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Donald Trump is a defeated one-term president who cost the Republican party both houses of Congress. Yet three-quarters of Republicans want him to again run in 2024, polling that has other aspirants keeping their heads well down.

Joe Biden is politically vulnerable, his job approval underwater, his coalition fraying. He could meet the same fate as Trump sans residual enthusiasm.

The next Republican nominee could easily be the next president. Against this backdrop, David Druckers Baedeker to the current crop of wannabes is a perfectly timed and well-informed contribution.

As senior political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a conservative paper, he knows of whom and what he writes. Better yet, he has access. In Trumps Shadow is chock-full of tidbits and trivia, the stuff on which political junkies and journalists thrive.

Drucker names an array of Republican presidential hopefuls, among them long-shots such as the Texas governor, Greg Abbott; the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse; and Trumps last national security adviser, Robert OBrien.

Drucker delivers deeper dives on former vice-president Mike Pence; the Florida senator Marco Rubio and governor, Ron DeSantis; Nikki Haley, Trumps ambassador to the United Nations; the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton; and the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan. In doing so, he covers the Republican ideological spectrum.

Drucker also reports on an interview with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort and retreat. Not surprisingly, Trump has kind words for Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state; contempt for Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader; and disdain for Liz Cheney, the congresswoman from Wyoming and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney who turned against Trump over the Capitol riot.

Shes a psycho, says the very stable genius.

Trump has, however, had time to grow appreciative of Lyin Ted Cruz, the Texas senator whose father and wife Trump attacked viciously during the primaries in 2016.

Amid such Trumpian cacophony, Drucker reminds us of just who within the GOP is laying groundwork for runs for the White House, and how realistic their hopes might be. It is a tricky and contorting dance. But though Trump can dominate coverage, he cannot completely extinguish ambitions. Drucker pulls back the curtain on other figures schemes, dreams and hard political infrastructure.

Take Pence. Once a congressman from Indiana, then its governor, he began preparing for the top step on the ladder the moment he was elected Trumps VP. Pence established a separate political operation within the White House and a fundraising Pac of his own, the Great America Committee. He used it to pay expenses while stumping for Republicans around and across the country.

Trump was fine with that. It meant Pence would not look to his boss to pay his travel bills. The veep had a stash of his own.

Since leaving office, Pence has also launched Advancing American Freedom, a political non-profit which touts conservative values and policy proposals. More importantly, it is stocked with Trump loyalists. Kellyanne Conway, the mother of alternative facts. Larry Kudlow, chief White House economic adviser. Newt Gingrich, once speaker of the House, a colleague on the right. All are there.

Drucker also sheds light on Pences defiance of Trump and service to the republic, in the aftermath of a defeat by Biden which Trump sought to overturn with lies about electoral fraud. As a traditional conservative, Drucker writes, Pence was skeptical of the power of the vice-president to unilaterally steal an election. Before he certified results, he sought a legal opinion, which debunked Trumps false claim that he could.

When Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol, on 6 January, some chanted Hang Mike Pence. Others erected a makeshift gallows. Pence was forced to hide, but he refused to leave.

Ten months on, Team Pence seems not to know what to think or say. It was a dark day in the history of the US Capitol, Drucker records Pence telling one crowd. But Pence later told Fox News the media wants to distract from the Biden administrations failed agenda by focusing on one day in January.

The political momentum is clear. Pences own brother, a congressman from Indiana, voted against certifying the election. This week, Greg Pence was the only no-show in the House on the vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt for defying the 6 January committee. Two-thirds of Republicans deny that the Capitol riot was an attack on the government. The right has a new Lost Cause.

Drucker also does justice to Rubio, capturing the senators tendency to chase the latest shiny object, be it immigration reform in 2013 or police reform after the murder of George Floyd. Hes the butterfly, according to one Republican strategist.

Marco goes to every brightly colored flower and sticks his nose right in the middle of it, [then] takes a little bit of honey and stands in front of it to see if anyones looking at the flower.

In 2016, Rubio won three Republican nominating contests but was battered by Trump in his home state, losing the Florida primary by nearly 20 points. Before 2024, he will face a stern Senate challenge from Val Demings, an African American ex-cop and impeachment floor manager.

Demings has out-raised Rubio recently but Rubio has $3m more in the bank. This, remember, is a politician who once purportedly told a friend: I can call up a lobbyist at four in the morning, and hell meet me anywhere with a bag of $40,000 in cash.

He also has a history of credit card problems. Imagine what a President Rubio might do with the national debt.

If nothing else, Drucker reminds us that though Trump rules Red America, like rust, ambition never sleeps. The starters flag on the race for the Republican nomination has yet to fall. In Trumps Shadow is fine preparatory reading.

