Category Archives: US Capitol attack

Donald Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say

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Analysis: charges could be well founded given Trump’s incendiary remarks to a rally before the Capitol attack and aggressive pressuring of officials

Expectation is growing that Donald Trump might face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election this year as a House panel collects more evidence into the 6 January attack on the Capitol, former prosecutors and other experts say.

Speculation about possible charges against the former US president has been heightened by a recent rhetorical bombshell from Republican representative and 6 January panel vice-chair Liz Cheney suggesting the House panel is looking at whether Trump broke a law that bars obstruction of “official proceedings”.

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Trump asks supreme court to block release of 6 January records

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An appeals court ruled against the former US president two weeks ago but prohibited documents from being turned over

Donald Trump turned to the supreme court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

A federal appeals court ruled against the former US president two weeks ago, but prohibited documents held by the National Archives from being turned over before the supreme court had a chance to weigh in. Trump appointed three of the nine justices.

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Michael Flynn sues Capitol attack committee in bid to block subpoena

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Lawsuit filed by longtime adviser to Donald Trump is the latest in a flood of litigation by targets of the committee

Michael Flynn, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, has sued the congressional committee investigating the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol in hopes of blocking it from obtaining his phone records.

Flynn alleged in a lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, that a subpoena issued to him by the House of Representatives select committee was too broad in scope and punishes him for constitutionally protected speech as a private citizen.

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Republican congressman refuses to cooperate with Capitol attack panel

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Scott Perry is first sitting member of Congress to get request for interview as Trump announces 6 January press conference

Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and the first sitting member of Congress to be requested to provide documents and sit for an interview with the committee investigating the Capitol riot, said on Tuesday he would not comply with the panel.

The news came shortly after Donald Trump provocatively announced that he will hold a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on 6 January, the first anniversary of the deadly attack on Congress.

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Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it off

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Trump’s former White House chief of staff has become a character of supreme interest to the Capitol attack committee, with a treasure trove of documents divulging golden nuggets of information

On the morning of 29 December, eight days before hundreds of Trump supporters and far-right extremists stormed the US Capitol in the worst domestic attack on American democracy arguably since the civil war, the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows fired off an email to the head of the justice department.

It was a strange message for Donald Trump’s right-hand man to send to Jeffrey Rosen, acting US attorney general, given that the material in it was written entirely in Italian. It attached a letter addressed to Trump from an Italian named Carlo Goria who said he worked for a US aerospace company and then went on to regurgitate a conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds, known as “Italygate”.

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Capitol attack a ‘coordinated act of terrorism’, says DC lawsuit against far-right groups – as it happened

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Karl Racine, the attorney general of the District of Columbia, in filing federal suit against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, states that: “The District seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive relief and, by filing this action, intends to make clear that it will not countenance the use of violence against the District, including its police officers.

The lawsuit filed in federal court moments ago lists as defendants not only the far right, white nationalist groups the Proud Boys (of Aubrey, Texas, per the suit) and Oathkeepers (of Las Vegas, Nevada), but also lists 32 individuals deemed to have associations to those groups, as well as noting there are 50 other unnamed defendants collectively referred to as “John and Jane Does 1 - 50”.

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Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecution

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In a unanimous vote, the committee said Donald Trump’s former chief of staff attempted to obstruct the 6 January investigation

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday voted to recommend the criminal prosecution for former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, punishing Donald Trump’s most senior aide for refusing to testify about the 6 January insurrection.

The select committee advanced the contempt of Congress report for Meadows unanimously, sending the matter to a vote before the full House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the citation as soon as Tuesday.

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Capitol attack panel obtains PowerPoint that set out plan for Trump to stage coup

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Presentation turned over by Mark Meadows made several recommendations for Trump to pursue to retain presidency

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the House select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack a PowerPoint recommending Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency in order to return himself to the presidency.

The fact that Meadows was in possession of a PowerPoint the day before the Capitol attack that detailed ways to stage a coup suggests he was at least aware of efforts by Trump and his allies to stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January.

