Archive for the ‘Donald Trump’ Category

Trump Urged Legislator to Overturn His 2020 Defeat in Wisconsin – The …

Donald J. Trump called a top Republican in the State Legislature in Wisconsin in recent days to lobby for a measure that would overturn his 2020 loss in the state to President Biden, the latest signal that the former president remains undaunted by congressional and criminal investigations into his election meddling.

Mr. Trumps advisers said the former president saw an opening to press the Republican official, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling prohibited the use of most drop boxes for voters returning absentee ballots.

Since drop boxes were used during the 2020 election, Mr. Trump argued, the state should be able to invalidate the results of that election. He pushed Mr. Vos to support a resolution that would retract the states 10 electoral votes cast for Mr. Biden. Mr. Trumps advisers said the phone call took place on July 9 the day after the court issued its opinion.

There is no mechanism in Wisconsin law to rescind the states electoral votes, nor does the United States Constitution allow for a states presidential election to be overturned after Congress has accepted the results. Still, Mr. Trump has persisted.

Mr. Vos has repeatedly told Mr. Trump and his allies that decertifying the former presidents loss would violate the states Constitution.

Mr. Trump has a different opinion, Mr. Vos told a television station in Milwaukee, WISN-TV, which first reported the phone call on Tuesday. Mr. Vos did not respond to messages on Wednesday.

The call is only the latest indication that Mr. Trump remains fixated on nullifying the 2020 presidential contest 18 months after Mr. Biden replaced him in the White House. He has continued to prioritize his lies that he won the last election as he aims to influence the next one, signaling to his supporters that undermining the 2020 election should be the predominant issue for the party.

His actions come as a prosecutor in Georgia is gathering evidence into whether Mr. Trump violated laws in his attempt to overturn results in the state. Mr. Trumps own team was already concerned about potential legal consequences from the deluge of devastating testimony revealed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

And Mr. Trump may have created more legal headaches for himself when he phoned a witness in the House committees investigation after a hearing on June 29. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican serving as the panels vice chairwoman, has said information about Mr. Trumps call to the witness has been turned over to the Justice Department.

In the past 10 days, Mr. Trump has endorsed candidates in Arizona and Oklahoma based in part on their support for his attempts to overturn the election or his criticisms of the House investigation.

We won in 2020, Mr. Trump said in a statement on Tuesday reiterating his endorsement of David Farnsworth for a State Senate seat in Arizona. Mr. Farnsworth is running against Rusty Bowers, who is the Republican speaker of the Arizona House and who has been critical of the former presidents attempts to overturn the election. In the statement, Mr. Trump called Mr. Bowers a weak and pathetic Republican who didnt have the guts to do anything about the rigged and stolen election.

Mr. Trump has never stopped looking for ways to undo the results of the 2020 election, and his desire to keep talking about his false claims of widespread fraud has intensified as investigations into his conduct have become more focused.

In Arizona, a review of the 2020 vote failed to change the outcome and instead affirmed the result. Mr. Trumps allies have come up empty in their bid to overturn the results in Georgia. In recent months, his allies have instead focused their attention on Wisconsin, where Mr. Vos has tried to accommodate Mr. Trumps increasing demands about the 2020 election for more than a year.

When Mr. Trump called for an audit of the states votes days ahead of the Republican Party of Wisconsins 2021 state convention, Mr. Vos used the gathering to announce he would appoint a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, Michael Gableman, to investigate the election.

Mr. Vos repeatedly blocked efforts to hold a vote on decertification. Still, Mr. Vos met with leading proponents of decertification, something they held up as significant progress in their effort to undo the 2020 results.

Mr. Trump and his allies have since turned on Mr. Vos. The former president has used his social media website to press Mr. Vos to act, and he released a statement on Tuesday suggesting that his supporters back Mr. Voss primary opponent if he fails to act.

Mr. Vos is facing a spirited but underfunded primary challenger, Adam Steen, whose campaign hinges on the notion that Mr. Vos is not sufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump because he has blocked the decertification effort.

And while Mr. Vos has not seen eye to eye with Mr. Trump on the election, his allies know the former president still holds a powerful grip on the party.

An outside group supporting Mr. Vos in the primary recently mailed a flyer to Wisconsin Republicans with a picture of Mr. Vos and Mr. Trump sitting next to each other on a plane and smiling.

Leading the fight for election integrity! the flyer reads.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

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Trump Urged Legislator to Overturn His 2020 Defeat in Wisconsin - The ...

