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Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as Republican
Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as RepublicanOz, upbraided in 2015 over promotion of ‘quack treatments’ for financial gain, planning to run for Pat Toomey’s Pennsylvania seat Dr Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s Dr Oz Show, is planning to run for Pennsylvania’s open US Senate seat as a Republican, according to two people familiar with his plans.Top doctors urge Columbia to sever ties with Dr Oz over ‘quack treatments’Read moreShould Oz run, he would bring unrivaled name recognition and wealth to a race expected to be among the nation’s most competitive and could determine control of the Senate next year.Oz became a household name after gaining fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show.He has also experienced controversy, notably when in 2015 a group of prominent American physicians called on Columbia University medical school to sever its links with Oz for “an egregious lack of integrity” over the promotion of “quack treatments” not supported by scientific evidence, “in the interest of personal financial gain”.Subjected to a grilling by senators, Oz offered to “drain the swamp” of marketers he said were illegally using his words and name.In 2016, Oz hosted Donald Trump on his TV show as the businessman ran for the White House.Oz was later appointed to a White House Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, alongside appointees including the New England Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, bodybuilder and former Incredible Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno, New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera and the football star Herschel Walker.Walker is now a Trump-endorsed candidate for Senate in Georgia.Oz may also have to explain why he isn’t running in New Jersey, where he has lived for two decades before voting in Pennsylvania elections this year by an absentee ballot registered to his in-laws’ address in suburban Philadelphia.Oz’s longtime home is above the Hudson river in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, where he films his TV show and practices medicine.If he runs he will enter a Republican field resetting with an influx of candidates, after Sean Parnell, the candidate endorsed by Trump, dropped out, denying allegations of domestic abuse.Oz, 61, has told associates and Republicans in Pennsylvania of his plans, according to the people who spoke to the AP. One was told directly while the other was briefed on a separate conversation. Both spoke on condition of anonymity. Publicly, Oz has only said through a spokesperson that he has received encouragement to run.The announcement could come on Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, which Hannity previewed by saying Oz “has a huge announcement. Hint: think midterm election.”Pennsylvania put Joe Biden over the top in last year’s presidential election. His one-point victory put the swing state back in Democratic hands after Trump won it even more narrowly in 2016.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsPennsylvanianewsReuse this content More
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Capitol riot panel to vote for contempt charges against Trump DoJ official
Capitol riot panel to vote for contempt charges against Trump DoJ officialCommittee to recommend criminal prosecution of Jeffrey ClarkClark defied subpoena and refused to turn over documents The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack announced on Monday that it will vote to recommend the criminal prosecution of top former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark after he defied a subpoena seeking his cooperation with the inquiry.Joe Biden says Omicron Covid variant a ‘cause for concern, not panic’ – liveRead moreThe move to pursue contempt of Congress charges against Clark reflects the select committee’s aggressive approach to warn recalcitrant witnesses against attempting to derail their investigation as Trump tried during his administration.Members on the select committee will convene on Wednesday evening to vote on the contempt report – which is expected to be unanimous, according to a source familiar with the matter – and send it to a vote before the full House of Representatives.The select committee issued a subpoena to Clark last month in order to understand how the Trump White House sought to co-opt officials at the justice department to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory from taking place on 6 January.“We need to understand Mr Clark’s role in these efforts at the justice department and learn who was involved across the administration. The select committee expects Mr Clark to cooperate fully with our investigation,” said the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson.In targeting Clark, House investigators followed up on a Senate judiciary committee report that detailed his efforts to abuse the justice department and threaten the then acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to support Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The Senate report found Clark had conversations with Trump about how to upend the election, and pressured his superiors to draft a letter that falsely claimed the justice department had identified “significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election”.The report also detailed a 2 January episode where Clark seemed to blackmail Rosen, suggesting that Trump could fire Rosen if he refused to do the former president’s bidding, and then said he would decline to replace him as attorney general if he sent the letter. Clark, citing executive and attorney-client privilege, refused to turn over documents demanded by the subpoena and declined to answer questions at his deposition, instead delivering a 12-page letter from his attorney defending his decision to not testify.The attorney, Harry MacDougald, said in the letter that Clark would not testify at least until the courts resolved a separate lawsuit brought by Trump challenging the select committee’s request to review documents from his administration held by the National Archives.