World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans confident supreme court will overturn abortion rights

      by

      Republicans confident supreme court will overturn abortion rightsMississippi governor Tate Reeves says state ‘snap-back’ legislation will ban almost all abortion if Roe v Wade is thrown out entirely

      Opinion: the supreme court is coming for women’s rights
      As the supreme court weighs the future of abortion access in America, Republicans on Sunday expressed confidence that the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision would soon be overturned, paving the way for a raft of anti-abortion legislation around the country next year.‘Historical accident’: how abortion came to focus white, evangelical angerRead moreOn Wednesday, the supreme court heard arguments over a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Observers suggested that the conservative supermajority on the court appeared poised to uphold the law and potentially go further by overturning Roe, which protects a woman’s right to choose. A decision is not expected until June next year.Mississippi’s governor, Tate Reeves, told CNN’s State of the Union he had “some reason for optimism” after this week’s arguments.He also confirmed that if the landmark ruling was overturned entirely, Mississippi would enforce a ban on almost all abortions in the state under a so-called “trigger law”.“That is a yes,” Reeves said when asked if he would enforce the “snap-back” legislation.“Because if you believe as I believe very strongly that that innocent, unborn child in the mother’s womb is in fact a child, the most important word when we talk about unborn children is not unborn, but it’s children.”The position is not representative of the majority of Americans. According to recent polling, seven in 10 are opposed to overturning Roe v Wade while 59% believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.Nonetheless, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a global research and policy organisation “committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights”, 21 US states are certain to attempt some form of ban on abortion should Roe be overturned, using laws already on the books.Reeves caveated his answer by cautioning that Mississippi’s response to the forthcoming supreme court ruling would be “dependent upon how the court rules and exactly what those opinions allow us to do”. He also noted that any decision would not lead to a national ban but could permit states to make their own determinations.Mike Braun, a Republican senator for Indiana, echoed a number of Reeves’ arguments. He told NBC’s Meet the Press he wanted “abortions to be eliminated from the landscape” but would not be drawn into specifics regarding potential laws in his state.Indiana has enacted 55 abortion restrictions and bans in the past decade, according to the Guttmacher Institute, but does not have a “trigger law” or equivalent on the books. It is listed by the institute as one of five states without these laws that are still likely to move towards almost total bans should Roe be overturned.“When it comes to things like abortion, I think it’s clear it’s time to turn it back to the states,” Braun told NBC.Since former president Donald Trump installed three conservative justices to the supreme court in just four years, both sides of the fight over abortion rights have been preparing for a legal showdown.According to the Associated Press, campaign finance data reveals that pro-abortion-access groups donated $8m in 2018 and more than $10m in 2020.Those numbers outpace the public contributions of anti-abortion groups, which donated $2.6m in 2018 and $6.3m in 2020, according to data. But the complexity of the network of nonprofits and “dark money” funds makes it difficult to produce a full accounting of the money flows.TopicsRepublicansMississippiUS supreme courtAbortionUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US healthcarenewsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Congressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’

      by

      InterviewCongressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’David Smith in Washington The congressman was in the Capitol the day it was stormed by Trump supporters, and led the impeachment prosecution. The fight, he says, is far from over

