Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere, MLK jr – Page 14

Factbox-‘Bloodbath,’ ‘vermin,’ ‘animals’: Trump’s rhetoric on the trail

Reuters

Factbox-‘Bloodbath,’ ‘vermin,’ ‘animals’: Trump’s rhetoric on the trail

Gram Slattery – March 22, 2024

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Trump hosts a campaign rally, in Rome, Georgia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made a series of inflammatory and racist statements on the U.S. campaign trail since declaring his candidacy in November 2022.

In some cases, he has used violent imagery to lambaste immigrants and opponents. He has warned that the United States is on the verge of collapse, and his rhetoric has raised concerns that he might flout democratic norms by using the power of the state to target perceived enemies if he is elected.

Here are some of Trump’s more controversial statements to date:

BLOOD POISONING

Trump has said on several occasions that immigrants in the United States illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Anti-Defamation League leader Jonathan Greenblatt called the language “racist, xenophobic and despicable.” The campaign of Democratic President Joe Biden compared Trump’s comments to those of Adolf Hitler, who used the phrase “blood poisoning” in his manifesto “Mein Kampf.”

Public opinion polls show that illegal immigration is a leading concern for voters, and Trump has consistently portrayed immigration as a major driver of violent crime and economic decay.

In past statements, Trump has suggested that Democrats are purposefully allowing migrants into the country to grow their political support.

This is a key element of the far-right “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which asserts that leftist and Jewish elites are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with immigrants of color that will lead to a “white genocide.”

The debate over the economic effects of immigration is decades-long, though most researchers say immigration broadly boosts economic growth.

Some 33% of Republicans in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll cited immigration as their top issue, while 6% of Democrats said the same.

VERMIN

Trump pledged at a November rally in New Hampshire that he would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

Those comments drew rebukes from congressional Democrats and some moderate Republicans. Some historians have traced the use of the word “vermin” to Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini.

Political historians say the use of dehumanizing rhetoric – including words like “vermin” – makes it easier to strip away rights from residents and citizens as they are seen as less worthy of democratic or constitutional protections. Nazis, for instance, frequently referred to Jews as lice, rats and vermin.

The Trump campaign has dismissed those comparisons.

BLOODBATH

During a March appearance alongside a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, Trump warned of a “bloodbath” if he fails to unseat Biden in November’s election.

At the time Trump was discussing the need to protect the U.S. auto industry from overseas competition, and Trump and allies later said he was referring to the auto industry when he used the term.

Trump’s campaign has sought to portray Biden as a threat to automaking jobs in Michigan, a key swing state, due to the Biden administration’s promotion of electric vehicles.

Biden’s campaign team rejected that characterization and condemned what it called Trump’s “extremism,” “his thirst for revenge” and his “threats of political violence.”

IMMIGRANTS ARE ‘ANIMALS,’ ‘NOT PEOPLE’

Trump has frequently referred to immigrants in the country illegally in subhuman terms, for example referring to them as animals who are prone to violence.

“In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” he said during his March appearance in Ohio. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical Left says that’s a terrible thing to say. “These are animals, OK, and we have to stop it,” he said.

During stump speeches, Trump frequently claims that immigrants crossing the border illegally have escaped from prisons and asylums in their home countries and are fueling violent crime in the United States.

While available data on criminals’ immigration status is sparse, researchers say people in the country illegally do not commit violent crimes at a higher rate than native-born citizens.

BLACK AMERICANS AND CRIME

Trump drew the ire of Biden’s campaign and civil rights leaders and groups in February when he suggested Black voters were more drawn to him because of his criminal indictments. He also said Black voters had come to “embrace” his mugshots.

“And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against,” Trump said while speaking to a Black conservative group in South Carolina before the state’s primary election, which he went on to win.

Trump’s legal challenges, including federal charges over his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of classified documents, among other state charges and civil lawsuits, differ greatly from the historic inequities Black Americans have experienced in the criminal justice system.

Trump has also described at least two Black prosecutors – Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James – as “animals.” He has repeatedly referred to James as “Peekaboo,” which rhymes with a racial slur.

Trump allies say his attacks are referring to prosecutors’ conduct, not their race, and they say he is working hard to win the support of Black voters.

APOCALYPSE NOW

Trump frequently leans into apocalyptic imagery on the campaign trail, telling supporters that if he does not win in November – or if he does not otherwise get his way – the country will enter into terminal decline.

At a March campaign event in North Carolina, Trump said Biden’s immigration policies amounted to a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States” through lax security policies that had allowed millions of migrants to stream across the U.S. border with Mexico.

Biden’s administration, Trump contended, seeks “to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”

In response, Biden’s campaign pointed to a border security bill in Congress that Trump helped torpedo in February by urging Republicans to vote against it.

