Politics

NASHVILLE (AP) — As religious conservatives gathered this week at a sprawling resort near the Grand Ole Opry House, Nikki Haley pressed the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” crowd to look to the future.

“It’s up to us to deliver a new birth of patriotism,” said Haley, the former South Carolina governor who was ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump. “And together with you, and with trust in God, I pledge to answer that call and inspire our country once again.”

Such comments are typical of a party that’s out of power and in search of its next leader. But what’s unusual: The party’s last leader is plotting his own comeback.

Trump is showing up on the same stage Friday, his first public appearance since the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection began to lay bare his desperate attempts to remain in power by challenging American democracy. But, at least for now, the harrowing footage and searing testimony in the panel’s hearings, including accounts from Trump’s close associates and members of his family, appear to have done little to dampen his interest in another campaign.

Indeed, Trump is actively weighing when he might formally launch a third presidential run, according to people familiar with the discussions. The debate, according to aides and allies who insist Trump has yet to make a final decision, centers on whether to announce a campaign in the coming months or, in accordance with tradition, wait until after the November midterm elections.

Trump has spent the past year and a half holding rallies, delivering speeches and using his endorsements to exact revenge and further shape the party in his image. But some say the former president, who has decamped from his Florida Mar-a-Lago club to Bedminster, New Jersey, for the summer, is also growing impatient.

While he has relished his role as a party kingmaker — with candidates all but begging his endorsement and racking up large tabs at fundraisers in his ballrooms — Trump also misses the days when he was actually king, particularly as he watches Democratic President Joe Biden struggling with low approval ratings and soaring inflation.

“I think a lot of Trump’s future plans are directly based on Biden, and I think the more Biden continues to stumble on the world stage and on the domestic stage, people forget about the downside, the dark side of Trump’s presidency,” said Bryan Lanza, a GOP strategist and former Trump campaign official.

An announcement in the near future could complicate efforts by other ambitious Republicans to mount campaigns. Haley, for instance, has said she wouldn’t run against Trump.

But there also are concerns that a near-term announcement could hurt Republicans going into the final stretch of a midterm congressional campaign that appears increasingly favorable to the party. A Trump candidacy could unite otherwise despondent Democratic voters, reviving the energy that lifted the party in the 2018 and 2020 campaigns.

And, regardless of his decision, the aura of inevitability that Trump sought to create from the moment he left the White House has been punctured. Some Republicans and their aides have tried to make clear in recent months that a Trump candidacy would have little influence on their own decisions.

They include Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, who has been hailed by the Jan. 6 committee as someone who put the national interest ahead of his own political considerations. Eyeing a White House bid, Pence is maintaining a brisk political schedule focused on drawing attention to Democratic vulnerabilities.

Others including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have also indicated their decisions do not rest on Trump’s. And they and others have become increasingly brazen in their willingness to cross the former president, including endorsing candidates running against his and even campaigning with Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who survived Trump’s efforts to defeat him in the state’s GOP primary last month.

Some of these could-be candidates, including Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, were appearing alongside the former president as he headlines the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s gathering in Nashville.

The field could include a long list of others, including Rep. Liz Cheney, the lead Republican on the Jan. 6 panel and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — both Trump critics. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, is seen by many loyal Trump supporters as the future of his movement.

Indeed, many of those attending the conference in Nashville — the resort is near the Opry House, where the longtime “Grand Ole Opry” country music radio show is broadcast — weren’t sold on a third Trump run.

“I don’t know. The jury’s still out with me,” said Jonathan Goodwin, a minister who works as a Faith and Freedom organizer in South Carolina. “I like him, but I think he shot himself in the foot too many times”

While Goodwin said he “definitely” had his own concerns about the 2020 election, he said he didn’t support how Trump had handled the situation. “I think he should have bowed out gracefully,” he said, “whether it was rigged or not.”