      Chris Bryant: ‘Nearly everyone I meet says: “I wouldn’t want your job”’
      See more of the Observer’s faces behind the 2021 headlines
      He spent 5 January at a graveside service for his son, Tommy, who had taken his own life after years shadowed by depression. He spent 6 January under siege at the US Capitol as a mob of Donald Trump supporters staged a deadly insurrection. Nearly a year on, Jamie Raskin wonders whether he could have prevented either tragedy.“Just as I have blamed myself for missing cues that I might have picked up with Tommy, I blame myself for cues I missed relating to the violence as well,” says Raskin, carefully measuring each word. “I spent many, many sleepless nights in self-blame and self-prosecution over everything that had happened with Tommy and with the insurrection.”Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, took office in January 2017. Four years later, and a day after burying his 25-year-old son, he was at the US Capitol under coronavirus restrictions to help certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. He witnessed the citadel of American democracy come under attack from a frenzied mob convinced by Trump’s “big lie” about vote rigging.“I heard this terrible sound that I’ll never forget of some people trying to barrel into the House chamber,” the 58-year-old recalls in a phone interview from his home in Takoma Park, Maryland. “I don’t know to this day exactly what kind of physical objects they were carrying, but they kept slamming up against the central door to the House of Representatives and so lots of people began to move over there to try to reinforce it.“But then Capitol police officers came running in with their guns drawn, telling all of us to get back, and they went up and guarded that door. There were people screaming and it was very chaotic. You could hear people yelling, ‘We want Trump!’ and ‘Hang Mike Pence!’” – a reference to the vice-president who ignored Trump’s pleas to overturn the election.Members of Congress were evacuated through the speaker’s lobby, tunnels and stairwells. “We would see members of the mob running by in different directions. It was like a zombie movie. Whenever we saw them, everybody would accelerate efforts to get away. An insurrection is a pretty intimate thing. These people were all over the place. It’s remarkable more people did not die.”Finally, they reached the safety of a committee room in a House office building. But Raskin’s daughter Tabitha, 23, and son-in-law, Hank, who had accompanied him to the Capitol that day, were trapped in the office of Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader. They barricaded themselves in with furniture and hid under Hoyer’s desk.“I was obviously very concerned,” says Raskin. “I was an emotional wreck anyway but I felt now intensely responsible for having brought them with me and put them in harm’s way. It had never occurred to me that the Capitol of the United States would not be secure.”Eventually the building was cleared by security forces and the family was reunited. “I hugged them and kissed them and I told Tabitha how sorry I was and I said it would not be like this the next time she came to the Capitol. That’s when she said, ‘I don’t want to come back to the Capitol again’. The immensity of these events just hit me at that point. They had fundamentally changed everything by unleashing this violence to support their political coup.”That night Congress returned to the building to complete the electoral college counts and confirm Biden as the next president. In a stunned nation, there were demands for Trump to face a reckoning over his role in inciting the riot. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, asked Raskin to become lead prosecutor.He says: “For me the trial was a kind of salvation because I was so deeply in shock and trauma about Tommy and what had just taken place in the Capitol. It was a time of great confusion.“If you remember back to 9/11 and what that was like, everyone walking around buffeted and dumbfounded, there was that feeling. But by becoming the lead impeachment manager, I quickly had to develop a focus on what needed to be done.”Previously a constitutional law professor, Raskin made a compelling case and was not afraid to display his anger, grief and vulnerability. A majority of senators voted to convict Trump but fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required by the constitution. The ex-president was acquitted. But Raskin was not done.He is now a member of the House of Representatives select committee investigating the events of that day. It has been gathering documents and phone records and subpoenaing witnesses in an effort to produce the definitive account of an event that Raskin says was “as close to fascism as any of us wants to come in our lifetime”.The congressman, who has written a book to try to make sense of the 50 days that upended his life, says: “I would like to say that 6 January was the end of something but it feels much more to me like the beginning of something.“Ultimately, that’s up to us. We are definitely in a struggle over the future of democracy. Joe Biden is the right president to try to lead us out of this period of emotional devastation but at this point Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’ lives and his control over the Republican party is absolute. So we are still very much in the fight of our lives.” Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy by Jamie Raskin will be published by HarperCollins on 4 JanuaryTopicsUS Capitol attackThe Observer’s faces of 2021DemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Trump double negative: Twitter sees proof positive of no electoral fraud

      by

      Trump double negative: Twitter sees proof positive of no electoral fraudCritics pounce on statement that ‘anybody that doesn’t think’ 2020 election was rigged ‘is either very stupid or very corrupt’

