The latest developments in the former president’s ongoing legal woes as full tax return report is set to be released
January 6 panel chair says Trump ‘broke the faith’ of US elections in final session
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The January 6 committee has delayed the publication of its report. It is now expected to be made public on Thursday.
Meanwhile, an FBI informant warned the bureau weeks before the Capitol riot of the likelihood of violence on 6 January 2021 according to reporting by NBC News. The trusted source said that the far-right considered Donald Trump’s late-night tweet on 19 December 2020 calling for a “wild” protest in Washington, DC, as “a call to arms,”
It has also emerged that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reportedly failed to audit Mr Trump during his first two years in the White House despite having a program in place that makes the auditing of sitting presidents mandatory.
The former president filed taxes in 2017 for the two previous tax years, but the auditing for the filings began only in 2019, a House committee revealed on Tuesday.
The committee’s probe found that only one audit was started while Mr Trump was in office and no audits were completed. The revelation comes as the House Ways and Means Committee voted to publicly release six years of Mr Trump’s tax returns.
How is electoral law changing in response to January 6?
In one of the last acts of the Democratic-led Congress, the House and the Senate are set to pass an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, the arcane election law that then-President Donald Trump tried to subvert after his 2020 election defeat.
The legislation, which Democrats and Republicans have been working on since the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, is the most significant policy response so far to the attack and Trump’s aggressive efforts to upend the popular vote.
Here are the details:
Oliver O’Connell22 December 2022 03:30
Jan 6 committee confirms Trump exploded at Secret Service agent
A preliminary summary of the House January 6 select committee’s findings shows the panel as having corroborated an ex-White House aide’s testimony regarding how former president Donald Trump behaved towards his protective detail after they told him he couldn’t accompany a riotous mob of his supporters at the US Capitol.
Andrew Feinberg reports on what was described as a ‘furious interaction’.
Oliver O’Connell22 December 2022 02:30
Five takeaways from the Jan 6 committee’s final public meeting
Monday marked the end of the January 6 committee’s efforts to investigate the deadly January 6 Capitol riot, with the House select committee holding its final public hearing nearly two years after the violence unfolded.
After more than a year of work, the committee’s lawmakers released their final report into the congressional record and took the long-awaited step of issuing criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, the first call for specific charges against Donald Trump’s inner circle related to the deadly attack on Congress.
These were the five biggest developments from Monday’s meeting:
Oliver O’Connell22 December 2022 01:30
‘A parade of horribles’: Gaetz admits Trump was not good at making appointments
Far-right Florida representative Matt Gaetz has spoken out against Donald Trump over his support for House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as the next speaker, saying some of his past picks were a “parade of horribles”.
During the Turning Point USA America Fest event in Phoenix on Monday, conservative network Real America’s Voice host Charlie Kirk asked Mr Gaetz: “Trump said Kevin McCarthy should be speaker of the House.”
The Florida Republican, who is otherwise a vocal Trump supporter, responded by saying: “HR was not always his best thing.”
Stuti Mishra has the story.
Oliver O’Connell22 December 2022 00:30
Jan 6 charges on Trump would be ‘terribly divisive’ says Pence
Mike Pence said he hoped the Justice Department will not bring criminal charges against Donald Trump, adding that such a decision could hurt the US.
The former vice president, who is likely weighing a 2024 Republican presidential bid that would pit him against the former president, appeared to downplay Mr Trump’s actions in a recent interview.
He also dismissed the Jan 6 committee investigating Capitol Hill riots as “partisan tainted”.
Shweta Sharma reports.
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 23:30
Voices: Trump is a man at war with America – and deserves everything he gets
Sean O’Grady asks:
Of course, yes. In fact, no one really needs to go much further than the speech he made outside the Capitol on that very day, when he encouraged the armed mob to march with him on the Capitol and engage in their “fight like hell”. Those are not the words and actions of someone upholding their promise to, to the best of their ability, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”.
Read on:
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 22:30
FBI warned of violence by informant weeks before Jan 6
The FBI was warned as far back as mid-December 2020 that far-right groups were viewing Donald Trump’s tweets as a “call to arms” in the campaign to overturn the 2020 election, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
The new revelation comes in the form of an email from an FBI informant obtained by the news outlet. According to NBC, the confidential FBI source remains one that the bureau uses to stay informed on the far right in America, and in the weeks leading up to January 6 was actively sending hundreds of pages of reports to the agency.
John Bowden reports.
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 21:55
Release of Jan 6 committee’s final report delayed until Thursday
The report is now set to be released on Thursday.
Gustaf Kilander has the latest,
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 21:32
Capitol police admit Pelosi home had no security review for four years before attack on husband
US Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger told CNN on Tuesday that the agency had not performed an assessment in the last four years.
Gustaf Kilander has the details.
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 21:10
Jan 6 committee pushes publication of report to Thursday
The January 6 committee expects to file and release its final report tomorrow, though the release of additional records is still possible today, per guidance from the panel.
A statement reads: “The Select Committee now anticipates its final report will be filed and released tomorrow. The release of additional Select Committee records is possible today.”
Oliver O’Connell21 December 2022 21:01