Cannot be extradited

Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US, UK judge rules

Assange is likely to commit suicide in US prison, judge says

BY MERLIN SUGUE

A British court ruled on Monday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States because of concerns over his mental health.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange would likely commit suicide if sent to the U.S. as his clinical depression would be exacerbated by the isolation he would face in a top-security U.S. prison. Assange had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures the authorities could take, she said. The U.S. government said it would appeal the decision.

“I find that the mental condition of Mr Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” said Baraitser.

“The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man who is genuinely depressed about his future,” she added.

The case against Assange refers to WikiLeaks’s publication of leaked documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse, which would carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison, saying the leaks of classified material endangered lives.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. However the British judge rejected those claims, saying his “conduct, if proved, would therefore amount to offenses in this jurisdiction that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.”

Assange has now been returned to the high-security Belmarsh Prison in South London ahead of an application on Wednesday for his release on bail.

Put them in a meat grinder...

Covid worries overshadow first day of new Congress

There was none of the usual pomp and circumstance.

By SARAH FERRIS, HEATHER CAYGLE and OLIVIA BEAVERS

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic loomed large over every aspect of Sunday’s opening day of the 117th Congress, with fears of spreading the virus front and center and lawmakers fighting over masks on the floor of the House.

Lawmakers crowded into the Capitol in the closing days of Donald Trump’s presidency for the swearing in of hundreds of members and the election of Nancy Pelosi to speaker, all amid a Republican effort to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Pelosi now leads a Democratic caucus with a much smaller margin, while the House itself now boasts a record number of women and people of color in its ranks.

“It gives me great pride to serve as speaker of the most diverse House of Representatives in the history of our country, with a record shattering 122 women” Pelosi said as the chamber burst into applause.

But with the pandemic still surging across the nation, the ever-present threat of the coronavirus dominated the day. In the starkest example, House officials created a plexiglass enclosure in a corner of the visitor’s gallery to allow three lawmakers — two Democrats and a Republican who are in quarantine after exposure to the virus — “to fulfill their Constitutional duties,” according to the Capitol physician. The so-called “holding facility” was created with “the highest possible safeguards,” the physician said in a statement.

Those three members — Reps. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) — all had a recent negative coronavirus test but were still in quarantine after exposure to the deadly virus, according to a statement from the Capitol physician. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat who announced earlier this week she had tested positive but ended her quarantine on Saturday at midnight, was not one of the three, according to sources.

Moore told POLITICO that while she quarantined for two weeks and received permission from her doctor to attend the opening day, she had not received a negative Covid test by the time she reached the Capitol.

Some lawmakers and aides privately complained that potentially infectious individuals were permitted to be in the House chamber, though it would only be for one day. Quarantined members would be able to vote by proxy as soon as the House formally adopts its rules package on Monday. Some said they feared a Covid outbreak in the Capitol in the coming days.

Sunday’s stately rituals were designed with none of the usual pomp and circumstance. Hallways had far fewer well-dressed relatives, and celebratory luncheons were strictly prohibited. Still, there were plenty of handshakes, fist bumps and hugs exchanged — and at some points, the House floor was pure chaos, with Pelosi herself trying to remind members to socially distance.

Several House Republicans were seen on the floor without masks for minutes at a time, including firebrand freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — spurring a dispute on the floor about mask policies between the two parties’ aides. The Capitol physician himself, Dr. Brian Monahan, eventually joined the discussion on the floor.

Most lawmakers were sworn in without the company of a single guest in order to reduce coronavirus exposure, and have been told to remain in their offices except during votes.

Even Pelosi’s election — for what could be her final turn with the gavel — lacked the usual theatrics of a vote to confirm the next speaker. The vote took two and a half hours as lawmakers shuffled through the chamber in small groups to minimize their risks to the virus.

Pelosi had told her caucus on a private call last week that her "opponent is Covid," though the math did not end up being a concern, with Democrats seeing just one absence on their side — Rep. Alcee Hastings, who is battling pancreatic cancer. Republicans had two absences — Reps.-elect David Valadao and Maria Elvira Salazar, who both recently tested positive for coronavirus. Another seat will remain open: New York's 22nd district, where the race has not yet been called between Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi and GOP contender Claudia Tenney.

The vote, once again, sealed Pelosi in the record books, as the first woman to hold the position and the first person in six decades to regain the speaker’s gavel — now twice — after losing it.

Control of the Senate, meanwhile, remains uncertain, with two Georgia runoff races set for Tuesday that will determine whether Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer will be majority leader.

Sunday’s proceedings kicked off a packed week in Congress that will include a chaotic but doomed effort by Republicans to dethrone Biden as president-elect, just one day after the two Senate races in Georgia.

Multiple GOP members, led by Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks in the House and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the Senate, have vowed to challenge those results in Trump’s last gasp at overturning Biden’s victory. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was the first senator to join the House GOP's effort to contest the election. Trump and his supporters have claimed — without evidence — that Biden only won because of “voter fraud,” but the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have largely failed.

That gambit will take place Wednesday, Jan. 6, when the House and Senate meet for a joint session to formally count the votes of the Electoral College. Vice President Mike Pence will be put in the awkward position of leading the joint session. That process is expected to drag on late into the night Wednesday or possibly the wee hours of Thursday, especially after almost a dozen GOP senators signed on to the effort on Saturday.

Even as Republicans attempted to undermine the presidential election, some made an attempt to extend an olive branch to Democrats after an incredibly polarizing term in the last Congress.

"I'll be honest, I do not like what I see. It's time we hold hands and talk to one another," Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the longest-serving member of the House, said as he prepared to formally swear in Pelosi.

Instead of sparring over politics, Young suggested, "Let's sit down and have a drink," prompting applause and laughter in the chamber.

