Category Archives: Republicans

Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order to protect him from arrest in Georgia – as it happened

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The blog is now closed, but please follow these links to the Guardian’s latest US politics stories:

The Fulton county district attorney has advised several of Donald Trump’s co-defendants that they should surrender at the jail around 3am ET if they want a quick turnaround on their booking because it could take hours during the day, per people familiar.

Expect some surrenders in early hours.

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‘Inhumane’: judge hears arguments about anti-migrant buoys in Rio Grande

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Court to decide whether to remove them as Greg Abbott and other Republican governors defend militarization of border with Mexico

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday about whether state authorities should remove huge buoys installed to stop migrants crossing the river that divides Texas from Mexico.

The court hearing in Austin came a day after Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and a group of hardline Republican governors gathered on the riverbank to defend local militarization of the US-Mexico border – while also acknowledging that the 1,000ft (305-meter) floating barrier had been adjusted after complaints that it had mostly drifted into Mexican territory.

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Joe and Jill Biden land in Hawaii to survey wildfire devastation – live

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The Bidens are accompanied by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell

Donald Trump continues to hold a dominant lead over the rest of the GOP field in Iowa, the site of the nation’s first presidential caucuses, with 23 points ahead of his closest competitor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, according to a new poll.

The survey by the Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom of likely Republican caucus-goers, was conducted before and after Trump’s latest indictment in Georgia, and shows the former president’s lead over DeSantis increased after his latest charges.

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Trump should drop out of 2024 presidential race, says Republican

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Senator Bill Cassidy says ‘he will lose to Joe Biden’ as ex-president faces more than 90 pending charges

Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 race for the White House because polling shows the former US president trailing Joe Biden as he grapples with more than 90 pending criminal charges, according to Republican US senator Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy’s comments to State of the Union host Kasie Hunt were not the first time he has denounced Trump. About two months earlier, he went on CNN and predicted that Trump would lose if his party nominated him to run for the Oval Office again, citing the poor performance of his endorsed candidates during the 2022 midterms.

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Pence won’t say if criminal conviction should rule Trump out as president

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Former vice-president who once voted to expel felon from Congress says American people should decide

Donald Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, refused to say Trump should be barred from returning to the White House if he is convicted on any of 91 criminal charges against him.

“I think that he’s to be left to the American people,” Pence told ABC’s This Week, on Sunday. “Let’s have the former president have his day in court. Let’s maintain a presumption of innocence.”

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Joe Biden says US, Japan and South Korea ‘doubling down’ on joint defense against security threats – as it happened

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US president, Yoon Suk Yeol and Fumio Kishida meet as they agree to take trilateral defence cooperation to ‘unprecedented levels’

A standalone summit bringing together the leaders of Japan and South Korea would have been almost unthinkable just over a year ago, when the north-east Asian neighbours were embroiled in disputes over their bitter wartime legacy.

Bilateral ties were at a low point before the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, took office in May 2022, due to compensation claims by Koreans over Japan’s use of forced labour during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, and the longstanding controversy over Korean women who were coerced into working in Japanese military brothels.

It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America.

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Trump indictment sparks fears of calls to violence as Georgia grand jury doxxed – as it happened

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This blog is now closed, but continuing coverage of Trump’s Georgia indictment can be found here and here.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.

In an interview with Politico, Haley said:

I think everybody that says, ‘She’s doing this to be vice president,’ needs to understand I don’t run for second.

That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.

Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.

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Ron DeSantis campaign suffers another blow after debate memos published

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Rightwing Florida governor’s talking points for the first Republican debate include defending Trump and attacking Biden

Seeking to resurrect his flagging US presidential campaign, Ron DeSantis suffered a major embarrassment when memos about his preparation for the first Republican debate were reported by the New York Times.

Including advice not to attack the clear frontrunner, Donald Trump, the memos to the rightwing Florida governor ahead of the debate in Milwaukee next Wednesday were posted online by a consulting firm owned by Jeff Roe, chief strategist to Never Back Down, a Super Pac backing DeSantis.

Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.

State [DeSantis’s] positive vision 2-3 times.

Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response.

Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.

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Biden to tout climate benefits of Inflation Reduction Act as White House announces visit to fire-ravaged Hawaii – live

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US president and first lady to meet survivors and first responders on Monday; White House speech on anniversary will extol wins on EVs and green energy

The US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.

These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.

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Georgia indictment lays out Trump election plot in all its shocking detail

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Charging document, staggering in its breadth and ambition of its charges, may represent greatest legal peril for ex-president to date

There’s no other way to say it: the 98-page indictment handed down by a Fulton county grand jury on Monday represents the most aggressive effort to hold Donald Trump and allies accountable for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The document is staggering in its breadth and the ambition of its charges. The 41 counts of crimes in it, including 13 against Trump, detail the lies the former president and his co-defendants told the public about fraud to try and keep him in power. It doesn’t back away from charging Trump’s attorneys and inner circle with crimes for coordinating a plan to create slates of fake electors and to stop Congress from counting votes. Some of the state’s 16 fake electors themselves also face charges. And it also casts a wide net, not letting those who breached voting equipment and intimidated poll workers off the hook.

