Facebook bans Trump: Ex-president floats 2024 run and threatens Mark Zuckerberg as McGahn testifies
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Donald Trump will remain banned from Facebook for at least another two years, the social media network has announced. The company says it will revisit the decision on 7 January 2023, but will only allow Mr Trump back on if his “risk to public safety has receded.”
The former president issued a furious response, calling his continued suspension “an insult.” He also threatened to never invite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to another White House dinner, implying that he’ll run for president again.
“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife,” the former president said in a brief statement. “It will be all business!”
Others criticized Facebook for not going far enough, saying the ban should be permanent.
Meanwhile, Don McGahn, the Trump-era White House counsel who featured heavily in Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference during the 2016 election, testified before the House Judiciary Committee after two years of defying their subpoenas. A transcript of the interview will be released some time in the next seven days.
Republican representatives Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan told reporters nothing of note was revealed in the testimony.
‘We’ve learned nothing new,’ Mr Gaetz told reporters.
Read more:
- Donald Trump reacts to two-year Facebook ban, calling it ‘an insult’
- Trump Facebook ban: What did ex-president post to get himself suspended?
- ‘The ban should be permanent’: Twitter users react to Trump’s 2-year Facebook suspension
- Trump banned by Facebook - the statement in full
- Who is Don McGahn, and why is his testimony so important?
Trump has ‘made clear' to committee he will not block McGahn testimony, report suggests
Donald Trump has made clear to the committee by way of a former deputy White House counsel that he doesn't intend to attempt to block McGahn from testifying, ABC News reports, citing sources.
FBI director ‘to go before House Judiciary Committee next week'
Don McGahn’s closed-door appearance in front of the House Judiciary committee will be followed next week by FBI director Christopher Wray, according to Buzzfeed’s senior justice reporter.
Mr Wray was chosen by Donald Trump as the replacement for James Comey – who was fired by the president over his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
McGahn quit as White House counsel in October 2018. According to a New York Times report published the following month, he had rebuffed a suggestion from Mr Trump in the spring of that year that the Department of Justice should prosecute Mr Comey and Ms Clinton.
And according to the Mueller report, Mr Trump was so clear in his demands that special counsellor Robert Mueller should be fired that Mr McGahn nearly resigned in 2017.
Pence admits he and Trump will never see eye to eye on ‘dark day’ of Capitol riot
Away from the McGahn testimony for a moment, Mike Pence has acknowledged that he may never see “eye to eye” with Donald Trump regarding the storming of the Capitol on 6 January.
Speaking at a Republican dinner in New Hampshire, he spoke briefly of what he described as a “dark day” – when supporters of the 45th president roamed the Capitol complex, some shouting “hang Mike Pence”.
Mr Trump continued to brand Mr Pence a “traitor” on social media even after he had been rushed off the Senate floor to hide.
“You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day. But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years,” Mr Pence told dinner guests this week.
Pence admits he and Trump will never see eye to eye on ‘dark day’ of Capitol riot
‘January 6 was a dark day in the history of United States Capitol’
Court ruling on McGahn testimony ‘didn’t really disincentivise Executive foot dragging'
Andrew McCanse Wright – formerly an associate counsel to Barack Obama during his presidency – has suggested that the federal court ruling last month which saw Don McGahn forced to testify today in front of the House Judiciary committee may not have been enough to deter future Executives’ attempts to block such testimonies.
Donald Trump had argued that that his close advisers were immune from congressional subpoena.
Mr Wright also offered some additional context highlighting the unusual nature of the two-year legal battle over his testimony.
As the New York Times reports, the legal battle was one of an unprecedented number of cases pitting Congress and the Executive against each other in court, which arose after Democrats won the House in 2018 and Mr Trump vowed to fight “all the subpoenas”.
Trump administration revealed to have secretly seized phone records of four New York Times reporters
In case you missed it, the Biden administration has reportedly revealed that the US Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters during Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017.
It is the latest and third in the series of revelation by federal law enforcement in recent weeks, disclosing the tactics used by former president Donald Trump’s administration as part of a leak investigation and attempt to uncover reporters’ sources.
The Justice Department last month disclosed that phone logs were seized of reporters who worked with The Washington Post. It also obtained the phone and email logs for a CNN journalist.
According to The Times, the timing of the move and the reporters targeted suggested that the leak investigation related to classified information reported article the four reporters wrote in April 2017 about how former FBI director James Comey handled investigations relating to Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 election.
Trump administration secretly seized phone records of four New York Times reporters
Biden calls the practice of obtaining phone records of reporters ‘simply, simply wrong’
Convincing Trump he lost election is like ‘p***ing into the wind’, aides say
Aides to former President Donald Trump says he remains obsessed with the 2020 election and convincing him that he lost is like “p***ing into the wind”, Gustaf Kilander reports.
Advisors told The Washington Post that Mr Trump is relentlessly focused on an audit of ballots in Arizona, commissioned by Republicans, and is hoping to push for further reviews in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Georgia.
Mr Trump has rejected advisors who have told him to move on. He recently told allies that if the audits were successful, he would be able to return to the White House. The Post reported that advisors characterised such statements as offhand musings.
Trump aides say convincing him he lost is like ‘p***ing into the wind’
Trump remains fixated on non-existent possibility that reviews and audits of ballots pushed by his supporters could prove he won
Mystery remains as UFO report concludes no evidence Navy sightings were aliens and rules out secret US tech
As it turns out, Donald Trump might be more likely to present us with hard evidence relating to UFOs than of mass election fraud (with a heavy emphasis on “might”).
As my colleague Josh Marcus reports, the Trump administration’s final budget included a request from lawmakers that the secretary of defence and director of national intelligence compile a report on what the US knows about UFOs, which Navy pilots have admitted to seeing frequently in recent years.
While there’s no evidence that US Navy pilot sightings of UFOs in recent years were alien spaceships, officials briefed on a forthcoming federal intelligence review have told The New York Times that most of the 120 sightings from recent decades were not attributable to secret pieces of government technology either.
You can read more details here, ahead of the unclassified version of the UFO inquiry’s expected release on 25 June:
Mystery remains as UFO report concludes no evidence Navy sightings were aliens and rules out secret US tech
A public version of the report will be released this month
The transcript of Don McGahn’s closed-door testimony will be published within a week, The Associated Press reports.
FBI seeking help identifying more Capitol insurrection suspects
The FBI has already found and arrested scores of people who were seen at the 6 January insurrection – but the hunt is far from over.
The agency has today shared more photos of people in the midst of the riot whom it has yet to identify. It’s also still trying to track down the man who laid pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters. At the moment, the agency’s best lead on him is his distinctive shoes.
What the encouraging jobs numbers actually mean
The US’s monthly jobs numbers show that employers added 559,000 jobs in May. It’s a big improvement on the last set of numbers – but Washington Post economics reporter Jeff Stein has a reality check.
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