      Trump rails against Meadows for revealing Covid cover-up
      The double negative, a common grammatical elephant trap, claimed a high-profile victim on Saturday night. Donald Trump.Trump social media company claims to raise $1bn from investorsRead moreIn a statement, the former president said: “Anybody that doesn’t think there wasn’t massive election fraud in the 2020 presidential election is either very stupid, or very corrupt!”There was no massive election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden by 306-232 in the electoral college and by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote.But Trump thinks, or at least says, that there was massive election fraud. Though his own formula would therefore make him “very stupid, or very corrupt”, his claims have had deadly effect, stoking the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.That led to Trump’s expulsion from social media, which is why he now communicates by statement, nominally a means of communication less open to spontaneous error.As it happens, Trump has some sort of form with double negatives and the dangers they pose.In July 2018, in Helsinki, he famously stood next to Vladimir Putin of Russia and said “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia, which interfered in the 2016 US election.Under fire for that remark, Trump said: “The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t’ or ‘why it wouldn’t be Russia’. Sort of a double negative.”Mockery was delighted and swift. So it was again on Saturday night, on Twitter, perhaps the lost platform most costly to Trump.Kyle Cheney, a reporter for Politico, wrote: “This… doesn’t say what Donald Trump thinks it does.”The ABC correspondent Jon Karl, author of a bestselling book on the end of Trump’s presidency, offered a slice of wishful thinking: “He finally conceded …”And George Conway, a conservative critic married to a loyal Trump adviser, Kellyanne Conway, wrote: “Seriously, I usually don’t find it unsurprising when he says something that’s not inaccurate, but no one – not even the former guy – can be not correct all the time.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020RepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 263 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      To Rescue the Republic review: Grant, the crisis of 1876 … and a Fox News anchor reluctant to call out Trump

      by

      To Rescue the Republic review: Grant, the crisis of 1876 … and a Fox News anchor reluctant to call out Trump Brett Baier has an eye on unity as well as compelling history. So why not say Trump refused to face the truth as Grant did?For a group of TV anchors and reporters, the team at Fox News are keen scribblers. Often with co-writers, former host Bill O’Reilly writes of assassinations and Brian Kilmeade authors histories. Bret Baier is chief political anchor but has also written several books as a “reporter of history”. Now comes a biography of Ulysses S Grant which focuses on the grave constitutional crisis following the disputed election of 1876.A disputed election, a constitutional crisis, polarisation … welcome to 1876Read moreMagnanimous in civil war victory, Grant was elected in 1868 on the theme of “Let us have peace”. By the nation’s centennial eight years later, Americans had wearied of scandals, economic troubles and federal troops in the south, seeking to enforce to some degree the new civil rights of Black Americans, notably the vote. In 1874, Democrats took the House. Now they wanted the presidency.They nominated the New York governor, Samuel Tilden, a moderate nevertheless supported in the south. The Republicans picked Rutherford Hayes of Ohio. It was a bitter campaign, filled with threats of violence, each side playing to its base.Tilden performed surprisingly well in the north, winning his home state and four others. Hayes winning Indiana and Connecticut alone would have prevented the subsequent controversy. He did not, but he did win Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida, southern states with Republican governors.Hayes needed all three states to win. “Self-appointed Democratic counters”, however, submitted results for Tilden. As Grant said: “Everything now depends on a fair count.”Tensions ran high, with rumors of southern militia marching on Washington and US troops on standby. Baier writes that Grant “had influence, and he decided to use it to expedite a fair result – even if that result required sacrificing his own achievements”.Grant knew that to be seen to be fair, the result must “appeal to [the people’s] sense of justice”. For that, both parties had to agree – and the south had to support Hayes. At Grant’s insistence, an electoral commission was formed, the deciding vote given to the supreme court justice Joseph Bradley. Bradley chose to support the states’ official electoral certifications. Hayes won. Tilden did not pursue extraordinary means to ensure victory, stopping a bribery effort in his favor.But the battle was not over. Grant believed Louisiana’s certificate was probably fraudulent, and there was bedlam in Congress. Grant favored compromise and Edward Burke of Louisiana effectively proposed a trade: Hayes for the presidency, Democrats for the disputed governorships of Louisiana and South Carolina.A separate group of Republicans – acting without Grant – then promised Democrats Hayes would withdraw troops from the south. In return, Democrats would agree that Hayes was duly elected, along with vague and worthless promises to respect Black rights. At this point, Baier writes, “the nation breathed a sigh of relief”.Baier clearly admires Grant – and there is much to admire. Though betrayed by false friends, as president Grant exercised his office with firmness where necessary and with a passionate desire to inspire Americans towards greater unity. Political inexperience cost him dearly.But what of the big issue? Did Grant really put an end to Reconstruction and consign Black Americans to nearly a century under Jim Crow?Hayes had shown a willingness to end Reconstruction. Tilden would certainly have done so. Grant strongly supported Black suffrage and kept troops in the south to ensure the rights of people increasingly threatened by armed violence. He sent troops to an area of South Carolina especially marked by Klan violence and vigorously promoted and enforced an anti-Klan act. He sent troops to Louisiana to enforce voting rights and secured passage of the 1875 Civil Rights Act.Nonetheless, the supreme court reduced Black rights, and as Baier writes, “the country no longer supported the use of federal troops”. Grant had his army but had lost his people.He promoted a compromise in 1877 not from any desire to abandon the Black community but from the painful realization that America had tired of the journey. Whether Hayes or Tilden had been elected, Reconstruction was over and a more painful era in the south was about to begin.The problem wasn’t Grant, but that America was not ready to live up to its promises.Baier begins and ends his book with the events of 6 January 2021.“What happens,” he asks, “when the fairness of an election is in doubt, when the freedom of the people is constrained, and when the divisions on the public square strangle the process?“What can we learn from the healing mission of our 18th president that might show us a path towards union?”Baier answers the second question only implicitly. He echoes the historical consensus that the “sad and inescapable truth is that there was no way of knowing the right verdict”.True in 1877. Clearly not in 2021.After Appomattox, the Confederate general James Longstreet, a friend of Grant, asked “Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?”Liberty is Sweet review: an American revolution for the many not the fewRead moreThe answer frequently involves failures of political leadership. Baier writes that Grant “knew that in times of great national conflict there are only two choices – to stand for division or to stand for peace”.Grant used his power for good, to promote national unity. Donald Trump did not say the words or take the actions that Grant did during an equally if not more severe challenge to democracy. Baier misses an opportunity for Grant-like firmness in not asking why Trump failed to call on his supporters to accept the result. Rather than simply speaking of America’s strength and resilience, why not point out directly the contrast with a president who stood for division?In 2021, the national sigh of relief did not come until after noon on inauguration day, as President Biden took the oath.The danger persists, and not every president is Gen Grant.
      To Rescue the Republic is published in the US by Custom House
      TopicsBooksHistory booksPolitics booksUS politicsAmerican civil warUS Capitol attackreviewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Chris Cuomo fired by CNN for helping brother Andrew fight sexual misconduct charges

