Category Archives: Donald Trump

Justice department asks court to reject appointment of Trump special master

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Independent arbiter was tasked to inspect thousands of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in August search by FBI

The US justice department has asked the 11th circuit court of appeals to void the appointment of the special master examining materials seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for privilege protections, arguing it impedes the criminal investigation into mishandling of sensitive documents.

In a 53-page brief filed on Friday, the justice department argues that the Trump-appointed US district court judge who oversees the case, Aileen Cannon, should never have granted the former president’s request to have a special master because he failed to demonstrate the need for such a process.

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Donald Trump considers testifying before January 6 panel

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Sources tell Guardian ex-president may choose to appear before Capitol attack committee after Thursday vote to subpoena him

Donald Trump is considering testifying in front of the House January 6 committee, which this week concluded a dramatic hearing establishing what it says is his culpability for the deadly Capitol attack by voting to subpoena the former president.

On Friday, sources close to Trump confirmed to the Guardian that he may choose to appear before the congressional panel. Such an appearance would set up an unprecedented, high-stakes political event.

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FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

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The Oath Keepers were mentioned repeatedly at yesterday’s January 6 hearing, and Politico reports their lawyers have attempted to make that an issue as they stand trial for seditious conspiracy – without success:

Investigators with the January 6 committee are looking into communications between a Secret Service agent and the Oath Keepers militia group, one of the most violent actors during the attack on the Capitol, NBC News reports:

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January 6 panel’s case against Trump lays out roadmap for prosecution

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Devastating testimony, nearly all from Republicans, will have given attorney general Merrick Garland plenty of food for thought

After more than a year of work that consisted of interviewing 1,000-plus witnesses and reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol chose a simple message for its final public hearing: Donald Trump was singularly responsible for the attack.

Since its first hearing in June, the committee’s work has been aimed at two audiences. One of those has been the broad American public. Tactfully using video, the committee has told a disciplined, clear story of what happened on January 6, and the days leading up to it, filled with jaw-dropping soundbites from Trump’s closest aides.

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Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’

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The committee expressed it had ‘no doubt’ the ex-president led the effort to overturn the election

A congressional panel has voted to compel Donald Trump to testify under oath after naming the former president as the “central cause” of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6.

The House of Representatives select committee investigating last year’s riot voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena Trump for testimony and documents in what may prove a mostly symbolic gesture given time constraints and his likely legal resistance.

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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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New York attorney general seeks special monitor to oversee Trump firm

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Tish James asks court to bar Trump Organization from offloading assets while civil fraud case against ex-president plays out

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, on Thursday urged a court to appoint an independent monitor to oversee Donald Trump’s family company before a civil fraud case – against the former president, three of his adult children and the family’s real estate firm – goes to trial.

James’s injunction also sought to bar Trump’s company from conducting “significant fraudulent and illegal business” of precisely the kind described in the lawsuit filed by her office against him in September.

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Former New Zealand PM John Key says he would have voted for Trump and Bolsonaro

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Influential National party figure said he had never voted ‘anything other than right’, but that some on the right were ‘getting pretty crazy’

Former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key has suggested he would have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 US election, and far-right president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s 2022 elections, had he been eligible to do so.

Key, who served three terms as prime minister from 2008 to 2016, revealed his preferences in a quick-fire round of 20 questions that featured at the end of a new online series called Both Sides Now, hosted by members of the Labour and National youth wings.

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Trump ordered records moved after subpoena, Mar-a-Lago staffer said – reports

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FBI has surveillance footage confirming testimony of employee who spoke to investigators, Washington Post and CNN say

Donald Trump asked for boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago to be moved after receiving a government subpoena to return them, an employee of the former president reportedly told the FBI.

The Mar-a-Lago employee is cooperating with the US Department of Justice and has been interviewed multiple times by federal agents, the Washington Post said.

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Sources in Russian analyst’s Trump dossier fabricated, prosecutors argue

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Igor Danchenko, who played a vital role in creating the Steele dossier, has been indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI

A Russian analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed dossier about former President Donald Trump fabricated one of his own sources and concealed the identity of another when interviewed by the FBI, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The allegations were aired during opening statements in the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI.

