Merrick Garland appoints special counsel to oversee Trump investigations
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Donald Trump is facing a second lawsuit from author E Jean Carroll, who accuses him of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
Availing herself of a new state law that comes into effect today, Ms Carroll is suing Mr Trump for rape and sexual assault as well as defamation over recent comments he made calling her a “con job” and accusing her of lying about her allegations.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is reportedly seeking to question Mike Pence as part of its ongoing investigation into January 6 and Donald Trump’s months-long effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Mr Pence was presiding over in the ceritfication of the election results at the time the Capitol was attacked by a horde of Trump supporters and right-wing extremists. His life was directly threatened by rioters during the attack, and his security team was forced to rush him away to a secure position just a few feet from where attackers had breached the building.
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Club Q shooting: “Stop the steal” lawyer Jenna Ellis spreads hateful message
Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell may be better known, but lawyer Jenna Ellis played just as central a role in the post-2020 election “stop the steal” effort as they did – but having failed across the board in her legal machinations between November 2020 and January 2021, she is now reduced to spouting conspiracy theories and hateful right-wing rhetoric.
Here she is with her take on the Club Q shooting in Colorado, which saw five people at an LGBT+ bar murdered by a single gunman before other patrons stopped him in his tracks:
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 15:55
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Greene and Lake join Mar-a-Lago singalong
Criminal investigation and political decline may be hanging in the air at Mar-a-Lago, but various figures on the extreme right are still more than happy to make the journey to Donald Trump’s Florida laager for a hangout with the former president.
And in this case, “Journey” is the key word:
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 15:25
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Analysis: How Trump lost in Alaska
With Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola now re-elected for a full term and Senator Lisa Murkowski seeing off a right-wing rival, Alaska has joined various other states in declining to elect Donald Trump’s chosen candidates. In today’s Inside Washington dispatch, Eric Garcia takes a look at what it means:
Republicans had two problems: One, Ms Palin and fellow Republican Nick Begich III shared a visceral mutual hatred. Having both refused to clear the way for the other to win, they spent much of the election attacking one another, likely making it harder for their respective supporters to stomach ranking the other candidate on a ballot.
Conversely, despite being from different parties, Ms Palin and Ms Peltola seem to genuinely like each other.
Read the full piece below.
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 14:55
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Tensions reported between Cheney and Jan 6 committee staff
Staff members at the House select committee investigating the January 6 riots at the US Capitol are reportedly angry at Liz Cheney for her push to focus on former president Donald Trump in the final report.
Ms Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the panel, has left staffers rankled in the panel by exerting high levels of control of the investigation and the final report, members of the panel told The Washington Post.
Several staffers believe that the outgoing Wyoming representative is morphing the committee into a vehicle for her own political future, it reported.
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 14:20
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Kanye West spotted en route to Mar-a-Lago accompanied by notorious white supremacist
It appears that Kanye West’s tweet about visiting Mar-a-Lago may have been for real – at least judging by reports that he was spotted at the golf club. However, a more disturbing detail is that he was seen arriving at a Miami airport with Nick Fuentes, a notorious white nationalist and out-and-out racist who has carved out a niche as one of the far right’s most extreme outriders.
Mr Fuentes is particularly versed in the style of right-wing activism that deliberately obscures the line between sincere belief and trollish provocation. Among other things, he has extolled the virtues of beating wives to keep them in line, urged right-wingers to discuss the issue of “Jewish control”, and dwelled on the matter of “racial differences in intelligence”. He is also a longtime promoter of false claims the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 13:50
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GOP governor bucks Trump to congratulate Dem governor-elect
Doug Ducey, the Republican governor of Arizona, landed himself in Donald Trump’s bad graces by refusing to help overturn the 2020 election result in his state – and now he’s once again flying in the face of his party’s hardline orthodoxy by congratulating his Democratic successor, Katie Hobbs, even as her Republican rival, Kari Lake, maintains falsely that the election was stolen from her:
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 13:20
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E Jean Carroll files new rape lawsuit against Trump
Author E Jean Carroll has filed a new lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of raping her in the late 1990s, availing herself of a new state law that allows sexual abuse survivors the chance to file a claim after the statute of limitations has expired.
Ms Carroll is already suing Mr Trump for defamation over his previous claims that she is lying about her allegation, but her new case points to subsequent accusations he levelled more recently in social media posts calling her a “con job”.
The former president has long denied all the allegations against him, and has fought for years to stop Ms Carroll’s case being heard in court.
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 12:53
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Woman convicted of storming Pelosi’s office in Jan. 6 attack
A Pennsylvania woman linked to the far-right “Groyper” extremist movement has been convicted of several federal charges related to her actions on January 6.
Riley June Williams joined a mob’s attack on the Capitol after attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where then-President Donald Trump addressed thousands of supporters earlier that day. Entering Pelosi’s office, she found a laptop on a table and told another rioter, “Dude, put on gloves,” before someone with a black gloved hand removed the computer, according to prosecutors.
Williams later bragged online that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and hard drives and that she “gave the electronic devices, or attempted to give them, to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors said in a June 2022 court filing. To date, they haven’t been recovered.
Read more about the sentence she could face and her involvement in the far-right’s hate movements:
John Bowden24 November 2022 12:20
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Manhattan prosecutors re-examining Trump hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, report says
Prosecutors working under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr are reportedly re-examining whether criminal charges can be brought against former president Donald Trump as a result of $130,000 payment his company made to cover up his affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
According to the New York Times, Mr Bragg’s office has recently sought to jump-start a long-dead investigation into the payments, which federal prosecutors used as evidence to prosecute Mr Trump’s ex-attorney, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance law violations.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg:
Andrew Naughtie24 November 2022 11:50
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Aspiring country singer charged for threats to kill fact-checkers and FBI agent over Trump ‘slander’
He faces more than a decade in prison if convicted.
Read more about the escalating threats faced by FBI agents after their raid of Mar-a-Lago in September:
John Bowden24 November 2022 11:20