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      Bob Woodward to publish Trump interviews detailing his ‘effort to destroy democracy’

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      Bob Woodward to publish Trump interviews detailing his ‘effort to destroy democracy’The investigative journalist’s new audiobook, The Trump Tapes, digs deep into the threat the former president poses to democracy Explaining his decision to publish tapes of his 20 interviews with Donald Trump, renowned journalist Bob Woodward said he had finally recognized the “unparalleled danger” the former president poses to American democracy.His three books on the Trump presidency, Woodward said, “didn’t go far enough”.The veteran reporter will release an audiobook, The Trump Tapes, on Tuesday. On Sunday, he published excerpts in an essay for the Washington Post, the paper for which he and Carl Bernstein covered the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency in 1974.‘A nutso proposition’: Robert Draper on Trump, Republicans and January 6 Read moreWoodward, 79, has chronicled every president since. His three Trump books – Fear, Rage and Peril, the last written with Robert Costa – were instant bestsellers.But by Woodward’s own admission, those books exercised reportorial caution when it came to passing judgment, even as they chronicled four chaotic years culminating in the January 6 Capitol attack.Woodward’s decision to pass judgment now did not meet with universal praise.Oliver Willis, a writer for the American Independent, a progressive outlet, pointed to recent criticism of reporters including Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, for allegedly holding important reporting for Trump books. Willis said Woodward essentially saying “Guys, I’m kind of feeling Trump might be a fascist” was a “perfect example of how ivory tower journalism fails to inform the public”.Pelosi says Trump not ‘man enough to show up’ to testify on January 6Read moreSeth Abramson, the author of three books on Trump, said: “I don’t know how it happened, but the Trump biographers who knew this for certain because of their research in 2016 and 2017 were outsold by Bob Woodward 10-to-1 despite him only coming to this conclusion now. A failure of media, or of publishing? Or both?”In the Post, Woodward elaborated on his change of mind.“There is no turning back for American politics,” he wrote. “Trump was and still is a huge force and indelible presence, with the most powerful political machine in the country. He has the largest group of followers, loyalists and fundraisers, exceeding that of even President [Joe] Biden.“In 2020, I ended Rage with the following sentence: ‘When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.’“Two years later, I realize I didn’t go far enough. Trump is an unparalleled danger. When you listen to him on the range of issues from foreign policy to the [coronavirus] to racial injustice, it’s clear he did not know what to do. Trump was overwhelmed by the job.”In June 2020, Woodward said, he asked Trump if he had assistance in writing a speech about law and order amid national protests for racial justice.Trump said: “I get people, they come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. Want to know something? Everything is mine.”Woodward wrote: “The voice, almost whispering and intimate, is so revealing. I believe that is Trump’s view of the presidency. Everything is mine. The presidency is mine. It is still mine. The only view that matters is mine.“The Trump Tapes leaves no doubt that after four years in the presidency, Trump has learned where the levers of power are, and full control means installing absolute loyalists in key cabinet and White House posts.“The record now shows that Trump has led – and continues to lead – a seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which in effect is an effort to destroy democracy.“Trump reminds how easy it is to break things you do not understand – democracy and the presidency.”Leftwing writers were not uniformly skeptical of Woodward’s motives. At the New Republic, Michael Tomasky said he hoped the tapes might influence voters in the looming midterm elections, in which a Republican party firmly in Trump’s grip is poised to take the House and perhaps the Senate.Tomasky wrote: “I hope against hope that the media frenzy that will attend this release will bring Trump back into focus as an issue in this election. There may be nuclear bombshells buried in the tapes that have been held back from the selective leaks.“One wonders whether Woodward is holding some newsy quotes until Tuesday.”Tomasky added: “Let’s hope so, anyway, because what has been striking in these recent weeks is the extent to which Trump has faded from the electoral conversation.”Republicans aiming to take House and Senate seats, governors’ mansions and important state posts will hope things stay that way.Trump is in legal jeopardy on numerous fronts, from investigations of the Capitol attack and attempts to overturn the 2020 election to a legal fight over his retention of White House records, criminal and civil suits concerning his business activities, and a defamation suit from the writer E Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her.Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreThe former president denies wrongdoing and continues to float a third White House run. On Sunday, Woodward told CBS he regretted not pressing Trump about whether he would leave the White House if he lost in 2020.On the relevant tape, Woodward says: “Everyone says Trump is going to stay in the White House if it’s contested. Have you thought …”Trump interjects: “Well, I’m not – I don’t want to even comment on that, Bob. I don’t want to comment on that at this time. Hey Bob, I got all these people, I’ll talk to you later on tonight!”Woodward said: “It’s the only time he had no comment. And this, of course, was months before his loss. And I kind of slapped myself a little bit: Why didn’t I follow up on that a little bit more?”
