"Where you can find almost anything with A Click A Pick!"
Go to content
US Monthly Headline News December 2023 - Page 1
Story by Rey Harris

Washington DC - A new report has revealed how Donald Trump and his allies apparently plotted to fly their "fake elector" ballots to the nation's capitol ahead of the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Audio recordings and messages obtained by CNN newly detail the plan, which reportedly began two days prior to January 6, 2021 - the day Vice President Mike Pence was set to certify the election results.

The most important of these include testimony given by former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who agreed to a plea deal in October, admitting to conspiracy to file false documents. As a part of his deal, Chesebro has been cooperating with prosecutors in the Georgia election interference case and others in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, where investigators are looking into allegations of questionable fake elector certificates used in their states in 2020.
Story by David McAfee

New audio recordings released by CNN revealed that ex-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro had lots of grievances with the ex-president's campaign, but it also points to potentially new defendants, according to an ex-prosecutor. Joyce Vance did an in-depth dive on the new evidence from CNN, which put together a timeline of what happened to fake elector ballots before Jan. 6, 2021. The article the outlet put out included some already reported information, as well as new audio recordings, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said on Friday. "None of this makes sense," Vance wrote while walking through the new evidence.

"It suggests some of the folks he worked with, who avoided indictment in Fulton County, may have some culpability—we’ll get to that," Vance wrote. "Several of them have reportedly spoken with either federal or state prosecutors, or both and remained silent since, possibly suggesting cooperation in the real sense of that term. But none of this is exculpatory for Chesebro." One individual whom Vance highlights is Matthew Morgan, a lawyer who joined Vice President Pence’s office in 2017, she says.
David Sharp, Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s top election official could face an impeachment attempt in the state Legislature over her decision to keep former President Donald Trump off the Republican primary ballot. At least one Republican lawmaker has vowed to pursue impeachment against Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows despite long odds in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Bellows said Friday that she had no comment on the impeachment effort, but said she was duty-bound by state law to make a determination on three challenges brought by registered Maine voters. She reiterated that she suspended her decision pending an anticipated appeal by Trump in Superior Court.

“Under Maine law, I have not only the authority but the obligation to act,” she said. “I will follow the Constitution and the rule of law as directed by the courts,” she added.
Story by Sky Palma

Lev Parnas, who was a central figure inthe 2019 Ukraine scandal that led to the impeachment of Donald Trump, is still telling his story — and is now revealing insights into "diplomatic impropriety" that he says is at the heart of current investigations targeting the Biden family.

It's a message Republicans are not eager to promote, The Palm Beach Post reports.

"The whole motive and the whole Biden stuff was never about getting justice, and getting to the bottom of Biden criminality or doing an investigation in Ukraine," Parnas said. "It was all about announcing an investigation and using that in the media to be able to destroy the Biden campaign and have Trump win."

Parnas, a henchman of Rudy Giuliani who was also connected to Trump, was a link between investigators and Ukranian figures attempting to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden's son, Hunter. He was convicted on several charges, including fraud and campaign finance violations.
Story by Matt Laslo, Raw Story

WASHINGTON – Republicans in Congress aren’t just doing all they can to impeach the Biden name – and possibly President Joe Biden himself – they’re also going to extraordinary lengths to protect two billionaire GOP megadonors who helped the party remake the Supreme Court in recent years.

For one, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) are trying to stymie Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s investigation into Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

Schwalb is looking into allegations that Leo is illegally profiting off non-profits. Jordan and Comer have responded by threatening to subpoena Schwalb.

Meanwhile on the other side of the U.S. Capitol, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out en masse, boycotting Democrats’ effort to subpoena Leo and Republican jurisprudence sugar daddy Harlan Crow over the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he’s given to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni over the decades, according to a ProPublica investigation.
Story by Aila Slisco

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was repeatedly urged to resign after celebrating Christmas on social media.

McDaniel, who has frequently faced criticism during her more than six years leading the RNC, wished her followers a "Merry Christmas" in a pair of Christianity-infused posts to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

"Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!" McDaniel wrote. "Let us rejoice and give thanks for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, whose birth gives us joy, hope, and new life."

"We pray for all those spending Christmas away from their loved ones, especially our troops overseas and first responders who are spending this season protecting our freedoms and families," she added. "God bless you all."

