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      January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

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      Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.The January 6 insurrection continued to reverberate through Washington, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, began, while another rioter was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack postponed its hearing planned for Wednesday, citing Hurricane Ian’s approach towards Florida.Here’s what else happened today:
      The top Senate Republican said he would support a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, greatly raising its chances of passage.
      The Biden administration condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion laws after a university said its staff should only offer condoms for preventing STIs, not as birth control.
      Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seek care in other states.
      The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has endorsed a measure to change the procedures for counting electoral votes to prevent the types of legal strategies allies of Donald Trump attempted on January 6.“I look forward to supporting the legislation, as introduced in committee,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.While it was already thought to have the votes to pass, McConnell’s endorsement greatly increases the bill’s chances of passing the Democratic-controlled chamber, where most legislation requires the support of at least 10 Republicans in addition to all Democrats. The bill, called the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, clarifies the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which Trump’s allies cited loopholes in to try to convince vice-president Mike Pence to delay or overturn Joe Biden’s election win when Congress convened on January 6, 2021.Bipartisan Senate group reaches deal to reform Electoral Count ActRead moreThe leaders of the January 6 committee have issued a statement explaining their decision to postpone tomorrow’s hearing, citing the threat of Hurricane Ian.“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings. We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path,” the committee’s Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”Tomorrow’s hearing of the January 6 committee has indeed been postponed, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell confirms:New: Confirming Wash Post that the Jan. 6 committee hearing scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed, per source familiar— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) September 27, 2022
      The January 6 committee may reschedule its hearing set for tomorrow due to Hurricane Ian, which is expected to hit Florida’s west coast and could cause severe damage, The Washington Post reports:News: Tmrw’s @January6thCmte hearing is likely to be postponed due to Hurricane Ian, me & @jdawsey1 are told.— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) September 27, 2022
      The Wednesday hearing is the first since late July, and potentially the committee’s last public session before the 8 November midterms. The bipartisan committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol was expected to air a variety of new evidence, potentially touching on the actions of Trump ally Roger Stone as well as the Secret Service.The White House has condemned Idaho’s anti-abortion law after a university cited it when warning staff that condoms could be provided to prevent sexually transmitted infections, but not as birth control.Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the university’s warning is an indication that the legislation is intended to undercut rights:For years, GOP officials have gone after contraception and family planning services. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, GOP officials appear more empowered to strip Americans of their basic rights. https://t.co/3VNpW0dUgd— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      To be clear, nothing under Idaho law justifies the university’s decision to deny students access to contraception. But the situation in Idaho speaks to the unacceptable consequences of extreme abortion bans.— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in the right to birth control, as well as the right to abortion, without government interference. These policies are extreme and backwards.— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 27, 2022
      University of Idaho says staff can offer condoms for STDs – not birth controlRead moreThe sentencing of Kyle Young, a January 6 rioter who pled guilty to a charge of assaulting the police, is underway in Washington.Two of the Washington police officers he assaulted have spoken at the Iowa man’s sentencing, including Michael Fanone, who was shocked by another rioter with a taser as Young restrained him. He’s asked for Young to be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, much more than federal prosecutors are seeking. Here’s more from Politico:HAPPENING NOW: MPD Officers Moore and Fanone are addressing Judge Amy Berman Jackson as she prepares to sentence Jan. 6 defendant Kyle Young, who participated in some of the most brutal violence that day at the Capitols’ Lower West Terrace Tunnel.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      DOJ is recommenting 86 months for Young, who brought his minor son into the melee and handed a taser to another rioter, who used it against Fanone. Fanone is speaking now, describing the events of the day. https://t.co/6jEktwy8WU pic.twitter.com/NaCK4tGTXU— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      YOUNG, addressing the court, turns to Officer Fanone, apologizes and breaks down crying.”I am so so sorry. And if I could take it back I would.”Turning to the judge, he says, “Whatever you give me as a punishment, I accept.”— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      The Secret Service took cellphones from 24 agents involved in its response to January 6 and turned them over to the homeland security department’s inspector general as he investigates the deletion of text messages and other data from around the time of the insurrection, NBC News reports.While it’s not clear what Joseph Cuffari has been able to obtain from the phones, NBC says the seizure of the government-supplied devices occurred in July, after the inspector general informed the Secret Service that he would launch a criminal probe into the deletion of the records. The missing data has become a major issue for the January 6 committee, which has taken evidence from a variety of people at the Capitol and in the Trump White House around the time of the attack. Interest in what the Secret Service knew about the insurrection was raised after Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson said that agents had witnessed alarming behavior by the then-president shortly before the attack, including a physical altercation for the steering wheel of his limousine. However, the agency said data from 5 and 6 January were lost in a pre-planned upgrade of its cellphones.Cuffari himself has also come in for criticism. Last week, staff of the homeland security watchdog called on president Joe Biden to fire him, accusing him in an anonymous letter of “poor decision-making”, the Project on Government Oversight reported. Appointed by Trump, Cuffari is a former aide to Republican Arizona governors Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer.Secret Service watchdog suppressed memo on January 6 texts erasureRead moreThomas Zimmer writes…As the January 6 hearings are about to resume, it is unlikely that our basic understanding of what happened between the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the Capitol will significantly change. That is a testament to the crucial work the committee has already done and to which we owe much of our detailed knowledge of the weeks long, multi-level coup attempt and the evolving strategies of those involved in this deliberate campaign to nullify the election results, prevent the transfer of power and end constitutional government in America.And yet, the committee’ job is far from done. It still has an important role to play in determining the meaning and role of January 6 in US history. Was the attack on the US Capitol a failed, desperate, last-ditch effort by delusional extremists? Or will it be remembered as a milestone in America’s accelerating descent into authoritarianism – an assault on the system that didn’t succeed initially but played a key role in democracy’s demise? The answer to these questions is not decided by facts and past events. In a very real sense, January 6 isn’t over yet, and the success or failure of the Trumpian coup attempt will be decided by what happens next.If that sounds counter-intuitive, it is helpful to examine how the meaning of another infamous historical event to which January 6 has often been compared – the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler’s failed coup attempt in November 1923 – changed significantly over time.More:January 6 changed America. Here are two directions the country could go now | Thomas ZimmerRead moreGloria Oladipo writes…The Department of Justice has pushed back on the unsubstantiated claims from Donald Trump that the agency planted evidence during its search of Mar-a-Lago in August, submitting a slightly amended list of seized materials and an affidavit that the list reflects what was taken.The FBI submitted a first version of the inventory list several weeks ago. It only had one business day to compile that list but had more time to submit the most recent version, CNN reported. The agency also said that in the updated version it filtered out potentially privileged items.Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to review the case, requested that the FBI provide a “full and accurate” picture of what was obtained in the search.Dearie’s request came after Trump and several allies claimed, without evidence, that the FBI planted items during its search of the Florida mansion.Dearie has given Trump’s lawyers until Friday to provide evidence to back up the accusation that the agency is “incorrectly describing” any materials.DoJ pushes back on Trump’s claims it planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago Read moreDonald Trump has a legal – if incremental – win to celebrate.Earlier today, the 2nd circuit court of appeals ruled that a lower-court judge was wrong when he said Trump, as president, was not covered by a federal law that can shield federal employees from liability in incidents related to their work.The case involved is the defamation suit brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump raped her in a New York department store changing room in the 1990s, which Trump vehemently denies.As Politico reports today, “Under Trump, the justice department belatedly invoked that law – known as the Westfall Act – in a bid to shut down the defamation case Carroll filed in 2019 stemming from statements Trump issued denying that he raped Carroll, including a declaration that ‘She’s not my type.’ .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Last year, under President Joe Biden, the justice department stirred controversy by reaffirming the department’s earlier stance that Trump was essentially immune from suit because he was acting within the scope of his duties when fielding media questions about the alleged rape at the Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996.”On Tuesday, two of three judges on the appeals court said there was “manifest uncertainty” about whether Trump was covered by the Westfall Act. The third judge said the law did not apply.As Politico reports, any resolution is likely “many more months, if not years” away.Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said: “We are extremely pleased … This decision will protect the ability of all future presidents to effectively govern without hindrance. We are confident that the DC Court of Appeals” – the next stop for the case – “will find that our client was acting within the scope of his employment when properly repudiating Ms Carroll’s allegations.”Carroll and the justice department did not immediately comment.Carroll has said she plans to directly accuse Trump of rape under a new New York law that allows civil claims over alleged sex crimes otherwise subject to a 20-year statute of limitations.More:Writer E Jean Carroll to file new lawsuit after accusing Trump of rapeRead moreAs Hurricane Ian churns towards Florida’s west coast, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has joined the White House press briefing.She’s talking about the preparations for the latest storm, as well as Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Fiona last week. .@FEMA_Deanne live in the press briefing room: “I can tell you our biggest concern as we wait for the storm to make landfall is storm surge. It is a leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities. If people are told to evacuate by their local officials, listen to them.” pic.twitter.com/HTqa0RUxp3— Jaclyn Rothenberg (she/her) (@FEMAspox) September 27, 2022
      You can watch the briefing below:The January 6 insurrection continues to reverberate through Washington today, as the trial of five Oath Keepers, including founder of the militant group Stewart Rhodes, begins, while another rioter is sentenced after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Meanwhile, the congressional committee investigating the attack is preparing to hold its first public hearing in more than two months tomorrow, with Trump ally Roger Stone said to feature prominently, among other evidence.Here’s what else happened so far today:
      The Senate appears ready to pass a bill tweaking America’s election laws to prevent the types of legal plots that were attempted on January 6, a Democratic lawmaker sponsoring the bill said.
