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      Mother of man who shot himself after driving into Capitol barrier speaks out

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      Mother of man who shot himself after driving into Capitol barrier speaks outTamara Cunningham says she believes her son who fatally shot himself struggled with brain trauma from playing football The mother of a Delaware man who shot himself to death after driving into a US Capitol barricade over the weekend says she believes he was struggling with brain trauma from growing up playing football.Richard Aaron York III’s mother, Tamara Cunningham, said she suspects his past as a high school football player left him with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain condition colloquially known as CTE. Some football players develop CTE because of repeated head blows that are common to the sport, and York had a number of concussions during his playing days, she said.“Something was going on for a while,” Cunningham told the Guardian in an interview Tuesday. “And it was progressively getting worse.”A CTE diagnosis can only be definitively made with a postmortem brain autopsy. Cunningham said she had requested one from a private doctor as well as the local coroner’s office but was sure she would be able to schedule such a procedure.Nonetheless, in prior cases where CTE was ultimately confirmed in late football players and athletes in other violent sports, families suspected their loved ones had the condition beforehand because of behavior they considered erratic or aggressive.Cunningham spoke out on her thoughts about her son as police continued investigating what may have motivated York to aim his car at a barricade outside the Capitol in Washington DC early on Sunday.Because the case unfolded after federal agents searched former president Donald Trump’s home in Florida on 8 August, some wondered whether the 29-year-old York’s actions were politically motivated.After all, an armed man enraged by the FBI’s search of Trump’s home for records being kept there without authorization had tried to break into a bureau field office in Ohio on 11 August. Authorities ultimately shot the would-be intruder to death in a standoff.But, noting that Congress is in the middle of its annual August recess, police have said they do not believe York was specifically targeting anyone who would be working on Capitol Hill.And York’s mother on Tuesday said she didn’t know her son to be that closely attuned to politics or to support the Republican Trump – in fact, she believed his voter registration listed him as a Democrat.“We’re just not that kind of family,” Cunningham said when asked if anything political had motivated her son on Sunday.Instead, investigators appear to be regarding York’s violent death as the last episode of a life marked by legal trouble over the last decade.York, of Dagsboro, Delaware, pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges after police accused him of choking and assaulting his pregnant girlfriend in 2012, according to the news website Lehigh Valley Live.He also allegedly pleaded guilty to assault and property damage charges in early 2020 after a colleague on a roofing job accused York of attacking him at his home, the Pennsylvania news outlet Morning Call reported. The co-worker reportedly suffered injuries to his face and head, and York was sentenced to about seven months of prison as well as two years’ probation.About 4am Sunday, York drove a car into a barricade on the eastern side of the Capitol. His vehicle became engulfed in flames as he exited his car, possibly because he ignited it, and he began firing a gun in the air, Capitol police officers said.The commotion prompted Capitol police officers to approach him, and as they neared, York shot himself dead, according to authorities. No one else was hurt.For many, York’s death brought to mind the April 2021 killing of Capitol police officer Billy Evans. He was killed by a Virginia man who drove his car into a Capitol barricade.Meanwhile, in 2013, Capitol police shot and killed a Connecticut woman near a facility checkpoint after she crashed her car into a White House barricade and fled by speeding down Pennsylvania Avenue.The drivers in each of those cases had mental illness, various media reports said.Cunningham said her son did, too. She said she knew he took medication for it, though she didn’t know the specifics about any diagnoses or treatments he had received.Cunningham made it a point on Tuesday to discuss some of her son’s better days. York would cook breakfast and prepare coffee for his grandmother daily, as well as engage in spirited card games regularly, she recounted.He would visit Cunningham and her fiance most weekends, regularly accompanying them to car races and other festive events. He was the father to a nine-year-old boy whom he didn’t get to see often but doted on whenever he had time with him, Cunningham added.“When he was functioning,” Cunningham said of York, “he was a wonderful, wonderful person.”TopicsWashington DCUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Your Friday Briefing: U.S. to Unseal Trump Warrant