DICTATOR ON ‘DAY ONE’

During a televised town hall in December, Trump said he would not be a dictator “other than (on) Day One” of a potential second term. He said he would close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling during the first day of his administration.

Biden’s campaign said the comments were explicit proof that he wants to be an autocrat, while Trump’s allies said he was joking.

Biden has centered his campaign on the contention that stopping Trump from returning to office is crucial, as Trump represents a threat to democracy.

Trump argues that Biden is a more serious threat to democracy, as federal law enforcement agencies under him are prosecuting prominent Republicans, himself included.

Some 44% of Democrats said extremism is their top election issue, according to the February Reuters/Ipsos poll, while 13% of Republicans said the same.

GRAPHIC: Where Biden and Trump stand on the issues.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin, Kieran Murray and Howard Goller)

Man who helped drag police officer into mob gets over 5 years in prison for Capitol riot attacks

Associated Press

Man who helped drag police officer into mob gets over 5 years in prison for Capitol riot attacks

Michael Kunzelman – March 21, 2024

This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department's government's sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Jeffrey Sabol shows Sabol at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. During the course of an attack on police officers, Sabol ripped the baton out of the hands of a fallen officer, leaving him unable to defend himself against assaults by other rioters. Sabol then helped his co-defendants drag a second officer into the crowd, where that officer was also beaten by rioters. (Department of Justice via AP) — This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department’s government’s sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Jeffrey Sabol shows Sabol at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. During the course of an attack on police officers, Sabol ripped the baton out of the hands of a fallen officer, leaving him unable to defend himself against assaults by other rioters. Sabol then helped his co-defendants drag a second officer into the crowd, where that officer was also beaten by rioters. (Department of Justice via AP)

This combination of images from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department's government's sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Jeffrey Sabol, shows Sabol at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. During the course of an attack on police officers, Sabol ripped the baton out of the hands of a fallen officer, leaving him unable to defend himself against assaults by other rioters. Sabol then helped his co-defendants drag a second officer into the crowd, where that officer was also beaten by rioters. (Department of Justice via AP) — This combination of images from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department’s government’s sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Jeffrey Sabol, shows Sabol at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. During the course of an attack on police officers, Sabol ripped the baton out of the hands of a fallen officer, leaving him unable to defend himself against assaults by other rioters. Sabol then helped his co-defendants drag a second officer into the crowd, where that officer was also beaten by rioters. (Department of Justice via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Colorado man who helped other rioters drag a police officer into a mob storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to more than five years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

Jeffrey Sabol ripped a baton from an officer’s hands before pulling another officer into the crowd outside the Capitol, allowing other rioters to assault the officer with weapons.

Sabol, 54, told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras that he knows he is “100%” guilty and would have apologized directly to the officers whom he attacked if they had attended the hearing.

“I accept whatever it is you hand me,” Sabol said. “I’ll be honest: I deserve it.”

The judge sentenced Sabol to five years and three months behind bars. He’ll get credit for the three years and two months that he has already spent in jail since his arrest.

Contreras said Sabol had mischaracterized his violent actions on Jan. 6 as efforts to be helpful.

“It’s hard to imagine how any of this was helpful,” the judge said after describing Sabol’s conduct that day.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 10 years and one month for Sabol.

Sabol told FBI agents who arrested him that he was filled with “patriotic rage” on Jan. 6 because he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump and said he answered a “call to battle” because he was a “patriot warrior,” according to prosecutors.

Contreras convicted Sabol of felony charges last year after a “stipulated bench trial,” which means the judge decided the case without a jury based on facts that both sides agreed to in advance. Such trials allow defendants to admit to certain facts while maintaining a right to appeal a conviction.

Sabol traveled from Colorado to Washington, D.C., with other members of what he called a “neighborhood watch” group. They attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6 before Sabol went to the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Sabol was wearing a helmet when he and other rioters attacked police officers on the west side of the Capitol.

“He entered the fray with the intent to halt the certification of the electoral college vote and to violently combat what he believed was a stolen election,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

On the Lower West Terrace, Sabol initially watched as another rioter beat a Metropolitan Police Department officer with a crutch and started to drag that officer down a set of steps. Sabol and a third rioter stepped in and helped drag the officer headfirst down the steps and into the crowd, where other rioters beat him with a flagpole and baton.

After Sabol stole a baton from another officer, other rioters dragged the officer into the crowd, kicked and stomped on him, struck him with poles and ripped off his gas mask before he was pepper sprayed.