"I don't drink but I'm happy to have ice cream with anybody anytime," Pelosi said in response, as members again laughed and clapped.

But then minutes later, GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas forced the full House to wade into the GOP's civil war over the presidential election results. Roy, who is opposed to the Brooks effort, formally objected to the seating of House members from the six states that Trump has contested, saying that their election wasn't legitimate if they're also contesting Biden's win there.

Each of the opening week processes — from the first quorum call to the Electoral College vote — posed a logistical nightmare for Capitol officials charged with keeping members safe during the still-raging coronavirus outbreak.

Unlike for much of 2020, when many House lawmakers were able to vote by proxy and limit their travel to D.C., the start of the 117th Congress requires every member to vote in-person until the new rules package is adopted.

That means hundreds of members traveled to Washington after spending time with family over the holidays — likely without quarantining first in D.C.

The freshman class was sworn in as a group on the floor, preserving at least some part of the House’s bi-annual tradition, posing for group pictures and at least some outfit coordination.

But in a stark change from previous sessions, each newly elected member will be allowed only one guest in the House gallery on Sunday. (Returning members are not permitted guests.)

Congressional leaders have stepped up the coronavirus response in the Capitol in recent weeks, including an in-house testing site that delivers results within 24 hours. Still, many lawmakers and aides worry deeply about coronavirus spreading across the sprawling Capitol complex.

More than 50 members and members-elect have tested positive in recent months, including several who have been hospitalized. Last Tuesday, lawmakers mourned the death of their soon-to-be colleague, GOP Rep.-elect Luke Letlow of Louisiana, who died of Covid-19 at age 41 and was just days away from his swearing in. Pelosi and several other House leaders recognized Letlow in their speeches on Sunday.

In all, the 117th Congress includes roughly 60 incoming House members, including the 14 Republicans who flipped seats and helped chip away at the Democrats’ now-fragile majority.

The GOP’s freshmen class includes a record number of women — a much-needed boost after the conference had just 13 female members last term — as well as a mix of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Several freshmen are actually returning members: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas), as well as Valadao.

One GOP freshman, Rep.-elect Mariannette Miller-Meeks, will be seated “provisionally” after she was certified the winner of a race by a margin of only six votes. Her Democratic challenger, Rita Hart, has filed a challenge with the House seeking closer scrutiny of the race, specifically, the roughly two dozen ballots that she claims were improperly excluded from the count.

One of the key differences in the new Congress, lawmakers said, was that Trump would be gone.

"I'm excited we can move ahead, and we won't have the distractions," Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.) said of the next two years without chaotic legislating by tweet. "My constituents are exhausted, and my colleagues are exhausted."

Clashing fiercely with each other

The war within the GOP

Republicans are clashing fiercely with each other over the challenge to Biden’s Electoral College win.

By BURGESS EVERETT and MARIANNE LEVINE

Senate Republicans are in open war against each other as Donald Trump’s presidency comes to a close, with his baseless claims of widespread election fraud animating what will be the defining schism of the Trump era.

As the new Congress was sworn in Sunday, the Republican Party splintered badly as at least 12 senators planned to join about 140 House members to contest Joe Biden’s election win. The tensions are so high that individual GOP senators are now directly battling, with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) accusing some Republicans of undermining the right to participate in direct elections and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) decrying Toomey’s arguments and “shameless personal attacks.”

That exchange encapsulated the larger internal battle over just how close Republicans will align themselves with a president who is doing little to hide his efforts to overturn the election and who intends to remain a force after he leaves the White House. And it’s all happening just days before two runoffs in Georgia conclude on Jan. 5, races that will determine who holds the Senate majority.

“I’m concerned about the division in America, that’s the biggest issue, but obviously this is not healthy for the Republican Party,” lamented Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “This is bad for the country and bad for the party.”

The clash over the basic pillars of American democracy will play out on the floor Wednesday when the Senate will hold two-hour debates on any state’s electoral votes that receive objections. Biden’s victory is not in doubt of being overturned, but lawmakers in both parties warn the push will be damaging.

The majority of the GOP conference is expected to oppose the effort, senators said, and Democrats said they believed the debate on Jan. 6 would include Republicans rebutting their own colleagues.

“You'll have a number of Republicans speaking on the same side as us,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Sen. Josh Hawley is among those who in recent days have positioned themselves firmly in the Republican party’s pro-Trump wing, even as the president mulls whether to run again in 2024 | AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool

The episode echoes the failed 2013 drive by some Republicans to defund Obamacare, though with more urgent implications for future elections and trust in democracy. At the time, a small group of conservatives urged the party to do all it could to stop funding the health care law. The effort soon snowballed and led to a government shutdown and Republican backbiting — and helped bring Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to prominence. Similarly, support is fast rising among Trump loyalists this time around for objecting to Biden’s win.

Still, the objectors will be unable to prevent Biden’s win given that just a bare majority in the Senate is required to defeat challenges to the election. But Cruz and Hawley are unbowed and have both sought to fundraise off the push in recent days as they position themselves firmly in the party’s pro-Trump wing, even as the president mulls whether to run again in 2024.

“I intend to vote on January 6 to REJECT THE ELECTORS FROM DISPUTED STATES unless an emergency 10-day audit is completed. Our election integrity must not be compromised!” Cruz said this weekend.

Though senators like Toomey, Sasse, Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine had all criticized their colleagues’ election challenges, many in the GOP were wary of stoking the intra-party rift any more publicly than has already occurred. Some insisted the party would reunify after the feud.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is up for reelection in 2022, panned Hawley and Cruz’s plans as having no path to success: “Neither of the two proposals that have been advanced will produce a result. I don’t believe it has much long-term impact in our conference.”

“This is an ill-fated journey,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va) of the electoral objections. Meanwhile, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said that he was “very dubious” of the effort.