      by

      Chris Cuomo fired by CNN for helping brother Andrew fight sexual misconduct chargesPrimetime anchor was suspended on TuesdayNetwork says ‘additional information’ has come to light CNN has fired the primetime anchor Chris Cuomo for trying to help his brother, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, fight accusations of sexual misconduct which resulted in his resignation.How Chris and Andrew Cuomo’s on-air comedy routines compromised CNNRead moreAnnouncing the firing on Saturday, CNN said “additional information” had come to light. “Chris Cuomo was suspended earlier this week,” a statement said, “pending further evaluation of new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense.“We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review and have terminated him effective immediately. While in the process of that review additional information has come to light. Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate.”In a statement reported by the New York Times, Cuomo, 51, said: “This is not how I want my time at CNN to end but I have already told you why and how I helped my brother.“So let me now say as disappointing as this is, I could not be more proud of the team at Cuomo Prime Time and the work we did … I owe them all and will miss that group of special people who did really important work.”The CNN anchor tested a policy of not covering his brother in early 2020 when, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic and with New York hard-hit, the two regularly spoke and joked on air.The scandal which engulfed Andrew Cuomo spread to his younger brother, who acknowledged offering advice when the governor faced the harassment charges that he denied but that ultimately led to his resignation in August.Chris Cuomo was then suspended on Tuesday, after the release of documentation collected during an investigation of Andrew Cuomo by the New York state attorney general, Letitia James.The information released by James showed how Chris Cuomo pressed sources for information on his brother’s accusers, reported to the governor’s staff and was active in helping shape responses to the charges.That information prompted loud calls for CNN to fire Cuomo.Marissa Hoechstetter, a victims’ rights advocate, tweeted: “As a survivor who has trusted CNN with my story, it is deeply disturbing that Chris Cuomo remains employed. “His unethical behavior – plus that of anyone giving him any info in the first place – should be disqualifying for a journalist. If they keep him on, they can’t be trusted.”Charlotte Bennett, an alleged victim of sexual misconduct by Andrew Cuomo, said: “Just like his older brother, Chris Cuomo used his time, network and resources to help smear victims, dig up opposition research, and belittle our credible allegations.“Anything short of firing Chris Cuomo reflects a network lacking both morals and backbone. Does CNN stand by journalistic integrity, or will it simply excuse his actions because Chris Cuomo drives ratings?”On Saturday, CNN took action.TopicsCNNAndrew CuomoUS politicsNew YorkUS televisionTelevision industrynewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The ‘stench’ of politicization: Sonia Sotomayor’s supreme court warning

