Politics

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The District of Columbia office that polices attorneys for ethical misconduct filed charges on Friday against President Donald Trump’s former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, over baseless claims he made in federal court alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

In the new charges, the District’s disciplinary office alleges that Giuliani, who is a member of the D.C. bar, made baseless claims in federal court filings about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania.

A lawyer for Giuliani did not have an immediate comment.

The charges come a day after the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had its first prime-time hearing in which it outlined evidence that Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 election and incite throngs of his supporters to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Giuliani has been among Trump’s most fervent supporters, and repeatedly claimed without evidence that the election had been stolen.

The new ethics charges filed Friday by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility center on a series of legal challenges Giuliani filed in the Pennsylvania federal court.

In legal pleadings and during oral arguments in November 2020, the complaint says Giuliani sought “extraordinary relief” from the court including an emergency order to prohibit the certification of the presidential election, an order to invalidate ballots cast by certain voters in seven counties, and other orders that would have permitted the state’s assembly to choose its electors and declare Trump the winner in Pennsylvania.

Giuliani’s reputation has also been stained by his dealings with Ukraine and he is being probed by Manhattan federal prosecutors over those business ties.

He began representing Trump, a fellow Republican and New Yorker, in April 2018 in connection with then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that documented Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in WashingtonAdditional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New YorkEditing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The District of Columbia office that polices attorneys for ethical misconduct filed charges on Friday against President Donald Trump’s former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, over baseless claims he made in federal court alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleges that Giuliani, who is a member of the D.C. bar, made baseless claims in federal court filings about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania.

A lawyer for Giuliani did not have an immediate comment.

The charges come a day after the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had its first prime-time hearing in which it outlined evidence that Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 election and incite throngs of his supporters to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan and New York City mayor, has been among Trump’s most fervent supporters, and repeatedly claimed without evidence that the election had been stolen.

The new ethics charges center on a series of legal challenges Giuliani made in Pennsylvania federal court in 2020. The charges were filed with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility.

The complaint says Giuliani sought an emergency order to prohibit the certification of the presidential election, an order to invalidate ballots cast by certain voters in seven counties, and other orders that would have permitted the state’s assembly to choose its electors and declare Trump the winner in Pennsylvania.

The charges say his conduct violated two professional conduct rules in Pennsylvania that bar attorneys from bringing frivolous proceedings without a basis in law or fact and prohibit conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.

Charges can lead to the suspension of a license to practice law or disbarment.

The charges mark the second time that a bar office has taken action against Giuliani.

His New York law license was suspended in June 2021 after a state appeals court found that he made “demonstrably false and misleading” statements that widespread voter fraud undermined the election.

Apart from having two of his law licenses suspended, Giuliani’s reputation has been stained by his dealings with Ukraine and he is being probed by Manhattan federal prosecutors over those business ties.

He began representing Trump, a fellow Republican and New Yorker, in April 2018 in connection with then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that documented Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Giuliani has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing. His lawyer has said the federal probe is politically motivated.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in WashingtonAdditional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New YorkEditing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)

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By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday accused the U.S. oil industry, and Exxon Mobil Corp in particular, of capitalizing on a supply shortage to fatten profits after a report showed inflation surging to a new 40-year record.

U.S. consumer inflation accelerated in May https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/soaring-gasoline-food-prices-boost-us-consumer-inflation-may-2022-06-10 as gasoline prices hit a record high and the cost of food soared, leading to the largest annual increase in four decades. A gallon of regular gasoline cost an average $4.99 nationwide on Friday, according to motorist group AAA.

Biden, who came into office vowing to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels, said on Friday he was hoping to speed up oil production, which is expected to hit record highs in the United States next year.

But he also issued a warning to the industry, whose profits have jumped with oil and gas prices, pointing to the gains as evidence consumers are paying for more than higher labor and shipping costs.

“Exxon made more money than God this year,” Biden said in a speech to dockworkers and union representatives at the Port of Los Angeles. U.S. oil companies are not using higher profits to drill more but to buy back stock, he added.

