Trump news today: Jan 6 committee evidence leaks as Hillary Clinton attacks ‘seditious’ Fox News

CNN reports that House Democrats are investigating if gifts from foreign governments and officials to former President Donald Trump have gone missing — potentially amounting to thousands of dollars worth of items.

Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have sent a letter to the National Archives after receiving information from the State Department indicating “the Trump administration ‘did not prioritize this obligation’ and failed to comply with the law that governs foreign gift reporting during President Trump’s final year in office”.

“As a result, the foreign sources and monetary value of gifts President Trump received remain unknown,” it adds. “The Department of State also stated that it was unable to determine the identities of some government officials who received foreign gifts during the Trump Administration, as well as the sources of those foreign gifts.”

The committee wants the National Archives to provide details about all the gifts received during the Trump administration.

An emotional Matthew McConaughey pounded the White House lectern in anger as he called for change in the wake of the Uvalde elementary school massacre.

The Oscar-winner choked up as he described how victim Maite Yuleana Rodriguez could only be identified by her favorite green Converse shoes after she was shot and killed.

An emotional Matthew McConaughey took to the White House briefing room on Tuesday to plead for stronger gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students and 2 teachers in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

The veteran actor became emotional as he held up artwork and photos of children slain by the 18-year-old gunman and described the severity of wounds inflicted by the AR-15-style rifle used in that massacre.

“Make these lives matter,” he said.

Fox News announced on Monday that they won’t carry the hearings live on Thursday, but will instead “cover the hearings as news warrants”.

“Fox News won’t air the January 6 hearings because they prefer their sedition made fresh on-site,” Ms Clinton, a former secretary of state, New York senator, and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Fox News could become the only major network in the US that will skip covering the first public hearing for the House Select Committee investigating the 6 January Capitol insurrection.

Instead, coverage of the hearings will move to the Fox Business Network and the right-leaning news channel will only cover the hearings “as news warrants”, said a Fox press release cited by Business Insider.

After almost a year-long exhaustive investigation, the select committee will hold its first primetime hearing on Thursday at 8pm ET.

The son of the eldest victim of the Buffalo grocery store massacre has demanded US senators take action against the “cancer of white supremacy”.

Garnell Whitfield Jr, whose 86-year-old mother Ruth Whitfield was killed in the 14 May attack, called on members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to “yield your positions of authority” if they were unwilling to find a solution to the growing domestic terror threat.

A Texas Republican senator was spotted using his phone while witnesses gave their opening statements at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday called in response to the massacre in Buffalo, New York.

John Cornyn was seen looking down and scrolling on his device while a former US district attorney gave his remarks to the panel.

The US Senate has voted to advance landmark burn pits bill bringing veterans who are sick and dying from toxic exposure one step closer to getting healthcare access and benefits.

The toxic burn pit exposure bill (Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our PACT Act of 2022) cleared a Senate cloture vote 86-12 on Tuesday.

The Washington Post reports that former President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was going to walk down to the Capitol with his supporters on 6 January 2021, caused the Secret Service to scramble to try and secure a safe route.

The paper cited two people briefed on witness accounts given to the select committee investigating the events surrounding the storming of the US Capitol building.

This scramble happened after two weeks of pressure from Mr Trump on the Secret Service to prepare for such a trip that had been rebuffed by the agency.

A rush to try to accommodate the president only began after he told the 30,000-strong crowd gathered for his rally at the Ellipse that morning: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol.”

Calls to DC police to help secure streets and block intersections were declined as they were already stretched thin with protests, and later a growing mob outside Congress.

Eventually, the plan was called off by the presidential detail as “untenable and unsafe”.

A DC official confirmed the request to the Post. Mr Trump has previously told the outlet that his desire to go to the Capitol on 6 January 2021 was blocked by the Secret Service.

According to reporting by The New York Times, the final witness list for the upcoming primetime televised herding of the January 6 committee is still being finalised.

It could still mean that high-profile former Trump administration officials could appear and give testimony.

Key aides to former Vice President Mike Pence will be appearing during the first night of TV coverage, and the public will be presented with a multimedia presentation including fresh material.

Further to that though, the committee is said not to have “nailed down the full slate of witnesses” that could appear. This could include former Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen who served after Bill Barr stepped down near the end of the Trump administration.

The panel is waiting for Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, to respond to formal requests to testify, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Both Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue have already told multiple congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to say falsely that it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the results.

In addition, there are also reportedly ongoing informal talks with Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, as well as Byung Pak, the former US attorney in Atlanta, who left his role on 4 January 2021 after finding out the president wanted to fire him for not finding voter fraud.