The seemingly innocuous posts from McDaniel, the niece of outgoing GOP Senator Mitt Romney, resulted in a furious backlash from conservatives on X, including a number of supporters of former President Donald Trump's MAGA movement.
President Joe Biden has ordered retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. servicemembers were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq
By AAMER MADHANI Associated Press and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. servicemembers were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq.

National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack that utilized a one-way attack drone

Biden, who is spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was alerted about the attack by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly after it occurred on Monday and ordered the Pentagon and his top national security aides to prepare response options to the attack on an air base used by American troops in Erbil.
Story by Kayla Gallagher

Attorneys for the nonprofit conservative group, which self-identifies as a news organization, are considering appealing the ruling from U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres

A district judge in Manhattan last week ruled that criminal prosecutors may soon get to examine 900 pages of documents related to the alleged theft of Ashley Biden's diary, rejecting a First Amendment claim from Project Veritas.

The judge ruled that the arguments based on the First Amendment are “inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent,” noting that Project Veritas could not claim they were protecting the identity of an anonymous source because two individuals already pleaded guilty in the case, according to the Associated Press.
Story by Peter Wade

Republicans, including former president Donald Trump, have targeted the Justice Department, accusing the agency and its staff of weaponizing the justice system, as well as individual judges. This type of rhetoric has contributed to "toxicity" and an "unprecedented rise" in threats against public officials, said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

"On a weekly basis - sometimes more often - I am getting reports about threats to public officials, threats to our prosecutors, threats to law enforcement agents who work in the Justice Department, threats to judges," Monaco said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's This Week.

Monaco added that in this past week alone, the department has seen "cases involving threats to kill FBI agents, a Supreme Court justice and three presidential candidates."
Story by Nick Robertson

(The Hill) — A federal judge ruled Friday that Twitter, now known as X, breached its contract with employees when it failed to pay millions in promised bonuses last year.

The company promised employees half of their potential bonuses both before and after tech billionaire Elon Musk purchased the company in 2022, but never paid, according to the suit.

Mark Schobinger, then the company’s senior director of compensation, brought the lawsuit against the social media platform in June.

“Once Schobinger did what Twitter asked, Twitter’s offer to pay him a bonus in return became a binding contract under California law,” District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in the opinion.
Far-right council members in Huntington Beach introduce agenda item to switch focus to US wars and America’s independence
Abené Clayton

The southern California city of Huntington Beach, a bastion of conservative voters, has made the move to block diverse monthlong celebrations of Black history, women’s history and Pride, in favor of observing the revolutionary and civil wars, California’s history and America’s independence.

An agenda item introduced on 19 December forbids any programming that pertains to previously established honorary celebrations for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ groups from taking place on city-owned property, including libraries, or of being featured in city communications such as social media posts, according to Natalie Moser, a city council member who voted against the action.

This means that monthly programming meant to acknowledge and teach the history of historically marginalized groups such as Black Americans and LGBTQ+ people will be replaced by “content” about local railroad and surfing history and a monthlong tribute to the discovery of oil in Huntington Beach called Black Gold Jubilee, according to the agenda item’s language. It’s still possible that the city can establish a day of observation for marginalized groups, Moser adds.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Following the report that former President Donald Trump tried to pressure canvassers in Michigan to block certification of election results, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote a dire warning about the threat the former president still poses in The Daily Beast.

"For me, the lowest moment in the post-election battle to protect Michigan’s accurate and legitimate election results in 2020 was not when armed protestors stormed my home," wrote Benson. "It wasn’t when a gathering of Trump supporters showed up to Michigan’s State Capitol demanding to be let in as the state’s 'true slate of electors' when we all were sheltered in the State Senate Chambers finalizing the electoral college. It wasn’t even when Rudy Giuliani came to town to headline a sham legislative hearing filled with lies about our elections. No, the most challenging time for me was the night of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting."
Jamie Frevele

Joe Rogan became the victim of a brutal fact-check on his own show when he went off on President Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline, citing a speech in which Biden was actually quoting former President Donald Trump.

During a conversation with his guest, MMA fighter Bo Nickal, Rogan said some voters now regret voting for Biden in 2020. Then the two launched into a criticism of the 81-year-old president’s state of mind while mocking him for a recent speech during which he said something about losing the Revolutionary War because of a lack of airports.

