Category Archives: US elections 2020

Ginni Thomas urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn election results

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In texts to Mark Meadows, the wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas pushed Trump’s ‘big lie’

In the weeks following the 2020 election, the conservative activist Ginni Thomas – who is married to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas – repeatedly implored Donald Trump’s chief of staff to help overturn the results, according to text messages obtained by the Washington Post and CBS News.

In one of 29 messages seen by the news outlets, Thomas wrote to Mark Meadows on 10 November: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! … You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

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Republican says Trump asked him to ‘rescind’ 2020 election and remove Biden from office

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Mo Brooks of Alabama appeared at the rally before the Capitol assault and is under scrutiny by January 6 committee

The Alabama Republican congressman Mo Brooks said on Tuesday Donald Trump asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election, remove Joe Biden from the White House and reinstate Trump.

The extraordinary statement came in an angry response to a withdrawn endorsement in a US Senate race. Trump was angered that Brooks was insufficiently toeing his line on calling the 2020 election a fraud.

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William Barr: Trump is full of bull – but I’ll vote for him

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Barr’s book reveals he told Trump he was ‘like a bull in a bull ring’ – in return, Trump calls his former attorney general a ‘horse’

Donald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, told the former US president he was “like a bull in a bull ring” and “someone’s going to come and put a sword through your head”.

In return, Trump called Barr a “horse” who had been “broken” by the radical left.

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Widely criticized Wisconsin report repeats falsehoods in argument to ‘decertify’ 2020 election

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Document offers clear example of how Republicans are embracing efforts to overturn results of validly executed elections

A long anticipated and widely criticized review of Wisconsin’s 2020 election has embraced fringe conspiracy theories and argued there were grounds for the legislature to “decertify” the results of the 2020 election, something legal experts have said is impossible.

A report released on Tuesday was the result of months of work by Michael Gableman, a former state supreme court justice hired by the state assembly to review the election. Gableman’s efforts, backed by $676,000 in public funds, have been widely criticized as partisan, sloppy and unnecessary.

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Rudy Giuliani poised to cooperate with January 6 committee

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Trump’s former lawyer may reveal the roles played by Republicans to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s election victory

Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is expected to cooperate with the House select committee investigating January 6, and potentially reveal his contacts with Republican members of Congress involved in the former president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The move by Giuliani to appear before the panel – in a cooperation deal that could be agreed within weeks, according to two sources briefed on negotiations – could mark a breakthrough moment for the inquiry as it seeks to interview key members of Trump’s inner circle.

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Bipartisan members on Capitol attack panel say they expect Giuliani to testify

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Comments come after report that Trump ally is in talks about options, including in-person interview or submitting a deposition

Bipartisan figures on the congressional committee investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat said on Sunday they expected the former president’s close ally, Rudolph Giuliani, would comply with a subpoena to give testimony.

Giuliani is among a number of Trump sphere insiders who have so far refused to cooperate with the bipartisan House panel looking into Trump’s subversion efforts and the January 6 Capitol insurrection the then president incited that claimed five lives. Giuliani was scheduled to testify last Tuesday, after the committee issued a subpoena last month, but did not appear.

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Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide says

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Former chief of staff Marc Short joins several senior Republicans to defend the former vice-president in escalating feud with Trump

Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short joined several senior Republicans in rallying to defend the former vice-president on Sunday in his escalating feud with Donald Trump over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

Some of Trump’s advisers on the 2020 election were like “snake oil salesmen”, Short said on Sunday.

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Quiet part loud: Trump says Pence ‘could have overturned the election’

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In statement protesting against reform of Electoral Count Act, ex-president appears to admit Joe Biden won

Donald Trump was accused of “saying the quiet part loud” on Sunday night, when he protested that Mike Pence, his former vice-president, could have overturned his election defeat by Joe Biden.

Though he has appeared to admit Biden won before, Trump usually insists he won and his opponent stole the election through voter fraud – the “big lie” which animates rallies like one in Conroe, Texas, on Saturday.

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Assault on American democracy has gained pace since US Capitol attack

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Analysis: Republican strategy has focused on sowing doubt about 2020’s result, passing new laws and taking over key election offices

On 6 January 2021, it seemed like the stitching holding America’s democracy together might finally collapse. As armed supporters of a defeated president laid siege to the Capitol, the US Congress did something extraordinary – it suspended the official procedure to certify the winner of a presidential election.

