Analysis: Viewers learned of an ‘unhinged’ White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?
“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”
Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Witness Jason van Tatenhove testifies at seventh public hearing, ‘This could have been the spark that started a new civil war’
In powerful testimony to the House January 6 committee, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers militia told Americans to “quit mincing words and just talk about truths”, and to recognise that Donald Trump attempted to mount “an armed revolution” in order to stay in power.
“People died that day,” Jason van Tatenhove said. “Law enforcement officers died, there was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.”
Continue reading...Federal judge also rejects claim by former Trump strategist that he thought his non-compliance was excused by executive privilege
Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.
The flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.
Nichols refused in federal court in Washington DC, to delay Bannon’s trial date set for next Monday, saying that he saw no reason to push back proceedings after he severely limited the defences that the former Trump aide’s lawyers could present to a jury.
The defeats for Bannon stunned his lead lawyer, David Schoen, who asked, aghast: “What’s the point of going to trial if we don’t have any defences?”
Nichols stripped Bannon of two of his main defences for defying the select committee’s subpoena, ruling he could not present evidence to the jury that he had relied on the advice of counsel, and could not rely on entrapment by estoppel, the argument that a defendant was advised erroneously by an official that certain conduct was legal.
The decision, Nichols said, came in large part because he was bound by the controlling case law at the DC circuit level, which ruled in Licavoli v United States 1961, that advice of counsel was no defence against contempt of Congress charges.
Decision from former president would clear way for one-time adviser to testify before committee investigating Capitol attack
Donald Trump is considering waiving executive privilege for his longtime political adviser Steve Bannon, which would clear the way for a key ally of the former president to testify before the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump is reportedly considering sending a letter to Bannon, his former White House strategist, acknowledging that he granted Bannon executive privilege on 21 September but is now willing to give up the claim if Bannon reaches an agreement to testify before the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post first reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.
Continue reading...January 6 committee vice-chairwoman says ‘a man as dangerous as [him] can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again’
The vice-chairwoman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is not ruling out a criminal referral against Donald Trump, saying “a man as dangerous as [him] can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again”.
Liz Cheney’s remarks Sunday came after the committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, once said he did not expect the panel to indicate whether or not it would make a recommendation for federal prosecutors to charge the former president with an alleged role in the Capitol attack.
Continue reading...The January 6 committee cannot charge Trump, but they can make criminal referrals. Here are the key legal issues at stake
In six televised hearings, the House January 6 committee has presented extraordinary testimony about Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and its culmination, the deadly attack on the US Capitol by a far-right mob.
The committee is made up of seven Democrats and two rebel Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who refused to follow their party in bending the knee to Trump.
Continue reading...It was the second warning Cassidy Hutchinson had received before her deposition, cautioning her against cooperating with the panel
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The message in question was the second of the two warnings that the select committee disclosed at the end of its special hearing when Hutchinson testified about how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.
Continue reading...Row comes after ex-White House aide’s explosive testimony that portrayed a violent and unhinged Trump on day of Capitol attack
Senior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.
The row follows the explosive testimony to the House January 6 committee, which painted an unhinged and violent portrait of Trump on the day of the Capitol attack, in a shocking hearing many have seen as potentially loosening the former president’s grip on the Republican party.
Continue reading...Cassidy Hutchinson tells committee Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the Capitol
In explosive public testimony, a former White House aide told the January 6 committee Donald Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the US Capitol in a last-gasp effort to remain in power.
Appearing at a hastily scheduled hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, painted a devastating portrait of a raging president spiraling out of control and a White House often too ambivalent to constrain him.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Ashifa Kassam and Ramon Antonio Vargas report:
Fifty suspected migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.
Continue reading...Footage captured by documentary film-maker understood to show ex-president’s children privately discussing election strategies
The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.
The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.
Continue reading...The email from Alabama’s Mo Brooks potentially reveals what conduct by lawmakers he feared might be criminal
When the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed the evidence that showed Republican members of Congress sought preemptive presidential pardons after January 6, one of the most striking requests came from Congressman Mo Brooks.