Sabol tried to cover his tracks and flee the country after the riot. He microwaved laptops and hard drives, dropped his cell phone out a car window and booked a flight to Zurich, Switzerland, but he didn’t board the flight. Instead, he rented a car and drove to the Westchester, New York, area before he was arrested on Jan. 22, 2021.

Sabol worked as a senior geophysical manager for an environmental services company that fired him after his arrest.

“Jeff Sabol is not a violent man and regrets being caught up in his emotions and engaging in conduct that is not reflective of the law-abiding man and loving father that he has always strived to project,” his attorney wrote in a court filing.

Contreras previously sentenced several other rioters who were charged with Sabol and convicted of attacking the injured officers.

A former Tennessee sheriff’s deputy, Ronald Colton McAbee, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison. Florida resident Mason Courson was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison. Arkansas truck driver Peter Francis Stager was sentenced to four years and four months in prison. Michigan resident Justin Jersey was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. Michigan construction worker Logan Barnhart was sentenced to three years in prison. Kentucky business owner Clayton Ray Mullins was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

Another co-defendant, Georgia business owner Jack Wade Whitton, is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

More than 1,300 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Man who helped drag officer into crowd on Jan. 6 sentenced to prison

The Hill

Man who helped drag officer into crowd on Jan. 6 sentenced to prison

Tara Suter – March 21, 2024

A Colorado man charged for helping drag a law enforcement officer into a crowd during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was sentenced to more than five years in prison Thursday, according to prosecutors.

On top of the sentence, Jeffrey Sabol, 53, was also given three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $32,000 in restitution, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. He has been convicted of three felony charges including obstruction of an official proceeding in relation to his conduct during the Jan. 6 riot.

Sabol traveled from Colorado to Washington, D.C., to watch former President Trump speak at his “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse on the day of the Jan. 6 riot, according to court documents. He traveled with fellow members of a “self-described ‘neighborhood watch’ group.”

“Before leaving, the group members discussed what to bring with them,” the press release said. “On the advice of one group member, Sabol packed a helmet, a trauma kit, a buck knife, and zip ties.”

Following the rally, he made his way to the Capitol and joined the riot, the release said. At one point, he “assisted two rioters in dragging a law enforcement officer down the steps and into” a mob, where “rioters beat the officer with a flagpole and a baton.”

Later, Sabol “deleted text messages and other communications from his cell phone,” prosecutors wrote.

He also tried to flee the U.S. and booked a flight to Switzerland, but could not board the aircraft and “rented a car and drove toward Westchester, New York, where the FBI arrested him on Jan. 11, 2021,” according to the documents.

Sabol acknowledged during his hearing that he is “100 percent” guilty and said he would have apologized to the officers if they had been present, according to The Associated Press.

“I accept whatever it is you hand me,” Sabol told the judge, per the AP. “I’ll be honest: I deserve it.”

More than 1,300 individuals have been charged with federal crimes related to the insurrection, according to the release. Of those charged, more than 800 have been sentenced.

Self-professed ‘patriot warrior’ sentenced for role in violent Jan. 6 insurrection

United Press International

Self-professed ‘patriot warrior’ sentenced for role in violent Jan. 6 insurrection

Doug Cunningham – March 21, 2024

Jeffrey Sabol, a Colorado man who helped drag a police officer into the violent pro-Trump Jan.6 insurrection mob, was sentenced Thursday to 63 months in prison for three felonies. Pro-Trump rioters breached the security perimeter at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021 (pictured). File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

March 21 (UPI) — A Colorado man who helped drag a police officer into the violent pro-Trump mob during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection was sentenced Thursday to 63 months in prison for three felonies.

Jeffrey Sabol, 53, was accused of beating a police officer who was attempting to help injured rioters.

His charges include an attack on a D.C. police officer. He said in an interview with police following his arrest that he had answered a call to battle because he “was a patriot warrior.”

“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.

Sabol, of Kittredge, Colo., also was sentenced to 36 months of supervised release and ordered to pay $32,165.65.

Pro-Trump rioters breach the security perimeter and penetrate the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the Electoral College vote count that would certify President-elect Joe Biden as the winner in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

The Justice Department, citing court documents and stipulated facts in the case, said Sabol attended the Trump “Stop The Steal” rally before joining the front of a line of rioters confronting police at the Capitol.

“In a coordinated effort, Sabol and another rioter pushed a third rioter — who, himself, was holding a riot shield — from behind, propelling him forward and up a set of steps, so that the rioter with the shield ran into the line of police,” the DOJ said in a statement. “As the officers attempted to repel the rioters pushing against the police line, Sabol kept pushing forward and slammed into a riot shield held by a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer.”

