Trump news – live: Jan 6 legal memo reveals details of plan to overturn election

Donald Trump’s vocal acolyte in Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is no stranger to conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, which she continues to insist was “stolen” by Democrats.

Now, she’s pushing a new theory: In a Facebook Live video, she shared baseless and unverified claims that the Uvalde, Texas shooter was transgender, engaged in cross-dressing, and was supposedly in contact with the Buffalo, New York suspect (who unlike the Uvalde shooter is thought to have had a racist motive for his attack).

Read more in The Independent from John Bowden:

The former president released a statement on Wednesday cheering on House GOP conference leader Elise Stefanik and Oklahoma’s Congressman Markwayne Mullin, who have introduced a resolution that would denounce (or in their words, “expunge”) the second impeachment of Donald Trump in 2021.

The House voted to “expunge” a censure of Andrew Jackson from the House records in the 1800s, but it’s not immediately clear if the same process could be used to erase an impeachment vote from the House record. The record of the Senate trial of Mr Trump would still exist of course even if the resolution were to work, thereby limiting the effectiveness of an already wholly-ceremonial piece of legislation.

“Thank you, Elise, and Markwayne—was a total Hoax!” Mr Trump commented on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden still leads Donald Trump in a poll of a potential 2024 matchup despite the former struggling with a low approval rating amid issues including historic inflation.

A YouGov/Yahoo! News poll conducted in mid-May registered Mr Biden’s support level just a few points higher than Mr Trump’s in a head-to-head matchup, which remains possible if not likely given that Mr Trump continues to dominate polling of a potential 2024 GOP primary.

Read more from The Independent’s John Bowden:

Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser is facing mockery online for referring to her ex-boss as “a great girlboss” during an interview with CBS Mornings this week after Mr Trump publicly denounced her for a previous statement she made about him losing the 2020 election.

“Everyone who enables this pathetic monster’s book tour is a moron,” one Twitter user wrote.

Read more from The Independent’s Gustaf Kilander:

A lawyer for the Clinton campaign was acquitted of lying to the FBI on Tuesday regarding his role in digging up what he believed were links between Donald Trump and Russia, handing a major defeat to the man put in place to investigate the origins of the criminal probe into Donald Trump’s campaign and closest advisers.

John Durham’s investigation led to the indictment of Michael Sussman for lying to investigators while tipping them off that a computer server in Trump Tower was communicating with a server address tied to a Russian bank. Mr Durham said on Tuesday that he was “disappointed” by the verdict.

Read more from The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg:

GOP operatives are determined to swamp Democratic-leaning precincts across key swing state Michigan with GOP-aligned poll watchers, poll challengers and election workers, according to statements given by those involved to Politico.

“[I]t’s going to be an army,” one GOP operative declared at a training session, according to video obtained by Politico. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Read more from John Bowden:

Rep Debbie Lesko, a vocal Trump supporter, was booed off the stage at a high school graduation ceremony for the Arizona Virtual Academy, a full-time online school.

The incident occurred last week after Ms Lesko apparently brought political messages into her remarks to graduating seniors.

“I have heard other commencement speakers make speeches, and they were just very motivating. Nothing to do with politics, or religion or anything. It was just about the graduates. And she seemed to not grasp that and not put that like in her speech at all,” one told a local news station.

Read more in The Independent from Andrew Feinberg:

Donald Trump knows exactly who to blame for figures from the federal government indicating that New York experienced a net population decrease between those who moved out of the state and those who moved there between 2019-2021 (not counting births and deaths).

In brief statement linking to the figures on Wednesday released through his “Save America PAC”, Mr Trump laid the blame on Letitia James, the state’s attorney general who is leading a fraud investigation into his businesses.

“I believe that racist and corrupt A.G. James is pushing businesses and wealthy people to leave N.Y. for friendly states. Not sustainable by N.Y.S.,” he declared.

Daryl and Dan Johnson, a father and son who walked the halls of the Capitol during the 6 January attack, have failed in their effort to convince a judge that they were simply “caught up” in the day’s excitement, this despite Daryl having posted afterwards that there would be “hangings on the front lawn of the Capitol”.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the suggestion that Donald Trump could have stopped Russia from invading his country in an interview with Newsmax.

Speaking on Tuesday with anchor Rob Schmitt, the Ukrainian leader said he “cannot predict” what would have happened if Mr Trump was still US president.

Schmitt proposed: “There are many Americans that believe that if somebody like Donald Trump was still in the White House that this invasion would not have happened. What is your position?”

“I am sorry if I’ll be saying something that you don’t like but for us as the country in war, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Democrats or Republicans,” Mr Zelensky replied.” It’s the people of the United States that support us”.

Gino Spocchia has the story.