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US justice department urges supreme court to reject Trump appeal on Mar-a-Lago documents

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Court filing addresses ex-president’s bid to return 103 documents with classification markings to special master for review

The US justice department has asked the US supreme court to reject Donald Trump’s attempt to re-include 103 documents with classification markings in the special master review that is examining whether materials the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort are protected by privilege.

The justice department argued in a 34-page brief that the supreme court should reject the former president’s motion and keep the 103 documents out of the special master’s purview since Trump did not show he was being irreparably harmed and that his arguments about jurisdiction lacked merit.

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Trump lawyer told to certify Mar-a-Lago document search she did not conduct

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Christina Bobb told justice department on Friday that she signed supposedly complete list of documents at direction of another lawyer, Evan Corcoran

Donald Trump’s lawyer Christina Bobb was instructed to certify to the justice department that all sensitive government documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort subpoenaed by a grand jury had been returned, though she had not herself conducted the search for the records.

The certification of subpoena compliance appears to be at the center of a criminal investigation into obstruction of justice surrounding the former US president after the assurance was proved to be untrue when the FBI’s search of the property turned up more than 100 more documents marked classified.

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Ex-partner of Ukrainian ‘heiress’ who infiltrated Mar-a-Lago club shot outside Canada resort

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Valeriy Tarasenko was left with ‘significant injuries’ but expected to survive, according to Quebec police

An associate of the Ukrainian woman who posed as a member of the Rothschild banking family at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club was reportedly shot outside a lakeside resort north-west of Montreal, Canadian newspaper LaPresse has reported.

The shooting left Valeriy Tarasenko, 44, with “significant injuries”, but he was expected to survive, said the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec provincial police. The police said it had launched a search for the shooter and any accomplices behind the attack.

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Trump asks supreme court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago special master dispute

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Appellate court ruling prevented special master from examining 100 files seized from Mar-a-Lago with classification markings

Donald Trump on Tuesday asked the US supreme court to partially reverse an appellate court decision that prevented the special master, reviewing for privilege protections materials seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago resort in August, from examining 100 documents with classification markings.

The motion to vacate the ruling by the US appeals court for the 11th circuit represents the former president’s final chance to reinsert the 100 documents into the special master review – and potentially exclude some from the investigation into whether he illegally retained national defense information

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‘She say anything about me?’ Trump raised Ghislaine Maxwell link with aides

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Then-president voiced concern after socialite’s sex trafficking arrest, according to book by New York Times’s Maggie Haberman

At an Oval Office meeting in July 2020, Donald Trump asked aides if Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who had been arrested on sex trafficking charges, had named him among influential contacts she might count upon to protect her.

According to a new book by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Trump asked “campaign advisers … ‘You see that article in the [New York] Post today that mentioned me?’

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Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – as it happened

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For all the supreme court’s pomp and ceremony, a new poll finds Americans increasingly are holding it in low regard.

According to Monmouth University, a majority of Americans find it out of touch with their beliefs:

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Writer E Jean Carroll says Trump is stonewalling over defamation case

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Lawyer rejects ex-president’s argument that suit, centered on Trump’s denial that he raped her, should be dismissed

The writer suing Donald Trump for defamation after he denied having raped her in the mid-1990s accused him of stonewalling and trying to avoid a scheduled deposition as he tries to delay the case indefinitely.

In a letter filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan, a lawyer for E Jean Carroll also said Trump was “mistaken” in arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed altogether because the US government, and not he, was the proper defendant.

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House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane Ian

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Storm bearing down on Florida nixes session that had been expected to feature footage of Trump ally Roger Stone

The House January 6 select committee announced that it would postpone what was expected to be its final investigative hearing scheduled for Wednesday over concerns about a hurricane and as it considers how best to present a number of unresolved questions surrounding the US Capitol attack.

“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings,” the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and the vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path.”

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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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