Pro-Trump rioters breach the security perimeter and penetrate the U.S. Capitol to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power as Congress met to certify the Electoral College results in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

Sabol was in the pro-Trump mob as an MPD officer was pulled into the violent mob, according to the DOJ.

He was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, federal robbery, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon and aiding and abetting.

After the attack on the Capitol Sabol deleted texts and other communications from his cell phone. He also booked a flight to Zurich, Switzerland in an attempt to flee the United States.

After he was unable to board the aircraft Sabol rented a car and drove to Westchester, New York, where he was arrested by the FBI Jan. 11, 2021.

He told officers he was wanted by the FBI after “fighting tyranny in the D.C. Capitol.”

He also destroyed his laptop computers in a microwave oven and dropped his cell phone in a body of water.

The DOJ said Sabol came to the Capitol with a helmet, a buck knife, a trauma kit and zip ties.

During the melee Sabol pulled an officer’s baton from his hands as he was supine on the ground with such force that the officer’s torso was lifted from the ground, according to the DOJ.

Sabol is a geophysicist.

The DOJ said Thursday since Jan. 1, 2021 1,358 people have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the Capitol insurrection. More than 486 people have been charged with felonies for assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

Federal judge sentencing a Jan. 6 rioter worries Trump could spur another attack

NBC News

Federal judge sentencing a Jan. 6 rioter worries Trump could spur another attack

Ryan J. Reilly – March 21, 2024

WASHINGTON — A federal judge who has overseen numerous criminal cases against Donald Trump supporters who viciously assaulted police officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol expressed concern during a sentencing hearing Thursday that the former president could trigger another violent attack in the lead-up to or aftermath of the 2024 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras voiced those concerns while sentencing Jeffrey Sabol, a Colorado geophysicist, to 63 months, or more than five years, in federal prison. Sabol had told the FBI that he believed there was no question the election was stolen and that Dominion voting machines had been tampered with. Sabol also told the FBI he was filled with “patriotic rage” on Jan. 6, that a “call to battle was announced” and that he “answered the call because he was a patriot warrior.”

Contreras said that Trump and his allies had “spurred” the attack on the Capitol, saying he was worried that Sabol would respond once again if a similar “call” was issued.

“It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine a similar call coming out in the coming months,” Contreras said Thursday.

Sabol, who repeatedly assaulted officers at the lower west tunnel during the Capitol attack, was one of a fraction of the Jan. 6 defendants who had been held pretrial, so he’s already served the majority of his sentence. He was arrested on Jan. 11, 2021, just five days after the attack. Sabol destroyed his laptop in a microwave oven, dropped his cellphone in a body of water and tried to board a flight to Zurich, Switzerland, prior to his arrest, prosecutors said.

Contreras on Thursday also ordered Sabol to pay $32,165.65 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.

Jeffrey Sabol, center, seen during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia)

In the lead-up to the Capitol attack, many Trump supporters saw the former president’s Dec. 19, 2020 “will be wild” tweet encouraging people to come to Washington on Jan. 6 as a “call to arms.” As criminal cases against hundreds of Trump supporters have made their way through federal court, Jan. 6 defendants have said time and time again that they took the actions they did because they believed the former president’s baseless lies about the 2020 election.

Some Jan. 6 defendants have said they were duped and manipulated and expressed retroactive embarrassment about their lack of critical thinking skills, with some defendants even calling themselves idiots.

In the court gallery for Sabol’s sentencing was Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she jumped through a broken window leading into the House Speaker’s Lobby. Witthoeft attended a vigil for Jan. 6 defendants outside a jail in Washington this week, which was livestreamed, saying that she had spoken with Trump on the phone earlier in the day and that the former president “talked about setting these guys free when he gets in,” a message he asked to be passed along to Jan. 6 defendants.

The former president was supposed to be currently standing trial in connection with his efforts to overturn his election loss. Instead, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Trump’s claims of total presidential immunity from criminal charges next month, and it is unclear if he will face trial before Election Day 2024.

Numerous members of the federal judiciary in Washington have indicated that they believe Trump is responsible for the events of Jan. 6. Contreras said at a prior sentencing against a Jan. 6 rioter that Trump and his allies “bear responsibility for what occurred that day.”

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, at a prior Jan. 6 sentencing, said that the Republican Party was “actively shunning the few who think standing up for principle is more important than power and have stepped forward to educate the public and to speak the truth.” The threat to democracy, Berman Jackson said, did not evaporate or dissipate just because the 2020 election results were certified.

“The lie that the election was stolen or illegitimate is still being propagated. Indeed, it’s being amplified, not only on extremist social media sites, but on mainstream news outlets,” she said. “And worse, it’s become heresy for a member of the former president’s party to say otherwise.”

