Category Archives: US elections 2020

Georgia grand jury report on Trump election pressure to be partially released

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Judge ruled certain sections will be made public this week, including one involving witnesses who may have lied under oath

Portions of a Georgia grand jury’s report on whether Donald Trump and allies committed crimes when they tried to overturn the 2020 election will be made public this week, but the entirety of the report will remain secret until the Fulton county prosecutor decides whether to bring charges, a judge ruled on Monday.

The sections that will be made public are the report’s introduction, conclusion and a section discussing whether some of the witnesses who testified before the special purpose grand jury lied under oath. The section does not identify which witnesses may have lied.

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Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – as it happened

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Senior state officials have commented on the postponement of Blinken’s trip to China after a Chinese spy balloon was discovered over the US yesterday, noting that conditions were no longer right for Blinken’s travel.

From Reuters’ reporter Hümeyra Pamuk:

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Judge to rule on releasing Georgia grand jury report into Trump election meddling – live

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Jurors recommended making public the report into efforts to overturn results of 2020 election

A judge in Atlanta will at 12 pm eastern time convene a hearing to determine whether to release a special grand jury’s report into attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to meddle in the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The jurors have recommended making the report public, and Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton county, which encompasses Georgia’s capital, is using its findings to determine whether to bring charges in the investigation, which has centered on the attempts by top Trump allies like attorney Rudy Giuliani and senator Lindsey Graham to convince state officials to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. It’s unclear if Willis is considering charges against Trump in the case. Attorneys for the former president said yesterday they will not attend the hearing, and that Trump has not committed any crimes.

The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.

Military officials have argued publicly that the Abrams tanks require a substantial amount of training and logistics support and therefore aren’t appropriate for this moment in the conflict.

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Ginni Thomas ‘never spoke’ about 2020 vote to supreme court justice husband

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Clarence Thomas’s wife says couple did not discuss challenges to Biden’s election victory, in testimony released by January 6 panel

The conservative activist Ginni Thomas has “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, during the heat of the battle to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to congressional testimony released on Friday.

Thomas, 65, recalled “an emotional time” in which her mood was lifted by her husband and Mark Meadows, then Donald Trump’s chief of staff, a transcript of her deposition with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol showed.

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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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Schiff: ‘Sufficient evidence’ to criminally charge Trump over efforts to overturn election

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Dramatic statement comes one day before January 6 panel set to release outline of its investigative report on US Capitol attack

California congressman Adam Schiff said Sunday that he believes there is “sufficient evidence” to criminally charge Donald Trump in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Schiff’s dramatic statement on CNN’s State of the Union came one day before the House January 6 select committee to which he belongs is poised to release an outline of its extensive investigative report on the US Capitol attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers.

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Republican who urged Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets misspelling

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Text from Ralph Norman to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, urged president to declare martial law

A Republican who urged the Trump White House to declare martial law to stop Joe Biden taking office has only one regret: that he misspelled “martial”.

The text from Ralph Norman of South Carolina to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, was given to the January 6 committee by Meadows and revealed by Talking Points Memo.

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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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FBI arrests two alleged far-right Boogaloo Boys group members

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The arrests come amid concerns about the potential for violence around next week’s US midterm elections

The FBI has arrested two alleged members of the far-right anti-government group the Boogaloo Boys, as authorities express increasing concern about the potential for violence around next week’s US midterm elections.

Timothy Teagan was expected to appear on Wednesday in federal court in Detroit, where charges against him would be unsealed, an FBI spokesperson said.

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Trump allies saw Clarence Thomas as key to efforts to challenge 2020 election

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Emails show ex-president’s attorney saying justice was ‘our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion’ by 6 January

In a last desperate attempt to delay or disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race, allies of Donald Trump sought to appeal to conservative supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, new emails show.

The emails, recently obtained by the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, show that members of Trump’s legal team considered Thomas to be “key” to their efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.

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Two Chinese spies charged with trying to obstruct US Huawei investigation, Garland says – as it happened

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Republican senator Ted Cruz was a vociferous objector to the 2020 election, but ended up hiding in a supply closet when insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6, as Ramon Antonio Vargas reports:

As a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol during the January 6 attack in a desperate attempt to keep him in the Oval Office, Ted Cruz hid in a closet next to a stack of chairs, but he never thought twice about continuing to sow doubt about the former president’s electoral defeat, the Republican senator from Texas has revealed.