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      Plus Russia prepares for show trials and Taiwan does not rise to China’s provocations.Good morning. We’re covering moves by the U.S. to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, Russia’s preparation for possible show trials and Taiwan’s undeterred diplomacy.Attorney General Merrick Garland had come under pressure to provide more information about the search at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesU.S. to unseal the Trump warrantMerrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, moved to unseal the warrant authorizing the F.B.I. search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s residence in Florida. Garland said he personally approved the decision to seek the warrant.Garland’s statement followed revelations that Trump received a subpoena for documents this spring, months before the F.B.I. search on Monday. It also came a day after Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he was questioned by New York’s attorney general in a civil case about his business practices.The subpoena suggests the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents, unannounced, to the former president’s doorstep. Here are live updates.Details: Officials think the former president improperly took documents with him after leaving office. The Justice Department has provided no information about the precise nature of the material it has been seeking to recover, but it has signaled that the material involved classified information of a sensitive nature.Analysis: Garland’s decision to make a public appearance came at an extraordinary moment in the department’s 152-year history, as the sprawling investigation of a former president who remains a powerful political force gains momentum. After coming under pressure, Garland said he decided to go public to serve the “public interest.”The Mariupol Chamber Philharmonic will be used for upcoming show trials of Ukrainian soldiers. Associated PressRussia readies for likely show trialsRussia has installed cages in a large Mariupol theater, an apparent preparation for show trials of captured Ukrainian soldiers on newly occupied soil. The trials could begin on Aug. 24, Ukrainian Independence Day.Some fear that the Kremlin plans to use the trappings of legal proceedings to reinforce its narrative about fighters who defended the southern Ukrainian city and spent weeks underneath a steel plant. Ukrainian officials have called for international intervention.Moscow may also use the trials to deflect responsibility for atrocities Russia committed as its forces laid siege to Mariupol. The Kremlin has a long and brutal history of using such trials to give a veneer of credibility to efforts to silence critics. Here are live updates.Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine WarOn the Ground: A series of explosions that Ukraine took credit for rocked a key Russian air base in Kremlin-occupied Crimea. Russia played down the extent of the damage, but the evidence available told a different story.Drones: To counter Russia’s advantage in artillery and tanks, Ukraine has seized on drone warfare and produced an array of inexpensive, plastic aircraft rigged to drop grenades or other munitions.Nuclear Shelter: The Russian military is using а nuclear power station in southern Ukraine as a fortress, stymying Ukrainian forces and unnerving locals, faced with intensifying fighting and the threat of a radiation leak.Starting Over: Ukrainians forced from their hometowns by Russia’s invasion find some solace, and success setting up businesses in new cities.Context: Concerns for prisoners’ safety have only grown since last month, when the Ukrainian authorities accused Moscow of orchestrating an explosion at a Russian prison camp that killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war.Other updates:Satellite images show that Russia lost at least eight warplanes in a Tuesday explosion at a Crimean air base.New shelling at a Russian-occupied nuclear plant in southern Ukraine added to concerns of possible disaster.Turkey needs Russian cash and gas ahead of an election. Russia needs friends to evade sanctions. The country’s leaders have a wary, mutually beneficial rapport.Taiwanese soldiers conducted a live-fire drill earlier this week. Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesChina’s drills did not deter TaiwanChina’s continuing military drills have not deterred Taiwan, my colleagues write in an analysis.In fact, the drills have hardened the self-ruled island’s belief in the value of its diplomatic, economic and military maneuverings to stake out a middle ground in the big-power standoff between Beijing and Washington.Under Tsai Ing-wen, the current president, Taiwanese officials have quietly courted the U.S., making gains with weapon sales and vows of support. They have also turned China’s bluster into a growing international awareness about the island’s plight.But Taiwan has held back from flaunting that success in an effort to avoid outbursts from China. When Beijing recently sent dozens of fighters across the water that separates China and Taiwan, the Taiwanese military said it would not escalate and took relatively soft countermeasures. Officials offered sober statements and welcomed support from the Group of 7 nations.What’s next: American officials have considered stockpiling arms in Taiwan out of concern that it might be tough to supply the island in the event of a Chinese military blockade.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaAn undated North Korean state media photograph showed Kim Jong-un attending a meeting about Covid-19.Korean Central News Agency, via ReutersKim Jong-un declared “victory” over North Korea’s coronavirus outbreak, despite a lack of vaccines, state news reported.Hong Kong suffered a record 1.6 percent population decline over the past 12 months, the South China Morning Post reports.A new animal-derived virus, Langya henipavirus, has infected at least 35 people in China’s eastern Shandong and Henan provinces, the BBC reports.Seoul announced a ban on underground homes after people drowned during recent flooding, The Korea Herald reports.The PacificOlivia Newton-John will receive a state memorial service in Australia, CNN reports.New Zealand’s tourism minister dismissed budget travelers and said the country planned to focus on attracting “high quality,” “big spender” visitors, The Guardian reports.World NewsAfter peaking in June, the lower price of gas is a welcome change for drivers.