WASHINGTON — Listening to Donald Trump spout outlandish claims of election fraud, Attorney General William Barr began to wonder if the 45th president of the United States was in his right mind, he told the Jan. 6 committee in a video-recorded deposition. The two were meeting privately on December 14, 2020, and Trump purported to have new evidence that Dominion voting machines were rigged, Barr testified. He would get a second term after all, he told Barr. The president then handed Barr a report from a cyber-security firm and as Barr flipped through the pages, he saw nothing that gave credence to such a startling claim. “I was somewhat demoralized,” Barr told House Jan. 6 committee investigators, “because I thought, ‘Boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.’” Barr's testimony — which came only via pre-recorded video — proved to be some of the most riveting from the second hearing, putting the former Trump appointee at the center of the committee's case against Trump. Barr’s concern over Trump’s mental state — and how a parade of aides and advisers were trying to convince him that he lost the 2020 election — was the central theme from the committee’s second public hearing on Monday. Other takeaways included: Trump was urged not to declare victory prematurely On the night of the election, Trump’s closest advisers gathered in the White House and debated what he should say publicly given that it might be days before the winner was declared. With votes still being counted, some of his senior advisers believed it was too early for him to call the race. At least one told him so. Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, suggested to the president that he give a more guarded statement until it was clear who had won. Trump didn’t heed the advice. “He thought I was wrong. He told me so,” Stepien said in videotaped testimony aired by the committee. Trump instead took an approach favored by his longtime confidant, Rudy Giuliani. The former New York City mayor was at the White House that night. In a conversation with a handful of Trump advisers near the Map Room — where Franklin Roosevelt monitored troop movements during World War II — he called for declaring victory. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign official, told the committee that Giuliani said, “‘We won. They’re stealing it from us. We need to go say that we won.’ And, essentially, that anyone who didn’t agree with that position was being weak.” Miller, whose testimony was played in video by the committee, said that Giuliani was intoxicated. (A lawyer for Giuliani denied he was inebriated.) When Trump delivered his speech, he bluntly — and falsely — told his supporters: “Frankly, we did win this election.” Panel says Trump engaged in ‘the big ripoff’ The Jan. 6 committee is also tracking the money. One big reason why Trump and his allies continued to push false election fraud claims long after the courts had ruled against Trump was to continue raising millions from fervent Trump supporters, committee members argued. The committee has previously hinted that money could be a theme that runs throughout the hearings, including who paid for the Jan. 6 rally. Jan. 6 Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters after the hearing that more details about Trump’s fundraising efforts will be published in the committee’s final report. “The big lie was also a big ripoff,” said one committee member, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. In fact, Lofgren said the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to its backers, between Election Day and Jan. 6, claiming that a “left-wing mob” was undermining the election and calling on supporters to “step-up” and “fight back” to protect election integrity. Supporters were urged to donate to Trump’s “election defense fund” but the committee said it found no such committee or fund existed. Instead, much of the $250 million raised went to Trump’s new super PAC, called the Save America PAC, launched just the days after the election. The Jan. 6 panel said Save America funneled millions of dollars of contributions to Trump-friendly organizations and entities. That included $1 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a charitable foundation closely linked to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows; another $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, a closely-aligned advocacy group which employs several former Trump administration officials; more than $200,00 . . .

Former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner told the Jan. 6 committee that he urged the then-president not to take advice from Rudy Giuliani, who was peddling wild election conspiracy theories. In a brief snippet from the panel's hours-long interview session with Kushner that aired during Monday's public hearing, the former White House adviser was asked if he ever shared his perspective on Giuliani's legal work with the then-president. “I guess — yes,” Kushner said in the clip. Asked what he told Trump, Kushner said, “‘Basically, not the approach I would take if I was you.’” Trump was unmoved. Kushner said Trump responded, “You know, I have confidence in Rudy.” It's unclear when exactly the Trump-Kushner interaction took place. The clip was played after top Trump advisers said an apparently "inebriated" Giuliani had urged Trump to declare victory on election night, which the advisers argued against. Trump took Giuliani's advice and delivered remarks from the White House, saying, “Frankly, we did win this election.” During Monday's hearing, the second of at least six planned for this month, the committee showed video of Ivanka Trump testifying that she did not believe that her father was in a position to declare victory on Election Day. She said at the White House on election night and moved between the residence and a nearby room where some family members were. Asked if she weighed in on the debate on whether her father should assert victory, Ivanka Trump said, "I don’t know that I had a firm view as to what he should say, in that circumstance. The results were still being counted. It was becoming clear that the race would not be called on election night." In a clip that the panel played at its first hearing on Thursday, the first daughter — who was also a White House adviser — said her opinion was swayed weeks later when then-Attorney General Wil . . .

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the appeal of a man sentenced to death in Texas even though it earlier found that his lawyer ignored “an apparent tidal wave” of evidence that could have spared him the death penalty. In 2008, 20-year-old Terence Andrus unsuccessfully tried to carjack a vehicle in a grocery store parking lot while under the influence of marijuana laced with PCP, also known as angel dust. He shot and killed the driver and a person in another car that was approaching. After he was convicted and sentenced to death, new lawyers became involved in the case and filed an appeal, saying that his trial lawyers did almost nothing to investigate Andrus’ past or put on an effective defense. When the case first reached the Supreme Court, it said two years ago that the trial counsel conducted “almost no mitigation investigation, overlooking vast tranches of mitigating evidence.” It sent the case back to Texas for further review. A state appeals court ruled against Andrus, finding he failed to show that having a competent lawyer during the trial pha . . .

An apparently drunk Rudy Giuliani was key to convincing former President Donald Trump to throw the nation into chaos and simply declare victory on election night in 2020, drowning out the voices of some of Trump’s closest advisers who preferred that he await final results. That was just one of the bombshells from the Jan. 6 Committee’s second hearing on Monday, as members of the panel sought to answer a famous question from another case of presidential impropriety: What did the president know, and when did he know it? Members of the Committee came out swinging Monday, seeking to definitively answer that question. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who is taking the lead on this hearing, started her opening statement by saying Trump "knowingly" relied on false claims that there was widespread election fraud to dupe his supporters into believing the 2020 election was stolen—something he knew was incorrect. "Mr. Trump's closest advisers knew it. Mr. Trump knew it," Lofgren said. The hearing officially got underway at 10:47 a.m. EDT, with a statement by Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) that today was about telling “the story of how Donald Trump lost an election, and knew he lost an election.” Thompson continued that, “as a result of his loss,” Trump decided to wage an attack on our democracy, “trying to rob you and your voice in our democracy, and in doing so, lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence on January 6th.” Co-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) followed that statement up by saying Trump ignored the evidence and instead “followed the advice of an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani,” who told him just to reject the results and fight them anyway. The committee played videotaped depositions of some of Trump’s closest aides—campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller—speaking about the unwelcome role played by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the videos, Trump advisers said Giuliani appeared to be drunk on election night and repeatedly insisted on talking to Trump, just as the mood soured at the White House when Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden. “It was far too early to be making any call like that. Ballots were still being counted. Ballots were still to be counted for days,” Stepien testified back in February. “My recommendation was to say that votes were still being counted, it was too early to call the race.” At his videotaped deposition, Miller told the committee, “I was saying that we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers.” But Giuliani became . . .

