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Jan 6 hearings: Trump-linked lawyer compares FBI to Stasi, as ex-president’s call to Putin revealed

Donald Trump is celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion, saying it will “work out for everybody” and amounts to “giving rights back when they should have been given long ago” – this as the furor over the decision overshadows devastating evidence of his plan to subvert the US’s democratic process in 2020 and 2021.

At yesterday’s hearing of the 6 January select committee, several ex-Justice Department appointees confirmed that even after being repeatedly briefed that his election claims were meritless, Mr Trump still praised supporters who rioted at the Capitol.

“They’re smart,” Mr Trump told filmmaker Alex Holder, “and they see and they saw what happened, and I believe that that was a big part of what happened on January 6.”

Mr Holder has described an incident in October 2020 when an interview he had scheduled with Mr Trump was cancelled because the then-president was on the phone with Vladimir Putin. The substance of their conversation is so far unknown.

Meanwhile, a former Department of Justice lawyer who tried to advance Donald Trump’s baseless election claims inside the government has been searched by the FBI.

In an interview with Fox news shortly after, Jeffrey Clark compared the raid to the Stasi secret police of East Germany.

Key points

  • Trump told DOJ to say election was corrupt and ‘leave the rest to me’ and GOP

  • Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mo Brooks asked for pardons from Trump, Jan 6 hearing told

  • Trump calls Capitol rioters ‘smart’ in clip from documentary that shocked his aides

  • What did Trump and Putin talk about in October 2020?

  • ‘Proud’ Donald Trump Jr boasts his father and ‘God’ overturned Roe v Wade

Pence seen reacting to bid to force Trump from office using 25th amendment in documentary clip

Thursday 23 June 2022 20:35 , Abe Asher

Documentary film footage from a British filmmaker caught Vice President Mike Pence’s reaction as the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded from the chamber that he invoke the 25th amendment to remove Donald Trump as president during the final days of his term.

Mr Pence, who ultimately did not invoke the 25th amendment, appears nonplussed in the footage.

Read more:

Pence seen reacting to bid to force Trump from office using 25th amendment in clip

Thursday 23 June 2022 20:46 , Josh Marcus

Today’s hearings have focused on the role of the Justice Department as Donald Trump and his allies pressured officials to overturn the election.

A key figure in that effort was Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ environmental lawyer who hoped to use the department to legitimise Mr Trump’s false claims about the election and encourage states to send separate, illegitimate sets of electors for the former president.

Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the January 6 committee he thought Mr Clark was not qualified to weigh in on such matters.“I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the Attorney General. He’s never been a criminal attorney. He’s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life,” Mr Donoghue told the committee, adding, “How about you go back to your office. and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.”

Committee details pressure campaign to elevate Trump ally in DOJ

Thursday 23 June 2022 21:15 , Josh Marcus

The committee is rolling out extensive evidence of how Trump allies pressured the Justice Department to elevate Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level official attempting to get the DOJ to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election results.

They showed December text messages from US representative Scott Perry, who texted Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we gotta get going” with plans about challenging the election and elevating Mr Clark to a high level position.

“I got it. I think I understand,” Mr Meadows replied.

 (House Select Committee on January 6th)
(House Select Committee on January 6th)

Later that month, Mr Clark urged Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, to sign a letter criticising Georgia’s election results and proposing sending a slate of pro-Trump electors.

Mr Donoghue said he thought the letter was “extreme” and highly innappropriate, given the lack of evidence about election irregularities in the state.

“This is a grave step for the Department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political and social ramifications for the country,” Mr Donoghue’s response read.

 (Special Committee on January 6th)
(Special Committee on January 6th)

“This was not based on fact,” the former DOJ official added during his testimony on Thursday. “It was actually contrary to the facts.”

“It may very well have spiralled us into a constitutional crisis,” he added.

Trump told DOJ to say election was corrupt and ‘leave the rest to me’ and GOP, Jan 6 hearing told

Thursday 23 June 2022 21:23 , Josh Marcus

Top officials at the Justice Department testified on Thursday that then-President Donald Trump put enormous pressure on them in near-daily phone calls and statements demanding that they declare the results of the 2020 election fraudulent with zero evidence.

Former acting deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the committee that Mr Trump instructed him personally to say that the election was “corrupt”, and that he would use that as the impetus for Congress to act and refuse to certify the results.

“Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” Donald Trump said, in words read aloud by Jan 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger, who then asked: “That’s a direct quote from President Trump, correct?”

“That’s an exact quote from the president, yes,” Mr Donoghue responded.

More details on this breaking news here.

Trump told DOJ to say election stolen, ‘leave the rest to me’, Jan 6 witness says

Is this Trump’s Nixon moment?

Thursday 23 June 2022 21:30 , Josh Marcus

Some are comparing Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to get the Department of Justice to serve his political aims during a scandal to that of President Nixon’s infamous attempts to cover up the Watergate crisis.

As Maggie Haberman of The New York Times wrote on social media on Thursday, “Comparing Trump to Nixon has always been imperfect for a variety of reasons, but never have the parallels been as clear as during a hearing in which two top former DOJ officials testified about Trump wanting to use the department for strictly partisan political purposes.”

Donald Trump exploded in DOJ meeting and threatened leaders with firing

Thursday 23 June 2022 21:40 , Josh Marcus

During a late December meeting with Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, and other DOJ officials, Donald Trump threatened the government lawyers with firing because they wouldn’t seize voting machines and declare that they were suspicious of the 2020 election results.

“Towards the end of the meeting the president again was getting very agitated. He said, ‘People tell me I should just get rid of both of you,’” Mr Donoghue testified on Thursday.

The president then said he was thinking of elevating Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ official who was circulating plans to have the Justice Department declare state election results suspect and encourage legislatures to send pro-Trump electors.

“Maybe something will finally get done,” Mr Trump said, according to the testimony.

Sean Penn sits with Capitol Police officers who were injured in riot at latest public Jan 6 hearing

Thursday 23 June 2022 21:45 , Josh Marcus

Sean Penn sat with Capitol Police officers injured in the January 6 riots during Thursday’s hearing into the insurrection.

The Academy Award-winner and celebrity activist chatted and joked with Michael Fanone, now a CNN contributor, and shook hands with other officers.

“I’m just here to observe — just another citizen,” Penn told reporters.

“I think we all saw what happened on January 6 and now we’re looking to see if justice comes on the other side of it.”

Bevan Hurley has the story.

