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Disgraced former president Donald Trump used official White House channels to pressure the Justice Department to help him overturn the 2020 election in the courts, which, listen, it’s no “sending innocuous work emails from the wrong server,” but it sure seems bad.
- A new tranche of emails obtained by the House Oversight and Reform Committee show that Trump directly pressured then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s acting successor, Jeff Rosen, to have the Justice Department back his election-fraud lies—even before Barr officially stepped down. House investigators sent DOJ a letter last month requesting documents pertaining to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election ahead of the January 6 insurrection.
- An hour before Trump announced that Barr would be resigning to spend more time with his shredded reputation, he had an assistant send Rosen an email containing a sweaty bundle of conspiracy theories about imaginary voter fraud in Michigan. Two weeks later, Trump’s assistant emailed Rosen again with a draft of a brief that Trump wanted the Justice Department to file with the Supreme Court, which argued that the electoral votes in six states Trump lost should be tossed out—a new spin on a Texas lawsuit that the Court had already rejected.
- At the same time, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows started sending Rosen incessant requests to look into deranged theories about Italian fraud satellites, and private attorney Kurt Olsen, who represented Texas in its failed coup lawsuit, contacted a number of DOJ officials on Trump’s orders. Oversight chair Carolyn Maloney said the documents “show that President Trump tried to corrupt our nation’s chief law enforcement agency in a brazen attempt to overturn an election that he lost. Those who aided or witnessed President Trump’s unlawful actions must answer the Committee’s questions about this attempted subversion of democracy.”
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As long as we’re investigating attempted subversions of democracy, perhaps we could circle back on the big mob that tried to murder Congress?
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that she hadn’t yet decided whether to form a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack, because she’s still clinging to the dream that Ten Good Republicans will agree to form an outside commission to investigate themselves. In the meantime, Maloney’s oversight committee has released a striking timeline of the insurrection, which shows that the Capitol Police and other officials issued 12 urgent requests to the Pentagon to deploy the National Guard during the attack, and that Pentagon officials told the National Guard to “standby” five times. Good stuff, very neat, just one quick follow-up: Why?
- In other much-needed investigations, the House Judiciary Committee has announced a probe into the Trump DOJ’s unprecedented efforts to seize the metadata of Democratic lawmakers, staffers, journalists, and Trump’s own White House counsel—though House Democrats haven’t yet explicitly threatened to issue subpoenas. On Tuesday, House GOP Big Lie Chair Elise Stefanik bravely spoke up to defend Trump’s vengeful surveillance of her colleagues: “I think it's important that the Department of Justice determine if there were any illegal leaks, leaks by members of Congress, or their staff members.”
There’s no wild revelation about Trump’s abuses of power or antidemocratic schemes that will loosen his grip on the GOP—that much was already clear when Senate Republicans chose to protect him rather than investigate a violent insurrection. Democrats can either aggressively pursue accountability on their own, or roll the dice in the hope that a handful of judges, legislators, and beleaguered election officials will defend the next election.
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This week on Pod Save The People, DeRay McKesson is joined by fellow activists and educators Kaya Henderson, Sam Sinyangwe, and De’Ara Balenger to discuss the history and importance of Juneteenth. Plus, DeRay interviews lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist Maya Wiley to discuss her candidacy for mayor of New York City. Listen to Pod Save The People wherever you get your podcasts →
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The Biden administration has released its much-anticipated new plan to combat domestic extremism. It calls for improving information sharing between social-media companies and law enforcement, better screenings to ensure that government employees don’t have ties to domestic terrorism, and more funding to potentially hire prosecutors, investigators, and intelligence analysts. The plan does not take a position on whether the government should enact a new domestic-terrorism law, which civil-rights advocates have warned would be unnecessary and could wind up backfiring on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. The NSC instead asked the Justice Department to give the issue further review: “New criminal laws, in particular, should be sought only after careful consideration of whether and how they are needed to assist the government in tackling complex, multifaceted challenges like the one posed by domestic terrorism and only while ensuring the protection of civil rights and civil liberties.”
