Donald Trump surrenders on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election
Former President Donald Trump surrendered to Fulton County authorities Thursday on charges he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Fulton County authorities charged Trump and 18 others, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former state Republican Party Chair David Shafer, as part of the effort. The Fulton County indictment of Trump is the fourth against the former president and the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Trump addressed reporters on the tarmac before boarding his aircraft bound for New Jersey. “What has taken place here is a travesty of justice,” Trump said. “We did nothing wrong at all. They’re interfering with an election and there’s never been anything like it in our country before. “And we have every right, every single right to challenge an election that we think is dishonest. So we think it’s very dishonest.” Even before Trump formally surrendered to authorities at the Atlanta facility, the former president’s attorneys and prosecutors agreed to set a $200,000 bond. While Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she would like to see the case go to trial within six months, legal experts say that is a tall order. “The idea that this case would go to trial in six months is optimistic, and I think it’s optimistic, even if you put aside that Donald Trump is facing three other indictments,” Jonathan Entin, a professor emeritus of law and adjunct professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University, told The Center Square. Additionally, Shafer, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark want the case transferred to federal court. “The Georgia indictment reflects the Sergeant Joe Friday mantra of ‘just the facts, ma’am’ and could end up being easier to prove than the latest federal indictment against Trump by avoiding trying to directly blame him for the chaos of Jan. 6,” civil rights attorney V. James DeSimone, of Los Angeles-based V. James DeSimone Law, told The Center Square via email. “The task of prosecuting 19 defendants and proving acts occurring in other states may be a daunting one,” DeSimone added. “But by charging acts in other states, the indictment demonstrates how Trump and the alleged co-conspirators developed a plan to invalidate the popular vote in a sufficient number of states to alter the results of the election. “Despite its breadth and the naming of numerous co-conspirators, Georgia’s indictment is nevertheless focused on the interference with its state elections, the oath of those in office and the established protocol for the election of the electoral voters.” Additionally, Entin said it may be challenging to seat a jury in the case, but it won’t be impossible. “Just because we have one very prominent defendant, the legal system can’t work if we say, ‘well, if you’re a high enough profile person, then you can never be tried, no matter what you do,’” Entin said. “That’s just destructive of the whole idea that we have a rule of law. There’s plenty of room for reasonable minds to differ about whether Donald Trump or any of the other defendants committed any of the crimes with which they’re charged. But that’s separate from saying, ‘Well, you know, some people are too important or too prominent to be subject to the rule of law at all.’” “So, it may take a lot of work to assemble a jury that is capable of deciding the case on the basis of the evidence and put aside whatever views they bring to the table,” Entin added. Earlier Thursday, U.S. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Willis demanding all records of communication with the DOJ to determine whether it was “politically motivated.” “Turning first to the question of motivation, it is noteworthy that just four days before this indictment, you launched a new campaign fundraising website that highlighted your investigation into President Trump,” the letter said. Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Rudy Giuliani turns himself in on Georgia 2020 election charges after bond is set at $150,000
Rudy Giuliani turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta on Wednesday on charges related to efforts to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The former New York mayor, was indicted last week along with Trump and 17 others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after the Republican president lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020. Bond for Giuliani, who was released after booking like the other defendants, was set at $150,000, second only to Trump’s $200,000. Giuliani, 79, is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to ignore the will of voters and illegally appoint electoral college electors favorable to Trump. Other high-profile defendants also surrendered Wednesday, including Jenna Ellis, an attorney who prosecutors say was involved in efforts to convince state lawmakers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors, and lawyer Sidney Powell, accused of making false statements about the election in Georgia and helping to organize a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County. Georgia was one of several key states Trump lost by slim margins, prompting the Republican and his allies to proclaim, without evidence, that the election was rigged in favor of his Democratic rival Biden. Giuliani is charged with making false statements and soliciting false testimony, conspiring to create phony paperwork and asking state lawmakers to violate their oath of office to appoint an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors. Outside the Fulton County Jail Wednesday afternoon, Giuliani laughed when asked if he regretted allying himself with Trump. “I am very, very honored to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life,” Giuliani told reporters. “This indictment is a travesty. It’s an attack on — not just me, not just President Trump, not just the people in this indictment, some of whom I don’t even know – this is an attack on the American people.” Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has said he plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. He and his allies have characterized the investigation as politically motivated and have heavily criticized District Attorney Willis, a Democrat. Also Wednesday, Willis’ team urged a judge to reject requests from two of the people indicted — former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark — to avoid having to be booked in jail while they fight to move the case to federal court. Willis has set a deadline of noon on Friday for the people indicted last week in the election subversion case to turn themselves in. Her team has been negotiating bond amounts and conditions with the lawyers for the defendants before they surrender at the jail. Misty Hampton, who was the Coffee County elections director when a breach of election equipment happened there, had her bond set at $10,000. David Shafer, who’s a former Georgia Republican Party chair and served as one of 16 fake electors for Trump, and Cathy Latham, who’s accused in the Coffee County breach and was also a fake elector, turned themselves in Wednesday morning. Also surrendering Wednesday were lawyers Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors said helped organize the fake electors meeting at the state Capitol in December 2020. Attorney John Eastman, who pushed a plan to keep Trump in power, and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who was accused of participating in the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, turned themselves in Tuesday. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office has said it will release booking photos at 4 p.m. each day, but Shafer appeared to post his on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, just after 7 a.m. Wednesday with the message, “Good morning! #NewProfilePicture.” While Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere are calling for Willis to be punished for indicting Trump, a group of Black pastors and community activists gathered outside the state Capitol in Atlanta Wednesday to pray for and proclaim their support for the Democratic prosecutor. Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads Georgia’s African Methodist Episcopal churches, said that Willis is under attack “as a result of her courage and determination.” Former White House chief of staff Meadows and former Justice Department official Clark are seeking to move their cases from Fulton County Superior Court to federal court. Both argue the actions that gave rise to the charges in the indictment were related to their work as federal officials and that the state charges against them should be dismissed. While those motions are pending, they argue, they should not have to turn themselves in for booking at the Fulton County Jail. In a filing Wednesday, Willis’ team argued that Meadows has failed to demonstrate any hardship that would authorize the judge to prevent his arrest. The filing notes that other defendants, including Trump, had agreed to voluntarily surrender by the deadline. In a second filing, Willis’ team argued that Clark’s effort to halt any Fulton County proceedings while his motion is pending amounts to an attempt “to avoid the inconvenience and unpleasantness of being arrested or subject to the mandatory state criminal process.” Republished with the permission of The Associate Press.
Georgia prosecutor wants Donald Trump trial to begin the day before the Alabama presidential primary
Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a March 4 start date in the trial of former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants over what prosecutors allege was a criminal plot to subvert Georgia’s 2020 election results and illegally keep Trump in power. Voters in Alabama, and over a dozen Super Tuesday states will be voting the very next day in presidential primaries. Attorneys from both sides are likely to still be making opening arguments on March 5 (assuming they are done with jury selection). At this point, voters in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia will all be voting on March 5. Democrats have a very different primary and caucus schedule this time around than Republicans, so not every state will have both party primaries and caucuses on the same day, though most of the Super Tuesday states do. At this point, the Republicans will begin their presidential selection with the Iowa Caucus on Jan. 15, followed by the New Hampshire Primary sometime in January, the Nevada Caucus on Feb. 8, the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24, the Michigan Primary on Feb. 27, and the Idaho Caucus on March 2, then the North Dakota Caucus on March 4 ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5. The Democrats will begin their presidential selection with New Hampshire at some time in January, followed by the South Carolina primary on Feb. 3, the Nevada Caucus on Feb. 6, and the Michigan primary on Feb. 27 ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5. Willis has also proposed that their arraignments occur during the week of Sept. 5. “In light of Defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending in the courts of our sister sovereigns, the State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with these other courts’ already-scheduled hearings and trial dates,” Willis wrote in the filing. The actual trial date will be decided by a judge, not the D.A. Trump faces more trials that will interfere with campaigning. Trump’s New York case is set for March 25. Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested a trial date of Jan. 2 for the federal trial in D.C. over Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 presidential election. “We do want to move this case along,” Willis said. It has been suggested that having numerous trials of the leading Republican contender for the presidency during an election year will lead to “chaos.” U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) said on Wednesday that the Georgia indictments were “pure politics.” “Where I come from, you beat your opponents by winning fair and square,” Tuberville said. “This witch hunt has gone on for long enough. Democrats are afraid of President Trump because they know he will expose their corruption. The American people deserve an equal justice system — not one that twists the law to fit their politics.” The former President was indicted on 13 charges along with 18 of his attorneys, campaign staff, and local Georgia affiliates. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, one of those indicted, has already filed a motion that the case be moved to federal court. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Tommy Tuberville says GA indictments of Donald Trump are “pure politics”
Late Monday night, a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, returned indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his advisors, team members, and affiliates. On Tuesday, Alabama Today requested comment from U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama). Tuberville’s staff said that a comment would be forthcoming. Tuberville shared the statement with Alabama Today and on Twitter. Tuberville was the first Senator to endorse Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and has for years been a vocal supporter of the former president. Tuberville recently introduced Trump at an Alabama Republican Party event in Montgomery. “Another day, another activist indictment of Biden’s top political opponent,” Sen. Tuberville said. “The fact that the radical Fulton County DA ‘accidentally’ published the indictment before the grand jury finished voting proves what we already know — this is pure politics.” “Where I come from, you beat your opponents by winning fair and square,” Tuberville continued. “This witch hunt has gone on for long enough. Democrats are afraid of President Trump because they know he will expose their corruption. The American people deserve an equal justice system — not one that twists the law to fit their politics.” The former President was indicted on 13 charges ranging from making false statements and impersonating a public officer to conspiracy and racketeering – a charge generally reserved for organized crime. This is the fourth round of indictments that the former President has received. The Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, is a Democrat and a noted Joe Biden ally. She claimed that Trump and the other eighteen defendants were trying “to accomplish the illegal goal” of keeping Trump in office. The alleged conspirators are being prosecuted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is usually reserved for organized crime figures like mafia or drug cartel members. Also indicted were former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump attorney John Eastman, Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, Trump’s Georgia legal team member Ray Smith, staffer Jeffrey Clark, attorney Robert Cheeley, Trump’s director of Election Day operations Michael Roman, staffer Stephen Lee, a leader of Black Voices