Category Archives: Trump administration

Mike Pence: history will hold Donald Trump accountable over Capitol attack

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Former vice-president, speaking at Gridiron dinner, says it ‘mocks decency’ to portray January 6 as anything other than a ‘disgrace’

Mike Pence has offered a rebuke of his one-time boss Donald Trump, saying history will hold the former president accountable for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Pence, then vice-president, was in the Capitol when thousands of Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress certifying the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Biden unveils Trump-style plan to deter asylum seekers at Mexico border

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Administration’s most aggressive plan yet would bar most migrants who hadn’t sought protection in other countries first

The United States could bar tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border from claiming asylum under a proposal unveiled on Tuesday that would be the most wide-ranging attempt yet by Joe Biden’s administration to deter unauthorized crossings.

Under the new rules, the US would generally deny asylum to migrants who show up at the US southern border without first seeking protection in a country they passed through, mirroring an attempt by the Trump administration that never took effect because it was blocked in court.

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Trump was issued subpoena for folder marked ‘Classified Evening Briefing’ discovered at Mar-a-Lago

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Exclusive: Subpoena was issued last month after the folder was observed in Trump’s private quarters at the property

Donald Trump’s lawyers turned over an empty manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” after the US justice department issued a subpoena for its surrender once prosecutors became aware that it was located inside the private quarters of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The previously unreported subpoena was issued last month, the sources said, as the recently appointed special counsel escalates the inquiry into Trump’s possible unauthorized retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice.

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Trump-Russia: ‘investigation of investigators’ leaves little but questions over bias

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Durham inquiry into origins of FBI’s Trump-Russia scrutiny has sparked allegations of a weaponization of justice department

When the Trump justice department tapped a US attorney to examine the origins of the FBI inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, conservatives and many Republicans hoped it would end the idea Donald Trump’s campaign was boosted by Moscow and back his charges that some FBI officials and others had conspired against him.

But instead, as the multi-year investigation winds down, it is ending with accusations that unethical actions by that special counsel – John Durham – and ex-attorney general William Barr “weaponized” the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to help Trump.

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Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-Lago

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Closed-door session could provide insight into the sensitivity of the documents Trump retained and possibility of indictments

US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders about their review of about 300 classified-marked documents retrieved from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year, sources familiar with the matter said.

The precise nature of the briefing remains unclear. The offer from the justice department and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) was described as unofficial on Sunday and no date had yet been set, though the briefing could come as soon as this week.

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Why prosecutors might get Trump – and not Biden – for classified documents

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Trump’s situation is more perilous because of his reluctance to cooperate and his suspected obstruction of justice

Donald Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort is distinguished in the eyes of the justice department from that of Joe Biden or Mike Pence as a result of one particularly crucial difference: suspected obstruction of justice.

Legal experts believe the situation for the former US president is more perilous than others swept up in the scandal because of his reluctance to cooperate at key moments in the investigation and his unwillingness to proactively search his properties for marked documents after becoming aware that he possessed such papers.

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Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’

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Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regime

The publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.

“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said.

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Republicans accuse Biden of hypocrisy over classified documents discoveries

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House oversight chair requests Delaware visitor logs as Democrats stress difference from Trump classified records case

Republicans pounced on the discovery on Saturday of more classified documents at Joe Biden’s residence, accusing the president of hypocrisy and questioning why the records were not brought to light earlier.

Biden lawyers have discovered at least 20 classified documents at his residence outside Wilmington, Delaware, and at an office in Washington used after he left the Obama administration, in which he was vice-president.

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DoJ seeks to question Trump team that found more classified documents

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Government recently persuaded judge to force Trump lawyers to turn over names of people who searched for retained documents

The US Department of Justice is intensifying its investigation of Donald Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security materials at Mar-a-Lago as it prepares to question the people who searched the former president’s Florida properties at the end of last year and found more documents with classified markings.

The department was given a general explanation from Trump’s lawyers at the time about who conducted the search – a company known to Trump with experience handling classified records cases – when the new documents marked as classified were returned to the government around Thanksgiving last year.