      Texas’s attorney general fled a process server delivering him a subpoena related to a lawsuit filed by abortion advocates against the state’s efforts to stop them from helping women seeking care in other states.
      The White House has unveiled a major anti-hunger plan to address the United States’ troublingly high rates of food insecurity.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan have cast it as expensive and potentially illegal, and the Associated Press reports that a California law firm has taken the plan to court to see whether it will hold up.The libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation sued over the plan in Indiana, where an employee of the firm lives and where the state government said it intends to levy taxes on any canceled debt, according to the AP. The lawsuit challenges the plan on the grounds that the employee is set to get his debt erased through a federal program for civil servants, and thus he will face a tax burden under the White House program.Here’s more from the report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. He said it’s illegal for the executive branch to create the policy “by press release, and without statutory authority.”
      The suit’s plaintiff is Frank Garrison, described as a public interest attorney who lives in Indiana and is employed by the libertarian group.
      Garrison is on track to get his student debt erased through a separate federal program for public servants. Although most borrowers will need to apply for Biden’s plan, Garrison and many others in that program will automatically get the relief because the Education Department has their income information on file.
      Biden’s plan would automatically cancel $20,000 of Garrison’s debt, which in turn would trigger an “immediate tax liability” from the state of Indiana, according to the suit. Under the debt forgiveness program he’s enrolled in now, canceled debt cannot be taxed.
      “Mr. Garrison and millions of others similarly situated in the six relevant states will receive no additional benefit from the cancellation — just a one-time additional penalty,” the suit argues.
      Any student debt forgiven under Biden’s plan would also be subject to state taxes in Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina and Wisconsin, unless lawmakers in those states change their current laws.
      Biden’s plan promises to cancel $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers with incomes of less than $125,000 per year or households making less than $250,000. Those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college would get an additional $10,000 erased.
      An application to receive the benefit is expected by early October.Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millionsRead moreThe United States is one of the world’s richest countries, but many people struggle to put enough food on the table. Nina Lakhani reports on a new White House plan to change that:The Biden government has launched a new strategy to end hunger in the US by 2030 through the expansion of benefits such as free school meals and food stamps.One in 10 households struggled to feed their families in 2021 due to poverty – an extraordinary level of food insecurity in the richest country in the world which has barely budged in the past two decades amid deepening economic inequalities and welfare cuts.The plan, published on Tuesday, also aims to cut diet-related diseases by increasing access to healthy food and exercise as new data shows that more than 35% of people in 19 states and two territories are obese – more the double the number of states in 2018 – while one in 10 Americans have diabetes. It includes proposals to reform food packaging and voluntary salt and sugar reduction targets for the food industry, as well as working to expand Medicaid and Medicare access to obesity counselling and nutrition.US launches effort to end hunger by 2030 by expanding benefits and access to healthy foodsRead more More

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      in Elections

      Oath Keepers leader to stand trial on seditious conspiracy charges for US Capitol attack – live

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      Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.When it holds its next public hearing on Wednesday, the January 6 committee will likely show footage of Trump ally Roger Stone discussing violence against left-wing protesters, and predicting that the 2020 election would be overturned by force, The Washington Post reports.The video was obtained from Danish filmmakers who followed Stone around from 2019 through 2021, and decided to cooperate with a subpoena from a congressional panel. “Being with Roger Stone and people around him for nearly three years, we realized what we saw after the 2020 election and Jan. 6 was not the culmination but the beginning of an antidemocratic movement in the United States,” Christoffer Guldbrandsen, director of the documentary titled “A Storm Foretold,” told the Post.Footage reported earlier this year shows Stone advocating for Trump to reject the official results and use federal judges allied with him to ensure his victory. In July 2020, he predicted that Democrats would try to steal the election, and said, “It’s going to be really nasty… If the electors show up at the electoral college, armed guards will throw them out.”“‘I’m the president. F— you… You’re not stealing Florida, you’re not stealing Ohio. I’m challenging all of it, and the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed.’ ” Stone says, mimicking what Trump would say.He also advocates for violence against antifascist protesters and other left-wing groups, saying “F— the voting, let’s get right to the violence. Shoot to kill, see an antifa, shoot to kill. F— ’em. Done with this bulls—.”Stone later added a caveat: “I am of course only kidding. We renounce violence completely. We totally renounce violence. The left is the only ones who engage in violence.”Roger Stone raged at ‘disgrace’ Trump over failure to overturn election – reportRead moreCongress is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to pass a short-term funding measure, or risk shutting down the government – which neither party wants. But as the Senate convenes today, it is also considering legislation that would tweak America’s election laws to stop the sort of plot attempted on January 6.The legislation, a version of which has also been introduced in the House of Representatives, needs the votes of all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans to pass. Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told MSNBC today she believes it has that support:Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) says the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act already has “ten Republicans” and thinks it will have enough votes to pass:”We keep adding senators to this bill, Democrats and Republicans.” pic.twitter.com/yrRaGl2J5i— The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2022
      Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren to propose bill to stop another January 6 attackRead moreThe Oath Keepers trial is kicking off today with jury selection, as well as some last-minute moves by the group’s attorneys to delay the proceedings, which Politico reports have not panned out.Both sides have also given estimates of how long the trial will take:UPDATE from the Oath Keepers trial:Judge Mehta rejected another attempt by defendants to change venue. He noted that of initial 150 jury candidates, 40% had never even heard of the Oath Keepers, and vast majority expressed no prejudgment bias.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      Those numbers get even smaller, Mehta noted, after a round of jurors were struck by both parties, including one who was a Capitol Police officer and another who worked on the hill on Jan. 6He also said all prospective jurors will be told not to watch Jan. 6 hearing tomorrow.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      A masked Stewart RHODES was seated in the courtroom as the proceedings got underway. DOJ says it has prepped 40 potential witnesses for trial throughout August/Sept and is providing 302s of prep sessions to defense.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      Latest trial timing estimates:DOJ: 3-4 weeksDefense: 2-3 weeksIf trial gets underway next week, we’re looking at a mid- to late-November verdict— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2022
      When a process server turned up at his house with a subpoena related to a case filed by abortion rights groups, Texas’s top law enforcement officer did what any reasonable person would do: fled the scene in a truck driven by his wife.The Texas Tribune reports that process server Ernesto Martin Herrera had a hard time getting legal documents to the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton, which would have compelled his testimony today in a lawsuit from abortion groups aimed at blocking Texas’s efforts to retaliate against them for facilitating access to the procedure out of state. Here’s how the encounter played out, according to the Tribune:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When Herrera arrived at Paxton’s home in McKinney on Monday morning, he told a woman who identified herself as Angela that he was trying to deliver legal documents to the attorney general. She told him that Paxton was on the phone and unable to come to the door. Herrera said he would wait.
