By Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump crossed out sentences that distanced him from the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and refused to call for their prosecution in a draft of a speech he delivered the next day, congressional testimony showed on Monday.
The former Republican president deleted lines that said, "I want to be very clear: You do not represent me. You do not represent our movement," according to an image of the script posted on Twitter by a member of the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack, U.S. Representative Elaine Luria.
He also deleted a reference to directing the "Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We must send a clear message — not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm."
In a primetime hearing last week, the congressional committee probing the attack played video outtakes from the Jan. 7 speech that showed Trump refusing to admit the election was over and he had lost. "I don't want to say the election is over," Trump said in footage recorded as he rehearsed the speech.
In the attack, thousands of Trump supporters breached the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's November 2020 presidential victory.
Video clips that Luria posted, not previously made public, included testimony from the former president's daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and White House lawyers and aides who described Trump as reluctant to give a reconciliatory address after the Capitol attack.
"Do you know why he wanted that crossed out?" an investigator asked Kushner.
"I don't know," Jared Kushner responded.
The witnesses described concerns about what would happen if the president did not send a stronger message.
"That needed to be stated forcefully: They did not represent him or his political views in any form or fashion," White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified.
Trump aide John McEntee told committee investigators that Kushner asked him to nudge the speech along and encourage Trump to "help everything cool down."
"Was the implication that the president was in some ways reluctant to give that speech?" an investigator asked McEntee.
"Yeah."
"OK, what do you base that on?"
"The fact that somebody has to tell me to nudge it along," McEntee said.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday morning, longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz warned the Republican Party leadership that they need to do something to stop former President Donald Trump from announcing his plan to run again in 2024 if they have any hope of winning both chambers on Congress in November.
'We’re just waiting for him to die': GOP has no plan to derail Trump in 2024 | RawStory.TV'We’re just waiting for him to die': GOP has no plan to derail Trump in 2024 | RawStory.TV
Speaking with fill-in host Jonathan Lemire, Luntz also said he had some bad news for the former president based on recent polling and focus groups.
"We are starting to see Trump drop below the critical 50 percent mark in terms of who Republicans want to see as their nominee in 2024, and the constant, consistent rise of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis," he told the MSNBC host.
"What matters is New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa for the Republicans," he elaborated. "Ron DeSantis is rising in all the early states significantly, and there is even a survey that now has him ahead of Donald Trump in New Hampshire. Clearly, Republicans still see Trump as their most important political figure. His endorsement still matters as we saw in the Maryland governor's race, but when they're looking forward rather than looking back, more and more Republicans are saying, 'Enough. I don't want to focus on the past, I want to focus on the future. I don't want to focus on Donald Trump and an election that is now two years old."
"This is causing a significant problem for Trump," he continued. "I think it's the reason why he is more likely than not to announce in 2022 rather than wait until 2023."
Before host Lemire cut away to another guest, Luntz insisted on making a "final point."
"If he [Trump] does announce, he could actually cost the Republicans the House as well as the Senate," he bluntly stated. "If the election is about the economy, Republicans win both. If the election is about Donald Trump, Republicans lose both."
In his column for the Bulwark, former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller scorched the GOP for doing nothing to shed themselves of former President Donald Trump and instead just "humoring" him with the hope that he will go away.
As Miller notes, immediately after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and ramped up his efforts to prove the election was stolen from him, an anonymous senior Republican official told the Washington Post, “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” before adding, “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
As Miller wryly noted, that prediction didn't age well as almost two months later Trump's election fraud claims culminated in a riot at the Capitol following a "Stop the Steal" rally on the national mall.
According to the columnist, Republicans are still dithering when it comes to shoving Trump out into the wilderness, in part because they need his fundraising prowess and ability to get out the vote in some races
According to Miller, "in present-day Republican politics, that anonymous 'what’s the downside for humoring him' moron actually won the day. And not just that day, but today. Because despite how brutally and blatantly their strategy in managing Trump’s psychopathy failed, Senior Republican Officials (SROs) are still employing it."