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Trump tax returns: key takeaways from the records release

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The former president had a bank account in China, failed to donate in 2020 and claims Democrats ‘weaponized’ his taxes

In one of its last acts under Democratic control, the House of Representatives on Friday released six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, dating to 2015, the year he announced his presidential bid.

The thousands of pages of returns were the subject of a prolonged legal battle after Trump broke precedent by not releasing his tax returns while running for, and then occupying, the White House.

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Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report says

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Mike Lee of Utah made comment in text message to Trump aide on evening after the Capitol attack

A senator who received a voice message meant for another Republican on January 6 described the caller, Rudy Giuliani, as “walking malpractice”.

The piquant characterisation of the former New York mayor, then Donald Trump’s attorney and a leading proponent of his election fraud lie, was made in a text message sent by Mike Lee of Utah.

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From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearings

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As the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standouts

The House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work.

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10 hearings, 1,000 interviews, millions of documents: the House panel has spoken

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The evidence points to the fact that the former commander-in-chief is likely a criminal who committed a ‘crime against democracy’

Whodunnit? He did it.

Donald Trump – businessman, celebrity president, golfer and digital trading card star – is also a likely criminal, the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol concluded on Monday.

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Anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone defrocked by Vatican

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Pavone had been investigated for placing an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it online

The Vatican has defrocked the anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.

A letter to US bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken and that there was no chance for an appeal.

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Trump said Pence was ‘too honest’ over January 6 plot, says ex-vice-president in book

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Pence also seems to blame anti-Trump Lincoln Project for angering former president with political ad, fueling Capitol attack

Shortly before the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump warned Mike Pence he was “too honest” when he hesitated to pursue legalistic attempts to stop certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and would make Trump’s supporters “hate his guts”, the former vice-president writes in his memoir.

Pence also seems, bizarrely, to blame the anti-Trump Lincoln Project for enraging Trump with a political ad, thereby fueling the anger that incited the Capitol attack.

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Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidence

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New book by Arkansas senator, a Republican presidential hopeful, also suggests president did not understand military procedures

In January 2020, the rightwing Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton said he would vote to acquit Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial because despite senators having “heard from 17 witnesses … and received more than 28,000 pages of documents”, Democrats had not presented their case correctly.

According to Cotton, the senators who sat through so much evidence would “perform the role intended for us by the founders, of providing the ‘cool and deliberate sense of the community’, as it says in Federalist 63”.

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Meadows was central to hundreds of texts about overturning 2020 election, book says

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Messages include group chat among cabinet officials and plans by lawmakers to object to election certification

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, was at the center of hundreds of incoming messages about ways to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee that have been published in a new book.

The texts included previously unreported messages, including a group chat with Trump administration cabinet officials and plans to object to Joe Biden’s election certification on January 6 by Republican members of Congress and one former US attorney, as well as other Trump allies.

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Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficial

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Ebrahim Raisi says he sees no ‘changes in reality’ from Trump administration as hopes to revive nuclear talks dampen

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.

Raisi underlined the firm position of his government and dampened hopes that a week of summitry at UNGA in New York might yield any progress in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington has rejected the latest Iranian bargaining positive as “not constructive”, and most observers believe there will be no breakthroughs at least until after the US congressional elections in November.

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Trump: US justice department appeals judge’s Mar-a-Lago investigation hold

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DoJ seeks to continue reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida home

The justice department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.

The department told the 11th circuit US court of appeals in Atlanta that the judge’s hold, imposed last week, had impeded the “government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security” and interfered with its investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago. It asked the court to remove that order so work could resume, and to halt a judge’s directive forcing the department to provide the seized classified documents to an independent arbiter for his review.

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Bannon is not finished: his ‘precinct strategy’ could alter US elections for years

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One longtime Bannon watcher says it’s too early to count him out – even a prison term could enhance his status among the Maga crowd

When Steve Bannon heard that he was, after all, going to face charges last week for allegedly ripping off contributors to a multimillion-dollar fund to build a wall on the Mexican border, he claimed it was a sign of his success.

Donald Trump’s former strategist said his arrest on Thursday was an attempt to shut down his War Room pod and video cast because it is driving grassroots support for the former president’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement and reshaping the Republican party ahead of the midterm elections.

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