WASHINGTON — The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol started its second hearing Monday — though minus a key witness who withdrew at the last minute due a family emergency. While the committee’s first hearing last week focused on the attack itself, Monday’s program will turn its attention to what was happening at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the weeks leading up to the riot as former President Donald Trump used phony evidence and outright lies to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost. "Donald Trump lost an election — and knew he lost an election — and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy. An attack on the American people, by trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy," Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening remarks. "In doing so, lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of Jan. 6th, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, sent by Donald Trump, to stop the transfer of power." Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is displayed on a screen Monday during a hearing investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images The committee was scheduled to hear from a trusted member of Trump’s inner circle, former campaign manager and White House political director Bill Stepien. But Stepien’s wife went into labor shortly before the hearing, so he wasn't able to attend. Instead, the committee played video from Stepien's previously recorded deposition. "My recommendation was to say that votes were still being counted. It’s too early to to tell," Stepien said in the testimony. "The president disagreed." Stepien remains aligned with the Trump-wing of the GOP and his political consulting firm is currently advising a conservative challenger in Wyoming's August GOP primary trying to oust Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who has broken with her party to become perhaps the most visible face of the Jan. 6 committee's work. Chris Stirewalt, former Fox News political editor, testifies on Monday. Susan Walsh / AP Other witnesses will include former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt; longtime GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg; former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak; and former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt. The committee also played video of recorded testimony from former Attorney General William Barr saying that Trump started making claims of systemic fraud "before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence." "You will hear eyewitness testimony that President Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani, to just claim he won, and insist that the vote counting stop — . . .

Casper, Wyo. — The Supreme Court's upcoming opinion on abortion rights will have far reaching consequences, especially across rural America, where abortion access is already sparse. Right now, there are six states with just one abortion provider. Oklahoma has none. In windswept and wide-open Wyoming, opposition to abortion rights is fervent -- but the need for care is no different than in other parts of the country. Abortion in this conservative, rugged state is currently legal up to viability (usually 24 weeks of pregnancy) -- but no providers here offer surgical abortions. Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access, is trying to change that, just as the Supreme Court considers the fate of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that granted women the right to choose to have an abortion. "Services have been lacking here," Burkhart told CBS News. Her group is behind the effort to open a women's health clinic in Casper, which would make it the only abortion provider for hundreds of miles. It was scheduled to open this week. But in late May, the clinic site became a crime scene. Police at the scene of an overnight fire that severely damaged a building in Casper, Wyoming, on May 25, 2022. It was being renovated to house a new clinic that would provide abortions among its services. Mead Gruver / AP A fire ripped through the building, scalding its walls, singeing floorboards and setting back the opening date as much as six months -- long after the Supreme Court's pending decision. "Do I want to be here talking about someone who committed an act of domestic terrorism in our building? Absolutely not," Burkhart said. "I wanted to be moving furniture in." Law enforcement is investigating the fire as a case of possible arson. Surveillance video released by the Casper Police Department shows someone carrying a gas can through the clinic's waiting area in the middle of the night. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a $5000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. An apparent arsonist -- a masked, hooded woman -- is seen in image taken from May 25, 2022 surveillance video released by Casper, Wyoming police. She's in a clinic that was being renovated before its scheduled opening. It would offer abortions among its services. Cas . . .

SEE NEW POSTS The plan for future hearings Beginning Monday, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will hold six more public hearings this month featuring evidence that Trump directed the mob to march on the Capitol and live testimony from White House staff, ranking member Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said. Cheney and Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., outlined Thursday night how they plan to structure the committee’s other hearings that they plan to pack into June. While Monday's hearing focuses on Trump's election lies that inspired the storming of the Capitol, the third hearing will offer evidence about Trump’s unsuccessful plan to oust acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with another DOJ official who was more supportive of Trump’s fraud claims, Jeffrey Clark, according to Cheney. Read more here. Share this - Link copied ‘A lot more testimony where that came from,’ Schiff says Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that upcoming Jan. 6 hearings will dig deeper on some of the testimony Americans heard during the House committee’s first public hearing last week. “I think you’ve heard just a few examples of what those witnesses have said behind closed doors. There’s a lot more testimony where that came from,” he said on ABC News' "This Week" Sunday. "Most important is that we're weaving together how each line of effort to overturn the election, led to another, led to another, and then ultimately culminated in that violence attack on January 6," the committee member added. Share this - Link copied Expect more on lawmaker pardons this week, Kinzinger says Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said more evidence about lawmakers seeking pardons will be revealed in public hearings this week. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Thursday that “multiple” Republican lawmakers including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., sought presidential pardons in the weeks after the riot. Perry denied the allegation in a tweet, call it an “absolute, shameless, and soulless lie.” Pressed on how many pardons were sought and for what reason during an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Kinzinger said “more of that is going to be released this week.” “But why would you ask for a pardon — let’s just say in general — if somebody asked for a pardon it would be because they have real concern maybe they’ve done something illegal. I’ll leave it at that but I’ll say that more information will be coming,” he said. Asked about Perry’s denial, Kinzinger said, “We’re not going to make accusations or say things without proof or evidence backing it.” Share this - Link copied Committee members: Enough evidence gathered to support Trump indictment Two members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot said Sunday that they' . . .