"You see, back in November 2020, at least the SROs thought that there was an expiration date on their cowardice. They figured that, come January 20, 2021, Trump would be gone and they would no longer have to humor him. Today the strategy has been modified only in the removal of an expected end date," he wrote before noting a comment made by a former Republican lawmaker in Mark Leibovich's new book, "Thank You for Your Servitude."
As Leibovitch wrote, "A former Republican congressman told me recently that the party’s only real plan for dealing with Trump in 2024 involved a darkly divine intervention. 'We’re just waiting for him to die,' he said."
To which Miller added, "Instead they will soldier on. Playing the same big game of pretend with our democracy in the balance. After all, the downside for humoring him for just a little more time is likely to be felt by other people. And the upside of humoring? That accrues directly to the Republicans who want power," before darkly predicting, "But don’t worry. Eventually they’ll be able to tell the truth. Probably. As long as he’s the one who croaks first."
Former President Donald Trump was up and running on his Truth Social account on Monday morning after making an appearance late Sunday at the Turning Point USA conference, where he was the winner of a highly unscientific straw poll showing 78.7% of the attendees would vote for him in 2024.
In a Monday post, the former president continued his war with the Fox News network and, in particular, Fox & Friends that stems from his complaints that the conservative network called Arizona for Joe Biden earlier than any other network on election night in 2020 despite his protestations.
According to Trump, the hosts of the Fox News morning show -- who used to do phone-in interviews with him on a regular basis when he was still president -- have gone to "the "dark side" by comparing his straw poll numbers with actual national polling results.
Taking to Truth Social, Trump wrote, "@foxandfriends just really botched my poll numbers, no doubt on purpose. That show has been terrible - gone to the “dark side.” They quickly quote the big Turning Point Poll victory of almost 60 points over the number two Republican, and then hammer me with outliers. Actually, almost all polls have me leading all Republicans & Biden BY A LOT."
RELATED: Conservative pollster warns Trump on the verge of costing the GOP control of the Senate and House
He than took a shot at former Rep. Paul Ryan, now a Fox Corporation board member, for the Fox & Friends segment.
"RINO Paul Ryan, one of the weakest and worst Speakers EVER, must be running the place. Anyway, thank you to Turning Point, the crowd & 'love' was AMAZING!" he wrote.
Trump's diatribe comes after two of Rupert Murdoch's papers, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, editorialized over the weekend that he is no longer fit for office.
In his column for the Bulwark, former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller scorched the GOP for doing nothing to shed themselves of former President Donald Trump and instead just "humoring" him with the hope that he will go away.
As Miller notes, immediately after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and ramped up his efforts to prove the election was stolen from him, an anonymous senior Republican official told the Washington Post, “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” before adding, “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
As Miller wryly noted, that prediction didn't age well as almost two months later Trump's election fraud claims culminated in a riot at the Capitol following a "Stop the Steal" rally on the national mall.
According to the columnist, Republicans are still dithering when it comes to shoving Trump out into the wilderness, in part because they need his fundraising prowess and ability to get out the vote in some races
RELATED: The NY Post's brutal Trump editorial will 'live in his head' and leave him 'flustered': conservative
According to Miller, "in present-day Republican politics, that anonymous 'what’s the downside for humoring him' moron actually won the day. And not just that day, but today. Because despite how brutally and blatantly their strategy in managing Trump’s psychopathy failed, Senior Republican Officials (SROs) are still employing it."
"You see, back in November 2020, at least the SROs thought that there was an expiration date on their cowardice. They figured that, come January 20, 2021, Trump would be gone and they would no longer have to humor him. Today the strategy has been modified only in the removal of an expected end date," he wrote before noting a comment made by a former Republican lawmaker in Mark Leibovich's new book, "Thank You for Your Servitude."
As Leibovitch wrote, "A former Republican congressman told me recently that the party’s only real plan for dealing with Trump in 2024 involved a darkly divine intervention. 'We’re just waiting for him to die,' he said."
To which Miller added, "Instead they will soldier on. Playing the same big game of pretend with our democracy in the balance. After all, the downside for humoring him for just a little more time is likely to be felt by other people. And the upside of humoring? That accrues directly to the Republicans who want power," before darkly predicting, "But don’t worry. Eventually they’ll be able to tell the truth. Probably. As long as he’s the one who croaks first."