Illinois conservative Pam Roehl, who arrived at the conference Friday wearing a red Trump baseball cap and “Trump 2020” necklace, said she still supports the former president, but was increasingly finding herself in the minority among like-minded friends, whom she said had moved on, discarding their bumper stickers, and embracing DeSantis.

“They’re like kind of, ’Get with the program. Why aren’t you backing DeSantis?‘” she said.

Though it’s increasingly clear that Trump wouldn’t march to the GOP nomination unchallenged, a large field of candidates could still work to his advantage. The dynamic is beginning to resemble the 2016 campaign, when Trump faced a large and unwieldy group of candidates that split the anti-Trump vote.

In a crowded field, even if Trump only captures around 30% of GOP primary voters — as his endorsed candidates have in several races — he would sail to the Republican nomination.

Aides say Trump has been peppering those around him for their thoughts.

Some in his orbit, like former campaign adviser Jason Miller, have urged Trump to jump in sooner rather than later, to get a head start on building out a campaign, try to freeze out competition and keep attention on himself.

An early strategy would also allow Trump to cast his mounting legal vulnerabilities as merely political attacks. An Atlanta district attorney has impaneled a special grand jury to probe his meddling in the 2020 presidential election. And in New York, Trump and two of his children have agreed to sit for depositions next month in the state attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices.

Others are urging Trump to wait until after the midterms, so he can run on Republicans’ November victories. They note that his frequent teasing of his plans — Trump often muses he’ll “do it again” — earns him applause and media attention and warn that formally declaring his candidacy would trigger campaign finance laws that set limits on how much donors can give. It also would change his relationship with his Save America PAC, which has more than $100 million in the bank — more than both national party organizations combined — and currently funds his campaign travel.

Either way, many voters say, he will need to win them over.

Jake Thomson, 19, who goes to school in Alabama and will be a first-time presidential voter in 2024, said he thought Trump was a great president, but was also interested in alternatives.

“It just kind of depends on how things play out,” he said.

source

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Republican President Donald Trump’s adviser Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty on Friday to two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress, after he refused to provide testimony or documents to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee investigating the January 2021 attack at the Capitol.

Navarro, who appeared in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for his arraignment on Friday, previously wrote a book after he left the White House in which he talked about a plan to delay Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory known as “Green Bay Sweep.”

He described the plan as the “last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.”

The U.S. House Select Committee, which held its third hearing on Thursday afternoon to reveal some of the findings from its investigation, subpoenaed Navarro in February seeking both documents and testimony.

However, he failed to appear for his deposition or communicate in any way with the panel after receiving the subpoena, the indictment against him alleges.

He later told the committee he was unable to comply with its demands, saying Trump had invoked executive privilege, a legal doctrine that shields certain White House communications from disclosure, and that this privilege “is not mine to waive.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

source

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The lead Republican negotiator in U.S. Senate efforts to craft a bipartisan gun safety bill walked out of the talks on Thursday, raising questions about whether lawmakers will vote on the legislation before leaving for a two-week July 4 recess.

“It’s fish or cut bait,” Senator John Cornyn said after hours of negotiations that included his fellow Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema.

“I don’t know what they have in mind, but I’m through talking,” Cornyn said.

However, Tillis and Murphy later said the talks were close to reaching agreement and added that legislative text for a bill could emerge in coming days. Murphy said in a statement late Thursday he believed the bill could be voted on next week.

The bipartisan group has been working on a deal to curb gun violence since a gunman killed 19 school children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, less than two weeks after a racist shooting in Buffalo, New York left 10 dead. Talks have bogged down in recent days.

“To land a deal like this is difficult. It comes with a lot of emotions. It comes with political risk to both sides. But we’re close enough that we should be able to get there,” said Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator.

Time to pass major legislation is running short as the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans are looking to win back control of Congress, draw nearer.

Murphy and Tillis each told reporters that staff have begun drafting legislative text for the majority of provisions that lawmakers have agreed on. Tillis suggested that text could be available as early as Friday.

