Trump news today: Ivanka hasn’t pled fifth in Jan 6 interview as Elon Musk asked to revoke Twitter ban

John Bowden and Andrew Feinberg have this report on Ivanka Trump’s marathon session with the 6 January select committee yesterday, in which she reportedly declined to invoke the Fifth Amendment and instead answered the panel’s questions.

However, as one Democrat from outside the committee pointed out, her ostensible cooperation doesn’t mean she will actually have been helpful.

“I’ve interviewed a lot of the members of that family, talking doesn’t necessarily mean talking truthfully,” added Rep Eric Swalwell, who does not sit on the committee. “They are quite skilled at using the phrase, ‘I don’t recall.’ They know that one really well.”

Illinois Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger criticised members of his party on Tuesday for what he sees as their unwillingness to speak out against the crisis in Ukraine.

“We are being governed by a bunch of children,” Mr Kinzinger said. “By a bunch of people that are not serious about running the United States of America and truly don’t understand the threat that’s out there from Vladimir Putin, from China and from some of these actors in the world that want to destroy our place here.”

“The world order is being challenged for the first time since World War II and they’re sitting around thinking today about how we can win our next election, what the newest outrage is, what’s the next thing we can do to get people angry and upset and get their money from them for our reelection,” he added.

Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called his colleagues in Congress “children” for focusing more on Disney and culture war issues than the “genocide“ happening in Ukraine at the hands of Russia.

Mr Kinzinger said that the “world order” was being challenged for the first time since World War II, but that his fellow Republicans were acting like “a bunch of children.”

The 45th president’s false claims began before he ever took office and continued after he left, writes John Bowden.

Read the full story here:

America’s most prominent conservative gathering, founded on ideals of personal liberty and limited government, convenes in Budapest next month to celebrate a European leader accused of undermining democracy and individual rights.

The May meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is seen by some Republicans as a test of how closely American conservatives are willing to align themselves with a global movement of far-right, Russia-friendly strongmen embraced by former US President Donald Trump.

The event’s keynote speaker is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a longtime supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The European Union has accused Orban, who won re-election by a large margin on Sunday, of curbing media and judicial independence, enriching associates with public funds and recasting election laws to entrench his power.

Hungary joined in the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Orban has stopped short of criticizing Putin directly, barred weapons shipments through Hungary to neighboring Ukraine and opposed proposals for EU sanctions on Russian natural gas.

Ivanka Trump appeared remotely before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, committee sources revealed, as the panel’s investigation into her father’s role in a violent assault on Congress continues.

The chairman of the House select committee investigating January 6 confirmed Ms Trump’s appearance to reporters and told Politico that Ms Trump’s testimony was still ongoing as of mid-Monday afternoon with five hours already passed in the session. Ms Trump was not subpoenaed, and like her husband is giving information to the committee as a personal choice.

John Bowden reports for The Independent from Washington, DC.

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin appeared so incensed by outlandish lines of questioning from Republican congressman Matt Gaetz that he ended up in a shouting match with the Florida representative by the end of Mr Gaetz’s five minute round.

Mr Austin was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify at a House Armed Services Committee hearing regarding the Defence Department’s fiscal year 2023 budget request, but Mr Gaetz had apparently decided to use his time to berate the former US Central Command boss about what he described as US defence failures caused by the Pentagon’s embrace of “wokeness”.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Capitol Hill.

Donald Trump was apparently caught admitting that he lost the 2020 US presidential election to Joe Biden in a Zoom meeting last summer, according to a video recirculated in recent days.

The former US president was speaking with a group of Princeton University historians in July 2021 when he appeared to admit to losing the 2020 election to Mr Biden, whom he accuses of “stealing” the vote.

Matt Mowers, the former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire, voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, potentially violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican Party’s intense focus on “election integrity.”

Representative Dan Kildee summed up the mood on Capitol Hill to Politico’s Sarah Ferris:

There are three kinds of days here. There’s West Wing days, when we do some really cool stuff. There’s House of Cards days, where the place just seems like it’s falling apart. Then there are Veep days. Today’s sort of like a Veep day. The fox bites Ami, Fred[Upston}’sleavingItjustsucks[Upston}’sleavingItjustsucks