SEE NEW POSTS The committee takes a brief break Back in 10 minutes, per committee chair Thompson. Share this - Link copied Barr says Trump became 'detatched from reality,' believed Dominion claims would give him a second term In testimony to the committee, former Attorney General William Barr said that in a post-election meeting with Trump on Dec. 14, the then-president said he believed "there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines," according to a report he'd gotten from a group called Allied Security Operations Group. Barr said Trump told him the report showed "absolute proof the Dominion machines were rigged," a favorite post-election claim of voter fraud Trump spread. "The report means that I’m going to have a second term," Barr said Trump told him before handing him a copy of the report. "And as he talked more and more about it, I sat there flipping through the report and looking through it," Barr continued. "And to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me. … It didn’t have the credentials of the people involved. ... I didn’t see any real qualifications. And the statements were made very conclusory, like, you know, these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud, or something to the effect, but I didn’t see any supporting information for it." Barr added he "was somewhat demoralized, because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff." Barr said he would tell Trump "how crazy some of these allegations were" but "there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were." In the nearly two years since the 2020 election, Barr said he has seen no evidence of the 2020 election being stolen. Share this - Link copied Top DOJ official: Trump was told there was no evidence to support each of his false election claims In audio of testimony played Monday, former Deputy Attorney General Rich Donoghue describes telling Trump numerous times that a number of allegations the then-president spread about fraud in key states were false and lacked any evidence. "I said something to the effect of, 'Sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed...We’ve looked in 'Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada.'... 'We are doing our job. Much of the info you’re getting is false,'" Donoghue told the committee. He said that when he gave Trump a direct answer about one of the allegations, he'd move onto the next one. Donoghue said he told Trump that a claim about a truck driver driving ballots from New York to Pennsylvania was "not supported by the evidence." He said he also shot down a claim about a "suitcase" of fraudulent ballots in Georgia. "The president kept fixating on this suitcase that supposedly had fraudulent ballots and that the suitcase was rolled out from under the table. And I said, 'No, sir, there is no suitcase. You can watch that video over and over; there is no suitcase. There is a wheeled bin where they carry the ballots, and that’s just how they move ballots around that facility. There’s nothing suspicious about that at all.' I told him that there was 'no multiple scanning of the ballots.'" Donoghue said Trump then went on about "double voting" and then said Trump claimed "'dead people'" are voting and that 'Indians are getting paid to vote.' He meant people on Native American reservations. He said, 'there’s lots of fraud going on here.'" Donoghue said he told Trump neither allegation checked out. Share this - Link copied Trump empowered Giuliani after top campaign aides accepted the election was lost, Stepien testified Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien testified that about two weeks after his 2020 loss, Trump pushed aside Justin Clark, his top campaign lawyer, and empowered Rudy Giuliani and his allies, who were much more willing to spread false claims of voter fraud. This happened when Stepien and others believed Trump's chances of victory in the election dropped to zero percent. Eric Herschmann, a White House attorney under Trump, testified that the theories spread at this point were "nuts." Share this - Link copied Former AG Barr: Dominion claims 'complete nonsense' Former Attorney General William Barr told the Jan. 6 Committee he felt the claims spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies about Dominion voting machines being manipulated by foreign governments and other nefarious actors to be "complete nonsense." Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., focused on the line in her remarks Monday, arguing that Trump knew what he was spreading was false. "Pay attention to what Donald Trump and his legal team said repeatedly about Dominion voting machines — far flung conspiracies with a deceased Venezuelan Communist allegedly pulling the strings," she said. "This was 'complete nonsense,' as Bill Barr said." Cheney added that "Trump . . .

6 midterm questions to answer this week Presented by PREMION TOP LINE WHAT TO WATCH — We’ve got a big primary week on tap putting up plenty of questions about the state of American politics. Let’s dive in: How does Trump’s influence shape South Carolina? The former president has endorsed two challengers on the GOP primary ballot this week in South Carolina: Katie Arrington, who is taking on Rep. Nancy Mace, and Russell Fry, who is facing impeachment-supporting Rep. Tom Rice. Rice has long looked to be in trouble — POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick wrote in February that he and Rep. Liz Cheney appeared to be “in the greatest peril of the seven [GOP impeachment supporters] who are running for reelection.” But he has been defiant about his support for removing Trump from office last year. South Carolina’s runoff rules could kick this primary to a one-on-one contest if no one gets 50 percent of the vote. Mace didn’t take that crucial vote that Rice did, and she appears in better shape. Alex Isenstadt reported last week that, in the proxy battle between pro-Mace Nikki Haley and Trump, Haley is the one conspicuously investing her time and name in the race at the end, while Trump hasn’t gone back after an earlier rally — a signal of the expectations there. What’s next in the Trump movement’s bid to take over election administration? Nevada Republican Jim Marchant isn’t endorsed by Trump — but he’s firmly part of the MAGA movement to take over secretary of state positions in the name of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. His primary Tuesday is the latest battleground test for that effort since Georgia Republican Brad Raffensperger defeated a Trump-backed challenger in late May. Marchant’s primary bid this week will also play out against the backdrop of the Jan. 6 committee hearings about Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the last election. — “ Trump backers unbowed in push to overtake state election offices ,” by POLITICO’s Zach Montellaro: “The primary in Nevada is another reminder of the unusually high stakes in this year’s campaigns for election administration positions — longtime political backwaters that have gotten little attention in the past. But followers of former President Donald Trump — and his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him — have poured into secretary of state races in 2022, especially in the battleground states that will play a key role in deciding the next presidential contest.” What will happen to Rep. Dina Titus? The veteran Democratic lawmaker’s primary has been bubbling away for some time, with Amy Vilela running against her on a progressive platform including support for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. But there was nothing quiet about Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Thursday afternoon endorsement of Vilela . The nod came with early voting almost complete and basically no time left to raise money, something Sanders has done for numerous endorsees with more lead time in the past. But it does raise the question of whether Vilela was running close enough to Titus that a last-minute boost could put her over the top. The Nevada Independent had a comprehensive outline of the primary last month . How will the most expensive section of the House battlefield shake out? Democrats’ gerrymander of Nevada made all three Las Vegas-area districts high-single digit Biden seats — the type of places that would lean Democratic in a neutral political environment but are all highly vulnerable to GOP takeover in a good Republican year. Don’t just take my word for it — whoever has the gold makes the rules, as they say. And the House campaign committees and super PACs have poured a collective $34 million in TV reservations into Las Vegas, the most by some margin of any media market so far. Eight Republicans are battling for the nomination in the 1st District, including former Rep. Cresent Hardy, while five are lined up in the 3rd District GOP primary and three Republicans are competing in a comparatively roomy 4th District primary. How does the top of the ticket shake out in Nevada? Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo have the Trump endorsement in their respective GOP primaries for Senate and governor. They might not have needed them, and Laxalt has been pushed by veteran Sam Brown, while Lombardo has had a crowded GOP field to deal with. The winners will face two Democratic incumbents in a fully Democratic-controlled state — though it was also one of the closest states in the 2020 presidential election. Does another Congressional Leadership Fund rescue operation pay off? Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) has benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising from the GOP leadership-aligned super PAC, which has dipped into a number of primaries to protect incumbents and build an “ effective ” GOP majority in 2023. Who prompted the spending? Perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian, who is challenging Amodei this year after . . .