Tillis, saying he expected a deal, declined to speak in detail about the negotiations: “We’re too close and down to the final stages.”

The group announced a framework on measures to curb gun violence on Sunday. It did not go as far as Democrats including President Joe Biden had sought, but would still be the most significant action to combat gun violence to emerge from Congress in years if passed.

Disagreements remained over two main provisions: how to provide incentives to states to create ‘red flag’ laws, in which guns can be temporarily taken away from people who are deemed dangerous; and the ‘boyfriend loophole,’ which allows authorities to block abusive spouses from buying firearms but does not cover “intimate partners” who are not married.

Cornyn, whose home state of Texas does not have a red flag law and is seen as unlikely to enact one, wants the funding for that provision to cover other efforts for people with mental illness, such as “crisis intervention programs.”

Tillis said the negotiators were working out a mechanism that would allow federal funding for states that want to adopt red flag laws and states that favor other intervention programs, with parity the ultimate goal.

He also said the lawmakers were looking to existing state laws as models for the boyfriend loophole provision.

(Reporting by David Morgan, writing by Makini Brice and David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Rosalba O’Brien)

source

By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to overturn his 2020 election defeat despite being told repeatedly it was illegal to do so, aides to Pence told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.

Members of the Democratic-led House of Representatives select committee said Trump continued his pressure campaign even though he knew a violent mob of his supporters was threatening the Capitol as Pence and lawmakers met to formally certify President Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election.

The nine-member committee has used the first three of at least six public hearings this month to build a case that Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat amounted to illegal conduct, far beyond normal politics.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, while repeating his false accusations that he lost the election only because of widespread fraud that benefited Democrat Biden. Trump and his supporters – including many Republican members of Congress – dismiss the Jan. 6 panel as a political witchhunt.

The certification vote on Jan. 6 had become a focus for Trump, who saw it as a last-ditch chance to retain the presidency despite his loss at the polls.

Marc Short, who was Pence’s chief of staff, said in videotaped testimony that Pence told Trump “many times” that he did not have the authority to stop the vote certification in Congress as the Republican president sought.

Gregory Jacob, an attorney for Pence, said the main proponent of that theory, attorney John Eastman, admitted in front of the president two days before the attack that his plan to have Pence halt the procedure would violate the law.

Eastman had argued that Pence could reject results from certain states if he thought they were illegitimate, giving Republicans in those states an opportunity to declare Trump the victor despite the actual vote count.

Advisers to Pence told the committee that idea had no basis in law.

“It is breathtaking that these arguments even were conceived, let alone entertained by the president of the United States,” former U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, an informal Pence adviser, said.

Trump is widely expected to run for president again in 2024, and committee members and witnesses warned that he would not accept defeat no matter the actual outcome.

“Today almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still, Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” Luttig said.

The committee showed an email Eastman sent to Trump’s attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, asking for a presidential pardon. Eastman never received one.

‘HANG MIKE PENCE’

The hearing featured several chilling clips of some of the thousands of Trump supporters who descended on the Capitol after a rally in which Trump repeatedly criticized Pence, chanting for Pence to be pulled out of the building or hanged.

Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m., while the attack was going on, that Pence did not have the “courage” to stop the count.

“It felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that,” Sarah Matthews, a Trump White House staffer, said in video testimony.

Representative Pete Aguilar said a witness had told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the Proud Boys, one of the right-wing groups participating in the Capitol attack, said the group would have killed Pence if they been able to get to him.

Committee members said Trump’s comments against Pence incited the crowd.

The committee displayed photos of Pence sheltering in place during the riot. Jacob, who was with Pence during the attack, said he refused to leave and that he did not want to give the demonstrators the satisfaction of forcing him from the building. “The vice president did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the U.S. Capitol,” he said.

The attack on the Capitol delayed certification of the election for hours, injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths.

Even after police had suppressed the attack and reclaimed the Capitol, Eastman continued to press Pence’s team to overturn the vote.