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” MacDougald said of Clark in the letter. “Mr Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”But the Biden White House has declined to invoke executive privilege for matters involving the Capitol attack in most cases, and White House counsel Dana Remus has waived the protection for Trump administration materials being sought by House investigators.Thompson said at the time that Clark’s defiance would put him on the path towards a criminal referral – a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum penalty of $100,000 and a 12-month jail sentence.The move to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Clark marks the second confrontation, after the select committee last month voted unanimously to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for ignoring his subpoena.Bannon also cited Trump’s directive, first reported by the Guardian, for former aides and advisers to defy subpoenas and refrain from turning over documents in his refusal to cooperate with the select committee’s investigation.Bannon was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury earlier this month and surrendered himself to the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to “go on the offense” against Biden and the select committee.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report says
Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report saysEx-president’s chaotic style resulted in presidential daily briefing being delivered more regularly to Mike Pence Donald Trump’s “fact-free” approach to the presidency created unprecedented challenges for intelligence officials responsible for briefing him, according to a newly released account from the CIA.Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lieRead moreThe 45th president’s chaotic and freewheeling style, and his disinclination to read anything put in front of him, resulted in the presidential daily briefing, or PDB – a crucial security update including information about potential threats to the US – being delivered more regularly to Vice-President Mike Pence instead, the report states.By the middle of Trump’s term in office, his briefings were reduced to two weekly sessions of 45 minutes each. Briefings were discontinued altogether after the deadly insurrection of 6 January, which was sparked by Trump urging his supporters to march on the US Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The analysis comes in a 40-page unclassified update to the CIA’s Getting to Know the President, a publication that chronicles efforts to brief presidents-elect through transition periods and into office for every administration since 1952.“For the intelligence community (IC), the Trump transition was far and away the most difficult in its historical experience with briefing new presidents,” the new chapter, posted to the CIA website, concludes.“Trump was like [Richard] Nixon, suspicious and insecure about the intelligence process, but unlike Nixon in the way he reacted. Rather than shut the IC out, Trump engaged with it but attacked it publicly.”Nixon, who resigned in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, refused to accept any intelligence from the CIA and received briefings instead from trusted insiders such as his national security adviser and later secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.Trump regularly assailed intelligence officials and famously chose to believe the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over agencies including the CIA which concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.The CIA report’s author, retired career intelligence officer John L Helgerson, said briefers achieved “only limited success” in their mission to deliver timely and relevant intelligence to Trump and to establish a working relationship with him.Pence, by contrast, “was an assiduous, six-day-a-week reader” who made efforts to try to keep Trump focused. The vice-president urged briefers to “lean forward on maps” in graphics-heavy presentations much shorter than those presented to Trump’s predecessors, and “would sometimes ask leading questions” during joint sessions with Trump “so the president would hear his concerns”.Pence’s efforts were largely unsuccessful, Helgerson suggests. James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, said Trump “was prone to fly off on tangents”, according to the CIA report, and said “there might be [only] eight or nine minutes of real intelligence in an hour’s discussion”.Additionally, Clapper said, while “the IC worked with evidence, Trump ‘was fact-free – evidence doesn’t cut it with him’.”Helgerson writes: “Trump preferred that the briefer take the lead and summarise the key points and important items from the days since they had last had a session. The PDB was published every day, but because Trump received a briefing only two or three times a week, he relied on the briefer to orally summarize the significance of the most important issues.”Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedRead morePerhaps unsurprisingly, the subjects to which Trump paid most attention were China and developments involving Russia and Ukraine. The first of the former president’s two impeachments was for pressing Ukraine to investigate Biden, then his likely 2020 election opponent. He was also investigated for allegedly colluding with Russia.“A few subjects and areas of the world were notable by their relative absence,” the CIA report states. “Regarding Europe, only Nato budget issues, Turkey and approaching elections in France and Germany stimulated much discussion. Latin America, Africa, and south-east Asia received almost no attention.”Overall, Helgerson believes, the briefing process barely survived Trump’s presidency.“[He] publicly criticised the outgoing directors of national intelligence and the CIA, and disparaged the substantive work and integrity of the intelligence agencies. From the outset, it was clear that the IC was in for a difficult time.“The system worked, but it struggled.”TopicsDonald TrumpMike PenceCIATrump administrationUS national securityUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Ex-defense secretary sues over withheld material from Trump era memoir
