Trump news – latest: Trump reportedly tried to trade records he took from Archives for documents about Russia investigation

Merely 27 people attended a pro-Trump rally in Washington DC this week.

Event organisers toldThe Daily Beast that the extremely low turnout at the rally on Capitol grounds was the result of several factors, but it was still a “success.”

“We put the word out, literally, about a week ago. We would have liked to have more people, but I would consider it a success,” John Paul Moran, founder of GOUSA, told the outlet.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham told a former police officer who was severely injured in the attack on the Capitol that he should have shot Trump-supporting rioters in the head, according to a new book.

The claim is one of a series of stunning revelations contained in former Capitol police officer Michael Fanone’s upcoming memoir Hold the Line.

Mr Fanone writes that he met Mr Graham, a key Trump ally, four months after the deadly siege in May 2021.

Former president Donald Trump tried to make a deal with the National Archive to trade classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago in exchange for files that he believed would prove a 2016 investigation into his ties to Russia was a “hoax”, according to a new report.

In a piece published on Saturday, The New York Times claimed that Mr Trump discussed the deal with his advisers last year as the National Archives increased pressure on him to return a cache of top secret documents he took when he left the White House.

At the end of last year, former president Donald Trump reportedly tried to make a deal with the National Archives where he would hand over the boxes of records he had taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago home in exchange for documents that would prove his theory that the Russia investigation was a “hoax.”

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that the archives applied pressure on the former president to return the “two dozen boxes of original presidential records” that were kept “in the residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office.”

Mr Trump allegedly told his advisers that the boxes he had “only contained newspaper clippings and personal effects” while archives officials “made clear that even newspaper clippings and printouts of articles seen by Mr. Trump in office were considered presidential records.”

Despite the building pressure from the archives, The Times notes that Mr Trump talked to his advisers about “offering the deal to return the boxes in exchange for documents he believed would expose the Russia investigation” as an FBI “hoax.” Notably, he didn’t know what the archives even had, but “only that there were items he wanted.”

Aides to Mr Trump’s aides, of course, never offered the suggestion any credence “since the government had a clear right to the material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House and the Russia-related documents held by the archives remained marked as classified,” The Times pointed out.

In January 2022, Mr Trump would agree to hand over boxes which would prove to contain classified materials. More would be found later during the August raid of Mar-a-Lago.

ICYMI: Herschel Walker’s campaign fired its political director amid the fallout after reports broke that the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, CNN reported.

The campaign has parted ways with Taylor Crowe, who previously worked on former Senator David Perdue’s failed primary challenge against incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

Eric Garcia has the story.

ICYMI: Dr Mehmet Oz has been slammed for headlining a fundraiser featuring a car used by Adolf Hitler, which cost attendees $5,000 a plate. It was hosted in California by the in-laws of Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

ICYMI: Congresswoman Liz Cheney said on Wednesday said the Republican candidates for Arizona governor and secretary of state pose a huge risk for democracy because both say they will refuse to certify election results if they don’t like the results.

Ms Cheney, a prominent critic of former president Donald Trump,, made the comments at an event organised by the McCain Institute at Arizona State University.

She failed to win her primary in Wyoming to a Trump-backed Republican candidate.

ICYMI: The woman whom Herschel Walker paid for an abortion told The New York Times that Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, urged her to have a second abortion.

Eric Garcia has the details.

ICYMI: Donald Trump may still be hiding more top-secret documents he took from the White House at the end of his presidency Department of Justice officials believe, a report claims.

A top official, Jay I Bratt, informed the former president’s lawyers that the government believes he has not yet returned all the material in his possession, two people briefed on the matter told The New York Times.

ICYMI: Donald Trump was mentioned more than once by Kanye West as the rapper and songwriter sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson amid condemnation of a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt.

Speaking on Thursday, West claimed “Trump wanted nothing but the best for this country” and referred to the twice impeached former president as “my boy”, while calling the reaction to his “White Lives Matter” t-shirt at Paris Fashion Week a “setup”.

That was despite the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) classifying “White Lives Matter” as a “white supremacist phrase that originated in early 2015 as a racist response to the Black Lives Matter movement”.

The phrase has also been used by supporters of Mr Trump, including far right commentator Candance Owens, who wore a matching t-shirt with West in the French capital on Monday.