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In Trumps Shadow: David Drucker surveys the Republican runners and riders for 2024 - The Guardian

Former President Donald Trump reportedly called into a war room at the Willard hotel in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, who appeared for an interview Monday with Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward, his colleague and co-author of their new book Peril, said this call to advisers Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman on Jan. 5 raises questions about the extent of White House involvement in conversations about efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and beyond.

These Trump allies, who set up a so-called "command center" at the Willard, according to the Washington Post, were focused on finding a legal strategy to block or delay the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 victory, pinning their hopes on Vice President Mike Pence.

BOB WOODWARD FINDS 'SEVEN CONSPIRATORIAL ACTIONS' BY TRUMP AND BANNON

Costa, who said he was outside the hotel that night and saw Proud Boys and Oath Keepers gathered there, said the call from Trump to the "command center" happened shortly after Trump and Pence had a one-on-one meeting the night of Jan. 5 when Pence informed the president that he didn't have the power to reject electoral votes. The vice president also informed Congress of this conclusion.

That night was eerie because we didn't know at the time that Trump's over at the White House, pounding into Pence in the one-on-one Oval Office meeting, and then after it doesn't go well for Trump, he calls into the Willard war room" Costa said. "That it's not just a Willard war room happening in an isolated way across the street. The president is calling in, Trump's calling in.

He's coordinating this effort to speak for Pence, Costa continued. Remember, late at night as you detailed earlier, Trump's issuing a statement saying, Pence agrees with me. He's effectively taking over the vice presidency, at least in terms of the public message. And this is all just hours before the insurrection."

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Woodward said they spoke to a Republican former head of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department who said Trump may have violated 18 U.S. Code, section 371, which states that two or more people who work together to commit any offense against the United States are guilty of conspiracy.

I'm sorry this sounds technical, but it is a law that says it's a crime to defraud the government in any deceptive way, and that's exactly what they did here," Woodward said.

Trump told Fox News in June that he and Pence maintain a "good relationship," even after the 45th president criticized his former No. 2 for lacking the "courage" to stop lawmakers from certifying the Electoral College vote in favor of now-President Joe Biden, a process disrupted by rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump was impeached by the House on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 siege of Congress but was acquitted by a GOP-led Senate despite seven Republicans voting to convict him.

A House select committee is now investigating the planning around the events of Jan. 6.

Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican member of the Jan. 6 panel, said arguments made by Trump and Bannon that relevant information sought by the committee is protected by executive privilege "appear to reveal" that Trump was "personally involved in the planning and execution" of the events on Jan. 6.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who is the chairman of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, said during a Sunday interview on CBS "there's no question" when asked about how premeditated was the Capitol attack and he mentioned a subpoena against Bannon. Last week the House voted to refer him to the DOJ for contempt of Congress for not cooperating.

"Clearly, the direction of the committee is to look at that premeditation, to make sure that we identify it, but the worst kept secret in America is that Donald Trump invited individuals to come to Washington on Jan. 6. He said, 'All hell' would break loose. Steve Bannon was part of the conversation and the promotion of Jan. 6. The very podcast you we just listened to talks about it. Steve Bannon was in the war room and he was in the Willard hotel doing a lot of things. So that's why we subpoenaed him," Thompson said.

If the DOJ prosecutes Bannon and he is convicted, he could face fines up to $100,000 and up to a year in prison. Woodward predicted last week the DOJ will go further and appoint a special counsel to investigate the "massive Watergate-style attempt to destroy the process of electing a president."

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Tags: News, January 6, Donald Trump, Bob Woodward, Steve Bannon, Media

Original Author: Virginia Aabram

Original Location: Woodward and Costa report Trump called Willard hotel 'war room' on eve of Capitol riot

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Woodward and Costa report Trump called Willard hotel 'war room' on eve of Capitol riot - Yahoo News

Democrats can be forgiven for having flashbacks when Steve Bannon defied a subpoena to appear before the House committee investigating the origins of the January 6 insurrection, citing executive privilege. That was, after all, the move Donald Trump used for four years to stonewall congressional investigators. So when Bannons lawyer said earlier this month that he wouldnt comply with committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, it was tempting to think: Here we go again.

But things have changed with Trump gone from office. Democrats subpoenas are harder to ignore with the threat of contempt, the charge Bannon is facing. Trump can no longer use executive privilege as the magic words to make his problems go away. And former Trumpworld figures, perhaps seeking to rehabilitate their damaged reputations, have not only mostly complied with Thompsons committee, but have engaged with the panel voluntarily.

CNN reported Tuesday that at least five former Trump staffers have provided information to the committee investigating January 6, either because they believe they have information worth sharing or simply to preempt a potential subpoena. Among those who have come forward: Alyssa Farah, the former Mike Pence spokeswoman who quit as White House communications director in December 2020 because she saw where this was heading. The president and certain advisers around him are directly responsible, she told Politico the day after the Capitol attack.

In addition to those who have voluntarily spoken with the committee, congressional investigators are reaching out to other former White House staffers to solicit compliance. Ive got good reason to believe a number of them are horrified and scandalized by what took place on January 6 and they want to do their legal duty and their civic duty by coming forward to explain exactly what happened, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin told CNN on Tuesday. Were going to continue to encourage everybody who has relevant information to come and talk.

That engagement, be it voluntary or compelled, already appears to be yielding damning information. Over the weekend, Rolling Stone reported on eye-popping allegations that have been detailed to the committee, including that several House Republicans were intimately involved in planning the January 6 rally and that one, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, suggested Trump would offer organizers a blanket pardon for any trouble that followed. This never materialized, which perhaps explains the feelings of betrayal some rioters have expressed, particularly in the face of major legal consequences. January 6th was a disgrace to our nation that left a scar Trump is ultimately responsible for, one Capitol attack defendant, Thomas Sibick, wrote in a letter to Judge Amy Berman Jackson recently requesting release from jail, claiming he was consumed by the mob mentality. He added, I have vowed to never attend another political protest in my life, that was my first and last!

More is likely on the way: Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark is due to testify next week, and legal scholar John Eastman is expected to be hit with a subpoena. Both were part of Trumps plot to try to overturn his election loss; the latter wrote a memo outlining how Trumps DOJ could go about throwing out the results and undermining the will of the people. Meanwhile, Joe Bidens White House has once again refused to allow Trump to claim executive privilege over records related to January 6, allowing the committee access to more investigative materials. As Axios suggested Wednesday, Bannons failure to cooperate may be an aberration for a committee that actually seems to be chugging along with impressive momentum.

What will ultimately come of it? Its still too early to say. Even the hamstrung Trump-era investigations produced their share of damning revelationsnone of which led to actual accountability in a Washington divided along partisan lines. Those divisions, on Capitol Hill and beyond, havent budged in the last nine months and could still shield Trump and his cronies from consequences. But with a more muscular congressional investigation like the January 6 committee seems to be, there is perhaps reason for Republicans implicated in the findings to be nervous, as suggested by the careful statements by GOP lawmakers named in the Rolling Stone report. I was really busy, Rep. Mo Brooks, who wore body armor to the speech he gave ahead of the riot, told the Montgomery Advertiser, explaining why he couldnt possibly have been part of the planning. I was working on speeches for the House floor debates, he continued, though he added to CNN that while he had no involvement in the insurrection plot, his team may have. I dont know if my staff did, he said. But if they did, Id be proud of them.

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As a top adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff has been a principal figure in some of the countrys most dramatic political and national security concerns, including the 2020 impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

A Framingham, Mass., native and 1985 Harvard Law School graduate, Schiff was first elected to Congress in 2000. His leadership of the intelligence committee put him squarely in the middle of Trumps clashes with U.S. intelligence, from the FBI investigation into Russias election interference to the impeachment of the president for his efforts to pressure Ukraine for political gain. The California Democrat is now a member of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Out with a bestselling memoir, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Schiff spoke to the Gazette Tuesday about the Jan. 6 committees work even as new information unfolds. Interview has been edited for clarity and length.

GAZETTE: There have been news reports this week that Republican members of Congress and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows participated in planning meetings with rioters before Jan. 6. And Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa write in their new book, Peril, that President Donald Trump called into a command center gathering at the Willard hotel on Jan. 5 that included Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and attorney John Eastman, after Vice President Mike Pence had refused to go along with a plan to stop the electoral vote certification the next day. If those reports are accurate, what are the potential legal ramifications?

SCHIFF: There have been a whole host of troubling public reports about what was going on at the Willard hotel, about the possibility of granting mass pardons to people who might be engaging in the illegal activity, and were going to investigate all of it and work up a report, expose any malefactors to public scrutiny. If there are prosecutable crimes, that will be up to the Justice Department to decide. But in Congress, if any misconduct involves members, we have remedies of censure around ethics violations, and expulsion from the House.

Whether its people working for the campaign or the administration or playing some kind of dual role, were going to get to the bottom of it. Theres no daylight between Democrats and Republicans on the Select Committee when it comes to our quest for the truth. Weve cast a wide net, and we want to make sure that were aware of everything that went on. And were determined to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

GAZETTE: Does there need to be a special counsel?

SCHIFF: I havent opined on whether we need a special counsel or not. But I do think that the Justice Department needs to investigate any potential criminal misconduct, whether its by the former president or by others. I am concerned that I dont see that going on with respect to one thing in particular, which I consider deeply troubling, and that is: the former presidents efforts to get the secretary of state of Georgia to find 11,780 votes that dont exist, to essentially demand the secretary defraud the people of Georgia and in so doing, defraud the people of the United States. I dont think you can ignore that. And I think if anybody else had been on the phone and recorded making that kind of demand, they might be indicted by now.

