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The results of the 2024 election will be ratified on Monday, four years after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
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Former police officers have been “devastated” by Donald Trump’s vow to pardon January 6 rioters, four years on from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
On Monday, Trump’s sweeping victory will be ratified four years after supporters of the President-elect refused to accept the result of the 2020 election and began a violent insurrection.
Since then, almost 1,600 people have been charged in the riot, including more than 590 people charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the FBI.
The President-elect has repeatedly vowed to pardon those convicted when he returns to the White House. “I’m going to be acting very quickly, first day,” Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Aquilino Gonell, a former sergeant in the Capitol Police, said a pardon “outrageous mistake,” that could put him and other law enforcement officers in danger.
“I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for,” he said. “Releasing those who assaulted us from blame would be a desecration of justice. If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.”
Donald Trump is facing criticism for premiering a documentary over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago about an allied lawyer who helped him strategize about how to overturn the 2020 election results.
The film, The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare of Justice, profiles lawyer John Eastman, who helped Donald Trump formulate an unprecedented, illegal plan to use Congress and the vice-president to overturn the certification of the 2020 election results.
Josh Marcus has more:
Screening came just before anniversary of January 6 insurrection at U.S. Capitol
A former Capitol police officer says he has been “devastated” by Donald Trump’s vow to pardon January 6 rioters, four years on from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Aquilino Gonell, a former sergeant in the Capitol Police, said a pardon “outrageous mistake,” that could put him and other law enforcement officers in danger.
“I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for,” he said. “Releasing those who assaulted us from blame would be a desecration of justice. If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.”
After a whipsaw couple of hours, Mike Johnson remained speaker of the House of Representatives with the help of some pressure from President-elect Donald Trump. The move shows that the mild-mannered Louisianan is a far more deft politician than his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, who had to go fifteen rounds before he became speaker two years ago.
But Johnson’s speech afterward did not set the tone, nor did the speech of House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain.
Rather, it came when House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar nominated Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and called Democrats the “governing majority.”
Keep reading:
Yes, Republicans have a trifecta. Yes, Trump is president. But hardliners’ inability to take ‘yes’ for an answer means Democrats can act as the ‘governing majority,’ in a coalition with Mike Johnson, Eric Garcia reports
Conservative commentators were outraged after the Biden administration gave billionaire investor and Democratic mega-donor George Soros the Medal of Freedom.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called on the incoming Trump administration to rescind the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“Send a team to track down Soros and take the medal back,” Bannon said on his War Room podcast. “It is a disgrace that a demonic individual like that—who has been going out of his way to try to destroy this country, to mock this constitutional republic, which he hates and has dedicated his life to destroying—that we would be presenting him, awarding him, the highest civilian honor that you can give.”
Read more:
Soros has long been lightning rod for conservatives due to prolific funding for Democrats and progressive causes
MSNBC panel members burst into laughter while reading President-elect Donald Trump’s most recent social media rant.
Trump posted a rant on Truth Social Saturday morning decrying his legal woes after Judge Juan Merchan ordered him to appear for sentencing in his hush-money case on January 10, just over one week before his inauguration.
“There has never been a President who was so evilly and illegally treated as I,” Trump wrote. “Corrupt Democrat judges and prosecutors have gone against a political opponent of a President, ME, at levels of injustice never seen before.”
Republican Senator Jim Banks revealed he believes Speaker Mike Johnson wouldn’t have won his leadership role without President-elect Donald Trump’s support.
“Donald Trump weighed in in support of Mike Johnson. I don’t think Mike Johnson would be Speaker of the House this morning if Donald Trump wouldn’t have weighed in last week, spent political capital helping him get elected on one vote,” Banks told CNN on Sunday.
“And to me, that’s a positive sign that House Republicans are unified behind Donald Trump, the Trump agenda,” he added.
New York Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican, suggested Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election in part due to his hush-money conviction.
“Well, the great irony in all of this is that I don’t think anyone did more to help elect Donald Trump president of the United States than Alvin Bragg and Tish James,” Lawler told Fox News, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who prosecuted the hush-money case.
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a scheme to silence adult film stat Stormy Daniels, whose story about having sex with Trump threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
The judge overseeing the case ordered Trump to appear for sentencing on January 10. However, he has indicated the sentence will be an unconditional discharge. This means Trump will face no jail time, probation or fines.
A deal that would see Elon Musk’s SpaceX take over secure communications for the Italian government is reportedly back on track and nearing final approval after Italy’s prime minister met with Donald Trump this weekend.
Read more:
Ongoing talks ‘appeared to move forward’ after meeting, according to reports
House speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi discussed the ongoing threat of political violence and the dangers posed by Donald Trump’s 2020 misinformation campaign in an interview Sunday on Face the Nation.
The former top Democrat in the lower chamber said that her husband, Paul Pelosi, still faces medical issues resulting from a violent attack he suffered in 2022, when an intruder in their home attacked him with a hammer.
The suspect, David DePape, was convicted of the violent attack and found to have been consumed by far-right conspiracy theories promoted by various figures aligned with MAGA Republicanism, including the 2020 stolen election conspiracies promoted by Trump himself.
Keep reading:
Speaker emerita says ‘sick’ Trump needs to stop fixating on 2020 defeat
President-elect Donald Trump held a party at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night during which he screened a documentary about John Eastman, a close ally who tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the 2020 election, MSNBC and CBS News reports.
Trump spoke at the event, praising Eastman and insisting he was “right the whole time,” the outlet reports. MSNBC’s Symone Sanders Townsend slammed Trump’s speech, calling the celebration “sickening.”
The party was held without formal invitations or notifications to the media, The Daily Beast reports.
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