GOP senator dodges question on Trump’s praise of Putin
Less than a week after husband Jared Kushner voluntarily testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Ivanka Trump is appearing virtually in front of the same panel Tuesday, according to NBC News citing three sources familiar with the matter.
Elsewhere, Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk, who recently purchased a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, is receiving entreaties from Trump supporters to somehow get the former president’s account reinstated.
Among those asking him to intervene is Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who asked whether as the “majority shareholder” (which he is not) Mr Musk would “return freedom of speech to Twitter”.
Meanwhile, six weeks after its launch, Donald Trump’s Truth Social app has lost two senior executives. The app has been occupied by tech problems and about 1.5 million people remain on the waiting list to join, unable to use it.
Mr Trump has also filed a new legal motion seeking to have a judge dismissed in a lawsuit he has filed against former opponent Hillary Clinton, in which he alleges she conspired with some 50 other people to advance false claims about his dealings with Russian contacts during the 2016 election.
Ivanka declines to plead the fifth before Jan 6 committee
Ivanka Trump appeared remotely before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, committee sources revealed, as the panel’s investigation into her father’s role in a violent assault on Congress continues.
The chairman of the House select committee investigating January 6 confirmed Ms Trump’s appearance to reporters and told Politico that Ms Trump’s testimony was still ongoing as of mid-Monday afternoon with five hours already passed in the session. Ms Trump was not subpoenaed, and like her husband is giving information to the committee as a personal choice.
John Bowden reports for The Independent from Washington, DC.
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 04:30
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hits back at Matt Gaetz
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appeared so incensed by outlandish lines of questioning from Republican congressman Matt Gaetz that he ended up in a shouting match with the Florida representative at the end of Mr Gaetz’s five minute round.
Mr Austin was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify at a House Armed Services Committee hearing regarding the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2023 budget request, but Mr Gaetz had apparently decided to use his time to advise the former US Central Command boss about what he described as US defense failures caused by the Pentagon’s embrace of “wokeness”.
Andrew Feinberg reports from Capitol Hill.
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 03:45
Trump finally admits he lost the election
Donald Trump was apparently caught admitting that he lost the 2020 US presidential election to Joe Biden in a Zoom meeting last summer, according to a video recirculated in recent days.
The former US president was speaking with a group of Princeton University historians in July 2021 when he appeared to admit to losing the 2020 election to Mr Biden, whom he accuses of “stealing” the vote.
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 03:00
Trump aide seeking NH House seat voted in two states
Matt Mowers, the former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire, voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, potentially violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican Party’s intense focus on “election integrity.”
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 02:15
The mood on Capitol Hill
Representative Dan Kildee summed up the mood on Capitol Hill to Politico‘s Sarah Ferris:
There are three kinds of days here. There’s West Wing days, when we do some really cool stuff. There’s House of Cards days, where the place just seems like it’s falling apart. Then there are Veep days. Today’s sort of like a Veep day. The fox bites Ami, Fred[Upston}’sleavingItjustsucks[Upston}’sleavingItjustsucks
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 01:45
Police capture fox that bit lawmaker on Capitol Hill
US Capitol police have captured a fox suspected of biting a Congressional lawmaker on the leg.
The police department collared the animal after warning politicians and staffers on Capitol Hill to be on the look out for “aggressive fox encounters.”
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 01:30
Kinzinger rails against Republican ‘children’ in Congress
Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called his colleagues in Congress “children” for focusing more on Disney and culture war issues than the “genocide” happening in Ukraine at the hands of Russia.
Mr Kinzinger said that the “world order” was being challenged for the first time since World War II, but that his fellow Republicans were acting like “a bunch of children.”
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 00:45
Supreme Court confirmation hearing: The most ridiculous questions asked of Ketanji Brown Jackson
Republican senators subjected Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate who has thrice been confirmed by the upper chamber (twice to court seats and once to a seat on the US Sentencing Commission), to some of the most bizarre inquiries ever directed at a nominee for the highest court in the land.
Andrew Feinberg rounds up some of the standouts.
Oliver O’Connell6 April 2022 00:00
Obama tells Democrats how to win midterms
Former President Barack Obama had a simple message for Democrats who worry about losing their majority in the 2022 midterm elections:
“We got a story to tell, just got to tell it,” he said in response to NBC News’s Peter Alexander.
The former president received a standing ovation as he returned to the White House for the first time since leaving the Oval Office in 2017 to on hand to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the passage of his signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act, which received the moniker Obamacare in the press.
Eric Garcia reports from Washington, DC.
Oliver O’Connell5 April 2022 23:15
Expert says Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and wife are part of ‘Trump cult’
‘I think someone is unduly influencing Ginni Thomas to believe those things,’ expert tells The Independent‘s Bevan Hurley of the conservative activist.
Oliver O’Connell5 April 2022 22:30
