer “receiving payments … from a group allied with” Trump advising a witness she “could, in certain circumstances, tell the committee she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them”.The lawyer is also said to have “instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump, [saying]: ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.’”When the client asked who was paying the lawyer, the report says, the lawyer said: “We’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now.”01:42The client was also reportedly “offered potential employment that would make her ‘financially very comfortable’ … by entities apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates. Such offers were withdrawn or did not materialise as reports of the content of her testimony circulated. The client believed this was an effort to affect her testimony.”The client appears to be Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump and Meadows aide whose testimony lit up a public hearing in June.The panel also says Secret Service agents chose to be represented by private counsel rather than agency lawyers who would have worked free of charge. Such behavior raised concerns that lawyers “receiving such payments have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients”.The report adds that the US Department of Justice and the Fulton county district attorney, investigating election subversion in Georgia, “have been provided with certain information related to this topic”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsexplainersReuse this content More

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      Schiff: ‘Sufficient evidence’ to criminally charge Trump over efforts to overturn election

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      Schiff: ‘Sufficient evidence’ to criminally charge Trump over efforts to overturn electionDramatic statement comes one day before January 6 panel set to release outline of its investigative report on US Capitol attack California congressman Adam Schiff said Sunday that he believes there is “sufficient evidence” to criminally charge Donald Trump in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Schiff’s dramatic statement on CNN’s State of the Union came one day before the House January 6 select committee to which he belongs is poised to release an outline of its extensive investigative report on the US Capitol attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers.January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice departmentRead moreThe committee is expected to use its last meeting on Monday to refer Trump, as well as others, to the US justice department in relation to the former president’s attempts to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.During this final meeting, the panel is expected to outline an executive summary of its findings, propose legislative recommendations, vote to adopt the report – and then vote on possible criminal and civil referrals. Schiff is one of nine members, seven of whom are Democrats like him, serving on the January 6 committee.The potential referrals involving Trump are expected to involve obstruction of an official congressional proceeding as well as conspiracy to defraud the United States. The Guardian first reported the nature of these referrals.Schiff told CNN host Jake Tapper that he “can’t comment” on specifics of any possible referrals. The predicted criminal referrals are effectively symbolic because Congress can’t force prosecutors to pursue charges.“I think that the evidence is there that Trump committed criminal offenses in connection with his efforts to overturn the election,” said Schiff, who chairs the House intelligence committee. “And viewing it as a former prosecutor, I think there’s sufficient evidence to charge the [former] president.”Tapper asked Schiff whether this was enough to secure a conviction.“Well, I don’t know what the justice department has. I do know what’s in the public record. The evidence seems pretty plain to me, but I would want to see the full body of evidence, if I were in the prosecutor’s shoes, to make a decision,” Schiff responded. “But this is someone, who in multiple ways, tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. This is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol.“If that’s not criminal, then – then I don’t know what it is.”Asked whether he thought Trump would face criminal charges, Schiff said: “The short answer is, I don’t know. I think that he should. I think he should face the same remedy, force of law that anyone else would.”Schiff said he was worried, however, that “it may take until he is no longer politically relevant for justice to be served. That’s not the way it should be in this country, but there seems to be an added evidentiary burden with someone who has a large enough following.”“That simply should not be the case, but I find it hard, otherwise, to explain why, almost two years from the events of January 6, and with the evidence that’s already in the public domain, why the justice department hasn’t moved more quickly than it has,” Schiff also said.The Guardian previously reported that the Trump allies who might face criminal referrals include former high-ranking White House staffers. The panel is also expected to make civil referrals to the House ethics committee involving Republican Congress members – as well as suggest disbarment for some of Trump’s attorneys.Exclusive: January 6 panel considering Trump referral to justice department for obstruction of CongressRead moreThe January 6 committee has largely concluded that the insurrection was rooted in a conspiracy, sources previously told the Guardian. The panel found that Trump oversaw a “political” plan for his Vice-President Mike Pence to refuse to certify election results in a joint session on January 6 as well as a “coup” plot to force Congress’s hand if he refused.Committee investigators think that Trump’s alleged desire to illegally thwart the certification of the election he lost was obvious months before January 6. They believe it extended from the time he agreed with a fake elector plot so states would swap Biden’s electoral college votes for him until he refused for hours to call off Capitol attackers, sources had told the Guardian.Trump did not leave documentary evidence of his alleged involvement, but his staffers left a paper trail. During Trump’s presidency, he used his power to stifle inquiries, the committee is expected to say. One of Trump’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020Donald TrumpUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More