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesU.S. gas prices fell below $4 a gallon yesterday, back to where they were in March.The Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average, not the commonly reported two to three times, researchers said.The W.H.O. warned people to not blame monkeys for monkeypox after a report that animals were harmed in Brazil amid fear of transmission.Wildfires are again ripping through France, weeks after the last heat wave.A Morning ReadSo-called carbon farming has become a key element of New Zealand’s drive to be carbon neutral by 2050.Fiona Goodall/Getty ImagesNew Zealand put a growing price on greenhouse emissions. But the plan may be threatening its iconic farmland: Forestry investors are rushing to buy up pastures to plant carbon-sucking trees.ARTS AND IDEASSelling democracy to AfricaThe U.S. unveiled a new Africa policy this week that leaned on a familiar strategy, promoting democracy. The challenge will come in selling it to a changing continent.“Too often, African nations have been treated as instruments of other nations’ progress rather than the authors of their own,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he presented the new U.S. approach during a tour that included South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.The U.S. “will not dictate Africa’s choices,” he added, in an apparent response to criticism that America’s stance toward Africa can be patronizing, if not insulting. “I think, given history, the approach has to be somewhat different, and I would recommend a greater attention to tools that Africans have developed,” said Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister.Along with their own tools and institutions, like the African Union, more African states are wealthier than they were a generation ago, Bob Wekesa, the deputy director of the African Center for the Study of the United States in Johannesburg, said.“They can afford to say, ‘We can choose who to deal with on certain issues,’” Wekesa said. Those new partnerships include not only U.S. rivals Russia and China, but also emerging powers like Turkey and India. Traditional U.S. allies like Botswana and Zambia are likely to embrace the American strategy, but strongman leaders in Uganda and even Rwanda are likely to be more resistant, he added.In Kigali yesterday, Blinken said that he had urged the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to end their support for militias in eastern Congo. He also raised concerns about the detention of the U.S. resident who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda,” Paul Rusesabagina.But just hours before his meeting with Blinken, President Paul Kagame poured cold water over suggestions that he would be swayed on the Rusesabagina case. “No worries … there are things that just don’t work like that here!!” he said on Twitter. — Lynsey Chutel, Briefings writer based in Johannesburg.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York TimesCaramelized brown sugar adds complexity to this berry upside-down cake.What to Watch“Inu-oh” is a visually sumptuous anime film about a 14th-century Japanese performer.TravelRetirees are taking on part-time work loading baggage at airports or passing out towels to make their way through Europe on the cheap.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Crucial” (three letters).Here are today’s Wordle and Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The Times will bring back its Food Festival for the first time since 2019. Mark your calendars: Oct. 8, in New York City.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on abortion in the U.S.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Trump-Pence Ticket, Torn by Jan. 6, Becomes an Unequal Rivalry

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      WASHINGTON — Eighteen months after departing the nation’s capital for the final time as president, Donald J. Trump returned on Tuesday confronting federal investigations, fresh doubts about his viability in an increasingly likely third White House bid and an emerging rivalry with his erstwhile running mate.In addresses from two hotel ballrooms less than a mile apart in Washington, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, the vice president whom he had left at the mercy of a mob of his supporters during the Capitol riot, put on clear display one of the most uncomfortable splits inside their party.The competing speeches on the same day would have been inconceivable for a former president and his own vice president not long ago. But the demise of precedent has long been a hallmark of the Trump era.The strange tableau also illustrated many Republicans’ frustrations and reservations about a 2024 Trump campaign, which a recent New York Times/Siena College poll suggested could cause large numbers of Republican voters to defect from the party in a general election.In his 90-minute speech, Mr. Trump repeatedly veered off script to complain about “hoax” investigations, boast about surviving two impeachments and lie about his 2020 election loss. Mr. Pence, by contrast, urged the party to look ahead and unite for the next political battles.“Some people may choose to focus on the past, but elections are about the future,” Mr. Pence said.A scowling Mr. Trump leaned on menacing imagery of an America besieged by violent crime and in desperate need of a rescue that only he could provide.“Our country is going to hell,” he said. “It’s a very unsafe place.”The two appearances also underscored the wide gap in enthusiasm among Republicans between Mr. Trump and any other potential primary rival in 2024.While Mr. Pence drew tepid applause during his 30-minute address to about 250 attendees at an event hosted by the Young America’s Foundation, Mr. Trump commanded numerous standing ovations from an audience of about 800 people at a gathering of the America First Policy Institute. The former president’s speech seemed to double as a reunion for former administration officials, campaign aides and informal advisers.Nearly everyone, that is, except Mr. Pence.Mr. Pence has been a recurring target of criticism from Mr. Trump, who has denounced the former vice president’s refusal to delay the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021. In his speech, Mr. Pence made only passing reference to the ensuing attack on the Capitol — when he was forced into hiding as rioters chanted for him to be hanged — as a “tragic day.”Last week, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot detailed Mr. Trump’s decisions not to call off the violence, and the fear that members of Mr. Pence’s Secret Service detail felt for their lives.Donald Trump, Post-PresidencyThe former president remains a potent force in Republican politics.Grip on G.O.P.: Donald J. Trump is still a looming figure in his party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Losing Support: Nearly half of G.O.P. primary voters prefer someone other than Mr. Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed.Looking for Cover: Republicans are bracing for Mr. Trump to announce an unusually early 2024 bid, a move intended in part to shield him from the damaging revelations emerging from the Jan. 6 investigations.Endorsement Record: While Mr. Trump has helped propel some G.O.P. candidates to primary victories, he’s also had notable defeats. Here’s where his record stands so far in 2022.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.The hearing prompted a striking shift in the conservative media. In scathing editorials from two newspapers controlled by the Murdoch family, The New York Post said Mr. Trump was “unworthy” to be president again, while The Wall Street Journal opined that he had “utterly failed” his duty to handle the crisis.And on Monday, news emerged that two of Mr. Pence’s top aides had testified to a federal grand jury in Washington as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding the riot. Furthermore, reports emerged on Tuesday saying that federal prosecutors had sought information about the former president’s role in the efforts to overturn the election as the Justice Department’s inquiry accelerates.While Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence were in somewhat regular contact immediately after leaving office — speaking several times by phone in conversations that avoided the subject of the Capitol riot — they have not held similar discussions in months, according to their advisers. In an interview last year, Mr. Trump said that he had never told Mr. Pence he was sorry for not acting quicker to stop the attack — and that Mr. Pence had never asked for an apology.But a rivalry has flared up behind the scenes.One source of tension has been the book Mr. Pence is writing about his time in the administration. When Mr. Trump learned about the memoir, titled “So Help Me God” and set to be published on Nov. 15, the former president was still musing about obtaining a deal of his own.But in most parts of the publishing industry, Mr. Trump was broadly seen as a risk. The former president appeared stung that Mr. Pence had gotten a multimillion-dollar deal, and within days of learning about it, he attacked the former vice president while speaking to donors at a Republican National Committee event at Mar-a-Lago, seizing on Mr. Pence’s refusal to do what Mr. Trump wanted on Jan. 6.Speaking before a gathering of young conservatives in Washington on Tuesday, former Vice President Mike Pence said that “some people may choose to focus on the past, but elections are about the future.”Patrick Semansky/Associated PressThis year, the two men have veered from each other on the midterm campaign trail. They have backed opposing candidates in several primary races, including the Republican governor’s contest next week in Arizona, and the party’s primary for governor in Georgia in June, when Mr. Pence’s pick, Gov. Brian Kemp, easily defeated his Trump-backed challenger, David Perdue.Mr. Pence, meanwhile, left out of his speech the kind of effusive praise for Mr. Trump that he had regularly injected into his addresses as vice president and instead referred to the “Trump-Pence” administration’s accomplishments.A mild-mannered former governor of Indiana, Mr. Pence remains a reviled figure among much of the Republican base — largely because he resisted Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election.In a New York Times/Siena College poll of Republican voters this month, just 6 percent said they would vote for Mr. Pence if he ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, compared with 49 percent who said they backed Mr. Trump and 25 percent who supported Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Still, Mr. Pence has been praised by some fellow Republicans for his steadfastness during, and after, the Capitol riot. Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, told House investigators that Mr. Pence deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the nation’s highest honors, for withstanding Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign — and remaining on Capitol grounds amid the violence — to certify the election.Mr. Pence also defended himself, and directly contradicted Mr. Trump, in a February speech to the Federalist Society in Florida where he said the former president incorrectly believed that the vice president had the authority to overturn election results.“President Trump is wrong,” Mr. Pence said at the time. “I had no right to overturn the election.”But the former vice president has been reluctant to revisit the issue. On Tuesday he drew subtle distinctions between Mr. Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election and his own preference to focus more broadly on his hopes for the conservative movement.In his speech, Mr. Trump received some of his biggest applause when he strayed from his prepared remarks, including his call to keep transgender women from playing in women’s sports — and again when he claimed he had won the presidency a second time.Mr. Trump also called for creating sprawling homeless encampments outside cities, which would have bathrooms and medical staff, and he urged aggressive policies to combat crime. He renewed his support for the death penalty for drug dealers and for controversial stop-and-frisk law enforcement tactics that, he said, would help “give police back their power and prestige.”