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Court rules Trump cannot block release of documents to Capitol attack panel

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The former president is expected to appeal the ruling to the supreme court

Donald Trump, the former US president, suffered a major defeat on Thursday when a federal appeals court ruled against his effort to block the release of documents related to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Trump is expected to appeal to the supreme court.

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Mark Meadows stops cooperating with Capitol attack investigation

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Attorney for former White House chief of staff cites House committee’s approach to negotiations and to other witnesses

The former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will now not cooperate with the House committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, an attorney for the former Trump aide told Fox News on Tuesday.

Meadows indicated last week that he would speak to the panel. But on the same day the Guardian broke news of Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, in which he detailed Trump’s positive and negative Covid tests and their cover-up before his first debate with Joe Biden last year.

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Nevada man arrested for allegedly assaulting police at US Capitol attack

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A 34-year-old Nevada man has been arrested and held on multiple charges related to the 6 January riot at the US Capitol, including assaulting law officers with what prosecutors say appeared to be a table leg with a protruding nail.

A US magistrate in Reno on Friday ordered Josiah Kenyon of Winnemucca to remain jailed without bail, until he is transported to Washington to face charges.

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Trump rails against Meadows for revealing Covid test cover-up – report

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  • Guardian revealed explosive claims in chief of staff’s memoir
  • Trump slams ‘fake news’ but in private says aide ‘fucking stupid’

In a blurb on the cover of Mark Meadows’ new book, Donald Trump calls the former congressman a “great chief of staff – as good as it gets” and predicts “a great future together”. The former president has also promoted the book to his followers.

Now the book is in the public domain, however, the former president reportedly thinks it is “garbage” and that Meadows was “fucking stupid” to write it.

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Top Trump official to plead the fifth to Capitol attack committee

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John Eastman, linked to efforts to stop Biden certification, to invoke constitutional protection against self-incrimination

Former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who was connected to efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win on 6 January, will plead the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

The move by Eastman, communicated in a letter to the select committee by his attorney, is an extraordinary step and appears to suggest a growing fear among some of Trump’s closest advisers that their testimony may implicate them in potential criminality.

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Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey Clark

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Former Trump DoJ official punished for refusal to comply with subpoena but gets last chance after 11th-hour statement

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack recommended on Wednesday the criminal prosecution of the former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.

The select committee approved the contempt of Congress report unanimously. The resolution now heads to the full House of Representatives, which could refer Clark for prosecution in a vote that could come as soon as next week.

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Trump chief of staff Meadows to cooperate with Capitol attack panel – live

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Mark Meadows, formerly Donald Trump’s chief of staff, has reached an agreement to cooperate, at least initially, with the bipartisan House committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 this year by extremist supporters of the-then president, according to CNN.

Meadows is providing records and agreeing to appear for an initial interview, the cable news company is reporting in an exclusive published moments ago.

Meadows’ lawyer George Terwilliger said in a statement to CNN that there is now an understanding between the two parties on how information can be exchanged moving forward, stating that his client and the committee are open to engaging on a certain set of topics as they work out how to deal with information that the committee is seeking that could fall under executive privilege.

But the agreement could be fragile if the two sides do not agree on what is privileged information. News of the understanding comes as Trump’s lawyers argued in front of a federal appeals court in Washington that the former President should be able to assert executive privilege over records from the committee.

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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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Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claims

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Two cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says

Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.

The amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.

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Steve Bannon in court on contempt charges for defying Capitol attack subpoena

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Trump ally, indicted after defying subpoena from House panel, urges supporters to ‘stay focused, stay on message’

Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former president Donald Trump, appeared in court on Monday charged with contempt of Congress, regarding the investigation of the deadly Capitol attack.

Bannon did not enter a plea, and the brief hearing determined that he be arraigned on Thursday. He was released after being ordered to surrender his passport, report once a week to pre-trial services and report travel plans.

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Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoena

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Former Trump adviser indicted by grand jury on two counts for contempt of Congress

Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon has been charged with contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

The justice department said Bannon had been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts: refusing to appear for a deposition and refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena.

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