U.S. News

Intercept reporter Ryan Grim told MSNBC on Sunday that the one thing he uncovered speaking to the Qataris about Jared Kushner was that if they knew Kushner would guarantee that they were punished by a years-long blockade that they would have bought Kushner's property a lot sooner.

Kushner Companies negotiated a bailout deal for 666 Fifth Avenue with the Qatari sovereign wealth fund. The moment came months after the Qatari government officials were staying in the Trump hotel in Washington on the same date as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who had a home in Washington at the time.

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election met on Sunday to discuss whether they would do criminal referrals to the Justice Department. But according to one legal expert, the GOP will basically force them to make at least one referral.

Law school professor and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explained that if the Jan. 6 committee doesn't make a referral, they will use it as justification that there's no one to blame for the evidence uncovered. It happened before when special prosecutor Robert Mueller didn't indict Donald Trump for anything involving the Russia probe. Mueller never intended to, making it clear that as he understood it, there wasn't an option to indict the sitting president under the DOJ policy at the time. Trump spent the years that followed proclaiming he was exonerated, which he wasn't, Mueller said under oath to the House Judiciary Committee.

Missouri "birther" Rep. Vicky Hartzler cried her homophobia in a House floor speech as a law was passed that would force all states to recognize the marriages of all couples regardless of whether the states themselves have same-sex marriage.

It was something that triggered the far-right Republicans to claim that somehow passing the legislation would be "dangerous." Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2015 and, thus far, the marriages haven't led to the destruction of any straight relationships. Nor have any people died as a result of couples getting married.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) is set to seek reelection in 2024, but it has become clear over the past two years in office that she has been unable to secure support from her own party's voters after becoming a new GOP ally. Jan. 2022 polls showed her losing in the Democratic primary election. Despite telling her state she was a progressive, she's turned further and further to the GOP, which has garnered favor from lobbyists and other corporate donors.

This week she went full Joe Lieberman, knowing that she couldn't get elected in a Democratic primary after alienating her party by blocking popular legislation Americans want. With a likely Democrat running in the race, however, Axios explained that Sinema would continue to be the Arizona spoiler. She is likely to go unopposed as an Independent unless a popular candidate files to run against her to score the top stop.

While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) promised that if she were in charge of Jan. 6, people would have been more armed and dangerous, other speakers at the Young Republicans gala in New York City talked about the next civil war.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism throughout the United States, cited the speech from the Young republican president Gavin Wax, who told the Upper East side gala, “We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is making it clear that she would have "won" the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election.

“I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed,” Greene told a group of New York Republicans over the weekend," said the New York Post.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in Moore vs. Harper on Wednesday where former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal went up against the conservative Supreme Court justices and right-wing lawyers trying to justify a Trump ally's "independent legislature theory" that was part of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.

Part of the argument from Trump's allies was that if they could convince Vice President Mike Pence to say that there was an issue with the election and it needed to be thrown back to the state legislatures to decide who won. It was thoroughly trounced in an Oval Office debate with White House counselors. Even the architect of the strategy, John Eastman, admitted that it likely wouldn't hold muster if taken to the Supreme Court to decide.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has made a powerful enemy in Fox host Mark Levin, and their issues are getting worse.

The Daily Beast explained that last Tuesday, Biggs, who Levin attacked along with five other far-right MAGA members, struck back against Levin, who he called a "total fraud."

Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal was the lawyer who appeared before the Supreme Court to argue in the Moore v. Harper case, and he not only came prepared, he came prepared to go after the justices with their own words.

As the counsel for Common Cause, Katyal walked through the ways in which the Supreme Court inserted itself into the state laws after previously saying that they were leaving laws up to the states to decide, which is yet another contradiction. That said, the courts claimed "states rights" for abortion but then blocked it for gun regulation.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) believes that former President Donald Trump should be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. His colleague, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), was a little less specific about the criminal referrals expected from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

On Tuesday, committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), explained that there would likely be criminal referrals to come out of the committee.