Category Archives: Donald Trump

‘Trump’s guilt is obvious’, impeachment managers say in new legal brief – live

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The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.

The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.

Related: 'Jim Crow relic': Senate filibuster stands in way of Democratic voting rights push

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Trump prosecutors pitch to the public in made-for-TV impeachment trial

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Democrats hope harrowing audio and video from Capitol attack will make plain what no legal argument might deny

The lethal Capitol invasion by Donald Trump supporters that is at the heart of the former president’s second impeachment trial happened more than a month ago. But Democrats leading the prosecution of Trump are counting on an element of surprise.

Surprise, the impeachment prosecutors are calculating, because while most Americans understand the broad outlines of what happened during the 6 January attack on the Capitol, relatively few have come to grips with the shocking audio and video footage from that day – portraying a cauldron of violence, vandalism, bloodlust and fear.

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Senate leaders announce Trump impeachment trial rules – video

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On the eve of Donald Trump's impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority and minority leaders, have laid out the framework for the trial. ’All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,’ Schumer said. Each side will have 16 hours to present their arguments and the trial will break on Friday afternoon and resume on Sunday afternoon

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Democrats to open Trump impeachment trial by recounting Capitol attack

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Impeachment managers will present scene in harrowing detail using video and audio recordings

House impeachment managers will open their prosecution of Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” by recounting the deadly assault on the US Capitol in harrowing and cinematic detail, rekindling for senators the chaos and trauma they experienced on 6 January.

Related: Donald Trump impeachment trial: what you need to know

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‘This fever will break’: Republican Jeff Flake on the slow fade of Trumpism

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Anti-Trumpists are growing but very slowly – convicting Trump in his impeachment trial would help speed things along, says Flake

By now, Jeff Flake thought this would all be over.

Flake, the former Arizona Republican senator and outspoken critic of Donald Trump, concedes that he expected the ripple effects in the Republican party Trump’s loss of the White House to have been bigger by now.

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Liz Cheney raises possibility of criminal investigation of Trump for provoking violence

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Republican pointed to former president’s tweet attacking vice-president Mike Pence after Capitol insurrection began

Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, has raised the possibility of Donald Trump being criminally investigated for provoking violence during the 6 January US Capitol insurrection, pointing to a tweet attacking his own vice-president, Mike Pence, that was posted after the assault had begun.

Related: Liz Cheney censured by Wyoming Republican party for voting to impeach Trump

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Trump lawyer requests to suspend impeachment trial during Sabbath

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David Schoen’s request to postpone trial Friday sundown until Sunday presents managers with a scheduling dilemma

Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that opens on Tuesday could take longer than expected after a leading member of his defense team requested that the proceedings are suspended during the Sabbath so that he can meet his obligations as an observant Jew.

David Schoen, 62, has written to senior figures of both main parties in the US Senate asking for an agreement that the trial is postponed from 5.24pm on Friday until Sunday so that he can observe the Sabbath. In the letter, reported by the New York Times, the lawyer apologises for any inconvenience, adding that “the practices and prohibitions are mandatory for me … so I have no choice.”

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The crucial differences in Trump’s second impeachment trial

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In some ways the trial will be a replay of last year’s – but Trump is the first to be tried by the Senate after leaving office, and it will likely be ‘dramatic’

It might be tempting to call it the trial of the century but it is just as likely to invoke a sense of deja vu. This week Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial in the US Senate. Yes, another one.

Trump stands accused of inciting an insurrection when he urged supporters to “fight” his election defeat before they stormed the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January, clashed with police and left five people dead.

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Never Trumpers’ Republican revolt failed but they could still play key role

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The attempt to pry the party away from Trump’s influence fizzled but support in Congress is greater than it may appear

The Republican rebellion failed: Donald Trump won.

“I was disappointed over the last few weeks to see what seemed like the Republican party waking up,” the Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger observed on NBC’s Meet the Press last week, “and then kind of falling asleep again”.

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Biden: Trump should not receive intelligence briefings due to his ‘erratic behavior’

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Biden says predecessor shouldn’t have access to briefings, which are traditionally offered to presidents even after leaving office

Joe Biden has said that he doesn’t believe his predecessor, Donald Trump, should have access to any intelligence briefings due to his “erratic behavior”.

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Donald Trump will refuse to testify at Senate impeachment trial, lawyers say

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Democrats had challenged Trump to explain in next week’s proceedings why he disputed factual allegations

Donald Trump’s legal team has said the former president will not voluntarily testify under oath at his impeachment trial in the Senate next week, where he faces the charge from House Democrats that he incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.