      This article was amended on 24 October 2022 to correct a misspelling of Oliver Willis’s surname.
      TopicsBooksBob WoodwardUS press and publishingWashington PostNewspapersUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      ‘Trump is an unparalleled danger’ Woodward warns, following hours of interviews – live

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      Bob Woodward’s recorded excerpts of his conversations with Donald Trump take listeners back to 2020, and make clear just how much of the White House’s fumbling response to Covid-19 came from the president himself.“I feel good. I think we’re doing a great job. I think we’ll never get credit from the fake news media no matter how good a job we do. No matter how good a job I do, I will never get credit from the media, and I’ll never get credit from Democrats who want to beat me desperately in seven months,” Trump told Woodward in an early April interview, days after the economy had shut down to unsuccessfully stop the spread of a virus that would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans that year alone.Trump’s denialism continued into July: “It’s flaring up all over the world, Bob. By the way, all over the world. That was one thing I noticed last week. You know they talk about this country. All over the world, it’s flaring up. But we have it under control.”Later that month, he insisted that he would soon release a plan to fight the virus, but appeared to tie its timing to how it would affect his election chances. “I’ve got 106 days. That’s a long time. You know, if I put out a plan now, people won’t even remember it in a hundred — I won the last election in the last week.”While Woodward agrees with many other observers of the former president that his attempts to overturn the 2020 election make him a danger to democracy, he also makes the case to listeners that Trump didn’t even fully understand how to do his job – and the nation paid the price.“Trump reminds how easy it is to break things you do not understand — democracy and the presidency,” Woodward concludes.What would Republicans do with a majority in the House? Demand concessions in exchange for raising the debt limit, which will likely be necessary at some point next year, Politico reports.GOP lawmakers could demand that the tax cuts passed during the Trump administration are made permanent, or that Social Security and Medicare, the two massive federal benefit programs for older Americans that have long been in Republicans’ crosshairs, are overhauled. But the strategy is a risky one, because without an agreement to lift its legal ability to borrow, Washington could default on its debt – with potentially calamitous implications for the global economy. And even if Republicans took both the House and the Senate, expect tortuous negotiations with Biden to find an agreement.Here’s more from Politico:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Tight Senate margins and a Democratic president would make it impossible for GOP leaders to deliver on the party’s most hardline fiscal wishes, at least with President Joe Biden still in office. The disappointment would surely prompt blowback from right-leaning Republicans already known as the sharpest thorns in the party’s side.
      “Spare me if you’re a Republican who puts on your frigging campaign website, ‘Trust me, I will vote for a balanced budget amendment, and I believe we should balance the budget like every family in America.’ No shit,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus, said in an interview.
      “You have two simple leverage points: when government funding comes up and when the debt ceiling is debated,” Roy reminded his fellow Republicans. “And the only question that matters is, will leadership use that leverage?”There was also new polling today for Ohio, which seems to align with broader national trends for the 8 November midterms.Once considered a swing state, Ohio has become more solidly Republican in recent elections. But that doesn’t mean JD Vance, the GOP candidate for Senate, is running away with the race. Today’s Spectrum News / Siena poll shows him tied with Democrat Tim Ryan, underscoring that for all the momentum Republicans seem to have, retaking the Senate is not a sure bet.Spectrum News / Siena Poll: Ohio Likely VotersDeWine Continues to Hold Very Large Lead over Whaley, 58-34%Vance vs. Ryan Even, 46-46%, Two Weeks to GoVoters Prefer Republicans over Democrats to Control Congress, 40-33%https://t.co/nenKiR8q6o pic.twitter.com/K1MaXlksmQ— SienaResearch (@SienaResearch) October 24, 2022
      However, notice the strong bias among Ohio voters towards Republicans on the generic congressional ballot. That matches recent nationwide polling suggesting the GOP has overtaken Democrats as the party preferred to control Congress – an outcome that may well come to pass when the midterm dust settles.There was some dire news for Democrats this morning from The Cook Political Report, which is known for its comprehensive rankings of congressional races across the country.The subject was congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, who is chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee tasked with winning elections in the House of Representatives. Cook changed their rating for his suburban New York City district to toss-up from lean Democrat:House rating change: Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D) moves from Lean D to Toss Up at @CookPolitical as Dems admit the DCCC chair is now in serious danger in #NY17. Full analysis: https://t.co/89bvezbNuw pic.twitter.com/ncljBkSfZw— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 24, 2022