Sean Penn sits with Capitol Police officers at Jan 6 hearing

Trump wondered ‘What do I have to lose?’ as he pondered elevating conspiracy theorist at DOJ

Thursday 23 June 2022 22:04 , Josh Marcus

In the days just before January 6, Donald Trump met with top Justice Department officials in the Oval Office.

He told the assembled leaders he was considering clearing house among the top leadership, who didn’t go along with the former president’s election conspiracies, and elevating Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level DOJ official who did.

“What do I have to lose?” Mr Trump wondered aloud, according to testimony from Richard Donoghue, former acting deputy attorney general.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose,’” Mr Donoghue testified.

The top DOJ official said the decision to elevate Mr Clark, an environmental attorney with no background in criminal investigations, would be a disaster.

“It’s impossible, it’s absurd. It’s not going to happen. And he is going to fail,” Mr Donoghue continued in the meeting, according to his testimony.

He also said he warned the president the decision would prompt mass resignations.

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone compared elevating Mr Clark, who wanted states that went for Biden to submit illegitimiate pro-Trump electors instead, to a “murder-suicide pact.”

The reviews are in: Donald Trump calls Day 5 of hearings a ‘Kangaroo Court'

Thursday 23 June 2022 22:17 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump is fuming about the January 6 hearings, posting numerous messages on his app Truth Social throughout the committee’s proceedings on Thursday.

He argued that the committee was failing to present the president’s side of the story or air out his thoroughly debunked claims about a stolen election.

“They refuse to go there, they want it all CANCELED, because it would be IMPOSSIBLE for the Unselect Committee to refute or challenge that which would be put before them, or the American Public,” read one message.

Read the full messages below.

 (Donald Trump / Truth Social)
(Donald Trump / Truth Social)
 (Donald Trump / Truth Social)
(Donald Trump / Truth Social)

Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mo Brooks asked for pardons from Trump, Jan 6 hearing told

Thursday 23 June 2022 22:30 , Josh Marcus

Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louis Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Scott Perry were among the Republican members of Congress who asked then-president Donald Trump to insulate them from future prosecutions by granting them presidential pardons in the days immediately following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

Their names were revealed by the House January 6 select committee on Thursday at the end of the panel’s hearing to examine Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to assist in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

The select committee played videotaped excerpts from depositions of former Trump White House staffers, who described the Republican members’ efforts to obtain clemency after Mr Trump’s scheme brought about the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.

“The general tone because we may get prosecuted because we work The President’s positions on these things,” said former deputy White House counsel Eric Herschmann, who confirmed to the panel that Mr Gaetz asked for a pardon.

Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg have more.

Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mo Brooks asked Trump for pardons after Jan 6

Donald Trump was willing to ‘undermine’ US democracy to defend his ‘very fragile ego’: Adam Kinzinger

Thursday 23 June 2022 22:45 , Josh Marcus

The committee just heard closing statements.

“The facts were irrelevant to president Trump,” Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger said. “It was about protecting his very real power and his very fragilfe ego, even it if it meant recklessly undermining our entire electoral system.”

Mr Kinzinger said he’s worried another attempt to overturn the election could happen again.

“I’m still worried that not enough has changed to prevent this from happening again,” he continued. “The oath that we take has to mean something.”

Trump asked ‘Kraken’ conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell to be a special counsel, she confirms to Jan 6 committee

Thursday 23 June 2022 23:00 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump personally tapped conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell to be a “special counsel” working in the White House to investigate his allegations of voter and election fraud, though he never went through with her appointment, Ms Powell testified to the Jan 6 committee on Thursday.

The former Trump attorney’s testimony to the Jan 6 committee was one of several pieces of witness testimony revealed publicly for the first time by the select committee at the hearing.

“On Friday, he had asked me to be a special counsel to address the election issues,” she told the lawmakers.

Mr Trump’s offer had been previously reported by The New York Times in December of 2020, just a few weeks before the January 6 riot, but never confirmed publicly by either the president or Ms Powell before now.

John Bowden has the story.

WATCH: White House advisor details GOP attempts to get pardons for election scheme

Thursday 23 June 2022 23:15 , Josh Marcus

Multiple Republicans in Congress, including Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, and Scott Perry all asked the White House for pardons in the context of the plan to challenge the 2020 election.

“The general tone was, we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of the president’s positions on these things,” former White House senior advisor Eric Herschmann said in pre-taped testimony played for the commitee on Thursday.

The former official said the pardons being sought seemed to cover conduct “from the beginning of time up until today,” he went on, noting that, “[Richard] Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad.”

‘Pure insanity’: White House wanted DOJ to pursue conspiracy theory that Italian satellite meddled in election

Thursday 23 June 2022 23:30 , Josh Marcus

DOJ officials testified today about the numerous ways the Trump White House and its allies pressured them to cast doubt on the 2020 election result, even though they were existensively briefed that their claims were false.

Richard Donoghue, former acting deputy attorney general, described how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Pennsyvlania congressman Scott Perry urged him to look into an internet conspiracy theory that an Italian defence satelite somehow compromise the election.

The DOJ official said the claims were “pure insanity” and “patently absurd.”

Mr Meadows kept at it, however, calling acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and asking him to meet with one of the men featured in a YouTube video about the Italy story.

“I told him this whole thing about Italy had been debunked, and that should be the end of that,” Mr Rosen told the January 6 committee on Thursday. “If he has real evidence, which this video doesn’t show, he can walk into an FBI field office anywhere in the United States. There’s 55 of them.”

January 6 hearing challenges claim that Rep. Scott Perry didn’t seek pardon

Thursday 23 June 2022 23:48 , Josh Marcus

As the campaign to overturn the 2020 election result heated up, numerous Republicans reached out to the White House to secure a pardon.

Among them was Pennsylvania congressman Scott Perry, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked for the White House chief of staff’s office.

In pre-taped testimony played in Congress on Thursday, she said she was contacted directly by the GOP rep about a “pre-emptive” pardon.

Mr Perry has denied he ever sought a pardon.

“The notion that I ever sought a Presidential pardon for myself or other Members of Congress is an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie,” he wrote on social media earlier this month.

‘Pure insanity’: Jan 6 committee hears pro-Trump conspiracy theory involving vote-switching Italian satellites

Friday 24 June 2022 00:00 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows requested that the US Department of Justice call the Italian government to consider a conspiracy theory that migrated from QAnon-linked corners of the internet to the White House, according to a House select committee investigation into the baseless voter fraud narrative that fuelled violence at the US Capitol on 6 January.