The lead House impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, wrote to Trump asking him to testify under oath before or during the trial, challenging the former president to explain why he and his lawyers have disputed key factual allegations at the center of their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol.

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Donald Trump takes up a post-presidency hobby: revenge

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Instead of discreetly returning to private life the ex-president is focused on punishing Republicans he feels betrayed him

Every former American president picks up hobbies after leaving office (books, painting, skinny dipping, boxing). For the early days of Donald Trump’s post-presidency he has picked something a little different: revenge.

It’s early and presidents usually intentionally recede from public view dramatically after leaving office. But Trump appears uninterested in following that practice.

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Biden pledges to ‘undo moral shame’ of Trump era with new orders on immigration – live

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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.

Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.

Related: New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations

A hastily executed transfer of nearly 200 people in California’s prison system set off a public health disaster that endangered the lives of thousands of prisoners and staff and led to dozens of deaths, according to a new report from the state’s office of the inspector general (OIG).

The report published on Monday, the third in a series examining the Covid-19 catastrophe in California state prisons, details the circumstances of a May 2020 transfer of 189 people from the California Institute for Men (CIM) in Chino, California, to San Quentin state prison in the Bay Area and Corcoran state prison in the Central Valley.

Related: California prison transfer led to dozens of deaths and endangered thousands – state watchdog

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US to resume deporting asylum seekers after judge rejects Biden order

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Trump-appointed judge ruled against president’s 100-day suspension, raising questions over whether Ice will resist reform

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is preparing to resume deportations of asylum seekers after a Trump-appointed Texas judge ruled against a 100-day suspension ordered by Joe Biden.

The ruling, in response to a challenge from a leading figure in the Republican effort to overturn the election result, marks the first shot in a legal rearguard action by Trump loyalists intended to stymie the Biden administration’s agenda.

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Ten years after the Arab spring, Yemen has little hope left

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Racked by war, cholera and now coronavirus, the country faces the world’s worst famine in decades

Ten years after the rage and hope of the Arab spring filled the public spaces of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital has become a curiously quiet place.

Traders and customers alike shuffle through the streets of the old city, ground down by the repression of the Houthi rebel occupation and the economic hardship caused by the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition blockade.

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Donald Trump’s impeachment defence in disarray as lead lawyers quit

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Butch Bowers clashed with Trump over strategy, according to reports, and leaves along with Deborah Barberi and three others

The ability of Republican senators who plan to acquit Donald Trump at his upcoming impeachment trial to pretend to have weighed the case on the merits has been endangered by the mass resignation of Trump’s legal team at the weekend.

The Senate has set a deadline of Tuesday for Trump’s lawyers to submit a preliminary memo laying out his defense. The House impeached Trump earlier this month on a single article charging “incitement of insurrection” – a historic second impeachment of a US president.

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‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

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The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

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Nancy Sinatra: ‘I’ll never forgive Trump voters. I hope the anger doesn’t kill me’

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She may be 80 and cut off by Covid, but she’s still ready to walk all over Donald Trump. As her greatest songs are reissued, she reflects on the sexual politics of the 60s, her friendship with Elvis and her hopes for peace in the US

Nancy Sinatra has one of the most famous surnames in America, but she has struggled to feel proudly American of late. It’s a couple of weeks away from the inauguration of Joe Biden, and the singer and film star is recalling Donald Trump’s preparations for his own inauguration in 2017: his first dance with his wife Melania would be to her father’s signature hit, My Way.

Sinatra was disgusted. Her father was no fan of Trump: according to Frank’s former manager, he told Trump to “go fuck himself” after the billionaire refused to meet Frank’s fee for a 1990 performance at an Atlantic City casino. Nancy, in a since deleted tweet to Trump, wrote: “Just remember the first line of the song.” My Way begins: “And now the end is near.”

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‘My Antifa Lover’: I read the weirdest Trump-era erotica so you don’t have to

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The Trump years were a powerful creative muse for self-published erotic and romance literature. We review four of the most memorable

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to, say, have a sexual encounter with Mike Pence, Kindle has you covered.

In recent years, Amazon’s e-books market has nurtured a flourishing cottage industry of self-published romance and erotic literature – and the Trump years have inspired many to put pen to paper. The most successful authors (most write under pseudonyms) are known for their prolific publication, thesaurus-aided descriptions of the human anatomy, and responsiveness to current events.

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