Republicans call January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’ as party censures Cheney and Kinzinger – live | US news

A jury found high-profile attorney Michael Avenatti guilty of cheating the adult film star Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with Donald Trump.

The lawyer, who rose to fame as one of Trump’s leading critics on cable news early in his administration, has faced a host of legal problems in recent years including a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for trying to extort up to $25m from Nike.

Prosecutors said Avenatti spent a share of Daniels’ money on airfare, food and payroll for his debt-ridden law firm, and repeatedly lied to her when she pressed him on when she would get an installment she was owed on the $800,000 book deal.

More here:

Greetings from Los Angeles, readers. I’m Dani Anguiano and I’ll be taking over the Guardian’s live coverage of US politics for the next few hours.

Donald Trump called for the House committee tasked with investigating the 6 January 2021 insurrection on the US Capitol to “stop its work immediately”. His statement was released Friday shortly after Mike Pence offered a strong rebuke of the former president and Republicans voted to censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their involvement with the 6 January House committee.

The former president, who encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” before they headed to the Capitol, blamed Pelosi for security issues on 6 January and falsely claimed the committee was a coverup for “Biden’s failed administration”. Capitol security is the responsibility of the Capitol police board, not the speaker of the House.

Meanwhile, the Republican party on Friday sought to frame Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election defeat and the US Capitol attack as “legitimate political discourse”. Seven people died in the attack on the US Capitol and more than 100 police officers were injured. Trump, who was impeached by the House for inciting an insurrection, has promised pardons for 6 January rioters if he is elected again.

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Dani Anguiano, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• The Republican National Committee approved a resolution censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican members of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. The resolution refers to the violent insurrection, which resulted in several deaths and hundreds of arrests, as “legitimate political discourse”.
• The RNC’s mischaracterization of the insurrection sparked bipartisan outrage, with many accusing the party of attempting to normalize political violence. Cheney shared a video that included footage from the insurrection, showing rioters attacking police officers with chemical spray and flag poles. “This was January 6th. This is not ‘legitimate political discourse,’” Cheney said in her tweet.
• Mike Pence rejected Donald Trump’s claims that he could have overturned the results of the 2020 election. Trump and some of his allies have argued Pence could have overruled the Electoral College as the vice-president oversaw the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said at a Federal Society event today. “The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.”
• The House select committee investigating the insurrection has reportedly gathered evidence that Trump spoke to Republican congressman Jim Jordan the morning of the Capitol attack. According to CNN, call records show Trump spoke with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6. The select committee has asked Jordan to voluntarily provide information on the events of January 6, but he has so far refused to do so.
• Biden celebrated the strong January jobs report, which showed that the US economy added 467,000 jobs last month. In a speech this morning, Biden noted that 6.6m jobs have been created in the year since he took office, as the country continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. “America is back to work,” Biden said. “History’s been made here.”

Dani will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Constitutional law experts have consistently rejected claims from Donald Trump and his supporters that the vice-president can overturn the results of a presidential election while overseeing the congressional certification process.

“Any claim that the vice-president can unilaterally overturn the results of a presidential election is patently absurd,” Matthew Hall, a professor of constitutional studies and political science at the University of Notre Dame, recently told USA Today.

“If the vice-president had total discretion to overturn election results, the party that controls the White House could simply refuse to surrender power when they lose an election. Such an arrangement would completely undermine the integrity of our democratic system.”

Mike Pence’s comments come days after Donald Trump reiterated the baseless claim that the vice-president could have overturned the results of the 2020 election on January 6.

In a Sunday statement, Trump criticized efforts to reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which outlines how the results of presidential elections are meant to be certified by Congress.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to change the law to clarify, among other things, that the vice-president’s role overseeing the certification process is purely ceremonial.

“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,” Trump said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”

Pence has now rejected Trump’s claims, saying he had no authority to overturn the results of the election. And that view is supported by constitutional law experts.

Mike Pence has pushed back against Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the vice-president had the ability to overturn the results of the 2020 election as he oversaw the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6.

Speaking at an event for the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, Pence said the Constitution does not give the vice-president any authority to override the Electoral College.

“I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

“The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

Pence then pivoted to discussing the next presidential election, saying, “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”

Pence has been named as a potential presidential candidate for the 2024 race, but his direct criticism of Trump will likely irk the former president’s supporters, who make up much of the Republican base.

Liz Cheney also sharply criticized the Republican National Committee for referring to the Capitol insurrection as “legitimate political discourse”.

The Republican congresswoman, who was censured by the RNC over her work for the House select committee investigating the insurrection, shared a video of some of the violence that occurred on January 6.

The tweeted video shows insurrectionists assaulting police officers and attacking them with chemical spray and flag poles as they storm the Capitol.

“This was January 6th. This is not ‘legitimate political discourse,’” Cheney said in her tweet.

Government watchdog groups are fiercely criticizing the Republican National Committee for characterizing the Capitol insurrection as “legitimate political discourse” in its resolution censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

“January 6 was an insurrection that left dead and scores of seriously injured in its wake. It was not legitimate political discourse no matter what the GOP says,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, the president of the group Common Cause.

“It was a violent attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and ignore the will of the people. It was a dangerous and irresponsible attempt to try to intimidate Congress with an angry racist mob assembled and then set loose by a man who had just lost the presidential election.”

Flynn accused the RNC of attempting to normalize political violence, and she described the vote to censure Cheney and Kinzinger over their work investigating the insurrection as “anti-democratic”.

“There is no room for ambiguity when it comes to an attack on the peaceful transfer of power and our democratic system of government,” Flynn said.