Mr Meadows – according to documents first obtained by members of Congress and reviewed by news outlets last year – reportedly told then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in the wake of Mr Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss to investigate spurious fraud claims in states that he lost.

He allegedly pressed Mr Rosen to investigate several debunked allegations, including a “theory” that Italian officials in coordination with Barack Obama and the CIA used satellites and military technology to manipulate US voting machines, a claim that circulated among QAnon-affiliated groups and far-right media outlets before coming to the attention of Republican congressman Scott Perry, who sent a YouTube link to Mr Meadows.

“Why can’t we just work with the Italian government?” Mr Perry wrote to Mr Meadows on 31 December, 2020, according to texts obtained by the committee. The video was posted on YouTube on 18 December.

Alex Woodward has more on this strange story.

Jan 6 committee hears pro-Trump conspiracy theory involving Italian satellites

Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks and Louie Gohmert among lawmakers who asked for pardons from Trump, Jan 6 hearing told

Friday 24 June 2022 00:15 , Josh Marcus

Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Scott Perry were among the Republican members of Congress who asked then-president Donald Trump to insulate them from future prosecutions by granting them presidential pardons in the days immediately following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

Their names were revealed by the House January 6 select committee hearing on Thursday that examined Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to assist in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to the president, said Mr Gaetz and Mr Brooks had both advocated for a “blanket pardon” for members involved in a December meeting to plan for events on January 6.

“Mr Gaetz was personally pushing for a pardon and was doing so since early December,” she said in pre-recorded testimony played by the committee.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg has more.

Here are the members of Congress who asked Trump for a pardon after January 6

Alex Holder: How a little known British filmmaker came to be at the centre of the case against Trump

Friday 24 June 2022 00:30 , Josh Marcus

Up close? For sure. Personal? Perhaps not.

Alex Holder, a little-known British filmmaker, has found himself at the centre of an unlikely political storm, after it emerged the committee investigating the Jan 6 attacks had issued a subpoena, calling on him to hand over hours of footage of Donald Trump and his family he had filmed for a documentary in the last weeks of 2020, and of the events of the day of the storming of the US Capitol.

He had shot it for inclusion in a yet to be released three-part documentary about the final months of the Trump presidency. The film – Unprecedented – is slated to be released this summer and has been bought by Discovery Plus.

The committee also requested that Holder provide an interview to committee members himself, something he agreed to do, and which happened on Thursday morning, shortly before the “National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex” held its fifth public session.

Andrew Buncombe has the full profile.

The little known British filmmaker came to be at the centre of case against Trump

More Nixon flashbacks at the January 6 hearings

Friday 24 June 2022 00:45 , Josh Marcus

In addition to just about every journalist in Washington, Donald Trump, and citizens around the country, one John Wesley Dean III was watching Thursday’s January 6 hearings.

Mr Dean served as White House counsel for president Richard Nixon and helped cover up the Watergate burglary, before agreeing to cooperate with Senate investigators and testify publicly about the scandal and resulting efforts to conceal it.

On Thursday, Mr Dean posted a photo on Twitter showing him watching the hearings alongside other former Nixon officials.

We now know the names of Republicans who asked for pardons after January 6. Remember them

Friday 24 June 2022 01:00 , Josh Marcus

As Thursday’s hearings illuminated, Donald Trump waged a frenzied campaign to get the DOJ on his side and back up his false election claims.

Top officials were so incensed and concerned about Mr Trump’s intentions they threatened to resign en masse.

As columnist Ahmed Baba argues in his latest, “If this wasn’t clear before, it’s certainly clear after tonight’s hearing: The only widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election was Donald Trump’s widespread effort to overturn it.”

Read more here.

We now know the names of Republicans who asked for pardons after Jan 6. Remember them

Filmmaker who interviewed Donald Trump after January 6 says president thought violence was ‘inevitable'

Friday 24 June 2022 01:15 , Josh Marcus

Alex Holder interviewed Donald Trump in the days immediately after January 6.

The documentarian, who spoke with Mr Trump and other top campaign figures for the forthcoming documentary series Unprecedented, says the president seemed to see post-election violence as an “inevitability.”

“If you’re telling 75 million people that their election doesn’t count and they believe you, you’re their president, they voted for you, then what else is gonna happen?” he said in an interview on CBS News on Thursday.

“I think the president saw it as an invetability, in that the people who were there were doing what they thought was correct, that they were fighting for their election, for their votes to be counted,” he continued.

The British filmmaker had been following the final days of the Trump election push for the series, and said Mr Trump’s rhetoric was growing increasingly violent.

“The volume of rhetoric and sort of the belligerence that was coming out post-election was so signifincant that, in my mind, it had to end with something violent,” he said.

“To me, January 6 doesn’t happy by itself.”Watch the full interview here.

And here’s Andrew Buncombe’s profile of Mr Holder.

The little known British filmmaker came to be at the centre of case against Trump

Ivanka Trump wanted father to ‘fight’ election, despite testifying she accepted 2020 results, film shows

Friday 24 June 2022 01:30 , Josh Marcus

Ivanka Trump wanted her father to continue fighting the 2020 election result well into December, new documentary footage shows, contradicting her testimony in the recent 6 January hearings that she quickly accepted Donald Trump’s election loss.

The former president’s daughter wanted Mr Trump to “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted,” she told a film crew in mid-December, as part of a yet-to-be-released documentary.

“As the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless,” Ms Trump said in an interview for the forthcoming series Unprecendented, according to footage obtained by CNN.

Here’s the clip, which was released this Thursday.

Read more about Ms Trump’s testimony to the January 6 hearings in our story from earlier this week.

Ivanka Trump wanted father to ‘fight’ election, despite claims she accepted 2020 loss

Trump saw Jan 6 violence as ‘inevitable’ and was ‘jovial’ after Capitol riot, British filmmaker says

Friday 24 June 2022 01:45 , Josh Marcus

British filmmaker Alex Holder told CBS News in an interview on Thursday night that President Donald Trump saw the violence of January 6 as an “inevitablity” and was “jovial” in the hours following the Capitol riot.

Mr Holder, whose documentary footage was reviewed by the Jan 6 committee, testified today behind closed doors about what he saw while following Mr Trump and his inner circle during the months leading up to and following the 2020 election.

