Category Archives: Republicans

Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panel

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Cassidy Hutchinson tells committee Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the Capitol

In explosive public testimony, a former White House aide told the January 6 committee Donald Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the US Capitol in a last-gasp effort to remain in power.

Appearing at a hastily scheduled hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, painted a devastating portrait of a raging president spiraling out of control and a White House often too ambivalent to constrain him.

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Jan 6 committee hearings: Cheney describes possible witness tampering after ex-aide’s testimony – as it happened

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The Guardian’s Ashifa Kassam and Ramon Antonio Vargas report:

Fifty suspected migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.

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January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aides

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Footage captured by documentary film-maker understood to show ex-president’s children privately discussing election strategies

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.

The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.

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Capitol attack hearings: if Republicans did nothing wrong, why were pardons sought?

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The email from Alabama’s Mo Brooks potentially reveals what conduct by lawmakers he feared might be criminal

When the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed the evidence that showed Republican members of Congress sought preemptive presidential pardons after January 6, one of the most striking requests came from Congressman Mo Brooks.

The request from Brooks to the Trump White House came in an 11 January 2021 email – obtained by the Guardian – that asked for all-purpose, preemptive pardons for lawmakers involved in objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

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Protests sweep across nation as supreme court overturns Roe v Wade – follow live

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Former president Barack Obama has condemned the supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, calling it an attack on “the essential freedoms of millions of Americans”:

President Joe Biden is expected to address the nation:

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‘More to come’: what the January 6 panel has revealed of Trump’s efforts to retain power

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In five hearings, the committee has shown the various paths the ex-president and his team explored to overturn the election

The January 6 select committee held its final hearing for this month on Thursday, sharing new details about Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure top justice department officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Across the committee’s five hearings this month, investigators have presented a meticulous account of Trump’s exhaustive efforts to cling to power after losing the election to Joe Biden. The panel has shown how Trump and his allies explored every possible avenue – from pressuring the vice-president, Mike Pence, to leaning on state election officials and justice department leaders – to promote lies about widespread election fraud.

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Republicans who aided coup attempt sought blanket presidential pardons

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Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz among those who requested to be let off after attempting to overturn election results

The Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks sought a blanket pardon of members of Congress involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden through lies about electoral fraud, the House January 6 committee revealed on Thursday.

A witness said Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania also contacted the White House about securing pardons. The same witness, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, said she heard Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist from Georgia, wanted a pardon too.

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January 6 hearings outlined ‘inner workings of political coup in service of Trump’, panel chair says – as it happened

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Committee ends fifth hearing, with next sessions expected in July

Gun rights have been in the news for weeks following two shocking mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York — a fact that has not escaped the supreme court.

In his concurrence with the majority opinion, conservative justice Samuel Alito connects the latter shooting with the concealed weapons regulation that the court struck down. “Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator,” wrote Alito, who was also the author of the draft opinion overturning abortion rights that leaked in May.

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Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claims

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Former attorney general says ‘I am not sure we would have had a transition at all’ if investigation had not immediately taken place

Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, thought Trump might have refused to leave office at all had the Department of Justice not immediately investigated and disproved his lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.

“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” Barr said, in startling video testimony played by the January 6 committee on Thursday.

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Republican senator faces backlash for work on gun bill after school shooting

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John Cornyn of Texas, lead negotiator on modest bipartisan reform proposal in Senate, was booed and heckled at party convention

In the aftermath of the Uvalde mass school shooting, the Texas senator John Cornyn is facing backlash from his own Republican party for being a lead negotiator on the bipartisan gun reform bill, the most significant legislation on gun control in America in decades.

At the state’s annual Republican convention recently held in Houston, Cornyn was booed and heckled – a visible sign he is losing support from those within his own party. He dismissed the taunting crowd as a “mob”.

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Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew alternate electors scheme was fraudulent

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Text appears to indicate campaign sought to use certificates it knew were not state-certified to obstruct Biden’s victory

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.

The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.

Note: This post was updated to clarify the former US attorneys’ titles.

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‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their lives

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Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats

In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.

Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”

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Texas Republican party adopts far-right position that homosexuality is ‘abnormal’

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Delegates at biennial convention also approve platform declaring that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected

The Republican party in Texas has officially adopted a series of extreme-right positions that includes claims Joe Biden was not legitimately elected and homosexuality is “abnormal”.

In a platform adopted at its biennial convention in Houston, delegates voted to oppose “all efforts to validate transgender identity”, including the use of taxpayer funds for any “medical gender dysphoria treatments or sex change operations”.

The anti-trans and anti-gay declarations are part of the state party’s new guiding principles, in a section titled homosexuality and gender issues, which contradict claims by some Republicans that the GOP wants to be more inclusive.

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Republican states trying to ban abortion expand health benefits for new mothers

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Bills with benefits for low-income mothers don’t counteract bans that would lead to higher risks for maternal mortality, say experts

A number of Republican-led states that are moving to ban abortion are, at the same time, extending health insurance benefits to new mothers, professing to support “women in crisis”.

As the US supreme court prepares to rule on national abortion rights, many Republican states are seeking severe abortion bans that would force many women to carry pregnancies to term, likely worsening the US maternal mortality crisis.

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Kinzinger: Trump’s actions surrounding January 6 amount to ‘seditious conspiracy’

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Republican member of the Capitol attack panel also says Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riot had ‘criminal involvement’

A Republican member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol said on Sunday that he believes Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riots amount to “seditious conspiracy” and “criminal involvement by a president”.

Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger’s remarks on ABC’s This Week came after three hearings held by the House January 6 committee presented searing testimony and mounting evidence about Trump’s central role in a complex plot to overturn his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

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Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro pleads not guilty to contempt charges in January 6 case – as it happened

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President Joe Biden has cheered the Food and Drug Administration’s decision today to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than five years old, the last group of Americans that didn’t have access to the jabs.

“Today is a day of huge relief for parents and families across America. Following a rigorous scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the first COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of five. As early as next week, pending recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), parents will finally be able to get their youngest kids the protection of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

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Pence the ‘hero’ who foiled Trump’s plot – could it lead to a 2024 run?

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The former VP rejected the plot to overturn the election – the death knell for Trump and Pence’s marriage of convenience

Mike Pence was described as the hero of the hour, the man who stood his ground to Donald Trump’s coup plot and saved America from a violent “revolution”.

Yet among the rows of committee members, witnesses, reporters, congressmen and women and young citizens at Thursday’s January 6 hearing into the attack on the Capitol, the former vice-president was nowhere to be seen. Pence was 500 miles away in Ohio to promote “American energy dominance”.

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Abortion and gun decisions loom as US supreme court releases more opinions – live

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A special election in south Texas last night ended with bad news for Democrats when the district chose a Republican to represent it in the House of Representatives for the first time. But as Victoria Bekiempis reports, the victor Mayra Flores will face a stiffer challenge in November, when she must stand for her seat once more.

A south Texas congressional district will be represented by a Republican for the first time following a special election Tuesday. The election of Mayra Flores, who bested her Democrat competitor in a 51%-43% vote, comes as Republicans continue to make inroads among Latino voters in south Texas.

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Mayra Flores wins special election to turn Texas House seat Republican

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South Texas congressional district goes Republican for first time as party continues to make inroads among Latino voters

A south Texas congressional district will be represented by a Republican for the first time following a special election Tuesday. The election of Mayra Flores, who bested her Democrat competitor in a 51%-43% vote, comes as Republicans continue to make inroads among Latino voters in south Texas.

Flores, reportedly the first Latina Republican to serve Texas in Congress, is expected to face a more challenging race in November, however. Her victory was to replace Democrat Filemon Vela, who retired before his term ended – meaning she was elected to serve out the remainder.

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Democrats voice concerns over Biden’s Saudi trip: ‘Their values are not ours’ – as it happened

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Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the text of the gun control compromise reached by senators this weekend should come in the “coming days.”

Before the chamber can vote on the proposal, it needs to see a bill first, following this weekend’s announcement of an agreement that could pass the evenly divided Senate.

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