for Trump Harrison Floyd, Kanye West’s former publicist Trevian Kutti, Trump “fake” elector and former Georgia Republican Party Finance Chair and State Senator Shawn Still, Trump “fake” elector Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, Sidney Powell – an attorney allied with Trump, “fake” elector retired teacher and the Chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party, Cathy Latham, and Coffee County election supervisor Misty Hampton (she also allegedly posted a viral video claiming Dominion Voting System machines could be manipulated), and bail bondsman Scott Hall. Trump maintains that he did nothing wrong and that Fulton County is simply using the legal process to cover up a flawed election. They maintain that criticizing the results of a disputed election and alleging election fraud is constitutionally protected free speech. Tuberville’s charge that the indictments against former President Trump are a witch hunt mirrors Republican congressmen’s claims that the Democrats’ two impeachment charges against Trump, as well as the Steele dossier allegations against then-candidate Trump in 2016, were a witch hunt. Despite the growing legal maelstrom around Trump, he remains the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary field for 2024. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
U.S. Supreme Court poised to keep marching to right in new term
With public confidence diminished and justices sparring openly over the institution’s legitimacy, the Supreme Court on Monday will begin a new term that could push American law to the right on issues of race, voting, and the environment. Following June’s momentous overturning of nearly 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion rights, the court is diving back in with an aggressive agenda that seems likely to split its six conservative justices from its three liberals. “It’s not going to be a sleepy term,” said Allison Orr Larsen, a William and Mary law professor. “Cases the court already has agreed to hear really have the potential to bring some pretty significant changes to the law.” Into this swirling mix steps new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black woman. Jackson took the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the court’s liberal wing, who retired in June. She’s not expected to alter the liberal-conservative divide on the court, but for the first time the court has four women as justices, and white men no longer hold a majority. The court, with three appointees of President Donald Trump, could discard decades of decisions that allow colleges to take account of race in admissions and again weaken the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. In a separate elections case, a Republican-led appeal could dramatically change the way elections for Congress and the presidency are conducted by handing more power to state legislatures and taking it away from state courts. Also on the agenda is a clash over the rights of a business owner with a religious objection to working with same-sex couples on their weddings. In the term’s first arguments Monday, the justices are being asked to limit the reach of the Clean Water Act, nation’s main law to combat water pollution. The case involves an Idaho couple who won an earlier high court round in their bid to build a house on property near a lake without getting a permit under that law. The outcome could change the rules for millions of acres of property that contain wetlands. A Supreme Court decision for the couple could strip environmental protections from 45 million acres and threaten water quality for millions of people, said Sam Sankar, senior vice president of the Earthjustice environmental group. “It’s going to help a lot of industries. It’s going to hurt real people,” Sankar said. But Damien Schiff, representing the couple, said a favorable court ruling could free ordinary property owners from worrying about large fines and years of delays. “You don’t have to be a large industrial company or large property owner to have a problem,” Schiff said. There’s little expectation that the outcomes in the highest-profile cases will be anything other than conservative victories, following last term’s outcomes. In their first full term together, the conservatives ruled not only on abortion, but expanded gun rights, enhanced religious rights, reined in the government’s ability to fight climate change and limited Biden administration efforts to combat COVID-19. Deborah Archer, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, underscored the long odds facing defenders of affirmative action in college admissions. “It is most certainly an uphill climb. We’re in a scary place where we are relying on Justice Roberts,” Archer said. Her assessment stems from Chief Justice John Roberts’ long-standing support, both as a judge and a White House lawyer in the 1980s, for limits on considerations of race in education and voting. “It’s a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” Roberts wrote in a 2006 redistricting case from Texas. Last term’s epic decisions might have produced bruised feelings among the justices anyway. But the leak of the abortion decision in early May, seven weeks before it was released, exacerbated tensions on the court, several justices have said. The court has apparently not identified the source of the leak, Breyer said in a recent interview on CNN. Justice Elena Kagan delivered a series of talks over the summer in which she said the public’s view of the court can be damaged especially when changes in its membership lead to big changes in the law. “It just doesn’t look like law when some new judges appointed by a new president come in and start just tossing out the old stuff,” Kagan said in an appearance last month at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito both took issue with Kagan, if obliquely. Roberts said it was wrong to equate disagreement with the court’s decisions with questions of legitimacy. In a comment Tuesday to The Wall Street Journal, Alito didn’t name Kagan. “But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line,” he said, according to the newspaper. Separately, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was interviewed on Thursday by the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. She stood by the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, according to the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Ginni Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, texted with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election. In January, her husband was the only justice to vote to keep documents from the National Archives out of the committee’s hands. Polls have shown a dip in approval for the court and respect for it. The latest Gallup Poll, released last week, reflected Americans’ lowest level of trust in the court in 50 years and a record-tying low approval rating. In a talk to judges and lawyers in Colorado last month, Roberts reflected on the last year at the court, calling it an “unusual one and difficult in many respects.” Following the leak, the court was ringed with an 8-foot security fence, and Roberts called it “gut-wrenching” to drive to work past the barricades. He also said it was “unnatural” to hear arguments without the public present, a concession to the coronavirus pandemic. Now the barricades are down, and the public will be allowed inside the courtroom for arguments for the first time since March
Cassidy Hutchinson, Donald Trump White House aide, now in spotlight