Following his testimony and the public release of select footage from his upcoming three-part documentary series set to premiere on Discovery Plus later this summer, Mr Holder spoke to CBS News — telling host Norah O’Donnell that he predicted the violence of January 6.

“The volume of rhetoric and sort of the belligerence that was coming out post the election was so significant that, in my mind, it eventually had to end with something violent,” Mr Holder said. “Even if you look at the way the campaign was going on before, the idea of the election being something that was going to be irregular was already coming up during that time as well. So to me, January 6 doesn’t happen by itself.”

Abe Asher has all the details.

January 6 kicked off an era of political violence

Friday 24 June 2022 02:00 , Josh Marcus

Each day, it seems like American politics are getting more and more violent.

We’ve got multiple stories today of politicians and those tied to Washington facing death threats for their positions.

January 6, hopefully, was the peak of an increasingly violent era of US politics, but it doesn’t seem to be the end of it.

Eric Greitens’ ex-wife says she’s facing death threats after his RINO video

Rep Swalwell shares recording of death threat after attack by Marjorie Taylor Greene

Donald Trump was on precipice of new ‘Saturday Night Massacre'

Friday 24 June 2022 02:45 , Josh Marcus

Thursday’s special January 6 committee hearings revealed Donald Trump was moments away from a repeat of president Richard Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre,” when a number of top Justice Department officials resigned rather than futher the coverup of the Watergate scandal.

Donald Trump narrowly avoided such a fate, officials testified on Thursday.

He and his allies spent months pushing to elevate to acting attorney general an obscure Justice Department named Jeffrey Clark, who was urging the DOJ to declare the 2020 elections suspect and encourage state officials to send illegitimate slates of pro-Trump electors.

Things came to a head when DOJ leadership met with Donald Trump in the White House. They warned they would resign en masse if Mr Clark was given more power, along with hundreds of colleagues.

“The leadership would be gone. Jeff Clark would be leading a graveyard,” former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the president, he testified.

Who is the documentarian shaking up the January 6 hearings?

Friday 24 June 2022 03:30 , Josh Marcus

That would be Alex Holder, who filmed the forthcoming series Unprecedented in the moments just before and after 6 January.

The film, which includes interviews with Donald Trump, his children, and election experts, has now been examined by committee members.

Andrew Buncombe had this look at the director behind it.

The little known British filmmaker came to be at the centre of case against Trump

Trump aides shocked by revelation of unseen documentary subpoenaed by Jan 6 committee: ‘What the f*** is this?’

Friday 24 June 2022 04:15 , Josh Marcus

The January 6 hearings aren’t the only piece of TV Trump is worried about.

Unprecedented, a forthcoming docuseries featuring interviews with Donald Trump and others, has rattled those in his inner circle.

Graig Graziosi has the details.

Trump aides shocked by revelation of unseen documentary subpoenaed by Jan 6 committee

WATCH: Matt Gaetz sought presidential pardon

Friday 24 June 2022 05:00 , Josh Marcus

During Thursday’s January 6 hearings, committee members played testimony revealing which Republicans sought pardons from president Trump for their involvement in efforts to overturn the election.

Among them was Florida’s Matt Gaetz.

Watch the evidence below.

Away from Jan 6 hearings, right wing news channels face a reckoning of their own over false election claims

Friday 24 June 2022 05:45 , Josh Marcus

Proponents of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen are currently facing a very public reckoning. Millions of Americans are tuning in to watch the January 6 House committee outline evidence of a concerted effort by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the election.

But another reckoning, largely out of view until now, may yet take place for the people and institutions that promoted those lies. In the courts, right wing media companies that broadcast false claims about voting machines being rigged are being hit with billion-dollar lawsuits — and they are not going away.

At the centre of these lawsuits are two voting machine companies whose equipment was used in the 2020 election: Dominion and Smartmatic. They are in the process of suing Fox News, Fox News’s parent company, and upstart pro-Trump news outlets Newsmax and One America News (OAN), for billions of dollars collectively.

The most high-profile of those cases targets the heart of the Murdoch dynasty. Dominion has claimed that Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News, allowed false claims about the company to be broadcast on its news outlet, and that Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch allowed that coverage to continue knowing those claims to be false.

Read Richard Hall’s full report.

Right wing news channels face a reckoning of their own over false election claims

VIDEO: Sean Penn watches January 6 hearings in Capitol

Friday 24 June 2022 06:30 , Josh Marcus

Actor Sean Penn was in the gallery on Thursday to take in the January 6 hearings, sitting alongside DC police officers who were attacked during the riots at the Capitol.

Here’s what happened.

What’s next for the January 6 hearings?

Friday 24 June 2022 07:15 , Josh Marcus

Federal agents issued new subpoenas regarding the January 6 riot at the US Capitol and raided the homes of two people involved in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election, The Washington Post reported.

The FBI confirmed to The Post that it conducted authorised law enforcement activity at the home of Brad Carver, who allegedly signed a document to be a Trump elector, as well as Thomas Lane, who worked on Trump’s effort to overturn the election in Arizona and New Mexico.

Other would-be participants in former president Donald Trump’s scheme to send an alternate slate of electors to overturn the 2020 presidential election received subpoenas.

The subpoenas and activity at the homes comes a day after Arizona state Speaker of the House Russell “Rusty” Bowers, as well as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his deputy Gabriel Sterling, described efforts by Mr Trump and his associates to overturn the election results.

Eric Garcia and Andrew Feinberg have more on the next steps for the high-profile committee.

FBI raids homes and new subpoenas issued as January 6 committee pushes back hearings

Trump angrily watches every Jan 6 hearing, almost screaming at TV as no one defends him, report says

Friday 24 June 2022 07:59 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump is watching every January 6 Committee hearing in a rage, furious that no one is there to defend him, according to a report.

A close advisor told The Washington Post that Mr Trump is at “the point of about to scream at the TV” as he watches the hearings.

Another source in Mr Trump’s inner circle told the paper that the former president often complains that “there’s no one to defend me” at the hearings.

But one person familiar with the situation rejected that notion to Insider, saying: “This is not true. He has barely watched any of the hearings at all.”

Gustaf Kilander has more.

Trump angrily watches every Jan 6 hearing, almost screaming at TV, report says

The January 6 hearings aren’t the only threat to Donald Trump. Enter Ron DeSantis.