      Polls indicate that Democrats are likely to lose their majority in the House in the 8 November midterms, and a loss by Maloney would make an embarrassment of their efforts to stem what appears to be a rising tide of Republican sentiment among voters.We’re 15 days away from the 8 November midterms, but early voting data from across the country indicates a surge in voter enthusiasm, Adam Gabbatt reports – though it’s not yet clear which party is set to benefit:Early voting in the midterm elections is on track to match records set in 2018, according to researchers, as voters take advantage of both in-person and mail-in voting in states across the country.More than 5.8 million people had already cast their vote by Friday evening, CNN reported, a similar total to this stage in the 2018 elections, which had the highest turnout of any midterm vote in a generation.States with closely watched elections, including Georgia, Florida and Ohio, are among those seeing high volumes, with Democrats so far casting early votes in greater numbers.Republicans, including Donald Trump, have encouraged their supporters to vote in person, citing a mishmash of debunked conspiracy theories about election security.The New York Times reported that in-person turnout is up 70% in Georgia, where the incumbent Republican governor is facing a tough challenge from Democrat Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock, the Democratic US senator, is competing with Herschel Walker. As of Friday about 520,000 people had already cast their ballots during in-person early voting, according to Fox5 Atlanta.US midterm elections: early voting on track to match 2018 recordRead moreAttorney general Merrick Garland will this afternoon hold a press conference on a “significant national security matter,” the justice department has announced.The 1:30pm eastern time speech will “discuss significant national security cases addressing malign influence schemes and alleged criminal activity by a nation-state actor in the United States,” and feature Garland along with FBI director Christopher Wray, along with other top justice department officials.The Guardian will cover the press conference on this blog as it happens.From Las Vegas, The Guardian’s Edwin Rios reports on the cost-of-living concerns that are influencing voters in the swing state crucial to the upcoming midterm elections:Claudia Lopez, 39, is worried for her children.As her curly haired seven-year-old daughter bounced around a play area inside El Mercado, a shopping center within the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas where the smell of arepas and tacos hovers over the shops, Lopez soaked in her day off from knocking on doors and talking to residents about the upcoming election.For much of her life, Lopez, whose parents emigrated from Mexico to California, where she was born, didn’t care for politics. This year, that changed: since Lopez moved to Las Vegas seven years ago, rents have rocketed. In the first quarter of 2022, the Nevada State Apartment Association found that rent had soared, on average, more than 20% compared to the same period last year. That growth has since slowed, but the self-employed house cleaner worries about her children’s future: their safety, their schools, their shelter.“I don’t care about Democrats or Republicans,” Lopez says. “I care about change. I just want change for the better. Everything’s getting worse. You see little kids like, ‘Are they going to live to my age?’”In Nevada, the political stakes of this election are high. Latino voters are projected to account for one for every five potential voters in November, turning the state into a microcosm of the national influence voters of color will have on the election. While Nevada voted Democrat in the last election, its contests were won by slim margins. And as a voting bloc, Latinos are not monolithic: what they care about ranges from immigration to the economy and depends on where throughout the country they live.‘I just care about change’: Nevada’s Latinos on their cost-of-living fearsRead moreTrump isn’t alone in presenting a danger to democracy. As Adam Gabbatt reports, Doug Mastriano is copying many of the former president’s tactics in his campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, from his perpetual lying to his belief in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election:As Pennsylvanians prepare to vote for their next governor, it is no exaggeration to say the future of American democracy is at stake.Doug Mastriano, a retired army colonel who has enthusiastically indulged Donald Trump’s fantasy that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is the Republican candidate. If he wins, he plans to deregister every single one of Pennsylvania’s 8.7 million voters. In future elections, Mastriano would choose who certifies – or doesn’t – the state’s election results.With Pennsylvania one of the few swing states in presidential elections, Mastriano could effectively have the power to decide the next president. But in a midterm election season defined by Republicans who seem to oppose democracy, there is some evidence that Mastriano, a retired army colonel, could be too fringe even for the Republican party.Mastriano is, by most measures, an extremist.Doug Mastriano: is the Trump-backed election denier too extreme to win?Read moreBob Woodward’s recorded excerpts of his conversations with Donald Trump take listeners back to 2020, and make clear just how much of the White House’s fumbling response to Covid-19 came from the president himself.“I feel good. I think we’re doing a great job. I think we’ll never get credit from the fake news media no matter how good a job we do. No matter how good a job I do, I will never get credit from the media, and I’ll never get credit from Democrats who want to beat me desperately in seven months,” Trump told Woodward in an early April interview, days after the economy had shut down to unsuccessfully stop the spread of a virus that would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans that year alone.Trump’s denialism continued into July: “It’s flaring up all over the world, Bob. By the way, all over the world. That was one thing I noticed last week. You know they talk about this country. All over the world, it’s flaring up. But we have it under control.”Later that month, he insisted that he would soon release a plan to fight the virus, but appeared to tie its timing to how it would affect his election chances. “I’ve got 106 days. That’s a long time. You know, if I put out a plan now, people won’t even remember it in a hundred — I won the last election in the last week.”While Woodward agrees with many other observers of the former president that his attempts to overturn the 2020 election make him a danger to democracy, he also makes the case to listeners that Trump didn’t even fully understand how to do his job – and the nation paid the price.“Trump reminds how easy it is to break things you do not understand — democracy and the presidency,” Woodward concludes.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has released more excerpts from his interviews with Donald Trump in 2020, and closes with this warning: “Trump is an unparalleled danger.” Describing him as “overwhelmed by the job” while in office as Covid-19 spread across the United States, Woodward warns that Trump continues to pursue “a seditious conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election – and end democracy itself. While Woodward is far from the first person to say that, the journalist’s opinion is uniquely informed, given that the two men spoke 20 times during the last year of his presidency.Here’s a look at what’s happening today:
      Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis will face his Democratic challenger Charlie Crist for the only debate of the election at 7pm ET.
      Joe Biden will hold a rally today at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at 1pm.
      Poll tracker FiveThirtyEight downgraded Democrats’ chances of keeping control of the Senate over the weekend, lowering it to 55% amid a wave of polls that signal several of its candidates may be in trouble. More

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      Trump signed statement alleging voter fraud knowing it was false, judge says

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      Trump signed statement alleging voter fraud knowing it was false, judge saysDocument was part of lawsuit challenging results of 2020 election in Georgia Donald Trump signed a legal statement alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election despite being told the numbers underpinning the case were false, a federal judge said on Wednesday.The disclosure was made by the US district judge David Carter, who ordered John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer, to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Eastman was one of Trump’s attorneys when the former president and his allies challenged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.The legal document was part of a lawsuit by Trump’s team challenging the results in Georgia, a state Trump narrowly lost to Biden, in which they claimed a Georgia county had improperly counted more than 10,000 votes of dead people, felons and unregistered voters.‘Where’s the beef?’: special master says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago records claims lack substanceRead moreIn an 18-page opinion, Carter said that the former president had “signed a verification swearing under oath” that the inaccurate fraud numbers were “true and correct” or “believed to be true and correct” to the best of his knowledge.“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” the judge wrote, adding: “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”Carter previously ruled that Eastman and Trump had probably committed a felony by trying to pressure his then vice-president, Mike Pence, to obstruct Congress.The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed by Eastman to block disclosure of the emails to the January 6 select committee, following a congressional subpoena.Carter previously ordered Eastman to provide over 200 emails to the committee, after the lawyer resisted the subpoena and claimed that the communications were privileged.The judge said on Wednesday that the vast majority of emails still being sought by congressional investigators should not be handed over, as legal protections given to attorneys and their clients apply to the records.He said eight emails that would normally be shielded under those protections must be given to the committee, after he found that the communications were in furtherance of a crime – one of the few times those legal safeguards can be lifted.Carter found that four emails show that Eastman and other lawyers suggested that the “primary goal” of filing lawsuits was to delay Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results.The judge said four other emails “demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote”.At one point, Eastman wrote that although the former president had signed documents related to a lawsuit in Georgia on 1 December, “he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate. For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.”Carter wrote: “President Trump and his attorneys ultimately filed the complaint with the same inaccurate numbers without rectifying, clarifying, or otherwise changing them.”Trump and his allies filed over 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election, with some complaints alleging voter fraud without evidence to support those claims. Those cases were overwhelmingly rejected by judges, some of which Trump appointed to the federal courts.The January 6 select committee last week voted to subpoena Trump in its investigation. It is expected to issue a report in the coming weeks on its findings.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics case

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      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics caseDoug Mastriano, Jenna Ellis and Peter Navarro among those named in case related to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania result Facing a Washington DC legal ethics prosecution over his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has turned to a cast of characters from that failed effort.Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackeyRead moreA witness list filed by lawyers for Giuliani on Friday included Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania; the former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis; and Christina Bobb, an attorney currently caught up in Trump’s fight with the US Department of Justice over the retention of classified records.Also among those named were the former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi; Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser charged with contempt of Congress in the January 6 investigation; former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; and Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who Trump pardoned of felonies that sent him to jail.Phil Waldron, a former army colonel turned Texas bar owner who pushed baseless electoral fraud claims, was also on the witness list.Giuliani is accused of mounting a frivolous election challenge in Pennsylvania – one of four states, with Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, on which the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory focused and which Trump this week named in an intemperate response to a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.The DC office of disciplinary counsel intends to call Giuliani as a witness. The former