Category Archives: Donald Trump

Many other Trump advisers, including former attorney-general Bill Barr, had revealed earlier in the week how they repeatedly tried to debunk Trumps claims of a stolen election.

Former US vice president Mike Pence.Credit:AP

But in a grievance-fuelled address lasting almost 90 minutes, Trump said he simply wanted Pence to send the votes back to state legislatures because of the electoral fraud he claims took place.

He had a chance to be, frankly, historic, Trump said of Pence. But just like Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people he did not have the courage to act.

The former president also took aim at the committee itself, accusing the group of editing video depositions and taking witness statements out of context in order to create a fake and phony narrative and a chilling attempt to weaponise the justice system against their political opponents.

What happened on January 6 was a simple protest that got out of hand, he said. And they never show the size of the crowd. I believe it was the largest number of people Ive ever spoken to. Im not talking about the very small percentage of people who went down to the Capitol, many of whom did nothing wrong ... Im talking about the crowd I spoke to before [at the rally that preceded the attack].

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Trumps speech was the seventh time he appeared at the Faith and Freedom conference, an annual conservative gathering that bills itself as Americas premiere pro-faith, pro-family event and is designed to empower conservative activists to fight for their values at the polls.

The former president has repeatedly said he would wait until after the midterms when the Republicans are expected to regain control of Congress to announce if he would run for president again.

The findings of the committees probe could end up having an impact on such an announcement, particularly if it leads to a criminal investigation into Trump by the Department of Justice.

Others in Trumps orbit have already found themselves in legal turmoil as a result of the committees work, such as former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who pleaded not guilty to contempt of Congress charges on Friday after not co-operating with the January 6 investigation.

The committees fourth hearing will take place on Tuesday and is likely to feature testimony from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his top deputy Gabriel Sterling.

Raffensperger is the electoral official who famously rebuffed Trumps pressure to simply find enough votes to help reverse his defeat in Georgia the once Republican state that ultimately handed Biden control of the White House after it flipped to the Democrats in 2020. Sterling, meanwhile, was an outspoken critic of Trumps claims of fraud.

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A simple protest that got out of hand: Trump defends role in Capitol attack - Sydney Morning Herald

Public hearings serve a subtle function. They permit the minds of the American people to acculturate to the facts and evidence. By laying out the facts that explain what Mr. Trump did, the Jan. 6 hearings can, in advance, help acclimate the public to why the Justice Department has to take criminal action against the former president. The hearings may afford the department a deeper and public explanation of its reasoning than an indictment out of the blue would offer. Public sentiment of this kind could help insulate the department against a claim that it is politically motivated. These hearings may prove to be a bridge between the Justice Department and the public.

Now consider that elusive third audience: the eyes of history. On the one hand, Mr. Garland has to fear being seen as political, and on the other, he knows that the rule of law requires him to bring an indictment if the evidence shows Mr. Trump committed one of the most serious crimes against the United States in our history. Trying to game history is a notoriously fraught enterprise, but it seems certain that if Mr. Garland is to be the first attorney general to bring criminal charges against a former president, having the facts surfaced first by a bipartisan congressional committee would be enormously helpful and provide an evidentiary record that the public today, and historians in the future, could examine.

Of course, critics will complain about the composition of the committee and the like, but those complaints, relatively speaking, are likely to be weaker than they would be if the Justice Department just investigated and prosecuted the case against the former president by itself. Here, Congress has a unique voice because the attack occurred on its members, on their soil.

What would criminal charges against Donald Trump look like? Obstruction of an official proceeding is a serious offense that requires the prosecution to show that a defendant obstructed, or attempted to obstruct, an official proceeding and that the defendant did so corruptly. The official proceeding part of this is clear by law, on Jan. 6, Congress and the vice president must certify the votes. There appears to have been an orchestrated plot by some to try to interfere with that certification the question is really whether the former president was part of that plot. The committee has presented evidence suggesting that Mr. Trump, along with the lawyer John Eastman, and perhaps others such as the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, attempted to interfere with the election certification on Jan. 6. Before the hearings, it was thought that Mr. Trumps defense against this charge is that he genuinely believed that he had won the election and wasnt acting corruptly.