But privately Republicans said many in the GOP are trying to paper over the conflict ahead of the Jan. 5 Georgia runoffs, when Republicans need huge voter turnout margins to counter what appears to be strong Democratic early voting. Within the party, the bitterness is very real.

“It’s infighting we don’t need before a very significant runoff election. All of this should have waited until after the runoff, polls close,” said one Republican senator who is keeping their objections private for now. “There’s a lot of pressure to support the president in some manner or fashion. But … all of us are sworn to uphold the Constitution, not the presidency.”

The president took his pressure campaign to new heights Saturday when he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urged him to "find" the votes to overturn the state's election results.

As senators were sworn into their new six-year terms, some defended their decision to challenge Biden’s win. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) insisted that the effort was about “getting the facts” and not about loyalty to Trump; Lankford is up for reelection in 2022.

“None of us want to vote against the electors but we all want to get the facts out there,” Lankford said. “If we can get to some kind of commission which we understand is highly unlikely then we don’t have to vote against electors.”

“The people of Kansas feel disenfranchised, they want us to follow-up on the irregularities they saw in this election, and this is an avenue to do that,” added Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). “I feel like our Constitution has been violated.”

Sasse and Romney have accused the objecting senators of making a short-term political calculation to align themselves with Trump’s voters. Collins said simply: “It’s important that we all start acknowledging reality.”

The long-shot effort has also created some notable divides in the House GOP, though Republicans there are more receptive to Trump’s push to remain in power. House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney circulated a memo to her colleagues arguing that challenging the election results would be unconstitutional and could set an “exceptionally dangerous precedent.”

And former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said, “It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act.” But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a top Trump ally, has not made any attempt to swat down the floor gambit, according to multiple Republican lawmakers and aides.

Meanwhile, a group of seven House Republicans — including conservative Freedom Caucus members such as Ken Buck (Colo.) and Chip Roy (Texas) as well as Rep.-elect Nancy Mace (S.C.) and libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — put out a lengthy statement Sunday afternoon opposing the objection effort, concluding: “We must respect the states’ authority here." Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton made a statement along similar lines. "The Founders entrusted our elections chiefly to the states — not Congress," he said. "They entrusted the election of our president to the people, acting through the Electoral College — not Congress."

Opponents of the effort to block Biden’s certification said they believed only a handful of additional Senate Republicans were likely to join the 12 who are now on the record. But they also acknowledged there’s still a couple days for pressure from pro-Trump voters to build.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said considering Trump’s popularity in his state, “the easiest vote for me politically would be to object to everything and vote for every objection.”

“It would be easy to do. But this is a big decision,” said Cramer, who is undecided. “The people back home largely feel like this election was robbed. And there’s nothing we’re going to do that's going to change the outcome of that.”

Heard urging the officials to reverse his loss. WHICH IS ILLEGAL!!!!

Trump’s pressure on Georgia election officials raises legal questions

In audio from a Saturday phone call, the president is heard urging the officials to reverse his loss.

By ALLIE BICE, KYLE CHENEY, ANITA KUMAR and ZACH MONTELLARO

President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Georgia officials to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory could run afoul of federal and state criminal statutes, according to legal experts and lawmakers, who expressed alarm at Trump’s effort to subvert democracy with less than three weeks left in his term.

“We have won the election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on an hourlong Saturday phone call, according to a recording of the conversation, which also included Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and legal advisers to the president. “And the people of Georgia are angry. The people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

POLITICO has confirmed the recording, which was first obtained by The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The leaked audio comes as Congress is set to certify the Electoral College votes on Wednesday. At least 12 incoming and current Republican senators, along with well over 100 Republican representatives, have said they are going to challenge the results based on unsupported allegations of voter fraud.

In the audio, the president asked that officials find that ballots were shredded in Fulton County and that Dominion election machinery was removed or tampered with, in an effort to skew results. Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, responded unequivocally in the phone call that machinery was not moved or altered.

The president also accused the officials of knowing about election interference but not reporting it. “That’s a criminal offense,” Trump said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”

Legal experts say the combination of Trump’s request to “find” a specific number of votes — just enough to put him ahead of Biden — and his veiled reference to criminal liability for Raffensperger and his aides could violate federal and state statutes aimed at guarding against the solicitation of election fraud. The potential violations of state law are particularly notable, given that they would fall outside the reach of a potential pardon by Trump or his successor. On Capitol Hill, some Republicans expressed alarm about the call, while Democrats indicated that they viewed it as a potential criminal offense.

“In threatening these officials with vague ‘criminal’ consequences, and in encouraging them to ‘find’ additional votes and hire investigators who ‘want to find answers,’ the President may have also subjected himself to additional criminal liability,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, chair of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the seven House Democrats who prosecuted Trump’s impeachment last year for abuse of power.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has become one of Trump’s loudest GOP critics in Congress, called Trump’s call “absolutely appalling” and said it should serve as a warning to the dozens of Republicans preparing to support his efforts to overturn the election results this week.

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) said: “It is the antithesis of what our democratic process is, and sounds like it could be illegal.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led Trump’s impeachment trial for Democrats, described the phone call as “among the most despicable abuses of power of his long list, possibly criminal, morally repugnant, virulently undemocratic and dangerous to our democracy.”

According to the audio, Trump asked Raffensperger and his counsel Ryan Germany to find 11,780 votes, “which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”

“We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this,” he added. “And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don’t want to find answers.”

In the audio, an often rambling Trump contradicted his own attorneys at several points — and continued to push conspiracy theories that the election was somehow stolen from him. “There’s no way I lost Georgia, there’s no way,” the president said at one point during the call.

