Category Archives: Trump administration

Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ him

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Argument made in federal court filing in Washington, where Trump’s chief of staff sued to invalidate subpoenas

Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has accused the congressional committee investigating the US Capitol attack of leaking all the text messages he provided in what he says is an effort to vilify him publicly.

The argument was made in a filing on Friday in federal court in Washington, where Meadows sued in December to invalidate subpoenas issued for his testimony and to Verizon for his cellphone records.

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Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 election

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A former staffer testified that White House counsel said the scheme involving fake electoral college votes was not legally sound

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned the effort to overturn the 2020 election with fake electoral college votes was not legally sound – and yet proceeded anyway, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack said Friday.

In a court filing, the panel also said that Meadows went ahead with plans to have Trump speak at the Ellipse rally that descended into the Capitol attack, only days after being expressly told by the US Secret Service that there was potential for violence on 6 January 2021.

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Ex-Trump aide Stephen Miller testifies to House January 6 panel for eight hours

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Subpoenaed former White House adviser gives virtual deposition on whether Trump encouraged supporters to march on Capitol

Former White House aide Stephen Miller testified on Thursday to the House select committee investigating January 6 about whether Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The virtual deposition, which lasted for roughly eight hours and was earlier reported by the New York Times, also touched on Miller’s role in the former president’s schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election and return him to office, the source said.

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House January 6 committee to consider holding two Trump aides in contempt

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Panel to meet next week after former senior White House advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino refused to appear for depositions

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack will consider holding in criminal contempt of Congress next week two of Donald Trump’s most senior White House advisers, Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, the panel announced on Thursday.

The move to initiate contempt proceedings against the two Trump aides amounts to a biting rebuke of their refusal to cooperate with the inquiry, as the panel deploys its most punitive measures to reaffirm the consequences of noncompliance.

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Capitol attack inquiry narrows on Trump as panel subpoenas top aide

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Move to pursue Peter Navarro suggests the select committee is edging ever closer to examining potential culpability for Trump

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Wednesday subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former White House senior adviser Peter Navarro, escalating its inquiry into the former president’s efforts to return himself to office and the January 6 insurrection.

The move to pursue Navarro, who helped finalize the scheme to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win with political operatives at the Willard hotel in Washington DC, suggests the panel is edging ever closer to examining potential culpability for Trump.

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Rudy Giuliani doesn’t need a monster costume to scare children | Sam Wolfson

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Trump’s lawyer was revealed to be a contestant on The Masked Singer – and when Robin Thicke storms off in protest, you know you’ve got problems

It’s like something from a Guillermo del Toro film: a grotesque fantasy creature disrobes, only to reveal an even more horrifying monster underneath. But that’s what viewers will see when the US version of The Masked Singer, Fox’s incognito singing competition, returns at the end of this month.

The show, in which a panel of judges and the audience try to guess the identity of celebrity vocalists dressed in furry theme-park costumes, is taped in advance of airing. But Deadline reports that at the first episode’s climax, when the eliminated singer reveals their true identity, it was Rudy Giuliani whose head popped out of the costume. Judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the set in protest. Quite a good reflection of how bad a guy you have to be when rape-culture chanteur Thicke, the singer of Blurred Lines, decides you’re beyond the pale.

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Trump risked disaster with Abbas praise in key Israel meeting, ambassador says

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In new book, David Friedman recounts private meeting with Israeli president in which Trump also knocked Netanyahu – and how he says he turned his man around

Meeting then-Israeli president Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem in May 2017, Donald Trump stunned advisers by criticising the then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being unwilling to seek peace while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, was “desperate” for a deal.

The comment “knocked everyone off their chairs”, David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, writes in a new book.

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Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn to see honorary university degrees revoked

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University of Rhode Island board votes unanimously to revoke degrees given to key allies of Donald Trump in 2003 and 2014

The University of Rhode Island will revoke honorary degrees given to Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn, key allies of Donald Trump in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The URI board of trustees on Friday voted unanimously to revoke the degrees, which were given to Giuliani in 2003 and Flynn in 2014.