      Nearly an hour later, a black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled into the driveway, and 20 minutes after that, Ken Paxton exited the house.
      “I walked up the driveway approaching Mr. Paxton and called him by his name. As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.
      Angela Paxton then exited the house, got inside a Chevrolet truck in the driveway, started it and opened the doors.
      “A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote. “I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck.”
      Herrera eventually placed the subpoenas on the ground near the truck and told him he was serving him with a subpoena. Both cars drove away, leaving the documents on the ground.Paxton attacked the report on Twitter, saying he worried he was in danger:This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves. All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media.— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
      It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family.— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
      Denver Riggleman’s book about his time serving as a staffer on the January 6 committee and in Congress comes out today, and while his revelations about the investigation have made headlines, the former lawmaker has plenty to say about his former Republican colleagues, Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack, that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may have had serious cognitive issues”.Denver Riggleman, once a US representative from Virginia, reports his impression of his former colleagues from Texas and Arizona in a new book.The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th is published in the US on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained an early copy.Riggleman is a former US air force intelligence officer who lost his seat in Congress after he officiated a same-sex marriage. In his book, he describes fallout beyond his primary defeat, including someone tampering with the wheels of his truck, endangering the life of his daughter.Republican ex-congressman suggests colleagues ‘had serious cognitive issues’Read moreBesides the Capitol itself, Mark Meadows’ cellphone is turning into perhaps the most important place for understanding the events around the January 6 attack, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, was at the center of hundreds of incoming messages about ways to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee that have been published in a new book.The texts included previously unreported messages, including a group chat with Trump administration cabinet officials and plans to object to Joe Biden’s election certification on January 6 by Republican members of Congress and one former US attorney, as well as other Trump allies.The book, The Breach, was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its scheduled publication on Tuesday. Written by the former Republican congressman and senior adviser to the investigation Denver Riggleman, the work has already become controversial after being condemned by the panel as “unauthorized”.Meadows was central to hundreds of texts about overturning 2020 election, book saysRead moreInflation is high in America, but one accused rioter in the January 6 insurrection has a plan to cut costs: go hunting.The Washington Post reports that Jon Mott, an Arkansas man facing charges over unlawfully breaching the Capitol’s rotunda, has been granted permission by a federal judge to uses firearms for hunting, though he can’t keep them in his home or office. Mott was arrested in May 2021 after being identified as part of the mob that attacked the Capitol, and his conditions of release prohibited him from possessing weapons. He’s charged with “entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building and two counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” according to the Post, and has pled not guilty.More than 2,000 people may face charges related to January 6, but the report notes this isn’t the first time gun possession issues have popped up. A Georgia defendant has asked for two of his firearms back so he can kill snakes on his property, while a Texas woman who had already been sentenced had her right to own a weapon restored by a judge who found she had a credible safety concern. Five members of the Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes are facing charges of seditious conspiracy, a dire allegation that the justice department hasn’t pursued since 2010.Federal investigators have alleged that the group spent months planning the attack on the Capitol, with Rhodes spending $20,000 on weapons and equipment in the weeks leading up to the attack. The group also planned to have armed “quick reaction forces” positioned to storm the Capitol, with Rhodes texting an encrypted group chat on January 6, “We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC.”A conviction on seditious conspiracy charges could attract a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but keep in mind, the last time the justice department brought the charges in 2010, a judge ultimately threw them out. Elsewhere today, Kyle Young will be sentenced after pleading guilty to one charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors say the Iowa resident restrained Washington, DC police officer Michael Fanone as another rioter shocked him with a taser Young provided. Fanone, who has since left the force but testified before the January 6 committee, wrote for CNN of his hopes for Young’s sentencing:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Tuesday, Young’s attorney will ask a judge to sentence him to two years – a laughably short sentence. Prosecutors have asked for a seven-year term – not quite a joke but also not nearly long enough. By comparison, a former New York police officer with no criminal record received 10 years for attacking officers during the riot.
      What do I think Young deserves? Not less than 10 years in prison. And an assigned cell in maximum security with his co-conspirator: Donald Trump.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The trial of one of the most notorious groups involved in the January 6 insurrection begins today in Washington, as five members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for allegedly plotting to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Separately, a judge will sentence Kyle Young, who pleaded guilty to charges related to violently assaulting a police officer during the attack. More than a year and a half after the insurrection, the cases could bring justice to some of its most high-profile participants.Here’s what else is happening today:
      The Senate is getting to work on two important bills, one to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month, and the other to reform America’s election laws to prevent another January 6.
      As Hurricane Ian moves towards Florida, Federal Emergency Management Agency head Deanne Criswell will appear at the White House press briefing beginning at 12pm ET.
      Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s efforts to lower healthcare costs and preserve social security at 11.30am ET. More

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      in US Politics

      US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with Israel

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      US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with Israel The state department seems keen to avoid questions about the Palestinian American journalist’s shooting by an Israeli soldierIsrael has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago.The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israel’s failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporter’s killing could jeopardize America’s huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights.Shireen Abu Akleh’s family submits complaint to ICCRead moreNearly half of the Democratic members of the Senate have signed a letter calling into question Israel’s claim that Abu Akleh was accidentally shot by a soldier. The letter suggests she may have been targeted because she was a journalist.The Biden administration is also facing a flurry of legislative amendments and letters from members of Congress demanding that the state department reveal what it knows about Abu Akleh’s death and that the FBI launch an independent investigation.Few think there is much prospect of the US actually cutting its $3.8bn a year in military aid to Israel in the near future, but it is politically significant that so many senior Democrats have signed on to publicly challenge Israel, which has frequently been able to count on solid bipartisan support in America.Although criticism has focused on Abu Akleh’s death, the demands for accountability come as Israeli killings of Palestinians have escalated while Jewish settlers in the West Bank appear to have been given free rein at times to attack Palestinians and take over their land.Dylan Williams, senior vice-president of policy and strategy at the Washington-based campaign group J Street, which describes itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace”, said the demands for justice for Abu Akleh reflect broader concerns.“Members of Congress seem increasingly frustrated that these types of disturbing actions from Israeli forces continue to take place, without facing meaningful pushback or accountability from our government,” he said.“There’s growing momentum to make clear that Israel must be held to the same important standards as all close US allies, and that our steadfast support for Israel’s security does not and should not preclude our government from also standing up in defense of human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territory.”The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which funds political campaigns against politicians critical of Israel, has lobbied against a US investigation of Abu Akleh’s death.But Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Democracy for the Arab World Now – an advocacy group founded by the murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi to pressure the US government to end support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East – said that changing American public sentiment about Israel and the Palestinians has made it easier for some politicians to speak out.“There is an increasing view among the American public that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, that Palestinians are unjustly victimised by Israel. This has given legislators more space, particularly secure legislators like Patrick Leahy, to say what they actually think,” she said.“In addition, they have more space on this particular case because Shireen Abu Akleh was a US citizen.”Israel initially claimed that Abu Akleh was shot by a Palestinian during a military raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May. Earlier this month, it finally admitted that it was “highly probable” that an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier killed the journalist but claimed the shooting occurred during a gun battle with Palestinian fighters.That account was widely dismissed because investigations by human rights groups, the press and the United Nations showed that there was no fighting in Abu Akleh’s vicinity.Last week, Leahy told the Senate that the Biden administration had failed to act on calls from members of Congress for the FBI to investigate Abu Akleh’s death as is “customary and appropriate after a tragedy like this involving a prominent American killed overseas under questionable circumstances”.“Unfortunately, there has been no independent, credible investigation,” he said.Leahy challenged the value of Israel’s report on Abu Akleh’s death, noting there was “a history of investigations of shootings by IDF soldiers that rarely result in accountability”.The senator also questioned the state department’s role after the US security coordinator (USSC) in Jerusalem, Lt Gen Mark Schwartz, concluded that there was “no evidence to indicate [Abu Akleh’s] killing was intentional”.Leahy said: “The USSC, echoing the conclusion of the IDF, apparently did not interview any of the IDF soldiers or any other witnesses. To say that fatally shooting an unarmed person, and in this case one with ‘press’ written in bold letters on her clothing, was not intentional, without providing any evidence to support that conclusion, calls into question the state department’s commitment to an independent, credible investigation and to ‘follow the facts’.”Leahy has introduced an amendment, along with other senators, calling for the Biden administration to examine whether Israel has fallen afoul of the 1997 “Leahy Law” barring military assistance to countries whose armies abuse human rights.“Whether [Abu Akleh’s] killing was intentional, reckless or a tragic mistake, there must be accountability. And if it was intentional, and if no one is held accountable, then the Leahy Law must be applied,” Leahy said.Senator Chris Murphy, chair of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee responsible for the region, told MSNBC that he had not previously supported calls to set conditions for US military aid to Israel but that he was concerned about its conduct in the West Bank.“Some of [Israel’s] recent decisions are making conflict between Israel and the Palestinians more likely, not less likely,” he said. “I haven’t gotten there yet, arguing for conditions on that aid, but I think all of us are watching the behavior of the Israeli government very carefully.”Leahy is backed by other senators including Chris Van Hollen, who pushed an amendment passed by the Senate foreign relations committee earlier this month requiring the state department to hand over a full copy of the USSC’s controversial report on Akleh’s death after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, failed to respond to an earlier request and a series of questions.“I will continue pressing for full accountability and transparency around the death of Shireen. Anything less is unacceptable,” Van Hollen told the committee.Van Hollen was also instrumental in a letter in June signed by nearly half of all Democratic members of the Senate demanding “an independent, thorough, and transparent investigation” into her killing. The letter said disturbing comments by an Israeli official suggested she might have been targeted because she was a journalist.“On the day Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed, an Israeli military spokesperson, Ran Kochav, stated that Ms Abu Akleh and her film crew ‘were armed with cameras, if you’ll permit me to say so’,” the letter said.“We know you agree that journalists must be able to perform their jobs without fear of attack.”TopicsPalestinian territoriesUS SenateIsraelMiddle East and north AfricaUS politicsUS foreign policyUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      JD Vance playing defense in unexpectedly close Ohio Senate race

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      JD Vance playing defense in unexpectedly close Ohio Senate race If Republicans cannot drag Vance across the finish line, it could spell doom for the party’s hopes of flipping the Senate JD Vance had some explaining to do. After winning a brutal, costly primary to secure the Republican nomination in Ohio’s Senate race, Vance had spent the summer making few appearances on the campaign trail and allowing his Democratic opponent, congressman Tim Ryan, to dominate the airwaves.Now polls showed Vance, a first-time candidate and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, running neck and neck with Ryan in a race that many Republicans had hoped would be an easy win.“We have a tough campaign,” Vance said at an event with supporters in Avon, Ohio, last weekend. “I know that a lot of people are frustrated you didn’t see a whole lot of my TV commercials over the summer. Hopefully that’s started to pick up in the last couple of weeks.”Vance’s struggle to establish a clear lead in Ohio mirrors Republican Senate candidates’ missteps in other battleground states that could determine control of the vital upper chamber. Like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia, Vance was able to win the Republican nomination after receiving Donald Trump’s endorsement, but he has stumbled in his pivot to the general election.Republicans are now racing to avoid a Democratic victory in Ohio, often at the expense of investing in other close races. If Republicans cannot drag Vance across the finish line in Ohio, it could spell doom for the party’s hopes of flipping the Senate in the midterm elections this November.Although Trump won Ohio by eight points in 2020, recent polls show Vance and Ryan essentially tied. National Republican groups have picked up on the trouble in Ohio and have started devoting more resources to the race.The Senate Leadership Fund, a Super Pac aligned with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, announced last month that it would reserve $28m in TV and radio ads to boost Vance. As the SLF increased its financial support for Vance, the group also slashed roughly $8m of its ad reservations in Arizona, a shift that the Super Pac’s president partially attributed to “an unexpected expense in Ohio”. (The SLF announced Tuesday that it was pulling out of the Arizona Senate race entirely.)The SLF’s significant investment to support Vance underscores how Republicans are playing defense in an unexpectedly close race. Even if the SLF’s funding helps Vance hold on in Ohio, the victory would not bring his party closer to a Senate majority, as the seat is now held by a retiring Republican, Rob Portman.The reality is that Vance needs all the financial help he can get. At the end of the second quarter of 2022, Vance’s campaign reported having just $628,000 cash on hand, compared to $3.6m in Ryan’s bank account. Between April and June, Vance raised and spent $1m as he fought in the fiercely competitive Republican primary, while Ryan raised $8.6m and easily captured his party’s nomination.Ryan has used his cash advantage to launch a massive advertising blitz, running commercials that frame him as an independent-minded centrist and attack Vance as an out of touch elite with extreme views.In one of Ryan’s ads, an Ohio mother who lost her son, Joe, to opioid addiction criticizes Vance’s now defunct non-profit for enlisting the help of a doctor with ties to the pharmaceutical industry. “I don’t have words for how betrayed I felt,” the woman says in the ad. “JD Vance has chosen to help the drug companies rather than the people who are struggling like Joe.”In another memorable video, Ryan throws footballs at television screens showing the Republican ads attacking him. “They say you can know a person by their enemies,” Ryan says in the ad. “Well, here comes their bullshit ads.”Over the summer, Ryan’s ad campaign went largely unanswered by Vance’s team, allowing the Democrat to chip away at his opponent’s advantage in the Republican-leaning state.“He won the primary thanks to Trump’s help, and it just felt like he went into the witness protection program,” Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, said of Vance’s summer campaign schedule. “Vance took a hit in that really brutal primary, and you need to try to rehabilitate your image.”The Ohio Democratic party reveled in Vance’s absence from the campaign trail and the airwaves, sending out mocking statements each time he left the state to fundraise.“You have to kind of be here to rally people together, and he’s not been here. He’s literally been almost everywhere but here,” Elizabeth Walters, chair of the Ohio Democratic party, said earlier this month. “This has to be a tough moment for the party where your standard-bearer and your top candidate can’t be bothered to show up. I think that they’re going have a hard time in the fall of keeping their coalition together.”Even some of Vance’s supporters acknowledge that he has a lot of ground to make up in the race, with less than 50 days to go until election day. “What he has to get across is the record of his opponent, not what his opponent’s saying,” Tom Patton, a voter from Avon Lake, said as he left Vance’s event last weekend. “He has to do more.”Nicolette Allsop, a voter from South Amherst who attended the Vance event with her two sisters, begrudgingly agreed that Ryan has run “effective” ads in the race. Allsop’s sister, MaryJo Moluse of Avon, added that Ohio feels more competitive this year than it did in 2020. “I think it’s going to be a tough fight. I really do,” Maluse said.Vance and his allies appear to have woken up to that reality, as the candidate has ratcheted up his campaign appearances and his television ads in recent weeks. In one ad, Vance walks down a street in his home town and laments the country’s recent rise in violent crime, accusing Ryan of insufficiently supporting law enforcement officers.Mike Hartley, who previously served as a senior adviser to former Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, pointed to the ad as an example of how Vance is successfully rebooting his campaign in the crucial, final stretch of the race.