Trump news: Four RNC attendees test positive for Covid as president gives full pardon to Alice Johnson after she praised him in speech
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Donald Trump gave a full pardon to Alice Johnson on Friday after she praised the president at the Republican National Convention.
Trump gave his own performance at the convention top ratings for the second-longest acceptance speech since 1984, behind only himself in 2016. Fox News called it "flat and too long".
Rand Paul called on the FBI to investigate 'paid anarchists' that harassed the Senator and other RNC attendees as they left the White House on Thursday night.
The end of the Republican convention came as four people who attended in Charlotte, North Carolina, earlier in the week tested positive for Covid-19.
The House Foreign Affairs committee, meanwhile, announced the panel would carry out contempt proceedings against US secretary of state Mike Pompeo for refusing to provide subpoenaed documents in an investigation into government resources.
While thousands attended the March on Washington calling for federal police reforms, Trump finished his week at a New Hampshire campaign rally saying protesters during the RNC were just bad people and troublemakers who didn't know who George Floyd is.
Kamala Harris says Kenosha police shooter 'should be charged' based on the evidence
During her first one-on-one appearance since joining Joe Biden's ticket Democratic ticket for president, Kamala Harris has addressed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, stating officers "should be charged" based on the evidence.
The former attorney general was asked by NBC Today's Craig Melvin on Friday what scenario would justify an officer firing his weapon.
"I don't see it. But I don't have all the evidence," Ms Harris said.
"The man was going to his car. He didn't appear to be armed. If he was not armed, the use of force that was seven bullets coming out of a gun at close range in the back of the man, I don't see how anybody could reason that that was justifiable," she added.
Mr Melvin then asked the vice presidential candidate whether officers should be charged for shooting Mr Blake seven times in the back, leaving the man currently paralysed from the waist down.
"I think that there should be a thorough investigation and, based on what I've seen, it seems that the officer should be charged," Ms Harris said.
Danielle Zoellner reports.
IN-DEPTH: March on Washington protesters demand change
The Independent's Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett spoke to protesters who say they are in an uphill fight as they seek to oust Donald Trump from the presidency.
Trump support among black and Hispanic voters rises during Republican National Convention
A new Hill-HarrisX poll has found Donald Trump's support among black voters rose nine percentage points during the RNC, while support among Hispanic voters grew by two percentage points.
That brought the president's support among black supporters up to 24 per cent from 15 per cent two weeks earlier. Hispanic support is up to 32 per cent.
It comes as former Bernie Sanders senior adviser, Chuck Rocha, told The Hill TV’s “Rising” on Friday that Republicans may have done a better job than Democrats at swaying undecided Latino voters.
"During the [Democratic convention], Latinos saw [that] Democratic Latino activists are upset because there's no Latino representation at the convention. At the [Republican convention], the headline literally says 'we're naturalizing people to make them U.S. citizens,'" Rocha said.
Michelle Obama says even she has been treated as 'invisible' by white people
The Independent's Andrew Buncombe report on the former first lady's trip to get ice cream:
In a discussion on this week's episode of her podcast, Michelle Obama reflected on how white people often treat Black women as if they are either "threatening" or "invisible" -- and described how exhausting that treatment is.
The former first lady's recently launched podcast features her discussing issues of gender, race, biography and health, with guests including her husband and brother.
In the latest episode, featuring her friends Denielle Pemberton-Heard, Dr Sharon Malone and Kelly Dibble, she reflected on incidents of well-publicised incidents of white women threatening to call the police on Black people -- and recounted a story from her time as first lady that expressed what it is like to feel unseen and trivialised.
"We had just finished taking the girls to a soccer game," she recalled. "We were stopping to get ice cream, and I had told the Secret Service to stand back, because we were trying to be normal ...
"And there was a line. And once again: when I'm just a Black woman, I notice that white people don't even see me. They're not even looking at me. So I'm standing there with two little Black girls, another Black female adult, they're in soccer uniforms.
