Biden heralds midterm elections as 'rejection' of 'extremism' undermining democracy

Naomi Lim

March 29, 12:43 PM March 29, 12:43 PM

President Joe Biden alluded to former President Donald Trump's 2020 election challenges during an address delivered as co-host of his second Summit for Democracy.

Biden underscored last year's midterm elections as "free, fair, and secure," demonstrating the "resilience" of the country's democracy after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

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"Voters resoundingly and roundly rejected the voices of extremism attacking and undermining our democracy," he told the virtual summit on Wednesday from the White House. “Our job is to keep building on our progress so we don’t start heading in the wrong direction again."

Biden cited the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act as one instance in which he is ensuring "elections continue to reflect the will of the American people and protect the peaceful transfer of power."

"We're going to keep working to further strengthen protections by working to pass what we call the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act," he said.

Biden's remarks at the summit, the inaugural event of which was last year, were attended virtually by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in addition to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, and Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova. Egypt, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Turkey were not invited to participate.

“We're committed to supporting democratic institutions, human rights, rule of law, media freedom," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters this week. "So decisions around whether to add countries to the summit invitation were made with all these themes in mind. Those that were newly invited in 2023 demonstrated clear political will to bolster the themes of the summit.”

Biden opened his speech Wednesday by apologizing for his raspy voice, a symptom of a head cold.

"That's the only thing that's happening to me these days," he said.

DOJ reveals classified messages in Proud Boys trial

Jack Birle

March 09, 06:32 PM March 09, 06:32 PM

Federal prosecutors inadvertently revealed classified messages to defense attorneys for the Proud Boys in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot seditious conspiracy trial.

Justice Department officials were granted a pause in the trial by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly on Thursday. They will have until Monday to conduct a classification review of the messages found hidden on a spreadsheet provided to the defense.

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The spreadsheet included communications from FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller on the bureau’s internal messaging service from Jan. 6, 2021, to Nov. 11, 2021. Miller was set to be cross-examined by the defense, but the defense discovered thousands of hidden rows of messages from other FBI agents and a reference to an agent accessing the attorney-client privileged communications of a defendant, per WUSA.

The defense tried on Wednesday to enter the hidden communications into evidence to get Miller's testimony stricken from court records, but prosecutors objected. The prosecution then announced Thursday that the hidden rows may not have gone through a review to determine if they were classified. The defense tried to use the hidden communications as evidence the Justice Department had been withholding information, and that may be grounds for a mistrial, per the report.

Kelly ordered the trial be paused until Monday and the defense refrain from reviewing or sharing the document with the hidden rows until a classification review is completed.

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola are on trial for seditious conspiracy charges for their roles in the riot. All five have pleaded not guilty.

The trial has several delays, with numerous disputes between the prosecution and defense attorneys. The Justice Department says it has pursued nearly 1,000 cases related to the Capitol riot.

White House rips WHD News's Tucker Carlson for Jan. 6 security footage special

Naomi Lim

March 07, 03:33 PM March 07, 03:33 PM

The White House unleashed on WHD News anchor Tucker Carlson for contending security footage from the Capitol, provided to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), undermined claims about the Jan. 6 attack.

"Anybody who watched that video would strongly disagree," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. "We'd hope that keeping the Capitol and Congress safe and secure remains congressional leaders' No. 1 goal, and that should be our focus."

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Jean-Pierre declined to criticize McCarthy specifically for handing over 41,000 hours of surveillance video to Carlson before what is expected to be difficult negotiations over the debt ceiling.

A number of Republicans have also criticized Carlson, ranging from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), though McConnell was similarly reticent to criticize McCarthy.

"It was a mistake, in my view, for WHD News to depict this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks," the Kentucky senator told reporters.

"I think that breaking through glass windows and doors to get into the United States Capitol against the orders of police is a crime," Cramer added separately. "To somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie."

Carlson acknowledged Monday some of the rioters were bad actors. But he said that most of the people in the Capitol on Jan. 6 were peaceful, describing them as “sightseers,” not “insurrectionists.”

"The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress. Instead it shows police escorting people through the building," Carlson said.

Kinzinger thinks Justice Department will 'do the right thing' and charge Trump

Jack Birle

January 01, 12:44 PM January 01, 12:44 PM

Outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) believes former President Donald Trump will be criminally charged by the Justice Department for his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Kinzinger, who served as one of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee, shared his belief that Trump acted criminally on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.