“If you had any other job, and you were talking like that, they would go, ‘Hey, you’re done,'” Rogan said.
Tommy Christopher

Eighties megastar-turned-MAGA celebrity and Masked Singer star John Schneider told President Joe Biden that he and First Son Hunter Biden should be executed — just minutes after the episode in which his identity was revealed.

For seven seasons, Schneider rode the wave of heartthrob status as one-half — along with dark-haired dreamboat Tom Wopat — of the duo known in popular culture as The Duke Boys. Never meanin’ no harm, they rollicked around the eponymous Georgia county of The Dukes of Hazzard staying one step ahead of the law and two steps behind Catherine Bach’s Daisy Duke.
By Marshall Cohen, CNN

CNN — The Detroit News obtained a recording of a call former President Donald Trump made to two Michigan county officials in 2020, urging them not to certify the election results from Detroit.

The call was previously known and reported by CNN – and condemned at the time by election experts and Michigan Democrats, who said it was a stunning attempt by a sitting president to pressure local officials to interfere with an election.

For the first time, we are learning exactly what Trump said, according to the Detroit News. CNN has not independently obtained or verified the recording.
Story by Kathleen Culliton

Public officials’ families should never benefit financially from that person’s political power, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said this week — and was immediately hit by a ferocious backlash. Jordan took to the airwaves to defend an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden that has yet to uncover evidence of wrongdoing.

“When you do something that benefits your family financially and you’re a public official,” Jordan told Fox News viewers, “that’s not supposed to happen.” Replied Shelby Kent-Stewart on X, “Jared and Ivanka, 'advisors' to Trump during his administration would like a word.” Kent-Stewart was not the only viewer of Jordan’s problematic decree to take umbrage with his political allies’ financial forays.
Republicans are violating patience rights to privacy.

Cora Neas

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Seattle Children’s Hospital filed a lawsuit in Travis County District Court on Dec. 7 against the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), after that agency requested documents related to gender transition policies and any such care provided to Texas children.

However, hospital claims that the OAG lacks jurisdiction to demand such records from the hospital, and that Washington’s “Shield Law” protects it from requests made by states that “restrict or criminalize reproductive and gender-affirming care.”

“The Shield Law prohibits Washington-based entities such as Seattle Children’s from ‘[c]omply[ing] with subpoena, warrant, court order, or other civil or criminal legal process for records, information, facilities, or assistance related to protected health care services that are lawful in the state of Washington,'” the lawsuit stated.
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

CNN - Two Georgia election workers recently awarded nearly $150 million by a jury for the harm caused by defamatory statements Rudy Giuliani made about them following the 2020 election can begin trying to collect from him immediately, according to a new court order.

Typically, the women who had sued Giuliani and won would have to wait 30 days to begin attempting to claim his assets in other states. But Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, who oversaw the high-profile trial last week, gave Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman’s attorneys the ability to attempt to collect on Wednesday.

Giuliani, Howell noted, had escaped revealing his worth by refusing to turn over evidence he had in the case before trial, never acknowledged previous court orders for him to reimburse the women for his attorneys’ fee, repeatedly claimed he’s broke and the verdict would severely hurt him, and yet still had support to help him in recent months.
By Ayana Archie, Becky Sullivan

Former Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy, one day after a federal judge ordered him to immediately pay nearly $150 million to two former Georgia election workers he defamed.

In the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, submitted Thursday in New York, Giuliani reported millions of dollars in debt from lawsuits, unpaid taxes and outstanding legal fees.

The filing follows a federal judge's ruling on Wednesday that Giuliani must immediately pay Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, for spreading baseless claims about their involvement in election fraud.
Story by Steve Reilly

A federal appeals court on Wednesday issued a new, unredacted version of its decision upholding the partial gag order in the Washington, D.C.-election subversion case against Donald Trump, revealing security concerns by state and local officials.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 8 issued the ruling in a 68-page order on Dec. 8, but with certain information redacted, or blacked out, on three of its pages. The material which was redacted, and is now public, mostly pertains to descriptions of security concerns from public officials who had been targeted by Trump or his supporters.

One newly-unredacted sentence discusses how a state official avoided "commenting on most things publicly" because it was "the safest thing to do" after the former president tweeted about him. Another section describes an episode in which a local government official "had to evacuate his home when one of the then-President's supporters posted the official's address online."
Story by Kathleen Culliton

A government official was forced to flee his home after one former President Donald Trump’s supporters shared his address online, according to information revealed in an unredacted gag order issued Wednesday.

