January 25 political news briefs

Here are today’s political news briefs.

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of spreading lies that the voting machines flipped votes for Joe Biden. Dominion said their employees received death threats and its reputation was damaged. The New York Times said Dominion is the second largest manufacturer of voting machine equipment in the U.S. and their machines were used in at least 25 states during the 2020 election. Dominion has already sued pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and it is possible that in the future, Dominion will sue Donald Trump. It is interesting to see how the tables are turned — after the 2020 election, the Trump campaign and its allies filed over 60 lawsuits alleging fraud, but almost all of them were thrown out. Now the voting machine companies are on the offensive with the lawsuits. We’ll see what happens in the courts.

The Justice Department’s inspector general Michael Horowitz announced that his office would investigate “whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election.” This announcement may be related to news reports that former president Trump considered firing the former acting attorney general Jeff Rosen to appoint a DOJ lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, to use federal powers to force the Georgia legislature to overturn it’s election results that had a Biden victory.

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President Joe Biden signed an executive order that overturns Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Biden’s order said all Americans who are qualified to serve should be able to do so. Biden said it’s the right thing to do and that it makes America stronger by valuing diversity and inclusion. News reports said there was an estimated 9,000 transgender troops serving in 2016. A controversial aspect is whether the Pentagon should pay for medical treatment to treat gender dysphoria, which is a conflict between physical gender and gender identity. A researcher found that the Pentagon spends about $3 million per year on treatment for transgender troops out of a $50 billion health care budget for all troops.

The House of Representatives will transmit the article of impeachment against Trump to the Senate tonight at 7 pm ET. The House charged him with inciting an insurrection in relation to the storming of the Capitol. The trial will begin on February 9 to allow both sides to have ample time to prepare. The prosecutors will be nine members of the House, the defense team will be a team of attorneys assembled by Trump, and the jury is the Senate. Usually the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the one who presides over the trial, but because Trump is no longer a sitting president, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) will act in that role. A conviction requires 67 votes.

AP News reported that federal law enforcement agents are examining online chatter about killing or injuring members of Congress over the impeachment trial. There will still be about 7,000 troops from the National Guard that will remain in D.C. from the 25,000 that were deployed to protect Biden’s inauguration. So there’s still a lot of tension and a sense of danger in D.C.

That’s all the political news briefs for today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-dominion-trump.html 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-reverses-trump-ban-on-transgender-individuals-serving-in-military

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/25/president-joe-biden-overturns-donald-trumps-ban-transgender-troops/4235238001/

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/25/960130551/house-poised-to-transmit-article-of-impeachment-against-trump-to-senate

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-capitol-siege-ap-top-news-trials-impeachments-b9a44a269d6cfeee28e79b46572d28a6

https://oig.justice.gov/news/department-justice-office-inspector-general-announces-initiation-investigation

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-department-election.html