Lawmakers struggle to address food inflation Presented by QUICK FIX —A bill to battle rising food prices could see a vote in the House this week, as Democrats continue to grapple with addressing record-setting food inflation before the midterms. Top Republicans are pushing back, though, arguing the legislation doesn’t do enough. —A pair of top House Democrats is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to do more to crack down on infant formula price-gouging in online marketplaces amid ongoing shortages. — Agriculture economists are warning that a drop in net cash farm income is imminent unless lawmakers and USDA facilitate an infusion of ad-hoc assistance. HAPPY MONDAY, JUNE 13. Welcome to Morning Ag. I’m your new host, Garrett Downs. Thank you to my wonderful colleagues Meredith Lee, Hannah Farrow and Valerie Yurk for keeping MA a must-read in the past few weeks. Tips? Send them along to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected], and follow us @MorningAg. Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories. Driving the Day AG INFLATION BILL ADVANCES: The House Rules Committee on Monday will consider a bill to battle food and fuel inflation and meat industry consolidation, signaling the full chamber could vote on it as early as this week. What’s in it? The omnibus appropriations bill known as the Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act would create a meat and poultry special investigator within the USDA, create a food supply chain task force, authorize year-round sale of E15 grade ethanol fuel, provide subsidies to small meat producers and adjust conservation programs to include precision agriculture. The package is a smorgasbord of ag legislation before Congress, put together by House Democrats in an attempt to act on record-setting inflation roiling consumers and crack down on meat industry consolidation. The outlook: Many of the included bills passed out of the House Ag Committee in a bipartisan fashion, largely by voice vote or unanimous consent. A major outlier, however, is the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act, which cleared the panel on a mostly party-line 27-21 vote. Introduced by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), the bill would create a new office within USDA to investigate complaints of anticompetitive behavior under the Packers and Stockyards Act — a 1921 law to regulate the meat and livestock industry. A bipartisan companion measure has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). Republican and industry blowback: The inclusion of the investigator bill could make passage of the omnibus a partisan battle, despite many of the included bills having wide bipartisan support on their own. Ag Committee Ranking Member G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) last week called the bill a “charade” in a statement. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the North American Meat Institute, two powerful lobbies on behalf of the meat industry, also oppose the investigator bill. Not a Republican monolith: Some Republicans have become increasingly supportive of additional oversight in the meat sector. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), whose Butcher Block Act is included in the omnibus package, voted to advance the special investigator bill from committee in May, and the Senate companion measure has six Republican cosponsors. Also on the Hill this week: The House Ag Committee on Tuesday will hold a farm bill hearing on non-SNAP nutrition programs and will dig into the role of climate research in supporting agriculture resiliency on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Senate Ag on Friday will hold its second field hearing for the 2023 farm bill at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the home state of Ranking Member John Boozman (R-Ark.). A message from The Interrupt: "Just eat less." "Just take the stairs." "Just stop being lazy." More than 108 million American adults suffer from obesity. But the conversation about obesity is overly simplistic — it can be hurtful and misleading. Healthy diet and exercise are important, but for many people they aren’t enough. Obesity is a complex disease and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Let's interrupt the conversation and treat obesity like the disease it is. Learn more. ONLINE BABY FORMULA SCAMS: A pair of top House Democrats is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to do more to crack down on online scams and price-gouging for infant fo . . .

The second public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection will take place Monday morning. It's a follow-up to the committee’s debut hearing on Thursday. When does the hearing start? The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. ET. The timing is a departure from the initial hearing, which was held in prime-time, starting at 8 p.m. ET, and attracted about 20 million viewers. Where to watch the hearing Monday's hearing will be streamed live on NBC News NOW, NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com. NBCNews.com will also feature a live blog with news and analysis. MSNBC will have special coverage starting at 6 a.m. ET, in addition to a live blog. Who's testifying? The committee will hear testimony from Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor for Fox News who has been a sharp critic of the network's coverage of the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s election lies. Fox News did not carry the committee's first hearing on Thursday. Stirewalt now works for NewsNation. Also expected to testify are William Stepien, a former Trump campaign manager; Benjamin Ginsberg, a longtime GOP election attorney; former U.S. attorney BJay Pak; and Al Schmidt, who served as city commissioner in Philadelphia. Who’s on the committee? The . . .

Steve Bannon is trying to lose the battle but win the war. Faced with a criminal prosecution for the rare charge of contempt of Congress, Bannon is trying to drag members of Congress and key staffers behind the Jan. 6 Committee into testifying at his criminal trial next month, while also requesting sensitive documents he knows he’s unlikely to get. But that might be the point. Last week, Bannon’s lawyers issued subpoenas demanding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), two Democratic congressmen, all nine members of the Jan. 6 panel, three committee staffers, and even the House of Representatives’ own lawyer show up and testify under oath. The team is also asking for all kinds of documents—including internal committee communications—to be turned over a few days before trial, which is set to start July 18. Three former House lawyers said Bannon is asking for things he knows he won’t get, so that when the inevitable happens, it’ll seem as if Congress and the Justice Department are holding back evidence and denying him a fair shot. Bannon’s own attorney, David Schoen, acknowledged that his team will still come out victorious if the Justice Department tries to block the subpoenas. “I like the specter of that. We’ve asked for documents that really matter for the American people. I like that optic,” he told The Daily Beast. If they don’t get the records, Schoen said his team is prepared to ask the judge to simply push back the trial or issue sanctions against the DOJ. Schoen readily admitted that the House of Representatives and the Jan. 6 Committee would be right to try to hold them back under the U.S. Constitution’s “speech and debate clause,” which protects Congress’ internal deliberations from public examination. Several lawyers told The Daily Beast that Bannon is pulling from the same playbook once used successfully by famed baseball player Roger Clemens when he faced criminal charges of lying to Congress about using steroids, as well as former BP executive David Rainey when he was charged with obstructing a congressional investigation. When the pitcher and the oil executive were confronted with their separate criminal trials, each made a gamble by demanding evidence they knew they wouldn’t get—and came out on top when politicians refused to play ball. In both cases, they asked for legally “privileged” congressional records that wouldn’t be released. In Rainey’s case in 2015, when no politician or staffer would waive their right to those privileges, the federal judge thought it appropriate to exclude any evidence of “obstruction of Congress” and dropped that charge. With half the criminal case gone, a New Orleans jury acquitted him of the only remaining charge a few days later. In Bannon’s case, the Trump-loyal right-wing troublemaker would revel in the opportunity to subject the Jan. 6 Committee’s members to questions under oath in a courtroom filled with reporters—turning the tables on the very same politicians who just weeks earlier were engaged in historic, televised hearings that focused on the way Trump and his followers put the nation’s republic in peril. But he could also use Congress’ refusal to play ball with his subpoenas as a justification to delay the case. At the very least, Bannon is likely to use any refusal to turn over documents or have members sit for depositions as rhetorical proof that the prosecution is illegitimate. Schoen enjoys turning the tables. He said having the committee go after Bannon for refusing to respond to a subpoena–only to have the committee ignore a subpoena from Bannon—“sends a terrible message, defaults on their obligations to their constituents and to our national interests and is the height of hypocrisy.” Such an argument may help him now with the courts, or later with a Republican president sympathetic to Bannon—like Donald Trump. The former president already pardoned Bannon in the closing hours of his administration, after Bannon was charged with duping thousands of Trump supporters who gave to a fund to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. It’s easy to envision Trump—or a Trump-loyal president—pardoning Bannon for not helping Democrats with their Jan. 6 investigation. Stanley M. Brand, an attorney who serv . . .