“January 6 was an attack on the rule of law, the very concept of free and fair elections, and it was an attack on America. Elected leaders who endorse political violence have no business governing in the name of the American people.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has just signed an executive order aimed at improving the timeliness and lowering the costs of federal construction projects.

The president signed the executive order at Ironworkers Local 5 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and he praised the workers present as some of “the best in the world”.

The executive order will require the use of project labor agreements on federal construction contracts above $35 million, and the White House has said that the policy will help alleviate delays to ensure projects are completed on time.

“The executive order I’m going to sign today is going to help ensure that we build a better America, we build it right and we build it on time [and] we build it cheaper than it would have been otherwise,” Biden said.

The president said that the expanded use of project labor agreements would lead to highly-skilled workers overseeing the most important projects, resulting in fewer work stoppages and a smaller bill for the federal government.

“When big construction projects are completed efficiently and with the highest degree of professionalism, it’s good for the American taxpayer,” Biden said. “We don’t talk about how y’all save the American taxpayers’ money.”

As Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are censured over their involvement with the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, the panel is gathering some new information about Donald Trump’s communications on the morning of the attack.

CNN reports:

The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is now in possession of White House records that provide new details about a phone call Donald Trump made to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on January 6, 2021 — as the investigation drills down on the former President’s communications that day and questions have long swirled around calls between him and lawmakers.

Two sources who have reviewed the call records tell CNN that Trump spoke on the phone at the White House residence with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6. That afternoon, Jordan took to the House floor to object to the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win, and pro-Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.

The select committee has asked Jordan to voluntarily appear before investigators to provide testimony about the insurrection, but he has refused to do so.

The latest details about Jordan’s call with Trump hours before the attack unfolded may give the select committee justification to move forward with a subpoena of the Republican congressman.

Some Republican lawmakers are expressing dismay over their party’s decision to censure Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for their work with the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

“The GOP I believe in is the party of freedom and truth,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who has frequently criticized Donald Trump and his hold over the Republican party.

“It’s a sad day for my party—and the country—when you’re punished just for expressing your beliefs, standing on principle, and refusing to tell blatant lies.”

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Joe Biden celebrated the strong January jobs report, which showed that the US economy added 467,000 jobs last month. In a speech this morning, Biden noted that 6.6 million jobs have been created in the year since he took office, as the country continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. “America is back to work,” Biden said. “History’s been made here.”
• The House passed a bill to bolster the US production of semiconductor chips. The COMPETES Act passed the House in a vote of 222 to 210, which fell almost entirely along party lines. The Senate has passed a similar bill on economic competitiveness, and the two chambers must now work on a compromise measure before it can go to Biden’s desk.
• The Republican National Committee is expected to approve a resolution censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican members of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. In a draft version of the resolution, the RNC accused Cheney and Kinzinger of engaging in behavior that is “destructive to the US House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic”.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

A reporter asked Jen Psaki why the Biden administration is trying to get out in front of Russia’s alleged plans to stage an attack in Ukraine to use it as a pretext for an invasion.

The reporter noted that this White House has been more forthcoming than past administrations in terms of sharing intelligence assessments about Russia’s potential actions in eastern Europe.

“Over the past several months, we but also a number of our allies have developed a significant amount of credible intelligence about Russian efforts to use a false pretext to justify an invasion of Ukraine, and this evidence mirrors both public reporting and Russian accounts and past conflicts,” Psaki said.

The press secretary noted that Russia has used a similar strategy in recent years, such as when the Kremlin accused the US of running a biological weapons lab in the country of Georgia to destabilize the government there.

“It doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to repeat, but it is important for people to understand contextually what they’re capable of and what tactics they’ve used in the past,” Psaki said. “And sometimes you do see repetition of that.”

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing, and she was asked about tension between the administration and reporters over questions on foreign policy.

Yesterday, both Psaki and State Department spokesperson Ned Price clashed with reporters who pressed for evidence to substantiate US claims about the recent raid in northern Syria targeting an Islamic State leader and Russia’s alleged plans to stage an attack in Ukraine as a pretext for invasion.

Both Psaki and Price declined to provide additional evidence to substantiate the administration’s claims, and they appeared to bristle at suggestions that claims from the US military should be closely scrutinized.

“We welcome tough questions and good faith scrutiny. Otherwise I wouldn’t come out here,” Psaki said.

Specifically on the issue of the Syria raid, Psaki said, “We’re less than 48 hours from the end of the mission. So the Department of Defense is still conducting after-action assessments. That’s a natural part of the process that occurs.”

As he celebrated the strong January jobs report, Joe Biden also applauded the House for passing the COMPETES Act, a bill aimed at bolstering US production of semiconductor chips.

The president noted that Intel is already working on a semiconductor production facility in Ohio, which will create thousands of jobs in the state.

“Making sure every American has a job is a great start, but it’s not the finish,” Biden said. “We need even more high-paying jobs – jobs you can raise a family on and have some breathing room.”

After wrapping up his prepared remarks, Biden walked away from his podium without answering any of reporters’ shouted questions.

Joe Biden touted the 6.6 million jobs that have been added to the US economy in the year since he took office, describing it as a historic recovery.

“It comes alongside the largest drop in unemployment rate in a single year on record, the largest reduction in childhood poverty ever recorded in a single year and the strongest economic growth this country has seen in nearly 40 years,” Biden said.

But the president also acknowledged that many American families have not been able to fully enjoy the country’s economic recovery because US prices have increased sharply as businesses have reopened.

“Average people are getting clobbered by the cost of everything,” Biden said. “Gas prices at the pump are up. We’re working to bring them down, but they’re up. Food prices are up. We’re working to bring them down as well.”

The White House has pledged to enact policies aimed at tackling inflation, which has become a major concern for Americans and could be a drag on Democrats’ midterm prospects.