“Leave our police alone,” Mr. Trump said. “Each time they do something, they’re afraid they’re going to be destroyed, their pensions are going to be taken away, they’ll be fired, they’ll be put in jail. Let them do their job.”In his speech, Mr. Pence celebrated the Supreme Court’s recent ruling eliminating the federal right to abortion and called for a movement of cultural conservatives to turn back a “pernicious woke agenda” that was, he argued, “allowing the radical left to continue dumping toxic waste into the headwaters of our culture.”“We save the babies, we’ll save America,” he said.Still, Mr. Pence couldn’t escape the direct contrast with Mr. Trump. When Mr. Pence finished his speech, the first question from the audience of young conservatives was about the former president “and the divide between the two of you.”“I don’t know that our movement is that divided,” Mr. Pence said. “I don’t know that the president and I differ on issues, but we may differ on focus.”Maggie Haberman More

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      He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving office

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      He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving officeEx-president to give keynote address at rightwing thinktank, days after January 6 panel exposed his inaction during Capitol attack Mr Trump is going (back) to Washington. The former president will return to the nation’s capital on Tuesday, marking his first visit to the city since leaving office last year.Trump will deliver the keynote address at a summit held by the America First Policy Institute, a thinktank formed by some of his former White House advisers.AFPI’s leaders have said the America First Agenda Summit will focus on the Republican party’s plans to combat inflation and improve the US immigration system, but that agenda is unlikely to stop Trump from recirculating his lies about the 2020 election.Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-presidentRead moreThe summit comes less than a week after the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection held its second primetime hearing, which focused on Trump’s inaction during the deadly Capitol attack. The committee outlined how Trump refused for hours to intervene and instead watched television coverage of the violence, even as some of his closest advisers pleaded with him to take action.Trump is expected to confront the committee’s accusations in his Tuesday speech, as he has remained determined to criticize those who did not support his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last month, Trump again attacked Mike Pence, his former vice-president, for refusing to interfere with the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6.“Mike Pence had a chance to be great. He had a chance to be frankly historic,” Trump said. “But just like [former Attorney General] Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people, Mike – and I say it sadly because I like him – but Mike did not have the courage to act.”The select committee has shown how Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence incited his supporters, who chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol. According to the committee, Pence was just 40ft from the mob on January 6, as he was evacuated from the Senate chamber due to security concerns. A former Trump administration official told investigators that members of Pence’s security detail were so concerned for their safety they called family members to say goodbye.Pence was supposed to have his own opportunity to address the committee’s revelations on Monday, as he was scheduled to speak at an event for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. The event was delayed because of bad weather in Washington, which impacted Pence’s flight.Trump’s speech comes as both he and Pence consider presidential campaigns in 2024. Trump has teased the idea of a Washington comeback since leaving office last year, and he has recently been dropping more hints that an announcement could come soon.Pence’s speech at the Heritage Foundation is the latest in a series of public appearances for the former vice-president, which have intensified speculation about his 2024 plans. In addition to his busier speech schedule, Pence has recently formed his own political advocacy group, and he has been visiting battleground states that could decide the next president.But both Trump and Pence will have their work cut out for them if they run for office in 2024. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll taken this month, nearly half of Republican primary voters said they would support someone other than Trump if he ran again in 2024. Only 6% of those voters said they would support Pence in the primary.Trump’s approval rating also remains alarmingly low if Republicans hope to regain control of the White House in 2024. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 37% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 55% have an unfavorable impression.The winner of the Republican primary in 2024 will (most likely) face off against Biden, who has seen his own approval rating drop in recent months, as high inflation and the war in Ukraine have soured the nation’s mood. A majority of Democrats now say they would prefer a different nominee for 2024.Trump will try to capitalize on Biden’s vulnerabilities with his speech on Tuesday – if he can avoid fixating too much on his election lies.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsWashington DCRepublicansUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      How Lawyer William Olson Pitched Trump on a 2020 Election Plot