“I implore you one last time, can the Vice President, please do what we’ve been asking him to do these last two days – suspend the Joint Session, send it back to the States,” Eastman wrote to Jacob at 11:44 p.m. in an email released by the committee.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Richard Cowan and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Katherine Jackson; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell)

source

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Major airline chief executives and other senior leaders will hold a virtual meeting on Thursday with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the busy travel season and recent flight disruptions, sources told Reuters.

Two U.S. senators recently raised concerns about flight delays and cancellations over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Buttigieg wants to discuss with regional and large airline leaders “plans to ensure safe and reliable service this summer, including their plans to ensure this service over” the July 4 holiday, the sources said.

Travelers are bracing for a difficult summer as airlines expect record demand and are still rebuilding staff after thousands of workers left the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, the U.S. airline industry told Congress the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must ensure the nation’s airspace can handle rising air travel demand, according to a letter obtained by Reuters earlier this week.

Trade group Airlines for America said that “airlines are aggressively pursuing several options to align schedules with workforce availability” but added “the FAA must also work to ensure that the air traffic control system is capable of meeting demand.”

Last month, Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey asked A4A, which represents American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and others for answers after more than 2,700 Memorial Day weekend flights were canceled.

The senators said “while some flight cancellations are unavoidable, the sheer number of delays and cancellations this past weekend raises questions about airline decision-making.”

The FAA declined to comment on whether it will take part in Buttigieg’s meeting but in May said it would boost authorized air traffic control staff at its Jacksonville, Florida, center after bad weather and space launches have snarled flights.

The FAA noted that flight operations at many Florida airports have exceeded prepandemic levels and will meet with users of Florida airspace “throughout the summer.”

The senators separately asked Buttigieg to detail steps his office was “taking to hold airlines accountable for serious disruptions and to ensure consumers are wholly and justly compensated.

“The flying public deserves the same safety and reliability as before the pandemic, especially since American taxpayers invested $48 billion to keep aviation workers employed so the nation could maintain its high standard of air service,” USDOT’s Annie Petsonk wrote airlines last week in a June 8 email inviting them to a meeting, seen by Reuters.

“The department stands ready to support your work to address these challenges. In May, the FAA began making changes to its air traffic controller staffing to support the increased demand in the country. The agency is also working with airlines to expand the use of underutilized routes, especially in Florida.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jason Neely and Chizu Nomiyama)

source

By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The congressional committee investigating last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol turns its attention on Thursday to then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

The House of Representatives select committee has scheduled a hearing for 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), looking at efforts by Trump and some of his associates to convince Pence to prevent formal congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.

Thousands of Trump supporters – many chanting “Hang Mike Pence” – marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Pence oversaw a session in which lawmakers met for what is normally a routine procedure to certify election results. Some erected a makeshift gallows they said was intended for Pence.

The certification had become a focus for Trump, who saw it as a last-ditch chance to retain the presidency despite his loss at the polls. His supporters flocked to Washington to rally with Trump, who had made repeated false claims that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud. They stormed the Capitol, attacked police and sent Pence and lawmakers fleeing for their safety.

Trump’s accountability for the Jan. 6 riot is “incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American people,” retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig will tell the committee, according to written testimony obtained by CNN.

“It is breathtaking that these arguments even were conceived, let alone entertained by the president of the United States at that perilous moment in history,” Luttig, who was an informal adviser to Pence, said in his statement.

Had Pence obeyed, according to Luttig’s testimony, the country would have been plunged into a “revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”

Thursday’s hearing will also feature testimony from Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence. Videotaped testimony of former Pence chief of staff Marc Short is expected to be shown as well.

The hearing is the third of at least six planned public hearings this month at which the nine-member, Democratic-led committee will discuss preliminary results of its nearly yearlong investigation of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack.

Committee aides said the hearing will examine the emergence of a plan advocated by Trump associates including attorney John Eastman that Pence could unilaterally reject certified electors from certain states where results had been challenged. Pence refused to accept that theory.