Friday 24 June 2022 09:00 , Josh Marcus

As Trump weighs whether to stage a third run for president in 2024, DeSantis is clearly making a play for the Republican nomination for president. He also got an unexpected gift when a federal grand jury indicted his 2018 opponent Andrew Gillum, meaning he can now boast that having already beat a corrupt Democrat, he is well-placed to vanquish whomever the party nominates to challenge him.

Read Eric Garcia’s take on the 2024 presidential contest.

The cold war between DeSantis and Trump is heating up

FBI raids Jeff Clark, DOJ lawyer at the center of January 6 coup plot

Friday 24 June 2022 10:00 , Josh Marcus

Federal authorities raided the home of former Department of Justice official Jefferey Clark in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, The New York Times reported.

Sources for The Times said they were unfamiliar with why authorities searched Mr Clark’s home but noted thjat Mr Clark played a key role in former president Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Mr Trump had considered making Mr Clark acting Attorney General and Mr Clark proposed sending a letter to state election officials in Georgia saying that the department had evidence that would cause Georgia to rescind its certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Federal authorities search home of Trump-era Department of Justice official

Donald Trump is still praising Capitol rioters

Friday 24 June 2022 11:00 , Josh Marcus

Former President Donald Trump had little more than compliments for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol in new documentary footage from March 2021 that was obtained by the January 6 committee this week.

In the footage, published by CNN on Thursday, Mr Trump claims (falsely) that a “small” number of people stormed the Capitol and calls them “smart” for believing his claims about widespread election fraud, which his own attorney admitted in separate audio released this week that the Trump campaign had no evidence to prove.

“They were angry from the standpoint of what happened in the election. Because they’re smart, and they see and they saw what happened, and I believe that that was a big part of what happened on January 6,” says the former president in the clip.

The documentary footage is part of an unreleased project set to be published on the new “Discovery +” platform. It was apparently shot without the vetting of Donald Trump’s legal team, according to media reports, and even caught some of Mr Trump’s closest aides by surprise. It’s not clear who authorised the footage, which does include a formal sit-down interview with the ex-president.

John Bowden has the details.

Trump calls Capitol rioters ‘smart’ in clip from documentary that shocked his aides

Trump fan pushes wild theory Ivanka Trump who appeared at Jan 6 hearing was ‘a clone’

Friday 24 June 2022 23:02 , Josh Marcus

Many staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump, such as the ones who came out to hear him speak in Mississippi as part of his American Freedom Tour last weekend, are not closely following the January 6 committee’s hearings on the Capitol riot.

On Thursday evening, The Daily Show released a nearly seven-and-a-half minute video of correspondent Jordan Klepper quizzing rally attendees about the committee’s work. One of the clips Mr Klepper showed was of the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump testifying that she accepted Attorney General William Barr’s assertion that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

But the Trump supporters Mr Klepper interviewed appeared unwilling to believe either Mr Barr or Ms Trump.

“It don’t even look like her. It might be one of those — what do they got, clones out there these days?” one supporter said of Ms Trump’s testimony.

Trump fan pushes wild theory Ivanka Trump who appeared at Jan 6 hearing was ‘a clone’

WATCH: Video shows Mike Pence learn of calls to remove Trump using 25th amendment

Friday 24 June 2022 12:00 , Josh Marcus

Documentary film footage from British filmmaker Alex Holder shows former vice president Mike Pence’s reaction as the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded from the chamber that he invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Donald Trump as president during the final days of his term.

Mr Pence, who ultimately did not invoke the 25th Amendment, appears nonplussed in the footage.

“I join the Senate Democratic leader in calling on the Vice President to remove this President by immediately invoking the 25th Amdendment,” Ms Pelosi is heard saying in the documentary clip. “If the Vice President and cabinet do not act, the Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment.”

Read more from Abe Asher’s full report.

Pence seen reacting to bid to force Trump from office in documentary clip

A quote that (may) live in infamy: ‘Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me'

Friday 24 June 2022 13:00 , Josh Marcus

Top officials at the Justice Department testified on Thursday that then-President Donald Trump put enormous pressure on them in near-daily phone calls and statements demanding that they declare the results of the 2020 election fraudulent with zero evidence.

Former acting deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the committee that Mr Trump instructed him personally to say that the election was “corrupt”, and that he would use that as the impetus for Congress to act and refuse to certify the results.

“Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” Donald Trump said, in words read aloud by Jan 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger, who then asked: “That’s a direct quote from President Trump, correct?”

“That’s an exact quote from the president, yes,” Mr Donoghue responded.

John Bowden has more.

Trump told DOJ to say election stolen, ‘leave the rest to me’, Jan 6 witness says

Read Mo Brooks’s furious pardon request

Friday 24 June 2022 13:30 , Andrew Naughtie

Alabama Congressman and 6 January rally speaker Mo Brooks, whom Donald Trump abandoned in his losing Senate primary campaign, has agreed to speak to the select committee, but only in public and with various conditions attached.

While that testimony is negotiated, here’s the email he sent Molly Michael, Donald Trump’s executive assistant, on 11 Jaunary 2021.

In it, he requests pardons for himself, Matt Gaetz, and other Republicans whom he worried might face legal reprisals from “deep-pocketed and vitriolic Socialist Democrats (with perhaps some liberal Republican help)” for their role in the failed attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

What did Trump and Putin talk about in October 2020?

Friday 24 June 2022 14:01 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump had a mysterious phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin just nine days before the 2020 election, a documentary filmmaker with unprecedented access during the final months of the Trump administration has revealed.

During a trip on Air Force One on Sunday 25 October 2020, filmmaker Alex Holder, a January 6 committee witness, was told by Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that a previously scheduled interview with the then-president wouldn’t be able to go ahead.

“My memory is that the chief of staff sort of came over and said that the interview couldn’t happen today because the president was on the phone. And I believe, if I remember correctly, that he said that he was on the phone to the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, which is why the interview had to be postponed,” Mr Holder told Politico.

Gustaf Kilander has more.

Trump had mystery call with Putin days before 2020 election, Jan 6 filmmaker reveals

This may be the craziest Donald Trump election theory yet

Friday 24 June 2022 14:30 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows requested that the US Department of Justice call the Italian government to consider a conspiracy theory that migrated from QAnon-linked corners of the internet to the White House, according to a House select committee investigation into the baseless voter fraud narrative that fuelled violence at the US Capitol on 6 January.

