Trump news: Kevin McCarthy says ex-president accepted responsibility for Jan 6 in new audio

Mike Lee, a right-wing Utah Senator who infamously said Donald Trump deserved a “mulligan” over the events of 6 January 2021, has given an interview seeking to clarify texts he exchanged with Mr Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in the period between the 2020 election and the Capitol attack.

Speaking to his home state’s Deseret News, Mr Lee insisted Mr Meadows knew the senator “was not there to do his bidding”, claimed his texts have been taken out of context for “political motives”, and declined to unequivocally state that Joe Biden was elected via a free and fair election.

Read the interview below.

Next month sees a rash of crucial Senate primaries in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Alabama – and in every major race, one of the most important factors is Donald Trump’s endorsement. So far, the received wisdom has been that the former president can do a lot to boost any the chances of any candidate he likes, but the unusual dynamics of the upcoming races will put that logic to the test.

Writing for The Independent, Eric Garcia offers a guide to Mr Trump’s most important endorsements thus far, and what they could mean for the future of the GOP in Washington.

One of the biggest worries about threats to future US elections is that the proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories could fuel threats to election workers – and even lead to the passage of laws on false premises. Now, a House of Representatives committee is beginning an investigation into state-level disinformation, focusing for now on four states; Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Texas.

In a letter, the panel asked officials to explain the most significant misinformation and disinformation claims they were exposed to, the impact those had on election administration, and any threats they’ve received as a result of the many false theories pushed by right-wing supporters of Donald Trump.

Read more from the Washington Post.

The emerging reports of furious discussions among top Republicans after the 6 January riot are yielding all sorts of anecdotes, and one of the more ironic is a claim that Kevin McCarthy wanted Donald Trump and some of his party’s more extreme representatives kicked off social media.

Andrew Feinberg has more.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tomorrow faces a case that could see her barred from holding public office over a clause in the 14th amendment which applies to those who have engaged in “rebellion” against the Constitution. The group suing to get her banned from the ballot claims that she supported the rioters who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021 – and in the complaint against her, it points to her repeated use of “1776” in messages and tweets sent in the run-up to the attack:

And of course, Ms Greene wasn’t the only far-right member of Congress to invoke the year of the Declaration of Independence:

Enraged by the trailer for his interview with Piers Morgan, which purports to show him walking out in the face of aggressive questioning, Donald Trump has released audio recorded during the two men’s discussion – and the clip he’s put out appears to contradict the trailer’s version of events.

Read more from Gustaf Kilander below.

An upcoming book from two New York Times reporters details how top GOP leaders on Capitol Hill were all in with the effort to punish Donald Trump over the Jan 6 attack on Congress — that is, until it became clear that the majority of their party was still behind the former president.

In This Will Not Pass, reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin examine behind-the-scenes statements made by the two GOP leaders on the Hill, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, and how their thinking evolved in the days and weeks following the deadly attack.

“I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,” noted Mr McConnell to a friend, according to the two reporters.

Read more at the Times:

One of the attorneys involved in the lawsuit to toss Marjorie Taylor Greene’s name from the ballot in Georgia argued on Wednesday that Ms Greene “signalled” her followers to join the attack on Congress the next day.

Ron Fein’s statement to MSNBC on Wednesday went further than most have done and directly accused Ms Greene of knowing ahead of time that violence was likely.

“The day before the attack, she signaled to her followers a codeword that meant to storm federal buildings and supposedly overthrow tyrants,” said Mr Fein. “So, we are going to ask her about all of that and more.”

Ms Greene has long denied any support for the violence on January 6, but remains a supporter of Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

Read more from The Independent’s Nathan Place:

Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine under former President Donald Trump who was ousted in an apparent effort to give Rudy Giuliani free reign to conduct diplomacy in the country, tore into her former boss on Wednesday.

Ms Yovanovitch joined MSNBC and claimed that Mr Trump was never committed to aiding Ukraine’s national defence, sharply contrasting the claims made by the former president and his allies since the Russian invasion began.

“President Trump was using Ukraine as a pawn for his own personal reasons, rather than working for our national security interests, which included having a strong Ukraine,” she said.

Watch the interview at MSNBC:

Donald Trump Jr will meet with lawmakers on the January 6 committee who are seeking his voluntary testimony, sources on the committee told ABC News on Thursday.

The eldest son of the former president was a top figure in Mr Trump’s reelection campaign, unlike his sister Ivanka and her husband who served inside the administration.

The committee is likely trying to establish how much the Trump campaign and former president’s inner circle knew about the likelihood that violence would erupt on January 6, and to determine how deeply Mr Trump Jr was involved in post-election efforts to overturn the results.

Read more from The Independent: