Trump news today: Jan 6 texts ‘wiped’ from Pentagon officials’ phones, court documents reveal

A former White House spokesman whose testimony was broadcast before a House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot is joining Sarah Sanders’ campaign for Arkansas governor.

Sanders’ campaign on Tuesday announced Judd Deere will serve as its communications director. Deere was among several senior staff hires announced.

Pat Cipollone, a White House counsel to former President Donald Trump, has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the 6 January 2021, riot at the US Capitol Building, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

ABC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that attorneys for Mr Cipollone were expected to negotiate terms of his testimony before the grand jury.

Mr Cipollone late last month testified by videotape before Jan 6 committee in a lengthy closed-door interview, which was also part of committee’s most recent public hearings.

“I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now,” Mr Cipollone said in his testimony to Jan 6 committee.

A company whose investigation into alleged voter fraud at the behest of Trump loyalists in Arizona was only able to uncover one single instance of a fraudulent ballot cast under the name of a voter who was dead, according to the state’s top elections official.

Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s attorney general, issued a letter to Republicans who led the effort to demand a recount of the 2020 election in the state Senate on Monday. In the letter, Mr Brnovich outlines how the Cyber Ninjas’s investigation had led to hundreds of baseless allegations of fraud involving the names of “dead” voters who in fact turned out to be alive.

John Bowden has the story.

A Biden administration task force has reunited 400 migrant children separated under Donald Trump with their families, but advocates say more than 1,000 still remain apart.

The youngsters were from around 5,000 families separated during the Trump administration as migrants crossing into the United States at the southern border with Mexico.

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis has set his sights on the next horizon in his government’s battle in the so-called culture wars: “woke CEOs”.

The Republican governor, who is considered to be a likely contender in the 2024 presidential election, said during a press briefing last week that he plans to tackle money transfer giants, such as PayPal, as well as investment funds and banks who try to impose a supposed “woke ideology” on their potential clients. He also hopes to introduce a flurry of legislative and executive initiatives that would hinder these companies’ abilities to “discriminate” against clients based on their political or religious beliefs.

Johanna Chisholm reports.

Republican Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene has publicly come out in support of the notion that she could hitch a ride on Donald Trump’s potential bid for the presidency in 2024, stating that she’d be “honoured” to run alongside him as his vice-president.

“I think if he asked me I would definitely give that some strong consideration,” she said when asked by hosts during an interview on America’s Real Voice last week whether she’d be interested in being the twice-impeached president’s running mate.

Negative impressions of former president Donald Trump are dragging down Republican candidates for the US Senate in four key swing state races, according to a recent poll commissioned by a political action committee affiliated with a top former Trump adviser.

The survey of 1200 voters — 300 general election voters each in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia — was commissioned by the John Bolton Super PAC. The PAC is run by Ambassador John Bolton, Mr Trump’s third national security adviser.

It found that Trump-endorsed candidates in three of the four states trail their Democratic opponents and have largely unfavourable ratings with “independent and undecided voters”.

Andrew Feinberg reports on the findings.

Speculation continues to swirl regarding whether Donald Trump would face criminal charges resulting from the Jan 6 attack after it became clear that the select committee was laying out a case to prove his various wrongdoings.

Attention has turned in recent weeks to the committee’s chair and vice chair, who have appeared to take the opposite positions from a majority of their respective parties regarding whether the committee itself would formally call for Donald Trump’s prosecution.

Donald Trump has again repeated his claim that he wanted 10,000 troops at the Capitol on January 6, but the request was turned down by Nancy Pelosi and the Mayor of DC Muriel Bowser.

He wrote on Truth Social:

The Unselect Committee of Political Thugs has not devoted one hour to the massive Election Fraud and Irregularities that took place in the 2020 Presidential Election, the reason that hundreds of thousands of people went to Washington on January 6th. When will they start? The Unselects also refuse to look at why Crazy Nancy Pelosi and the Mayor of D.C. turned down from 10-20,000 troops. Why is this, I wonder?

But testimony at the January 6 hearings denies that this order ever happened.