You can read more here.
IN RELATED: 'We’re just waiting for him to die': GOP has no plan to derail Trump in 2024
'We’re just waiting for him to die' GOP has no plan to derail Trump in 2024 www.youtube.com
Former President Donald Trump's loss of support from both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, as evidenced by two scathing editorials on Saturday that called him unfit to hold office again, is a "crushing" blow to his hope to run for re-election again in 2024, writes Dean Obeidallah for CNN.
Over the weekend, both of the Rupert Murdoch-owned papers came down hard on the former president after the most recent House Select Committee hearing provided irrefutable evidence that Trump sat by for over three hours and did nothing while the Capitol was under siege by his supporters.
After years of support for the twice-impeached former president, that information appears to have made in untenable for the conservative editorial boards to continue to back his comeback efforts.
As Obeidallah wrote, the loss of support from the NY Post will be hard for Trump to overcome.
RELATED: The NY Post's brutal Trump editorial will 'live in his head' and leave him 'flustered': conservative
A "new editorial published by the New York Post, "Trump's silence on Jan. 6 is damning," should worry him, given the newspaper's reach with a loyal pro-Trump audience and its status as one of the crown jewels of Rupert Murdoch's media empire," he wrote. "The conservative-leaning daily is not some random anti-MAGA publication; rather it gave Trump a full-throated endorsement when he ran for reelection in 2020 while saying a Joe Biden administration 'would be beholden to a socialist left.'"
Most worrisome, the columnist maintained, is the reach of the Post which gets 80 million online views per month from a predominantly Trump-enthusiastic readership.
"One thing about the New York Post that should concern Trump is something from his own playbook: It doesn't hold back when it slams people -- even someone like the ex-President whom it once championed. The paper is known for using clear, direct language and powerful framing -- and that's exactly what it deployed in its editorial crushing Trump," he wrote before adding, "The Post wrote that Trump's indefensible objective through all of this was 'to find any means -- damn the consequences -- to block the peaceful transfer of power.' Pointing out that the Justice Department must decide about possible criminal behavior, the newspaper's editorial board concluded that 'as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country's chief executive again.'"
According to the columnist, "One thing is perfectly clear at this point: people either support Donald Trump or they support the United States of America. There's no overlap. Even the formerly Trump-loving New York Post is telling us that the ex-President's behavior that day cannot be defended."
You can read more here.
A fierce California wildfire expanded Sunday, burning several thousand acres and forcing evacuations as tens of millions of Americans sweltered through scorching heat.
More than 2,000 firefighters backed by 17 helicopters have been deployed against the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said in a report.
But two days after it began, the blaze has already consumed more than 15,600 acres (6,313 hectares) and remains zero percent contained, the report said, adding that heat combined with low humidity would "hamper" efforts Sunday.
"Extreme drought conditions have led to critical fuel moisture levels," according to CAL FIRE's report.
Described as "explosive" by officials, the blaze has left ashes, gutted vehicles and twisted remains of properties in its wake, as emergency personnel worked to evacuate residents and protect structures in its path.
It has already destroyed 10 properties and damaged five others, with thousands more threatened.
More than 6,000 people had been evacuated, said Hector Vasquez, a CAL FIRE official.
"It was scary when we left because we were getting ashes on us, but we had such a visual of this billowing. It just seemed like it was above our house and coming our way really quickly," one woman who had to be evacuated, Lynda Reynolds-Brown, told local news station KCRA.
"We started getting our stuff together, and that's when I went back up the hill and looked and I'm like, 'Oh my God.' It was coming fast," her husband Aubrey Brown told the station.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County, citing "conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property."
In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, driven by years of drought and a warming climate.
Evidence of global warming could be seen elsewhere in the country, as 85 million Americans in more than a dozen states were under a weekend heat advisory.
The crisis prompted former vice president Al Gore, a tireless climate advocate, to issue stark warnings Sunday about "inaction" by US lawmakers.
Asked whether he believes US President Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency, which would grant him additional policy powers, Gore was blunt.
"Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency," he told ABC News talk show "This Week."
And "it's due to get much, much worse, and quickly," he said separately on NBC.
But he also suggested that recent crises, including deadly heat waves in Europe, could serve as a wake-up call for members of US Congress who have so far refused to embrace efforts to combat climate change.
"I think these extreme events that are getting steadily worse and more severe are really beginning to change minds," he said.
The central and northeast US regions have faced the brunt of the extreme heat, which is forecast to lessen somewhat on Monday.
"Searing heat will continue across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast tonight before the upper trough over Canada dips down into the region to moderate temperatures a bit tomorrow," the National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon.
But not all regions are expected to cool down: temperatures of 100 or more degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) are forecast in the coming days across parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma into southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.
Not even the usually cool Pacific Northwest will escape the far-reaching heat, with high temperatures "forecast to steadily rise over the next few days, leading to the possibility for records to be broken," the weather service added.
Cities have been forced to open cooling stations and increase outreach to at-risk communities such as the homeless and those without access to air conditioning.
Various regions of the globe have been hit by extreme heat waves in recent months, such as Western Europe in July and India in March to April, incidents that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of a warming climate.
The end of this first round of Jan. 6 committee hearings offers a moment for the nation to take stock of what has been revealed about former President Donald Trump, his acolytes and their scheme to overturn the 2020 election. Over these sessions we have learned: That the bulk of Trump’s White House staff knew claims of mass fraud were bogus, acknowledged that Joe Biden had won the election and told Trump as much, repeatedly — only to be undermined by a willfully obtuse gang led by Rudy Giuliani, intent on wresting power by illegal means. That Trump went to previously undiscovered lengths to ge...
John Oliver came back from the summer break to walk Americans through inflation and explain what the cause actually was while politicians on both sides are blaming each other.
The "Last Week Tonight" host began with the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, which drove up demand and killed the supply chain. He illustrated this by showing a large frog statue with its legs spread, and painted with "a hand-applied emerald Verde patina."
If there are only three "giant" frogs left and everyone wants one, then they can charge higher and higher prices.
So, during the 2020 COVID crisis, a number of Americans decided to buy bicycles to stay in shape. Since 90 percent of bicycles come from China, it meant the supply chain shortage drove up the cost of bicycles. So, when Democrats note that the pandemic is part of the inflation problem, Oliver noted they're not far off. His explanation, however, is that it's only a piece of the problem.
While the supply chain issues are taking much longer to resolve, another factor leading to inflation has nothing to do with President Joe Biden or the stimulus package that Democrats passed, despite what Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says on Fox.
"Wow, that's some pretty heavy fire there," Oliver said, responding to Johnson. "Calling something a tax on the middle-class is one of the best ways to make it look bad just after calling it a close associate of Prince Andrew. Blaming Biden's stimulus package has become a common refrain on the right when discussing inflation. And the reality is, there is a kernel of truth to it."
He explained that because money was sent to Americans, Americans spent the money.
"But that is not the only reason. As strange as it sounds, many people saved money during the early days of the pandemic simply because we were all stuck at home. By one estimate, 'households accumulated $2.5 trillion in excess savings' during the pandemic," Oliver said, quoting The Hamilton Project. "To the extent that people were spending money, it mostly wasn't on services like flights or hotels or restaurants. Instead, it went to goods like furniture appliances or, I don't know, some steamy, watercolor, rat erotica. I'm just describing what most people did in 2020."
The idea that everything would be fine were it not for Biden's stimulus ignores what it would have looked like in America without it.
"It not only protected low-income workers who were in real trouble, it also helped us avoid a COVID-induced financial crisis," said Oliver. "While most economists say, in hindsight, we could have made it more targeted and precise. So, we didn't increase the money supply more than we absolutely had to, it is very important to note that according to one estimate, without the American Rescue Plan the economy would have come close to a double-digit recession in spring 2021" as Moody's said.
That means two things are true, the government stimulus did contribute to inflation, "but it was also a necessary intervention."