mayor appears on his own list too.Giuliani has said he had a “good faith basis” for contesting mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.But his work as Trump’s personal attorney – for which he has famously struggled to secure payment – landed him in legal jeopardy on a number of fronts.Giuliani’s role in approaches to Ukraine for political dirt on Trump opponents including Biden landed him in the middle of Trump’s first impeachment.Trump’s second impeachment, for inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, was the result of the failure of legal attempts to overturn the 2020 election.In Georgia, Giuliani has been named as the target of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the election result there.In New York, he has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election machinery.Giuliani is also suspended from practicing law in New York state.Writing for Slate, the Harvard law professor Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, said Giuliani and the law professor John Eastman were “the two chief ‘generals’ [who] orchestrat[ed] Trump’s abuse of the law to overturn the election”.The authors added: “In joining the bar, lawyers take an oath to support the US constitution much like the one that Article VI of the constitution requires of all public officials. Lawyers who betrayed that oath in ways that led to the deadly insurrection of January 6 are no better than a physician who violates the Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm’.”The complaint in the DC case says Giuliani violated two Pennsylvania rules that bar attorneys from bringing frivolous proceedings without a basis in law or fact and prohibit conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The charges can lead to the suspension of a license to practice or disbarment.The hearing is set for December.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsRepublicansLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Could Trump testify? Subpoena sets up prospect of dramatic political spectacle

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      Could Trump testify? Subpoena sets up prospect of dramatic political spectacleThe former president is considering granting the Capitol attack committee’s demand to appear – but would such a move be wise? The House January 6 select committee’s unanimous move to subpoena Donald Trump, demanding that he testify about his knowledge of the Capitol attack, sets up the prospect of a political spectacle as the congressional investigation races towards what could be an explosive conclusion.Donald Trump considers testifying before January 6 panelRead moreThe former US president may decide to ignore the subpoena and decide not to cooperate with the inquiry, or alternatively, believing that he is his own best spokesman and can answer for his actions to anyone, may agree to a dramatic deposition.But whatever path Trump chooses, the decision of constitutional consequence appears certain to also become a pitched political spectacle – with each side seeking to achieve their own goals as the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack prepares to finish its work.The driving factor pushing Trump to want to testify has centered around a reflexive belief that he can convince investigators that their own inquiry is a supposed witch-hunt and convince them that he committed no crimes over January 6, according to sources familiar with the matter.Trump has previously expressed an eagerness to appear before the select committee and “get his pound of flesh” as long as he can appear live before an audience, the sources said – a thought he reiterated to close aides on Thursday after the panel voted to issue him a subpoena.But Trump also appears to have become more aware about the pitfalls of testifying in investigations, with lawyers warning him about mounting legal issues in criminal inquiries brought by the justice department and a civil lawsuit brought by the New York state attorney’s office.The former president invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times in a deposition with the New York state attorney’s office before it filed a fraud lawsuit against him, three of his children, and senior Trump Organization executives.Trump also ultimately took the advice of his lawyers during the special counsel investigation into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, submitting only written responses to investigators despite initially telling advisers he wanted to testify in person to clear his name.The issue for Trump with the select committee remains whether the panel would accept a demand to testify live. The select committee has rejected testimony with conditions for virtually all witnesses, with the exception of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.If Trump does make his appearance contingent on conditions that the select committee cannot countenance, it is not clear what options are available to compel his testimony given his position as a former president.The chairman of the select committee, congressman Bennie Thompson, said in advance of the vote to issue Trump a subpoena that chief among the reasons the panel sought his testimony was because his singular role in driving events towards January 6 necessitated full accountability.Members on the select committee believe securing Trump’s testimony could answer several unresolved issues – such as his contacts with political operatives at the Trump war room at the Willard hotel, sources say – but Thompson added it went beyond evidence-gathering.“He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions,” Thompson said.But the select committee is expected to face difficulty should it seek to enforce its subpoena through the courts, with Trump’s lawyers focusing on the justice department’s office of legal counsel opinions contending that former presidents have absolute immunity from testifying to Congress.The panel’s previous attempts to force Trump White House officials to comply with subpoenas have resulted in protracted legal battles over executive privilege that were mostly resolved through some partial cooperation, such as with Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows.Attempts to seek judicial enforcement against Trump would be even more time-consuming and given the justice department’s internal position on absolute immunity – a stronger protection than executive privilege – the effort might be wholly unsuccessful, legal experts said.The select committee could alternatively refer the former president to the justice department for contempt of Congress as it did with former aides Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, but the justice department would probably decline to prosecute on the immunity standard, the experts said.The calculus appears to leave Trump with a political prisoner’s dilemma, one person directly familiar with the investigation said – adding that they believed the panel will be perceived in history as having done as much as it could to uncover Trump’s connection to the Capitol attack.TopicsUS newsUS politicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Jan 6 hearing updates: panel votes to subpoena Donald Trump – as it happened