More recently, Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth expressed astonishment that Republican politicians had so readily latched onto “preposterous” claims about the events of Jan. 6 itself. He cited claims that criminals convicted in a court of law or ordered held until trial by federal judges because of their danger to the community or risk of flight were “hostages,” a term Trump and his supporters like Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have used.

“The Court is accustomed to defendants who refuse to accept that they did anything wrong. But in my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream,” Lamberth, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan in 1987, said.

“I have been dismayed to see distortions and outright falsehoods seep into the public consciousness,” Lamberth continued. “The Court fears that such destructive, misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.”

Republicans Call for Raising Retirement Age in Clash With Biden

Bloomberg

Republicans Call for Raising Retirement Age in Clash With Biden

Jack Fitzpatrick – March 20, 2024

(Bloomberg Government) — The largest caucus of House Republicans called for an increase in the Social Security retirement age Wednesday, setting up a clash with President Joe Biden over spending on popular entitlement programs.

The Republican Study Committee, which comprises about 80% of House Republicans, called for the Social Security eligibility age to be tied to life expectancy in its fiscal 2025 budget proposal. It also suggests reducing benefits for top earners who aren’t near retirement, including a phase-out of auxiliary benefits for the highest earners.

The proposal sets the stage for an election-year fight with Biden, who accused Republicans of going after popular entitlement programs during his State of the Union address.

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“If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare, or raise the retirement age, I will stop you,” Biden said in his March 7 address to Congress.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the caucus’s chairman, said the president’s opposition to Social Security policy changes would lead to automatic benefit cuts when the program’s trust fund is set for insolvency in 2033. A phased-in retirement age change was a standard feature of past negotiations, he said.

“Anytime there’s been any reforms in history – President Clinton, President Reagan – had a slow migration of age changes for people that are 18, 19 years old,” Hern told reporters Wednesday.

Former President Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee this year, has offered an inconsistent position on entitlements. He said in a March 11 CNBC interview that “there’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” He then told Breitbart he “will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare.”

The caucus’s budget proposal is more aggressive than the recent proposal by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who advanced a budget resolution earlier this month that called for a bipartisan commission to negotiate Social Security and Medicare solvency but didn’t make specific policy recommendations. The Republican Study Committee, meanwhile, called for policy changes that would reduce spending on Social Security by $1.5 trillion and Medicare by $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

Republicans have said their proposals aren’t truly cuts and wouldn’t affect those at or near retirement. But Biden and congressional Democrats such as Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the Budget Committee, have said they won’t support an increase in the age of eligibility.

The caucus’s proposal leaves some details out. It calls “modest changes to the primary insurance amount” for those who aren’t near retirement and “earn more than the wealthiest” benefit level. It also proposes “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” And it would “limit and phase out auxiliary benefits for high income earners.”

The proposal projects to balance the federal budget by 2031, outlining $16.6 trillion in spending cuts over a decade.

The proposal calls for Medicare spending reductions by implementing a “premium support model” in which private Medicare Advantage plans would compete with the federal Medicare plan. It proposes moving graduate medical education payments, which go to teaching hospitals for their residency programs, into a trust fund separate from Medicare.

Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget proposal, released March 11, called for an increase in the tax rate to support Medicare on those earning more than $400,000 a year, from 3.8% to 5%. It also broadly called for top earners to pay more to support Social Security, but didn’t make specific proposals. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young told reporters the Biden administration doesn’t like the current structure of the payroll tax — which only applies to the first $168,600 of an individual’s income.

The document notes that Biden previously supported increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 after bipartisan negotiations in 1983.

One of the trust funds that supports Social Security is projected for insolvency in 2033, the program’s board of trustees said their most recent estimate in March 2023.

House’s largest conservative caucus calls for increase in retirement age

The Hill

House’s largest conservative caucus calls for increase in retirement age

Sarah Fortinsky – March 20, 2024

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which comprises nearly 80 percent of all House Republicans, called for an increase in the retirement age in its budget proposal released Wednesday.

The RSC budget proposes raising that age for those who are not near retirement “to account for increases in life expectancy.” The budget did not provide specifics.

The budget also proposes limiting and phasing out auxiliary benefits for “high income earners.”

Without offering details, the RSC proposes “modest changes” to the primary insurance amount (PIA) benefit formula, which also would not apply to seniors near retirement, nor would it apply to the wealthiest earners.

The RSC repeatedly sounded the alarm in the budget proposal about the prospect of the Social Security fund becoming insolvent and called for a bipartisan approach to solving the issue.

“With insolvency approaching in the 10-year budget window, Congress has a moral and practical obligation to address the problems with Social Security,” the RSC proposal read. “These common-sense, incremental reforms will simply buy Congress time to come together and negotiate policies that can secure Social Security solvency for decades to come.”