The biggest reason that there should be to dispute the GOP claims that Biden is the cause of inflation is that inflation is happening around the world right now. Britain and Germany have had four-decade highs in their inflation. In seven other European nations, it's expected to surge past double-digits, the New York Times reported. Biden had nothing to do with the laws or stimulus in those countries. So, by the GOP's logic, Joe Biden and the American Rescue Plan caused inflation all over the world.
When it comes to Biden blaming Russia's Vladimir Putin for inflation it isn't true either, because it was going on before Putin invaded Ukraine. As Oliver pointed out, however, it certainly exacerbated the problem, particularly when it comes to fuel. The U.S. is making fuel at the largest rate than it ever has, but when you have Europeans willing to pay more than the U.S. it means the demand goes to the highest bidder. In the U.S. Americans, aren't willing to pay $10 a gallon for gas, whereas in Norway they are.
When it comes to the allegations of corporate greed, it's the same story. They've always been greedy. So they didn't cause the inflation, but corporate greed is certainly making things worse.
"Companies will shamelessly profiteer the same way a dog will make a meal out of its own ball sack," said Oliver. "If left to its own devices that's just what it's going to do."
To recap, he explained, "rising prices are due to a ton of factors like a pandemic, a stimulus, changed spending patterns, supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine to just name a few. And anyone loudly saying 'the one thing is the cause of inflation' is either lying or has absolutely no idea what they're talking about."
See the video below at about the 15-minute mark:
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver 07/24/22 | HBO John Oliver July 24th, 2022 FULL SHOW www.youtube.com
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) offered Fox News host Maria Bartiromo a lesson in inflation on Sunday after she suggested that President Joe Biden was to blame.
In an interview on Fox News, Bartiromo told Khanna that Covid-19 legislation signed into law by Biden "was the beginning of inflation getting stoked."
"Maria, just to be factual on inflation," Khanna replied, "there was $3 trillion of spending under President Trump. And yes, there was spending under Joe Biden. But it is unfair to say that it's just the spending under Biden that somehow caused the inflation and not under Trump."
Bartiromo interrupted: "Just to be clear, I'm looking specifically at the numbers and when we look at the inflation timeline, which was the handover from President Trump to President Biden. ... By the time that we got to July of 2021, inflation was at 5.5%. Then the Democrats led the infrastructure package. That was signed into law November 21 and inflation was up to 6.8%. By March of 2022, right after the invasion by Russia, inflation was at 7.9% and today we are 8.6%"
"So we're up to 9.1%, Congressman, with all of this spending," she said.
"But, Maria, you know correlation and causation are different," Khanna remarked. "You can't say that Trump sending stimulus checks in December of 2020 was not inflationary and somehow Biden doing in March was inflationary."
"What happened is we got out of Covid," he added. "And that increased demand and the supply was constrained and the Fed policy was wrong."
Donald Trump's fixation with punishing everyone that refused his unsuccessful coup attempt was revealed in a shocking new report out of Wisconsin.
"In a private meeting with construction executive Tim Michels in April, Trump complained about a 2019 tweet by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in which she posted a picture of her daughter with the son of Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday.. "The tweet showed the two teenagers dressed up in formal wear and headed to a high school homecoming event."
Michels and Kleefisch are facing off in the GOP primary for governor.
The newspaper spoke to a source who was in the room when Trump met with Michels.
"Trump was aware of these tweets" the source said. "And it bothered him."
Kleefisch told the newspaper, "I’m outraged my opponent would use a photo of my underage daughter for political ammunition in order to score an endorsement."
However multiple sources told the newspaper Michels did not bring up the issue.
"Michels was unaware of the tweets before meeting with Trump," the newspaper reported.
On Dec. 21, 2020, after the electoral college had confirmed Joe Biden won the presidential election, Trump attacked Justice Hagedorn on Twitter with a call to have the Wisconsin legislature overturn the 2020 presidential election.
"Two years ago, the great people of Wisconsin asked me to endorse a man named Brian Hagedorn for State Supreme Court Justice, when he was getting destroyed in the Polls against a tough Democrat Candidate who had no chance of losing. After my endorsement, Hagedorn easily won!" Trump tweeted.