Share buybacks improve earnings per share by reducing the number of shares outstanding, indirectly helping to boost share prices. Companies see buybacks as a way to reward investors.

“Why aren’t they drilling? Because they make more money not producing more oil,” Biden said. “Exxon, start investing and start paying your taxes.”

Exxon pushed back at the comments, noting it has continued to increase its U.S. oil, gasoline and diesel production, and had borrowed heavily to increase output while suffering losses in 2020.

“We have been in regular contact with the administration, informing them of our planned investments to increase production and expand refining capacity in the United States,” said spokesman Casey Norton.

Exxon will hike spending 50% in its West Texas shale holdings, he said, where it expects to add 25% more output this year after adding 190,000 barrels to oil production last year. An ongoing Texas refinery expansion will add the equivalent of a “new medium sized refinery,” said Norton.

Exxon, the largest U.S. oil producer, lost some $20 billion in 2020, and had borrowed more than $30 billion to finance operations. It paid $40.6 billion in taxes last year, $17.8 billion more than in 2020, he said.

The president spoke during a visit to the Port of Los Angeles, where he defended his economic and job creation record and deflected blame for inflation, which spiked 8.6% in the year to May according to a new Labor Department report.

In a statement about May inflation data, Biden chided U.S. oil, gas and refining industries for using “the challenge created by the war in Ukraine as a reason to make things worse for families with excessive profit-taking or price hikes.”

Exxon posted its biggest quarterly profit in seven years when it reported fourth-quarter earnings in February. After halting share buybacks several years ago, it resumed them this year and pledged to spend up to $30 billion through next year.

Other oil majors, including Chevron, TotalEnergies and U.S. shale producers, have reported strong results as the industry’s biggest players concentrate on share repurchases and dividend investments.

Numerous companies have said they are holding down spending that could boost oil output to lower $100-plus per barrel oil prices, because that is what investors are demanding.

The surging costs have become a political headache for the Biden administration, which has tried several measures to lower prices. These include a record release of barrels from U.S. strategic reserves, waivers on rules related to the production of summer gasoline, and leaning on major OPEC countries to boost output.

Biden in his Friday remarks urged Congress to pass legislation to cut energy, prescription drugs and shipping costs.

Shipping companies made $190 billion in profit, a seven-fold increase in one year, Biden said at the port. The situation made him so “viscerally angry” that he wanted to “pop them,” he said.

(Reporting by David Gaffen in New York, Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Heather Timmons, John Stonestreet and Richard Chang)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Latin American leaders rebuked President Joe Biden face-to-face on Thursday over his exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from an Americas summit he is hosting, underscoring the challenges he faces to reassert leadership in the region.

Biden was targeted for criticism by two fellow leaders in speeches that followed his opening address in Los Angeles in which he laid out his plan for a new U.S. economic partnership with Latin America.

Speaking on the first day of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, Biden said his administration was committed to helping Latin America and the Caribbean recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, tackle irregular migration and improve living standards.

But he quickly faced sharp pushback over his decision to cut out Washington’s three main regional antagonists, which spurred a boycott by some leaders led by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Shortly after Biden’s speech that extolled the virtues of democracy in the region, Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceno, criticized the exclusion of Communist-ruled Cuba and leftist Venezuela, calling the “illegal blockade against Cuba” an “affront to humanity.”

“In fact, it is un-American. The time has come, Mr. President, to lift the blockade,” Briceno said, upbraiding Biden as he sat only a few feet away.

Briceno was followed by Argentina’s left-leaning president, Alberto Fernandez, who declared “the silence of those who are absent is calling to us” and insisted that the host country did not have the power to impose “right of admission” to the conference.

“We definitely would’ve wished for a different Summit of the Americas,” Fernandez said.

Two other speakers, the leaders of Panama and Paraguay, mostly stuck to the summit agenda.

Responding in his closing remarks, Biden told the leaders: “I heard a lot of important ideas raised. Notwithstanding some of the disagreements related to participation, on the substantive matters, what I heard was almost unity.”