Trump was joined on the call by Meadows — who at one point suggested “in the spirit of cooperation and compromise," that the parties find a “path forward that’s less litigious,” which was rejected by Raffensperger — and a couple of attorneys, including Cleta Mitchell, a partner at the large firm Foley & Lardner whose involvement in the Trump legal efforts to undermine the election had gone unreported until the disclosure of the call.

He also said Republicans could lose the pair of Senate runoffs in the state that will be held on Tuesday, saying voters may not vote because of it.

Trump is scheduled to visit the state on Monday for a rally in support of Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are facing off against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Trump said during the call that he intended to air his grievances during the rally, and said Raffensperger could cost Republicans the seats.

“You have a big election coming up,” Trump said. “Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president.”

Trump also continued his attack on Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, calling himself a “schmuck” for previously supporting Kemp.

Even absent Saturday’s call, Trump is facing increasingly acute legal exposure upon leaving office. His company is the subject of two broadening investigations — one by the Manhattan district attorney and one by the state of New York — for potential financial crimes. Although Trump has openly considered the notion of a self-pardon, such a move would not extend to state or local liability.

“I’ve charged extortion in mob cases with similar language,” said Daniel Goldman, a former prosecutor who helped lead the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry in 2019.

Georgia state law includes two provisions that criminalize “solicitation of election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud.” Trump’s detractors also pointed to a federal statute that criminalizes “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”

Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said: “The Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud. ‘Soliciting or requesting’ is the key language. The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there. Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.”

“There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United states requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis continued.

Kreis added that the phone call could not be divorced from recent episodes in which Trump amplified a false conspiracy theory about Raffensperger’s family and his vows to end the political careers of people like the secretary of state and Kemp for upholding Biden’s victory in the election. He also said Trump’s request for a specific number of votes — just enough to prevail by one — undercut the notion that he was simply asking for the truth.

“If I’m the president of the United States and my pardon power is not — does not extend to state acts, I don’t think that in the last few days of my term that I would want to be engaging in activities that even remotely subject me to the possibility of state criminal prosecution,” Kreis said. “That’s what makes this even more bewildering to me, is because if he had sensible advisers they would just keep him off the phone.”

Ned Foley, director of election law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, said: “The character of what I heard on the call does raise the question whether under federal law or state law it’s functionally equivalent of asking someone to falsify election returns, which is presumably criminal in every state in the country. He’s trying to pull every string or every lever or do everything, including things that may be criminal, to the point of subverting the result.”

The White House and the Georgia secretary of state’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The Biden camp rebuked Trump over the call.

“We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place,” said Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser. “It captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”

After the phone call with Georgia officials, Trump phoned in to a Zoom call with legislators from the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin late Saturday to talk about allegations of voter fraud in the presidential election.

Also on the call were Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, Justice Department official John Lott Jr. and Chapman University law professor John Eastman, according to a person familiar with the call.

They discussed efforts by both state legislators and members of Congress to try to overturn the certified results for Biden, the person said.

The call was organized by the group Got Freedom?, which says it’s fighting election fraud and is planning to conduct a similar briefing for members of Congress.

Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Navarro, who wrote a report on the election, mentioned the call with legislators on a Fox News appearance on Saturday night.

“We gave them the receipts,” he said. “We explained exactly how the Democrat Party as a matter of strategy stole this election from Donald J. Trump.”

Investigation over criminal election call which can lead to imprisonment..

Raffensperger: Trump could face investigation over election call

Legal experts and lawmakers have expressed alarm at the president’s conversation with Georgia’s secretary of state.

By QUINT FORGEY

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that it was unlikely his office would open an investigation into his weekend phone call with President Donald Trump, but suggested a criminal probe could still be launched by an Atlanta-area district attorney.

Because Trump personally spoke with Raffensperger on Saturday and recently had a conversation with the chief investigator in the secretary of state’s office, Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview Monday morning that “there may be a conflict of interest" that would inhibit any potential investigation.

But Raffensperger went on to say: “I understand that the Fulton County District Attorney wants to look at it. Maybe that’s the appropriate venue for it to go.”

A spokesperson for the office of Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis did not immediately return an email seeking comment on Raffensperger’s remarks.

Legal experts and lawmakers have expressed alarm at Trump’s Saturday phone call with Raffensperger, during which the president pressured the secretary to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

In particular, Trump asked that officials determine that ballots were shredded in Fulton County and that Dominion election machinery was removed or tampered with. He also suggested Raffensperger could be guilty of a “criminal offense” by knowing about alleged election interference and not reporting it.

In fact, it is the president who may have opened himself up to legal liability in the phone call, potentially violating federal and state statutes intended to guard against the solicitation of election fraud.

The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first obtained audio of the call on Sunday, and it was subsequently confirmed by POLITICO. On Monday, Raffensperger declined to say whether he personally found Trump’s requests in their conversation to be lawful.

“I’m not a lawyer. All I know is that we’re going to follow the law, follow the process,” he said. “Truth matters. And we’ve been fighting these rumors for the last two months.”

Raffensperger also did not explicitly confirm reporting by The New York Times that it was staffers within his office who recorded audio of the call, and that he had instructed advisers not to release its contents unless Trump attacked state officials or misrepresented the call’s contents.

The audio was eventually leaked after the president criticized the secretary in a tweet on Sunday morning.

And despite the Times’ reporting that the White House switchboard had made 18 other calls to the secretary’s office over the past two months, Raffensperger maintained that he had never spoken to Trump prior to Saturday.

“No, I never believed it was appropriate to speak to the president. But he pushed out — I guess he had his staff push us. They wanted to call,” Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger described his office as “in a litigation mode with the president’s team against the state of Georgia. And whenever you say anything, then you do have to have your advisers there. They have to have their advisers there, with lawyers.”

Although “I just preferred not to talk to someone when we’re in litigation,” Raffensperger continued, “we took the call, and we had a conversation.”