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      The role of William J. Olson in advising the president in late 2020, which has not previously been disclosed, shows how fringe figures were influencing him at a critical time.Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020, as many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call.The lawyer, William J. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president that Mr. Olson later conceded could be regarded as tantamount to declaring “martial law” and could even invite comparisons with Watergate. They included tampering with the Justice Department and firing the acting attorney general, according to the Dec. 28 memo by Mr. Olson, titled “Preserving Constitutional Order,” describing their discussions.“Our little band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do,” Mr. Olson wrote in his memo, obtained by The New York Times, which he marked “privileged and confidential” and sent to the president. “The media will call this martial law,” he wrote, adding that “that is ‘fake news.’”The document highlights the previously unreported role of Mr. Olson in advising Mr. Trump as the president was increasingly turning to extreme, far-right figures outside the White House to pursue options that many of his official advisers had told him were impossible or unlawful, in an effort to cling to power.The involvement of a person like Mr. Olson, who now represents the conspiracy theorist and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, underscores how the system that would normally insulate a president from rogue actors operating outside of official channels had broken down within weeks after the 2020 election.Read William J. Olson’s Memo to TrumpA memorandum sent in December 2020 to President Donald J. Trump by the right-wing lawyer William J. Olson on how to seek to overturn the election.Read DocumentThat left Mr. Trump in direct contact with people who promoted conspiracy theories or questionable legal ideas, telling him not only what he wanted to hear, but also that they — not the public servants advising him — were the only ones he could trust.“In our long conversation earlier this week, I could hear the shameful and dismissive attitude of the lawyer from White House Counsel’s Office toward you personally — but more importantly toward the Office of the President of the United States itself,” Mr. Olson wrote to Mr. Trump. “This is unacceptable.”The memo was written 10 days after one of the most dramatic meetings ever held in the Trump White House, during which three of the president’s White House advisers vied — at one point almost physically — with outside actors to influence Mr. Trump. In that meeting, the lawyer Sidney Powell and Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, pushed for Mr. Trump to seize voting machines and appoint Ms. Powell special counsel to investigate wild and groundless claims of voter fraud, even as White House lawyers fought back.But the memo suggests that, even after his aides had won that skirmish in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump continued to seek extreme legal advice that ran counter to the recommendations of the Justice Department and the counsel’s office.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 8Making a case against Trump. More

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      As Trump’s star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer?

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      As Trump’s star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer? With the January 6 hearings chipping away at the former president’s image, the Republican Florida governor is quietly working to turn the tide in his favorHe was the most powerful man in the world, the possessor of the nuclear codes. Yet he behaved like a deranged manchild who threw temper tantrums and food against the wall.That was the tragicomic story told to America last Tuesday at a congressional hearing that had even seasoned Donald Trump watchers lifting their jaws off the floor and speculating that his political career might finally be over.Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide before her testimonyRead moreIn two seismic hours in Washington, Cassidy Hutchinson, a 25-year-old former White House aide, told the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that the former president had effectively gone haywire.She described how Trump knew a mob of his supporters had armed itself with rifles, yet he asked for metal detectors to be removed. She also recounted how his desire to lead them to the Capitol caused a physical altercation with the Secret Service, and how in a fit of rage he threw his lunch against a White House wall, staining it with tomato ketchup.Trump, who once called himself “a very stable genius”, vehemently denied the allegations but the political damage was done. Infighting and plotting engulfed a Republican party that had hoped the House of Representatives’ committee hearings would pass as a non-event.Instead they have exceeded all expectations and could prove terminal to Trump’s ambition of regaining the presidency in 2024 if Republican leaders, donors and voters run out of patience and decide to move on.02:44“Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career,” said an editorial in the Washington Examiner, a conservative news website. “Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.”The column concluded: “Trump is a disgrace. Republicans have far better options to lead the party in 2024. No one should think otherwise, much less support him, ever again.”Seemingly aware of his growing political vulnerability, Trump is reportedly considering announcing another run for the White House sooner than expected. He has teased the prospect at recent rallies and, according to the New York Times, told advisers that he might declare his candidacy on social media without warning even his own team.Such a move could have the added impetus of heading off a new star rising in the Republican firmament. Ron DeSantis, the pugnacious governor of Florida, is widely seen as his heir apparent and biggest rival for the Republican presidential nomination in two years’ time. At 43, DeSantis is more than three decades younger and is free of Trump’s January 6 toxicity.Speaking from Tallahassee, longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson of Florida said: “I’ve picked up the same rumors that everybody else is hearing that Ron DeSantis’s people are practically picking out curtains in the White House after Tuesday.