The summit was conceived as an opportunity to rebuild U.S. influence and counter China’s growing economic inroads in the region after years of relative neglect under former President Donald Trump. But Biden’s efforts have been undercut by the controversy over the guest list.

Speaking at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference, Biden urged U.S. business executives to help bolster the region’s troubled economies with increased investment and support for his environmentally friendly partnership plan.

Biden’s hosting of the opening session, which focused heavily on clean energy initiatives, was followed by his first formal encounter with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an outspoken climate change skeptic.

Bolsonaro, a far-right Trump admirer who has had chilly relations with Biden, said the two countries had drifted apart for ideological reasons and that he was interested in getting closer to the United States.

However, Bolsonaro appeared to suggest he would accept the outcome of Brazil’s October presidential election, after having raised doubts in the past, prompting U.S. concerns. “I was elected by democracy and I am sure that when I leave the government, it will also be in a democratic way,” he said.

SUPPLY CHAINS

Biden outlined his proposed “Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity” to the business conference, saying it was aimed at bringing supply chains closer to home, reforming the Inter-American Development Bank, streamlining investment and kicking climate actions “into high gear.”

But the plan, which appears to be a work in progress, stops short of offering tariff relief and will initially focus on countries that already have U.S. trade accords.

Taking a veiled dig at China, Biden said: “We want to make sure our closest neighbors have a real choice between the debt trap development that has become … more and more common in the region, and the high-quality transparent approach to infrastructure investment that delivers lasting gains for workers and families.”

U.S. officials have openly accused China of pushing deals in the developing world with strings attached to saddle their partners with long-term debt.

With problems at the U.S.-Mexico border also high on Biden’s list of priorities, leaders were poised to issue a declaration on Friday pledging measures to curb irregular migration and help countries hosting large number of migrants to cope with them, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

The United States will announce programs to aid hiring of temporary Central American workers as part of a series of actions, according to White House documents seen by Reuters on Thursday. [nW1N2V0031

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CHALLENGES AT HOME AND ABROAD

Biden hosts the summit facing challenges at home and abroad ranging from surging inflation, debate over gun control after more mass shootings, and the war in Ukraine.

Yet instead of burnishing regional unity, the summit has been bedeviled by diplomatic strife sparked by Washington’s barring of the trio of leftist countries, citing their poor records on human rights and democracy.

Mexico’s Lopez Obrador made good on a threat to stay away if not all nations were invited while several other leaders did the same and a few others stayed home for different reasons. That thinned the line-up of visiting heads of state and government in attendance to 21.

“No,” Biden responded when a reporter asked whether he was concerned about some leaders boycotting the summit. His aides have played down the absences.

Speaking in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador backed Washington’s drive to strengthen economic ties in the region, but urged the United States to get over its decades-long differences with Cuba. Havana was invited to the past two Americas summits.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Lisandra Paraguassu, Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk, Daina Beth Solomon and Dave Graham; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Ted Hesson; Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Dave Graham; Editing by Grant McCool, Richard Pullin and Bradley Perrett)

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By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A congressional panel investigating last year’s assault on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters presented evidence at its prime-time hearing that the former president posed a danger both to American democracy and his vice president, Mike Pence.

Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the House of Representatives select committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, told the hearing on Thursday that Trump spoke approvingly of the mob’s chants to “hang Mike Pence.”

The Democratic-led committee is holding a series of six hearings this month to share findings of its nearly year-long investigation into the events on and before the day of the attack.

“You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, ‘really angry’ at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more” to quell the riot, Cheney told the hearing. “And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: quote, ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea,’ Mike Pence, quote, ‘deserves it.’”

The congresswoman’s father Dick Cheney served as U.S. vice president from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush.

The Capitol attack was launched in a failed bid to stop members of Congress from formally certifying in a process overseen by Pence the Republican Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the November 2020 election.

Normally a routine event, the certification became a focus for Trump, who saw it as a last-ditch chance to retain the presidency despite losing the election. His supporters flocked to Washington to rally with Trump, who had made repeated false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

When thousands of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, they sent lawmakers, staff, journalists and Pence himself fleeing for their lives. The crowd did not just call for the vice president to be hanged, it erected a makeshift gallows outside the Capitol.