“That’s what he’s going to run on, and that’s what he should run on, and I think that’s just going to solidify his advantage,” Hartley said. “I think he’s done a good job of hitting his stride at the right time.”Vance has also kept up a busy schedule of campaign events this month, including an appearance at a rally with Trump last Saturday in Youngstown, which lies in Ryan’s congressional district. The region was once a Democratic stronghold, but it has moved to the right as white working-class voters have drifted toward the Republican party. Vance will need those voters to turn out in November to defeat Ryan, and he used the rally as an opportunity to criticize his opponent for allegedly misrepresenting his record.“There are two Tims out there,” Vance told thousands of rally goers. “There’s a DC Tim, who votes 100% of the time with Joe Biden, and then there’s campaign Tim, who pretends he’s a moderate … We need to kick DC Tim to the curb.”In his long and often meandering speech, Trump echoed that message, praising Vance as “an America First warrior” while attacking Ryan as a “far-left Democrat phony”. Trump also took a moment to dismiss a report that Republican Senate candidates are attempting to distance themselves from him, saying, “JD is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad.”“[Ryan] is lying to your faces, acting as though he’s my friend on policy, pretending to be a moderate so he can get elected and betray everything that you believe in,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “He is not a moderate. He is radical left.”That attack strategy appears to be resonating with some of Trump’s most loyal fans in Ohio, who helped Vance clinch the Republican nomination in May and could now prove instrumental in carrying him across the finish line in November.“I don’t really care for [Ryan],” Lori Ferguson, a voter from Cortland, said as she waited to enter the venue for Trump’s rally. “I think the way he’s talking now is simply trying to maybe make Republicans think that he’s on their side.”William Fair, a voter from Navarre who was ahead of Ferguson in line, admitted that he did not know much about Vance, but he said Trump’s endorsement was enough to secure his vote. “If Trump wants him, we’ll get him,” Fair said.Fair’s comments underscore the hefty challenge facing Ryan, despite his campaign’s effective ads and savvy messaging. For many voters, the “R” or “D” next to a politician’s name takes priority over any specific concerns about the individual candidate. That could put Ryan at a disadvantage, given that only one Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown, has managed to win a non-juridical statewide office in Ohio since 2008.“We have increasingly seen, really over the past decade and a little more, that even Senate races have become almost parliamentary in nature – where you’re voting for the party and not necessarily the person,” Taylor said.Like all other Democrats, Ryan is also facing the national headwinds of record-high inflation and Biden’s underwater approval rating. Ryan recently told the New York Times that he would not campaign with Biden, reflecting the president’s unpopularity in Ohio.“[Ryan is] doing what he believes he needs to do to win, and I think they’re executing what I consider a good campaign,” Hartley said. “But I just don’t think it’s going to be enough … In my eyes, I think Tim Ryan has clearly peaked, and now JD Vance is going to seal the deal.”Even as national Republicans have swooped in to prop up Vance, Ryan has remained steadfast in his determination to snap Ohio Democrats’ losing streak.“He’s looking for a rescue squad,” Ryan said of Vance last Monday. “It’s not going to be enough to save him in Ohio because Ohio wants a fighter.”TopicsUS SenateOhioUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Special master asks Trump team for proof of claims that FBI planted evidence – as it happened

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      The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a senior federal judge demanded the former president’s lawyers provide proof of claims that the FBI planted documents.
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      A slew of polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken called on countries to speak out against Russia’s nuclear threats in a speech at the United Nations.
      Indiana’s abortion ban was blocked by a judge who found the state’s constitution likely protects access to the procedure.
      Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, activists declared that America was in a “moral crisis” as they called for more help for the poor, as Joan E Greve reports:A coalition of faith leaders gathered on Capitol Hill on Thursday to deliver an impassioned demand for more congressional action to combat poverty, telling lawmakers they have a moral obligation to improve life for low-income Americans.The faith leaders called on the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate to take at least three votes on major progressive issues before midterm elections in November.They emphasized the importance of putting lawmakers “on the record” about strengthening voting rights, raising wages and reinstating pandemic-era policies aimed at lifting families out of poverty.‘We’re in a moral crisis’: US faith leaders urge lawmakers to combat povertyRead moreEnvironmental leaders protesting against new legislation which would scale back regulations to expedite major energy projects have been arrested in the Senate.The sit-in was at the Hart building on Capitol Hill – where senate leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin both have their offices – to protest against their secret-deal to mandate fast track permits for energy and mining projects deemed to be of strategic national importance by limiting environmental and community review. Eleven of the 13 national and community leaders who participated in the act of civil disobedience were arrested. It’s not clear what charges – if any – will be brought. Among those was Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of Indigenous Environmental Network, who said: “We must uplift and protect our Mother Earth, not repeal the minimal provisions that do exist. We must continue to fight against climate greenwashing and false solutions. We must take real action to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”One of the most contested parts of the bill is pushing forward with construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline in central Appalachia, which has been suspended by the courts amid widespread community opposition and environmental violations.Lauren Maunus, advocacy director for the youth-led environmental justice group, Sunrise Movement, said: “I’m angry and frustrated that this is how we have to spend our time after the Inflation Reduction Act – less than 50 days before the midterms – when we could and should be devoting our full attention to helping Democrats expand the majority and fight fascism. Stop the permitting deal now.”Schumer wants to attach Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, released late on Wednesday, to a funding measure which must be passed by Congress by 1 October to avoid a government shutdown. It’s opposed by dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as a broad range of environmentalists, scientists and health professionals.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreSeveral Senate Republicans don’t appear comfortable with Donald Trump’s claims regarding classified documents, particularly his assertion yesterday that he could clear them for release just by thinking about it.CNN has gotten several on the record saying that the former president should have followed procedures set out for handling government secrets.“I think it ought to be adhered to and followed. And I think that should apply to anybody who has access to or deals with classified information,” John Thune, the Republican whip in the chamber, said. “I think the concern is about those being taken from the White House absent some way of declassifying them or the fact that there were classified documents removed — without sort of the appropriate safeguards.”“I believe there’s a formal process that needs to go through, that needs to be gone through and documented,” said Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “And to the extent they were declassified, gone through the process, that’s fine… As I understand the Executive Branch requirements, there is a process that one must go through.”“I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed if they’re not stored properly,” said Mike Rounds of South Dakota.The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.Here’s more from Reuters:The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump’s lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      This isn’t the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump’s lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they’ve been saying in TV but not in court.— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump’s lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      And he says Trump’s lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
