Trump opens office to ‘carry on’ his administration’s agenda

Bloomberg

Former President Donald Trump has opened an office to “advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda” of his administration, according to a statement.
The ex-president’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, created a new email distribution system via one of his private companies for Trump’s statements because the 2020 campaign’s email infrastructure has been suspended by the vendor it had been using, Campaign Monitor, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A slew of technology platforms excised Trump accounts or subgroups, including those on Twitter, Facebook, Shopify, Twitch and Instagram, after the January 6 riot by pro-Trump supporters at the US Capitol.
The statement from the Office of Donald J. Trump was issued less than an hour before House Democrats crossed the US Capitol to deliver an article of impeachment against the former president to the Senate. That sets in motion Trump’s second impeachment trial. He is accused of inciting the mob that broke into the Capitol as Congress was about to certify the results of the election he lost to Joe Biden.
One of Parscale’s companies, Nucleus, built an email distribution system meant to circumvent outside vendors. Aides want to prevent media companies from silencing or “cancelling” Trump in the future, one of the people said.
The letterhead on the statement indicated that the office will operate out of Palm Beach, where Trump moved after leaving the White House last week. According to the statement, the “office will be responsible for managing Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump administration through advocacy, organising, and public activism.”
Later, in a statement released by the Save America leadership political action committee he formed after the election, Trump endorsed his former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for governor of Arkansas.
Also, a Trump adviser said he had no plans to break from the Republican Party to pursue a third party.
Meanwhile, Senators will be sworn in as jurors in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and issue a summons to former president. But they will then mostly set it aside for two weeks as they plow through confirmation votes on President Joe Biden’s cabinet and work on another pandemic relief plan.
The unprecedented trial ceremonially kicked as a delegation of House Democrats who will act as prosecutors delivered the single article of impeachment to the Senate chamber. The substance of the trial, however, will wait until the week of February 8, when briefs from House prosecutors and Trump’s defense team are due.
The group of Democrats, known as impeachment managers, walked in a silent procession across the Capitol and lead manager, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, read the brief article, charging Trump with incitement insurrection for his actions before a mob stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government,” Raskin read from the document. “He thereby betrayed his trust as president, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Trump is the first American president to have been impeached twice and will be first to be tried after leaving office.
The symbolic opening of the trial comes as the Senate is still without an agreement on how it will operate with a 50-50 split and Democrats in nominal control. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and GOP leader Mitch McConnell have agreed on the timing for moving ahead with the trial but little else.