As the largest caravan of migrants so far this year journeys into central Mexico, the continued enforcement of a public health order barring their admission into the United States threatens to exacerbate already deteriorating humanitarian conditions on the southern border. The caravan, largely composed of asylum seekers from Venezuela, could add as many as 11,000 people to the population of migrants currently stuck in limbo near the U.S.-Mexico border—estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands. Many of them have been living in dangerous conditions for months or longer awaiting the final repeal of Title 42, the public health order that has effectively halted asylum admissions into the United States from Central and South America. “As a nation, we are shirking our legal and moral duty to refugees using the fig leaf of Title 42 to justify our actions,” said Judge Dana Leigh Marks, the former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “The result of this has been the loss of countless innocent lives and incalculable trauma to hundreds, if not thousands of bona fide refugees.” The order, first enacted by President Donald Trump in March 2020 to shut down the border as the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, was scheduled to be repealed on May 23 of this year. But a federal judge’s order in April halted that repeal indefinitely, barring asylum admissions for nearly all migrants at the border until the case is resolved. As summer, historically the time of year with the largest number of border crossings, begins, the public health/immigration order is on a collision course with would-be asylum seekers desperate to leave increasing economic and social turmoil in their countries of origin. “To its credit, the Biden administration moved to terminate Title 42 and implement its plan to surge border resources and bolster shelter capacity,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which helps support refugees and migrants in the United States. But as arrivals remain high, O’Mara Vignarajah said, “the U.S. can and must do more to support the humane treatment of migrants across the border and throughout the region.” The conditions on the ground in Mexico are grim. The continued expulsion of migrants under Title 42 has strained local resources to their limit, with would-be asylum seekers who have been forced back across the border struggling to find safe housing, work, and protection from organized criminal gangs who see an easy target in the vulnerable population. “The shelters are stretched to their maximum capacity,” said Jessica Bolter, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “Migrants in border cities are often targeted by criminals, especially for kidnappings, as they are thought to have family members in the U.S. who will be able to pay their ransoms.” Some migrants have been able to find traditional housing, albeit in hypercrowded apartments that have made COVID-19 transmission a greater risk for people who rarely have easy access to medical treatment. The resources devoted to those camps by the Mexican government are grossly insufficient, said David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. “With such large numbers being expelled, criminals are literally waiting to exploit them and new arrivals,” said Bier. “More people waiting will stretch resources even thinner than ever and create greater incentives for predation by criminal organizations.” The United States, Bier added, has been generally missing in action in aiding those it has expelled. “I’m not aware of any work that the U.S. government has been doing to address the risks that asylum seekers face as they await Title 42’s repeal,” said Bier. “Indeed, the U.S. government is actively increasing the risks by pushing Mexico to deport more immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.” Not all of those seeking admission to t . . .

At stake is whether the issuance and flow of money will be dominated by the central banks of the developed world or the rules coded into a new kind of software program invented 13 years ago. Officials from the U.S., IMF, World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements argue that by adopting cryptocurrencies, nations could facilitate money laundering and undermine capital controls, while exposing their citizens to severe price volatility. A Bitcoin logo is displayed on an ATM in Hong Kong, Dec. 21, 2017. | Kin Cheung/AP Photo Dong He, Deputy Director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, said the prospect of a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin — which has lost more than half its value since November — made it unsuitable as a national currency. “What would happen to the tax revenue? What would happen to your obligations to spend on social services?” said He, who declined to address the anti-crypto provisions in Argentina’s letter to the fund. “This is a very risky proposition.” Activists and investors who support such experiments argue that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer an escape from rapidly inflating currencies in places like Argentina and Nigeria, while allowing poor countries to explore alternatives to a global financial framework that was designed to benefit rich countries. They contend that the reservations of the world’s monetary stewards have less to do with protecting the well-being of citizens of the developing world than with preserving a system in which the central banks and governments of rich countries dominate the global monetary system. “Bitcoin stands against everything the IMF stands for,” said Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation, an NGO that supports Bitcoin adoption. “It’s an outside money that’s beyond the control of these alphabet soup organizations.” This spring, the scope of the long-simmering conflict has broadened, even as a steep fall in Bitcoin’s price has highlighted the risks of such experiments. In April, the Central African Republic passed a law making it the second country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal currency. The move has drawn opposition from the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the regional central bank that oversees the country’s existing currency, the central African CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro as part of a system overseen by France. That body, the Bank of Central African States, has called on the Central African Republic to undo its Bitcoin law. It has also cracked down on cryptocurrency generally, issuing new rules that force financial institutions within its remit to cut ties with payments platforms that use the digital currencies. But the small country has plowed ahead with its initiative, announcing plans to build a “Crypto Island” to attract international investment. Meanwhile, in the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a currency, El Salvador, the initiative continues to exacerbate a broader rift with Western powers that has opened under the leadership its popular, autocratic president, Nayib Bukele. In November, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in San Salvador, Jean Manes, said that the U.S. had put its relations with El Salvador on “pause,” citing anti-American rhetoric from the Bukele regime and a power grab that saw the dismissal of an attorney general and supreme court justices. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele participates in the closing ceremony of a congress for cryptocurrency investors in Santa Maria Mizata, El Salvador, Nov. 20, 2021. | Salvador Melendez/AP As Bukele has continued his authoritarian turn, the Bitcoin project has become a symbol of his defiance of international institutions. In a statement provided by a spokesman, the State Department did not address a query about El Salvador specifically but urged caution on countries pursuing cryptocurrency adoption. “We share the concerns expressed publicly by the IMF, the World Bank, and others that adopting a cryptocurrency as a legal tender raises a host of potential complications,” said the statement, which called on countries to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism standards when experimenting with cryptocurrencies. The statement also acknowledged the use of cryptocurrencies by human rights activists to evade financial controls in repressive regimes and its role in facilitating financial assistance to Ukraine. A bipartisan duo of senators has lodged a more pointed response to El Salvador’s experiment. In February, citing concerns over sanctions evasion, Senate foreign relations chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and ranking member Jim Risch (R-Idaho) introduced a bill, which remains under consideration, that would require the State Department to complete a report on the impact of the county’s Bitcoin law on the U.S. financial system. But Bukele and the Bitcoin investors urging him on remain undeterred by the pushback. In April, Samson Mow, a Canadian entrepreneur involved in El Salva . . .