Pence in February of this year said Trump, under whom he served as vice president for four years, was wrong to believe that Pence had the power to reverse the election’s outcome.

“I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence told an audience in Florida.

The hearing will look at the pressure campaign on Pence, driven by Trump, the committee aides said on condition of anonymity. They promised new material documenting those efforts, with testimony from the witnesses in the room as well as taped testimony from some of the more than 1,000 depositions and interviews.

Democrat Jamie Raskin, a committee member, was asked on CNN about a New York Times report that Trump adviser John Eastman claimed to have knowledge of a “heated fight” among Supreme court justices over whether to hear arguments related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

“We want to ferret that out if that’s true,” Raskin said. “To determine whether, you know, the same people who were establishing a back channel to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the 3 percenters and the domestic violent extremist movement also had a back channel somehow to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.”

The groups Raskin mentioned are far-right organizations.

The committee intends to lay out a timeline of Pence’s day on Jan. 6, which could detail contacts with Trump and Secret Service agents who spirited the vice president to a secure location as the crowd threatened him.

The attack on the Capitol delayed certification of the election for hours, injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths. More than 840 people have been arrested and charged so far.

The onslaught marked the only time in U.S. history that power was not passed peacefully from one president to another.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; editing by Andy Sullivan, Will Dunham and David Gregorio)

source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The congressional committee investigating last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol turns its attention on Thursday to then-President Donald Trump’s multiple attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

The House of Representatives Select Committee is looking at efforts by Trump and some of his associates to convince Pence not to formally certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.

Thousands of Trump supporters – many chanting “Hang Mike Pence” – marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Pence met with lawmakers for what is normally a routine ceremony to certify the election. Some erected a gallows they said was intended for Pence.

The certification had become a focus for Trump, who saw it as a last-ditch chance to retain the presidency despite being defeated. His supporters flocked to Washington to rally with Trump, who had made repeated false claims that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud.

Thursday’s hearing will feature testimony from Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence, and retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was an informal adviser to the vice president.

Videotaped testimony of former Pence chief of staff Marc Short is expected to be broadcast.

The hearing is the third of at least six public hearings this month at which the nine-member, Democratic-led committee will discuss preliminary results of its nearly year-long investigation of the events up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.

Committee aides said the hearing would discuss emergence of a plan advocated by Trump associates including attorney John Eastman that the vice president could unilaterally reject certified electors from disputed states. Pence refused to accept that theory.

“It’s a violation of the vice president’s constitutional obligations and constitutional law,” but Trump chose the path of “escalating” this violation, an aide said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, aides also said the session would look at the pressure campaign on Pence, driven by Trump. They promised new material documenting those efforts, with testimony from the witnesses in the room as well as taped testimony from some of the more than 1,000 depositions and interviews.

The committee intends to lay out a timeline of Pence’s day on Jan. 6, which could detail contacts with Trump and Secret Service agents who spirited the vice president to a secure location as the crowd threatened him.

The attack on the Capitol delayed certification of the election for hours, injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths. More than 840 people have been arrested and charged so far.

The onslaught marked the only time in U.S. history that power was not passed peacefully from one president to another.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; editing by Andy Sullivan and David Gregorio)

source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A senior aide and a retired federal judge who advised former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence are set to testify on Thursday to the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the panel said on Wednesday.

Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence, and retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was an informal adviser, are scheduled to testify at the third of an expected six public hearings the committee has planned for this month.

The hearing is due to focus on Pence’s role that day in overseeing formal congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump, who has made false claims that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud.

Subsequent hearings are expected to focus on topics including what the Democratic-led committee describes as Trump’s efforts to replace officials at the Justice Department with appointees who would help promote his efforts to overturn the election results.

Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to block the certification of the election results, attacking police and sending lawmakers fleeing for their safety. Some protesters chanted “hang Mike Pence” and set up a makeshift gallows outside the Capitol.