The attack was eventually put down and Congress returned to officially certify Joe Biden’s victory. “They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said when the Senate came back into session.

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Trump claims 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia – but the real number is four

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Claim was part of push to overturn election but officials confirm four cases, all involving family members submitting votes

Donald Trump has claimed 5,000 dead people voted in 2020 in Georgia, a state he lost to Joe Biden on his way to national defeat.

He was off by 4,996.

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Biden responds to claim Trump tested positive for Covid days before their debate – video

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Biden was questioned by a reporter over a claim in a book by Trump's last chief of staff that the ex-president had tested positive for Covid-19 three days before the first 2020 presidential debate. When asked whether he thought Trump had put him at risk, Biden said: 'I don’t think about the former president'

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Trump challenges media and Democrats to debate his electoral fraud lie

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Donald Trump has challenged leading editors and politicians to debate him in public over his lie that Joe Biden beat him in 2020 through electoral fraud.

In a typically rambling statement on Sunday, the former president complained about “the heads of the various papers [and] far left politicians” and said: “If anyone would like a public debate on the facts, not the fiction, please let me know. It will be a ratings bonanza for television!”

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US Capitol rioter who wore horned headdress sentenced to 41 months

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Jacob Chansley, who wore a horned helmet and a fur hat, took part in the deadly attack by Trump followers

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the US Capitol rioter nicknamed the “QAnon shaman” for his horned headdress to 41 months in prison for his role in the deadly 6 January attack by former President Donald Trump’s followers.

Prosecutors had asked US district judge Royce Lamberth to impose a longer 51-month sentence on Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September to obstructing an official proceeding when he and thousands of others stormed the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election.

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‘A deliberate, orchestrated campaign’: the real story behind Trump’s attempted coup

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A startling memo, a surreal Oval Office encounter – just some of the twists in the unfolding story of Trump’s bid to cling to power, which critics say was no less than an attempted coup

On 4 January, the conservative lawyer John Eastman was summoned to the Oval Office to meet Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence. Within 48 hours, Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election would formally be certified by Congress, sealing Trump’s fate and removing him from the White House.

The atmosphere in the room was tense. The then US president was “fired up” to make what amounted to a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and snatch a second term in office in the most powerful job on Earth.

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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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Steve Scalise, No 2 House Republican, refuses to say election was not stolen

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Party whip asked three times by Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace to disavow Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ about electoral fraud

The second-ranking House Republican, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, repeatedly refused to say on Sunday that the 2020 election was not stolen, standing by Donald Trump’s lie that Democrat Joe Biden won the White House because of voter fraud.

More than 11 months after Americans picked their president and almost nine months after Biden was inaugurated, Scalise was unwilling to say the vote was legitimate.

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Biden talks up vaccine mandates and says unvaccinated have ‘put our economy at risk’ – as it happened

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Now almost a full year later, Republicans in several states are still continuing their partisan reviews of the 2020 election results

“They have slight differences tactically, but they all share the same strategic goals, which are primarily to continue to sow doubt about the integrity of American elections overall,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, and an election administration expert who has denounced the reviews. “I don’t know that there’s a word to describe how concerning it is.”

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‘He knows he lost’: Georgia Republican braces for Trump rally in Perry

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Top voting official Brad Raffensperger dismayed that the former president uses his lies to fundraise

The top election official in Georgia, a Republican, said Donald Trump unequivocally lost the state in 2020, a day before a rally there on Saturday night at whih Trump is set to repeat baseless accusations of voter fraud.

Related: Arizona Republican ‘audit’ finds even bigger lead for Biden in 2020 election

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Controversial Arizona ‘audit’ shows Trump lost by even more votes – live updates

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An extraordinary confrontation outside the Capitol today, between the Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far right Republican from Georgia.

As reported by Ben Siegel of ABC News, the confrontation developed as Democrats prepared to host a press conference on the Capitol steps about abortion rights, after voting to protect them in the face of concerted assault from Republican-run states.

Greene and Rep. Dingell are now shouting at each other.

“You should practice the basic thing you’re taught in church: respect your neighbor!”

Greene: “Church?! Are you kidding me? Try being a Christian!”

Dingell: “You try being a Christian and treat your colleagues decently.” pic.twitter.com/5aXtaU1dNK

Related: House Democrats vote to establish federal right to abortion

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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