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- Israel launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip for the first time since last month’s ceasefire, after Gaza militants sent a number of incendiary balloons into Israel earlier on Tuesday, and an Israeli nationalist march in East Jerusalem ratcheted up tensions.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced he won’t support the narrow, bipartisan infrastructure proposal, and other progressives look likely to follow suit—especially if Democrats won’t commit to passing a second, broader bill through reconciliation.
- Former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-KREMLIN) confirmed that he marched on the Capitol on January 6, but said he wasn’t there for the Capitol-breaching part, just the election-denying part.
- Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has written an op-ed begging certain Senate Democrats to cut the bullshit and pass voting-rights legislation: “If Republicans want to make the right to vote a partisan issue, that’s their problem. I know—and I believe that U.S. senators know, too—that access to the ballot isn’t a red or blue policy but a basic American value.”
- A driver rammed his SUV into a protest against police violence in Minneapolis on Sunday night, killing one woman and injuring at least three other people. It’s not yet clear whether the driver targeted the protesters intentionally, though witnesses said it sure looked that way.
- A Georgia man shot and killed a grocery-store cashier who asked him to put on a face mask, and wounded a deputy who responded to the scene.
- The DSCC plans to invest $10 million in voter-protection efforts ahead of the midterms, what with all of the GOP voter-suppression efforts already underway.
- A new study suggests that coronavirus may have arrived in the U.S. as early as December 2019, although some experts said those findings could be the result of a methodological error.
- California formally reopened on Tuesday, but don’t take it from us, take it from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and several Minions for some reason.
- In less Minion-friendly announcements, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has delayed the country’s full reopening amid a coronavirus surge caused by the Delta variant.
- A rogue local Fox reporter (purportedly named “Ivory Hecker”) accused Fox Corp. of “muzzling” her, and said that Project Veritas would release her secret behind-the-scenes recordings, which amounted to...a station official telling Hecker to quit posting about hydroxychloroquine.
- Russian scientists have resuscitated a worm that had been frozen in ice for 24,000 years, an astonishing breakthrough in the wild world of worm-warming.
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National right-wing organizations have ramped up parental organizing around “critical race theory” across the country, in the latest fake grassroots movement designed to mobilize GOP voters. With the benefit of constant free publicity from conservative media outlets, national activist organizations have rapidly attracted members and raised funds to pour into local school board fights and lawsuits. According to a new report from Ballotpedia, activists and parents have launched 50 efforts aimed at unseating 126 school board members this year, efforts which often (and unusually) target multiple members at once. One such effort in Maine (aided by Tucker Carlson and the national group No Left Turn in Education) ultimately failed, but left the superintendent shaken: “I feel like the district in some ways has gotten used—almost held hostage—by this national ideology or national movement, that says we're all teaching CRT, and we're all trying to indoctrinate kids.”
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In 2021 mental health is finally a thing, especially as people are not feeling like their normal selves. Let’s support one another and talk openly. Whether or not therapy is your thing, knowing it’s available and affordable is important, for you or perhaps a loved one.
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You can privately talk to someone if your stress is too much to manage, you’re battling a temper, having relationship issues, anxiety, depression, etc… Whatever you need, there’s no more shame in these normal human struggles. We take care of our bodies, why not our minds, too? Without a healthy mind, being truly happy and at peace is HARD.
BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.
It’s always a good time to invest in yourself, because you are your greatest asset. See if online therapy is for you by heading to BetterHelp.com/crooked for 10% off your first month.
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Vermont has become the first state to vaccinate 80 percent of its eligible population, and 15 states have now reached the 70 percent threshold.
A third vaccine dose may help protect some people with weakened immune systems, according to a small study.
The charity RIP Medical Debt will buy out $278 million in medical debt at a hospital system in Tennessee and Virginia, paying off the debt of roughly 82,000 patients.
The Senate has unanimously passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
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