The committee is looking into Trump’s contacts with Pence in urging him to refuse to certify the election and the rioters’ chants that Pence should be hanged. Pence refused Trump’s requests that he block the certification.

Pence in February of this year said Trump, under whom he served as vice president for four years, was wrong to believe that Pence had the power to reverse the outcome of the election.

“I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence told an audience in Florida.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and Richard Cowan; Editing by Will Dunham)

source

ATLANTA (AP) — The conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines that erupted during the 2020 presidential contest flared this week in a remote New Mexico county in what could be just a preview of the kind of chaos election experts fear is coming in the fall midterms and in 2024.

The governing commission in Otero County refused to certify the local results of the state’s June 7 primary because of the equipment, in what was seen as another instance of how the falsehoods spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies have infected elections and threaten the democratic process.

“We are in scary territory,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former election official in Colorado and Utah who now advises federal, state and local officials. “If this can happen here, where next? It’s like a cancer, a virus. It’s metastasizing and growing.”

There is no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting equipment in the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. But that hasn’t stopped the false claims, particularly those about Dominion machines.

“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said Monday as she and her two fellow commissioners — all Republicans — voted unanimously. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”

The commissioners in the conservative, pro-Trump county could point to no actual problems with the Dominion equipment.

New Mexico’s secretary of state asked the state Supreme Court to step in and order the county to certify the votes, and the high court did so on Wednesday. That would ensure that the nearly 7,400 ballots that were cast in Otero County are recorded as legal votes. The deadline for county certification is Friday.

In the weeks and months following the election, various Trump allies claimed that Dominion voting systems had somehow been manipulated as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the election.

On Monday, the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol presented testimony that Trump was told repeatedly that his claims of a stolen election and rigged voting systems were false and dangerous. That included pushback from his inner circle to the claims about Dominion voting systems, which are used by jurisdictions in 27 states.

Former Attorney General William Barr, in a videotaped interview with House investigators, said he spoke with Trump about the “idiotic claims” surrounding Dominion.

Barr said he found them to be “among the most disturbing allegations” because they were “made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people.” He added that the claims were doing a “grave disservice to the country.”

Trump ignored that, and his allies persisted in attacking Dominion. According to the House panel, the day after Barr spoke with Trump, the president released a video in which he claimed without proof that “with the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden.”

Dominion has filed defamation lawsuits against various Trump associates and conservative media organizations, including Fox News.

The company said in a statement Wednesday that the action by the Otero County commissioners was “yet another example of how lies about Dominion have damaged our company and diminished the public’s faith in elections.”

Otero County, with a population of about 67,000, went for Trump by nearly 62% in 2020. One of the commissioners is Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who was convicted of entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — during the Jan. 6 uprising.

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said the commissioners were violating the law and their oaths of office in refusing to certify the vote. She said that there is a process to deal with any problems that arise with an election but that the commissioners did not specify any.

“Unfortunately, when one county decides to act completely outside the law, it gives credence to others who may want to do the same thing,” she said. “We have the potential to see this spread and have a domino effect.”

Numerous procedures are in place, including pre- and post-testing of voting equipment and post-election audits that ensure machines are working properly. In New Mexico, voters mark their paper ballots by hand. The ballots are then fed into a scanner to tally the results.

Vulnerabilities do exist, as with any technology, but election officials work to identify and fix them. A recent advisory issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency highlighted certain vulnerabilities discovered in Dominion voting systems and provided recommendations to election officials.

But those pushing false claims about voting systems want more than just paper ballots cast by hand — they also want ballots to be counted entirely by hand. Experts say this is unreliable, time-consuming, labor-intensive and entirely unnecessary given the various safeguards.

Among the most prominent advocates for this is Jim Marchant, a former state lawmaker who on Tuesday was selected as the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada. Marchant is among a group of “America First” candidates seeking to oversee elections while denying the outcome of the last one.