      by

      The ‘stench’ of politicization: Sonia Sotomayor’s supreme court warningOral arguments over the Mississippi abortion case this week showed the threat to Roe v Wade from an increasingly politicized court About 11 minutes into this week’s hearing on abortion rights at the US supreme court, the floor was taken by Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three beleaguered liberal-leaning justices left on the court after its sharp rightward shift under Donald Trump.‘It’s earth-shattering’: Democrats and allies vow midterm fight over abortionRead moreSotomayor began by noting that in the past 30 years no fewer than 15 justices of all political backgrounds had supported the right to an abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Only four had objected.Now after so many years of relative consensus, the legality of abortion enshrined in the landmark 1973 ruling Roe v Wade and reaffirmed in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v Casey was suddenly on the line.Politicians in Mississippi, Sotomayor remarked (while leaving it unsaid that they were rightwing Republicans), had devised new legislation to ban abortions after just 15 weeks of pregnancy. By these politicians’ own admission, their bills were targeted specifically at the three new justices on the supreme court (all appointed by Trump, though she left that unspoken too).Then she went in for the kill.She addressed the danger posed by the court’s sudden and apparently politically motivated change of heart not just to abortion rights but to the rule of law itself.If the nation’s highest court, with its newly constituted Trumpian majority, were to go along with the ploy set for it by Mississippi and throw out half a century of settled law affirming a woman’s right to choose, then what would happen to the court’s legitimacy as a place in American democracy that rises above the cut and thrust of grubby partisanship?“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?” she said. “I don’t see how it is possible.”Stench. The word ricocheted off the august walls of the courtroom like a bullet.“It was a shocking moment,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “An unadorned recognition of the legitimacy issues that are clearly preoccupying a number of the justices.”For Stephen Vladeck, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas at Austin, the takeaway of this week’s hearing was not how many justices were preoccupied with the reputational damage facing an increasingly politicised court, but how few. “To me, the single most distressing feature of Justice Sotomayor’s arguments was how little anyone else seemed to care,” he told the Guardian.Vladeck said he was dismayed by the “casualness with which so many of the justices seemed to be taking an issue that is so central to so many women. A ruling that gets rid of Roe would be enormously damaging in the eyes of millions of Americans, yet some of the conservative justices don’t seem to think that’s important.”The perception of nonchalance towards the integrity of the court among the six conservative justices now in the majority is striking. In advance of last week’s supercharged hearing, several of those same justices bent over backwards to try to convince the American people that they are neutral servants of the constitution.The three justices appointed by Trump have been especially keen to portray themselves as having not a partisan bone in their body. Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first of the three appointments, insisted in September 2019 that it was “rubbish” to imply that the justices were “like politicians with robes”.More recently Amy Coney Barrett, another of Trump’s triumvirate of appointees, told an audience in Kentucky that the supreme court was not “comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks”. But she was speaking at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville and was introduced at the event by the politician after whom the venue is named – Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate. It was his shenanigans, blocking Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the court in 2016 on grounds that it was in an election year then rushing through Barrett’s confirmation much closer to election day in 2020, that gave Trump his three picks.But it is the third of Trump’s supreme court proteges, Brett Kavanaugh, whose position is perhaps most glaring. During his confirmation process in 2018 Kavanaugh went to great lengths to underline his respect for the decisions made by his predecessors on the court, and for the legal doctrine known as stare decisis, which requires justices to honor past rulings in all but exceptional cases.Kavanaugh assured senators worried about his stance on abortion that he saw Roe v Wade as “settled law”.He went even further in his conversations with Susan Collins, the relatively moderate Republican senator from Maine on whose vote Kavanaugh depended. When she announced her decision to back him for the supreme court, she revealed what he had said to her during private conversations.“There has been considerable … concern that Judge Kavanaugh would seek to overturn Roe v Wade,” she said. “Protecting this right is important to me. As Judge Kavanaugh asserted to me, a long-established precedent is not something to be trimmed, narrowed, discarded or overlooked.”But when it came round to Kavanaugh’s turn to speak in this week’s debate he read out a long list of supreme court cases in which prior precedents had been overturned. He left observers with the clear impression that he was preparing to do precisely what he promised Collins and her fellow senators that he would not do – run roughshod over a pillar of constitutional law.The pointed interventions of the Trump justices and their conservative peers in this week’s hearing have led most observers convinced that abortion rights in the US are likely to be grossly restricted or abolished outright when the court rules next June. That would be uncannily as Trump himself had predicted.In a televised debate during the 2016 presidential race, Trump was asked by the Fox News host Chris Wallace whether he wanted the court, including any justices he might appoint as president, to overturn the right to an abortion. He replied: “I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life judges. I would think that that will go back to the individual states.”Trump did go on to appoint anti-abortion judges, and they are now poised to send control back to individual states, 21 of which currently have laws in place that would effectively ban abortions overnight were Roe v Wade overturned.Vladeck fears that the vast and growing disconnect between what the conservative justices say they are doing – impartially and faithfully upholding the law of the land, and what they are actually doing – playing along with the machinations of politicians in states like Mississippi, bodes very ill for the legitimacy of the court.In the long run it could also harm America’s future as a country of laws.“Public perception matters,” he said. “The more the court appears to be guided by contemporary partisan preferences as opposed to permanent legal principles, the harder it will be for millions of Americans on the wrong side of these cases to understand why they should be bound by them.”TopicsUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)AbortionnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      'It's just a cold': Biden explains coughing during speech – video