"And a white woman cuts right in front of us to order. Like -- she didn't even see us. And the girl behind the counter almost took her order ...
"So I stepped up and I said: 'Excuse me? You don't see us four people standing right here, you just jumped in line?'
Read more.
OPINION: Trump has never fought this hard to reduce America to his level -- on the White House lawn of all places
For Independent Voices, political sketch writer Tom Peck says Donald Trump has turned America into his own private Truman Show and there, on the South Lawn of the White House, was its season finale. It takes an infinite depth of shallowness to reduce the office of the president to this.
Read the full column.
Trump heading to New Hampshire to continue barrage against Biden
The president is on his way to a campaign rally in New Hampshire where he's expected to continue his warnings against a Joe Biden presidency.
Attacks against Biden were a key feature of his Republican presidential nominee acceptance speech on Thursday, name-checking the Democrat nominee 41 times in his 70-minute speech.
Top US general foresees no military role in resolving disputed election
The top US general told lawmakers that he did not foresee the military playing a role in the election process or resolving disputes that may come during the November presidential election, according to a document released on Friday.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley's comments are largely a reiteration of the military's apolitical position but come amid questions about what would happen if the election results were disputed.
President Donald Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations that voting will be rigged and has refused to say whether he would accept official election results if he lost.
"In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military," Milley told Democratic Congresswomen Elissa Slotkin and Mikie Sherrill in a written response to questions obtained by Reuters.
"I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process... We will not turn our backs on the Constitution of the United States."
Reuters
Michelle Obama urges protests to continue following Kenosha shootings
In a long post to her social media accounts on Friday, Michelle Obama encouraged people to continue protesting after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.
"I'm just devastated by the shootings in Kenosha. Then, two nights later, the bullets that killed two protestors, with a young man only 17 years old arrested and charged with homicide," she said.
Ms Obama continued that she's exhausted and frustrated, and that while the protests that erupted following the shooting of Mr Black wouldn't make him walk again or bring back anyone who has been killed, "they will do something" -- open eyes and rattle consciences.
"So I want to encourage you all to keep using your bullhorns and your ballots to reform police in our cities and our neighbourhoods," she said.
Trump vs Musk in side-by-side of very stable geniuses
So there are two streams to watch starting at 6pm EST: Trump's New Hampshire campaign rally and Elon Musk's live demonstration of Neuralink technology -- the bleeding-edge of human-machine intelligence interfacing.
Whether the timing is sharp commentary or pure coincidence, following along with both at the streams below.
House committee to hold Pompeo in contempt for amplifying 'Putin's debunked conspiracy theories'
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel has announced that the panel will carry out contempt proceedings against US secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
In a statement on Friday, Mr Engel said that the committee will begin drafting a resolution of contempt, after Mr Pompeo has repeatedly refused to provide subpoenaed documents as part of an investigation to determine whether he has misused government resources for political purposes, according to The Hill.
The committee is beginning proceedings against Mr Pompeo as he is still yet to hand over documents relating to Ukraine that were subpoenaed for president Donald Trump's impeachment enquiry in 2019.
Mr Engel and the committee are also drafting the resolution because Mr Pompeo provided Republican-controlled senate committees documents subpoenaed by his panel, for an investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son.
In July, Mr Engel issued a subpoena for more than 16,000 pages of documents the State Department sent to the Republican backed Senate Finance and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees, but the State Department has refused to provide them.
On Friday, Mr Engel wrote: "The Secretary's ongoing defiance of two duly authorised subpoenas on matters directly linked to American foreign policy towards Ukraine has left the committee no further option but to begin drafting a resolution finding Secretary Pompeo in contempt of Congress."
The committee's chairman added: "He seems to think the office he holds, the department he runs, the personnel he oversees, and the taxpayer dollars that pay for all of it are there for his personal and political benefit."
James Crump has more on this.
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