“Everyone wants to talk about the sexy United States Senate race, or the governor’s race. When it comes down to it, the state Supreme Court is going to determine abortion jurisprudence in the state of Ohio,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “State Supreme Court elections are paramount.” And organizations on both sides of the abortion debate are planning to spend big to tip the scales in their favor. A record $100 million was spent on state supreme court races in 2020 in anticipation of redistricting fights, representing a 17 percent increase from the previous record-spending year in 2004, adjusted for inflation, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice. Court observers expect that the record could be broken this cycle. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is expanding its state affairs team, and state Supreme Court races is a new area the organization will engage in this year. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is for the first time planning to strategically incorporate state supreme court races into its legislative campaign work. High court judges in about three-quarters of states are either elected or appointed by the governor and retained on the bench after an election. While judges are, theoretically, impartial arbiters of the law, many candidates often use not-so-subtle clues — such as saying they oppose “the overreach of government” or support “fairness, equality and respect” — to signal how they might rule. “Judges are faced with an ethical challenge on the campaign trail where they are not allowed to talk about specific issues that might come before them on the bench, even though some voters would love to know what they are going to do,” said John Korzen, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, N.C. “One of the code words that judges on the right side of the spectrum may use is ‘conservative.’ … And it’s become kind of a buzzword for, I guess all sorts of things, and I think it would include being anti-abortion.” Eight states — including North Carolina — require judges to run with their party affiliation next to their name on the ballot. But even when state supreme court races are ostensibly nonpartisan, political parties, unions and outside interest groups often take part in the campaign — especially when trying to remove an incumbent. While most of the spending won’t happen until the fall, races in Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina — where abortion litigation is almost certain — are already garnering significant attention because partisan control is at stake. In Ohio, both pro-and anti-abortion-rights groups are laying the groundwork for voter education campaigns around three key state Supreme Court elections. The state has a six-week abortion ban on the books that has been enjoined, and the legislature is expected to take up further restrictions when they reconvene after the August primary. “The significance of this race for all kinds of issues, including choice, has escaped no one who is involved in the political scene in Ohio,” said Jessie Hill, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law who has sued the state numerous times on behalf of abortion-rights supporters. “I fully expect there is going to be a ton of money poured into the races on both sides unlike anything we’ve seen.” Michigan has a pre-Roe ban on abortion that has been temporarily blocked but will likely come before the Supreme Court under a petition from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And North Carolina has an enjoined 20-week ban and a pre-Roe ban that could also come before the court, particularly in light of the stalemate between the state’s Democratic governor and Republican legislature. In other states, like Montana, the outcome of the 2022 supreme court elections won’t change partisan control but could push the court to the right. And in Kansas, two judges that supported a 2019 court decision recognizing the right to abortion are up for a retention vote this year. “It’s going to be a wake-up call for a lot of people about how important these courts are,” said Douglas Keith, counsel in the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “For many people, they’re just used to this being a question that would be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court but now it’s being decided by their state Supreme Court, and many people may be learning about these courts for the first time because of this fight to come.” But some legal scholars fear the increased spending and growing partisanship will have a corrosive effect on the courts, which generally deal with much more mundane matters. “The majority of what state supreme courts do, there’s this little sliver that intersects with these hot-button political issues,” said Lumen Mulligan, professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. “What does this state statute mean? And you want that person to be nonpartisan. You don’t want your ability to retain your farmlan . . .

On May 14, a gunman walked into a Tops grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. The massacre killed ten people. Beforehand, he had posted a long screed online about Great Replacement Theory, using, among other things, links to a series of genetics studies—peer reviewed, and published in prestigious journals like Nature—as citations. These were a variety of human behavioral genetics studies, a field of research that tries to use genetics to find the source of complex human behaviors. One study was a genomic study on whether intelligence is inherited from one generation to the next. Another was on the genetics of different psychological traits. Then another study on the genetics of intelligence. Scientists have been quick to write and denounce the Buffalo shooter. “Scientists have to recognize that their research can be weaponized,” Janet D. Stemwedel, a philosopher of science at San José State University, wrote weeks later in Scientific American. “They need to think hard not only about how their findings might be misinterpreted or misused, but also about the point of even conducting the studies they do of differences among racial groups. Above all that, scientists need to take an active role in fighting both violence and white supremacy.” These sorts of pushbacks have happened before. In 1994, political scientist Charles Murray and psychologist Richard Herrnstein published The Bell Curve, a book that discusses the apparent IQ differences between Black and white people, and the class structures associated with it. (It’s worth pointing out that IQ tests were originally intended as a rough method for determining whether 19th-century French children were a little behind on their schooling. Modern-day use as a measure of intelligence is a greatly contested notion.) The Bell Curve created a media sensation so wide that the two dry academics were excerpted by then-editor Andrew Sullivan in The New Republic. Years of debate in the media ensued. Reviews of the book (and reviews of the reviews) came out for years, mostly in polite arguments—what does the book really say about intelligence differences? Did you know that actually liberals used to love IQ testing as a means of social mobility? Does using the word “intelligent” and “smart” as synonyms tell us anything about whether the authors are racist?—that allowed Murray and Herrnstein to remain in the public eye as intellectuals and stewards of noble research, as well as appear on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about race wars. It’s far past time for reviewing and speaking out on research like Murray’s and Herrnstein’s. The slow response to The Bell Curve has helped similar work live on today in the hands of others, like psychologist Stuart Ritchie at King’s College London and behavioral geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden at the University of Texas. Harden in particular has fomented the same media wave as Murray and Herrnstein with her 2021 book The Genetic Lottery, which once again went looking for the inherent biological sources for structural inequalities, like differences in educational attainment and income. She and her book were feted in an overwhelming positive, incurious, and uncritical 10,000 word New Yorker piece upon the book’s publication: “She wore a soft flannel shirt, faded stone-washed jeans, and dark Ray-Ban sunglasses. The air was hot and dry, but Harden is the sort of person who seems accompanied by a perpetual breeze”; “Harden was raised in a conservative environment, and though she later rejected much of her upbringing, she has maintained a convert’s distrust of orthodoxy.” In the following months, she was subject to overwhelmingly negative reviews, once people had time to actually read the book. Too little, too late. Another generation of crypto-race science was legitimized. This isn’t a discussion of what-ifs. Research like this trickles down into violent thought, both through the end of a gun or the flow of a pen. For instance, Long Island’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is now a prestigious biology research station but originally was a hub for eugenics research, especially starting in 1910 at the creation of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). Work there directly influenced the 1927 Supreme Court ruling in Buck v. Bell. A Virginia law allowed for forcible sterilization by the state of anyone deemed “socially inadequate.” “ The slow response to The Bell Curve has helped similar work live on today in the hands of others. ” The law at the heart of Buck was based on a “model” written in 1914 by Henry Laughlin, the biologist and founder of the ERO. In his draft, Laughlin created what he thought was a law that would pass constitutional muster when used as a framework by states to draft formal legislation. He detailed who he thought should be subject to sterilization by the state, including any “socially inadequate person…[who] fails chronically in comparison with normal persons to maintain himself or herself as a . . .

The cases are the latest in a string of mysterious deaths, many of which have been linked to Israel. Tehran, Iran – Two men working in Iran’s aerospace industry have died in separate incidents while on active duty, according to Iranian state media. The elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s (IRGC) branch in Markazi province announced in a statement carried by Iranian media late on Sunday that Ali Kamani, a member of the IRGC’s aerospace division working in Khomein, some 320km (200 miles) south of the capital Tehran, was killed in a “driving accident” while on an unspecified mission. Then, early on Monday, the semi-official Fars news website, affiliated with the IRGC, reported that another aerospace worker, a 33-year-old called Mohammad Abdous, had also died while on mission. Iran’s defence ministry later said that Abdous worked for the ministry. The labelling of both deaths as “martyrdoms” possibly indicates that the Iran believes the men to have been killed. No details of Abdous’ death were published, other than that he passed away on Sunday in the northern province of Semnan. Suspicious deaths Kamani and Abdous’ are the latest in a string of mysterious deaths that have occurred in the past few weeks. One of them, an IRGC Quds Force colonel, Ali Esmaeilzadeh, was reported by state media to have died in an accident earlier this month. The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is close to the IRGC, rejected claims by a London-based Iranian opposition television channel that Esmaeilzadeh was eliminated by the IRGC over suspicion of involvement in the May 22 assassination of another colonel. Tasnim described the claim as “psychological war and news fabrication” and said he fell from the unsecured balcony of his home. On May 31, an aerospace engineer called Ayoob Entezari died under suspicious circumstances. Israeli media, which claimed Entezari had worked on Iran’s missile and drone programmes, said he had been poisoned at a dinner party, and that the host had fled the country. But the judiciary in Yazd, where he died, called the 35-year-old Entezari an “ordinary employee at an industrial company” who died from an unspecified “illness” at a hospital and had nothing to do with the IRGC. Prior to that case, on May 26, Iran’s defence ministry confirmed that an engineer, Ehsan Ghadbeigi, had been “martyred” and that another person was injured after an “accident” occurred at the Parchin military complex near Tehran. The New York Times reported at the time that Ghadbeigi had been killed in a suspected Israeli drone attack. The most high-profile case in the last few weeks came on May 22, when Quds Force Colonel Hassan Khodaei was assa . . .