      The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsRead moreIn August, Democratic senator Joe Manchin agreed to support the marquee Inflation Reduction Act – but only if party leaders would in turn put up for a vote a proposal to fast-track permitting for energy projects. The bill is here, and Nina Lakhani reports on advocates’ concerns it will gut environmental protections:Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.The permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashRead moreIndiana led the charge in tightening abortion access after Roe v Wade was overturned in June, but a judge today blocked the new law on grounds that the state’s constitution protects access to the procedure.The decision underscores the complications Republican-led states face as they move to take advantage of the conservative-led court’s decision, which cleared the way for states to ban the procedure.Here’s more from the Associated Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
      The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
      The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
      Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”Since 1978 Ray Fair, ​​professor of Economics at Yale University, has been using economic data to predict US election outcomes. His bare-boned, strictly by the numbers approach has a fairly impressive record, usually coming within 3% of the final tally.Sadly for Democrats – if Fair’s on track again this time – the Biden administration will struggle to keep control of Congress in November’s crucial midterm elections.Elections are noisy events and this year’s is no different. Recent polling suggests Joe Biden is on a roll, reclaiming some of the ground he lost earlier in his presidency. The Democrats have passed major legislation. There has been a surge in women registering to vote after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. Abortion rights drove voters to the polls in deep-red Kansas. Gas prices, if not overall inflation, are falling. In the meantime, Donald Trump and the candidates he has backed are dominating the headlines and helping Democrats’ poll numbers.But if Fair is right, we can largely set aside the personalities and the issues: the economy is the signal behind the noise and Biden is still in trouble.Democrats will struggle to keep control of Congress in midterms, expert saysRead moreGreg Norman faced accusations of promoting Saudi “propaganda” following meetings with Washington lawmakers in which the Australian golfer sought to garner support for the Saudi-backed LIV Series in its bitter dispute with the PGA Tour.Norman, who is LIV’s CEO and the public face of the breakaway tour, ostensibly came to the capital this week to criticise what he has called the PGA’s “anti-competitive efforts” to stifle LIV.But – apart from some lawmakers who allegedly sought to take their picture with Norman – the Saudi tour instead faced a considerable backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, who defended the PGA and accused LIV of being little more than a sportswashing vehicle for the kingdom.Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, left a meeting of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday at which dozens of his party colleagues had met with Norman, expressing dismay that members of Congress were discussing a golf league backed by Saudi funds. He also called Norman’s LIV pitch “propaganda”.“We need to get out of bed with these people. They are bad actors. We need to keep them at arm’s length,” Burchett told the Guardian. He cited the September 11 attacks on the US, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the kingdom’s treatment of gay people and women, which he called “just unacceptable”.US congressman accuses LIV CEO Greg Norman of pushing Saudi ‘propaganda’ Read moreThe US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke at the United Nations in New York earlier, seeking to “send a clear message” to Russia over its threats concerning the possible use of nuclear weapons during its war in Ukraine.“Every council member should send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately,” Blinken said during a security council session, adding: “The very international order we’ve gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes. We cannot – we will not – let President Putin get away with it.”Blinken also said it was critical to show that “no nation can redraw the borders of another by force” and said: “If we fail to defend this principle when the Kremlin is so flagrantly violating it, we send the message to aggressors everywhere that they can ignore it, too.”As the Associated Press reports, the session on Thursday was “called by France, the current council president, [and] focused on addressing accountability for alleged abuses and atrocities, and the US and other western members repeatedly accused Russia of committing them”.Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was not in the room when Blinken and others spoke. In his own remarks, he claimed Ukraine was oppressing Russian speakers in the east of the country and western allies of the Ukrainian government “have been covering up the crimes of the Kyiv regime”.Security council action against Russia is vastly unlikely, given Russia’s veto power.Here’s some more Ukraine-based reading, from Oliver Milman:How the gas industry capitalized on the Ukraine war to change Biden policyRead moreThe legal offensive against Donald Trump flared anew after a federal appeals court cleared the justice department to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago as it probes his potentially unlawful retention of government secrets. Meanwhile, a slew of new polls show tights races in battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, Americans fired up to vote nationwide and Democrats with a slight lead on the generic congressional ballot.Here’s what else has happened so far:
      Ginni Thomas, the wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of efforts to keep Joe Biden from getting into the White House, will speak to the January 6 committee.
      There appear to be enough votes for the Senate to pass a bill to prevent the type of legal schemes Trump’s allies tried to execute on January 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s election win.
      The Manhattan attorney general said his investigation into Trump and his organization is continuing.
      The race to be the next governor of Arizona is shaping up to be a nailbiter, according to a new survey from AARP Arizona.The poll found Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake in a statistical tie at 49% and 48% respectively, with just 3% of voters in the southwest battleground state undecided.Among Arizonans aged 50 and over, who make up an estimated 60% of the state’s electorate, Lake narrowly leads Hobbs, 50% to 48%, respectively. Among political independents, who comprise roughly one third of voters in the state, Hobbs holds a 4-point edge.The picture is slightly brighter for Democrats in the state’s competitive senate race, where incumbent Mark Kelly leads his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, by 8-points. A Republican senator wants to seize on Joe Biden’s recent statement that the “pandemic is over” to pass a resolution ending the national emergency declared to combat Covid-19, The Wall Street Journal reports.The resolution to be proposed by Roger Marshall of Kansas would end the state of emergency that the administration has used to justify suspending student loans repayments and some procedures at international borders, among other uses.A previous attempt to end the declaration passed the Senate in March but went nowhere in the House. Both chambers are narrowly led by Democrats, but the White House promised then to veto the measure, if it made it to Biden’s desk.Biden says Covid ‘pandemic is over’, despite US daily death toll in the hundredsRead moreBack to the polls, Monmouth University has a new one on Georgia’s governorship race that shows Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams with a narrower path to victory but more dedicated support base than the Republican incumbent Brian Kemp as she again challenges him for the job.The race is among the more high-profile gubernatorial contests to be decided in the 8 November midterms, and could make Abrams Georgia’s first Black and first female governor if elected. Kemp, meanwhile, is known for resisting Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of Joe Biden’s election win there in 2020, though has backed a strict voting law. According to Monmouth, 34% will definitely and 15% will probably back Kemp, against Abrams’ slightly worse 33% definite support and 12% probable support. Kemp is also viewed more favorably at 54%, versus Abrams’s 48% favorability. However, Democrats are more fired up for Abrams than Republicans are for Kemp. Monmouth finds that 83% of Democrats will definitely vote for Abrams versus 73% of GOP voters for Kemp – perhaps a consequence of his clashes with Trump.“Some election conspiracists may still hold a grudge against Kemp for not stepping in to overturn the 2020 result, but it’s unlikely to cost him much support. They may not be enthusiastic, but they’ll still vote for him over Abrams,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said. More

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlash

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashScientists and environmental groups call proposed legislation a ‘giveaway’ to fossil fuel industry that will gut protections Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsRead moreThe permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Democratic leaders want to push through Manchin’s bill without debate or analysis, and are expected to attach the legislation to a funding measure Congress must pass before 1 October.Energy industry associations have widely welcomed the reforms but opposition from Democrats and Republicans could scupper the deal.Critics say the bill is a giveaway to the fossil fuel lobby, paving the way for oil and gas production that will stop the US meeting its obligations to cut greenhouse gases and lead to further environmental injustices for people of color, Indigenous communities and low-income areas. It slashes judicial and state powers and oversight, handing Washington greater control over major projects.“This is not permitting reform,” said the Greenpeace USA co-executive director Ebony Twilley Martin. “This is permitting a giveaway that benefits those who continue to line their pockets at the expense of those affected by climate disasters. Our country cannot afford any new oil, gas or coal projects if we’re going to avoid climate catastrophe.”On Thursday, more than 400 scientists, doctors and nurses delivered a letter imploring Schumer and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to reject the deal. “The scientific consensus is now crystal clear … fossil fuel projects carry enormous risks to public health … we need to leave oil, gas and coal in the ground and turn off the spigot of carbon pouring into the air.”Jennifer K Falcon, an Indigenous environmentalist from the Ikiya Collective, said: “Our communities have already lost so much from environmental racism but there is so much to save. [They] are not sacrifice zones for corrupt politicians like Manchin and Schumer who benefit from big oil’s windfall profits.“The science is clear about the worsening climate crisis. We have no time to waste on dirty side deals.”Manchin has received more campaign contributions from fossil fuel industries than any other lawmaker this election cycle, according to Open Secrets.The legislative side deal requires Biden to designate at least 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for federal review within 90 days of passage. The projects must include at least five that produce, process, transport or store fossil fuels or biofuels, as well as six that are not fossil fuels and four mining projects.The bill mandates a two-year limit on environmental reviews for major projects – regardless of their complexity and potential for harming the environment, water supplies and human health.According to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the bill contains the most significant loss of protections under the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and the Clean Water Act since at least the last Bush administration, when Republicans had full control of Congress.“Any member of Congress who claims this disastrous legislation is vital for ramping up renewables either doesn’t understand or is ignoring the enormous fossil fuel giveaways at stake,” Hartl said.The bill was negotiated under a cloak of secrecy. Passage through the Senate is far from assured. A small group of progressive Democrats are looking to separate Manchin’s legislation from the stopgap funding bill, so they can vote against the permitting bill without voting to shut down the government.Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has organised a letter to Schumer, with the support of Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont – a move that mirrors a similar plea by 77 House progressives earlier this month.The letter, which was leaked to Politico, states: “We have heard extensive concerns from the environmental justice community regarding the proposed permitting reforms and are writing to convey the importance of those concerns, and to let you know that we share them.”On Tuesday, Schumer said he planned to add permitting reform to the spending bill and “get it done”.But Republicans who want more radical regulatory and permitting reforms may also vote against the bill, which requires 60 votes to move to the House. Earlier this month, 46 Republicans signed on to an alternative permitting bill introduced by the other West Virginian senator, Shelley Moore Capito.Schumer’s decision to capitulate to Manchin has angered progressives.Manchin agreed to back his party’s historic climate legislation before the midterm elections but only after negotiating a side deal to fast-track the MVP, a shale gas pipeline which would stretch 303 miles across the Appalachian mountains from north-western West Virginia to southern Virginia.Before construction was suspended, the MVP had produced more than 350 water quality violations. Manchin’s bill exempts the MVP from the Endangered Species Act, which experts say will push two species – the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter – much closer toward extinction.On Wednesday, the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, said he could not support the “highly unusual provisions” regarding the MVP which “eliminate any judicial review”. Kaine said he had been excluded from talks, even though 100 miles of the pipeline would run through his state.Raúl Grijalva, chair of the House natural resources committee, said: “These dangerous permitting shortcuts have been on industry wishlists for years. And now they’ve added the Mountain Valley pipeline approval as the rotten cherry on top of the pile.“The very fact that this fossil fuel brainchild is being force-fed into must-pass government funding speaks to its unpopularity. My colleagues and I don’t want this. The communities that are already hit hardest by the fossil fuel industry’s messes certainly don’t want or deserve this. Even Republicans don’t want this. Right now, our focus should be on keeping the government open, not destructive, unrelated riders.”In favor of the bill Gregory Wetstone, chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said it “includes provisions that will help streamline the transmission approval process, improving our ability to meet our nation’s decarbonisation goals”.Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, said: “Our current permitting system is overly cumbersome and mired in delays, hamstringing our ability to grow the clean energy economy.”TopicsUS SenateFossil fuelsOil (Environment)Gas (Environment)Oil (Business)Gas (Business)Joe ManchinnewsReuse this content More

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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projects

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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsThe centrist Democrat believes he has votes to pass the measure, which has met with resistance from the left The US senator Joe Manchin released an energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed up fossil fuel and clean energy projects.The bill is expected to be attached to a measure to temporarily fund the government that Congress must pass before 1 October. The legislation would require the federal government to issue permits for Equitrans Midstream Corp’s long-delayed $6.6bn Mountain Valley Pipeline to take natural gas between West Virginia, Manchin’s home state, and Virginia.The wider funding bill needs approval of the House and Senate and to be signed by Joe Biden to become law. Manchin’s staff told reporters that he believed the funding bill will would get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate with the permitting measure attached.The permitting measure from Manchin, a centrist Democrat and an important swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, would require Biden to designate 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for speedy federal review.The USelectricity grid needs expansion and fixes as some of its major transmission lines are 50 years old. Improving transmission lines would help renewable projects like wind and solar farms in rural areas get clean power to cities.Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut?Read moreThe bill also sets a two-year target for environmental reviews on energy projects that need to be completed by more than one federal agency.Progressive lawmakers and environmental groups have been concerned that the bill would speed fossil fuel projects while undermining US environmental laws. In the House of Representatives, 77 Democrats this month asked the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to keep the side deal out of the funding bill.Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, said after the bill was released he could not support its “highly unusual provisions” regarding Mountain Valley pipeline.Kaine said they “eliminate any judicial review” for key parts of the pipeline approval process and strip jurisdiction away from a US court of appeals for cases involving it. He said he had not been included in talks about the measure, even though 100 miles (160 km) of the pipeline would run through his state.While the bill would speed up the processes required by a bedrock US green law called the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates reviews of major projects, “it doesn’t amend the underlying statutes”, a member of Manchin’s staff told reporters in a call. Getting at least 10 Republican senators to support the measure could be complicated after Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from Manchin’s state, issued her own bill this month more favorable to fossil fuels.Some Republicans were also concerned because Manchin voted for Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which contained $369 bn for climate and energy security.Speaking about the unwillingness of some Republicans to support permitting, Manchin said on Tuesday: “If they’re willing to say they’re going to shut down the government because of a personal attack on me, or by not looking at the good of the country, that is what makes people sick about politics.”TopicsJoe ManchinUS SenateEnergyJoe BidenFossil fuelsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      White House rejects ‘sham referendums’ in occupied Ukraine – as it happened

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      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.That’s a wrap on Tuesday’s US politics blog. Thanks for joining us.It was a brutal afternoon for Donald Trump, whose lawyers were excoriated by the “special master” in his document-hoarding case for having no proof to back up the former president’s vocal proclamations he declassified the papers before he left office.Judge Raymond Dearie, who was the Trump team’s nomination to act as independent arbiter in the justice department’s criminal investigation, told his attorneys at a hearing in New York: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”Here’s what else we followed:
      Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis refused to confirm reports he was behind another planeload of migrants reportedly sent on Tuesday to Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. The White House decried as “a political stunt” DeSantis’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week.