We cannot have a system where a current president cant be prosecuted, and then, because we dont want to look backward, the former president cant be prosecuted; that theyre somehow too big to jail. Because, if we get to that point, then the president really does become above the law. Thats a dangerous proposition in the abstract; its even more dangerous, given the fact that Donald Trump is running for president again.

GAZETTE: If we take a step back, is Jan. 6 just one chapter in a much broader effort to stop Joe Biden from becoming president?

SCHIFF: It is. It begins with the effort to get Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, first by the presidents lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others, and then by the president directly on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, trying to coerce Ukraine into initiating this bogus investigation of Joe Biden to help them cheat in the election. And then it continues with the withholding of military aid to further extort Ukraine into helping his misconduct succeed.

The failure of that led to other ways to cheat in the election, by first trying to persuade the country that any votes that came in after the polls were closed were somehow illegitimate because Trump felt the absentee vote was going to go against him. Then, all the bogus litigation and all the fraudulent filings in court. And when that didnt succeed, efforts to corral and corrupt local elections officials, and then state legislators, and secretaries of state. And then, finally, that violent assault on the Capitol.

But even then, people need to understand that Jan. 6 was not the end; Jan. 6 was just a violent wave point because the efforts to use the Big Lie continue. And it continues to usher in a new generation of Jim Crow laws around the country and to strip independent elections officials of their duties and give them over to partisan boards and partisan legislatures.

It seems what the former president learned from the failed insurrection was that next time he needed to be sure that he could find the secretary of state who would find 11,780 votes. If Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wouldnt do it, he seems intent on replacing him and every other one around the country with someone who will.

GAZETTE: The House voted to hold Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to turn over documents or appear for a deposition earlier this month. Bannon cited the former presidents likely invocation of executive privilege as his rationale. What level of cooperation is the committee receiving from the others whove been served, particularly former chief of staff Mark Meadows, advisers Dan Scavino and Kash Patel, who missed their subpoena deadlines, but whom the committee said it was engaging with, or cant you say?

SCHIFF: I cant say. I can say that there are a great number of people who are cooperating with us, who are providing us important information. With respect to particular witnesses, like the four that we subpoenaed together, they are engaging in different ways. Some may lead to successful testimony, and others we may need to pursue the same course we did with Steve Bannon. But I can tell you this: Were not going to wait forever. We moved with alacrity when it came to Steve Bannon, and were going to move quickly with those we determine are deliberately noncooperative.

GAZETTE: What will success look like for this committee if, after hearings and a report is issued even with damning evidence, youre still not able to reach or convince 35-40 percent of the country?

SCHIFF: We are going to proceed the way we have other investigations in the last few years, which is you begin by doing private interviews and depositions, and then you move to doing public hearings to help inform the public of what happened. Some of that you can do concurrently, like we did with the hearing with the four police officers.

Are there going to be some people whom we will not be able to reach even when presented with such obvious fact, as those police officers testified? It was no honeymoon; it was no typical tourist day. It was a brutal assault in which they were beaten and gouged. Will some people listen to that, or not listen to it and refuse to be moved? Yes. Now, because of Fox News and Newsmax and OAN, theres an entire alternate, non-factual world for people to live in. Im convinced that if Richard Nixon had had Fox News, he would have never been forced to leave the office. But what we can hope for in the select committee is to reach all those with an open mind, of which there are still many millions of Americans, and to do the most thorough job we can, and to write the most credible report we can. Thats all we can do, and hope that its enough to open peoples eyes to the threat.

Read more:
Adam Schiff vows speedy, aggressive probe of Jan. 6 assault - Harvard Gazette

Of course, another name that has been thrown around for the GOP candidacy is former Vice President Mike Pence; however, just because his name has been tossed around for a 2024 presidential run doesn't mean he has a ton of support behind him. In fact, Raymond Harre, vice chair of the GOP in eastern Iowa's Scott County, revealed that he doesn't think Pence stands a chance against some of the other top GOP contenders especially if Donald Trump runs."I don't imagine he'd have a whole lot of support. There are some Trump supporters who think he's the Antichrist," he said (via Politico), adding that although Pence "did a good job as vice president," Harre doesn't "see him overcoming the negatives."

Republican Doug Gross, who served as chief of staff to former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, didn't mince words when it came to his feelings about Pence, echoing Harre's sentiments about Trump loyalists' views on Pence running for president. "It's just, where would you place him? ... With Trumpsters, he didn't perform when they really wanted him to perform, so he's DQ'd there. Then you go to the evangelicals, they have plenty of other choices."

Read more:
Why Mike Pence's Presidential Chances In 2024 Don't Look Good