Category Archives: Donald Trump

US justice department declines to charge former Trump officials Meadows and Scavino with contempt of Congress

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Decision marks major blow for House committee investigating US Capitol attack

The US Department of Justice will not pursue charges of criminal contempt of Congress against top former Trump White House officials Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for refusing to comply with subpoenas in the congressional investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

The decision – communicated to the counsel for the House of Representatives on Friday morning – marks a major blow for the House select committee investigating January 6, which had sought prosecutions for the two Trump aides in criminal referrals.

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Pennsylvania Republican primary conceded to Trump-backed Mehmet Oz

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Two weeks after the election, David McCormick acknowledged that the statewide recount will not make up the deficit of votes

David McCormick has conceded the Republican primary in Pennsylvania for US Senate to the celebrity heart surgeon Dr Mehmet Oz, ending his campaign more than two weeks after the election as he acknowledged an ongoing statewide recount wouldn’t give him enough votes to make up the deficit.

McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, said on Friday evening that he had called Oz to concede.

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Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panel

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Navarro in custody after indictment on two counts of contempt of Congress after he defied subpoena issued by January 6 committee

Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was taken into custody after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.

The indictment against Navarro marks the first time that the justice department has pursued charges against a Trump White House official who worked in the administration on January 6 and participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

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US Justice Department could be zeroing in on Trump lawyers, experts say

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Subpoenas for information on Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman’s roles in the fake electors scheme were issued in April

Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with a key criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel probing the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.

While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.

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Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer acquitted of lying to the FBI

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Michael Sussmann’s case is first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry into FBI’s Trump-Russia ties investigation

A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was acquitted on Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and his alleged links to Russia in the run-up to that year’s race.

The jury in Michael Sussmann’s case deliberated on Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning before reaching its verdict.

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Trump calls Capitol attack an ‘insurrection hoax’ as public hearings set to begin

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Former president intensifies attacks on Liz Cheney at Wyoming rally and endorses her Republican primary challenger in midterm elections

As the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start public hearings next week, the former president called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a hoax.

Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday night in support of the Republican primary challenger in the midterm elections to congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the insurrection.

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School shooting strengthens case for guns, Donald Trump tells NRA

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Speaking at the gun lobby’s convention, the former US president repeated his call to arm teachers

Donald Trump has said the recent US school shooting is a reason to arm law-abiding citizens not disarm them.

The former US president was a guest speaker at the National Rifle Association, which held its annual convention in Houston on Friday.

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Five key takeaways: the US midterm elections

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Races from Georgia to Texas were a litmus test of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party with some significant losses

Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, defeated former Senator David Perdue, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. Perdue’s loss marked a significant defeat for Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker in the Republican party, as the former president has used the power of his endorsement to wield influence over candidates and lawmakers.

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New York subpoenas Trump’s longtime assistant in business dealings inquiry

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Rhona Graff will be questioned about the former president’s involvement in the Trump Organization’s financial records

The New York attorney general’s office has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s longtime executive assistant and plans to question her under oath next week as part of its civil investigation into the former president’s business dealings.

The subpoena for Rhona Graff was disclosed by a lawyer for the attorney general Letitia James’ office in court papers opposing Trump’s latest bid to rid himself of a contempt of court order for being slow to respond to a subpoena for documents and other evidence.

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Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemite

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Hungarian talkshow host who has called Jews ‘stinking excrement’ and Roma ‘animals’ addresses rightwing conference

A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.

Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

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Move over, Florida: Georgia the new battleground as Trump goes all in

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Georgia has obsessed the former president since losing it to Joe Biden – will his mega-Maga candidates come out on top?

Greg Bump will not vote for Governor Brian Kemp because “he sold us out in the election”. Todd Allinger is backing Kemp because “what he’s done for the state of Georgia has been really positive”. Teresa Richmond likes Kemp too but will “probably” vote for his rival, David Perdue, because of Donald Trump’s endorsement.