      The flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      Please join us again tomorrow.If Judge Raymond Dearie’s first meeting with Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday is anything to go by, the former president’s insistence on a “special master” for his classified documents case is backfiring spectacularly.According to reports of their meeting in New York this afternoon, which was also attended by attorneys for the justice department, Dearie was brutal in his dismissal of the Trump legal team’s assertions that papers marked “top secret” found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach last month were not classified.Trump has claimed, with no evidence whatsoever, that he declassified the documents before he left office. And now Dearie, who was proposed by Trump’s team to serve as the special master to independently vet the documents, is calling him on it, demanding to see proof from his lawyers that such an act took place.They had none.“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Dearie said, according to Politico.NEW: Special master in Trump Mar-a-Lago docs case chides Trump lawyers for declining to produce evidence of declassification. Judge Dearie: ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.’ More from Brooklyn. w/@kyledcheneyhttps://t.co/urQaYOP1F7— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 20, 2022
      Dearie was appointed last week to the role of independent arbiter by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, in a surprise ruling that halted the justice department’s criminal investigation into thousands of documents found in the FBI search.Trump had claimed he had earlier returned to the National Archives all the boxes of documents he took from the White House to Florida when he left office in January 2021.Cannon denied a request from the justice department to be allowed to resume their investigation last week, prompting an immediate appeal, and an indication from department lawyers on Tuesday they were prepared to take their argument to the supreme court.Dearie indicated that he considered closed the issue of whether the documents were classified or not.“What business is it of the court?” he said.“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of the matter.”I’d like to report a murder. https://t.co/XQue0soT9l— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) September 20, 2022
      The “special master” appointed to look into top secret documents seized by the FBI last month in a search of Donald Trump’s Florida home has met with lawyers for the former president and the justice department this afternoon.According to early accounts, Judge Raymond Dearie did not appear sympathetic to Trump’s assertions, which haven’t been repeated by his legal team on the record, that he declassified the documents before leaving office.The justice department has argued the papers are in fact classified, and it needs to be allowed to continue its investigation into Trump’s improper handling of them.We’ll have more details of the meeting as we learn them.BREAKING: Judge Dearie makes clear he is taking government’s position that the classified Mar-a-Lago documents are in fact classified.“What business is it of the court? … As far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.”Trump’s insistence on a special master is NOT going well.— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) September 20, 2022
      Ron DeSantis is refusing to confirm reports that he’s sent another planeload of migrants that reports suggest will imminently touch down in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware.The White House on Tuesday decried as “a political stunt” the Republican Florida governor’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week, and today’s reported flight from Texas of more to a small airport in Delaware.The Biden administration was “coordinating” with federal and local authorities in Delaware to aid those on the flight, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at her afternoon briefing.She said DeSantis had not attempted to contact the administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Alerting Fox News, and not city or state officials about a plan to abandon children fleeing communism on the side of the street is not burden sharing. It is a cruel, premeditated political stunt.DeSantis, speaking at a morning press conference in Bradenton, Florida, refused to say he was behind today’s reported flight of migrants to Delaware, WESH2 News said.“I cannot confirm that, I can’t,” DeSantis said when asked by reporters if he had arranged the flight.He also defended dropping off the Massachusetts migrants with no notice, blamed the government, and attempted to paint himself as their savior:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Those migrants were being treated horribly by Biden. They were hungry, homeless, had no opportunity at all.DeSantis’s asylum flights, meanwhile, are now the subject of a criminal inquiry in Texas:Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsRead moreThe flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden has said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.In the address from the White House, the president highlighted a recent example of an anonymous donor who secretly transferred $1.6bn to a Republican political group as one reason for needing to curb the “influence on our elections” of undeclared streams of cash.Biden called on Republicans to join congressional Democrats to sign the act, which would require the disclosure of individual donations of $10,000 and above during an election cycle, and ban foreign money outright:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A conservative activist who spent decades working to put enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade now has access to $1.6bn in dark money to do more damage and, from our perspective, restrict more freedoms.
      Dark money erodes public trust. Republicans should join Democrats to pass the Disclose Act and to get it on my desk right away.
      Dark money has become so common in our politics, I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Biden said Republicans had so far shown little interest in “more openness and accountability” other than “Republican governors and state legislatures in Tennessee and Wyoming that have passed disclosure laws”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let’s remember, getting dark money out of our politics has been a bipartisan issue in the past. My deceased friend [Republican former Arizona senator] John McCain spent a lot of time fighting for campaign finance reform.
      For him, it was a matter of fundamental fairness. And he was 100% right about that.Here’s where things stand midway through a busy day in US politics:
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.Joe Biden is heading for the United Nations summit in New York “with the wind at his back”, and will deliver a firm rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan is telling reporters at the White House.He’s speaking at the daily press briefing and outlining what the president will be talking about in his address to the UN general assembly on Wednesday morning, as well as taking a dig at world leaders who won’t be there:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re making historic investments at home; our alliances are stronger than they’ve been in modern memory; our robust, united support for Ukraine has helped the Ukrainians push back against Russian aggression; and we’re leading the world in response to the most significant transnational challenges that the world faces from global health to global food security to global supply chains to tackling the climate crisis.
      Meanwhile, our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi [Jinping of China] nor [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin are even showing up to this global gathering.Sullivan says Biden will concentrate on foreign policy in his address on Wednesday morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’ll offer a firm rebuke of Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine and make a call to the world to continue to stand against the naked aggression that we’ve seen these past several months.
      He will underscore the importance of strengthening the UN and reaffirm core tenets of its charter at a time when a permanent member of the security council has struck at the very heart of the charter by challenging the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty.Sullivan adds Biden will also make “significant new announcements” about the US government’s investments to address global food insecurity, and hold a number of meetings with other world leaders, including his discussions with new UK prime minister Liz Truss.An afternoon “pledging session” hosted by Biden for the global fund to fight HIV, Aids, tuberculosis and malaria is expected to “produce a historic outcome in terms of the financial commitments made by our partners and by the US”, Sullivan adds.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the Biden administration is “closely monitoring” the impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground in the island.She opened up her daily press briefing at the White House with some words of comfort:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As the president has said, we are keeping the people of Puerto Rico in our prayers. Before the hurricane made landfall, President Biden issued an emergency disaster declaration to ensure the federal government was ready to surge resources and emergency assistance to Puerto Rico.
      The President called Governor [Pedro] Pierluisi from Air Force One to discuss Puerto Rico’s immediate needs as the storm made landfall. Today, Fema [Federal Emergency Management Agency] administrator Deanne Criswell will be on the ground to assess the emergency response.
      Hundreds of Fema and federal responders are on the ground in Puerto Rico, including US army corps of engineer power restoration experts. And urban search and rescue teams. More federal responders are arriving in the coming days.
      President Biden is receiving regular updates on the storm and these emergency efforts.Mary Peltota’s election as the first Native Alaskan to represent the state in Congress had even more historical significance.As NPR notes today, it means that for the first time, spanning back more than 230 years, Indigenous people are fully represented with a Native American, a Native Alaskan and a Native Hawaiian all in the House of Representatives.Congressman Kaiali’i Kahele of Hawaii tweeted a photo of himself with Peltota, and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.It has taken 233 years for the U.S. Congress to be fully represented by this country’s indigenous peoples. Tonight, a Native American, a Native Alaskan & a Native Hawaiian are sitting members of the people’s House. Welcome U.S. Representative Peltola to the 117th Congress! 🤙🏽 pic.twitter.com/AxJ8MH7aLQ— Congressman Kaiali‘i Kahele (@RepKahele) September 14, 2022
      The House press gallery notes all six Indigenous Americans who are members here.Democrat Peltota, also the first woman elected to represent Alaska in the House, beat off a challenge from the state’s former governor and Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to capture the seat last month.Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar is seizing on the occasion of National Voter Registration Day to make a new, likely quixotic, bid to make it easier to go to the polls nationwide.The Minnesota lawmaker has introduced two bills containing ideas included in a major voting rights proposal that died earlier this year. First is the Same Day Voter Registration Act, which is intended to expand Americans’ ability to register to vote at the same time as they cast ballots. The second, the Save Voters Act, would clamp down on states’ ability to kick people off voting rolls, while offering new flexibility to Americans who have recently moved and are looking to cast ballots.Don’t expect either measure to pass the chamber. Not only are senators really busy, the bills would probably need at least 10 Republican votes in addition to all Democrats to overcome a filibuster, and the GOP has showed few signs of changing its mind about such laws.Democrats fail to advance voting rights law as Senate holdouts defend filibusterRead moreOn another note, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe is now at the reigns of the blog, and will take you through the afternoon, including Joe Biden’s speech on a proposal to require more disclosure from the super PACs that have become influential in American politics.The gears of justice continue turning in the case of the alleged government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago, with lawyers for Donald Trump facing a deadline today to file their latest response in the case. Here’s the latest from Ramon Antonio Vargas on the saga:Donald Trump’s legal team has acknowledged the possibility that the former president could be indicted amid the investigation into his retention of government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Despite claiming days earlier that Trump couldn’t imagine being charged, his lawyers made the stark admission in a court filing on Monday proposing how to conduct an outside review of documents that were seized by the FBI in August.A special court official appointed to help administer the review process, the federal judge Raymond Dearie, had previously asked Trump to detail any materials stored at Mar-a-Lago that he may have decided to declassify. In the court filing, Trump’s lawyers said that requiring him to do so could hurt any possible defense should he later be charged, and that he should not have to “fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident” during the review.Trump legal team admits possibility that ex-president could be chargedRead more More