The new version of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s partial gag order was released by a federal appeals court in Trump’s Washington D.C. election interference case,the Messenger was first to report.

The original 68-page order, issued a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 8, included three pages with blacked out information, the Messenger notes.
Story by Zoe Wilson

During then-President Donald Trump’s last days in office, a 10-inch-thick binder of unprocessed Russian intelligence, which had been brought from the CIA, disappeared after it was last observed at the White House, as per CNN’s report on Friday. The news of Russia’s attempt to help Trump win the 2016 election has not been discovered since Trump stepped down more than two years ago.

According to sources, the binder held unprocessed information gathered by the US and NATO allies about Russians and Russian operatives. This information included sources and techniques that contributed to the US government’s conclusion that Russian leader Vladimir Putin aimed to aid Trump in his victory during the 2016 election. The intelligence was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were only able to review the material at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The previously unreported incident was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, according to the sources.In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not seem to have been located.
By David Faris Associate Professor, Roosevelt University

Now that the Colorado Supreme Court has used the 14th Amendment to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's primary and presidential ballot, the real action begins. With multiple lawsuits winding their way through other state courts, the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to step in and resolve the matter one way or the other. And while a reversal of Colorado's ruling is more likely than not, we should not assume that the 6-3 conservative majority, which no longer needs him to pursue its reactionary ideological project, will rescue Trump from doom.

The substance of the case is straightforward. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars from holding "any office, civil or military" individuals "who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
Some Republicans lie like other people breath

Opinion by Max Burns, opinion contributor

Last week, a Washington, D.C., jury determined that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had defamed two former Georgia election workers, ultimately awarding the two women an eye-popping $148 million judgment. Concurrently, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was wrestling with the fallout from his $1.5 billion defamation lawsuit, with a last-ditch proposal of just $55 million over 10 years to the families of Sandy Hook.

Earlier in the year, right-wing media titan Fox News faced its first vulnerability in decades after Dominion Voting Systems successfully sued it for election-related lies. And former President Donald Trump earned his own mark of scorn in September after a federal judge found him liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. It’s an expensive year to be a liar.
Republicans claim to be tough on crime they are not. Some republicans want to give coup plotters, insurrectionist and seditionist a pass that is not tough on crime that is protecting the criminals who attacked our capital and tried to destroy America. Coup plotters, insurrectionist and seditionist should not commit the crimes if they can’t do time.

Story by Savannah Kuchar, USA TODAY

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is moving to give the U.S. Supreme Court sole power to review presidential candidate qualifications after a controversial Colorado Supreme Court's decision said former President Donald Trump is disqualified from the presidency.

Colorado's highest court ruled Tuesday that Trump may not appear on the state's 2024 presidential primary ballot over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The former president is expected to appeal the decision. The North Carolina senator is introducing legislation that would take away states' ability to make such decisions and give just the top federal court this jurisdiction.

“Regardless of whether you support or oppose former President Donald Trump, it is outrageous to see left-wing activists make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove him from the ballot,” Tillis said in his press release Tuesday.
Story by Chris Strohm and Greg Stohr

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is ineligible to serve as US president because of his actions inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, Colorado’s highest court found, in an unprecedented ruling that’s headed for the US Supreme Court.

Colorado’s Supreme Court issued the ruling Tuesday, barring Trump from the state’s primary ballot, but stayed the decision to allow the former president to appeal, which his campaign said he plans to do. He has until Jan. 4, under the state court’s ruling.

The ruling was the first to say that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results render him ineligible to run again under a post-Civil War-era provision of the US Constitution that bans insurrectionists from holding public office.

“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” according to the 4-3 ruling from the court. All seven justices were appointed by Democratic governors.
M.L. Nestel

A cell phone belonging to a congressman and suspected key figure in Donald Trump's alleged bid to subvert the 2020 presidential election is going to be able to be accessed by Justice Department investigators now that a federal judge granted it.

A longstanding battle being fought by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) to shield his cellphone, with nearly 1,700 records in it, from being able to be opened by Justice took a marked turn with Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, The Washington Post reports.

Perry had argued that the phone, which had been seized by the feds back in August 2022, was protected by what the outlet reported as the Constitution's "speech or debate" clause granting Congress members immunity from criminal investigation when carrying out their official duties.
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a promoter of Donald Trump's "Big Lie" who refused to certify the 2020 election, is under fire after attacking "liberal women" as "angry," claiming their husbands cannot satisfy them sexually, and declaring to college students, "My pronouns are 'kiss my ass.'"