The testimony in last weeks hearing cast immense doubt on that claim. Mr. Trumps close ally, former Attorney General William Barr, testified that he told the president that arguments claiming he had won the election were bullshit. Mr. Trumps daughter Ivanka testified that she believed Mr. Barr. Mr. Trumps own election data people told him the same. Mr. Trump might try to claim he still believed the nonsense, but such an argument would be difficult to make given the array of people who told him in no uncertain terms that he had lost. Mr. Trump persisted, despite the warnings, to try to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. This looks very much like an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

The Justice Department could also bring the charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States. A charge of conspiracy requires proof that two or more people agreed to defraud the country. A key feature of conspiracy charges is that the plot need not succeed charges are tethered to the agreement to do something illegal, not to actually pull it off. Prosecutors need not wait until the bomb goes off (or in this case, until the election results are wrongfully thrown out) before bringing charges.

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Opinion | The Future Criminal Case Against Donald Trump - The New York Times

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The Morning Joe panel discusses the findings and footage from the January 6 Committee hearings, including new footage of a tour led by a GOP lawmaker the day before the Capitol attack.June 16, 2022

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Joe: There has to be consequences for Donald Trump for Jan. 6 - MSNBC

Donald Trump Jr. says supporters must pay to sign his father's birthday card.

Trump's fundraising efforts have recently come under scrutiny in light of the Jan. 6 hearings.

His other donation offers include bestowing supporters with "Great MAGA King Status."

Donald Trump Jr. is offering his father's supporters a chance to sign the former president's "official" birthday card but only if they donate money to his fundraising committee.

"My father has done so much for this great Country, and I know it would mean so much to him to see YOUR NAME on his OFFICIAL Birthday Card," Trump Jr. wrote in an email Insider received Tuesday night.

A link in the email allows the recipient to write a message to the former president, but potential well-wishers must first pledge at least $1 to send in their online birthday greeting.

The website says the contribution will benefit Trump's "Save America Joint Fundraising Committee."Screenshot

Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946. Despite the email being sent on the same date this year, the WinRed fundraising website says it allows contributors to get "EARLY ACCESS to leave a special birthday message before ANYONE ELSE."

"This is President Trump's ONLY Official Birthday Card," Trump Jr. wrote in his email. "So make sure you sign THIS ONE and not the other fake ones out there."

"HURRY there's not much time left. I can only save your spot for 20 MINUTES," the email continues.

The former president's fundraising efforts have come under renewed scrutiny after the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol suggested that Trump had raised millions on false claims that the presidency was stolen from him.

According to campaign filings, Trump raised more than $250 million in the two months after the 2020 election during which he aggressively touted his baseless claims of voter fraud.

The New York Times reported that Trump has since accumulated a total of $390 million in donations, which he said would help to overturn his election defeat, boost his allies' political campaigns, and "save America from Joe Biden and the radical left."

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However, the outlet reported that much of the money has actually gone to paying off expenses for Trump's 2020 presidential campaign and strengthening his political operation so he can run for president again in 2024. According to the Times, he still has $144 million of these contributions in the bank "as of a few months ago."

According to the January 6 committee, the Trump team would send up to 25 fundraising emails a day before the Capitol attack. Both Trumps would often send donation requests from the same email address, touting rewards such as a signed photo from the former president and a chance to win an "exclusive VIP" dinner with Trump.

An email sent on February 22 said donors could win a dinner with the former president.Screenshot

One email offered to bestow the title of "Great MAGA King Status" upon donors, whom the fundraising email described as Trump "most RELIABLE and DEDICATED supporters."

Another email urged supporters to send money before midnight to verify their "Great MAGA King Status."Screenshot

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University and an expert on authoritarian leaders, told Insider's Charles Davis that Trump has been "extremely disciplined in grifting and in trying to use the presidency to make money."

"His aims were autocratic in that he wanted to turn public office into a vessel of making money for himself; to have private profit off of public office," Ben-Ghiat said.