The views of Republican voters in Sugar Hill in the far northern Atlanta suburbs indicate that nothing can be taken for granted in Tuesday’s primary elections in Georgia, a state that has arguably eclipsed neighboring Florida as the most pivotal battleground in American politics.

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Trump pays $110,000 in fines after being held in contempt of court – live

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The Washington Post said Friday it had obtained emails showing that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state and choose “a clean slate of electors”.

Thomas wrote to two unidentified lawmakers on 9 November 2020, the newspaper says, six days after the general election, arguing they needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud.

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Armageddon Time: film featuring Trump family is attack on capitalism, says maker

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New movie set in 80s US and starring Succession star Jeremy Strong with Jessica Chastain as Donald Trump’s sister, traces fault lines of political and social division back to Reagan era

A new film set in 1980s New York, in which Donald Trump’s property mogul father, Fred, and high-achieving lawyer sister Maryanne appear as characters is a direct attack on late-stage capitalism, according to its principal cast and director.

Armageddon Time, which is premiering at the Cannes film festival and stars Succession’s Jeremy Strong alongside Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain as Maryanne Trump, in a cameo, is set during the run-up to the election of Ronald Reagan as president and examines the layers of privilege that determine the future of children attending different schools in the same city.

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US primary elections: Dr Oz tied with McCormick in test of Trump’s influence on Republicans – live

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Joe Biden will welcome the prime minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, and the president of Finland Sauli Niinistö to Washington tomorrow.

It will be a very visual symbol of US support for those two European, Russia-adjacent nations joining the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).

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US sues casino mogul Steve Wynn to compel him to register as an agent of China

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Justice department says Wynn lobbied the Trump administration for China to protect his business interests in Macau

The US Department of Justice on Tuesday sued Steve Wynn, the billionaire former casino mogul and senior Republican fund raiser, to compel him to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of China.

The department said Wynn, 80, had contacted then-US president Donald Trump and members of his Republican administration in 2017 to convey China’s request to cancel the visa of or otherwise remove a Chinese businessperson who had sought political asylum in the United States.

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House panel not planning to seek Trump’s testimony on Capitol attack

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After months of uncertainty, chairman says it is ‘not our expectation’ that investigators will summon former president

The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not expecting to call Donald Trump to testify about potentially unlawful schemes to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, its chairman said on Tuesday.

The panel has been weighing for months whether to seek voluntary cooperation or subpoena the former president in its wide-ranging inquiry in an effort to obtain his insight into unlawful schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

But Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill that it was “not our expectation” to demand testimony from Trump.

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Fauci says he will resign if Trump retakes the presidency in 2024

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Fauci said ‘no’ when asked if he would stay on as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director under Trump again

The US’s top infectious disease expert has said he would resign if Donald Trump retakes the presidency in 2024.

Dr Anthony Fauci bluntly said “no” when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him during an interview on Sunday if he would want to stay on as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the event that voters gave Trump a second stint as president.

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US defence chief urges Ukraine ceasefire in call with Russian counterpart – as it happened

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Psaki’s final White House briefing continues.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t get emotional,” she says. She succeeds.

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Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented step

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Chair Bennie Thompson says panel has been ‘forced to take this step’ as Kevin McCarthy complains investigation ‘not legitimate’

The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, seeking to compel their cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The select committee empowered the chairman, Bennie Thompson, to move ahead with subpoenas to the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama.

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Matt Kean warns of Trump-like shift in Liberal party if teal independents oust moderates

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In election pitch, NSW treasurer says party at risk of becoming like Republicans, with Putin sympathisers and anti-vaxxers

The New South Wales Liberal treasurer Matt Kean has warned of the dangers of a Trump-like shift to the right within the conservative party, as he pleaded with voters not to boot out moderate MPs in favour of teal independents on 21 May.

The plea was supported by the state’s premier, Dominic Perrottet, who said voters would regret stepping away from the party if independents won seats over moderate Liberals.

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