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Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) speaks during a conversation with Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris moderated by Charlie Sykes in Brookfield, Wisconsin, U.S., October 21, 2024.
House Republicans want Liz Cheney investigated
On Tuesday, Republicans in the US House of Representatives issued a128-page interim report on the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In it, they suggest that “that there was not just one single cause for what happened” on that day but that former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheneyshould be investigated for committing federal crimes.
Democrats and other critics of Donald Trump say the report’s authors are pandering to the incoming president by targeting his most active and forceful critic within the GOP. Trump has argued that Cheney, former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Jack Smith, the Department of Justice special counsel who indicted Trump on charges of election interference, should all be prosecuted for various crimes.
Cheney served as the senior Republican on the January 6 committee, which investigated the riot itself. She also campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election campaign. And in response to the accusations the GOP lawmakers made against her in their report, she wrote that “January 6th showed Donald Trump for who he really is – a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave.”
House Republicans say their investigation found substantial evidence that Cheney tampered with one of the witnesses who appeared before the Jan 6 committee, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. “These violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” they asserted in their report.
Collage of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump
What happens after Nov. 5?
The specter of Jan. 6 haunts the 2024 presidential election.
Most Democrats believe former President Donald Trump should be in jail for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 contest – or, at the very least, that he should be barred from running for the highest office again. Most Republicans believe Trump as he continues to push the “stolen election” lie, spreads baseless claims of widespread voter fraud (especially by noncitizens) in November, and sows doubt about the election’s legitimacy.
Both sides argue that the stakes of the upcoming election are at their highest, with the fate of American democracy hanging in the balance. Barring an unlikely landslide, a large percentage of Americans will see the result as illegitimate, with challenges and recounts likely regardless of who wins.
Should Trump win, Vice President Kamala Harris will concede. That’s not to say that all Democrats would go gentle into that good night, especially if she wins the popular vote and the Electoral College is very close. Legal challenges in contested swing states could go all the way to the conservative Supreme Court, where they would probably flounder. Some individual Democratic lawmakers might then opt to vote for a resolution to disqualify Trump from the presidency by declaring him an insurrectionist and thereby ineligible to serve under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. A few of them would also try to block certification of Trump’s Electoral College victory when Congress meets on Jan. 6, 2025, like they did in 2016 and 2004. But both efforts would be performative and futile, as congressional Democrats have neither the stomach nor the numbers to successfully overturn a legitimate election.
If Harris wins, Trump is all but certain to allege the election was stolen from him again – no matter how wide the margin. The former president not only continues to deny his defeat in 2020, but he has also repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the upcoming election results. Trump and his allies have spent years spreading conspiracy theories to prime the Republican electorate into believing that the only way he could plausibly lose is through fraud. They have laid the groundwork to dispute a potential 2024 loss and devoted substantial resources to prepare for the battles that could ensue.
Whether they could succeed where they failed last time is a different question … and the answer is no – at least not legally. Despite the considerable resources Republicans dedicated to the preemptive “stop the steal” movement, Trump has fewer options for challenging the results today than he did in 2020.There are two key reasons for this.
The first is that as a private citizen, Trump no longer has access to the levers of power that could allow him to contest the election successfully. He cannot, for example, order the US military to seize voting machines pending an investigation of election fraud, an idea he floated when he was still president in 2020. Nor can he direct the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute allegations. Attempts to intimidate election workers into “finding” extra votes for him or to pressure swing state governors into submitting alternative slates of electors are less powerful when they come from a bully with no pulpit.
The second guardrail the United States has today is the Electoral Count Reform Act passed by Congress in 2022. By clarifying the process by which states send their slates of official electors for Congress to certify, the new law effectively forestalls the “fake elector” scheme that Trump’s state-level allies attempted to implement in 2020. Moreover, the act raised the threshold for Congress to lodge an objection to a state’s electoral votes to one-fifth of the House and Senate, up from just a single member of each chamber. If that bar is met, majorities of both chambers then have to vote to disqualify a state’s electoral votes. This greatly reduces the likelihood that any objections occur at all.
The electoral system may be stronger than it was in 2020, but so is Americans’ mistrust of it. While court challenges and recounts are likely to be resolved before the Electoral College convenes on Dec. 17 to formally decide the winner, the delays and uncertainty these would create about the results would dent public confidence in the election and put pressure on congressional Republicans to vote to block certification.