The budget proposal, however, devotes significant space to railing against President Biden and his proposed tax policies, including rate hikes for the wealthiest Americans.

In releasing the budget report, the RSC sets up a potential clash with the White House, as President Biden has repeatedly tried to claim Republicans want to slash Social Security benefits.

At his State of the Union address on March 7, Biden said, “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop them.”

“I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share,” he said.

The issue has become a sticking point ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The Biden campaign seized on a recent interview on CNBC with former President Trump, where he floated possible cuts.

“There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements,” Trump said in the interview. “There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement.”

Biden responded on social media, writing, “Not on my watch.”

Trump soon walked back his remarks, saying in a subsequent interview with Breitbart, “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare … We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”

“There’s so many things we can do,” Trump said on Breitbart. “There’s so much cutting and so much waste in so many other areas, but I’ll never do anything to hurt Social Security.”

Susan Rice Sounds The Alarm On How Donald Trump’s Debts Could Risk U.S. Security

HuffPost

Susan Rice Sounds The Alarm On How Donald Trump’s Debts Could Risk U.S. Security

Lee Moran – March 21, 2024

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday talked about the threat that could be posed to America’s security over the hundreds of millions of dollars that presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump owes in civil trials damages.

Trump owes “some $500 million or more,” is struggling to meet the bond in his $464 million fraud ruling and so “you have to wonder where he’s going to get that money from,” the Obama White House official told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

“In the event that [Trump] has to take that money from an individual or an entity, whether domestic or international, that individual or entity will potentially have real influence over him and so that is of concern” if he returns to the White House, said Rice.

Rice noted Trump’s “long history of foreign financial entanglements” and warned, “There’s just so many ways the stench of money from dubious places infuses his business enterprise and so this would add more questions should that be the case going forward.”

But “the big picture is even beyond the foreign financial entanglements,” added Rice, recalling Trump’s frequent siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his praise of dictators and his threat to abandon America’s allies in the NATO military alliance.

Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into prep for potential second Trump administration

NBC News

Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into prep for potential second Trump administration

Katherine Doyle – March 21, 2024

WASHINGTON — Huge funding from influential conservative donor networks is flowing into a conservative venture aimed at creating a Republican “government-in-waiting,” including over $55 million from groups linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo and the Koch network, according to an Accountable.US review shared exclusively with NBC News.

Launched by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, Project 2025 is a two-pronged initiative to develop staunch conservative policy recommendations and grow a roster of thousands of right-wing personnel ready to fill the next Republican administration. With former President Donald Trump now the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee, the effort is essentially laying the groundwork for a potential Trump transition if he wins the election in November.

With contributions from former high-level Trump administration appointees and an advisory board that has grown to over 100 conservative organizations, proponents describe Project 2025 as the most sophisticated transition effort that has existed for conservatives. The initiative includes a manifesto devising a policy agenda for every department, numerous agencies and scores of offices throughout the federal government.

In this Nov. 16, 2016 file photo, Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York. Leo is advising President Donald Trump on his Supreme Court nominee. (Carolyn Kaster / AP file)

Since 2021, Leo’s network has funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Project as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board,” according to tax documents reviewed as part of the analysis by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group. That sum includes donations from The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy financiers to other groups, and the Concord Fund, a public-facing organization.

In 2022, the donor-advised fund DonorsTrust, which received more than $181 million from Leo-backed groups from 2019 to 2022, contributed over $21.1 million to 40 organizations advising Project 2025. It contributed nearly $20 million to 36 nonprofit organizations advising Project 2025 in 2021.

Leo, a top conservative megadonor, has worked to shift the American judiciary further to the right, having previously advised Trump on judicial picks while he was in office and helping to build the current conservative Supreme Court majority.

In addition to Leo’s funding to organizations advising Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s own donations surged in 2022. It contributed $1,025,000 to nine of the advisory groups, up from a total of $174,000 in grants to other nonprofit groups a year earlier.

The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The review by Accountable.US also found that oil billionaire Charles Koch’s network directed over $4.4 million in 2022 to organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board via its donor conduit, Stand Together Trust.

Project 2025’s vision for the next conservative administration’s energy agenda would rapidly increase oil and gas leases and production through the Interior Department to focus on energy security, and proposals include reforming offices of the Energy Department to end focus on climate change and green subsidies.

The Environmental Protection Agency would cut its environmental justice and public engagement functions, “eliminating the stand-alone Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights,” according to a proposal drafted by Mandy Gunasekara, a former chief of staff at the EPA under Trump.

