Jan 6 hearing today: Donald Trump spends birthday ranting at ‘kangaroo’ committee postponement on Truth Social

A Republican official on Monday revealed the threats he and his family faced after former President Donald Trump named him in a tweet aimed at overturning the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Al Schmidt, who resigned from his position as a Philadelphia City Commissioner last year, was one of three city commissioners serving on the city’s County Board of Elections in November, 2020 when his state’s presidential election vote count was targeted by Mr Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris has warned that the US Supreme Court’s likely decision to overturn landmark abortion care protections could lead to “challenges” to other “fundamental” constitutional rights affirmed by the court, including marriage equality and access to birth control.

Before a White House meeting with advocates on the future of Roe v Wade on 14 June, the vice president said the US should “prepare for the right to privacy to be attacked” if the Supreme Court’s imminent decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization will reject Roe precedent.

During a press conference on gun violence on Monday, CNN Justice correspondent Evan Perez asked Mr Garland if he has had a chance to look at the hearings conducted by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot and if he’s learned anything that could be useful for the Justice Department.

Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert introduced new legislation that seeks to classify the opioid fentanyl, which can be lethal if not administered by a trained medical professional, as a weapon of mass destruction.

“It is time to call fentanyl what it is: a weapon of mass destruction that is destroying our nation,” the congresswoman wrote in a press release introducing the “Fentanyl is a WMD Act” on Monday.

Joanna Chisholm has the story:

New York’s highest court rejected former President Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to avoid testifying in the state attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices on Tuesday, clearing the way for his deposition next month.

The state’s Court of Appeals said there was no “substantial constitutional question” that would warrant its intervention in the matter following an intermediate appellate court’s ruling last month enforcing a subpoena for Trump’s testimony.

The court also dismissed a motion by Trump’s lawyers to stay the subpoenas, saying that doing so would be “academic,” since it wasn’t taking up the former president’s appeal in the first place.

Thirty-one members of an American white supremacist group known as Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Saturday 11 June, after local police received a tip from a member of the public who reported seeing “a little army” climbing into the back of a U-Haul truck parked outside a hotel.

Officers duly found the men crowded together in the back of their vehicle wearing matching riot gear, including shin guards, shields, balaclavas, beige caps and arm bands.

What is Patriot Front? Joe Sommerlad investigates.

Inflection moments are one-of-a-kind chances to change the course of history. The United States is currently in one of those moments, but the Biden administration has chosen political expediency over environmental heroism.

With gas prices surging past $5 a gallon, and the Democratic Party watching its slim majorities in the House and Senate fade to life support as this November’s midterms approach, Biden chose to whiff on climate change.

Sen Mitch McConnell ended speculation over the bipartisan gun reform and school safety framework that resulted from a compromise struck by Republican and Democratic negotiatiors on Tuesday with an endorsement of the overall plan.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, the GOP Senate leader said that he would vote for legislation that met the framework laid out by negotiators last week, which would expand background checks for under-21s and establish a federal grant program for states to pass red flag laws.

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC.

Adam Kinzinger has told reporters that tomorrow’s postponed January 6 meeting has been pushed to next week and will still be happening. This Thursday’s hearing will go ahead as planned.

Donald Trump lashed out at January 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney on Tuesday lunchtime denouncing the Wyoming Republican as “angry and sick”.

In response to a Truth Social post from his second son Eric Trump regarding polling numbers in her primary contest against Trump-backed Harriet Hagemamn, the former president wrote: “She’s angry and sick. Loves sending our troops to fight and die in countries that don’t even want us to be there, Endless Wars, but never had the guts to fight for Scooter Libby, who “saved” her father and Bush — but I did!”

Mr Trump pardoned former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby while in office. Mr Libby was convicted of perjury in 2007 over a CIA leak.