House Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump advisers, associates
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and ERIC TUCKER
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has issued its first subpoenas, demanding records and testimony from four of former President Donald Trump's close advisers and associates who were in contact with him before and during the attack.
In a significant escalation for the panel, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., announced the subpoenas of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The four men are among Trump's most loyal aides.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote to the four that the committee is investigating “the facts, circumstances, and causes” of the attack and asked them to produce documents and appear at depositions in mid-October.
The panel, formed over the summer, is now launching the interview phase of its investigation after sorting through thousands of pages of documents it had requested in August from federal agencies and social media companies. The committee has also requested a trove of records from the White House. The goal is to provide a complete accounting of what went wrong when the Trump loyalists brutally beat police, broke through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory — and to prevent anything like it from ever happening again.
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Trump files lawsuit to keep Jan. 6 documents from Congress
By JILL COLVIN, COLLEEN LONG and ZEKE MILLER
32 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday sought to block the release of documents related to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to a House committee investigating the attack, challenging President Joe Biden's initial decision to waive executive privilege.
In a federal lawsuit, Trump said the committee's August request was “almost limitless in scope,” and sought many records that weren't connected to the siege. He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose,” according to the papers filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.
Trump’s lawsuit was expected, as he had said he would challenge the investigation and at least one ally, Steve Bannon, has defied a subpoena. But the legal challenge went beyond the initial 125 pages of records that Biden recently cleared for release to the committee. The suit, which names the committee as well as the National Archives, seeks to invalidate the entirety of the congressional request, calling it overly broad, unduly burdensome and a challenge to separation of powers. It requests a court injunction to bar the archivist from producing the documents.
The Biden administration, in clearing the documents for release, said the violent siege of the Capitol more than nine months ago was such an extraordinary circumstance that it merited waiving the privilege that usually protects White House communications.
Trump's lawsuit came the evening before the panel is scheduled to vote to recommend that Bannon be held in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance of the committee's demands for documents and testimony. In a resolution released Monday, the committee asserts that the former Trump aide and podcast host has no legal standing to rebuff the committee, even as Trump's lawyer has asked him not to disclose information. Bannon was a private citizen when he spoke to Trump ahead of the attack, the committee said, and Trump has not asserted any such executive privilege claims to the panel itself.
The resolution lists many ways in which Bannon was involved in the leadup to the insurrection, including reports that he encouraged Trump to focus on Jan. 6, the day Congress certified the presidential vote, and his comments on Jan. 5 that “all hell is going to break loose" the next day.
“Mr. Bannon appears to have played a multi-faceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions,” the committee wrote.
Once the committee votes on the Bannon contempt resolution, it will go to the full House for a vote and then on to the Justice Department, which would decide whether to prosecute.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the White House also worked to undercut Bannon's argument. Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su wrote that the president's decision on the documents applied to Bannon, too, and “at this point we are not aware of any basis for your client’s refusal to appear for a deposition.”
“President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to these subjects applies to your client’s deposition testimony and to any documents your client may possess concerning either subject,” Su wrote to Bannon's lawyer.
Bannon’s attorney said he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it. While Bannon has said he needs a court order before complying with his subpoena, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel have been negotiating with the committee. It is unclear whether a fourth former White House aide, Dan Scavino, will comply.
The committee has also subpoenaed more than a dozen people who helped plan Trump rallies ahead of the siege, and some of them have already said they would turn over documents and give testimony.
Lawmakers want the testimony, and the documents, as part of their investigation into how a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, a violent effort to halt the certification of Biden’s election win. The committee demanded a broad range of executive branch papers related to intelligence gathered before the attack, security preparations during and before the siege, the pro-Trump rallies held that day and Trump’s false claims that he won the election, among other matters.
Trump's lawsuit says the “boundless requests included over fifty individual requests for documents and information, and mentioned more than thirty individuals, including those working inside and outside government.”
The files must be withheld, the lawsuit says, because they could include “conversations with (or about) foreign leaders, attorney work product, the most sensitive of national security secrets, along with any and all privileged communications among a pool of potentially hundreds of people.”
The suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing an incumbent president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after they left office is inherently unconstitutional. Biden has said he would go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.
While not spelled out in the Constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.
But that privilege has had its limitations in extraordinary situations, as exemplified during the Watergate scandal, when the Supreme Court ruled it could not be used to shield the release of secret Oval Office tapes sought in a criminal inquiry, and following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Monday's lawsuit was filed by Jesse Binnall, an attorney based in Alexandria, Virginia, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful lawsuit late last year seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada. Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Trump’s suit quotes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in a case by House committees seeking the then-sitting president’s tax returns and other financial records. But that case involved courts enforcing a congressional subpoena. The high court in that case directed lower courts t o apply a balancing test to determine whether to turn over the records — it's still pending.
