Watchdog probes if DOJ officials tried to overturn election
The Justice Department’s inspector general is launching an investigation to examine whether any former or current department officials “engaged in an improper attempt” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Monday that the investigation will investigate allegations concerning the conduct of former and current Justice Department officials but will not extend to other government officials.
The Justice Department watchdog investigation follows a report in The New York Times that a former assistant attorney general, Jeffrey Clark, had been discussing a plan with then-President Donald Trump to oust the acting attorney general and try to challenge the results of the 2020 race by falsely saying there had been widespread election fraud.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded the inspector general launch a probe “into this attempted sedition.” The New York Democrat said it was “unconscionable a Trump Justice Department leader would conspire to subvert the people’s will.”
The watchdog’s probe is part of a growing number of efforts underway to investigate the attempts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election results. The moves culminated in a deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and a second impeachment of Trump, this time for inciting an insurrection.
Election officials across the country, along with Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed there was no widespread fraud in the election. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mayor decries violence:
Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler said Monday the ongoing criminal destruction and violence occurring in his city, which has been the epicenter of protests against racial injustice for eight months, is “unacceptable.”
At a news conference Monday, Wheeler also said he had filed a police report about an “incident” that happened to him, but he did not elaborate. Later, his office said in a statement that the mayor filed a police report over something that happened Sunday evening.
“The mayor is cooperating with the police investigation and encourages others involved to do the same,” the statement said.
Wheeler, who was reelected in November, has been targeted before by leftwing demonstrators, including some who smashed windows and set fires inside his condo building.
Earlier this month, Wheeler was accosted by a group while he was dining at a restaurant outside in northwest Portland. A member of the group started swatting at Wheeler as others yelled obscenities at him.
On Monday, Wheeler said people participating in criminal destruction, whom he described as “thugs” and predominantly “middleage to young white men,” should be arrested, investigated prosecuted and
held accountable for their actions.
Fewer sanctions on Yemen rebels:
The Biden administration on Monday suspended some of the terrorism sanctions that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo imposed on Yemen’s Houthi rebels in his waning days in office.
The Treasury Department said it would exempt certain transactions involving the Houthis from sanctions resulting from Pompeo’s designation of the group as a “foreign terrorist organization” on Jan. 10. The exemption will expire Feb. 26, according to a statement from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announcing a general license for transactions that involve entities owned by the Iran-backed Houthis.
The sanctions Pompeo imposed had taken effect Jan. 19, just a day before President Joe Biden was inaugurated, and had been roundly criticized by the United Nations and relief
organizations. Critics said the sanctions would exacerbate what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises by barring aid deliveries to civilians in the war-torn nation.
Emoluments suits ended:
The Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to lawsuits over whether Donald Trump illegally profited off his presidency, saying the cases are moot now that Trump is no longer in office.
The high court’s action was the first in an expected steady stream of orders and rulings on pending lawsuits involving Trump now that his presidency has ended. Some orders may result in dismissals of cases since Trump is no longer president. In other cases, proceedings that had been delayed because Trump was in the White House could resume and their pace even quicken.
The justices threw out Trump’s challenge to lower court rulings that
had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.
Senator won’t run again:
Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio, said Monday that he won’t seek reelection due in part to how it’s gotten “harder to break through the partisan gridlock and make progress” and plans to end a career in federal government spanning more than three decades.
Portman’s announcement came the same day the Senate received the House impeachment article against former Republican President Donald Trump. While some Republican senators have criticized going ahead with the trial next month with Trump out of office, Portman said last week he
would listen to both sides before making a decision on how to vote.
“Our country is very polarized,” Portman said, adding that Trump did not help with the polarization.
Sanders to run: Sarah Sanders, Donald Trump’s former chief spokeswoman and one of his closest aides, announced Monday she’s running for Arkansas governor, vying for political office even as the former president’s legacy is clouded by an impeachment charge that he incited the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.
The former White House press secretary, who left the job in 2019 to return to her home state, launched the bid less than a week after the end of Trump’s time in office and as the ex-president faces an impeachment trial.
“With the radical left now in control of Washington, your governor is your last line of defense,” Sanders said in a video announcing her bid. “In fact, your governor must be on the front line.”