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Donald Trump Jr. calls on Trump supporters to sign his father's ...

Mace survived, defeating Trump-backed Katie Arrington. But Rice cratered notching just a quarter of the vote on his way to primary defeat.

Rices loss was yet another example of Trumps taste for revenge against those who crossed him.

No Maine candidates got a Trump endorsement Biden won the state by around 9 percent in 2020.

Won with 83 percent of the vote.

In 2016, McMaster was the first statewide elected official to endorse Trump, and the then-presidents support was central to the governors campaign for a full term two years later. Trump endorsed McMaster again last March, meeting with the candidate at Mar-a-Lago in February. Trump called him a fabulous chief executive for his state in an endorsement statement.

Won with 66 percent of the vote.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) arrives at the Capitol in January 2020.|Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Won unopposed.

The only Black Senate Republican, Scott was able to criticize Trumps comments on race in the past while largely supporting many of his policies while the former president was in office. One of the highest fundraisers this election cycle, Scott faced an easy path to re-election this week for what will be his last term. Trump called him an outstanding senator and person who works tirelessly for the people of his great state in a statement.

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Won with 53 percent of the vote. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Won with 51 percent of the vote.

Fry claimed in a Facebook video earlier this year that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for the first time in his congressional race, and Trumps endorsement came soon after. Contrasting Rice, Fry has said that Jan. 6 protesters were exercising First Amendment rights, and that Democrats had weaponized that moment to excoriate an outgoing president. In his endorsement statement, Trump said, Russell Fry, who is all in for the Palmetto State, has my complete and total endorsement. VOTE TOM RICE OUT NOW!

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. questions Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas during a hearing in May.|AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

Won with 78 percent of the vote.

Unopposed.

Won with 56 percent of the vote.

Laxalt already had the former presidents ear when he ran for governor in 2018 with Trumps endorsement, eventually losing to Gov. Steve Sisolak in a close race. The former Nevada attorney general also served as a Trump campaign state co-chair and was a major voice in the attempts to overturn 2020 election results. He filed state and federal lawsuits before and after Nov. 2, claiming the entire process was rigged and filled with improper votes. Trump said Laxalt was running to defeat Harry Reids, Chuck Schumers and Nancy Pelosis handpicked successor and win an America First majority in the U.S. Senate.

Won with 38 percent of the vote.

The Clark County sheriff said he recognizes Biden as the duly elected president but would consider repealing the states universal mail voting system. While Lombardo had enjoyed high polling numbers in the race, the Trump endorsement boosted him in a crowded field of other candidates who vied for his approval. Trump praised Lombardos longtime police and military background, saying he would protect the under-siege Second Amendment in a statement.

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Trump bet on 13 candidates in Tuesday's primaries. Here's who won. - POLITICO

The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has begun to hold public hearings, laying out, in explicit detail, how Donald Trump was repeatedly told by key advisers that he fairly lost the 2020 election, among other revelations. Nevertheless, Trump continued to encourage protests against the elections certification, and expressed sympathy for the view that Vice-President Mike Pence deserved to be killed. The biggest question hanging over the hearings is whether they will contribute to a criminal case against the former President. The Justice Department is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into January 6th, but this is not the first time that Trump has appeared to be in the crosshairs of prosecutors.

If the former President is charged, what exactly would the charges be, and how tough would the case be to prosecute? To talk about this, I recently spoke by phone with Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. (She resigned from her position, which shed held since 2010, in the early days of the Trump Administration.) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why Trumps mind-set is so important to any criminal case, the arguments he might make to defend himself, and whether the Justice Department is too concerned about the optics of charging a former President.

If a case is made against Trump, what precisely would it be for?

It would require a full investigation to see if you can mount sufficient evidence. And the Justice Department will be the first to tell you that it investigates crimes and not people. But, with that in mind, it seems to me that some potential crimes here are: first, conspiracy to defraud the United States; and, second, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The first one is more broad. The second one is more specific.

What does that mean, conspiracy to defraud the United States?

The statutory citation is Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 371. It is sometimes referred to as the Klein Conspiracy, after a case named United States v. Klein. It is frequently used in cases of tax violations, but what it means is that someone with a fraudulent intent did something to obstruct or impede the official functioning of government. And so, in this instance, it would be something like, Trump and others conspired to defraud the American people and interfere with the proper transfer of Presidential power. And it could be as simple as getting Mike Pence to refuse to certify the vote when he had a duty to do so. Sometimes people think about the big picture, that you have to tie Trump to the physical attack on the Capitol. And that could do it, because that was one way that the certification was obstructed. But it could also simply be his efforts to pressure Mike Pence to refuse to certify the vote. And that would be an obstruction of an official proceeding.

Liz Cheney said there are seven different schemes that theyre going to try to prove in the next few weeks. It could be that theyve got seven different ways that theyre going to try to show conspiracy to defraud the United States, but any one of them is enough to obtain a conviction. Alternate slates of electors, or trying to persuade Georgia to change the outcome in that one state. Any of those things could suffice for conspiracy to defraud the United States.

And what about a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding?

That would relate specifically to the certification effort on January 6th. Again, it could be proved by a number of different methods. It could be proved by inciting the mob. That would be one way, but I think thats much harder than you need. It could be proved, again, just by pressuring Mike Pence to refuse to certify. That could be an obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress. And, by interfering with that in a way that is fraudulent, that could be a violation of that obstruction statute.

There are two connected but separate things. The first is Trump trying to obstruct the certification of Biden as the next President. And the second is the law-breaking that occurred from the mob on January 6th. The mob may have been a tool to put the first scheme into effect, but there were also laws broken by the mob itself, such as invading the Capitol and assaulting police officers. Is your sense that the crimes we would likely see regarding Trump would be more related to the certification than the actual physical destruction of property and assault of police?

Yes. I suppose the committee has dangled the latter a little bit. I still havent seen any evidence of it, but if they could prove that someone close to Trump met with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys on January 5th and said, Tomorrow, I want you to breach that Capital and whatever happens, come hell or high water. You must make sure that their proceeding does not continue, then you could link up the two as a conspiracy. It would still be to obstruct an official proceeding, not for the actual violence, unless you had a specific agreement: I want you to beat up cops. Youd have to show an agreement between those specific groups. And I dont think weve seen that yet. We may never get there, but I dont think we need to, because you can just show that he was trying to get alternate slates of electors, or that he was pressuring Pence to refuse to certify, or that he was pressuring Georgias secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find him eleven thousand votes.

Is there any precedent for going after politicians or officeholders for these types of acts?

Im not familiar with any. The one thing that comes closest, but is probably not even the same, is a guy who was a county auditor in Cleveland who paid his opponent to run against him and deliberately lose. Thats corruption in an election, but a little different from what were talking about here.

That makes me wonder whether it is actually hard to prove that these laws were broken.

Well, I dont know that we have anybody whos ever tried who has this much power, the way a President does. Maybe it has been attempted at lower levels and Im just not aware of it. I think part of it is that this is an incredibly audacious scheme, if it is proven. And it requires someone who can marshal the resources and control the levers of government to be able to pull it off the way Trump may have.

But a prosecution would be for violating these broader laws rather than laws related to the functioning of elections specifically?

Yes. The problem is that we get statutes on the books based on what Congress can envision. And I dont think Congress ever imagined that a President would try to do what Trump is accused of doing. And so we dont have a specific statute on the books that says, You cant pressure the Vice-President to abuse his authority to throw out the electors and substitute false ones, because I think no one ever imagined that would happen. So, instead, you have things like obstructing an official proceeding or defrauding the United States out of the proper functioning of government. Those would be the closest things that would fit here. And they get used for lots of different things, but nothing like this that Ive ever heard of.

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The Two-Pronged Test That Could Put Trump in Prison - The New Yorker

Former U.S. President Donald Trump may still escape prosecution over his role in the January 6 attack even after the House Select Committee has presented all its evidence, experts have warned.

Even before the panel started laying out its findings in live televised hearings, there were calls for the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict the former president over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and the subsequent January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.