Ex-defense secretary sues over withheld material from Trump era memoirMark Esper claims material being improperly held from ‘unvarnished’ memoir of dealings with ex-president The former US defense secretary Mark Esper claims in a lawsuit against the defense department that material is being improperly withheld from him as he seeks to publish an “unvarnished and candid memoir” of his time in Donald Trump’s cabinet.The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday in the US district court in Washington, describes the memoir, A Sacred Oath, as an account of Esper’s tenure as army secretary from 2017 to 2019 and his 18 months as defense secretary, which ended when Trump fired him in a tweet just days after the president lost his reelection bid.The period in which Esper was Pentagon chief was “an unprecedented time of civil unrest, public health crises, growing threats abroad, Pentagon transformation, and a White House seemingly bent on circumventing the constitution”, the lawsuit says.Esper and Trump were sharply divided over the use of the military during civil unrest in June 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. Other issues led the president to believe Esper was not sufficiently loyal while Esper believed he was trying to keep the department apolitical. Firing a defense secretary after an election loss was unprecedented, but the opening allowed Trump to install loyalists in top Pentagon positions as he continued to dispute his election loss.The lawsuit contends that “significant text” in the memoir, scheduled for publication by William Morrow in May, is being improperly held under the guise of classification and that Esper maintains it contains no classified information. The suit notes that Esper is restricted by his secrecy agreements from authorising publication without Pentagon approval, or face possible civil and criminal liability.The lawsuit quotes from a letter Esper sent to the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, criticising the review process. He wrote that he had been asked not to quote Trump and others in meetings, not to describe conversations he had with Trump, and not to use certain verbs or nouns when describing historical events.The letter describes other problematic subjects and says about 60 pages of the manuscript contained redactions at one point. Agreeing to all of those redactions would result in “a serious injustice to important moments in history that the American people need to know and understand”, Esper wrote.The suit itself says some accounts Esper relates in the manuscript under consideration appeared to have been leaked to some mainstream media “possibly to undermine the impact” it would have had in his book.Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the department was aware of Esper’s concerns. “As with all such reviews, the department takes seriously its obligation to balance national security with an author’s narrative desire. Given that this matter is now under litigation, we will refrain from commenting further,” he said in a statement.Esper, 57, a West Point graduate and Gulf war veteran, said in a statement that he had waited for six months for the review process to play out but found “my unclassified manuscript arbitrarily redacted without clearly being told why”.“I am more than disappointed the current administration is infringing on my first amendment constitutional rights. And it is with regret that legal recourse is the only path now available for me to tell my full story to the American people,” he said.TopicsTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Ties that bind: Missouri Senate candidate hopes Trump notices neckwear
Ties that bind: Missouri Senate candidate hopes Trump notices neckwearCongressman Billy Long seeks Trump’s endorsement for ‘the guy that was with you from day one. I mean, look at this tie’ Senate candidates endorsed by Donald Trump have struggled of late, from Sean Parnell’s withdrawal in Pennsylvania while denying allegations of domestic abuse to the former NFL star Herschel Walker angering party leaders with his run in Georgia.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead moreBut to one candidate for the Republican nomination in Missouri, Congressman Billy Long, the former president’s endorsement still carries the ultimate weight.“If he endorses in this race,” the 66-year-old told Politico, “I don’t care who he endorses, it’s over … And that’s what I’m trying to impress upon him is that, you know, ‘You need to get involved in this race and put an end to it.’”Long said he would tell the former president: “You’re looking at the guy that was with you from day one.’ Never ever left. I mean, look at this tie.”The former auctioneer duly showed off his neckwear, a gold striped number signed, apparently in his signature Sharpie marker, by Trump himself.Long said Trump signed the $37 tie in Nevada in 2016, when Long spoke on his behalf. Long has had – and auctioned off – other ties signed by the president, including a striking example featuring flags and caricatures which Long wore to the State of the Union in 2019.Trump’s own ties played a prominent role in the 2016 election and its aftermath.In 2015, Macy’s made news when it dropped Trump’s menswear line – many headlines said the retail giant was “cutting ties” – over his racist remarks about Mexicans at his campaign launch.In 2019, the former New Jersey governor and Trump ally Chris Christie revealed that Trump advised him to wear longer ties in order to look slimmer.Politico described Long as “built like a lineman” and said he spoke with a “thick ‘Missoura’ twang”. In Missoura’, whose other sitting senator is the Trump-supporting controversialist Josh Hawley, a large field is jostling to replace the retiring Roy Blunt.One candidate, Mark McCloskey, rose to fame in 2020 when he and his wife pointed guns at protesters for racial justice near their home in St Louis. Both pleaded guilty to misdemeanours. Another, Eric Greitens, resigned as governor in 2018, amid scandals over sex and campaign finance. Criminal charges were dropped.Speaking to Politico, Long called Greitens “Chuck Schumer’s candidate”, a reference to the Democratic leader who will defend control of the Senate next year, hoping to face weak or controversial Republicans in key states.Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedRead moreA spokesperson for Greitens told Politico: “Billy Long is a much better comedian than he is a Senate candidate.”Observers including Blunt said Long, who also has a habit of handing out fake money with Trump’s face on it, had a chance of winning Trump’s endorsement.But though Long voted to object to electoral college results in 2020 he has also recognised Joe Biden as president, thereby failing a key test in a party in Trump’s grip.Long told Politico he would not follow his leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, to Florida to worship the party’s golden idol.“I have people say: ‘Call him, call him every day. Go sit at Mar-a-Lago and tell him you’re not leaving till he endorses,’” Long said. “I’m smart enough to know that’s not going to win favour with Donald Trump.”Others might say that it would.TopicsMissouriUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More
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Michael Flynn appears to have called QAnon ‘total nonsense’ despite his links
Michael Flynn appears to have called QAnon ‘total nonsense’ despite his linksTrump ally reportedly says conspiracy theory a ‘disinformation campaign’ created by CIA and the left, apparent recording reveals Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, appears to have called QAnon “total nonsense” and a “disinformation campaign” created by the CIA and the political left – despite his own extensive links to the conspiracy theory and seeming eagerness to serve as its hero.‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violenceRead moreFlynn’s apparent statement was revealed by Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney and QAnon supporter once allied with the disgraced former general.QAnon followers believe in the existence of a secret cabal of pederastic cannibal Satanists, dominated by Democrats, against whom Trump is fighting. Followers also believe John F Kennedy Jr is not dead and will soon return to lead them. Many recently congregated in Dallas, waiting for that to happen. The FBI considers QAnon a potential source of extremist violence.Trump has refused to disavow QAnon believers. Tucker Carlson, of Fox News, called them “gentle patriots”.Late on Saturday, Wood released a recording of what appeared to be a call between him and Flynn on Telegram, a social media and messaging app favored by far-right extremists. During the conversation, a voice which appears to be Wood is heard to complain that QAnon followers are coming after him online.In answer, the Daily Beast reported, a voice which appears to be Flynn says: “I think it’s a disinformation campaign. I think it’s a disinformation campaign that the CIA created. That’s what I believe. Now, I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s what I think it is. I think it’s a disinformation campaign.’”“I find it total nonsense,” the voice adds. “And I think it’s a disinformation campaign created by the left.”The Guardian could not verify the authenticity of the recording. Contact information for Flynn was not immediately available. Wood could not be reached for comment.Flynn was fired from a top intelligence role by Barack Obama before becoming a close aide to Trump. He was installed as national security adviser but resigned after less than a month, for lying to the FBI about interactions with Russians.Under the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference, Flynn pleaded guilty to one criminal charge. He tried to withdraw that plea, then received a pardon from Trump.Flynn has attracted condemnation for his links to QAnon and the far right, for calling for the establishment of “one religion” in the US, and for seeming to advocate armed insurrection.The recording released by Wood comes amid acrimony among leading pro-Trump figures who have worked to overturn the 2020 election. According to the Daily Beast, the feud appears to have sprung from Wood’s brief representation of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old recently acquitted after killing two people and wounding one at a protest in Wisconsin last year.According to the Beast, Rittenhouse alleged that Wood intentionally let him languish in jail so he could earn money off the case. Wood reportedly became angry that Flynn and Sidney Powell, another pro-Trump attorney, didn’t speak up for him. Why Republicans are embracing Kyle Rittenhouse as their mascotRead morePowell could not be reached for comment on Sunday.The recording apparently featuring Flynn disowning QAnon raised echoes of remarks about a related conspiracy theory by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist.Bannon was pardoned on fraud charges by Trump but now faces a charge of contempt of Congress over the 6 January Capitol attack, to which he has pleaded not guilty.He has repeatedly promoted the “deep state” conspiracy theory, which holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and intelligence agents exists to thwart Trump’s agenda.However, Bannon has also said the “deep state conspiracy theory is for nut cases”.TopicsQAnonMichael FlynnUS politicsRepublicansThe far rightnewsReuse this content More