The request from Brooks to the Trump White House came in an 11 January 2021 email – obtained by the Guardian – that asked for all-purpose, preemptive pardons for lawmakers involved in objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.
Continue reading...In five hearings, the committee has shown the various paths the ex-president and his team explored to overturn the election
The January 6 select committee held its final hearing for this month on Thursday, sharing new details about Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure top justice department officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Across the committee’s five hearings this month, investigators have presented a meticulous account of Trump’s exhaustive efforts to cling to power after losing the election to Joe Biden. The panel has shown how Trump and his allies explored every possible avenue – from pressuring the vice-president, Mike Pence, to leaning on state election officials and justice department leaders – to promote lies about widespread election fraud.
Continue reading...We learned this week that the public hearings held by the January 6 select committee would be extended into July. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell tells Jonathan Freedland what we’ve learned so far, why they need more time and what happens next
Continue reading...Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz among those who requested to be let off after attempting to overturn election results
The Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks sought a blanket pardon of members of Congress involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden through lies about electoral fraud, the House January 6 committee revealed on Thursday.
A witness said Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania also contacted the White House about securing pardons. The same witness, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, said she heard Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist from Georgia, wanted a pardon too.
Continue reading...Committee ends fifth hearing, with next sessions expected in July
Gun rights have been in the news for weeks following two shocking mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York — a fact that has not escaped the supreme court.
In his concurrence with the majority opinion, conservative justice Samuel Alito connects the latter shooting with the concealed weapons regulation that the court struck down. “Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator,” wrote Alito, who was also the author of the draft opinion overturning abortion rights that leaked in May.
Continue reading...Former attorney general says ‘I am not sure we would have had a transition at all’ if investigation had not immediately taken place
Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, thought Trump might have refused to leave office at all had the Department of Justice not immediately investigated and disproved his lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.
“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” Barr said, in startling video testimony played by the January 6 committee on Thursday.
Continue reading...Ex-president told officials to declare election ‘corrupt’ and ‘leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen’
Donald Trump relentlessly pressured top officials at the justice department to pursue groundless claims of voter fraud in an extraordinary but ultimately unsuccessful effort to cling to power, according to testimony the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection heard on Thursday.
Three former justice department officials who served during Trump’s final weeks in office, told the committee that the then-president was “adamant” that the election was stolen despite begin told repeatedly that none of the allegations raised about the vote count were credible.
Continue reading...The two cases had managed to steer clear of each other as the justice department and House panel pursued the same ground
The US justice department’s criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack collided with the parallel congressional investigation, causing federal prosecutors to seek a delay in proceedings in the seditious conspiracy case against the far-right Proud Boys group.
The two January 6 inquiries had largely managed to steer clear of each other even as both the justice department and a House select committee pursued the same ground. But it all came to head on Wednesday.
Continue reading...One of the star witnesses at yesterday’s hearing of the January 6 committee was Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives. He detailed how he was pressured by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to take part in a scheme to disrupt the certification of Arizona’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, or overturn it entirely.
He said he wanted nothing to do with their plans, which he described as unsupported by evidence and “against my oath,” adding, “I will not break my oath.”
Uncertainty has clouded Juul since it landed in the FDA’s sights four years ago, when its fruity flavors and hip marketing were blamed for fueling a surge of underage vaping. The company since then has been trying to regain the trust of regulators and the public. It limited its marketing and in 2019 stopped selling sweet and fruity flavors. Juul’s sales have tumbled in recent years.
The FDA has barred the sale of all sweet and fruity e-cigarette cartridges. The agency has cleared the way for Juul’s biggest rivals, Reynolds American Inc. and NJOY Holdings Inc., to keep tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes on the market. Industry observers had expected Juul to receive similar clearance.
The proposal comes as the Biden administration doubles down on fighting cancer-related deaths.
Earlier this year, the government announced plans to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
Continue reading...