Congressional committee probing the 2021 attack on US Capitol holds second public hearing with focus on Trump. Former President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien pulls out of his scheduled appearance before the panel, citing a family emergency. Committee stresses that Trump and his advisers knew – contrary to their public claims – that Joe Biden’s 2020 victory was legitimate. Former Attorney General William Barr says he thought Trump would be “detached from reality” if he really believed election fraud allegations. Jamie Raskin, a key Democrat serving on the committee, says the panel’s probe is referring “crimes” to the Justice Department as well as the US public. First hearing focused on Trump’s role and highlighted the violent nature of the attack on the Capitol building. Here are the latest updates: 6 mins ago (15:56 GMT) ‘Detached from reality’: Barr says Trump had no interest in facts Former Attorney General Barr has said Trump appeared to have no interest in the facts when he was making his election fraud allegations, including promoting unfounded reports of rigged voting machines. “I thought boy… he’s become detached from reality, if he really believed this stuff,” Barr says in a video. “On the other hand when I went into this and would tell him how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts are.” 13 mins ago (15:49 GMT) Ex-White House lawyer says some election fraud theories were ‘nuts’ Former White House lawyer Herschmann has said some of the election fraud theories advanced by Sidney Powell’s team, who had served as a Trump lawyer, were “nuts”. “What they were proposing, I thought was nuts. The theory was also completely nuts,” Herschmann said in a video. 31 mins ago (15:31 GMT) Ex-attorney general says Trump claimed election fraud ‘right of the box’ Former Attorney General William Barr has said Trump started making election fraud accusations early on on election night as more Democratic votes started coming in, shrinking his lead in several states. “Right out of the box on election night, the president claimed that there was major fraud underway,” Barr says in a video. “I mean this happened as far as I can tell before there was actually any potential evidence.” Barr added that the “dynamic” of late Democratic votes, which were mail-in ballots, had been expected for weeks. 39 mins ago (15:23 GMT) Committee paints image of White House on election night The panel has played a collection of clips from the testimonies of several former Trump advisers, who painted a picture of a grim mood at the White House on election night when the former president falsely declared victory and started his claims of election fraud. The former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, his ex-campaign manager Bill Stepien, then-adviser Jason Miller and lawyer Rudy Giuliani all featured. Miller said Giuliani had had too much to drink that night, but he added that he did not know his level of intoxication when he spoke to Trump. 55 mins ago (15:07 GMT) ‘Trump knew’ there was no election fraud: Congresswoman Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has stressed that Trump knew that his allegations of election fraud were false – an assertion that is shaping up to be the main theme of the hearing. “The election fraud claims were false. Mr Trump’s closest advisors knew it. Mr Trump knew it,” Lofgren said. “That didn’t stop him from pushing the false claims and urging his supporters to ‘fight like hell’, to ‘take back their country’ after he lost the election.” 1 hour ago (15:00 GMT) Ex-White House lawyer says no evidence of voting machine fraud Eric Herschmann, a former White House lawyer who served under Trump, has dismissed the theory that voting machines were rigged. “I never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain those allegations,” Herschmann said in a video played at the hearing. 1 hour ago (14:56 GMT) Trump ‘betrayed trust’ of Americans: Panel chair Committee chair Thompson has accused Trump of pushing to remain in power against the will of the American people. “He didn’t have the numbers. He went to court. He still didn’t have the numbers; he lost,” Thompson said. “But he betrayed the trust of the American people. He ignored the will of the voters. He lie . . .

A bipartisan House select committee on Monday is set to begin detailing the initial findings from its investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, keeping its focus squarely on former President Donald Trump. The second hearing will center on the push by Trump and his allies to spread false claims of sweeping election fraud following the then-president's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 contest. The committee said it will demonstrate that Trump knew he lost the race, but nevertheless worked to falsely convince "huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him," Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said last week. Witnesses are set to testify on two panels during Monday's hearing. The first will feature Chris Stirewalt, the former Fox News political editor who came under fire from Trump's supporters after Fox called Arizona for Biden bef . . .

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court through security fencing on June 1, 2022 in Washington, DC. As the future of Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance, several major U.S. companies including Apple, Citigroup and Yelp have taken public stances in support of abortion care and promised to cover employees' travel expenses to access the procedure. The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a Mississippi case that directly challenges the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade nearly 50 years ago, sometime this month. Following the leak of a draft decision on the case in early May, which showed that the court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, more employers have introduced new health-care benefits or expanded existing policies to support employees in obtaining an abortion, regardless of what the court decides. Still, the logistics of such offerings remain unclear, including how companies will protect employees' privacy and if state legislatures could come after corporate insurance policies as part of an abortion ban. How will abortion benefits work? In April, Yelp announced that it would cover costs for employees and their spouses who must travel out of state to access abortion care in response to the Texas law that bans the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy. Following the announcement, executives received an "outpouring" of messages from leaders at other companies asking them "how to do the same," Miriam Warren, Yelp's chief diversity officer, tells CNBC Make It. "They want to know how the benefit works, what employees' feedback has been, everything right down to the brass tacks," she says. "Many companies, like ours, are thinking about abortion care, and thinking really hard about it — not just how to safeguard empl . . .

The select committee says it intends to show that many of the people who joined that mob had been inundated by those messages from Trump and his allies, which may have contributed to their radicalization. “Some of those individuals … echoed those very same lies the former president peddled in the run-up to the insurrection,” a select committee aide said Sunday evening. The panel has come to see Trump’s preparation for delegitimizing the results of the election as beginning well before Election Day, with his effort to question the integrity of mail-in voting — even as numerous states began expanding its use amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Though even many allies had urged him to embrace mail-in voting, Trump resisted and immediately made it the centerpiece of his effort to cast doubt on the results of the election. Within days of Nov. 3 — even before the election was called for Joe Biden — one of Trump’s advisers, Cleta Mitchell, cited these state laws as a reason to push for state legislators to appoint pro-Trump electors. In the meantime, Trump turned to allies to promote his increasingly outlandish claims of fraud, even as court after court rejected them. To tell this part of the story, the panel will turn to Trump’s former campaign chief, Bill Stepien. Stepien was present for campaign discussions about Trump’s chances in the election, and the committee contends he can speak to the campaign’s reliance on election fraud claims to juice fundraising. Stepien is appearing under subpoena, per a source familiar with the arrangement. Stepien will appear alongside former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, who drew Trump’s outrage — and was ultimately fired from the network — after calling Arizona for Biden, a projection that ultimately held true. Fox was the first to call the state for Biden. The panel may also use Stirewalt’s appearance to highlight the role pro-Trump media played in spreading his false claims. The panel has already emphasized the private communications of some Fox News hosts with senior White House officials. The select committee intends for Monday to be a document-driven and fact-heavy hearing, packed with evidence that showcased the proliferation of Trump’s lies about the election results. The hearing will feature a second panel that includes prominent GOP elections attorney Ben Ginsberg, former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt and former U.S. Attorney for North Georgia BJay Pak, who resigned amid Trump’s effort to overturn the election results. Pak previously testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the pressure Trump and his allies applied on him and other officials to get them to investigate false claims of election fraud. Though select committee chair Rep. Bennie T . . .

