Category: Latest News

Justice Department says an Oath Keepers leader waited for Trump’s direction before Capitol attack

The Justice Department is now making clear that a leader among the Oath Keepers paramilitary group — who planned and led others in the US Capitol siege to attempt to stop the Biden presidency — believed she was responding to the call from then-President Donald Trump himself.”

As the inauguration grew nearer, [Jessica] Watkins indicated that she was awaiting direction from President Trump,” prosecutors wrote in a filing Thursday morning. 

This is the most direct language yet from federal prosecutors linking Trump’s requests for support in Washington, D.C., to the most militant aspects of the insurrection. Continue reading.

Trump’s acquittal is a sign of ‘constitutional rot’ – partisanship overriding principles

The Senate’s decision to acquit former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial may have been a victory for Trump, but it is a clear sign that democracy in the U.S. is in poor health. 

As a constitutional scholar, I believe the United States – the world’s first constitutional democracy – is in a state of what I call “constitutional rot.”

In a constitutional democracy, the majority’s authority to govern is limited by the rule of law and by a set of legal rules and principles set out in the Constitution. Continue reading.

Harvard researchers have calculated how many unnecessary deaths the Trump administration left behind

Professors at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at San Francisco looked at the numbers. They’re gruesome.

The Trump administration leaves a devastating health legacy far beyond COVID-19, according to a new study in The Lancet by 33 researchers, led by professors at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at San Francisco.

The report finds that the Trump administration’s health policies resulted in 461,000 unnecessary U.S. deaths annually—in addition to 40% of America’s COVID-19 deaths thus far, plus 22,000 avoidable deaths annually from environmental policies.

The authors paint a damning picture of Trump politics, concluding that he purposely sought struggling white voters, and then backed policies that threatened their health: He earned his largest 2016 electoral margins in counties with the county’s worst mortality statistics, with life expectancies averaging 2 years shorter than in counties where he lost. His policies overwhelmingly favored corporations and wealthy Americans. Continue reading.

Trump attorneys falsely claim he was denied ‘due process’

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“Our Constitution and any basic sense of fairness require that every legal process with significant consequences for a person’s life, including impeachment, requires due process under the law, which includes fact-finding and the establishment of a legitimate evidentiary record with an appropriate foundation.”

— David I. Schoen, attorney for former president Donald Trump, in an argument to the Senate about Trump’s second impeachment, Feb. 12, 2021

“The due process clause applies to this impeachment hearing, and it’s been severely and extremely violated.”

— Trump attorney Michael van der Veen, responding to senators’ questions at Trump’s impeachment trial, Feb. 12, 2021

This falsehood is rich with hypocrisy.

The day before these remarks, Trump’s legal team was meeting with Republican senators to strategize on Trump’s defense. Forget about due process. Any lawyer who tried this with jurors in court would be sanctioned or disbarred.

Luckily for Trump, it was not a judicial proceeding. It was political. The House and Senate each set their own rules on impeachment. Each chamber votes. There’s no appeal. The end. Continue reading.

Dozens of former GOP officials reportedly met last week to discuss mounting a new anti-Trump party

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Days before former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial began, more than 100 former GOP officials reportedly hopped on a Zoom call. The topic: how to best rally whatever anti-Trump momentum is left in the party.

The talk on Friday, which Reuters reported included former elected Republicans and officials from the past four GOP administrations, touched on whether to launch a new center-right party, said Evan McMullin, the former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference, who co-hosted the call.

“Some people at the summit strongly favor starting a new party,” McMullin, who ran as an independent presidential candidate in 2016, told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “They think the GOP is irredeemable. They understand how difficult it is to form a new party, but they understand that there is no other choice.” Continue reading.

McConnell unloads on Trump: ‘Morally responsible’ for provoking mob

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday unleashed blistering criticism of former President Trump, blaming him for sparking the attack on the Capitol while also explaining why he didn’t vote for a conviction.

McConnell also suggested that Trump could face criminal prosecution for his actions.

“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said. Continue reading.

Senator stunned by GOP’s determination to avoid the truth: ‘How will they ever look Pence in the face again?’

On MSNBC Thursday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) tore into his colleagues who were unswayed by the damning testimony at this week’s Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.

“I don’t know how anyone can call themselves a defender of law and order when you say it’s okay for this mob, this raging mob, to rampage and pillage,” he said.

The House impeachment managers presented new evidence to the Senate on Wednesday, including never-before-seen footage of how the pro-Trump mob came close to harming senators, something which stunned even some Republicans watching. Continue reading.

Will impeachment even be a blip in 2022 battle for Senate control?

NRSC Chairman Rick Scott says midterms will focus on job creation

Former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment has dominated recent headlines, but neither party expects the votes cast Saturday by senators from battleground states to be a major factor in the fight for Senate control next year.

Seven Republican senators crossed party lines and joined all 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump for inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop Congress from confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. But that was 10 short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required by the Constitution. Forty-three Republicans voted to acquit Trump.

Two GOP senators in competitive races voted to acquit Trump. Just one Senate Republican up for reelection in 2022, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, voted to convict the former president. Two other Republicans in states with competitive Senate races who opted not to run for reelection, Pennsylvania’s Patrick J. Toomey and North Carolina’s Richard M. Burr, both also voted to convict.  Continue reading.

Capitol rioters searched for Nancy Pelosi in a way that should make every woman’s skin crawl

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As rioters made their way through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, some went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. New footage of this was released at Wednesday’s session of the impeachment trial. The mob roamed hallways, searching for her office, and as they did, they called for her. “Oh, Nancy,” one man cried out, three syllables ricocheting off the walls. “Oh, Naaaaaaancy.”

If you cannot stomach reading an entire column about three syllables, you should stop here.

Oh, Naaaaaaancy is a very specific scene from a horror movie. Oh, Nancy is what the protagonist hears when she is hiding in a parking garage, or in a stairwell, or crouched under her desk, or pressed flat on the ground in a damp cornfield. Her terror is played out for entertainment, whether that means a narrow escape or a bloody death. Continue reading.

Romney on impeachment vote to convict: ‘Trump incited the insurrection’

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Saturday explained why he voted to convict former President Trump on the charge that he incited the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. 

Romney issued a statement in the early evening on Saturday in which he explicitly declared that Trump “incited the insurrection” that led to several deaths, including that of a Capitol Police Officer. 

“President Trump incited the insurrection against Congress by using the power of his office to summon his supporters to Washington on January 6th and urging them to march on the Capitol during the counting of electoral votes. He did this despite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day,” Romney said. Continue reading.