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January 6 committee senses momentum, sources say
The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalise on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete roughly 100 remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.
The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election.
Members on the committee believe Kushner’s cooperation might prompt other Trump officials to assist as the panel inches closer to Trump’s inner circle and the former president himself, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The panel has also been buoyed by the federal court ruling that said Trump “more likely than not” violated the law over 6 January, reaffirming the purpose of the investigation and making it harder for Trump’s allies to defy the inquiry, the sources said.
And members on the committee believe that opening contempt of Congress proceedings against the Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for ignoring subpoenas, will reinforce the message that the panel will punish non-compliance, the sources said.
“There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation,” Jamie Raskin, one of the congressmen on the panel, said of the burst of recent activity. “When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”
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The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report released on Monday that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.
As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor People’s Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties.
Looking at the most deadly surges of the virus, the disparity in death rates grows even more pronounced. During the third pandemic wave in the US, over the winter of 2020 and 2021, death rates were four and a half times higher in the poorest counties than those with the highest median incomes.
During the recent Omicron wave, that divergence in death rates stood at almost three times.
Such a staggering gulf in outcomes cannot be explained by differences in vaccination rates, the authors find, with more than half of the population of the poorest counties having received two vaccine shots. A more relevant factor is likely to be that the poorest communities had twice the proportion of people who lack health insurance compared with the richer counties.
“The findings of this report reveal neglect and sometimes intentional decisions to not focus on the poor,” said Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign which jointly prepared the research. “The neglect of poor and low-wealth people in this country during a pandemic is immoral, shocking and unjust.”
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17:15
Barack Obama will on Tuesday return to the White House for the first time since leaving it in January 2017, for a celebration of the the Affordable Care Act, his signature legislative achievement which passed in 2010.
NBC broke news of the 44th president’s visit to the 46th, his own vice-president, Joe Biden. It also pointed out that the White House released a video last year in which Obama and Biden discussed their healthcare work.
“Joe Biden,” Obama said then, “we did this together. We always talked about how if we could get the principle of universal coverage established, we could then build on it.”
Confirming the Tuesday event, the White House said Biden would “take additional action to further strengthen the ACA and save families hundreds of dollars a month on their healthcare”.
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Biden calls for war crimes trial against Putin
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Grassley: I cannot support Jackson’s nomination to supreme court
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Durbin: Jackson confirmation vote is ‘making history’
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Donald Trump has endorsed the former governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin for the vacant congressional seat in Alaska.
“Sarah shocked many when she endorsed me very early in 2016, and we won big,” the former president said in a statement on Sunday night.
“Now, it’s my turn! Sarah has been a champion for Alaska values, Alaska energy, Alaska jobs and the great people of Alaska.”
In 2016, Palin was the first current or former state office holder to endorse Trump. She announced her own run on Friday.
The Alaska House seat is open after the death of Don Young, the Republican who held it for nearly 50 years. An open primary will pit more than 50 contenders from all parties against each other.
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Joe Biden called Rupert Murdoch “the most dangerous man in the world”, according to a forthcoming book.
The comment, from mid-2021, is reported in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, two New York Times reporters.
The book is due out in May. Last month, Politico reported passages in which Jill Biden, now the first lady, is critical of her husband’s decision to pick Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Reporting Biden’s remark about Murdoch, CNN said the president had never spoken in public about the 91-year-old media baron and Fox News owner.
The president did tell a town hall audience he sometimes “turn[s] on Fox to find out how popular I am”. He also apologised to a Fox News White House reporter, Peter Doocy, for calling him a “stupid son of a bitch”.
According to Burns and Martin, Biden “assessed” Murdoch to be “one of the most destructive forces in the United States”.
Fox News anchors including Tucker Carlson, have prominently relayed coronavirus misinformation and spoken favorably of Vladimir Putin and Russia. The network has been sued for giving voice to Donald Trump’s lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Biden, who is now a target for daily ridicule by Fox News hosts.
The White House and Fox News did not immediately comment.
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