The advisory board for Project 2025 includes representatives from conservative groups led by veterans of the Trump administration, such as America First Legal, the Center for Renewing America and the Conservative Partnership Institute, as well as conservative mainstays like the Claremont Institute, the Family Research Council and the Independent Women’s Forum.

Accountable. US executive director Tony Carrk warned that Project 2025’s stark conservative program and its advisory groups are made possible by funding from right-wing donors’ funneling tens of millions of dollars to the effort.

“The ‘MAGA blueprint’ isn’t a one-off project — it’s backed by the same far-right figures who have long dictated the conservative agenda,” Carrk said. “Leo, Koch and others should be held to account for propping up a policy platform that puts special interests over everyday Americans and poses an existential threat to our democracy.”

While the groups advising Project 2025 haven’t been supporting a candidate outright, many of the people leading them or with longtime affiliations have close ties to Trump after having served in his administration. NBC News projects that Trump has now clinched the delegate majority for the Republican nomination, setting up a rematch with President Joe Biden in November.

Trump Told Pence Certifying Election Would Be ‘Career Killer,’ Valet Testified

The New York Times

Trump Told Pence Certifying Election Would Be ‘Career Killer,’ Valet Testified

President Donald J. Trump warned his vice president against failing to overturn the 2020 election results, according to an account by the White House valet by his side on Jan. 6.

By Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman – March 21, 2024

President Donald Trump, in a dark overcoat, standing on a stage in front of the White House speaking to his supporters. — President Donald J. Trump speaking during the rally on the Ellipse that preceded the attack of Jan. 6, 2021.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York Times

The threat from President Donald J. Trump to his vice president, Mike Pence, was clear and direct: If you defy my effort to overturn the 2020 election by certifying the results, your future in Republican politics is over.

“Mike, this is a political career killer if you do this,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Pence by phone on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, according to the White House valet who was with the president for much of the day and told Congress he had overheard the conversation.

The testimony of Mr. Trump’s valet, provided to the now-defunct House Jan. 6 Committee in 2022 but not previously released publicly, offers a rare firsthand look into the former president’s behavior in the hours before, during and after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to halt the certification of President Biden’s victory.

In the valet’s account, laid out in a transcript obtained by The New York Times, an agitated Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Pence to overturn the election and stewed about Mr. Pence’s refusal for hours after violence engulfed Congress. Told that a civilian had been shot outside the House chamber amid the mob attack, he recalled, Mr. Trump appeared unconcerned.

“I just remember seeing it in front of him,” the valet said of a note card Mr. Trump was given bearing news of the casualty as he watched the riot unfold on television. “I don’t remember how it got there or whatever. But there was no, like, reaction.”

As unflattering as portions of the aide’s testimony were to Mr. Trump, he did not confirm some of the more graphic and damning claims made by witnesses in front of the Jan. 6 committee.

For instance, the valet said he did not remember hearing Mr. Trump use vulgar language in describing his view that Mr. Pence was a coward, or agree with rioters who were chanting for Mr. Pence to be hanged. And he did recall hearing the president ask about contacting top officials on the possibility of dispatching the National Guard to Capitol Hill — though there is no indication that he ever followed through.

Mike Pence, in a dark suit and blue tie, standing in the front of the House chamber. Two people wearing face masks stand below him. — Vice President Mike Pence officiating over the electoral vote confirmation on the night of Jan. 6, 2021. A White House valet testified that President Donald J. Trump had pressured Mr. Pence to overturn the election and stewed about his refusal to do so for hours after violence broke out.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

“Did you hear the president say that?” a staff investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee asked the valet, inquiring about reports that Mr. Trump had called Mr. Pence an expletive meant to refer to a wimp.

“I did not — no, sir,” the valet responded.

Mr. Trump himself has not disputed using that language, and Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff testified that Ms. Trump had told her that Mr. Trump had an “upsetting” conversation with Mr. Pence and that the president had accused him of cowardice, using “the ‘p’ word.” The valet also acknowledged that he wasn’t with the president at all times, and that he had left the Oval Office during a portion of Mr. Trump’s call with Mr. Pence.

At another point, the valet was asked whether he remembered “any comments that the president or anybody around him made with respect to those chants, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ ”

He answered that he recalled the refrain, “but I don’t remember any comments from the president or anybody on staff.”

Mr. Trump has previously defended the rioters’ use of the chant, telling ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that “the people were very angry,” and calling that anger “common sense.”

House Republicans furnished the transcript to The Times after they obtained it from the White House, which was reviewing and redacting it along with a handful of others provided by the House Jan. 6 committee. The copy reviewed by The Times is heavily redacted, and the valet is referred to simply as “a White House employee.”