The president “did most of the talking. We did most of the listening,” he said. “But I did want to make my points, that the data that he has is just plain wrong. He had hundreds and hundreds of people he said that were dead that voted. We found two. That’s an example of just — he has bad data.”

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, another Republican official the president has attacked for refusing to parrot his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, also fiercely condemned Trump’s call with Raffensperger — complaining that the new controversy would distract from the state’s crucial pair of Senate runoffs on the day before the election.

“I was disappointed. You know, I was disappointed at the tone, at the intent, at the questioning. I’ve continued to encourage everybody, including the president, to stay focused on tomorrow,” Duncan told CNN on Monday.

“That phone call did absolutely nothing to help, you know, drive turnout for Republicans here in Georgia for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue,” Duncan added. Both senators are locked in tight races that will determine which party controls the chamber in the opening years of Biden’s presidency.

Asked whether the phone call should be referred for investigation by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, Duncan said that while he was not a lawyer, he was “100 percent certified to tell you that it was inappropriate. And it certainly did not help the situation.”

Even Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a staunch Trump ally who plans to join a group of at least 12 Republican senators in challenging Biden’s Electoral College win, offered a negative assessment of the president’s call on Monday.

“One of the things, I think, that everyone has said is that this call was not a helpful call,” she told Fox News.

But Perdue, one of the two Republican senators on the ballot in Georgia on Tuesday, stuck by the president and promoted his criticism of Raffensperger.

“To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, tape without disclosing a conversation — [a] private conversation — with the president of the United States, and then leaking it to the press is disgusting,” he told Fox News on Monday.

On Capitol Hill, two House Democrats wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday morning, urging him to authorize a criminal investigation of Trump’s call with Raffensperger for potential violations of federal election fraud statutes.

“As Members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) wrote. “We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the President.”

The lawmakers also suggested that Trump violated Georgia laws against soliciting election fraud, and they said that if Wray agreed, he should formally refer the matter to the Georgia attorney general or a local district attorney.

“The evidence of election fraud by Mr. Trump is now in broad daylight. The prima facie elements of the above crimes have been met,” they wrote. “Given the more than ample factual predicate, we are making a criminal referral to you to open an investigation into Mr. Trump.”

Georgia slugfest

The other Georgia slugfest: a Brian Kemp-Stacey Abrams rematch

Neither Kemp nor Abrams is on the ballot on Tuesday, but both have a lot at stake in the Senate runoffs.

By ANDREW DESIDERIO

Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams aren’t on the ballot for Tuesday’s crucial Senate runoffs, but their political futures are at stake, along with the Senate majority and the direction of the country for the next two years.

It’s the worst-kept secret in Georgia that Abrams is gearing up for a rematch against Kemp in 2022, after narrowly losing to him in 2018 and spending years building a coalition that helped Joe Biden win Georgia and, ultimately, the presidency. Meanwhile, Kemp’s survival is on the line, and the GOP here is splintering ahead of must-win runoffs for Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

The Senate runoffs are shaping up as the first salvo in a Kemp-Abrams rematch — a test of whether Abrams’ yearslong mobilization efforts can solidify Georgia’s status as a purple or even blue state, or if Biden's victory over President Donald Trump was an aberration in a state that still leans toward the GOP.

“Think about how far we’ve come in the South: the most competitive battleground state in the country. Two runoff elections that will determine control of the United States Senate. Think about how far we’ve come,” said Jon Ossoff, who alongside Raphael Warnock is trying to propel Democrats to yet another statewide victory and, in turn, clinch the party’s control of the Senate.

Trump’s sustained attacks on Kemp over his refusal to overturn Biden’s victory in the state are making the Georgia governor even more vulnerable, and Trump has threatened to back a primary challenger against Kemp next year. All of that is hurting the GOP’s standing in the historically red state at a time when Democrats are continuing to make significant inroads here.

“I absolutely believe we've got a shot at every statewide office in 2022,” said Kelly Girtz, the Democratic mayor of Athens, the north Georgia college town. “That would have been true already given the strength of the candidates we're going to have on the ballot. But it doesn’t hurt that Trump is continuing to kick sand in everybody's face.”

Abrams, the former state House minority leader whom national Democrats unsuccessfully recruited to run for Senate this year, is staying far away from the Republicans’ imbroglio. But the powerhouse group she created after losing to Kemp in 2018, Fair Fight, raised more than $22 million in the final month before the election, registered thousands of new voters and significantly improved Democrats’ ground game here.

And although she did not attend Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ rally for Ossoff and Warnock in neighboring Garden City on Sunday night, Democrats celebrated her efforts to register and turn out more Georgians, particularly African Americans.

On the eve of the runoffs that will determine which party controls the Senate, Georgia Republicans are also thinking about turnout to counter Democrats' strong early-vote numbers. They view Trump as their best asset to gin up the GOP base, but they’re increasingly worrying about the turmoil he has unleashed.

“Most Republicans are not going to say it publicly, but while the president has been clear in supporting David and Kelly, at the same time he’s been hurting the Georgia Republican Party,” said former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a Kemp ally who lost to Perdue in the 2014 Senate primary. “And we need every vote we can get. We need unity. And that’s a challenge right now.”

It won’t just be a gubernatorial race shaping Georgia’s political future next year: The state will have yet another Senate race, when either Loeffler or Warnock will face reelection to a full term. Republicans say their goal is to blunt the Abrams-led efforts to build on Biden’s 2020 victory — or just play catch-up.

“I’m excited about the fact that Georgia is a competitive state, that this is a nail-biter,” Abrams said Sunday on NBC’s "Meet the Press." “And my hope is that Democrats will show up and demonstrate that November is the beginning of a pattern.”