The committee played a video of Trump’s remarks at the rally in which he urged supporters to march on the Capitol – the seat of Congress – and “fight like hell.”

“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to re-certify, and we become president – and you are the happiest people,” Trump told the raucous crowd.

“Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us – and if he doesn’t that will be a sad day for our country,” Trump added.

Cheney and Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chair, outlined plans for the remaining hearings. One will focus on Trump’s efforts to pressure Pence to refuse to count electoral votes. Cheney played a video clip of Pence saying in remarks this past February: “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.”

Other future hearings will feature testimony by Greg Jacob, Pence’s former general counsel, about Trump’s demands. Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, is also expected to testify.

“Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former vice president, as well his staff, informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal,” Cheney said.

Short said in a deposition to the committee that Pence ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his “first and foremost oath.”

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A congressional hearing into the attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat presented testimony on Thursday showing that close allies – even his daughter – rejected his false claims of voting fraud.

The House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault also showed graphic footage of thousands of rioters attacking police and smashing their way into the Capitol. It was the first of six planned hearings intended to show that the Republican former president tried to subvert the U.S. Constitution and unlawfully hold onto power.

The Democratic-led committee presented video of testimony from notable Trump administration figures including his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Attorney General William Barr, campaign spokesperson Jason Miller and General Mark Milley.

It also showed part of Trump’s incendiary speech before the attack in which he repeated false election fraud claims and directed his supporters’ anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol overseeing congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election win – a process the riot failed to prevent.

Democratic committee chair Bennie Thompson said Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to thwart American democracy and block the peaceful transfer of power.

“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government,” Thompson said. “The violence was no accident. It was Trump’s last stand.”

Barr in videotaped testimony said: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I call the bullshit. And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

Barr’s view convinced Trump’s daughter.

“I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying,” Ivanka Trump said in videotaped testimony.

Trump, who is publicly flirting with another White House run in 2024, issued a statement before the hearing calling the committee “political Thugs.”

“Aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Well, maybe our supporters have the right idea,’” said Representative Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the nine-member panel and its vice chairperson.

Since leaving office last year, Trump has kept up his false claims that his 2020 election loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by numerous courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.

“We can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election,” Barr, who resigned about two weeks before the Capitol attack, said in the video.

Kushner was shown on video dismissing threats by some Trump aides to resign after the riot, deeming their concerns “whining.”

The hearing also featured two witnesses who testified in person, U.S. Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a brain injury in the attack, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who captured footage of the far-right Proud Boys group, accused of helping to plan the attack.

Edwards described insults hurled by rioters at her during the melee but said she was proud of fighting them off even after being injured.

“I was slipping in people’s blood,” Edwards said. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”

“What I saw was just a war scene,” Edwards added.

The hearings are being held ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine whether Biden’s party retains control of the House and the Senate.

‘SUMMONED THE MOB’

The mob attacked police, sent lawmakers and Pence fleeing for their safety and caused millions of dollars in damage. Four people died that day, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.

“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: That the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president,” Cheney said. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”

To her fellow Republicans – who voted to remove her from her House leadership position – Cheney offered a warning: “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: ‘There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.’”

Biden on Thursday described the attack as “a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” telling reporters: “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday underscored the partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault. It found that among Republicans about 55% believed the false claim that left-wing protesters led the attack and 58% believed most of the protesters were law-abiding.

Two Republican Georgia state election officials who Trump tried to pressure to “find” votes that would overturn his election defeat will testify at hearings later this month, a source familiar with the matter said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Linda So, Trevor Hunnicutt, Kanishka Singh and Jason Lange; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone, Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who served under Donald Trump and resigned in 2019 amid an ethics probe, won the Republican Party nomination for the 1st district U.S. House of Representatives seat in Montana, Edison Research projected on Thursday.