Mr Meadows – according to documents first obtained by members of Congress and reviewed by news outlets last year – reportedly told then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in the wake of Mr Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss to investigate spurious fraud claims in states that he lost.

He allegedly pressed Mr Rosen to investigate several debunked allegations, including a “theory” that Italian officials in coordination with Barack Obama and the CIA used satellites and military technology to manipulate US voting machines, a claim that circulated among QAnon-affiliated groups and far-right media outlets before coming to the attention of Republican congressman Scott Perry, who sent a YouTube link to Mr Meadows.

“Why can’t we just work with the Italian government?” Mr Perry wrote to Mr Meadows on 31 December, 2020, according to texts obtained by the committee. The video was posted on YouTube on 18 December.

Alex Woodward has more in this report.

Jan 6 committee hears pro-Trump conspiracy theory involving Italian satellites

Who asked Trump for a pardon over January 6?

Friday 24 June 2022 15:00 , Josh Marcus

Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Scott Perry were among the Republican members of Congress who asked then-president Donald Trump to insulate them from future prosecutions by granting them presidential pardons in the days immediately following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

Their names were revealed by the House January 6 select committee hearing on Thursday that focused on Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to assist in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Andrew Feinberg has the details.

Here are the members of Congress who asked Trump for a pardon after January 6

Analysis: Democrats can’t do anything to punish Republicans who asked for pardons

Friday 24 June 2022 15:31 , Andrew Naughtie

The revelation of which Republican members of Congress asked for pardons after 6 January has variously embarrassed and enraged the individuals concerned – but just in case anyone thought they might face some kind of official sanction for trying to get themselves off the hook, Eric Garcia is here to explain why the Democrats are too impotent to take action:

The party seems to be all but done with trying to hold Republican members of Congress responsible for their actions. Certainly, the GOP leadership refuses to do so. When Democrats voted to remove Greene from her committee assignments, only 11 Republicans joined them. And when they censured far-right Arizona representative Paul Gosar for tweeting a cartoon of himself killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they only had two Republicans on board: Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, both of whom are now on the select committee.

Since then, Democrats have effectively thrown up their hands.

Read the full dispatch below.

Republicans asked for pardons. What will Democrats do about it? Absolutely nothing

Sean Penn sits with Capitol Police officers who were injured in riot at latest public Jan 6 hearing

Friday 24 June 2022 16:00 , Andrew Naughtie

Sean Penn sat with Capitol Police officers injured in the January 6 riots during Thursday’s hearing into the insurrection.

The Academy Award-winner and celebrity activist chatted and joked with Michael Fanone, now a CNN contributor, and shook hands with other officers.

“I’m just here to observe — just another citizen,” Penn told reporters.

“I think we all saw what happened on January 6 and now we’re looking to see if justice comes on the other side of it.”

Read Bevan Hurley’s report on the unexpected apppearance.

Sean Penn sits with Capitol Police officers at Jan 6 hearing

What does Ivanka Trump really believe about the 2020 election? A new documentary complicates the story.

Friday 24 June 2022 16:30 , Andrew Naughtie

Ivanka Trump wanted her father to continue fighting the 2020 election result well into December, new documentary footage shows, contradicting her testimony in the recent 6 January hearings that she quickly accepted Donald Trump’s election loss.

The former president’s daughter wanted Mr Trump to “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted,” she told a film crew in mid-December, as part of a yet-to-be-released documentary.

“As the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless,” Ms Trump said in an interview for the forthcoming series Unprecendented, according to footage obtained by CNN.

“I think a lot of Americans feel very, very disenfranchised right now, and really, question the sanctity of our elections, and that’s not right, it’s not acceptable,” she added, according to unseen excerpts of the interview reported by The New York Times.

Ivanka Trump wanted father to ‘fight’ election, despite claims she accepted 2020 loss

Trump on Roe

Friday 24 June 2022 17:05 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump celebrated the news out of the Supreme Court on Friday that officialised their decision to strike down Roe v Wade, ending 50 years of federal protections for abortion access which will now be left up to states to determine whether to ban the procedure.

“This is following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago,” the former US president told Fox News in an exclusive interview on Friday, shortly after the landmark decision was overturned.

Johanna Chisholm has the story.

Trump celebrates the Roe v Wade ruling saying it ‘will work out for everybody’

Kinzinger on Americans’ responsibility

Friday 24 June 2022 17:30 , Andrew Naughtie

Adam Kinzinger, who led yesterday’s hearing on Donald Trump’s efforts to manipulate the executive branch’s judicial apparatus to keep himself in power, had these closing words for the hearing:

Attack of the (Ivanka Trump) clones

Friday 24 June 2022 17:46 , Josh Marcus

The January 6 hearings laid out some of the most damning evidence yet about Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the election, despite persistent warnings from advisors and allies that his election claims were false.

One of the most stinging rebukes came from Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who told the committee in pre-taped testimony that she “accepted” Attorney General Bill Barr’s conclusion the 2020 election was legit.

“It affected my perspective,” Ms Trump told the committee. “I respected Attorney General Barr, and accepted what he was saying.”

This isn’t sitting well with some Trump supporters. The break seemed so incongruous that one Trump fan told The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper he believed that the testimony was done by a clone of Ivanka Trump.

“It don’t even look like her,” the man tells the comedian, outside a Trump event. “It might be one of those, what do they got, clones these days? It might be a clone.”

The MAGA fan isn’t the only one questioning Ms Trump’s testimony, however.

Ivanka Trump may have actually wanted her father to continue fighting the 2020 election result well into December, new documentary footage shows, contradicting her testimony.

The former president’s daughter wanted Mr Trump to “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted,” she told a film crew in mid-December, as part of a yet-to-be-released documentary.

“As the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless,” Ms Trump said in an interview for the forthcoming series Unprecendented, according to footage obtained by CNN.

Ivanka Trump wanted father to ‘fight’ election, despite claims she accepted 2020 loss

‘Proud’ Donald Trump Jr says father paved way for Roe reversal

Friday 24 June 2022 18:00 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump Jr says his father deserves the credit for today’s historic reversal of Roe v Wade at the Supreme Court.

“Proud of my father for what he has accomplished today,” the former president’s son wrote on Twitter on Friday. “He gave our movement 3 strong pro-life Supreme Court Justices and despite the Dems and the leftwing media doing everything they could to stop their confirmations, especially with Kavanaugh, he never wavered!!!”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to put “pro-life” judges on the Supreme Court, a move he said would “automatically” mean the end to a federal right to abortion.

These were the key moments of the third presidential debate

What do the polls say about the January 6 hearings?

Friday 24 June 2022 18:18 , Josh Marcus

There’s a reason Donald Trump is sometimes called Teflon Don. Seemingly nothing thrown his way sticks. He managed to be impeached twice and still hold onto power. So will the January 6 hearings really change anything?

According to a new analysis of polls from Brookings fellow William Galston, it doesn’t seem so.

Less than half of Americans say January 6 impacted their outlook, compared to two-thirds of Americans who feel 9/11 changed things for them, and nearly as many who felt similarly about the pandemic.

Sixty per cent of Americans may see the hearings as “fair and impartial,” and the same proportion say they are following the news from the investigation, but audience data suggests that it’s mainly Democrats tuning into the hearings each day. Their feelings about Donald Trump presumably were determined long before the hearings ever began.

Here’s the kicker. According to a Economist/YouGov survey, 79 per cent of Americans admit Donald Trump was involved in a wide-ranging effort to overturn the election, including half of Republicans.

However, less than half of Americans, according to a Quinnipiac poll, believe Mr Trump committed a crime, a share that hasn’t budget since this spring.

In other words, plenty of people think Mr Trump was up to something, but not so many think he should be prosecuted for it.

“At the end of the day, the former president may stand convicted in the court of public opinion if not in a court of law,” as Mr Galston writes. “The hearings could intensify the nascent sentiment within the Republican Party to find a replacement for Trump who shares his views but not his defects.”

GOP Congressman accuses Ron Johnson of lying about role in fake elector plot

Friday 24 June 2022 18:30 , Andrew Naughtie

Among his various confused rebuttals of evidence that his staff tried to hand Mike Pence “alternate” slates of fake pro-Trump electors from Michigan and Wisconsin, Republican Senator Ron Johnson has claimed that the document in question was ferried to his staff from the office of Republican Congressman Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.

However, Mr Kelly has now pushed back – hard.

Adam Kinzinger defends Republican role in January 6 hearings

Friday 24 June 2022 18:45 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump’s latest line of criticism against the January 6 hearings is that not enough Republicans participated in the process to defend him and amplify his (almost entirely false) claims about the election. That’s even though the GOP largely elected to sit the process out when the committee was being established.

Trump angrily watches every Jan 6 hearing, almost screaming at TV, report says

Adamin Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the few Republicans on the panel, pushed back on this argument on Friday.

“Yesterday’s January 6 hearing, was overrepresentative of one party,” wrote Mr Kinzinger, who led much of the questioning at the most recent hearing, on Twitter. “Only Republicans testified to almost only Republican questions from almost only Republican congressmen.”

Not that that representation will last going forward. Mr Kinzinger, a rare Republican willing to criticise Donald Trump, announced in October he won’t seek reelection.

GOP Trump critic Rep. Adam Kinzinger won't seek reelection

Should the DOJ bring charges against Donald Trump for trying to steal the election?

Friday 24 June 2022 19:04 , Josh Marcus

The January 6 hearings have driven home the fact that Donald Trump used all the power at his disposal to try and overturn the 2020 election results.

As University of California, Irvine law professor Richard Hasen argues in today’s New York Times, this should be grounds for criminal prosecution.

If the DOJ doesn’t go after Mr Trump, Professor Hasen argues, it would be enable all those who wish to ignore the results of democratic elections.

“Although a Trump prosecution is far from certain to succeed, too much focus has been put on the risks of prosecuting him and too little on the risks of not doing so,” he writes. “The consequences of a failure to act for the future of democratic elections are enormous.”

And the Justice Department should act fast, Mr Hasen continues. If Donald Trump declares the 2024 presidential campaign he’s been teasing, any future prosecution could be criticised as a politically motivated attempt by a Democratic administration to tank a Republican rival.

There is some popular support for the idea of a prosecution, with a majority of Americans thinking that Mr Trump bears either a good or a great amount of responsibility for the events on 6 January and should be charged with a crime.

Majority of Americans believe Trump should face charges for January 6, poll finds

And law enforcement has been ramping up its searches of those tied to the plot to steal the election in recent days.

FBI raids homes and new subpoenas issued as January 6 committee pushes back hearings

However, the Biden administration is often loathe to rock the boat too much politically, and a criminal case against a former president would be politically explosive.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the DOJ “remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”

What that means, however, remains to be seen.

Biden blames Trump for appointing justices who overturned Roe v Wade

Friday 24 June 2022 19:19 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump’s fingerprints are on today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, according to President Biden.

“It was three justices named by one president, Donald Trump, who are the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country,” Mr Biden said on Friday in remarks from the White House.

The president called on Congress to make the right to an abortion part of federal law.

“Let me very clear and unambiguous,” Mr Biden continued. “The only way we can secure a women’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade as federal law. No executive action from POTUS can do that.”

Watch: Witnesses on members of Congress who wanted pardons

Friday 24 June 2022 19:30 , Andrew Naughtie

As part of the evidence unveiled yesterday, the 6 January select committee has put together this video of key witnesses describing which Republican members of Congress got in touch with the Trump administration to seek pardons after the Capitol attack.

Jeffrey Clark, Trump ally scrutinised in January 6 hearings, compares FBI search of his home to the Stasi

Friday 24 June 2022 19:51 , Josh Marcus

Former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark was the main focus of Thursday’s January 6 hearings, perhaps only second to Donald Trump himself.

Following the election, the environmental lawyer was a key Trump ally inside the Justice Department, pushing his superiors to get behind Donald Trump’s baseless election claims and trying to encourage states Biden won to send their own, illegimate pro-Trump electors.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided Mr Clark’s home in Virginia, as part of its investigation into those subverting the 2020 election.

Mr Clark spoke with the January 6 committee, but largely claimed the 5th Amendment, refusing to answer numerous questions.

That didn’t stop him from going on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Thursday, where he compared the FBI search of his home to the Stasi, the former East Germany’s secret police force.

“I don’t recognize this country anymore with these kinds of Stasi-like things happening,” he told Mr Carlson.

Group calls for Trump-appointed Louis DeJoy to resign from Post Office for election role

Friday 24 June 2022 20:00 , Josh Marcus

One Trump administration official who has managed to quietly continue his career into the Biden era is US Post Office Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former logistics executive.