Washington — Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the Republicans who sits on the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that the panel will unveil evidence in upcoming hearings that Republican members of Congress sought pardons from former President Donald Trump in his final weeks in office. "We're not going to make accusations or say things without proof or evidence backing it," Kinzinger, of Illinois, said in an interview with "Face the Nation" when asked about the revelation last week that GOP lawmakers sought presidential pardons. Last Thursday, the House select committee held the first of at least six public hearings expected across June, which mark a new phase in the panel's investigation into the events leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021. During the proceedings last week, committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, revealed "multiple" GOP congressmen sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Cheney named Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania as one of the Republicans who sought a pardon from Trump, though he denied doing so and called the notion "an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie." Investigators believe Perry was involved in efforts to install Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who was a key figure in raising doubts about the integrity of the election with Trump, as acting attorney general in the weeks after the November 2020 election. The committee last month issued a subpoena to Perry and four other Republican lawmakers for testimony, though they have all declined to comply. Kinzinger, like Cheney last week, declined to divulge how many Republicans sought pardons but said the committee will release more information about those efforts during hearings this week. "Why would you ask for a pardon? Let's just say in general, if somebody asks for a pardon it would be because they have real concern that maybe they've done something illegal," he said. In addition to the details of the pardons, Kinzinger said the hearing scheduled for Wednesday will also explore efforts to overturn . . .

The committee also has enough evidence to prove that several Republican members of Congress sought pardons from Trump after the assault on the Capitol, Raskin said. “The seeking of pardons is a powerful demonstration of the consciousness of guilt, or at least the consciousness you may be in trouble,” he told Bash. “That’s what’s so shocking about this. It’s not just one.” Raskin said the committee will release further details about who sought a pardon “in due course.” Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Jan. 6 panel, reiterated that the committee “will show the evidence that we have that members of Congress were seeking pardons.” “To me, I think that is some of the most compelling evidence of a consciousness of guilt. Why would members do that if they felt that their involvement in this plot to overturn the election was somehow appropriate?” he said. “So, we’ll present the evid . . .

POLITICO Playbook: A guns deal looks imminent Presented by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and other negotiators are planning to unveil a framework on changes to the background check system, money to incentivize state-level “red flag” laws and more. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo DRIVING THE DAY INCOMING — We could have the framework of a Senate deal on gun reform announced as soon as today, CNN’s Dana Bash and Manu Raju report. It would just be an agreement in principle from the clutch of Senate negotiators, without many details yet, but such an announcement would still represent a breakthrough on an issue where progress has eluded lawmakers for years. The four lead negotiators have been talking all weekend, and are hoping to nail down the backing of 10 Republicans before announcing. What’s in: changes to the background check system, money to incentivize state-level “red flag” laws, mental health funding, school security funding and more. What’s out: raising the age to purchase semiautomatic weapons to 21, an assault weapons ban and (of course) any more far-ranging gun restrictions. More from Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine ABOUT LAST NIGHT — Votes are still being counted from Saturday’s special primary election for Alaska’s at-large House seat, but at least three of the four candidates advancing to the general look set: SARAH PALIN, NICK BEGICH III and AL GROSS. Begich is the conservative Republican scion of a famous Democratic family; Gross is the independent who ran for the Democrats in the 2020 Senate race but has since run afoul of the state party. (You know who Palin is, of course.) Palin so far has pulled in a fairly commanding 30% in a 48-person field, though the ranked-choice general-election structure makes predictions difficult. Democrat MARY PELTOLA is in fourth place as of now, with Republican TARA SWEENEY and independent SANTA CLAUS (not a typo) not far behind. In Alaska’s complex new election setup this year, the top four will advance to an August race to fill the remainder of the late Rep. DON YOUNG’s seat. That same day will mark the primary for the November election for a full term. The latest from the Anchorage Daily News … A great feature preview last week from WaPo’s Dan Zak, worth your time 2024 WATCH, DEM EDITION — Nebraska, New York and Democrats Abroad are out of the running for an early Democratic presidential nominating spot in 2024, while 17 states and territories remain in contention, Elena Schneider reports. The DNC axed the Empire State over cost, size, partisanship and urban concentration. Nebraska and Democrats Abroad got the boot for logistical reasons. Next up: The other 17 will pitch a DNC committee later this month. 2024 WATCH, GOP EDITION — DONALD TRUMP may be teasing a comeback bid, but he hasn’t scared others off: No fewer than 15 Republicans are testing the waters for a 2024 presidential campaign, WaPo’s Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Stanley-Becker report in a big look at the state of the (shadow) field. Pence is eyeing South Carolina and the DEVOS family. Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS will use his reelection margin as a metric. MIKE POMPEO contacted CHARLIE KIRK. Some donors and activists are urging the party to move on from Trump. Yet he still remains the frontrunner for now. Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.), an erstwhile Trump competitor and current Trump ally, doesn’t sound worried: “The day that Trump makes it clear he’s going to run — it would be a mountain to climb to beat him … If it’s a policy election, he’s in good shape. It’s his primary to lose.” POTUS ABROAD — A controversial trip by President JOE BIDEN to Saudi Arabia will be announced as soon as Monday, WSJ’s Vivian Salama scooped, as one leg on a Middle East expedition that will also include Israel. The much-ballyhooed meeting with authoritarian Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN is currently on the agenda, she reports. Biden told reporters earlier Saturday that he hadn’t made a decision yet about Saudi Arabia, but that any trip there would encompass more than just energy discussions, per Bloomberg. (The pressure to lower gas prices via more Saudi oil output is, of course, a major piece of the relationship.) Related read: “Biden juggles principles, pragmatism in stance on autocrats,” by AP’s Aamer Madhani Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. You can email me here, or drop a line to the rest of the team: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. A message from Blackstone: Blackstone is bringing hydropower to New York through an innovative infrastructure project. The Champlain Hudson Power Express will help reduce carbon emissions in New York City and lower energy costs for residents. Learn more here. SUNDAY BEST … — Rep. ELAINE LURIA (D-Va.) on what Monday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing will comprise, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Trump was told by multiple people — it should have been abundantly clear — that there was no evidence that showed the election was stolen, and he ignored tha . . .