The newspaper noted Trump did not actually publicly endorse Hagedorn before the election, but did congratulate him afterward.
"Wow, he just voted against me in a Big Court Decision on voter fraud (of which there was much!), despite many pages of dissent from three highly respected Justices. One thing has nothing to do with another, but we ended up losing 4-3 in a really incorrect ruling!" Trump continued. "Great Republicans in Wisconsin should take these 3 strong decisions to their state legislators and overturn this ridiculous state election."
"We won in a landslide!" Trump lied.
Trump repeated his delusions about "well-documented fraud in our elections" when he endorsed Michels.
And Trump has continued his crusade, just last week state House Speaker Robin Vos revealed Trump called him asking him to "decertify" the election in Wisconsin, which was won by Joe Biden.
While Trump is facing a widespread investigation in Georgia from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has not announced a parallel investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the Wisconsin election.
The case being made against former President Donald Trump's unsuccessful coup attempt by Fulton County District Attorney was the focus of a New York Times deep-dive published online on Saturday afternoon.
"The criminal investigation into efforts by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia has begun to entangle, in one way or another, an expanding assemblage of characters: A United States senator. A congressman. A local Cadillac dealer. A high school economics teacher. The chairman of the state Republican Party. The Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Six lawyers aiding Mr. Trump, including a former New York City mayor. The former president himself. And a woman who has identified herself as a publicist for the rapper Kanye West," Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim reported.
Willis has sent "target" letters to multiple local GOP officials who took part in the phony electors scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.
"Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta area district attorney, has been leading the investigation since early last year. But it is only this month, with a flurry of subpoenas and target letters, as well as court documents that illuminate some of the closed proceedings of a special grand jury, that the inquiry’s sprawling contours have emerged," The Times reported. "For legal experts, that sprawl is a sign that Ms. Willis is doing what she has indicated all along: building the framework for a broad case that could target multiple defendants with charges of conspiracy to commit election fraud, or racketeering-related charges for engaging in a coordinated scheme to undermine the election."
The bogus elector slates were signed by 84 Trump supporters in 6 states. But Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has not indicated she is pursuing a similar prosecution. Same with New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul — who are also Democrats.
"What happened in Georgia was not altogether singular. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has put on display how Mr. Trump and his allies sought to subvert the election results in several crucial states, including by creating slates of fake pro-Trump electors. Yet even as many Democrats lament that the Justice Department is moving too slowly in its inquiry, the local Georgia prosecutor has been pursuing a quickening case that could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates," The Times reported. "Whether Mr. Trump will ultimately be targeted for indictment remains unclear. But the David-before-Goliath dynamic may in part reflect that Ms. Willis’s legal decision-making is less encumbered than that of federal officials in Washington by the vast political and societal weight of prosecuting a former president, especially in a bitterly fissured country."
With Willis apparently pursing a broad investigation, it could pull in a number of prominent names if she pursues a racketeering case.
"She has already informed the head of the Georgia Republican Party that he is a target of the investigation, along with the party’s treasurer and 14 other Georgians who were on the slate of bogus Trump electors, including the car dealer and the economics teacher," the newspaper reported. "A number of people closer to Mr. Trump have also been drawn into the case. His personal lawyer, the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, has been ordered by a judge to testify on Aug. 9. Lawyers for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are fighting his subpoena to testify, as are lawyers for Representative Jody Hice, a stalwart Trump ally who led efforts in the House in January 2021 to stop the certification of votes. Ms. Willis is also seeking to compel testimony from John Eastman, an architect of the legal strategy to keep Mr. Trump in power, as well as other lawyers — Kenneth Chesebro, Jacki Pick Deason, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell — who played critical roles in the effort."
The newspaper says the investigation appears focused on the calls to pressure election officials, the fake elector plot, and "numerous misstatements" made by Giuliani during a 7-hour legislative hearing that was captured on video.
Attorney Norm Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment, predicted Willis would indict Trump for racketeering under Georgia's version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Eisen said, “she’s clearly going to charge this as a RICO case" and predicted it will be "very likely to be one of the most important criminal RICO cases ever brought in United States history.”