Cruz, running for re-election, appeared on stage Tuesday at a convention held by Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. Kirk is also a member of the highly secretive far-right Council for National Policy.

Screaming, a very animated Cruz told the group of students, "The left is so mad, they're so unhappy, they're so pissed off. And by the way, if you were a liberal woman, and you had to sleep with those weenies, you'd be pissed too."
Travis Gettys

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called out Donald Trump's denials of having read Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" as hollow and false. The former president claimed during an Iowa campaign speech that he's never read the Nazi leader's manifesto, a denial that was apparently necessitated by criticism of his recent authoritarian musings and his use of fascist language to disparage immigrants and political rivals, but the "Morning Joe" host wasn't buying it.
Republicans claim to be tough on crime they are not. Some republicans want to give coup plotters, insurrectionist and seditionist a pass that is not tough on crime that is protecting the criminals who attacked our capital and tried to destroy America. Coup plotters, insurrectionist and seditionist should not commit the crimes if they can’t do time.

Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said if he were elected president, he would not allow the U.S. justice system to put former President Donald Trump in jail or prison. He made his remarks just after the Colorado Supreme Court decision to keep Trump off the state’s 2024 presidential ballot.

“The idea that we’re going to put an almost 80-year-old former president in prison – that’s not going to be good for this country,” DeSantis said, answering a question during a caucus event at Jethro’s BBQ in Ankeny Tuesday evening.

The comments came after the Colorado Supreme Court released its decision barring the former president from the Colorado ballot under the 14th Amendment – a decision likely to be appealed to the federal Supreme Court.
Story by Samyarup Chowdhury

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, also known as the "Marscopter," has photographed some "otherworldly" images of wreckage on Mars reminiscent of a sci-fi film. Knewz.com has learned that the images, which look like the remnants of an alien spacecraft, were taken in April 2023.

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity, which accompanies the Perseverance rover, photographed the wreckage while crossing the rover's landing site en route to a river delta.

The wreckage seems is actually a component known as a backshell, which is the top half of the landing capsule in which the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter arrived in to Mars.

"Clarence Thomas has no business hearing this case. Why? Because his wife was a major player in the whole insurrection. And he should, if he had principles, recuse himself," says Judge LaDoris Cordell on the Supreme Court likely taking up Colorado banning Trump from the ballot
Story by Carl Gibson

A super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump's 2024 is running ads in New Hampshire attacking his top rival — who is relishing the attention.

In the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, the Associated Press reports the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC is running an ad attacking former UN ambassador Nikki Haley for her flip-flopping on support for a gas tax when she was governor of South Carolina.

"New Hampshire can’t afford Nikki 'High Tax' Haley," a narrator's voice-over is heard saying in the ad. "Two days ago, Donald Trump denied our surge in New Hampshire existed. Now, he’s running a negative ad against me," Haley tweeted Monday night. "Someone’s getting nervous.
By Melissa Quinn

Washington — Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, was honored at her funeral on Tuesday as a trailblazing jurist who served as a role model for millions by breaking down gender barriers for women across the legal profession.

O'Connor died in Phoenix on Dec. 1 at the age of 93. Until her retirement in 2006, O'Connor was the Supreme Court's ideological center for more than two decades, providing the decisive vote in dozens of cases that influenced a wide swath of American life over her tenure.

All nine sitting justices and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy were on hand for Tuesday's ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington. President Biden and Chief Justice John Roberts were among those who eulogized the late justice.
Story by Alex Griffing

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-MY) was asked on Tuesday to weigh in on former President Donald Trump saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country – a remark that apparently hit close to home for the Kentucky Republican.

“Are you comfortable with your party’s leading presidential candidate referring to immigrants as people who are poisoning the blood of our country?” CNN’s Manu Raju asked McConnell during a Capitol Hill press conference.

“Well it strikes me that didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao Secretary of Transportation,” McConnell replied, referring to his wife.
Story by Philip Bump

The riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, required multiple catalysts. One was the willingness of some of those present to engage in violence: small-scale violence like upending barriers or aggressive violence like attacking law enforcement with blunt objects. Another was the mass of people who were surrounding the building and its defenders, a mass that pressed forward against those barriers and which fed into the energy of the moment.