Among the key moments from the first two televised hearings are the panel laying out how Trump continued to spread his false claims the 2020 election was rigged despite frequently being told this was not the case.

The panel alleged several GOP congressmen, including Scott Perry, sought pardons from the former president before he left office for their roles in attempting to overturn the election results.

The panel also said the far-right Proud Boys group, whose leading members have since been charged with sedition over January 6, were inspired to attack the Capitol by Trump's tweets.

With several more hearings still to take place, with the next one now set to be heard on Thursday, Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics, said the January 6 panel appears to be "methodically building the case" for an indictment against Trump.

However, Gift said he is still not convinced that Garland will ultimately take the unprecedented step of charging a former president with a crime due to the potentially significant, or even dangerous, backlash.

"Any moves by the Justice Department to prosecute the former president will be met with howls from the right alleging a partisan vendetta aimed at eliminating Biden's most likely opponent in 2024," Gift told Newsweek.

"Against that backdrop, there's every reason to expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to exercise extreme caution before pursuing a caseto the point where it seems like an unlikely scenario at this point.

"If he did, the surge of right-wing backlash that it would evoke across the MAGA-verse would be both enormous and with consequences that are impossible to predict," Gift added.

The panel has attempted to highlight just how prepared Trump was willing to ignore the truth being told to him about the election results.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and panel member, accused the "Big Lie" of also being a "big-rip off," and alleged that Trump kept on pushing the false election fraud claims in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters under false pretenses.

Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Newsweek that the evidence presented so far is important with regards to showing Trump's state of mind in the days and weeks after the electionbut "knowledge and intent are just one part" of a criminal prosecution.

"The Department of Justice needs more, and these hearings may be for political ends. The House is focused on the 2022 midterms and even the 2024 presidential race," Rahmani said. "The Attorney General would also have to prove a causal connection between Trump's actions and the ensuing violence of January 6."

Rahmani also suggested that Garland is not the sort of "aggressive" prosecutor who is "willing to take on a difficult and highly political prosecution" and charge a former president.

Instead, Rahmani suggests the prosecutor more likely to bring charges against Trump is Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the criminal investigation in Georgia where Trump is accused of trying to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes to help him win the state.

A special grand jury has been hearing evidence from subpoenaed witnesses since June 1 as part of the investigation into whether Trump committed solicitation of election fraud with his phone call to Raffensperger. Trump has frequently denied any wrongdoing, describing the call as "perfect" and the investigation into him a "witch hunt."

Garland has given no real indication of whether the DOJ intends on charging Trump over January 6 or his attempts to overturn the election. On Monday, Garland assured that he and the other prosecutors are keeping up to date with the House committee's presentations.

"I am watching, and I will be watching all the hearings, although I may not be able to watch all of it live," he said. "And I can assure you that the January 6 prosecutors are watching all the hearings."

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Why Merrick Garland Is Unlikely to Indict Donald Trump - Newsweek

The letter was lavish.

When William P. Barr stepped down as attorney general in December 2020, he showered President Donald J. Trump with praise for his unprecedented achievements and vowed that the Justice Department would continue to pursue the presidents claims of voter fraud to ensure the integrity of elections.

A year and a half later, Mr. Barr sounds different. In videotaped testimony played at the first two public hearings held by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Americans have now learned what Mr. Barr avoided saying publicly about Mr. Trump at the time.

I was somewhat demoralized, Mr. Barr said in testimony played on Monday, describing his reaction to a monologue from Mr. Trump in December 2020 that the voting machines were rigged. Mr. Barrs thinking, he said, was that the president had become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. On the other hand, when I went into this and would tell him how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.

Mr. Barrs testimony and that of several aides played at the hearing were a candid, more brutal version of what they were saying in public shortly after the election.

Bill Stepien, Mr. Trumps campaign manager, and Jason Miller, a top adviser, testified to the committee that they failed to keep Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trumps personal lawyer, away from him on election night. Mr. Giuliani, whom Mr. Miller described as definitely intoxicated, told Mr. Trump that he should declare victory. It was far too early to be making any calls like that, Mr. Stepien testified.