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Trump held secret meetings in days before Capitol attack, ex-press secretary tells panel

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Stephanie Grisham gave more significant details than expected about what Trump was doing before 6 January, sources say

The former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that Donald Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in days before 6 January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The former senior Trump aide also told House investigators that the details of whether Trump actually intended to march to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse rally would be memorialized in documents provided to the US Secret Service, the sources said.

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Supreme court rejects Trump bid to shield documents from January 6 panel

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Court’s move leaves no legal impediment to turning National Archives documents over to congressional committee

The US supreme court has rejected a request by Donald Trump to block the release of White House records to the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol, dealing a blow to the former president.

The order, which casts aside Trump’s request to stop the House select committee from obtaining the records while the case makes its way through the courts, means more than 700 documents that could shed light on the attack can be transferred to Congress.

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Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr to publish his memoirs

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The book, to be published in March, will divulge details from his tenure as attorney general for George HW Bush and Trump

William Barr, Donald Trump’s second attorney general and perceived “hatchet man” until he split from the former president over his lies about election fraud, will publish his memoirs in March.

HarperCollins, the publisher of One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, promised a “vivid and forthright” read on Barr’s long career in law and conservative politics, in which he was first attorney general under George HW Bush.

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Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policy

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Barak Ravid has written a fascinating account of four chaotic years in which some progress was nonetheless made

Trump’s Peace is a blockbuster of a book. Barak Ravid captures the 45th president saying “Fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu and reducing American Jews to antisemitic caricatures. Imagine the Republican reaction if Barack Obama had done that. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham would plotz. But Trump? Crickets.

Ravid also delivers a mesmerizing tick-tock of the making of the Abraham Accords, the normalization of Israel’s relations with four non-neighboring Arab states.

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Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecution

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In a unanimous vote, the committee said Donald Trump’s former chief of staff attempted to obstruct the 6 January investigation

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday voted to recommend the criminal prosecution for former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, punishing Donald Trump’s most senior aide for refusing to testify about the 6 January insurrection.

The select committee advanced the contempt of Congress report for Meadows unanimously, sending the matter to a vote before the full House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the citation as soon as Tuesday.

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Trump rails against Meadows for revealing Covid test cover-up – report

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  • Guardian revealed explosive claims in chief of staff’s memoir
  • Trump slams ‘fake news’ but in private says aide ‘fucking stupid’

In a blurb on the cover of Mark Meadows’ new book, Donald Trump calls the former congressman a “great chief of staff – as good as it gets” and predicts “a great future together”. The former president has also promoted the book to his followers.

Now the book is in the public domain, however, the former president reportedly thinks it is “garbage” and that Meadows was “fucking stupid” to write it.

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Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report says

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Ex-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.

The 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.

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Ex-defense secretary sues over withheld material from Trump era memoir

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Mark 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.

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Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claims

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Two cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says

Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.

The amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.

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Capitol attack panel faces pivotal moment as Trump allies stonewall

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Questions about Trump’s role in 6 January may go unanswered unless House investigators can secure a breakthrough to obtain documents and testimony

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is confronting a pivotal moment as resistance from top Trump administration aides threatens to undermine their efforts to uncover the extent of the former president’s involvement in the 6 January insurrection.

The select committee remains in the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation that now encompasses at least five different lines of inquiry from whether Donald Trump abused the presidency to reinstall himself in office or coordinated with far-right rally organizers.

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Trump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack records

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  • Ex-president challenges decision to waive executive privilege
  • White House says Trump ‘abused the office of the presidency’

Donald Trump has sought to block the release of documents related to the US Capitol attack to a House committee investigating the incident, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege.

In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the committee’s request in August was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege.

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Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’

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Former assistant attorney general faces possible disbarment and charges after report details machinations on Trump’s behalf

Jeffrey Clark, a former top environmental lawyer at the Trump justice department accused of plotting with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is facing ethics investigations in Washington that could lead to possible disbarment, as well as a watchdog inquiry that might result in a criminal referral.

The mounting scrutiny of the ex-assistant attorney general, who led the justice department’s environment division for almost two years and then ran its civil division, was provoked by a report from the Senate judiciary committee whose Democratic chairman, Richard Durbin, has asked the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel to examine Clark’s conduct and possibly sanction him.

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