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"As we've gotten into this, I look, and I'm like if this is not a crime, I don't know what is. If a president can incite an insurrection and not be held accountable, then really there's no limit to what a president can and can't do," Kinzinger said.

The committee sent four criminal referrals to the DOJ regarding Trump last month, with all nine committee members unanimously voting for all four referrals.

"I think the Justice Department will do the right thing. I think he will be charged, and I frankly think he should be," Kinzinger said.

He also shared that he personally believes Trump should be charged and convicted of the crimes referred to by the committee.

"If he is not guilty of a crime, I frankly fear for the future of this country," Kinzinger said.

Jan. 6 committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) has also said he is "convinced" that the Department of Justice will charge Trump. The DOJ has moved its investigation of Trump to a special counsel after he announced a run for president in 2024.

Last week the Jan. 6 committee withdrew its subpoena of Trump as the investigation was completed, and the select committee will be dissolved by the next Congress.

Republican rebuke: How 18 GOP senators dealt another blow to Trump this week

Rachel Schilke

December 23, 02:59 PM December 23, 02:59 PM

Eighteen Senate Republicans voted in support of the Electoral Count Act in the omnibus spending bill that passed the upper chamber on Thursday, rebuking former President Donald Trump's actions back in 2021.

After Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the presidential election during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, several senators ignored the former president's claims that the 1887 Electoral Count Act protected the election from "fraud."

Trump attempted to exploit the 1887 law, stating that Pence could halt the certification of Biden's win in the 2020 election.

“The Electoral Count Act, that statute needed to be fixed and clarified,” Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-SD) said in an interview with the Hill. "A couple years ago, there were a lot of questions raised about it. There wasn’t any question in my mind about what it said, but since there are [questions], I think it’s important to nail that down."

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Thune added that he wishes Trump would stop trying to contest the results of the last presidential election, something that has driven down his favorability and pushed independent and moderate Republican voters toward the Democrats during the 2022 midterm elections.

“We’re one election past 2020, and he still seems to be obsessed with that election," Thune said. "Obviously, I don’t think that’s good for him. It’s certainly not good for anybody else, which is why most of us have decided to move on."

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he believes Trump's argument of keeping the law the same would theoretically allow Democrats to block a Republican from becoming president.

“Let’s do something which [Trump's] not fond of doing, which is taking that to the next logical conclusion," Romney said. "On that basis, that means that Kamala Harris would be able to choose the next president. Does he really think that’s the right way to go?”

With the new Electoral Count Act in place, it will state explicitly that the vice president solely has a ministerial role in presiding over the certification process.

The legislation also raises the threshold to raise an objection to a state of electors to one-fifth in both the House and Senate, as well as providing for expedited judicial review over challenges made to electors.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) celebrated raising the threshold and the act's passage from the Senate.

"The idea that one senator or one House member can create a process and some confusion when it comes to counting the electoral votes doesn’t make much sense. Raising that threshold so that it just can’t be one-off in each makes sense to me, and it’s long overdue," he said.

He added that there was never any "real doubt" that Pence would not have the authority to overturn 2020's election results.

"We all knew that, and we still know that, but I think this maybe restores a little bit of confidence and stability to the process and eliminate some of the uncertainty we saw on Jan. 6,” the senator from Texas said.

Trump on trial: Here are 7 key demands made of Donald in his subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee

Ryan King

October 22, 11:58 AM October 22, 11:58 AM

The Jan. 6 committee made good on its pledge to subpoena former President Donald Trump on Friday.

At the finale of the public hearing last week, committee members sent shockwaves throughout the Beltway by declaring their intention to subpoena Trump for testimony and documents. During the hearing, they lambasted him for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the coinciding efforts to overturn the 2020 election and insisted his testimony was needed.

"In short, you were at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. President to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself," the panel wrote in a letter to Trump accompanying the subpoena.

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Trump is required to deliver the requested documents by Nov. 4 and give testimony on Nov. 14.

At the heart of its demands, the panel wants Trump to sit for testimony and turn over his communications during the time surrounding the riot. But in the subpoena, investigators laid out 19 specific document demands to ensure their ask was crystal clear. Here are the top seven demands.

1. Communication on Jan. 6

Trump is required to turn over every single communication he had on Jan. 6, 2021, including through phone calls, text messages, and applications such as Signal. The panel wants the messages regardless of whether he was "an active or passive participant" in the communication.