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      The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee held what is likely to be its last public hearing, and made the case that Donald Trump, above anyone else, is to blame for the deadly attack on the US Capitol. Here are five takeaways from today’s meeting:
      In the final minutes of its two-and-a-half hour hearing, the panel subpoenaed the former president, with committee member Jamie Raskin saying they hope his testimony will clarify aspects of the attack they haven’t been able to uncover. Trump hasn’t yet responded to the summons, but don’t be surprised if he follows the practice of his most loyal former officials and fights it.
      The Secret Service is in for continued scrutiny, with committee member Pete Aguilar warning the panel may recall witnesses with knowledge of Trump’s allegedly explosive behavior on January 6, when his protective detail declined to drive him to the Capitol. Aguilar also warned “the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue,” and to expect more details about this in its forthcoming report.
      Officials in the Trump White House looked to fire up his supporters ahead of the president’s speech on January 6 – then pled ignorance as the Secret Service and other security agencies began getting reports the president’s most ardent supporters were planning violence.
      Even as he plotted to stop Joe Biden from taking over the White House, Trump acted like a man who had lost re-election, signing an order to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before his term was over, which would have been a huge undertaking.
      All along, Trump planned to declare victory even before all the ballots were counted – a fact that one of his most extreme supporters Roger Stone stated openly to a documentary crew.
      The January 6 committee wasn’t today’s only story:
      The supreme court rejected Trump’s attempt to get justices to weigh in on his attempt to complicate the federal investigation into government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
      The United States and Saudi Arabia are waging a war of words over the Opec+ oil production cut and Washington’s claim Riyadh has aligned itself with Russia.
      The New York attorney general has warned Trump and his business are taking steps to undermine her lawsuit against them, and asked a judge to step in.
      Social security recipients are getting a big increase in monthly payments – but only because inflation is so high.
      CNN has lately been tracking who comes and goes from a federal courthouse in Washington, where a grand jury investigating the January 6 attack is meeting.The latest visitors: former vice-president Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short and Kash Patel, a national security aide in the Trump White House, CNN reports.The two men had nothing to say when the network asked what brought them there, but it’s not surprising to hear that Short turned up. He was a foe of Trump’s plot to steal the 2020 election and cooperated with the January 6 committee.Patel, however, promoted various baseless lies about the election and is seen as loyal to the former president. Why subpoena Trump? Here’s what CNN was told by Jamie Raskin, a Democratic committee member:Jamie Raskin tells me 1/6 committee subpoenaed Trump because the panel has been unable to nail down some of Trump’s specific actions & conversations. Raskin said that’s because the witnesses closest to Trump, who would know these answers, have pled the 5th in committee interviews pic.twitter.com/kK6zsiXKrT— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 13, 2022
      CNN has more from the January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson about what he expects to result from lawmakers’ subpoena to Donald Trump:Talked with Bennie Thompson about the subpoena for Trump. He wouldn’t say if they would go to court to fight this. Asked if he really thought Trump would testify, he said: “Ask Donald Trump.” He says “no” subpoena for Pence pic.twitter.com/HxvhWUCfhv— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 13, 2022
      Punchbowl News says the subpoena issue may likely linger beyond the 8 November midterms:NEW – @BennieGThompson is expected to issue Trump subpoena next week. The response date probably won’t be until after Nov. 8 midterm elections, but date hasn’t been set yet— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) October 13, 2022
      And that’s it. With their vote to subpoena Donald Trump, the January 6 committee concluded what lawmakers have hinted is likely to be their last public presentation of evidence. But the group’s work is far from over. Trump may very well reject their order to testify, and head to court to fight it. Meanwhile, the lawmakers have a report to finish, and said they’re not done asking questions of the Secret Service and what it knew about Trump’s behavior and plans for that day.The committee’s mandate expires when the current Congress ends on the final day of the year, and at least two of their members will not be returning to their chamber. While they have not said definitively, the just-concluded hearing is likely the last time they will all be seen in public together – though there’s always the chance they schedule another hearing.The January 6 committee has unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump, in a long-shot attempt to compel his testimony before the bipartisan congressional panel investigating his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.“We have left no doubt knowing that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” the committee’s chair Bennie Thompson said. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. We want to hear from him.”Trump seems certain to challenge the subpoena by the panel, which has already taken testimony from a number of former top officials in his White House.Thompson said there was precedent for subpoenaing a president, and for him to provide testimony to Congress.“We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action. That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter issue is so important,” Thompson said before the committee voted.Today’s public hearing is likely to be the committee’s last, but the lawmakers are expected to release a report on the insurrection before the year’s end.The January 6 committee has juxtaposed gripping footage of Democratic congressional leaders pleading for help as the Capitol is stormed with Trump administration officials making clear that the president could have quickly disseminated a message to condemn the rioters – but chose not to.The footage showed insurrectionists fighting with police and overrunning the Capitol, while top lawmakers including House speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer pled for reinforcements from the department of defense and the governor of Virginia.Led by Democrat Jamie Raskin, the committee then showed previously aired testimony by top administration officials saying that Trump could have quickly made a public address to call off rioters, and showed video footage of them listening to a message sent during the insurrection where he asked them – albeit tepidly – to go home.“It was President Lincoln at the start of the civil war in 1861, who best explained why democracy rejects insurrection. Insurrection, he said, is a war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people. American democracy belongs to all the American people, not to a single man,” Raskin said, as he concluded his testimony.The supreme court has turned down an appeal from Donald Trump as he tries to frustrate the federal investigation into government secrets discovered at Mar-a-Lago.Breaking: Supreme Court denies Trump motion seeking to re-include 103 docs in the special master review— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      Earlier this month, Trump asked the supreme court to allow a special master to review 100 classified documents as part of his efforts to exclude privileged information from the investigation. If granted, the special master could have excluded some classified files from being used in the federal case, where prosecutors may level charges against Trump for unlawfully keeping government documents after his term in the White House ended.Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago special master disputeRead moreThe hearing has resumed, with Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar addressing one of the most shocking revelations from its hearings over the summer.In June, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson related hearing a story that Trump had lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle as he demanded his unwilling Secret Service agents drive him to the Capitol just as it was being attacked by his supporters. Aguilar said the committee had uncovered additional evidence corroborating this story.“After concluding its review of the voluminous additional Secret Service communications from January 5, and January 6, the committee will be recalling witnesses and conducting further investigative depositions based on that material. Following that activity, we will provide even greater detail in our final report,” he said. “And I will also note this, the committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue, including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic. We will address this matter in our report.”The Secret Service has come under scrutiny for what it knew about the attack, particularly after it was revealed that the agency erased all its text messages from around the time of the insurrection in what it says was a pre-planned technology upgrade.The January 6 committee is now on a 10-minute recess after Democratic congressman Adam Schiff finished presenting evidence, which showed how the Secret Service documented numerous threats before January 6 – some of which were encouraged by Trump’s White House staff.“I got the based FIRED up,” White House adviser Jason Miller wrote in a text message to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. Miller included a link to a website where supporters of the president wrote comments like, “Gallows don’t require electricity”, “If the filthy commie maggots try to push their fraud through, there will be hell to pay”, and “Our lawmakers in Congress can leave one of two ways: one, in a body bag, two after rightfully certifying Trump the winner.”“If I had seen something of that nature I would have said, we got to flag this for Secret Service or something of that nature,” Miller told the committee’s investigators when they asked him about the texts. Schiff said that despite testimony from some White House staffers and Secret Service agents that they had no warnings of violence before January 6, “evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.” He went on to detail how the Secret Service was monitoring online threats ahead of the joint session of Congress to certify Biden’s election win, including against vice-president Mike Pence. One threatening post said would be “a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing”.Schiff said Trump was able to hear how angry his supporters were the night before the insurrection, when he opened the door in the White House’s Oval Office and heard them gathering a few blocks away.