Zinke, who previously served in the House before joining the Trump administration, fended off challenges from four other Republicans in Tuesday’s vote. He resigned under intense scrutiny of his use of security details, chartered flights and a real estate deal, though he repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Zinke will face attorney Monica Tranel, who won the Democratic primary for the House seat, in the Nov. 8 general election. Zinke will be heavily favored to win after Trump defeated Democrat Joe Biden in Montana by 16 percentage points in 2020.

In the Republican primary, Zinke defeated his closest challenger, former state lawmaker Albert Olszewski, 41.7% to 39.8% with 99% of the estimated vote counted, according to Edison Research.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Tom Hogue)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A congressional hearing into the attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat presented testimony on Thursday showing that close allies – even his daughter – rejected his false claims of voting fraud.

The House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault also showed graphic footage of thousands of rioters attacking police and smashing their way into the Capitol. It was the first of six planned hearings intended to show that the Republican former president tried to subvert the U.S. Constitution and unlawfully hold onto power.

The Democratic-led committee presented video of testimony from notable Trump administration figures including his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Attorney General William Barr, campaign spokesperson Jason Miller and General Mark Milley.

It also showed part of Trump’s incendiary speech before the attack in which he repeated false election fraud claims and directed his supporters’ anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol overseeing congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election win – a process the riot failed to prevent.

Democratic committee chair Bennie Thompson said Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to thwart American democracy and block the peaceful transfer of power.

“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government,” Thompson said. “The violence was no accident. It was Trump’s last stand.”

Barr in videotaped testimony said: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I call the bullshit. And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

Barr’s view convinced Trump’s daughter.

“I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying,” Ivanka Trump said in videotaped testimony.

Trump, who is publicly flirting with another White House run in 2024, issued a statement before the hearing calling the committee “political Thugs.”

“Aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Well, maybe our supporters have the right idea,’” said Representative Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the nine-member panel and its vice chairperson.

Since leaving office last year, Trump has kept up his false claims that his 2020 election loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by numerous courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.

“We can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election,” Barr, who resigned about two weeks before the Capitol attack, said in the video.

Kushner was shown on video dismissing threats by some Trump aides to resign after the riot, deeming their concerns “whining.”

The hearing also featured two witnesses who testified in person, U.S. Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a brain injury in the attack, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who captured footage of the far-right Proud Boys group, accused of helping to plan the attack.

Edwards described insults hurled by rioters at her during the melee but said she was proud of fighting them off even after being injured.

“I was slipping in people’s blood,” Edwards said. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”

“What I saw was just a war scene,” Edwards added.

The hearings are being held ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine whether Biden’s party retains control of the House and the Senate.

‘SUMMONED THE MOB’

The mob attacked police, sent lawmakers and Pence fleeing for their safety and caused millions of dollars in damage. Four people died that day, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.

“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: That the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president,” Cheney said. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”

To her fellow Republicans – who voted to remove her from her House leadership position – Cheney offered a warning: “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: ‘There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.’”

Biden on Thursday described the attack as “a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” telling reporters: “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday underscored the partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault. It found that among Republicans about 55% believed the false claim that left-wing protesters led the attack and 58% believed most of the protesters were law-abiding.

Two Republican Georgia state election officials who Trump tried to pressure to “find” votes that would overturn his election defeat will testify at hearings later this month, a source familiar with the matter said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Linda So, Trevor Hunnicutt, Kanishka Singh and Jason Lange; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone, Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A rare bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate to agree on legislation to address a wave of mass shootings could reach a watershed moment on Thursday as lawmakers decide whether the drive has enough momentum to succeed.

About a dozen lawmakers led by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Republican Senator John Cornyn are trying to find common ground on a plan that would bolster school security, address gaps in the U.S. mental health system and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and individuals deemed to be a danger to the public and themselves.

Lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, had expressed hope for an agreement by the end of the week.

Negotiators and aides said there was a chance of reaching an agreement in principle. But short of that, lawmakers would have a clearer sense of the scope for further discussions before leaving Washington on Thursday for the weekend.