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Governor Brian Kemp tells Trump Georgia’s 2020 election ‘was not stolen’

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Republican says no one has produced evidence of fraud in court of law despite ex-president’s vow to present ‘irrefutable’ proof

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, insisted on Tuesday that the 2020 presidential election in his state “was not stolen” in an apparent defense of the latest criminal indictment of Donald Trump.

Kemp, who has clashed frequently with the former president over his false claim the election was rigged, responded on Twitter to an earlier post on Truth Social from Trump announcing a press conference next week at which he promised to present “irrefutable” evidence of fraud.

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Trump election investigation: Georgia grand jury witnesses called early as prosecutors ‘moving faster’ than expected – live

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Former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi to testify on Monday; court publishes then removes docket of charges against Trump

Twice impeached and now arrested and indicted three times. Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida and Washington over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is simultaneously reeling from a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation toward writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.

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Election-interference charges loom for Trump as docket posted then removed

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Georgia court appears to publish then take down key document, while ex-president lashes out against perceived persecutors

The indictment of Donald Trump over his attempted election subversion in Georgia loomed closer on Monday amid an apparent false alarm about charges being filed and a series of angry statements from the former president punctuating a day of prosecution presentations in court.

At about midday, a two-page docket report posted to the Fulton county court website indicated charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements. The appearance of the report set off a flurry of news media activity, but then the document vanished.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign manager to pay $25k over Ohio train derailment scam

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Isaiah Wartman and two others ordered to pay restitution over role in fraudulent fund claiming to help East Palestine victims

The manager of the 2020 campaign that launched the far-right politician Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress has been ordered to pay $25,000 for his role in a charity scam aimed at capitalizing on the East Palestine train crash.

Isaiah Wartman and his business partner Luke Mahoney must each pay $22,000 in restitution as well as $3,000 in investigative costs and fees as part of a settlement with the Ohio attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case. Meanwhile, the settlement calls for a co-founder of the fake charity, Michael Peppel, to pay a $25,000 civil penalty and be banned from starting, running or soliciting for any charitable organization in the state.

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Three-year-old asylum seeker dies after being bussed from Texas to Chicago

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From Venezuela, the child died at a local Illinois hospital on Thursday evening after showing signs of illness

A three-year-old girl from Venezuela being transported to Chicago from Texas by bus with other migrants died at a local Illinois hospital after showing signs of illness, the Texas department of emergency management said on Friday.

“Once the child presented with health concerns, the bus pulled over and security personnel on board called 9-1-1 for emergency attention,” the TDEM said in a written statement.

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Prosecutors ask for 2 January start date for Trump 2020 election interference case – live

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Federal prosecutors say they estimate it will take four to six weeks to present their case against former US president

US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been embroiled in ethics scandals for months following bombshell revelations by ProPublica, which included how Thomas repeatedly accepted luxury vacations such as a $500,000 trip to Indonesia in 2019 from Harlan Crow, a billionaire businessman, Republican donor and longtime friend.

Thomas, Samuel Alito and the Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch – all conservative hardliners on the supreme court – have fallen foul of recent ethics disputes.

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Democratic Senator Joe Manchin ‘thinking seriously’ about leaving party

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The West Virginia member has crossed paths with his party over legislation to combat climate crisis and protect voting rights

The West Virginia senator Joe Manchin is “thinking seriously” about abandoning the Democratic party to run as an independent for Congress or as a third-party candidate for president.

“I’m thinking seriously,” Manchin, 75, told a West Virginia radio host on Thursday. “I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad, the ‘D’ brand and ‘R’ brand. In West Virginia, the ‘D’ brand because it’s [the] national brand. It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia, it’s the Democrats in Washington.

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Trump investigation: special counsel Jack Smith obtained search warrant for Twitter account – live

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Twitter initially delayed producing the materials, resulting in a fine of $350,000

There has been open debate within the Democratic party over whether Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half-month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.

Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through.

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Pence has ‘no plans to testify’ against Trump but vows to ‘obey the law’

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‘We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we’ll just tell the truth,’ says former vice-president during CBS interview

Former vice-president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said that he has “no plans to testify” against Donald Trump but vowed to “obey the law”.

In a recent interview after federal prosecutors charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Pence was asked by CBS correspondent Major Garrett whether he would be a witness against Trump if the case went to trial.

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Inside Trump’s ‘alternate electors’ plot to steal the vote in Georgia

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We piece together the astonishing story of how 16 men and women tried to reshape the course of US history

At 11.30am on 14 December 2020, Greg Bluestein, a political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, hurried into the Georgia state capitol at the start of what he knew would be a momentous day. He was one of a handful of reporters who were to witness the casting of electoral college votes which would officially hand Joe Biden victory in the critical battleground state – and with it the US presidency.

As Bluestein rushed up to the state senate chamber where the 16 Democratic electors were assembling ahead of the historic vote, he passed meeting room 216. He noticed a gaggle of people milling around its heavy wooden door, among them some of the 16 Republican electors chosen to represent Donald Trump should he have won the Georgia race.

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