Free Republic

WASHINGTON — As Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, prepared to bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, House Republicans rallied to Trump’s side, vowing to use their power in Congress to haul in Bragg and force him to turn over documents and answer questions. The reality, they have privately acknowledged, is much more complicated. For weeks, top House Republicans and their lawyers have been grappling with how to move forward in their investigation of Bragg amid legal and institutional concerns about overreach and how to enforce a subpoena in court. The situation is a reminder for the new...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have spent months promising to use their majority to uncover an insidious bias against conservatives on the part of the federal government, vowing to produce a roster of brave whistleblowers who would come forward to provide damning evidence of abuses aimed at the right. But the first three witnesses to testify privately before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel who have listened to their accounts. Instead, the trio appears to be...

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump responded on Friday to a promised subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault with a lengthy, rambling letter that attacked the panel’s work, reiterated false claims of widespread voting fraud and presaged a potentially bruising battle over whether he would be compelled to testify about his role in the riot and his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. In a 14-page missive that did not address whether he would comply with the subpoena, Mr. Trump perpetuated the same lies that had fueled the attack and boasted about the size of...

With his criminal trial for contempt of Congress approaching, Stephen K. Bannon, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump’s who was involved in his plans to overturn the 2020 election, has informed the House committee investigating the Capitol attack that he is now willing to testify, according to two letters obtained by The New York Times. His decision is a remarkable about-face for Mr. Bannon, who until Saturday had been among the most obstinate and defiant of the committee’s potential witnesses. He had promised to turn the criminal case against him into the “misdemeanor from hell” for the Justice...

In the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a barrage of text messages imploring President Donald Trump’s chief of staff to take steps to overturn the vote, according to a person with knowledge of the texts. In one message sent in the days after the election, she urged the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy...

The House committee examining the Jan. 6 attack disclosed on Tuesday that it had interviewed the man at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory about who provoked the violence, noting that he had denied reports he urged protesters into the Capitol at the behest of federal law enforcement agencies. The committee said its investigators spoke in November with the man, Ray Epps, who was seen on video urging people to march into the Capitol. Some Republican members of Congress and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump have promoted a theory that Mr. Epps was working for the...

Four top executives at the University of Maryland Medical System have resigned amid investigations into accusations of self-dealing among the hospital network’s board members, the system announced Thursday. Those resigning are Megan Arthur, the system’s primary lawyer; Jerry Wollman, the chief administrative officer; Christine Bachrach, the system’s chief compliance officer; and Keith Persinger, the chief performance improvement officer. **SNIP** The resignations come as Nygren Consulting of Santa Barbara, Calif., works to finish its examination of deals worth millions of dollars that led UMMS CEO Robert Chrencik and Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh to resign from their jobs. The consulting firm was...