Just two years out of college, Cassidy Hutchinson said she watched as a valet mopped up the president’s lunch after he had smashed his plate against a wall. Donald Trump was in a rage because his attorney general had refuted his claims that the election he lost had been stolen. Weeks later, as she watched Trump resist entreaties to try to stop the rioters, the young aide who once said she went into public service to “maintain American prosperity and excellence” described her own disgust at the president. “We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie,” Hutchinson said After months of testimony from a former attorney general and other powerful officials, including Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, it was a 25-year-old staffer who perhaps put Trump’s conduct into its sharpest relief. Speaking in an even, measured tone, Hutchinson made several shocking revelations about Trump and Mark Meadows in nationally televised testimony before a House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection. An obscure aide prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Hutchinson showed detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump White House, including in the critical days that Trump and his advisers plotted to reverse President Joe Biden’s election victory. There was no widespread election fraud. Trump lost more than 60 court cases attempting to prove wrongdoing, and even his own attorney general, William Barr, said his claims were meritless. Barr’s statements made to The Associated Press prompted Trump smashing his lunch against the wall, Hutchinson testified. She showed her familiarity with key Trump figures, referring at times to Meadows, security official Tony Ornato, and national security adviser Robert O’Brien by their first names. Meadows, in turn, called her “Cass,” in her retelling of one story. Although the White House is perhaps the world’s most prestigious office building, much of the staff is young, sometimes even fresh out of college like Hutchinson. They often previously worked on the president’s campaign or the national party, and they’re distinguished by their ambition and willingness to work long hours for little pay. They’re also critical to any administration’s machinery. They help with the logistics of media coverage, prepare for public events and answer the phones. Because they’re often within earshot as the country’s most powerful people gossip and plan, discretion is expected. Young aides often go on to bigger government roles or prestigious positions in business or the media. Some run for office themselves. But Trump’s White House turned many aides into government witnesses. The Justice Department and Congress probed allegations of Russian influence on his first presidential campaign, his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president to produce derogatory information about Biden and his son Hunter, and the insurrection. Meadows has refused to testify, as have some others close to Trump. Hutchinson described Meadows as detached and frequently scrolling his cellphone at key moments. Meadows didn’t immediately look up from his phone when Ornato, a Secret Service official detailed to the White House, warned him about weapons in the crowd outside the White House on the morning of January 6, where Trump’s supporters were waiting to hear from him. Many in the crowd had guns and other weapons, including spears attached to the end of flagpoles, Hutchinson recalled. She said she was close enough to Trump at one point to hear him demand that attendees not be screened so that they could fill the crowd, saying, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” And she alleged Trump became so irate at being driven back to the White House after his speech — when he exhorted rallygoers to “fight like hell” — rather than the Capitol that he tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limousine away from a Secret Service agent who was driving. “I’m the effing president,” Hutchinson said she was told Trump had said. Trump, writing on his personal social media network, dismissed Hutchinson as “a total phony and ‘leaker.’” “Never complained about the crowd; it was massive,” he said. “I didn’t want or request that we make room for people with guns to watch my speech. Who would ever want that? Not me!” The events in her testimony — explained in new and vivid detail for the first time publicly — are of potentially vital interest to both the committee and the Justice Department. Federal agents have seized the phones of Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman, two lawyers who pushed false claims of election fraud and the discredited theory that Biden’s electors could be replaced. Republicans in at least five states have also been served with subpoenas or warrants. There was relatively little known about Hutchinson prior to her public testimony. In a 2018 profile published by her undergraduate alma mater, Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, Hutchinson recalled being “brought to tears” when she received an email telling her she’d been accepted to a White House internship program. “As a first-generation college student, being selected to serve as an intern alongside some of the most intelligent and driven students from across the nation – many of whom attend top universities – was an honor and a tremendous growing experience,” she is quoted as saying. She says in the article that she attended numerous events hosted by Trump and often watched out her window as Marine One would depart the White House’s South Lawn. “My small contribution to the quest to maintain American prosperity and excellence is a memory I will hold as one of the honors of my life,” she said in the piece. One sign of Hutchinson’s possible willingness to cooperate with investigations is her choice of lawyers. She recently switched from a former Trump White House official to a veteran former Justice Department official who served as chief of staff to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and who emerged as a key witness for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Jody Hunt, the new lawyer, recounted for Mueller’s team the extent to which
January 6 panel subpoenas Mo Brooks, four other GOP lawmakers
A House panel issued subpoenas Thursday to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other GOP lawmakers in its probe into the violent January 6 insurrection, an extraordinary step that has little precedent and is certain to further inflame partisan tensions over the 2021 attack. The panel is investigating McCarthy’s conversations with then-President Donald Trump the day of the attack and meetings the four other lawmakers had with the White House beforehand as Trump and his aides worked to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The former president’s supporters violently pushed past police that day, broke through windows and doors of the Capitol, and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The decision to issue subpoenas to McCarthy, R-Calif., and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama is a dramatic show of force by the panel, which has already interviewed nearly 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 100,000 documents as it investigates the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries. The move is not without risk, as Republicans are favored to capture back the House majority in this fall’s midterm elections and have promised retribution for Democrats if they take control. After the announcement, McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker, told reporters, “I have not seen a subpoena” and said his view on the January 6 committee has not changed since the nine-lawmaker panel asked for his voluntary cooperation earlier this year. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation,” McCarthy said. “Seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.” Similarly, Perry told reporters the investigation is a “charade” and said the subpoena is “all about headlines.” Neither man said whether he would comply. The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, had previously asked for voluntary cooperation from the five lawmakers, along with a handful of other GOP members, but all of them refused to speak with the panel, which debated for months whether to issue the subpoenas. “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel. “Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused, and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th.” Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice-chair, said the step wasn’t taken lightly. The unwillingness of the lawmakers to provide relevant information about the attack, she said, is “a very serious and grave situation.” Congressional subpoenas for sitting members of Congress, especially for a party leader, have little precedent in recent decades, and it is unclear what the consequences would be if any or all of the five men decline to comply. The House has voted to hold two other noncompliant witnesses, former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, in contempt, referring their cases to the Justice Department. In announcing the subpoenas, the January 6 panel said there is historical precedent for the move and noted that the House Ethics Committee has “issued a number of subpoenas to members of Congress for testimony or documents,” though such actions are generally done secretly. “We recognize this is fairly unprecedented,” said Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other GOP member of the panel, after the committee announced the subpoenas. “But the January 6 attack was very unprecedented.” Kinzinger said it is “important for us to get every piece of information we possibly can.” McCarthy has acknowledged he spoke with Trump on January 6 as Trump’s supporters were beating police outside the Capitol and forcing their way into the building. But he has not shared many details. The committee requested information about his conversations with Trump “before, during, and after” the riot. McCarthy took to the House floor after the rioters were cleared and said in a forceful speech that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack and that it was the “saddest day I have ever had” in Congress — even as he went on to join 138 other House Republicans in voting to reject the election results. Another member of the GOP caucus, Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, said after the attack that McCarthy had recounted that he told Trump to publicly “call off the riot” and said the violent mob was made up of Trump supporters, not far-left Antifa members, as Trump had claimed. “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ’Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Herrera Beutler said in a statement last year. The GOP leader soon made up with Trump, though, visiting him in Florida and rallying House Republicans to vote against investigations of the attack. The other four men were in touch with the White House for several weeks ahead of the insurrection, talking to Trump and his legal advisers about ways to stop the congressional electoral count on January 6 to certify Joe Biden’s victory. “These members include those who participated in meetings at the White House, those who had direct conversations with President Trump leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol, and those who were involved in the planning and coordination of certain activities on and before January 6th,” the committee said in a release. Brooks, who has since been critical of Trump, spoke alongside the former president at the massive rally in front of the White House the morning of January 6, telling supporters to “start taking down names and kicking ass” before hundreds of them broke into the Capitol. Perry spoke to the White House about replacing acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with an official who was more sympathetic to Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, and Biggs was involved in plans to bring protesters to Washington and pressuring state officials to overturn the legitimate election results, according to the panel. Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, spoke to Trump on January 6 and was
January 6 committee votes to hold Dan Scavino, Peter Navarro in contempt
The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously Monday night to hold former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for their monthslong refusal to comply with subpoenas. The committee made their case that Navarro, former President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, and Scavino, a White House communications aide under Trump, have been uncooperative in the congressional probe into the deadly 2021 insurrection and, as a result, are in contempt. “They’re not fooling anybody. They are obligated to comply with our investigation. They have refused to do so. And that’s a crime,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in his opening remarks. The recommendation of criminal charges now goes to the full House, where it is likely to be approved by the Democratic-majority chamber. Approval there would then send the charges to the Justice Department, which has the final say on the prosecution. At Monday’s meeting, lawmakers made yet another appeal to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has not yet made a decision to pursue the contempt charges the House set forward in December on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. “We are upholding our responsibility,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the committee, said in his remarks. “The Department of Justice must do the same.” The committee is investigating the circumstances surrounding January 6, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, fueled by his false claims of a stolen election, in hopes of blocking Congress from certifying election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump. Ahead of the committee’s vote, the panel scored a big legal victory in its quest for information from Trump lawyer John Eastman when a federal judge in California asserted Monday morning that it is “more likely than not” that Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election. With that argument, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee, ordered the release of more than 100 emails from Eastman to the committee. Charles Burnham, an attorney representing Eastman, said in a statement Monday that his client has a responsibility to his attorney-client privilege, and his lawsuit against the committee “seeks to fulfill this responsibility.” Navarro, 72, was subpoenaed for his testimony in early February. The panel wants to question the Trump ally who promoted false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election that the committee believes contributed to the attack. “He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans,” Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement at the time. Though Navarro sought to use executive privilege to avoid cooperation, the Biden administration has denied claims from him, Scavino, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying an assertion of executive privilege was not justified or in the national interest. On Thursday, Navarro called the committee vote “an unprecedented partisan assault on executive privilege,” and said, ”The committee knows full well that President Trump has invoked executive privilege, and it is not my privilege to waive.” In a statement Sunday night, Navarro said the committee “should negotiate this matter with President Trump.” He added, “If he waived the privilege, I will be happy to comply; but I see no effort by the Committee to clarify this matter with President Trump, which is bad faith and bad law.” In a subpoena issued to Scavino last fall, the committee cited reports that he was with Trump the day before the attack during a discussion about how to persuade members of Congress not to certify the election for Biden and with Trump again the day of the attack and may have “materials relevant to his videotaping and tweeting” messages that day. In the recent report, the committee said it also has reason to believe that due to the 46-year-old’s online presence, Scavino may have had advance warning about the potential for violence on January 6. Scavino and his counsel have received at least half a dozen extensions to comply with the subpoena, according to the committee. “Despite all these extensions, to date, Mr. Scavino has not produced a single document, nor has he appeared for testimony,” the report stated. A lawyer for Scavino did not return messages seeking comment. As the committee enforces its subpoena power, it is also continuing to branch out to others in Trump’s orbit. Lawmakers now plan to reach out to Virginia Thomas — known as Ginni — the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in regards to her reported text messages with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the day of the attack, according to two people familiar with the investigation who were granted anonymity to discuss the panel’s private deliberations. But the panel has not decided what their outreach to Thomas, a conservative activist, will look like and whether that will come in the form of a subpoena or a voluntary request to cooperate. Also, later this week, the committee plans to interview former Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the people said. The committee previously voted to recommend contempt charges against longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon after he defied a congressional subpoena, as well as against Meadows after he ceased cooperating with the panel. The full House then approved both contempt referrals. Bannon was later indicted by a federal grand jury and is awaiting prosecution by the Justice Department. The Justice Department has not taken any action against Meadows. The central facts of the January 6 insurrection are known but what the committee is hoping to do is fill in the remaining gaps about the attack on the Capitol, and lawmakers say they are committed to presenting a full accounting to make sure it never happens again. The panel is looking into every aspect of the riot, including what Trump himself was doing while it unfolded and any connections between the White House and the rioters who broke into the Capitol building. Republished with the permission
Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife urged overturning 2020 election
Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. The 29 messages the pair exchanged came in the weeks after the vote in November 2020, when Trump and his top allies were still saying they planned to go to the Supreme Court to have its results voided. The Post reported that on November 10, three days after the election and after The Associated Press and other news outlets declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, texted to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! … You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” Copies of the texts — 21 sent by her, eight sent in reply by Meadows — were provided to the House select committee investigating the deadly insurrection that saw a mob of mostly Trump supporters overrun the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The AP attempted to get the same information from the committee, but it declined to comment. The texts do not directly reference Thomas’ husband or the Supreme Court. But she has previously admitted to attending Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol riot. Virginia Thomas also has previously denied conflicts of interest between her activism and her husband’s place on the high court. Still, the messages show she was urging the top levels of the Trump administration to try to throw out the 2020 election results and even offering coaching to Meadows on how best to do so. Thomas urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump legal team. Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, told the Post and CBS that neither he nor Meadows would comment on individual texts, adding, “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.” Justice Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized for treatment from an infection. He and his wife did not respond to the outlets’ request for comment. In February 2021, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to the election. Justice Thomas dissented, calling the ruling not to hear arguments in the case “befuddling” and “inexplicable.” In a November 5 message to Meadows, Virginia Thomas quoted material that had appeared on right-wing fringe websites: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc.) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.” In a subsequent text the next day, Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Do not concede.” The messages also suggest that Meadows was willing to continue pursuing ways to overturn the election. He replied to one message from Thomas: “I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.” The texts between Thomas and Meadows stop after November 24, 2020. But the committee received another message sent on January 10, 2021, four days after the mob attack on the Capitol, according to the Post and CBS. “We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows in it. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
January 6 committee requests interview with Ivanka Trump
The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection is asking Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, to voluntarily cooperate as lawmakers make their first public attempt to arrange an interview with a Trump family member. The committee sent a letter Thursday requesting a meeting in February with Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser to her father. In the letter, the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Ivanka Trump was in direct contact with her father during key moments on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win. The riot followed a rally near the White House where Donald Trump had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” as Congress convened to certify the 2020 election results. The committee says it wants to discuss what Ivanka Trump knew about her father’s efforts, including a telephone call they say she witnessed, to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject those results, as well as concerns she may have heard from Pence’s staff, members of Congress and the White House counsel’s office about those efforts. “Ivanka Trump just learned that the January 6 Committee issued a public letter asking her to appear,” her spokesperson said. “As the Committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally.” The