“Apparently they feel like this was a phenomenal day for them, that it was a great breakdown of Trump’s malfeasance and they didn’t have to bring the attack – it was brought by one of his former loyalists. If you look at it in terms of the 2024 nomination process, it was a consequential day.”Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, cautioned that the twice impeached former president has been written off countless times before only to bounce back. But Trump has not faced a challenger like DeSantis.“DeSantis has been very carefully building out a presidential campaign for 2024 to primary Donald Trump, raising money, building relationships, going out there and quietly whispering: ‘He’s crazy, I’m not, I’m younger, I’m smarter, I’m thinner, I’m better looking. I can deliver more for you than the crazy old orange guy,’” Wilson said.DeSantis certainly has political buzz. Ed Rollins, another Republican strategist, also believes Trump could be done, and has launched a group called Ready for Ron to gather details of DeSantis supporters ahead of an expected presidential bid.An opinion poll released last week in the state of New Hampshire, traditionally the site of the first presidential primary, showed DeSantis in a statistical tie with Trump among likely Republican voters.The University of New Hampshire poll found 39% supported DeSantis, with 37% backing Trump – a big swing from October, when Trump had double the support DeSantis did. Former vice-president Mike Pence, who is exploring a 2024 campaign after breaking with Trump post the Capitol insurrection, was in a distant third at 9%.There have been other clues that Trump’s hold on Republican voters is not what it was. He has seen mixed results for his most high-profile endorsements in key states during this year’s midterm elections, in which DeSantis is seeking reelection as Florida governor.DeSantis has proved himself a financial powerhouse, raising more than $120m since winning office in 2018. Recent financial disclosures showed his political accounts had over $110m in cash in mid-June.Trump’s Save America group, meanwhile, had just over $100m in cash at the end of May.Republican donor Dan Eberhart told the Reuters news agency that three-quarters of roughly 150 fellow donors with whom he regularly interacts backed Trump six months ago, with a quarter going for DeSantis. But now the balance has shifted and about two-thirds want DeSantis as the 2024 standard bearer.Eberhart was quoted as saying: “The donor class is ready for something new. And DeSantis feels more fresh and more calibrated than Trump. He’s easier to defend, he’s less likely to embarrass and he’s got the momentum.”And the January 6 hearings are far from over. The six sessions so far have pointed the finger firmly at Trump as the unhinged architect of a failed coup who pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud he knew to be false and was willing to let his supporters hang his own vice-president.‘He thinks Mike deserves it’: Trump said rioters were right to call for vice-president’s deathRead moreA survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 48% of American adults say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role. The crisply presented hearings would have been enough to bury any other politician for good.Political scientist Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “If the testimony stands as delivered, many Republicans will begin to ask themselves whether it wouldn’t be preferable to find a candidate with Mr Trump’s views but not his vices.“And, of course, there is such a candidate waiting in the wings. Tuesday’s hearing was a ‘Ron DeSantis for president’ rally because it underscored the risks of sticking with Mr Trump for a third consecutive presidential election.”Galston, a former senior policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, described DeSantis as “the distilled essence of what the post-Reagan Republican party has become. In addition, it’s clear to the Republican base that, like Trump, he’s a fighter. Like Trump, he is not at all deterred by liberal criticism.”Some believe the cumulative effect of the January 6 hearings could be enough to persuade many in the “Make America great again” base that, even while they remain devoted fans of Trump, he is no longer the pragmatic choice to oust Democrat Joe Biden from the Oval Office.“The big question for Republicans moving forward is: do they want to carry this baggage of Trump into 2024?” said the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, Larry Jacobs.“When you’re battling to win over independent voters and when you’re going to be handed a platform that could very well present a referendum on the insider party, the Democrats, it doesn’t make sense even for a lot of Republican Trump supporters. Trump and his influence and his future prospects are fading fast.”But the populist-nationalism that the ex-president branded “America first” does look set to survive him, Jacobs added.