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House votes to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
44 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, a longtime ally and aide to former President Donald Trump, in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
In a rare show of bipartisanship on the House floor, the committee's Democratic chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, led the floor debate along with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of two Republicans on the panel. Still, the vote was 229-202 with all but nine GOP lawmakers who voted saying “no."
The House vote sends the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where it will now be up to prosecutors in that office to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges. It's still uncertain whether they will pursue the case — Attorney General Merrick Garland would only say at a House hearing on Thursday that they plan to “make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution.”
The partisan split over Bannon's subpoena — and over the committee's investigation in general — is emblematic of the raw tensions that still grip Congress nine months after the Capitol attack. Democrats have vowed to comprehensively probe the assault in which hundreds of Trump's supporters battered their way past police, injured dozens of officers and interrupted the electoral count certifying President Joe Biden's victory.
Lawmakers on the investigating committee say they will move swiftly and forcefully to punish anyone who won’t cooperate with the probe.
“We will not allow anyone to derail our work, because our work is too important,” Thompson said ahead of the vote.
Republicans call it a “witch hunt,” say it is a waste of time and argue that Congress should be focusing on more important matters than the insurrection.
Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, leading the GOP opposition on the floor, called the probe an “illicit criminal investigation into American citizens” and said Bannon is a “Democrat party boogeyman.”
Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel, and both have openly criticized Trump and his role in fomenting the insurrection while the majority of House Republicans have remained silent in the face of Trump's falsehoods about massive fraud in the election. Trump's claims were rejected by election officials, courts across the country and by his own attorney general.
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EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
Man, if any other outlet had posted this, I'd say it's pretty damning.
Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's investigative journalism desk needs a bunch of shims to keep it from wobbling.
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
Man, if any other outlet had posted this, I'd say it's pretty damning.
Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's investigative journalism desk needs a bunch of shims to keep it from wobbling.
Tried to read but I don't pay/sign up for this crap magazine (even online) so could not. If this was legitimate, would it not be all over by now?
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
Man, if any other outlet had posted this, I'd say it's pretty damning.
Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's investigative journalism desk needs a bunch of shims to keep it from wobbling.
Tried to read but I don't pay/sign up for this crap magazine (even online) so could not. If this was legitimate, would it not be all over by now?
my guess is this all relates to the rally itself on the ellipse. it infers coordination for the Capitol events but nothing conclusive as yet.
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EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
Man, if any other outlet had posted this, I'd say it's pretty damning.
Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's investigative journalism desk needs a bunch of shims to keep it from wobbling.
Yes it's hard not to be a little suspicious of RS. Who offered it, from whom, when did it happen (before the rally, after the chaos), etc. Unless it was from someone like Meadows, it's hard to think it will stick to the Exec office.
i unfollowed all of rolling stone on my socials maybe 4-6 weeks ago. their reporting is just ridiculous. the article that did it for me was a feature on megan thee stallion giving a ted talk on twerking. she was quoted as saying "my ass could do magic" in the byline, and i was done from there. that was when i knew i was too old for anything that rolling stone is offering up these days.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
This may be what has certain folks "triggered." From Letter From an American:
I had planned to post a picture tonight, but this evening Rolling Stone dropped an exclusive, blockbuster story from reporter Hunter Walker that demands attention.
The story says that two sources who are talking to the January 6th committee about planning the January rallies in Washington, D.C., have talked to Rolling Stone as well. They say they worked with congressional lawmakers and White House officials to plan rallies both in Washington, D.C., and around the country. They deny that they intended to storm the Capitol and imply they got used, which points to the sources being from within Women for America First, the organization that sponsored a bus tour and rallies around the country before heading to Washington for January 6.
They allegedly named Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX), as people with whom they planned. They also claim that Gosar promised them a blanket presidential pardon, although they do not say for what.
From the White House team, they singled out then–chief of staff Mark Meadows. “Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” one of the sources said.
Katrina Pierson was a key figure in both accounts. She was on Trump’s campaign teams in 2016 and 2020, and worked with the organizers of the rallies before the mob stormed the Capitol.
One of those talking to Rolling Stone said: “It’s clear that a lot of bad actors set out to cause chaos…. They made us all look like s**t.” This person included Trump on their list of bad actors and described feeling used by him and then abandoned. “I’m actually pretty pissed about it and I’m pissed at him.”