committee cited testimony that Ivanka Trump implored her father to quell the violence by his supporters, and investigators want to ask about her actions while the insurrection was underway. “Testimony obtained by the Committee indicates that members of the White House staff requested your assistance on multiple occasions to intervene in an attempt to persuade President Trump to address the ongoing lawlessness and violence on Capitol Hill,” Thompson wrote. The letter is the committee’s first attempt to seek information from inside the Trump family. Earlier this week, it issued subpoenas to lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team who filed meritless court challenges to the election that fueled the lie that the race had been stolen from Trump. The committee is narrowing in on three requests to Ivanka Trump, starting with a conversation alleged to have taken place between Donald Trump and Pence on the morning of the attack. The committee said Keith Kellogg, who was Pence’s national security adviser, was also in the room and testified to investigators that Trump questioned whether Pence had the courage to delay the congressional counting of the electoral votes. The Constitution makes clear that a vice president’s role is largely ceremonial in the certification process, and Pence had issued a statement before the congressional session that laid out his conclusion that a vice president could not claim “unilateral authority” to reject states’ electoral votes. “You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation,” the letter to Ivanka Trump said, adding that the committee “wishes to discuss the part of the conversation you observed” between the then-president and Pence. The letter also mentioned a message, in the days before the scheduled vote certification on January 6, 2021, between an unidentified member of the House Freedom Caucus to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows with an explicit warning: “If POTUS allows this to occur … we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic.” POTUS is an abbreviation for President of the United States. The other requests in the letter to Ivanka Trump concern conversations after Donald Trump’s tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” The committee said White House staff and even members of Congress requested Ivanka Trump’s help in trying to convince her father that he should address the violence and tell rioters to go home. “We are particularly interested in this question: Why didn’t White House staff simply ask the President to walk to the briefing room and appear on live television — to ask the crowd to leave the capital?” Besides the subpoenas issued this week, the committee had a victory Wednesday when the Supreme Court rejected a bid by Trump to block the release of White House records sought by lawmakers. The National Archives began to turn over the hundreds of pages of records to the nine-member committee almost immediately. They include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, and handwritten notes dealing with January 6 from the Meadows’ files. The committee’s investigation has touched nearly every corner of Trump’s orbit in the nearly seven months since it was created, from strategist Steve Bannon to media companies such as Twitter, Meta, and Reddit. The committee says it has interviewed nearly 400 people and issued dozens of subpoenas as it prepares a report set for release before the November elections. Still, the committee has run into roadblocks from some of Trump’s allies, including Bannon and Meadows, who have refused to fully cooperate. Their resistance has led the committee to file charges of contempt of Congress. The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee have also faced defiance from fellow lawmakers. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jim Jordan of Ohio have denied the committee’s requests for voluntary cooperation. While the committee has considered subpoenaing fellow lawmakers, that would be an extraordinary move and could run up against legal and political challenges. The committee says the extraordinary trove of material it has collected — 35,000 pages of records so far, including texts, emails, and phone records from people close to Trump — is fleshing out critical details of the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries. The next phase of the investigation will include a series of public hearings in the coming months. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Supreme Court allows January 6 committee to get Donald Trump documents
In a rebuff to former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court is allowing the release of presidential documents sought by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. The justices on Wednesday rejected a bid by Trump to withhold the documents from the committee until the issue is finally resolved by the courts. Trump’s lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold. Following the high court’s action, there is no legal impediment to turning over the documents, which are held by the National Archives and Records Administration. They include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows. The House committee agreed to defer its attempt to get some documents at the request of the Biden White House. The current administration was concerned that releasing all of the Trump administration documents sought by the committee could compromise national security and executive privilege. Alone among the justices, Clarence Thomas said he would have granted Trump’s request to keep the documents on hold. Trump’s attorneys had asked the high court to reverse rulings by the federal appeals court in Washington and block the release of the records even after President Joe Biden waived executive privilege over them. In an unsigned opinion, the court acknowledged there are “serious and substantial concerns” over whether a former president can win a court order to prevent disclosure of certain records from his time in office in a situation like this one. But the court noted that the appeals court determined that Trump’s assertion of privilege over the documents would fail under any circumstances, “even if he were the incumbent.” It said the issue of a former president’s ability to claim executive privilege would have to wait for another day. The court took issue with the conclusion of the appeals court that downplayed a former president’s interests, suggesting that the current president could, in essence, ignore his predecessor’s claims. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who worked in the White House under President George W. Bush, wrote separately to argue that “a former President must be able to successfully invoke the Presidential communications privilege for communications that occurred during his Presidency, even if the current President does not support the privilege claim.” But Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, did not object to the outcome Wednesday. Before and after the riot, Trump promoted false theories about election fraud and suggested the “real insurrection” was on Election Day, when he lost to Biden. Repeating arguments they made before lower courts, Trump’s attorneys had urged the justices to step in, arguing that the case concerned all future occupants of the White House. Former presidents had “a clear right to protect their confidential records from premature dissemination,” Trump’s lawyers said. “Congress cannot engage in meandering fishing expeditions in the hopes of embarrassing President Trump or exposing the President’s and his staff’s sensitive and privileged communications ‘for the sake of exposure,’” they added. But the House committee responded in its high court brief that although the facts of the case are “unprecedented,” the decision was “not a difficult one.” There was no explanation for the timing of the court’s action. But the National Archives told the appeals court and Trump’s lawyers that it would turn over some documents it asserted were not part of the court case on Wednesday absent a new court order. Also on Wednesday, the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued subpoenas to leaders of an alt-right group who appeared at events promoting baseless claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election. The committee demanded records and testimony from Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey — internet personalities who have promoted white supremacist beliefs — regarding what lawmakers say is their promotion of unsupported claims about the election and their presence on Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021. Since its creation last summer, the committee has interviewed almost 350 people as it seeks to create a comprehensive record of the attack and the events leading up to it. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
January 6 committee prepares to go public as findings mount
They’ve interviewed more than 300 witnesses, collected tens of thousands of documents, and traveled around the country to talk to election officials who were pressured by Donald Trump. Now, after six months of intense work, the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is preparing to go public. In the coming months, members of the panel will start to reveal their findings against the backdrop of the former president and his allies’ persistent efforts to whitewash the riots and reject suggestions that he helped instigate them. The committee also faces the burden of trying to persuade the American public that their conclusions are fact-based and credible. But the nine lawmakers — seven Democrats and two Republicans — are united in their commitment to tell the full story of January 6, and they are planning televised hearings and reports that will bring their findings out into the open. Their goal is not only to show the severity of the riot but also to make a clear connection between the attack and Trump’s brazen pressure on the states and Congress to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate election as president. “The full picture is coming to light, despite President Trump’s ongoing efforts to hide the picture,” said Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chairwoman and one of its two Republican members. “I don’t think there’s any area of this broader history in which we aren’t learning new things,” she said. While the fundamental facts of January 6 are known, the committee says the extraordinary trove of material they have collected — 35,000 pages of records so far, including texts, emails, and phone records from people close to Trump — is fleshing out critical details of the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries, which played out on live television. They hope to fill in the blanks about the preparations before the attack, the financing behind the January 6 rally that preceded it, and the extensive White House campaign to overturn the 2020 election. They are also investigating what Trump himself was doing as his supporters fought their way into the Capitol. True accountability may be fleeting. Congressional investigations are not criminal cases, and lawmakers cannot dole out punishments. Even as the committee works, Trump and his allies continue to push lies about election fraud while working to place similarly minded officials at all levels of state and local government. “I think that the challenge that we face is that the attacks on our democracy are continuing — they didn’t come to an end on January 6,” said another panel member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., also chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Still, the lawmakers hope they can present the public with a thorough accounting that captures what could have been “an even more serious and deeper constitutional crisis,” as Cheney put it. “I think this is one of the single most important congressional investigations in history,” Cheney said. The committee is up against the clock. Republicans could disband the investigation if they win the House majority in the November 2022 elections. The committee’s final report is expected before then, with a possible interim report coming in the spring or summer. In the hearings, which could start in the coming weeks, the committee wants to “bring the people who conducted the elections to Washington and tell their story,” said the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Their testimony, he said, will further debunk Trump’s claims of election fraud. The committee has interviewed several election officials in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, about Trump’s pressure campaign. In some cases, staff have traveled to those states to gather more information. The panel also is focusing on the preparations for the January 6 rally near the White House where Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell” — and how the rioters may have planned to block the electoral count if they had been able to get their hands on the electoral ballots. They need to amplify to the public, Thompson said, “that it was an organized effort to change the outcome of the election by bringing people to Washington … and ultimately if all else failed, weaponize the people who came by sending them to the Capitol.” About 90% of the witnesses called by the committee have cooperated, Thompson said, despite the defiance of high-profile Trump allies such as Steve Bannon and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Lawmakers said they have been effective at gathering information from other sources in part because they share a unity of purpose rarely seen in a congressional investigation. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a close Trump ally, decided not to appoint any GOP members to the committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rejected two of his picks last summer. Pelosi, who created the select committee after Republican senators rejected an evenly bipartisan outside commission, subsequently appointed Republicans Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Trump critics who shared the Democrats’ desire to investigate the attack. “I think you can see that Kevin made an epic mistake,” Kinzinger said. “I think part of the reason we’ve gone so fast and have been so effective so far is because we’ve decided, and we have the ability to do this as a nonpartisan investigation.” Kinzinger said the investigation would be “a very different scene” if Republicans allied with Trump were participating and able to obstruct some of their work. “I think in five or ten years, when school kids learn about January 6, they’re going to get the accurate story,” Kinzinger said. “And I think that’s going to be dependent on what we do here.” Democrats say having two Republicans working with them has been an asset, especially as they try to reach conservative audiences who may still believe Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen election. “They bring to the table perspectives and ability to translate a little bit what is being reflected in conservative media, or how this might be viewed through a