For more than a year since winning control of the House, Republicans have been investigating the work of the Jan. 6 committee, looking for signs of bias. They have suggested that the panel did not release certain transcripts because they contradict some of the testimony from a prominent witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff at the time. While much of her testimony has been corroborated, Ms. Hutchinson acknowledged that in some cases she was relying on secondhand or thirdhand accounts of events in her testimony to the panel.

“It took a whole lot of work to get these,” Representative Barry Loudermilk, a Republican of Georgia who is leading the G.O.P.’s investigation, said of the transcript of the valet’s testimony and a batch of others he obtained from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Loudermilk conceded there was “some testimony in it that may not be favorable to Trump,” but he added: “We’re putting it all out there, not doing what the select committee did, and putting things out there that will be favorable to our side.”

In court filings, though, federal prosecutors who have charged Mr. Trump with crimes for his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election have said some of the committee’s transcripts were subject to confidentiality agreements, and those were sent to the White House and Secret Service for review and redactions before they could be released. Federal prosecutors said they had provided these “sensitive, nonpublic transcripts” to Mr. Trump and his legal team, according to a court filing last year.

People waving American flags and wearing Trump gear wrestling over a barricade with police officers in riot gear. — Trump supporters fighting with security forces outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York Times

Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 committee, said nothing in the valet’s account changes the essential facts of what his panel uncovered about Mr. Trump’s role in summoning supporters to Washington to challenge the election results and doing nothing to stop their attack at the Capitol.

“Despite Mr. Loudermilk’s attempts to rewrite the violent history of Jan. 6, the facts laid out in the select committee’s final report remain undisputed — and nothing substantive was left out nor hidden,” he said. “While the valet did not witness everything that happened in the White House that day, the testimony confirms Trump’s indifference to the violence and his anger at Vice President Pence for performing his duty under the Constitution.”

The valet also shed more light on how Mr. Trump’s White House had devolved into dysfunction during his final weeks in office. He said Mr. Trump was often “frustrated,” “upset” and “mad” at Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel who frequently served as a check on some of the former president’s more extreme impulses — so much so that the valet asked aides to keep the lawyer away from the president at lunchtime to avoid upsetting him.

The valet also confirmed Mr. Trump’s penchant for tearing up documents and other material given to him, which by the law governing presidential records are supposed to be preserved.

“That’s typically what he would do once he’s finished with a document,” the valet said of Mr. Trump. “But that was his sign of, like, he was done reading it, and he would just throw it on the floor. He would tear everything — tear newspapers, tear pictures.”

The valet also testified that Mr. Trump expressed an interest on Jan. 6 in speaking to General Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi about sending the National Guard to the Capitol — a step that has been a matter of much dispute given the hourslong delay in the troops’ eventual arrival.

Mr. Loudermilk said it was that aspect of the valet’s account that caught his eye.

“That stood out to me like, ‘OK, this is totally in contrast to what we’ve seen, and I’ve never seen this before.’ And so that’s when we started digging,” Mr. Loudermilk said.

Ultimately, though, Mr. Trump made no such call, General Milley told the House panel.

The valet also testified about the contrast between the reaction of White House staffers and Mr. Trump as the riot was underway.

After he returned from giving a speech to a raucous crowd at the Ellipse, Mr. Trump was informed that “they’re rioting down at the Capitol,” the valet recalled.

“And he was, like, ‘Oh, really?’ And then he was like, ‘All right, let’s go see,’” and went to watch the violence on television.

The valet spoke of a sense of “disbelief” and then panic that fell over the staff.

“It was like, ‘What are we going to do?’ ” He said officials were “running around pretty much — running from office to office and all over the place,” while Mr. Trump appeared calm.

Hours later, though, the president was still stewing about Mr. Pence.

“Me and him, I think close to the end of the day, he just mentioned that Mike let him down,” the valet said. “And that was it.”

Luke Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump.

Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Inquiry

Four charges for the former president. Former President Donald Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington. Here are some key takeaways:

The indictment portrayed an attack on American democracy. Smith framed his case against Trump as one that cuts to a key function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Smith cast his effort as an effort not just to hold Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.

Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy charges. Smith put Trump at the heart of three conspiracies that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’s role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome. The special counsel argued that Trump knew that his claims about a stolen election were false, a point that, if proved, could be important to convincing a jury to convict him.

Trump didn’t do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided, they match the profiles of Trump lawyers and advisers who were willing to argue increasingly outlandish conspiracy and legal theories to keep him in power. It’s unclear whether these co-conspirators will be indicted.

Trump’s political power remains strong. Trump may be on trial in 2024 in three or four separate criminal cases, but so far the indictments appear not to have affected his standing with Republican voters. By a large margin, he remains his party’s front-runner in the presidential primaries.