      by

      The US president, Joe Biden, has said his coughing during a speech addressing the November jobs report on Friday is due to a cold.
      ‘What I have is a one-and-a-half-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop,’ Biden said, responding to a question from a reporter after the speech

      Covid: Biden says to beat Omicron variant ‘we have to shut it down worldwide’ – live More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Top Trump official to plead the fifth to Capitol attack committee

      by

      Top Trump official to plead the fifth to Capitol attack committeeJohn Eastman, linked to efforts to stop Biden certification, to invoke constitutional protection against self-incrimination Former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who was connected to efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win on 6 January, will plead the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in bookRead moreThe move by Eastman, communicated in a letter to the select committee by his attorney, is an extraordinary step and appears to suggest a growing fear among some of Trump’s closest advisers that their testimony may implicate them in potential criminality.“Dr Eastman has a more than reasonable fear that any statements he makes pursuant to this subpoena will be used in an attempt to mount a criminal investigation against him,” Eastman’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, told the select committee in a letter on Wednesday.The select committee issued a subpoena to Eastman last month as they sought to uncover the extent of his role in Trump’s scheme to prevent Biden from being certified as president and return himself to office for a second term despite losing the 2020 election.House investigators also took an interest in Eastman after it emerged that he played an integral part in a 4 January Oval Office meeting where he presented a memo advising then vice-president Mike Pence about ways to stop and delay Biden’s certification from taking place.But in responding to the subpoena, Eastman’s attorney told the select committee that the former Trump lawyer would assert the fifth amendment to protect himself from the rapidly expanding investigation that has so far ensnared dozens of top Trump allies.The letter made mostly procedural objections to the select committee’s inquiry, complaining that the panel only has members appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, conducts its depositions behind closed doors, and that the scope of the subpoena was excessively broad.Neither Eastman nor Burnham immediately responded to a request for comment on Friday.The decision by Eastman to protect himself from self-incrimination came a day after the Guardian revealed that Eastman was connected to a phone call that Trump placed hours before the Capitol attack, seeking ways to somehow stop Biden’s certification on 6 January.According to multiple sources familiar with the call, Trump, on at least one call placed from the White House, pressed his lieutenants at the Willard – led by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Eastman – about ways to prevent Biden from being pronounced president.The move by Eastman also makes him the second ally of the former president to claim the fifth amendment with the select committee, after the former Trump DoJ official Jeffrey Clark announced that he would invoke the protection in a deposition scheduled for Saturday.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More