Election experts say the Otero County case is a warning of what could happen if candidates who repeat electoral falsehoods and misinformation gain responsibility for overseeing voting.

“This is just a taste of what we could see in the future, as election deniers are running for positions with control over elections all over the country,” said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

source

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday demanded oil refining companies explain why they are not putting more gasoline on the market as they reap windfall profits, sharply escalating his rhetoric against industry as he faces pressure over rising prices.

Biden wrote to executives from Marathon Petroleum Corp, Valero Energy Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp, and complained they had cut back on oil refining to pad their profits, according to a copy of the letter https://docsend.com/view/qpg3e8a2s3fbxi3a seen by Reuters.

The letter was also sent to Phillips 66, Chevron Corp, BP and Shell, a White House official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

“At a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable,” Biden wrote, adding the lack of refining was driving gas prices up faster than oil prices.

Biden said the industry’s lack of action is blunting the administration’s attempts to offset the impact of oil-rich Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, such as releases from the U.S. oil reserves and adding more cheaper ethanol to gasoline.

Meanwhile, energy companies are enjoying bumper profits as the invasion has added to a supply squeeze which has driven crude prices above $100 a barrel, and as fuel demand has remained robust, despite record high gasoline prices.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday went as far to say refiners have a “patriotic duty” to increase supplies and cut consumer costs.

“We are calling on them to do the right thing, to be patriots here,” she told reporters.

U.S. refining capacity peaked in April 2020 at just under 19 million barrels per day (bpd), as refiners shut several unprofitable facilities during the coronavirus pandemic. As of March, refining capacity was 17.9 million bpd, but there have been other closures announced since.

U.S. refiners are running at near-peak levels to process fuel – currently at 94% of capacity – and say there is little they can do to quickly satisfy Biden’s demands.

“Our refineries are running full out,” Bruce Niemeyer, corporate vice president of strategy and sustainability at Chevron, said on the sidelines of a Reuters energy transition conference on Tuesday, before the letter was made public.

Shell is “producing at capacity” and looking at options to increase oil and gasoline production, a spokesperson said.

Exxon, which was the focus of the president’s ire against oil companies last week, has invested to expand its refining capacity by 250,000 bpd, the equivalent of a medium-sized refinery, said spokesman Todd Spitler.

The administration in the short term could lift the Jones Act provisions that force domestic shippers to use U.S. flagged vessels that employ union labor, or lift regulations that prohibit the use of cheaper, smog causing components in summer blends of gasoline, Spitler said.

Phillips 66, Valero and Marathon Petroleum said they would work with the administration. Chevron and BP did not immediately comment.

INFLATION WOES

Biden has been intensifying attacks against oil companies as gas pump prices race to record highs above $5 per gallon and inflation surges to a 40-year record.

Privately, White House officials have been reaching out to refiners to inquire about idled plants and spare capacity and whether there are other ways to increase gasoline supply, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Rising gas prices have helped drive unexpectedly persistent consumer price inflation and voter anger before Nov. 8 midterm elections where Biden’s Democratic Party is defending its control of Congress.

Biden has attributed rising oil prices primarily to U.S.-led sanctions that took Russian energy supplies off the global market.

But he has also taken the fight to major oil companies, which are riding rising energy prices to record earnings, and giving those profits to investors rather than spending on new drilling and refining capacity.

“Exxon made more money than God this year,” Biden said last week, referring to the major’s first quarter profit doubling from the previous year’s to $5.48 billion.

Exxon’s Spitler said the top U.S. producer has invested more than $50 billion over the past five years that resulted in a nearly 50% increase in U.S. oil output.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm plans to host an emergency meeting on how refiners can respond to higher prices, Biden said, asking for a response from the oil companies beforehand.

Biden said they should provide “concrete ideas” to increase oil refining along with an explanation for why they may have cut such capacity in the last two years.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Jarrett Renshaw, David Gaffen, Ron Bousso and Gary McWilliams; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Heather Timmons and Marguerita Choy)

source