Read the full report.
According to an Axios deep dive into Donald Trump's plans to enact a massive purge of federal workers and fill their positions with loyalists should he win re-election in 2024, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is reportedly cheering him on.
On Friday, Jonathan Swan reported that a Trump executive order signed in October 2020 before he lost the election in November to Joe Biden that would have allowed him to reclassify up to 50,000 federal workers and deny them job protections they currently enjoy. While President Biden has rescinded the order, Axios reports that close advisors to Trump --with the help of the former president -- would make it happen if he should be re-elected.
According to Swan, "Even if Schedule F is not reimposed — or if it comes back but is then limited by Congress or the courts — experts say there are already so many existing exemptions across the federal bureaucracy that a future president determined to pursue mass firings would have plenty to work with. Someone with Trump’s willpower will find a new methodology if Schedule F falls," adding, "Some in conservative legal circles say that the major civil service laws dating to the 1800s are all arguably unconstitutional and that it should be up to a president who stays and goes on their watch. Testing the limits of that theory would put the question before the courts."
Ohio conservative Jordan, who could be installed as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee should Republicans regain control of the House in the November midterms, is insisting that the former president make good on the threat.
According to the report, "Trump's closest confidant in Congress, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), is excited about the prospects of mass firings in the second term of a Trump administration. He said in an interview with Axios that he had talked about it with another person close to Trump and that 'the line that we talked about was, "Fire everyone you're allowed to fire. And [then] fire a few people you're not supposed to, so that they have to sue you and you send the message." That's the way to do it.'"
The report adds, "Since leaving office, Trump has mused often, publicly and privately, about the prospect of running for the presidency in 2024. He has obsessively followed Republican primary races and wielded his endorsement more prolifically and aggressively than any previous American president."
You can read more here.
In a column for the Daily Beast, a former Donald Trump associate who also wrote a book on life as a Secret Service agents claims the former president sought out agents who were sympathetic to him and "contaminated" the service before becoming a one-term president by losing to Joe Biden.
According to Jeffrey Robinson, he found it curious that texts belonging to Trump's security detail on Jan 6th were deleted and also questioned why agents were texting in the first place when they normally communicate by radio -- which is also transcribed.
As Robinson, who co-authored, "Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service," explained, "Wherever the Secret Service goes with the president, there’s constant radio traffic between those agents and the White House and the Secret Service Command Post, in real time. That's all recorded. So, why would someone use texts or emails to avoid using radio traffic?"
Answering his own question, he wrote, "The answer will likely be, because whoever sent them, or whoever received them, feared they were too incriminating to be seen by anyone else."
According to the author, there is an even more concerning -- and pressing issue -- at hand right now and that is Joe Biden's security.
According to Robinson, the former president values loyalty above all and, after his longtime personal bodyguard Keith Schiller, exited the scene, he looked within the Secret Service for replacements.
RELATED: Evidence exists to indict Trump for a '20-year felony': former US attorney
"According to sources inside the Secret Service, Trump was taking long looks at the agents around him to decide which ones were loyal to him. And because this is antithetical to the way the Secret Service must operate, he created the very dangerous situation where certain PPD agents were loyal to him, personally—just like bodyguards—while others did their job properly and remained loyal to the office of the presidency, just as Congress intended," he claimed before adding, "Such fealty is not only against the spirit of the mission, it is emblematic of Trump’s contamination of the Secret Service and downright frightening."
"Now consider this," he warned, "When presidents change, the PPD remains basically the same. Without any doubt, many agents on President Biden’s detail are determined to protect the president, regardless of who he is. But there are still those 'bodyguards' loyal to Trump—like [former Trump aide Tony] Ornato and his cronies—surrounding and protecting a man whom they believe stole the election and doesn’t otherwise deserve to be there."
"No matter what the emails and texts eventually reveal, the dangers of that should be obvious," he concluded.
You can read more here.
Copyright © 2026 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 |
Masthead
|
Privacy Policy
|
Manage Preferences
|
Debug Logs
For corrections contact
corrections@rawstory.com
, for support contact
support@rawstory.com
.