Nick Dyer, who is communications director for Greene, said the congresswoman was only involved in planning to refuse to accept certified ballots, nothing more. He tried to compare Greene’s actions with those of Democrats who objected to Donald Trump’s 2016 win, and said that no one cares about the events of January 6 amongst what he suggests is the disaster of the Biden presidency.
No other spokespeople for the lawmakers involved answered requests for comment.
Indicted Capitol Police officer resigns from force
Michael A. Riley had been on the job more than 25 years
Capitol
Police Officer Michael A. Riley, shown outside of headquarters on D
St., NE. in 2011, has resigned from the department. (Tom Williams/Roll
Call)
Michael
A. Riley, the Capitol Police officer who faces charges for obstructing
the investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection after deleting Facebook
communications between him and a man who was charged with entering the
Capitol, resigned from the department this week, his lawyer said in a
statement.
Riley served more than 25 years on the force and was
working as an officer on the K-9 unit during Jan. 6. He is the first
Capitol Police officer charged in relation to the Capitol attack, where a
mob supporting former President Donald Trump stormed the seat of
American government to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory
in the 2020 presidential election. More than 140 police officers were
injured in the riot.
“After a distinguished 26-year career during
which he was named nationwide ‘Officer of the Month’ by the National Law
Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (2011) and ‘Officer of the Year’ by
the Capitol Hill Executive Service Club & National Exchange Club
(2010), Officer Michael A. Riley has resigned his position with the U.S.
Capitol Police,” Riley’s lawyer, Christopher Macchiaroli, said in a
statement.
Riley submitted his resignation on Wednesday afternoon around 5 p.m.
“As
is the case with many of his colleagues, Officer Riley engaged in acts
of heroism on January 6, 2021, responding to the attack on the U.S.
Capitol,” Macchiaroli added. “With regard to the charges against him,
the evidence will show that it is not a felony for one person to suggest
to another that they take down ill-conceived Facebook posts.”
Riley
and the man he communicated with on Facebook did not know each other,
but were both avid fishermen and belonged to related Facebook groups. On
Jan. 1, 2021 that man accepted a friend request from Riley. Riley was
on duty outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and responded to reports of an
explosive device near the complex. The next day, Riley contacted the
man, who had posted videos and photographs of himself showing he had
been among those inside the Capitol during the riot, according to the indictment.
Asked
for comment, a Capitol Police spokesperson said Friday that it is
“standard practice to not discuss potential personnel issues.” Riley had
been suspended with pay by the department before he left.
Riley
is charged with two counts of obstruction. The first is for allegedly
telling the man to take down his Facebook posts relating to his conduct
in the Capitol on Jan. 6 to make them unavailable for use in the federal
investigation into the Capitol attack. The second is for allegedly
deleting his direct Facebook communications with the man to “impair
their use” in the same federal investigation.
Riley told the man
he was a Capitol Police officer and “agrees with your political stance,”
the indictment says. “Take down the part about being in the building
they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is
going to charged. Just looking out!” Riley wrote.
They continued to exchange messages and on Jan. 13 Riley advised the man to “get off of social media.”
On
Jan. 19 the man was arrested for unlawfully entering the Capitol. The
next day, Riley deleted his communications with the man. On Jan. 21,
Riley sent him a final message saying he would no longer communicate
with him.
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By Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Jon Swaine and Emma Brown October 29 at 10:26 PM ET As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss. The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol — an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a “siege” in their email exchange. “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud. Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed. Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, included Eastman’s emailed remarks in a draft opinion article about Trump’s outside legal team that he wrote later in January but ultimately chose not to publish. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the draft. Jacob wrote that by sending the email at that moment, Eastman “displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time.”
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Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 6 more Trump associates in probe
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
5 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
The committee's chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a “war room” ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.
“In the days before the January 6th attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes," Thompson said. "The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all."
The subpoenas come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers — some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.
The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trump's false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Biden's win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.
Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered “credible evidence” of their participation in the former president's efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.
In Stepien's subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the “conversion” of Trump's presidential campaign to a “Stop the Steal” effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could “count on” them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.
Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification — a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastman's outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called “war room” at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trump's defeat.
Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who was pardoned by Trump after serving time in prison for tax fraud and other charges, responded to his subpoena with a lengthy statement on Monday evening. He said that he “was not hired to overturn the will of the people, only to look into the integrity of the process” and that his focus after the election was on “looking for evidence," not public relations.
“As to the events of January 6th, I was not involved,” he said.
The others contacted by The Associated Press did not respond to requests for comment.
In the letter to Flynn — the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was also pardoned by Trump — Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants “discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”
The panel is working with other close Trump advisers to gain testimony, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and administration aides Kashyap Patel and Dan Scavino. Members of the committee said they have been “engaging” with those witnesses but may move to hold them in contempt, as well, if they don't comply soon.
Trump's own opposition has prompted some of his advisors, including Bannon, to say they can't speak publicly about their roles. The former president's lawsuit argues that he can assert executive privilege, or a presidential claim to keep some information private, in an effort to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents to the panel. The committee has argued that privilege doesn't apply.
President Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents that the committee has asked for, citing the panel’s need to investigate the violent attack.
In his subpoena to Eastman, Thompson sought to preemptively attack any attorney-client privilege that he may attempt to cite to avoid testifying. The letter noted that Eastman has already “made extensive public comments" regarding his legal advice and direct discussions with Trump.
Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aligned himself with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as other department leaders pushed back, appeared for a deposition on Friday but declined to cooperate, presenting the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trump’s assertions of privilege, including in the ongoing court case.
Thompson said afterward that he had rejected the claims of privilege and said Clark “has a very short time” to reconsider and cooperate.
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Federal judge refuses Trump request to block Jan. 6 records
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to block the release of documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In denying a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said Tuesday that Congress had a strong public interest in obtaining records that could shed light on a violent insurrection mounted by the former president’s supporters. She added that President Joe Biden had the authority to waive executive privilege over the documents despite Trump’s assertions otherwise.
Barring a court order, the National Archives plans to turn over Trump’s records to the committee by Friday. But Trump’s lawyers swiftly promised an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case will likely eventually head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President,” Chutkan wrote. “And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight.”
Trump “does not acknowledge the deference owed” to Biden’s judgment as the current president, Chutkan said. She noted examples of past presidents declining to assert executive privilege and rejected what she said was Trump’s claim that executive privilege “exists in perpetuity.”
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” she said.
According to an earlier court filing from the archives, the records include call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows. There are also copies of talking points from then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and “a draft Executive Order on the topic of election integrity,” the National Archives has said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the House committee, said in a statement after the ruling that the records are crucial for understanding the attack and “in my view, there couldn’t be a more compelling public interest than getting answers about an attack on our democracy.”
On CNN, Thompson said Trump should stop behaving like a “spoiled brat.”
The nine-member House committee is investigating not just Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 — when he told a rally to “fight like hell” shortly before rioters overran law enforcement — but his efforts in the months before the riot to challenge election results or obstruct a peaceful transfer of power. The committee has interviewed more than 150 witnesses and issued more than 30 subpoenas, including ones announced Tuesday to McEnany and former top adviser Stephen Miller. It is unclear, so far, whether the lawmakers will eventually call Trump to testify.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the committee’s work and continued to promote unfounded conspiracy theories about widespread fraud in the election, despite the fact that Biden’s win was certified by all 50 states and his claims have been rebuked by courts across the country.
In suing to block the National Archives from turning over documents, Trump called the House panel’s request a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose.” Allowing the House to get access to his records would also damage executive privilege for future presidents, Trump’s lawyers argued.
But Chutkan said the “the public interest lies in permitting — not enjoining — the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again.”
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich tweeted late Tuesday that the case “was destined to be decided by the Appellate Courts.” He added that “Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution & the Office of the Presidency, & will be seeing this process through.”
___
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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Bannon indicted on contempt charges for defying 1/6 subpoena
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, MICHAEL BALSAMO and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
27 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was indicted Friday on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Justice Department said Bannon, 67, was indicted on one count for refusing to appear for a deposition last month and the other for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena. He is expected to surrender to authorities on Monday and will appear in court that afternoon, a law enforcement official told the AP. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the case.
The indictment came as a second witness, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, defied his own subpoena from the committee on Friday and as Trump has escalated his legal battles to withhold documents and testimony about the insurrection. The chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said he will recommend contempt charges against Meadows next week.
If the House votes to hold Meadows in contempt, that recommendation could also be sent to the Justice Department for a possible indictment.
“Mr. Meadows, Mr. Bannon, and others who go down this path won’t prevail in stopping the Select Committee’s effort getting answers for the American people about January 6th, making legislative recommendations to help protect our democracy, and helping ensure nothing like that day ever happens again,” Democrat Thompson and the vice chairwoman of the panel, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said in a statement.
The indictment is a victory for House Democrats, who saw dozens of Trump officials decline testimony and defy subpoenas during his presidency. The charges support the authority of Congress to investigate the executive branch and signal potential consequences for those who refuse to cooperate.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Bannon's indictment reflects the Justice Department’s “steadfast commitment” to ensuring that the department adheres to the rule of law. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.
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Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts
of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce
any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Will be interesting if he decides to go to trial or submit to the Congress.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Will be interesting if he decides to go to trial or submit to the Congress.
trial. defense will be exec priv although its said it doesnt apply to him nor has fuckstick asserted such for this douche.
still though, trial wouldnt start until fucksticks appeals get shot down.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Will be interesting if he decides to go to trial or submit to the Congress.
Trial, so he can be a perceived martyr for the cause.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Will be interesting if he decides to go to trial or submit to the Congress.
Trial, so he can be a perceived martyr for the cause.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-bannon-surrenders-fbi-contempt-congress-charges/story?id=81176653Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
ByLuke Barr
November 15, 2021, 9:43 AM
• 6 min read
1:08
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
The former Trump adviser is...
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
continues...
As a white-nationalist he'll be very happy and safe in jail.
he'll be out on bond before the days out
and still not compelled to testify
Unfortunately you are probably correct on both points.
But a boy can dream
It's mandatory prison of he refuses, is tried and found guilty. These are two federal felonies.
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Will be interesting if he decides to go to trial or submit to the Congress.
Trial, so he can be a perceived martyr for the cause.
Comments
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has issued its first subpoenas, demanding records and testimony from four of former President Donald Trump's close advisers and associates who were in contact with him before and during the attack.
In a significant escalation for the panel, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., announced the subpoenas of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The four men are among Trump's most loyal aides.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote to the four that the committee is investigating “the facts, circumstances, and causes” of the attack and asked them to produce documents and appear at depositions in mid-October.
The panel, formed over the summer, is now launching the interview phase of its investigation after sorting through thousands of pages of documents it had requested in August from federal agencies and social media companies. The committee has also requested a trove of records from the White House. The goal is to provide a complete accounting of what went wrong when the Trump loyalists brutally beat police, broke through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory — and to prevent anything like it from ever happening again.
continues..
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday sought to block the release of documents related to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to a House committee investigating the attack, challenging President Joe Biden's initial decision to waive executive privilege.
In a federal lawsuit, Trump said the committee's August request was “almost limitless in scope,” and sought many records that weren't connected to the siege. He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose,” according to the papers filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.
Trump’s lawsuit was expected, as he had said he would challenge the investigation and at least one ally, Steve Bannon, has defied a subpoena. But the legal challenge went beyond the initial 125 pages of records that Biden recently cleared for release to the committee. The suit, which names the committee as well as the National Archives, seeks to invalidate the entirety of the congressional request, calling it overly broad, unduly burdensome and a challenge to separation of powers. It requests a court injunction to bar the archivist from producing the documents.
The Biden administration, in clearing the documents for release, said the violent siege of the Capitol more than nine months ago was such an extraordinary circumstance that it merited waiving the privilege that usually protects White House communications.
Trump's lawsuit came the evening before the panel is scheduled to vote to recommend that Bannon be held in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance of the committee's demands for documents and testimony. In a resolution released Monday, the committee asserts that the former Trump aide and podcast host has no legal standing to rebuff the committee, even as Trump's lawyer has asked him not to disclose information. Bannon was a private citizen when he spoke to Trump ahead of the attack, the committee said, and Trump has not asserted any such executive privilege claims to the panel itself.
The resolution lists many ways in which Bannon was involved in the leadup to the insurrection, including reports that he encouraged Trump to focus on Jan. 6, the day Congress certified the presidential vote, and his comments on Jan. 5 that “all hell is going to break loose" the next day.
“Mr. Bannon appears to have played a multi-faceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions,” the committee wrote.
Once the committee votes on the Bannon contempt resolution, it will go to the full House for a vote and then on to the Justice Department, which would decide whether to prosecute.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the White House also worked to undercut Bannon's argument. Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su wrote that the president's decision on the documents applied to Bannon, too, and “at this point we are not aware of any basis for your client’s refusal to appear for a deposition.”
“President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to these subjects applies to your client’s deposition testimony and to any documents your client may possess concerning either subject,” Su wrote to Bannon's lawyer.
Bannon’s attorney said he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it. While Bannon has said he needs a court order before complying with his subpoena, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel have been negotiating with the committee. It is unclear whether a fourth former White House aide, Dan Scavino, will comply.
The committee has also subpoenaed more than a dozen people who helped plan Trump rallies ahead of the siege, and some of them have already said they would turn over documents and give testimony.
Lawmakers want the testimony, and the documents, as part of their investigation into how a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, a violent effort to halt the certification of Biden’s election win. The committee demanded a broad range of executive branch papers related to intelligence gathered before the attack, security preparations during and before the siege, the pro-Trump rallies held that day and Trump’s false claims that he won the election, among other matters.
Trump's lawsuit says the “boundless requests included over fifty individual requests for documents and information, and mentioned more than thirty individuals, including those working inside and outside government.”
The files must be withheld, the lawsuit says, because they could include “conversations with (or about) foreign leaders, attorney work product, the most sensitive of national security secrets, along with any and all privileged communications among a pool of potentially hundreds of people.”
The suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing an incumbent president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after they left office is inherently unconstitutional. Biden has said he would go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.
While not spelled out in the Constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.
But that privilege has had its limitations in extraordinary situations, as exemplified during the Watergate scandal, when the Supreme Court ruled it could not be used to shield the release of secret Oval Office tapes sought in a criminal inquiry, and following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Monday's lawsuit was filed by Jesse Binnall, an attorney based in Alexandria, Virginia, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful lawsuit late last year seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada. Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Trump’s suit quotes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in a case by House committees seeking the then-sitting president’s tax returns and other financial records. But that case involved courts enforcing a congressional subpoena. The high court in that case directed lower courts t o apply a balancing test to determine whether to turn over the records — it's still pending.
continues..
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, a longtime ally and aide to former President Donald Trump, in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
In a rare show of bipartisanship on the House floor, the committee's Democratic chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, led the floor debate along with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of two Republicans on the panel. Still, the vote was 229-202 with all but nine GOP lawmakers who voted saying “no."
The House vote sends the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where it will now be up to prosecutors in that office to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges. It's still uncertain whether they will pursue the case — Attorney General Merrick Garland would only say at a House hearing on Thursday that they plan to “make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution.”
The partisan split over Bannon's subpoena — and over the committee's investigation in general — is emblematic of the raw tensions that still grip Congress nine months after the Capitol attack. Democrats have vowed to comprehensively probe the assault in which hundreds of Trump's supporters battered their way past police, injured dozens of officers and interrupted the electoral count certifying President Joe Biden's victory.
Lawmakers on the investigating committee say they will move swiftly and forcefully to punish anyone who won’t cooperate with the probe.
“We will not allow anyone to derail our work, because our work is too important,” Thompson said ahead of the vote.
Republicans call it a “witch hunt,” say it is a waste of time and argue that Congress should be focusing on more important matters than the insurrection.
Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, leading the GOP opposition on the floor, called the probe an “illicit criminal investigation into American citizens” and said Bannon is a “Democrat party boogeyman.”
Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel, and both have openly criticized Trump and his role in fomenting the insurrection while the majority of House Republicans have remained silent in the face of Trump's falsehoods about massive fraud in the election. Trump's claims were rejected by election officials, courts across the country and by his own attorney general.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's investigative journalism desk needs a bunch of shims to keep it from wobbling.
my guess is this all relates to the rally itself on the ellipse. it infers coordination for the Capitol events but nothing conclusive as yet.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
I had planned to post a picture tonight, but this evening Rolling Stone dropped an exclusive, blockbuster story from reporter Hunter Walker that demands attention.
The story says that two sources who are talking to the January 6th committee about planning the January rallies in Washington, D.C., have talked to Rolling Stone as well. They say they worked with congressional lawmakers and White House officials to plan rallies both in Washington, D.C., and around the country. They deny that they intended to storm the Capitol and imply they got used, which points to the sources being from within Women for America First, the organization that sponsored a bus tour and rallies around the country before heading to Washington for January 6.
They allegedly named Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX), as people with whom they planned. They also claim that Gosar promised them a blanket presidential pardon, although they do not say for what.
From the White House team, they singled out then–chief of staff Mark Meadows. “Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” one of the sources said.
Katrina Pierson was a key figure in both accounts. She was on Trump’s campaign teams in 2016 and 2020, and worked with the organizers of the rallies before the mob stormed the Capitol.
One of those talking to Rolling Stone said: “It’s clear that a lot of bad actors set out to cause chaos…. They made us all look like s**t.” This person included Trump on their list of bad actors and described feeling used by him and then abandoned. “I’m actually pretty pissed about it and I’m pissed at him.”
Nick Dyer, who is communications director for Greene, said the congresswoman was only involved in planning to refuse to accept certified ballots, nothing more. He tried to compare Greene’s actions with those of Democrats who objected to Donald Trump’s 2016 win, and said that no one cares about the events of January 6 amongst what he suggests is the disaster of the Biden presidency.
No other spokespeople for the lawmakers involved answered requests for comment.
"Only the guilty plead the Fifth."
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Indicted Capitol Police officer resigns from force
Michael A. Riley had been on the job more than 25 years
Michael A. Riley, the Capitol Police officer who faces charges for obstructing the investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection after deleting Facebook communications between him and a man who was charged with entering the Capitol, resigned from the department this week, his lawyer said in a statement.
Riley served more than 25 years on the force and was working as an officer on the K-9 unit during Jan. 6. He is the first Capitol Police officer charged in relation to the Capitol attack, where a mob supporting former President Donald Trump stormed the seat of American government to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. More than 140 police officers were injured in the riot.
“After a distinguished 26-year career during which he was named nationwide ‘Officer of the Month’ by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (2011) and ‘Officer of the Year’ by the Capitol Hill Executive Service Club & National Exchange Club (2010), Officer Michael A. Riley has resigned his position with the U.S. Capitol Police,” Riley’s lawyer, Christopher Macchiaroli, said in a statement.
Riley submitted his resignation on Wednesday afternoon around 5 p.m.
“As is the case with many of his colleagues, Officer Riley engaged in acts of heroism on January 6, 2021, responding to the attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Macchiaroli added. “With regard to the charges against him, the evidence will show that it is not a felony for one person to suggest to another that they take down ill-conceived Facebook posts.”
Riley and the man he communicated with on Facebook did not know each other, but were both avid fishermen and belonged to related Facebook groups. On Jan. 1, 2021 that man accepted a friend request from Riley. Riley was on duty outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and responded to reports of an explosive device near the complex. The next day, Riley contacted the man, who had posted videos and photographs of himself showing he had been among those inside the Capitol during the riot, according to the indictment.
Asked for comment, a Capitol Police spokesperson said Friday that it is “standard practice to not discuss potential personnel issues.” Riley had been suspended with pay by the department before he left.
Riley is charged with two counts of obstruction. The first is for allegedly telling the man to take down his Facebook posts relating to his conduct in the Capitol on Jan. 6 to make them unavailable for use in the federal investigation into the Capitol attack. The second is for allegedly deleting his direct Facebook communications with the man to “impair their use” in the same federal investigation.
Riley told the man he was a Capitol Police officer and “agrees with your political stance,” the indictment says. “Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to charged. Just looking out!” Riley wrote.
They continued to exchange messages and on Jan. 13 Riley advised the man to “get off of social media.”
On Jan. 19 the man was arrested for unlawfully entering the Capitol. The next day, Riley deleted his communications with the man. On Jan. 21, Riley sent him a final message saying he would no longer communicate with him.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/eastman-pence-email-riot-trump/2021/10/29/59373016-38c1-11ec-91dc-551d44733e2d_story.html
October 29 at 10:26 PM ET
As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss.
The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol — an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a “siege” in their email exchange.
“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed.
Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, included Eastman’s emailed remarks in a draft opinion article about Trump’s outside legal team that he wrote later in January but ultimately chose not to publish. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the draft. Jacob wrote that by sending the email at that moment, Eastman “displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
The committee's chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a “war room” ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.
“In the days before the January 6th attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes," Thompson said. "The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all."
The subpoenas come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers — some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.
The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trump's false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Biden's win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.
Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered “credible evidence” of their participation in the former president's efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.
In Stepien's subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the “conversion” of Trump's presidential campaign to a “Stop the Steal” effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could “count on” them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.
Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification — a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastman's outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called “war room” at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trump's defeat.
Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who was pardoned by Trump after serving time in prison for tax fraud and other charges, responded to his subpoena with a lengthy statement on Monday evening. He said that he “was not hired to overturn the will of the people, only to look into the integrity of the process” and that his focus after the election was on “looking for evidence," not public relations.
“As to the events of January 6th, I was not involved,” he said.
The others contacted by The Associated Press did not respond to requests for comment.
In the letter to Flynn — the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was also pardoned by Trump — Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants “discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”
The panel is working with other close Trump advisers to gain testimony, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and administration aides Kashyap Patel and Dan Scavino. Members of the committee said they have been “engaging” with those witnesses but may move to hold them in contempt, as well, if they don't comply soon.
Trump's own opposition has prompted some of his advisors, including Bannon, to say they can't speak publicly about their roles. The former president's lawsuit argues that he can assert executive privilege, or a presidential claim to keep some information private, in an effort to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents to the panel. The committee has argued that privilege doesn't apply.
President Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents that the committee has asked for, citing the panel’s need to investigate the violent attack.
In his subpoena to Eastman, Thompson sought to preemptively attack any attorney-client privilege that he may attempt to cite to avoid testifying. The letter noted that Eastman has already “made extensive public comments" regarding his legal advice and direct discussions with Trump.
Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aligned himself with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as other department leaders pushed back, appeared for a deposition on Friday but declined to cooperate, presenting the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trump’s assertions of privilege, including in the ongoing court case.
Thompson said afterward that he had rejected the claims of privilege and said Clark “has a very short time” to reconsider and cooperate.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to block the release of documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In denying a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said Tuesday that Congress had a strong public interest in obtaining records that could shed light on a violent insurrection mounted by the former president’s supporters. She added that President Joe Biden had the authority to waive executive privilege over the documents despite Trump’s assertions otherwise.
Barring a court order, the National Archives plans to turn over Trump’s records to the committee by Friday. But Trump’s lawyers swiftly promised an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case will likely eventually head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President,” Chutkan wrote. “And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight.”
Trump “does not acknowledge the deference owed” to Biden’s judgment as the current president, Chutkan said. She noted examples of past presidents declining to assert executive privilege and rejected what she said was Trump’s claim that executive privilege “exists in perpetuity.”
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” she said.
According to an earlier court filing from the archives, the records include call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows. There are also copies of talking points from then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and “a draft Executive Order on the topic of election integrity,” the National Archives has said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the House committee, said in a statement after the ruling that the records are crucial for understanding the attack and “in my view, there couldn’t be a more compelling public interest than getting answers about an attack on our democracy.”
On CNN, Thompson said Trump should stop behaving like a “spoiled brat.”
The nine-member House committee is investigating not just Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 — when he told a rally to “fight like hell” shortly before rioters overran law enforcement — but his efforts in the months before the riot to challenge election results or obstruct a peaceful transfer of power. The committee has interviewed more than 150 witnesses and issued more than 30 subpoenas, including ones announced Tuesday to McEnany and former top adviser Stephen Miller. It is unclear, so far, whether the lawmakers will eventually call Trump to testify.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the committee’s work and continued to promote unfounded conspiracy theories about widespread fraud in the election, despite the fact that Biden’s win was certified by all 50 states and his claims have been rebuked by courts across the country.
In suing to block the National Archives from turning over documents, Trump called the House panel’s request a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose.” Allowing the House to get access to his records would also damage executive privilege for future presidents, Trump’s lawyers argued.
But Chutkan said the “the public interest lies in permitting — not enjoining — the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again.”
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich tweeted late Tuesday that the case “was destined to be decided by the Appellate Courts.” He added that “Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution & the Office of the Presidency, & will be seeing this process through.”
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was indicted Friday on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Justice Department said Bannon, 67, was indicted on one count for refusing to appear for a deposition last month and the other for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena. He is expected to surrender to authorities on Monday and will appear in court that afternoon, a law enforcement official told the AP. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the case.
The indictment came as a second witness, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, defied his own subpoena from the committee on Friday and as Trump has escalated his legal battles to withhold documents and testimony about the insurrection. The chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said he will recommend contempt charges against Meadows next week.
If the House votes to hold Meadows in contempt, that recommendation could also be sent to the Justice Department for a possible indictment.
“Mr. Meadows, Mr. Bannon, and others who go down this path won’t prevail in stopping the Select Committee’s effort getting answers for the American people about January 6th, making legislative recommendations to help protect our democracy, and helping ensure nothing like that day ever happens again,” Democrat Thompson and the vice chairwoman of the panel, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said in a statement.
The indictment is a victory for House Democrats, who saw dozens of Trump officials decline testimony and defy subpoenas during his presidency. The charges support the authority of Congress to investigate the executive branch and signal potential consequences for those who refuse to cooperate.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Bannon's indictment reflects the Justice Department’s “steadfast commitment” to ensuring that the department adheres to the rule of law. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Steve Bannon surrenders to FBI on contempt of Congress charges
Former President Donald Trump's political ally was charged on Friday.
Steve Bannon set to turn himself in after being indicted for contempt of Congress
Former President Donald Trump's political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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and still not compelled to testify
But a boy can dream
....and he's out.
Bannon has to remain at listed address, with weekly phone calls. Must notify if planning to travel domestically, and get permission to travel outside the US.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©