Trump’s persistent attacks on Kemp are dividing the GOP at a time when the party needs total unity. Rich McCormick, a Republican who narrowly lost a suburban Atlanta House race in November, was even more direct, arguing that Trump’s attacks on Kemp make the governor more vulnerable in 2022.

“There’s a phrase in the military: You praise in public and admonish in private,” McCormick said after rallying with Loeffler and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in suburban Atlanta on Saturday. “I really think that we can divide our party to the point that we don’t win the next election, when we could otherwise win it.”

Republicans are counting on Trump to help put Loeffler and Perdue over the top and thus retain the party’s control of the Senate. They view Trump’s visit to northwest Georgia on Monday night as critical to getting the president’s supporters to the polls. Kemp is unlikely to attend the rally, according to two people familiar with the planning.

“It’s certainly not helpful to Gov. Kemp, and the president knows that. But that’s the president,” McCormick said of Trump’s attacks. “He fights. When he sees anything he doesn’t like, he immediately speaks out. He doesn’t want to think about the ultimate consequences of how that’s going to affect everybody else, because he’s a fighter. That’s what he does.”

Still, Kemp has been active behind the scenes in helping Loeffler and Perdue win reelection, and a Kemp-aligned super PAC, Georgia United Victory, has poured millions into the race.

Trump's pressure campaign to overturn the election results has squeezed Kemp between his duties as governor and the president's desire to remain in office despite his defeat. Trump phoned Kemp to urge him to call a special session of the state legislature to block certification of Biden’s win. Trump has since said he is “ashamed” for endorsing Kemp in 2018. And on Sunday, it was revealed that Trump pressured Georgia’s top election official to “find” votes for him.

At his most recent Georgia rally, Trump floated former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) as a primary challenger against Kemp in 2022. And on Saturday, Trump promoted a poll showing significant support for Collins in a possible GOP primary, writing: “Wow, I guess it’s not good to go against a President who everyone in Georgia knows got you into office!”

Indeed, Trump’s allies here credit the president’s last-minute push for Kemp in 2018 as the key to the governor’s victory over Abrams, and Trump’s backing in the primary boosted Kemp over his GOP opponent, then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. They say Kemp has failed to return the favor, and they are prepared to support a Trump-backed primary challenger next year.

“I love President Trump. I love America. Brian Kemp does not appear to do the same,” said Ellen Diehl, a business owner who says she was a “massive” Kemp supporter and has a Trump imprint that surrounds her entire car. “If I was Stacey Abrams, I would run again. Hell, yeah. If we don’t have a good Republican candidate, we’re screwed.”

Collins, whose congressional tenure ended on Sunday, did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Seth Bringman, a spokesperson for Abrams, said Georgia Republicans are “focused on fighting each other” while Democrats have “been united from day one.” And Abrams told reporters on the campaign trail last week that her attention remains on the Senate runoffs, adding: “I will let the Republicans deal with their internecine challenges on their own.”

GOP officials in the state are sounding the alarm about the infighting, warning it could hurt the party on Tuesday and beyond as Abrams and her coalition stay laser-focused on their own mission.

“I think what we as Republicans need to do is to look at what Stacey has done and say, 'We’re going to knock on doors, sign people up to vote. We’re going to energize our base,'” said Greg Dolezal, a state senator who rallied with Loeffler and Cruz.

Kemp has dismissed Trump’s attacks as distractions, saying at a press conference last week that he’s not focused on “what somebody’s tweeting” about him. Kemp said he has “worked as hard as anybody in the state on [Trump’s] reelection” but “at the end of the day I also have to follow the laws and Constitution.”

Perhaps more urgently, though, Trump’s attacks on Kemp have put Loeffler and Perdue in a bind as they nominally maintain their support for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election result but also remain focused on boosting turnout for their own races.

That’s especially the case for Loeffler, who Kemp appointed to the Senate a year ago when then-Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) resigned. Trump had reportedly pushed Kemp to pick Collins, who defended the president during the House’s impeachment process, instead.

While Kemp’s rejection of Trump’s post-election demands is in keeping with state law, it’s also a nod to the state’s newly cemented status as a swing state.

“He’s kind of caught in the middle. I think he followed the law. I think he did what he had to do. And Trump is just trying to really drum up his base,” said Jared, a 40-year-old history teacher who attended the rally with Loeffler and Cruz and declined to give his last name. “Georgia is not as safe as it once was. Kemp’s in a tough spot.”

MAGGOT's Last Stand!

MAGA marchers plot final D.C. stand on Jan. 6

After failed lawsuits and investigations, Trump supporters are traveling to D.C. in a doomed bid to convince Congress to overturn the election.

By TINA NGUYEN

Since Election Day, President Donald Trump’s followers have marched on state capitol buildings and the Supreme Court, protesting the election results. They have demonstrated in front of vote counting centers, filed lawsuits and floated illogical conspiracy theories.

Now, those efforts will come to a head on Wednesday, when the most zealous members of MAGA nation — activists, fans and militia groups — plan to rally one more time in Washington in a dying attempt to keep President Donald Trump in the White House.

Timed to the day when Congress will formally certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win, the MAGA crowd is trying to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to refuse to seat Biden over fabricated voter-fraud claims. It’s a doomed plan, given the makeup of Congress, the absent evidence behind the rigged election allegations and the fact that every important state has already certified Biden’s win. Yet that hasn’t stopped a swell of Trump supporters from making plans — and the president from teasing his own appearance.

According to disinformation and extremist researchers, the Jan. 6 gathering will look similar to November’s Million MAGA March — a mashup of garden-variety Trump supporters and more extreme members of the far right, with no apparent central organizing apparatus. Stop the Steal, a group affiliated with pro-Trump super PACs and allies of Trump adviser Roger Stone, has filed for permits and plans to protest outside the Capitol, but other groups have also claimed to be the true official planners.