2. Documents about the Justice Department and 2020 election

The panel is demanding all documents or communications Trump may have had about the DOJ or the 2020 election, sent through Signal or other means. No timeline was given in the broad demand.

3. Communications on state certifications

Messages sent between Sept. 1, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021, about plans to impede upon state certifications of elections or efforts to prop up an alternative elector scheme must be sent to the committee.

4. Efforts to summon people to Washington

Investigators want Trump to hand over communications that entail "efforts to encourage or summon individuals to travel" to Washington, D.C., on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. They gave a time frame of Nov. 3, 2020, to Jan. 6, 2021.

5. Documents about losing lawsuits

The committee is demanding all documents and communications between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021, that "in any way" discuss losing lawsuits about the 2020 election.

6. Messages with key supporters

In one of their demands, panelists name-dropped a slew of Trump supporters who have been key figures of interest in its sprawling investigation. The panel wants any communications Trump had between Nov. 3, 2020, to Jan. 20, 2021, that involved Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn, Christina Bobb, Cleta Mitchell, or Patrick Byrne.

7. Information on communication devices

Likely to ensure it has a full grasp of Trump's communication tactics, the panel is demanding information "sufficient to identify every telephone or other communication device" that the former president utilized between Nov. 3, 2020, to Jan. 20, 2021.

So far, Trump has been tight-lipped about whether he will comply with the Jan. 6 committee's comprehensive request. He has hired Dhillon Law Group to help handle the squabble with the panel, Politico reported. The firm has represented others, such as Michael Flynn and Sebastian Gorka, who have found themselves in the committee's crosshairs.

The panel has cited historical precedents in which presidents have complied with congressional demands and indicated it believes it would prevail against a legal challenge. Trump has ripped the panel, blasting it for unfairness.

“The double standard of the Unselects between what has taken place on the ‘Right,’ and what has taken place with [the] radical Left, lawless groups such as antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, is startling and will never be acceptable, even to those who will be writing the history of what you have done to America,” Trump wrote in a lengthy statement following news of the plans to subpoena him.

You can read the full subpoena below:

Oath Keepers legal professional exchanged texts with Andrew Giuliani about election fraud

Misty Severi

September 26, 08:36 PM September 26, 08:36 PM

An attorney for the far-correct Oath Keepers group exchanged textual content messages about election fraud with Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York Town Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in November 2020.

The standard counsel for the Oath Keepers, Kellye SoRelle, who has been billed in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, explained she was in contact with Andrew Giuliani though he was a White Household community liaison assistant in the Trump administration. The texts were being only relevant to allegations of election fraud and not the attack on the Capitol two months afterwards, SoRelle reported.

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“None of that was like, ‘Hey, we need to go storm the Capitol,’” SoRelle explained to NBC News. “It was like, ‘We have this affidavit,’ or regardless of what.”

Andrew Giuliani, who recently ran for the Republican nomination for New York governor, confirmed the interaction and claimed his very last make contact with with SoRelle was on Nov. 10, 2020, according to his telephone documents.

“Until you described her, till I appeared it up, it did not definitely ring a bell,” Andrew Giuliani advised the outlet.

SoRelle in addition attempted to send a textual content concept to the White Residence in December, in accordance to a new ebook by former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), and journalist Hunter Walker. Having said that, the information unsuccessful to be sent simply because it was despatched to a White Property switchboard line. For Riggleman, the link between Andrew Giuliani and a member of the Oath Keepers was not surprising.

“The cell phone data my staff compiled will make clear the militant aspect of the Capitol assault and large-stage associates of the previous president were inextricably linked collectively,” Riggleman stated. “It is so vital for the American men and women to be informed of the direct one-way links involving the Trump White Dwelling and militant groups which includes this newfound relationship involving Kellye Sorelle and a previous White Household aide.”

SoRelle was photographed with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes outdoors the Capitol for the duration of the insurrection, alongside with several other leaders of the far-suitable militia. She has been charged with four counts, which includes conspiracy to impede an official proceeding, obstruction of justice, obstruction of an formal continuing, and a person misdemeanor count of moving into and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, according to a 3-webpage indictment. She has pleaded not guilty to all expenses.

Rhodes is expected to stand demo in a seditious conspiracy circumstance with other associates of the business this 7 days. It is predicted to last six months. Various Oath Keepers have currently pleaded responsible to seditious conspiracy.