Donald Trump news today: Pence sought for questioning in Jan 6 probe over attempt to overturn election

On Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight (20 November), host John Oliver said Twitter has been a “total mess” since new CEO Elon Musk took the reins, arguing that “many of the worst people on Twitter” seem to think his takeover is a sign that they can unleash vitriol.

“One analysis [found] the use of a racial slur spiking nearly 500 percent in the 12 hours after his deal was finalised, which is pretty shocking,” the host said, “even for a website where a regular trending topic is sometimes just ‘The Jews’.

“You’ll log in and see 30,000 people tweeting about ‘The Jews’ on a Tuesday afternoon, and you do not want to click to find out why.”

Former White House aide Ivanka Trump attemped to wriggle her way out of a court order appointing a special monitor to oversee the major transactions of the Trump Organization and individuals with connections to the company, according to The Daily Beast.

The news outlet reported on Monday that the ex-president’s eldest daughter sought through letters from her attorneys to the court to have her name removed from the order, a step that her two brothers Eric and Donald Jr did not take as the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against the company progresses.

John Bowden has more on Ivanka Trump’s latest effort to distance herself from her own family after a disastrous end to four years in the White House:

The New York City prosecutors hoping to convict former president Donald Trump’s eponymous real estate and licensing company of violating state tax laws by paying for apartments, cars and other benefits to top executives without reporting the cost as compensation finished presenting their case against the Trump Organization on Monday.

Prosecutors rested their case earlier than expected after presenting testimony from two of the company’s top executives over the last eight days in court.

Among those who testified was Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former CFO.

Read more from Andrew Feinberg about New York’s efforts to prosecute the Trump Organization:

Conservatives are furious after it was revealed that the wife of the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to determine whether Donald Trump will face any criminal charges is apparently a Democratic donor who was involved in a documentary about Michelle Obama.

Jack Smith, a career prosecutor at the Justice Department, was tapped by Mr Garland to make the decision regarding Mr Trump’s legal fate earlier this month. It notably followed the announcement by Mr Trump that he would seek the White House a third time.

Read more about how Mr Smith is connected to Ms Obama as well as Joe Biden, the man Mr Trump has accused of weaponising the Justice Department:

Calling him “sloppy,” “weak” and a “disgruntled former employee”, Donald Trump laid into his former attorney general this week after Bill Barr suggested that he thought it was now likely that federal prosecutors would indict him over his retention of documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Mr Trump also claimed that the Mar-a-Lago documents case was a hoax. “He knows nothing about the document hoax, and as a lawyer and former AG, shouldn’t be talking.”

Read more about Mr Trump’s latest meltdown in response to the betrayal of a former ally:

A federal judge warned Donald Trump to decide on his lawyers, and fast, ahead of a coming suit from writer E Jean Carroll accusing Mr Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.

The warning came on Tuesday, during a conference in a defamation suit Ms Carroll filed after Mr Trump called the writer’s allegations, first aired in an excerpt of her memoir published in New York magazine, false and an attempt to drum up publicity.

“Your client has known this is coming for months, and he would be well-advised to decide who’s representing him in it,” US district judge Lewis Kaplan told Alina Habba, the former president’s attorney in the defamation case, on Tuesday.

Read more about the case’s new developments in The Independent:

The Supreme Court has dealt a final blow to Donald Trump in his years-long battle to shield his tax returns from Congress.

It was a victory for Democrats on an issue that seems almost antique now — the issue of Mr Trump’s finances took a back seat for many in the media and Democrats especially after January 6 and Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

With the House Ways and Means Committee now set to receive copies of Mr Trump’s tax returns from numerous years, it’s worth looking back to refresh our memories of exactly why those documents are so important.

Twitter users who came out in support of gay and transgender Americans reacted with shock and disgust after a guest on Tucker Carlon’s immensely popular Fox show claimed that more attacks like the Colorado Springs shooting would occur unless doctors ceased performing voluntary gender-affirming care for any American.

It was a moment viewed as a direct threat of violence by those who circulated the video on Twitter and came as some conservatives loudly protested being linked to the same rhetoric that is now blamed for inspiring the attack.

Read more about the right’s response to what is increasingly looking like the most violent act specifically targeting a gay community since the Pulse nightclub shooting:

From the moment he left the White House in defeat last year, Donald Trump had teased the prospect of a third presidential campaign. But in the week since he officially declared his candidacy, the former president has been uncharacteristically low key.

There has been no massive stadium kickoff rally, notable for someone who has turned such events into a signature of his public life. His newly reinstated Twitter account, which helped fuel his political rise nearly a decade ago, sits silent with its more than 87 million followers.

With parts of the GOP in open rebellion, is Donald Trump truly still the leader of the party?

A Montana man who was among the first people to illegally enter the U.S. Capitol while Congress was certifying President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election has been sentenced to just over three years in federal prison.

Joshua Hughes, 39, and his brother, Jerod Hughes, 37, pleaded guilty in August to obstruction of an official proceeding.

Read more about this trial and others involving January 6 defendents as the DoJ expands its probe to include former President Donald Trump himself: