Trump news: House legal team urges court to release Jan 6 documents as Steele source charged

Congressman Adam Kinzinger is one of only two GOP members of the 6 January committee, sitting alongside vice chair Liz Cheney. The Illinois representative has been an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump for some years and was one of only a handful to vote for his impeachment after the riot – and now, as he is effectively ostracised from the party mainstream, he is not running for re-election.

Mr Kinzinger, who arrived in Congress in 2010, is facing the scorn of his colleagues but also a redistricting that would effectively force him to run in an intra-party primary featuring other sitting Congressmen. Clearly, the prospect was unappealing.

At a House subcommittee hearing yesterday, officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that small groups and lone actors with extreme right-wing beliefs pose as big a threat to the US homeland as terrorists identifying with the so-called Islamic State.

According to the FBI’s Timothy Langan, the bureau is investigating some 2,700 cases tied to domestic violent extremism. The threats in question, he said, are driven by an array of overlapping right-wing grievances, among them “biases against minorities, perceived government overreach, conspiracy theories promoting violence, and false narratives often spread online.”

Read more below.

Trump devotee and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has propagated some of the most unhinged theories about the 2020 election, yesterday predicted that a lawsuit will soon be filed that will result in the Supreme Court outlawing all voting machines and overturning Donald Trump’s defeat.

As with his three-day “cyber symposium” that yielded precisely zero evidence to back up Mr Lindell’s extravagant claims, there is no basis for this.

Former GOP campaign adviser and Lincoln Project member Steve Schmidt has warned of the Republicans’ embrace of cultural grievance – and said that “Democrats have to understand and I think be able to confront the racial animus that is teeming with the dog-whistle messaging that you saw Youngkin engage in in the course of the campaign without alienating the majority of white working-class voters, and the way I think that you do that I think is by offering something better.”

NBC’s Scott MacFarlane, who has reported extensively on the cases brought against alleged rioters since the 6 January attack, says that as federal dockets remain slammed with criminal charges stemming from the riot, several of the most important cases are set to be heard just as the anniversary of the riot rolls around.

When Donald Trump filed his action to stop the select committee from obtaining key records from his administration, chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney issued a joint statement dismissing his rationale as spurious.

Here’s what they said:

The hearing on Donald Trump’s attempt to block the 6 January committee from accessing key documents is shortly to begin. You can listen to live audio from the courtroom here.

As the court struggles with audio difficulties, Judge Chutkan bluntly questions Trump attorney Justin R. Clark about the fundamentals of the case.

“Would you agree that the fact that the plaintiff is no longer sitting president did somewhat diminishes the the applicability of the privilege issues you’re, you’re, you’re arguing?” she asks.

Clark answers: “No.”

One of the key precedents cited by Trump’s team is that presidents’ private records should not be Congress’s to request, but the judge seems unimpressed with the argument. “How do I square that with the fact that Congress here has not requested private information?” she asks.

Trump’s attorney is arguing that because the select committee investigating the riot cannot mark up legislation, there is no “legislative purpose” for its request. which he says means it cannot reasonably request documents without the president asserting executive privilege.

Again, the judge seems unimpressed. “Are you saying the president’s notes, talking points, telephone conversation on 6 January for example, have no relation to the matter which Congress is considering legislation?” she asks. “The 6 January riot happened in the Capitol. That is literally Congress’s house.”

“Is it really my role to require Congress to specify the legislation that they are intending?”

Mr Clark insists that Congress’s requests for presidential documents should be linked to legislation, rather than a broader inquiry.