“In the primaries, there’s going to be a battle of who can carry Trumpism without Trump and that’s going to be ethnic nationalism, attacks on the liberal cultural tilt of this moment,” Jacobs said. “You go to a Trump rally, a lot of those lines are going to be evident.”For Democrats, it may be a case of being careful about what you wish for. DeSantis was a relatively obscure congressman when Trump endorsed him for Florida governor in 2018 and has proven a worthy disciple, sparring with everyone from journalists to Disney to what he calls the “woke left”.After the coronavirus pandemic took hold in 2020, he relaxed restrictions on businesses and schools in defiance of federal guidelines and overruled local officials who sought to preserve mask mandates.DeSantis has also enacted numerous conservative bills with the help of Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature, including an election “police force” dedicated to investigating alleged voter fraud, new voting limits and banning teachers from discussing gender identity with young children – which critics decry as the “don’t say gay” law.He also effectively commandeered the redistricting process from Florida’s state legislature, vetoing their congressional map and substituting his own proposal that eliminated two majority-Black districts while delivering four additional seats to Republicans.Florida supreme court declines to rule gerrymandered voting map unconstitutionalRead moreSome fear that, as president, DeSantis would represent Trump 2.0 – a refined, purified version without the incompetence, more efficient and ruthless and able to get things done.Wilson, the longtime Republican consultant and Trump critic from Florida, commented: “Ron DeSantis in Florida has accumulated enormous power. He has taken power away from the legislature. He is attempting to take power away from independent colleges and universities and to literally replace governance at every institution in Florida from top to bottom with the governor’s office.“I grew up in a time where Republicans thought a hyper powerful executive was not a great thing but Ron DeSantis has a very different opinion of executive power and he, as president, would engage in its use at a scale that would be dangerous for the country at a lot of levels.”The first nominating contests for the 2024 election are more than 18 months away, and the long term impact of the January 6 hearings remains uncertain. Lou Marin, executive vice president of the Florida Republican Assembly, does not think they will change minds. “People who are paying attention realize that it’s a kangaroo court,” he said. “They need to move on and start doing their job instead of wasting taxpayer dollars.”DeSantis will also be wary of peaking too early and keenly aware that Trump, who famously boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose any voters, remains his party’s most popular figure. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll this week found 56% of Republican voters said they would back the former president – well ahead of DeSantis on 16%.Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said: “A lot of people want to put a tombstone on the grave but Donald Trump is still above ground. He’s still walking the earth and has a lot of political clout with a lot more people inside the party than folks may want to admit.“Those bridges are in front of us. We haven’t come to them yet to see exactly what these extra revelations will now present in terms of further chiseling away Donald Trump’s hold on the party.”Some Democrats argue that DeSantis would be preferable because, unlike Trump, he would not threaten the foundations of America’s constitutional democracy.But Steele warned: “Who’s the better thief, the one who breaks the window to get into your house or the one who’s craftily picked the lock? DeSantis knows how not to trip the alarm system.”TopicsRepublicansThe ObserverUS politicsRon DeSantisDonald TrumpFloridaWashington DCfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC

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      Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DCDocument reveals plans for entering buildings and blocking traffic to prevent law enforcement access A document revealed in court on Wednesday has exposed a detailed plan by the Proud Boys to occupy government buildings in Washington DC, including the supreme court.The document, titled “1776 Returns”, laid out the plans for which buildings to target, the number of members required for each building, and tactics, including instructions to use the pandemic as an excuse for wearing masks and face shields without raising suspicion.It called for at least 50 members of the group to invade each building “or it’s a no go for that building”.​​“These are OUR building, they are just renting space,” read a part of the document, according to NBC. “We must show our politicians We the People are in charge.”Five members of the far-right Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, were charged earlier this month with “seditious conspiracy”. Tarrio was slapped with the charge on top of already existing charges against him for, among other things, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting officers. Other charges include a felony charge against Louis Enrique Colon, who pleaded guilty in April.The document was submitted to court by the lawyer of a Proud Boys member, Zachary Rehl, while filing for a motion for his release from pre-trial detention.Rehl’s lawyer claimed, in an attempt to distance his client from allegations that he had a leadership role in the insurrection, that Rehl had no idea about the document.The detailed nine-page memo has directions for participants to “use Covid to your advantage” and to create a “fake appointment” for one member, identified as “Covert Sleeper”, to get inside the building and eventually let the others in.The “Sleeper” was tasked to spend the day as an “insider”.The plan also called on participants to create distractions for the guards by “causing trouble” at the gate.Another part directed participants to block traffic from as many angles as possible.“Traffic blocks have network effects,” read the document. “The Rerouting traffic will block other important areas, and also stop access to any law enforcement vehicle.”The buildings they targeted are the supreme court, three Senate office buildings, and three House office buildings. Another target is listed as “CNN”, possibly referring to the CNN office in Washington, which is about a six-minute drive from the Capitol.The demands made in the document called for a new election on 20 January, the day of President Biden’s inauguration, with requirements such as paper ballots only, no electronic or mail-in votes, and the use of national guards for monitoring.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightWashington DCnewsReuse this content More