Donald Trump news today: New details of Jan 6 inaction uncovered in special counsel probe

A judge late Saturday said former President Donald Trump’s lawyers can’t present legal arguments to a jury assessing damages at a defamation trial on a jury’s conclusion last year that he didn’t rape a columnist in the mid-1990s.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the determination in an order in advance of a Jan. 16 trial to determine defamation damages against Trump after a jury concluded Trump sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll but did not find evidence was sufficient to conclude that he raped her.

Trump, speaking in Iowa on Saturday as the Republican frontrunning presidential candidate in advance of a Jan. 15 primary, criticized the judge as a “radical Democrat” and mocked E. Jean Carroll for not screaming when she was attacked. “It was all made up,” he said.

Carroll, 80, won a $5 million award last May from a jury that concluded Trump sexually abused her in 1996 in a luxury department store dressing room and defamed her in 2022.

Trump did not attend the Manhattan trial where Carroll testified that a chance encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower was flirtatious and fun until he slammed her against a wall in a dressing room and attacked her sexually. Trump has vehemently denied it.

Kelly Rissman has the story:

Members of Congress and Pentagon leaders were unaware for days that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had been hospitalized since Monday, U.S. officials said Saturday, as questions swirled about his condition and the secrecy surrounding it.

And it remained unclear when the White House and other key U.S. officials were told about his stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Pentagon’s failure to disclose Austin’s hospitalization for days reflects a stunning lack of transparency about his illness, how serious it was and when he may be released. Such secrecy, at a time when the United States is juggling myriad national security crises, runs counter to normal practice with the president and other senior U.S. officials and Cabinet members.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday warned of an “all-out attack on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights” by Republicans and former president Donald Trump and stressed the importance of Black voters in her and President Joe Biden’s electoral prospects.

Ms Harris, who travelled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to address the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Seventh District Women’s Missionary Society, recalled how Americans had shown up to vote in the middle of a global pandemic just over three years ago.

As we reach the third anniversary of the attack on Congress, some 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes arising from January 6 and 750 sentenced but at least 80 bad actors have still not yet been identified, including the person in the grey hooded sweatshirt who left pipe bombs outside the offices of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees.

Here is a timeline of all the key developments that have occurred in the three years since that infamous day.

Daniel Bermudez’s family had fled Venezuela and was headed to the U.S. to seek asylum when the freight train they were riding through Mexico was stopped by immigration officials.

His wife tried to explain that her family had permission to go to the U.S. Instead, they flew her to Mexico’s southern border as part of a surge of enforcement actions that U.S. officials say have contributed to a sharp drop in illegal border crossings.

In addition to forcing migrants from trains, Mexico also resumed flying and busing them to the southern part of the country and started flying some home to Venezuela.

Even if temporary, the decrease in illegal crossings is welcome news for the White House. President Joe Biden’s administration is locked in talks with Senate negotiators over restricting asylum and $110 billion in aid for Ukraine and Israel hangs in the balance.

New York Republican Rep Elise Stefanik is under fire from Democrats for labelling January 6 prisoners “hostages,” echoing Donald Trump.

Ahead of the third anniversary of the Capitol riot, in a campaign speech in Sioux Center, Iowa, Mr Trump referred to individuals arrested and charged in connection to the Capitol attack as “J6 hostages.” He claimed, “Nobody’s been treated ever in history so badly as those people.”

On Sunday, Congresswoman Stefanik used the same language on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” She said, “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages.”

In response, high-profile figures in politics denounced her remarks.

Kelly Rissman reports on what they said:

House Republicans are planning to take the first official steps towards attempting to have President Joe Biden’s son Hunter charged with criminal contempt of Congress after he declined to sit for a closed-door interview and demanded to give evidence in public instead.

The House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee on Friday announced plans to mark up a resolution referring Hunter Biden for prosecution for not appearing for the 13 December deposition after receiving a subpoena compelling him to testify before the GOP-led Oversight panel, which has been conducting a year-long and largely fruitless probe into his father with the aim of tying the 46th president to his son’s overseas business ventures.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC:

Police are investigating an alleged physical altercation between Republican Rep Lauren Boebert and her ex-husband Jayson Boebert at a restaurant in Colorado on Saturday evening.

Police in Silt, Colorado, told The Independent that it is looking into reports of an incident involving the Colorado Republican at Miner’s Claim restaurant on 6 January.

Police Chief Mike Kite declined to elaborate further, citing that it was an “ongoing investigation.” He said the police are looking at security camera footage.

Mr Kite didn’t confirm who initiated the alleged fight and said no one had been arrested. When asked whether anyone had been hospitalised, he said: “Not that I know of.”

The Independent has contacted Rep Boebert’s office and the restaurant where the incident allegedly took place.