Mr. Stepien also testified that it became clear after the election that Mr. Trump did not have any realistic avenue to overturn the election.

But in the days immediately after the vote, he did not publicly challenge Mr. Trump or Mr. Giuliani. And two days after Election Day, Mr. Miller raised the idea on a call with reporters that mysterious bags of ballots were showing up in states Mr. Trump was still contesting.

Both appeared to believe that there was an opportunity for challenges that passed in the middle of November. Both continued working with the campaign, but receded from the forefront as Mr. Trump put Mr. Giuliani in charge of the efforts to overturn the results.

The change for some of the aides reflects the legal consequences of lying to a congressional committee, and how much Mr. Trumps grip on his former aides has loosened in the 17 months he has been out of office.

The testimony so far reflects only what has been released publicly, and it is unclear what else the committee may have. In books written about the election in the last year, Mr. Trumps aides are portrayed as believing the data showed a likely victory until the afternoon of Nov. 5, when it changed.

Mr. Barr, who testified to the committee voluntarily, spoke on the record to Jonathan Karl of ABC News in 2021 about his exasperation with Mr. Trumps claims of fraud. Mr. Barr also recounted tense private conversations with Mr. Trump in his memoir this year.

In other cases, people such as Mr. Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka began to look toward a life after the White House in Florida, while staying inside the administration. They tried to solidify policy issues they had worked on and, according to their colleagues, said little to try to dissuade Mr. Trump from his bid to stay in power.

And yet they remained silent in public as the president, his advisers and political allies pushed the claims on Americans and used them for fund-raising for Mr. Trump.

After the election, hes advised by his own people not to go out and declare victory, that they needed time for the votes to come in, said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, who led the questioning at the second committee hearing on Monday.

She added: They directly told the president over and over again, they were false. These were his people. This is Trump World, telling the president that what he was saying was false. And he continued to say the same thing.

Mr. Barrs testimony amounted to a beleaguered former top cabinet official contending with Mr. Trumps raft of unsubstantiated allegations about fraud that he wanted his government to run down.

It was like playing Whac-a-Mole because something would come out one day and then the next day it would be another issue, Mr. Barr said. He also detailed in his testimony how he told an Associated Press reporter on Dec. 1 that the department had found no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the elections outcome.

Still, his resignation letter underscored the degree to which officials appeared to believe they needed to tiptoe around Mr. Trump.

But the testimony of Mr. Stepien and Mr. Miller made clear that they had at least tried to warn Mr. Trump how election night was likely to go, with early returns in his favor but a potential wave of Democratic votes coming later when the mail-in ballots were counted.

I recounted back to that conversation with him in which I said just like I said in 2016 it was going to be a long night, Mr. Stepien recalled of speaking with the president. I told him in 2020 that, you know, there were it was going to be a process again. As you know, the early returns are going to be, you know, positive. Then were going to, you know, be watching the returns of ballots as, you know, they rolled in thereafter.

Mr. Miller said that when the campaign learned on election night that Fox News had called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr., he and other campaign aides were angry and disappointed, but also concerned that maybe our data or our numbers werent accurate.

But on the call with reporters two days after Election Day, Mr. Stepien sound adamant. The media and the insiders in this city have been trying to count Donald Trump out for years, he said. Donald Trump is alive and well.

At another point, he said, Exactly what the president said would happen is happening.

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A Striking Contrast: Trump Officials Then and Now - The New York Times

Truth Social, the sad social media company not even Donald Trumps heart is in, was founded in response to the ex-presidents banishment from Twitter after he incited and then doubled down on a violent insurrection. According to the company itself, the network encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology, and presumably, if an ex-president wanted to, say, provoke a riot over an election outcome he didnt like, that could be okay. What is apparently not okay? Making fun of Truth Socials CEO or breathing a word about the January 6 hearings, which, coincidentally, are making Trump look really, really bad.