Although most Republican lawmakers continue to roll their eyes at Trump behind closed doors – and even more will curse his name if he loses a winnable election – 147 of them did vote to object to certified results from Pennsylvania in 2020. Next Jan. 6, there will be even more Republicans in the House and Senate who are beholden to Trump or are unwilling to compromise their political future by condemning the former president’s antics. The changes made to the Electoral Count Act in 2022 mean a challenge is highly unlikely to move forward and prevent the winner from being certified, but even an unsuccessful attempt would undermine Americans’ already-low confidence in US democracy.
The bigger threat is political violence after the election. As more citizens believe their system is being subverted by their political enemies – with outcomes that can no longer be addressed by a free and fair vote – radicalization and support for civil disobedience will grow. This runs from the symbolic (refusal to participate in inauguration, attend political events, etc.) to the political (creation of “autonomous zones,” secessionist movements, etc.) to physical violence (rioting, militias, and targeted assassinations).
With Democrats in power, most key Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in federal prison, and Washington, DC, in full lockdown, a repeat of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is unlikely if Harris wins. But violence could still come from far-right extremists and individual agitators seeking to disrupt vote counts and state legislative sessions to certify the electoral slate in swing states.
If Trump wins, the violence would come later as left-wing protesters rally at his inauguration and against his immigration policies. Coupled with his likely pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters, a National Guard deployment or an invocation of the Insurrection Act could spur a vicious cycle of escalating clashes.
None of this means the United States is headed for civil war. The risk of any political violence posing a serious threat to US stability remains very low. But we are likely to see a period of profound unrest the likes of which the country hasn’t experienced in decades.
The most divided and dysfunctional advanced industrial democracy will become more so.
Trump’s Jan. 6 acts were personal, not presidential, prosecutor argues
In a court filing unsealed on Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith said Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in an effort to retain power despite losing the 2020 election, including pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electoral votes. Smith is trying to persuade Judge Tanya Chutkan that the former president’s actions were of a personal nature, and thus don’t fall under the sweeping protections for presidential acts the Supreme Court granted earlier this year.
The unsealed documents recount a Nov. 12, 2020, meeting between Trump and Pence where the vice president attempted to deflect pressure from Trump by offering avenues for deescalation and a peaceful transfer of power. “Don’t concede but recognize the process is over,” Pence told him, urging Trump to instead run again in 2024. According to the filing, Trump replied that he was not willing to wait.
If Smith is successful, the acts in question may remain a part of the indictment against Trump as the case moves forward. If not, the government has a harder case to make. Either way, there will be no resolution before the November election — and if Trump wins, well, all bets on Smith’s case are off.
FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 11, 2024.
The Supreme Court throws Trump a bone
The US Supreme Court agreed to rule on former President Donald Trump’s contention that he is immune from prosecution for his actions in office, a surprise decision that will delay Trump’s trial for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump’s lawyers say a president can only be held accountable for actions taken in office through impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate. Critics say that would essentially put any president above the law – as Judge Florence Pan elucidated by asking Trump’s lawyer whether under this theory a sitting president could assassinate a rival and remain immune (Trump’s lawyer said “yes,” by the way).
What happens now: The Supreme Court set a trial date of April 22, and froze all Trump’s DC court proceedings in the meantime. The months of delay may prevent a conviction in advance of the election, even if the Supreme Court rules against him. Polling shows moderate and independent voters would be less likely to back Trump if he is convicted, so delaying trial long enough could moot the question.
Francis Fukuyama: Americans should be very worried about failing democracy
The prospect of another Trump presidency can be hard to imagine. Still, before we even get there, we must confront the possibility of political violence in the months leading up to November 5.
With the US presidential election on November 5, many Americans are pondering what another four years of a Trump presidency could mean for the country and the world. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The months leading up to November 5 (and the period after the election but before the January 20 inauguration) could be the most consequential in modern history. That's according to Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who warns that the capacity for violence amongst Trump supporters is unprecedented.
"In a way, Trump is preparing for this moment when there's massive protests, and he's got a lot of supporters, many of them are armed. And I think that on January 6th, he showed that he was, you know, completely comfortable with calling on his friends to use violence to, you know, support his ends."
Watch the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer episode: Divided we fall: Democracy at risk in the US
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Law enforcement surround the Mississippi State Capitol
Hard Numbers: Bomb threats rattle state capitols, Egypt expands new desert metropolis, Myanmar junta springs prisoners, poll shows popular Jan. 6th conspiracy theory, “Bladerunner” walks out of jail
28: For several years now Egypt has been building a slick new capital city on a swathe of desert land 28 miles east of teeming, chaotic Cairo. Now officials plan to double the size of the undertaking. Supporters say the government needs a modern seat of power, and a new city to help absorb some of Egypt’s fast-growing population. Critics say it’s just a Neo-Pharaonic boondoggle that’s busting the country’s fragile finances and enriching President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s cronies.
