Trump GOP allies could return him to White House, Cheney warns: Live – The Independent

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Former Wyoming lawmaker worries what may happen if Republicans maintain majority in House of Representatives
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Liz Cheney says she wants Republicans to lose their House majority in 2024
Former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s greatest foes, says while she still believes in her party’s traditional principles, its co-option by the former president is a danger to democracy.
She would therefore like the party to lose its majority in the House of Representatives as a safeguard to prevent Speaker Mike Johnson from handing the election to Mr Trump if the result was thrown over to the lower chamber of Congress.
Ms Cheney also gave a dire warning that the US was sleepwalking its way toward dictatorship during an interview with CBS News on Sunday.
Meanwhile, federal court judges have dealt two legal blows in Mr Trump’s attempts to evade criminal charges and lawsuits stemming from his alleged attempts to overturn 2020 presidential results.
A long-awaited federal appeals court ruling on Friday determined that Mr Trump can be held civilly liable for inciting the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot in the wake of his 2020 loss.
In his federal election subversion case, Judge Tanya Chutkan determined that he also does not have presidential immunity to avoid charges in a case from US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith.
Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman and one of Donald Trump’s greatest foes, has given a dire warning about the possibility of the former president returning to the White House.
Speaking on CBS Sunday Morning she even went as far as saying she would like the GOP to lose its House majority to prevent “collaborator” Mike Johnson from holding onto his role as speaker.
Ms Cheney spoke with John Dickerson of CBS News about the looming danger to democracy posed by Mr Trump as explored in her new book Oath and Honor.
After saying that Mr Johnson was “absolutely” a collaborator in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Ms Cheney was asked what would happen if he is still speaker come January 2025.
Continued…
Former Republican lawmaker warns US is ‘sleepwalking into dictatorship’
The state-level criminal investigation into the 2020 election “fake electors” plot in Nevada has secured the cooperation of a key witness — Kenneth Chesebro, the lawyer who orchestrated the scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state.
Both CNN and The Washington Post report that Mr Chesebro has agreed to meet with investigators in the state in a bid to avoid prosecution there.
He pleaded guilty to charges relating to the plot in Georgia and as part of that plea deal has agreed to cooperate with the prosecution in the sprawling racketeering case against former president Donald Trump and 14 other co-defendants.
Mr Chesebro also agreed to cooperate with any relevant cases in the future both inside and outside the state.
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The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s federal election conspiracy case in Washington DC has rejected a motion to dismiss the case based on his argument that he enjoys presidential immunity.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, said that the former president’s time in officer did not bestow on him “the divine right of kings” to evade criminal accountability.
It comes as a long-awaited federal appeals court ruling also determined that Mr Trump can be held civilly liable for inciting the riots at the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021 in the wake of his 2020 loss.
Lawyers for Mr Trump had also tried to use his presidential “immunity” as a shield from the litigation.
In her ruling on Friday, Judge Chutkan said: “[The] defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”
The decision tees up a legal fight over the scope of presidential power that could ultimately reach the US Supreme Court.
Mike Bedigan reports.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, said that the former president’s time in office did not bestow on him ‘the divine right of kings’ to evade criminal accountability.
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote the introduction to a 2022 book that included baseless debunked conspiracy theories as well as homophobic slurs.
In addition to writing the foreword, the Louisiana lawmaker actively promoted the book by Scott McKay, a politics blogger, CNN reported.
Indeed, the speaker pushed the book on social media and dedicated an episode of his podcast to it.
The Revivalist Manifesto includes conspiracies often championed by the far-right, including the infamous discredited “Pizzagate” hoax concerning a high-ranking paedophile ring in Washington DC, and the unfounded conspiracy that the Democratic National Committee’s emails were not hacked in 2016 but leaked.
Spokesperson says speaker denies reading offending passages of book
A US appeals court has ruled that Donald Trump can be sued for inciting the Capitol riot.
The judgement was passed down today in US District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mr Trump’s attorneys attempted to use “presidential immunity” to shield him from civil action resulting from his incitement of the Capitol riot.
The appeals court was asked to determine whether Mr Trump has “demonstrated an entitlement to official-act immunity for his actions leading up to and on January 6 as alleged in the complaints.”
“We answer no, at least at this stage of the proceedings,” they wrote in a ruling on Friday.
Graig Graziosi has the details.
Alex Woodward writes:
News networks should be taken off air and investigated for treason. The nation’s top military official should be executed. A state judge presiding over a trial against him, and the attorney general suing him, should be arrested. People seeking asylum in the US are “poisoning the blood of our country” and should be turned away if they don’t accept “our religion.” Drug dealers should get the death sentence. “Liberal Jews” are voting to “destroy America and Israel.” The regime will “root out” political opponents who “live like vermin”.
Donald Trump’s latest violent, authoritarian visions in his 2024 campaign for the presidency are building on his platform of self-described retribution.
Read on…
Republicans shrug at Trump’s dangerous attacks while his authoritarian vision collides with multiple criminal and civil trials against him, Alex Woodward reports
The Fox News debate on Thursday between Florida governor Ron DeSantis and California governor Gavin Newsom was billed as the “Great Red vs Blue State debate,” a showdown between conservatism and liberalism itself.
But the spectre of the 2024 presidential election – and, well, maybe the 2028 one – hung over the conversation all night.
What exactly were these two men fighting for? And what comes next?
Josh Marcus reports from San Francisco.
Newsom isn’t running in 2024, and DeSantis campaign is on its last legs, so why are two battling at all?
Donald Trump shouldn’t be on trial in Georgia during his 2024 presidential campaign, and, if he wins that election, he shouldn’t be on trial until he leaves the White House, his attorneys told the judge overseeing a criminal case surrounding his efforts to overturn the results of the last election he lost.
The former president and leading candidate for the Republican nomination next year is criminally accused of joining a conspiracy to unlawfully subvert the state’s election results.
Prosecutors in Fulton County have proposed an August 2024 trial date, which his attorneys have called “election interference.”
Trump shouldn’t be tried until at least 2029, lawyers tell Fulton County judge
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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a commit to caucus campaign event at the Whiskey River bar on 2 December 2023
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