Josh Hawley video, Trump’s outtakes and Secret Service farewells: Top …

In each of the public hearings held by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, a few standout moments have captured the public's attention. Thursday's prime-time hearing was no different, with a clip of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley immediately taking over social media.

While previous hearingsexplored the rioters, Trump's speech at the Ellipse preceding the riot, and other aspects of his actions after the November 2020 election, the eighth hearing held this summer focused on the 187 minutes of then-President Donald Trump's inaction while rioters descended on the Capitol. Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said there could be more hearings this fall.

Twitter users quickly set the clip of Hawley running to a variety of soundtracks but there were a few other moments in the committee's hearing that also made a mark.

A White House employee told President Trump about the riot "as soon as he returned" to the Oval Office from his speech at the Ellipse, said Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria but no records exist of what happened for much of that afternoon. Luria said the Presidential Daily Diary was silent; the chief White House photographer was told "no photographs" and the official White House call logs don't show Trump "receiving or placing a call" until almost 7 p.m.

Luria said Trump went to a private dining room next to the Oval Office and stayed there from 1:25 p.m. until after 4 p.m. Witnesses told the committee that Trump sat at the head of the table, facing a television hanging on the wall.

"We know from the employee that the TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon," Luria said, adding that other witnesses confirmed Trump was in the dining room with the TV on during that time.

The committee's 3D graphic of the West Wing highlighted the location of the dining room, complete with footage from Fox News on the TV.

After the riot began, Vice President Mike Pence retreated from the Senate chamber to his office in the Capitol. His security detail debated their next move, heard during the hearing as the committee played recordings of their radio transmissions. But that wasn't all that was happening.

Members of Pence's detail, in fear for their own lives, began making calls to family members to say goodbye, said an anonymous security official in recorded testimony.

"The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives," the anonymous official testified. "There were a lot of there was a lot of yelling, a lot of I don't know a lot of very personal calls over the radio," the person testified. "So it was disturbing. I don't like talking about it, but there were calls to say good-bye to family members and so forth. It was getting for whatever the reason was on the ground, the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly."

The committee shared never-before-seen raw footage of Trump on Jan. 7 recording a video message condemning the violence on Jan. 6. In it, he argues with his daughter Ivanka, who helps him edit his remarks in real-time, and slams the podium and refuses to say parts of the speech.

"I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack yesterday, and to those who broke the law, you will pay," Trump said in the footage. "You do not represent our movement, you do not represent our country, and if you broke the law can't say that. I already said you will pay "

"But this election is now over. Congress has certified the results," he continued, before stopping to argue with parts of the prepared text. "I don't want to say the election's over. I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election's over."

The committee showed a famous photograph of Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, raising his fist toward Trump's supporters gathered outside the Capitol early in the day on Jan. 6.

That gesture stuck with an unnamed Capitol Police officer, Luria said. It riled up the crowd, the officer told the committee, "And it bothered her greatly because he was doing it in a safe space, protected by the officers and the barriers," Luria said of the officer.

But it was Hawley's later flight from the Capitol after the mob entered illustrated with a clip from security footage of him running across a hallway, then replayed in slow motion before a different clip showed him running down the stairs that became one of the most talked-about moments of the night. Later clips shared on Twitter showed people in attendance at the committee hearing reacting with laughter.

The committee also revealed texts from Trump campaign officials Tim Murtagh, Trump's director of communications, and one of his deputies, Matthew Wolking, criticizing the president's treatment of the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died on Jan. 7, 2021 after being injured in the riot.

"Also shitty not to have even acknowledged the death of the Capitol Police officer," Murtagh wrote to Wolking.

Wolking responded, "That is enraging to me. Everything he said about supporting law enforcement was a lie."

Murtagh replied, "You know what this is, of course. If he acknowledged the dead cop, he'd be implicitly faulting the mob. And he won't do that, because they're his people. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control. No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault. No way."

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Josh Hawley video, Trump's outtakes and Secret Service farewells: Top ...

Donald Trump is set to give a policy address Tuesday. It’ll include more claims of a stolen election – USA TODAY

  1. Donald Trump is set to give a policy address Tuesday. It'll include more claims of a stolen election  USA TODAY
  2. Trump returns to DC for first time since leaving office to make speech at policy summit  CNN
  3. Trump Returns to D.C. for First Time Since Leaving Office to Speak at Ultra-Conservative Conference  PEOPLE
  4. Mike Pence Urges Conservatives to Look Forward as a Trump Cloud Hovers  The New York Times
  5. Donald Trump set to arrive back in DC for first time since leaving office  New York Post
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Donald Trump is set to give a policy address Tuesday. It'll include more claims of a stolen election - USA TODAY

Every Word Donald Trump Crossed Out, Per Ivanka, From His 1/7 Speech – Newsweek

A video showing alterations that, according to Ivanka Trump's testimony, former President Donald Trump made for a speech directed at the Capitol rioters on January 6 has gone viral on social media.

Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA), who led part of the January 6 Committee's public hearing last week, shared the video to her Twitter page on Monday.

The video shows previously unseen testimony about Trump and how he wanted to deal with the aftermath of January 6. The clip has so far been viewed more than 1 million times on Twitter

"It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace. There were more things he was unwilling to say," Luria wrote as the video caption.

The video showed Trump's eldest daughter and former White House adviser Ivanka Trump, former White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann and former White House adviser Jared Kushner discussing how the White House was preparing to respond to the January 6 riots the following day.

They were also asked about a speech prepared for the former president and asked why certain sentences were crossed out by Donald Trump. A copy of the annotated draft was presented to his daughter Ivanka Trump and she said the handwriting looked like her father's.

The speech, entitled "Remarks on National Healing" had the first two words, "Good Afternoon" crossed out as well as the word "today" in the following sentence.

Another sentence would have read: "Like all Americans, I am outraged and sickened by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem," the words "and sickened" were crossed out.

An entire section discussing the repercussions for those who broke the law was also crossed out.

"I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We must send a clear message not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm."

As the speech specifically addressed those who had behaved destructively and violently, the sentence, "I want to be very clear you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement," were crossed out.

A closing sentence of the paragraph was also altered. Initially, it was meant to read: "And if you broke the law, you belong in jail and the words "belong in jail" were crossed out and replaced with "will pay".

When asked about the speech, Ivanka Trump said: "It looks like a copy of a draft of the remarks for that day( January 7, 2021)."

When asked whether she recognized the handwriting on the draft she said it looked like her father's handwriting.

In a separate interview, Ivanka Trump's husband, Kushner, said he had discussed the remarks with others who agreed "it was important to further call for de-escalation."

When asked why lines were crossed out, Kushner responded in a clip from an interview with the committee: "I don't know."

Newsweek has contacted Trump's office for comment.

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Every Word Donald Trump Crossed Out, Per Ivanka, From His 1/7 Speech - Newsweek

Opinion | This Georgia Prosecutor Has Donald Trump in Her Sights, and Shes Not Stopping – The New York Times

She is a local prosecutor who, while a Democrat, had little to do with the former president until he allegedly committed crimes in her jurisdiction. And her 2015 prosecution of a cheating scandal involving Atlanta teachers, a traditionally Democratic group, burnishes her nonpartisan prosecutorial credentials. Unlike federal prosecutors, she is unencumbered by Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinions on the powers of the presidency that can complicate charging current or former presidents.

None of this is to say that she will not encounter extreme scrutiny. Her every act will now be examined, as suggested by recent critical comments from a Georgia judge hearing a motion for her recusal from the Trump investigation. It was filed by a false elector, and several others later joined the motion, because of what we see as ethically permissible campaign activity by Ms. Willis. (The judge granted the motion as to the original petitioner, citing conflict of interest, but denied it to the others.) Still, she must proceed with extra care.

Her prosecutorial task will not be easy. When you charge a president, you need more than the standard proof beyond a reasonable doubt; you need proof way beyond a reasonable doubt. That is what the committee has helped deliver, producing a mountain of additional evidence that might have taken her years to gather if she could have gotten it at all.

Take the testimony by the former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and other witnesses about Mr. Trumps attempt to hijack the Justice Department which included an effort by Jeffrey Clark to send a letter to state officials in states, including Georgia, that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that would affect the states election results.

Then there is the phony electors scheme. Here again, the committee came to Ms. Williss aid, obtaining testimony from Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and others describing Mr. Trumps personal involvement in helping recruit false electors in states like Georgia. That testimony directly linked Mr. Trump to the conspiracy Ms. Willis may charge.

Any prosecution must consider intent, and the committee has secured proof of Mr. Trumps state of mind that might not have been otherwise available. Testimony from an array of witnesses especially those closest to Mr. Trump, like his former attorney general Bill Barr and his former White House counsel Pat Cipollone demonstrated that Mr. Trump was told that he had lost the election and, after Dec. 14, when the Electoral College cast its votes, that there was no legitimate legal basis to continue his attack.

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Opinion | This Georgia Prosecutor Has Donald Trump in Her Sights, and Shes Not Stopping - The New York Times