9,652: Myanmar’s military government announced it will release 9,652 prisoners, including 114 foreigners, in an attempt to salvage foreign relations that have suffered since it seized power in a 2021 coup. Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, however, remains in prison, where she is serving a 27-year sentence for corruption that the United Nations regards as bogus.
25: Polling shows that 25 percent of Americans believe it is “definitely or probably true” that the FBI was behind the Jan 6th riot at the US Capitol. Supporters of Donald Trump are overrepresented among the group that believes this. The investigation into Jan 6th is ongoing, with 1,240 people connected to the attacks arrested so far. Trump has promised to pardon those who have been sentenced if he is re-elected later this year.
11: Throwback alert! Remember Oscar Pistorius, the South African paralympic superstar with carbon fiber legs who dazzled the world at the 2012 Games before he was convicted of killing his girlfriend by shooting her through a bathroom door? “Bladerunner”, as he was known, is getting out of jail on Friday, after serving 11 years for the killing.
Former President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Dec. 19, 2023.
Colorado's Supreme Court disqualifies Trump from state primary ballot
The Colorado Supreme Court accepted the argument that the 14th Amendment disqualifies former President Donald Trump from running in 2024 after determining that he played a role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. The game-changing decision — which will inevitably be taken to the Supreme Court — mandates that Colorado’s secretary of state exclude Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot.
The court's decision is the first to find that the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment applies to Trump, and it could set a precedent for other states to pursue similar actions. So far, 14th Amendment cases in states like Michigan and Minnesota have failed to remove Trump’s name from any state ballot.
The ruling is stalled until Jan. 4, 2024, to allow time for Trump to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Trump's campaign promptly vowed to appeal the ruling to the nation's highest court. The primary season also begins in January, and if Trump becomes the nominee, the Supreme Court will need to rule quickly to avoid the unprecedented possibility of statewide disenfranchisement if the Republican presidential candidate is absent from an entire state’s ballot.
If the Supreme Court affirms this ruling, Trump could be disqualified from running in all states, drastically altering the landscape of the 2024 election. Many in the Republican Party will view the decision as an infringement on their right to vote for their candidate of choice while reinforcing their belief that Trump is the victim of a witch hunt. While this is unlikely to hurt Trump’s position as the Republican front-runner, a fierce legal battle lies ahead.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis listens during the jury selection process at the Jury Assembly Room at Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta.
Is the case against Trump in Georgia “ready to go?”
Speculation is rife that an indictment against former President Donald Trump in an ongoing Georgia investigation could be imminent after security barriers were recently erected outside Atlanta’s Fulton County Courthouse. Yesterday, a judge in Fulton County refused Trump’s demand that the courts throw out evidence and disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney pursuing the investigation.
This development comes just days after a recent interview in which Willis said that “the work is accomplished ... we’re ready to go.”
Of all of Trump’s legal woes, the Georgia case – which is linked to allegations that the former president tried to pressure electoral officials to overturn the state’s 2020 election results – has been the most highly anticipated, largely due to the clarity of damning evidence.
The case was prompted after a leaked tape in Jan. 2021 revealed Trump calling on Georgia's top electoral official to “find” the votes – some 11,780 ballots – needed to get him over the finish line, though President Joe Biden ultimately won the state. Trump has since called it a “perfect phone call” but many legal scholars tend to disagree.
Indeed, the investigation also focuses on other high-profile GOP functionaries, including Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and 16 rank-and-file Republicans who falsified documents claiming Trump won the state. At least half of the 16 have since reached immunity deals with the DA’s teams (though precise details remain unknown) and could serve as witnesses.
Looking ahead: It’s unclear what the timing would be for a potential trial, but Trump’s schedule is certainly filling up. The former president is slated to go to trial in New York in March on charges linked to hush money payments made in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Then, in May, he faces federal charges related to his handling of classified documents. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is also looking into Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, a case that reportedly has some overlap with the one in Georgia.
Though much is still up in the air, a few things remain clear. First, authorities in Georgia are clearly worried about protests and potential violence should an indictment be handed down against Trump in a purple state that will help determine the outcome of the 2024 vote.
Second, whatever happens, this case is unlikely to have much (or any) impact on Trump’s swelling popularity as he continues to cultivate a massive lead over other GOP hopefuls. Consider that a new NYT-Siena College poll released Monday shows Teflon Don with a whopping 37-point lead over Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis.
What’s more, Trump would still reap 22% of the vote from those who believe he has committed federal crimes, which is five points more than DeSantis would receive from the entire Republican electorate.