“We’ll have a much better idea tomorrow morning,” Cornyn told reporters on Wednesday after a private meeting to discuss potential legislation. “We’ll have a better idea of whether we still have momentum, which I believe we do right now.”

Murphy told reporters that his aim was to pass legislation that can stem the tide of shooting deaths in America before the Senate breaks for the July 4 holiday at the end of the month. “We need to move expeditiously. But this would be a big, historic deal and we need to get it right. That’s my priority,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

The effort follows mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and elsewhere.

Democrats including President Joe Biden have called for new limits on gun ownership, including a ban on semi-automatic, assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, and for raising the minimum age to buy those weapons from 18 to 21.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted on Wednesday on a package of partisan gun legislation with no chance of clearing the Senate.

With the 100-seat Senate split 50-50, Republicans committed to protecting gun ownership rights, and gun legislation needing 60 votes for passage, negotiations are aimed at making relatively modest changes that lawmakers insist can still protect lives.

Talks on bolstering mental health assistance and incentivizing state “red flag” laws to keep guns from disturbed individuals have turned to the question of how to provide potentially billions of dollars in funding without increasing the federal deficit.

Lawmakers are also discussing provisions to enhance the physical security of schools, including more on-campus security officers, and proposals to add juvenile records to national background check databases.

(Reporting by David Morgan, editing by Ross Colvin and Cynthia Osterman)

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(Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been working for almost a year, interviewing witnesses and amassing documents ahead of public hearings set to start on Thursday.

Here are some facts about the investigation.

MULTIPLE DEATHS

Thousands of supporters of Donald Trump attacked the Capitol, the home of Congress, in a bid to stop formal certification by U.S. lawmakers of the Republican then-president’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, causing millions of dollars in damage. Four people died on the day of the attack, and one Capitol Police officer who fought against the rioters died the next day. Four officers have since taken their own lives and 140 others were injured.

THE COMMITTEE

Nine House members sit on the committee, which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created on July 1, 2021, after Republicans prevented creation of a bicameral commission.

Its seven Democrats include Representative Bennie Thompson, the panel’s chairperson, as well as Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Elaine Luria, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy and Jamie Raskin.

The panel’s two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney – the vice chairperson – and Adam Kinzinger, were censured by the Republican National Committee for their participation. The RNC had never before censured any sitting congressional Republican.

THE INVESTIGATION

The committee and its dozens of investigators have conducted more than 1,000 depositions and interviews. Most people who are interviewed have not been identified, but those known to have appeared include Trump’s daughter and close adviser Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and attorney Rudy Giuliani.

To compel testimony and obtain documents, the committee has announced it has issued 99 subpoenas and is known to have issued more that have not been made public.

Some of the most notable known subpoenas have been sent to Mark Meadows, a former congressman who served as a Trump White House chief of staff; Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser; Roger Stone, a long-time Republican operative; Trump’s son Eric; major social media firms; and leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups that have backed Trump.

The committee has amassed a trove of more than 140,000 documents and has followed up on 472 tips from its tip line.

CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS

The House has voted, largely along party lines, to recommend contempt of Congress charges for four Trump associates for refusing to cooperate. Trump has urged former aides to disregard committee subpoenas.

The House recommendation referred the four cases – Bannon, Meadows and former top Trump administration aides Peter Navarro and Daniel Scavino – to the Justice Department to decide on whether to bring criminal charges, which bear a penalty of up to a year’s imprisonment and a fine up to $100,000.

The Justice Department has pursued charges against Bannon in a case set to go to trial in July, as well as against Navarro. It has not charged Meadows or Scavino.

The committee also recommended charges for a fifth person, Jeffrey Clark, who was a senior Justice Department official during the Trump administration. The full House never voted on the charges after Clark agreed to a deposition.

CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS

Nearly 850 people have been arrested for crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, including more than 250 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. Over those, about 90 have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

More than 300 people have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, 59 of those to felonies.

Sixteen people who were members of or affiliated with the right-wing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Six individuals have been found guilty at trials.

(Compiled by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Scott Malone, Nick Zieminski and Will Dunham)

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