Now, he is facing calls to resign for his alleged role in trying to aid Donald Trump in winning the 2020 election.

During the campaign, Mr DeJoy was accused of causing mail slowdowns that amounted to “weaponising the United States Postal Service to disenfranchise Americans who choose to vote by mail,” a group that leans Democratic.

Voting rights groups sue postmaster general Louis DeJoy to reverse post office reforms

Now, in the context of the January 6 hearings, advocacy group Citizens for Resonsibility and Ethics in Washington is calling for Mr DeJoy to leave office.

“Donald Trump’s plans to interfere with the election went beyond spreading lies about wide spread voter fraud,” the group wrote on Twitter on Friday. “He had an ally in USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy who tried to slow down the mail service to interfere with voting by mail. It’s time to remove DeJoy from his post.”

‘Proud’ Donald Trump Jr boasts his father and ‘God’ overturned Roe v Wade

Friday 24 June 2022 20:15 , Josh Marcus

Donald Trump Jr sang his father’s praises and cited him as being personally responsible for Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmarkRoe v Wade ruling that recognised a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.

“Proud of my father for what he has accomplished today,” the president’s eldest son and namesake tweeted just hours after the high court made its announcement on Friday.

“He gave our movement 3 strong pro-life Supreme Court Justices and despite the Dems and the leftwing media doing everything they could to stop their confirmations, especially with Kavanaugh, he never wavered!!!”

For his part, the former US president took a humbler course and cited “God” as being responsible for the end of Roe, which came by way of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation.

Johanna Chisholm has the story.

‘Proud’ Donald Trump Jr boasts his father and ‘God’ overturned Roe v Wade

Rudy Giuliani dismisses Jan 6 problems as he campaigns for his son

Friday 24 June 2022 20:30 , Andrew Naughtie

As Rudy Giuliani’s conduct between the 2020 election and the Capitol attack is examined in forensic detail in Washington, Politico has this look at his performances on the campaign trail for his son, Andrew Giuliani, who is running for the Republican nomination in the New York governor’s race.

And as might be expected, the former New York City mayor and leading national advocate for demonstrably false election fraud conspiracy theories has been asked a lot about what happened in Washington, DC 18 months ago.

One topic that has come up repeatedly throughout the upstate tour is an allegation from two Trump confidants that Giuliani was drunk when he urged the then-president to declare victory on election night. He denies that claim, saying he stuck to Diet Pepsi.

But that has led to several press conferences that are far from typical for the gubernatorial campaign trail.

“You’ve made terrible defamatory comments about me. You’re suggesting I’m a criminal, you’re suggesting I’m intoxicated,” he said as reporters in Buffalo shouted questions at him earlier this month. “Is your zealotry, is your hatred for Trump so great … you can’t let me get the last part of a sentence out?”

Read the full report below.

Trump obsesses over exact position of water glass in bizarre clip from bombshell Jan 6 film

Friday 24 June 2022 21:10 , Josh Marcus

In a clip shared by the January 6 documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, the former president can be seen fussing over a glass of water in the camera frame.

Mr Holder, the maker of ‘Unprecedented’ — a three-part documentary about the final months of the Trump presidency — tweeted a clip from it and wrote: “The Trumps did not have editorial control. Full stop.”

Unprecedented is slated to be released this summer and has been bought by Discovery Plus.

In fact, Mr Holder’s documentary footage has been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot of last year.

The clip shows Mr Trump checking himself in the frame after he takes a seat for the interview. Then goes: “I don’t think you want to have the water in the picture. You can take it. Yeah.”

Maroosha Muzaffar has the story.

‘Stop the Steal’ Organiser Ali Alexander appears before grand jury in Jan 6 investigation

Friday 24 June 2022 21:59 , Josh Marcus

Ali Alexander, who helped organise some of the “Stop the Steal” demonstrations that bled into the 6 January riot at the US Capitol, testified before a federal grand jury on Friday as part of the government’s investigation into the election insurrection.

Mr Alexander has already handed over documents to and testified before the special January 6 committee in Congress.

“Today a DC grand jury brought me in under subpoena and the threat of imprisonment. I told them I committed no crimes and observed no one committing any crimes during the 2020 Election and January 6th,” Mr Alexander posted on Friday on Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social media app.

Here’s his full statement on the grand jury, where he describes being called in as a “fact witness.”

And here’s our April report on the controversial activist.

Who is Ali Alexander? Everything we know about ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer

Trump ally who tried to get DOJ to assist election plot compares FBI search to Stasi

Friday 24 June 2022 22:57 , Josh Marcus

Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice lawyer who was a key player in Donald Trump’s attempt to reverse his 2020 loss, compared the FBI to the infamous East German Stasi secret police after his home was searched by law enforcement.

“I don’t recognize this country anymore with these kinds of Stasi-like things happening,” Mr Clark told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Thursday, a day after agents raided Mr Clark’s Virginia home and seized electronic devices.

As Thursday’s January 6 hearings laid bare, Mr Clark was at the center of an unprecedented pressure campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to use the DOJ to change the election results.

More details here.

Trump ally who tried to get DOJ to assist election plot compares FBI search to Stasi

ICYMI: Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks and Louie Gohmert among lawmakers who asked for pardons from Trump, Jan 6 hearing told

Friday 24 June 2022 23:34 , Josh Marcus

Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Scott Perry were among the Republican members of Congress who asked President Donald Trump to insulate them from future prosecutions by granting them presidential pardons in the days immediately following the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January last year.

Their names were revealed by the House January 6 select committee hearing on Thursday that focused on Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to assist in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger, the Republican select committee member who led the hearing, suggested that seeking pardons implied that his colleagues may have at least suspected they may later face prosecution.

“All I know is if you’re innocent, you’re probably not gonna go out and seek a pardon,” he said.

Read more from Andrew Feinberg.

Here are the members of Congress who asked Trump for a pardon after January 6

WATCH: The most impactful quote from the January 6 hearings yet

Saturday 25 June 2022 00:20 , Josh Marcus

It’s perhaps the most succinct summation of Donald Trump’s sprawling effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

”Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest up to me and the Republican congressmen,” Mr Trump allegedly told a top DOJ offiical, according to testimony on Thursday.

Watch the exchange for yourself.

Signing off

01:24 , Josh Marcus

That’s all for our live coverage of the January 6 hearings and Donald Trump for today.

Thanks for reading, and do stay tuned with The Independent for the latest updates, news, and analysis on the former president.