Tight Senate margins and a Democratic president would make it impossible for GOP leaders to deliver on the party’s most hardline fiscal wishes, at least with President Joe Biden still in office. The disappointment would surely prompt blowback from right-leaning Republicans already known as the sharpest thorns in the party’s side.

“Spare me if you’re a Republican who puts on your frigging campaign website, ‘Trust me, I will vote for a balanced budget amendment, and I believe we should balance the budget like every family in America.’ No shit,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus, said in an interview.

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Trump signed statement alleging voter fraud knowing it was false, judge says

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Document was part of lawsuit challenging results of 2020 election in Georgia

Donald Trump signed a legal statement alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election despite being told the numbers underpinning the case were false, a federal judge said on Wednesday.

The disclosure was made by the US district judge David Carter, who ordered John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer, to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

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Jan 6 hearing updates: panel votes to subpoena Donald Trump – as it happened

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The bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating the January 6 insurrection has started what is expected to be its last public hearing, where lawmakers are set to focus on Donald Trump’s actions during the attack.

Follow this blog for coverage of the hearing as it happens. A live video feed of the session will be embedded above.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are waging a war of words over the Opec+ oil production cut and Washington’s claim Riyadh has aligned itself with Russia.

The New York attorney general has warned Trump and his business are taking steps to undermine her lawsuit against them, and asked a judge to step in.

Social security recipients are getting a big increase in monthly payments – but only because inflation is so high.

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Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testify

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Alyssa Farah and Cassidy Hutchinson tell January 6 panel former president acknowledged he had been defeated by Joe Biden

Donald Trump privately admitted to losing the 2020 election even as he worked to undermine and change the results, according to two top aides who testified before the January 6 committee.

During the ninth and possibly final hearing, the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection shared new testimony from Alyssa Farah, a former White House aide, who said that a week after the election was called in favor of Biden, Trump was watching Biden on the television in the Oval Office, and said: “‘Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?’”

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McConnell endorses bipartisan bill to prevent efforts to overturn US elections

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Legislation would clarify and expand parts of 1887 Electoral Count Act and aim to avoid repeat of January 6 insurrection

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Tuesday he would “proudly support” legislation to overhaul rules for certifying presidential elections, bolstering a bipartisan effort to revise a 19th-century law and avoid any repeat of the January 6 insurrection.

The legislation would clarify and expand parts of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which, along with the constitution, governs how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential winners.

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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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Trump claimed ‘I was not watching television’ on January 6, book says

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Ex-president denied knowing his supporters were rioting and called them ‘fucking crazy’, Maggie Haberman writes in new book

Donald Trump denied knowing at the time the January 6 attack on the US Capitol started that a mob of his supporters – whom he privately called “fucking crazy” – were rioting, the author of a forthcoming book on his chaotic presidency writes in what may stand as one of the most surprising, non-believable postscripts of his tenure in the Oval Office.

“I didn’t usually have the television on. I’d have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening,” Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming account Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.

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January 6 panel to take up key unanswered questions in final hearing

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Wednesday’s session is committee’s last chance to show potential culpability of Donald Trump before midterm elections

The House January 6 select committee is expected to hold its final public hearing next Wednesday, with the congressional investigation into the US Capitol attack nearing its conclusion as staff counsel prepare to produce an interim report of its findings before the 2022 midterm elections.

The specific topic of the final hearing that the panel’s chairman, Congressman Bennie Thompson, will convene starting at 1pm is unclear.

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Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book says

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News of ‘stunning’ attempt to rescind dramatic election night call contained in The Divider, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser

Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted the network to withdraw its famous call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020, citing pressure from Donald Trump’s campaign and saying the swing state should be “put back in his column”, a new book says.

News of Baier’s email is contained in The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, published in the US on Tuesday.

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Trump backed failed campaign coup against Kushner, Navarro book says

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Ex-adviser says president in 2020 agreed that his son-in-law had to be replaced by Steve Bannon but did not dare try to fire him

In June 2020, less than five months before polling day, Donald Trump agreed to a “coup d’état” to remove his son-in-law Jared Kushner from control of his presidential re-election campaign and replace him with the far-right provocateur Steve Bannon.

The coup had support from Donald Trump Jr but according to a new book by the former Trump aide Peter Navarro it did not work, after Trump refused to give Kushner the bad news himself.

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