“The president knew the crowd was angry because he had stoked that anger. He knew that they believe that the election had been rigged and stolen because he had told them falsely that it had been rigged and stolen,” Schiff said. “And by the time he incited that angry mob to march on the Capitol, he knew they were armed and dangerous. All the better to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has confirmed that once the January 6 committee finishes publicly presenting evidence today, it will vote to subpoena Donald Trump:New: Confirming NBC that the Jan. 6 committee plans to subpoena Trump today after the end of presentations @GuardianUS— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      Now led by Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, the committee is shifting into records newly obtained from the Secret Service, which show agents were receiving tips about plans for violence on January 6.According to one tip detailed by Schiff, “the Proud Boys plan to march armed into DC. They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed, the source reported, and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped. The source went on to say their plan is to literally kill people. Please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”“The Secret Service had advance information more than 10 days beforehand regarding the Proud Boys planning for January 6. We know now, of course, that the Proud Boys and others did lead the assault on our Capitol building,” Schiff said. At its hearing, the January 6 committee plans to vote to subpoena Donald Trump, NBC News reports:SCOOP: J6 Cmte currently plans to vote to subpoena fmr Pres Trump during today’s hearing, sources familiar w/ their plans tell @NBCNews. Members want to put the move in the public record despite acknowledging how unlikely it’d be for him to comply – w/ @haleytalbotnbc— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) October 13, 2022
      The hearing is ongoing, with lawmakers outlining various ways Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden won the White House.Despite all his bluster and scheming, the committee, now led by Republican Adam Kinzinger, is arguing that Trump was well aware he had lost.Case in point: eight days after the 3 November election, he issued an order for the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia and Afghanistan before Joe Biden was to take office in late January. The task would have been a huge, potentially unfeasible logistical undertaking, and the committee played testimony showing several defense staffers viewed it as a dangerous move that would have undercut allies globally.“Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business,” Kinzinger said. “Keep in mind, the order was for an immediate withdrawal. It would have been catastrophic, and yet President Trump signed the order. These are the highly consequential actions of a president who knows his term will shortly end.”Biden ended up ordering the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed later in 2021. As for Somalia, Trump did order a withdrawal, but Biden reversed it last year.Biden reverses Trump withdrawal of US army trainers from SomaliaRead moreRoger Stone has made an appearance. The Trump ally and Richard Nixon fan is shown, in footage obtained from a documentary team, advocating for Trump to declare victory before the ballots had been counted.“The key thing to do is to claim victory,” Stone says. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. No, we won, fuck you. Sorry, over. You’re wrong, fuck you.”The committee then showed footage of his deposition before lawmakers, where he refused to answer questions.“Do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?” an investigator asks. “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer your question on the basis of the Fifth Amendment,” Stone replies.The committee then went on to outline Stone’s ties to people who violently attacked the Capitol, including members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, both groups facing seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the insurrection.Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has now taken over, and is airing evidence showing how Trump ignored the advice of his advisers to encourage more mail-in voting, and planned well in advance to declare victory even before all the ballots had been counted.“We now know more about President Trump’s intention for election night. The evidence shows that his false victory speech was planned well in advance before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was. He made a plan to stay in office before election day,” Lofgren said.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that this hearing will be different from previous sessions, in that the committee could vote on how to proceed further:New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson says today is actually a “business meeting” — meaning the panel may take votes on next investigative steps— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 13, 2022
      From its start in June, the January 6 committee has distinguished itself from other congressional proceedings through its tight scripting and lack of votes or back-and-forth between lawmakers. The former has allowed it to clearly present evidence and testimony to a viewing audience, but it seems today could be different. Liz Cheney, the Republican co-chair of the committee, just made clear what the message of today’s hearing will be: “The central cause of January 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed.”“None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it,” Cheney continued. “Today we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding. And how another January 6 could happen again, if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.”Other things Trump was a central cause of: Cheney losing the Republican primary in Wyoming two months ago, ensuring she will not return to Congress next year.The January 6 committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson has started off the hearing by making the case that its work is not politically motivated, but rather a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of a shocking act of violence targeting a pillar of America’s democracy.“Over the course of these hearings, the evidence has proven that there was a multi-part plan led by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election,” the Mississippi lawmaker said.He appealed to the public to view the committee’s work as separate from politics.“We understood that some people watching those proceedings would wrongly assume that the committee’s investigation was a partisan exercise. That’s why we asked those who was skeptical of our work, to simply to listen, to listen to the evidence, to hear the testimony with an open minded and to let the facts speak for themselves before reaching any judgment,” Thompson said.He noted that much of the committee’s most revealing testimony has come from former officials in Trump’s Republican administration, campaign workers, or GOP officials at the state level.“When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence come almost entirely from Republicans,” Thompson said. More