Variety reports that a number of Truth Social users have found themselves suspended for posting about the proceedings, which kicked off last Thursday night with a prime-time event in which Trumps own daughter said she knew her father had lost the 2020 election. My Truth Social account was just permanently suspended for talking about the January 6th Committee hearings, Travis Allen, who describes himself as an information security analyst, wrote Thursday night, alongside a screenshot of the suspension message from the company. Jack Cocchiarella, another user, tweeted on Friday: I was suspended from Truth Social for posting about the January 6th hearing last night. Donald Trump is scared of free speech. As Max Burns, a staffer for Democratic New York State assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, wrote, Apparently free speech has its limits even in Trumpland.

Vanity Fair has reached out to Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Socials parent company, for comment, though, obviously, its in no way difficult to see why the social network whose name literally has the word truth in it would want to suppress exactly that. Despite the fact that the entire country lived through the events of January 6, the hearings, which continued on Monday, have been completely devastating for Trump. In addition to playing horrifying never-before-seen footage of the graphic violence that took place that day and featuring testimony from one of the police officers who was therewho described the scene as carnage and said she was slipping in peoples bloodthe proceedings have shown multiple members of Trumps inner circle testifying that there was absolutely no evidence that the election had been stolen and that Trump was told this many, many times.

Despite the insistence by the ex-president and his allies that the hearings are a partisan exercise that Americans should simply ignore, on Thursday evening Jason Millerwho is all in on Trump running in 2024said in a taped, under oath deposition that several days after the 2020 election, the campaigns lead data person told Trump in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose. On Monday, we also heard former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepienwho was supposed to appear in person but reportedly canceled last minute due to his wife going into laborsay in a taped deposition that Trump had no business declaring victory on November 4 or at any other point. Chris Stirewalt, who worked for Fox News at the time of the electionand called Arizona for Joe Bidensaid the same.

But perhaps no one has gotten more airtime to date than former attorney general Bill Barrwho, as a reminder, was one of Trumps most loyal stooges during his time at the DOJ and has said he hates Democrats so much that hed vote for Trump again (!)when it comes to calling bullshit on the ex-presidents election-fraud claims.

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Trumps Truth Social Is Allegedly Banning People for Talking About the January 6 Hearings Because Of Course It Is - Vanity Fair

Follow live updates on the House committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

WASHINGTON Former President Donald J. Trump, long known for distancing himself from or tossing aside staff members who contradicted him while he was in the White House, discovered a new target on Friday: his elder daughter.

The morning after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol played recorded video testimony of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, at its prime-time public hearing, Mr. Trump used his social media website to separate himself from what she had said and to say she was checked out during the final days of his administration.

In the testimony, Ms. Trump said she was influenced by a Dec. 1, 2020, statement by William P. Barr, then the attorney general, that there was no widespread fraud that had altered the outcome of the election. She testified that she respected Mr. Barr and accepted what he was saying.

Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results, Mr. Trump wrote on his social media website, Truth Social, in one of eight messages he posted there in response to the hearing. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).

Ms. Trump was a senior adviser in the White House, and she continued to work in the administration until the end. Her colleagues have recalled her being among those urging White House staff members on election night to fight even as it became clear that her father would most likely lose. Her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also a senior adviser in the White House, attended several meetings about postelection strategy with a range of political and West Wing advisers, as well as lawyers like Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Pushing back on his daughters comments was only one way in which Mr. Trump assailed the hearing, the first in a series of sessions to be heldby the House committee this month.

He denied having responded approvingly to the Hang Mike Pence! chants bellowed about the vice president by some of the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, an account shared during the hearing by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the panels vice chairwoman.

I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, Hang Mike Pence, Mr. Trump wrote on the social media site. This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!

Ms. Cheney did not say he had used those words, but she quoted testimony that Mr. Trump had responded to the chants by saying that maybe our supporters have the right idea and that Mr. Pence deserves it.

In another post on the site, Mr. Trump described the committee as a totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! And in two other posts, he attacked Mr. Barr, calling him a coward, weak and frightened, stupid and scared stiff of being impeached.

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Donald Trump Hits Back at Ivanka Trumps Account That She Accepted His Election Loss - The New York Times