There’s one key difference with this march, however. After weeks of failed lawsuits, flailing investigations and Republicans unhitching themselves from Trump’s quest to keep the presidency, the Wednesday rally might be the last one while there’s still a plan — even if it’s an ill-fated one — to subvert the election.

“That sense of panic and urgency will be a motivator for believers to attend rallies that day,” said Jared Holt, who tracks far-right extremism and disinformation at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Center. “For these groups and their supporters, President-Elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration feels like more of an immediate threat to their agenda items.”

Trump and a coterie of Republican lawmakers have insisted that they can, in fact, mount an opposition to election certification on Wednesday. If a member of the House joins with a senator to object, it prompts a floor debate followed by a vote in each chamber of Congress.

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama was the first to announce that he and several other Republican House members would contest the election results — and as many as 140 House Republicans have now indicated they may vote against Biden’s win. In the Senate, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was the first senator to say he would object, followed over the weekend by 11 of his GOP colleagues.

Yet their objections will only delay the final rubber stamp — likely by several hours — since Democrats control the House and several Senate Republicans have already acknowledged Biden’s victory. Both chambers need a simple majority to recognize the results.

“It will be more of a sideshow than anything else, if that happens,” said Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California, Irvine.

Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the joint session of Congress, meaning he will certify Biden’s win. The role has placed him in the MAGA crosshairs.

The pro-Trump grassroots internet launched a campaign begging the vice president to go against centuries of precedent and refuse to certify the results, arguing he could just count the electoral votes in a manner that makes Trump the winner. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) even spearheaded a lawsuit making this argument, saying it was unconstitutional to not give Pence total authority to choose which electoral votes count. The suit was quickly dismissed.

Still, high-profile MAGA influencers have been telling Pence he could become a legendary figure if he goes along with the far-fetched plan.

“VP Mike Pence can place himself in the history books alongside Thomas Jefferson,” wrote Joe Hoft on Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump outlet, this week, “or he can sign off on the destruction of the United States as we know it.”

And MAGA diehards are booking their tickets to Washington to encourage Pence in person.

WildProtest, a subgroup of Stop the Steal, is asking attendees to gather by the north entrance of the Capitol Building, where Pence is expected to arrive on Jan. 6.

And MAGA world’s A-list names are also slated to speak, including Stone, QAnon-boosters and freshly elected Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert and Joe Flynn, brother of Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“Our presence in Washington D.C. will let Members of Congress know that we stand with Rep. Mo Brooks and his colleagues in the House of Representatives who will bravely object to the certification of the Electoral College,” the WildProtest website proclaims.

Militia groups like the Three Percenters, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have also vowed to attend, while some Trump groups are putting together caravans and planning stops in various cities across the country on their way to D.C. Trump himself has promoted the march on his Twitter feed, promising it will be “wild.”

“We will exhaust every constitutional remedy outlined by the founders,” Ali Alexander, a Stop the Steal organizer, said in a statement. “We’re peaceful but pissed off at our Republican leaders in the House and Senate.”

As is typical for large MAGA gatherings, there is some dissension over who is organizing the event.

One group unaffiliated with Stop the Steal, @MillionMAGAMarch, posted to 42,000-plus followers on Twitter that it is “the REAL Official Million Maga March Twitter Account,” and tweeted information about various caravans traveling across the country — Michigan, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Alabama.

Some corners of MAGA world even profess to be planning for a Trump victory on Wednesday, arguing the president will pull out a secret stratagem at the last minute. Over on TheDonald.win, a thread of supporters discussed the possibility that Jan. 6 will actually be Trump’s inauguration, and that Trump “wants DC flooded for a celebration rather than a war.”

Holt, the extremist researcher, suggested the entire Jan. 6 endeavor was a MAGA world attempt to flex the influence it has gained over the past four years — even if it won’t work.

“They have failed to achieve their desired results so far, and this moment appears to be their last shot at something real,” he noted.

Alexander, the Stop the Steal organizer, vowed there would be consequences for Republicans who do not fall in line that day. In the coming months, he said, Stop the Steal will start working on “primarying Republicans who betrayed Trump and the confidence of GOP voters.”

They can't even give out what they got now... Warp Speed is actually 10 miles an day...

Feds may cut Moderna vaccine doses in half so more people get shots, Warp Speed adviser says

Federal officials have said the U.S. will need to vaccinate roughly 80 percent of the population to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.

By BRIANNA EHLEY

The federal government is in talks with Moderna about giving half the recommended dose of the company's Covid-19 shot to speed up immunization efforts, the head of the Trump administration's vaccine rollout said on Sunday.

Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui said there is evidence that two half doses in people between the ages of 18 and 55 gives “identical immune response” to the recommended one hundred micorogram dose, but said the final decision will rest with the FDA.

“It will be based on facts and data to immunize more people,” Slaoui said on CBS' "Face the Nation," adding, ”of course we continue to produce more vaccine doses.”

His remarks came amid intensifying concern that the Covid vaccine distribution has been slower than expected, with the Trump administration missing its initial goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. So far, just over 4 million Americans have received their first of two Covid shots, and another 13 million doses have been delivered to states, according to the CDC.

Federal officials have said the U.S. will need to vaccinate roughly 80 percent of the population to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus and are looking for ways to quickly ramp up immunization efforts as cases continue to soar. The U.S. has reported more than 20.4 million cases and 350,000 deaths so far.

Earlier Sunday, top federal infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci cautioned that the government shouldn't deviate from the doses and schedules used in clinical trials on the vaccines, adding that distribution efforts need to be more efficient.

"We know what the science tells us," Fauci said on NBC's "Meet the Press," without directly addressing Slaoui's suggestion. "So my feeling ... is let's do it the way the clinical trials have instructed us to do it. But let's get more efficient into getting it into people's arms."

Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams said they are working with governors to ramp up vaccinations.

“We have to understand that this virus also occurred in the midst of a surge. And a lot of the local capacity to be able to vaccinate was being used for testing and responding to surges," Adams said on CNN’s "State of the Union." “But the good news is that we're seeing it quickly ramp up, thanks to our state partners. “

The U.S., like most countries, has held back half of its supplies of Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, to ensure that everyone who received their first dose receives the second dose. Meanwhile, the U.K., last week shifted its guidance to get as many people as possible their first dose, while potentially delaying the second dose, sparking concern among scientists who say there is no evidence to suggest the vaccine is effective without completing the full regimen.

Slaoui balked at the idea of taking a similar approach in the U.S., saying it would not be responsible to give initial doses without ensuring people get their second dose without data to back it up.

Military must stay out

Ex-Defense secretaries say military must stay out of election battles

The 10 who signed on to an opinion column include two who served under President Donald Trump.

By BRYAN BENDER and DAVID COHEN

The U.S. military must not become entangled in any election disputes in the coming days, all 10 living former Defense secretaries wrote in an op-ed published on Sunday.

“American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy,” they wrote in The Washington Post, adding that everyone in the American defense establishment must “refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.”

The group of 10 includes one who later became vice president (Dick Cheney) and two who served as Pentagon chiefs under President Donald Trump (Jim Mattis and Mark Esper).

Trump’s rhetoric in the months since he lost the Nov. 3 election to Joe Biden has led to speculation that he might deploy the military in an attempt to hold on to power. Trump has repeatedly and emphatically said he was cheated out of victory and defiantly urged his supporters to continue to push for the results to be overturned, ingredients that have been seen as paving the way for potential unrest and violence.

The group of 10 made it clear they had no sympathy for Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, by whatever means. “The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived,” they wrote.

The signatories served under Presidents Gerald R. Ford (Donald Rumsfeld), George H.W. Bush (Cheney), Bill Clinton (William Cohen, William Perry), George W. Bush (Rumsfeld again, Robert Gates), Barack Obama (Gates again, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel and Ashton Carter) and Trump.

The rare joint statement was precipitated by a Dec. 26 column by David Ignatius in The Washington Post that outlined a series of recent developments that have alarmed military officials who fear Trump’s hand-picked Pentagon leaders, including Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, could overstep the law to assist Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

Eric Edelman, a former ambassador to Turkey and undersecretary of Defense for George W. Bush who endorsed Biden for president, said he organized the letter after talking to Cheney.

“I talk periodically to Cheney,” Edelman recalled in an interview Sunday. “This summer, when I was starting to get ready to help organize the national security Republicans who endorsed Biden, along with Sean O'Keefe, who was [Cheney’s] secretary of the Navy … I was talking to him about this on and off and expressing my concerns about Trump, much of which he shared.”

“When the David Ignatius piece came out,” Edelman continued, "that was alarming. It was not inconsistent with conversations I had with Esper after he resigned, in term of concerns about what might be going on with this clown car of people that they’ve got over there around Miller.

“When you are a former senior official, people you know are still there, you hear stuff,” he added. “I'd heard things that were eerily similar to what was in the Ignatius column.”

Edelman wrote the first draft of the statement, and Eliot Cohen, an expert on civil-military relations and dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where Edelman teaches, made some revisions. Then it went to Cheney, who made some minor changes of his own.

The two Defense secretaries who served under Trump, Esper and Mattis, a retired general who is still subject to the uniformed code of military justice, needed some convincing.

“I think Jim Mattis had reservations,” Edelman explained. “He is very mindful that as a former general officer, he is still under the UCMJ and you shouldn’t be criticizing the president as a military officer. Some of the people who were talking to him about this I think ultimately persuaded him that he was not signing on as Jim Mattis, former general officer, but Jim Mattis, former secretary of Defense.”

As for Esper, who Trump fired in November and is sensitive to not being perceived as seeking revenge, “when he looked at the statement, I know he shares a lot of the concerns about what is going on in the Pentagon,” said Edelman. Esper concluded: “This is an exceptional circumstance.”

There were a few logistical hurdles to getting all 10 former Defense secretaries on board, Edelman explained, including some emails that ended up in spam folders. Rumsfeld was on a ski trip and took a little longer to reach.

A former Defense official who also served under Trump expressed his approval for the published version of the Post opinion column.

“The op-ed today by all living former secretaries of Defense is exceptional in its scope and directness.” said Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East. “It needed to be. I volunteered to assist with the transition as soon as I was asked. I am not a partisan person, but this is beyond partisanship. It is the duty of any American, especially those that gave an oath to serve the Constitution, to ensure the peaceful transfer of power to the duly elected President. There should be no further delay in that process, especially from the Department of Defense.”

The fucking turd.. What disgusting bullshit... They deserve to be put in jail for life!

Trump rewarding allies Nunes, Jordan with Medal of Freedom

A White House official confirmed that Trump would present Nunes with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Donald Trump is set to present one of the nation's highest civilian honors to two of his most outspoken congressional allies, California Rep. Devin Nunes and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, as he looks to reward loyalists with just over two weeks left in his term.

A White House official confirmed that Trump would present Nunes with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday. The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has been an ardent backer of Trump's during probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the president's 2019 impeachment by the Democratic-led House.

The award, established by President John F. Kennedy, is meant to recognize those who have made an “especially meritorious contribution" to national security, world peace or ”cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The award comes as Trump has been rewarding supporters with the perks and prestige that come with serving on a host of federal advisory boards and commissions before he leaves office on Jan. 20.

Jordan, one of the GOP leaders in trying to undermine confidence in the results of the 2020 presidential election, is expected to receive the award next week. Trump’s intent to present the award to the lawmakers was first reported by The Washington Post.