Trump news today: Donald to share stage with election deniers at
Fox News host says Trump must ‘learn to lose’
Donald Trump will share a stage in Arizona for his first rally of 2022 with a host of allies who have amplified baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, including Mike Lindell, as well as members of Congress who objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The former president also celebrated an announcement that US Rep John Katko, among Republican lawmakers who voted for his impeachment for inciting a riot fuelled by the same false election narratives, will not seek re-election.
Meanwhile, the federal government has brought a charge of “seditious conspiracy” against the leader of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia that prosecutors argue played a role in organising an attack on the US Capitol on 6 January last year.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has refused to provide the committee investigating the attack with information about his conversations with Mr Trump. US Rep Liz Cheney, one of the committee’s only two Republicans, said Mr McCarthy is attempting to “cover-up” what happened, and that the committee would evaluate other options for obtaining his testimony.
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Pence equates federal voting rights legislation with Capitol attack
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, former VP Mike Pence condemned the mob that “ransacked the Capitol, largely to try to get Congress and me, as the president of the Senate, to use federal authority to overturn results of the presidential election that had been certified by all 50 states.”
He then characterised Republican attempts to restrict ballot access and consolidate electoral oversight into the hands of GOP-dominated legislatures as “measures to try to restore confidence in the integrity of our elections” in the wake of the attack.
He then accused Biden and congressional Democrats of leading “another power grab” with federal voting rights legislation, by using the “memory of Jan 6” to defend breaking up the filibuster.
That federal legislation would create national framework for voter registration, mail-in ballots, early voting and voter ID laws. It would also make Election Day a holiday, combat attempts to strip oversight from nonpartisan election authorities, and protect election workers from harassment and violence.
He compared such efforts to an attack on the Capitol that sought to stop the certification of votes representing millions of Americans, as a mob chanted that they were there to “hang” him.
He also falsely claimed that “the notion that Congress would break the filibuster rule to pass a law equaling a wholesale takeover of elections by the federal government is inconsistent with our nation’s history and an affront to our constitution’s structure.”
The US constitution gives Congress the ability to set rules for federal elections.
Alex Woodward15 January 2022 17:28
2020 election deniers take centre stage at…
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