This development was anticipated by some of those engaged in explicit violence. In private chats from the days before the riot, members of the right-wing group Proud Boys discussed whether “the normies” — that is, other protesters — and other attendees were “going to push through police lines and storm the capitol buildings.” On the day of the riot, members of the group engaged to “ril[e] up the normies.” The thousands of people who walked from President Donald Trump’s speech south of the White House to the Capitol that day were a force multiplier.
Story by Areeba Shah

A deep dive into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' finances revealed a secret complaint, or a subtle request, he made to a Republican Congressman about a pay raise, threatening that if lawmakers didn’t act, “one or more justices will leave soon,” according to a ProPublica investigation.

This marks the most recent revelation in a series of ProPublica reports this year, delving into Thomas' contentious financial history – one with several instances of the Supreme Court justice accepting undisclosed gifts and money from wealthy friends who got a like-minded jurist on the nation’s highest court.

Legal experts warn that Thomas’ actions raise “significant concerns” regarding the reality or appearance of conflicts of interest and abuse of his official position. Were he any other government official, or a member of most professions, his behavior would merit severe sanctions if not removal.
Story by Chris Strohm

(Bloomberg) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was sued again for allegedly defaming two former Georgia 2020 election workers, just days after they won a $148 million jury verdict against him for damaging their reputations.

Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss filed a new lawsuit Monday against Giuliani seeking an injunction to prevent him from continuing to smear them and damage their reputations.

“Defendant Giuliani’s statements, coupled with his refusal to agree to refrain from continuing to make such statements, make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment,” according to the lawsuit. “It must stop.”
Opinion by Frank Figliuzzi

We learned Friday that multiple sources had confirmed to CNN that in the final hours of Donald Trump’s term as president, a 10-inch thick binder of unredacted classified U.S. intelligence on Russia went missing. As far as anyone knows, the highly sensitive material is still in the wind. The intelligence community considered the loss significant enough that, a year later, intelligence officials felt it necessary to brief leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the potential compromise.

The mystery around the binder’s whereabouts is yet another reminder of the Trump administration’s dangerous disregard for national security and of the ongoing lack of accountability for the former president’s mishandling of classified documents. The scandal also foretells what we can expect if Trump gets elected.

Trump remains a clear and present danger to the security of our nation for a host of reasons, including his track record on safeguarding America’s secrets. During his tenure, Trump revealed classified data to two top Russian officials visiting the White House. He ignored repeated admonitions to stop using personal, unsecure cellphones that could be easily intercepted by our adversaries. Most infamously, Trump squirreled away over 300 highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort where members and their guests attended all manner of events.
Story by Chris D'Angelo

The group that organized the pro-Donald Trump rally in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, knowingly misled government officials about plans for attendees to march on the U.S. Capitol, according to a new investigation from the Interior Department’s internal watchdog.

The report, published Monday by Interior’s Official of Inspector General, includes text messages from Kylie Kremer ― the rally’s organizer, and a representative of the group Women for America First ― and one potential event speaker. The Interior report does not name the individuals, but the exchange between Kremer and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and Trump ally, was previously made public by the House Jan. 6 select committee.

“This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol,” Kremer wrote to Lindell on Jan. 4. “It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and Sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but the POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
Story by Jesse Rodriguez and Zoë Richards and Charlie Gile

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected an effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his Georgia election interference case out of state court.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judge’s ruling from September that said Meadows had not demonstrated that the alleged conduct that prompted his prosecution was related to his official duties in the Trump administration.

The court’s decision is a blow to Meadows, who in August sought “prompt removal” of his case from state court, citing a federal law that allows U.S. officers to move civil actions or criminal prosecutions in state court to a federal venue if the alleged actions were taken “under color” of their government office.

"Because federal-officer removal...does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows’s official duties," the appeals court wrote in its opinion Monday affirming the lower court's ruling.
Story by Naledi Ushe, USA TODAY

A six-person jury convicted Jonathan Majors of assaulting his former girlfriend Grace Jabbari on Monday, concluding a two-week trial that the actor hoped would salvage his damaged reputation and restore his status as an emerging Hollywood star.

A Manhattan jury found Majors guilty of assault and harassment. The "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" star was also acquitted of a different assault charge and of aggravated harassment. Majors, who was asked to stand and face the jurors as the verdict was read, showed no immediate reaction, looking slightly downward.
Back to content