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Inflation Rate Hits 30-year High – Consumer Price Index was up 6.2% for the last 12 months, the highest annual inflation rate since 1991, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday. The CPI rose 0.9% in October, versus 0.4% in September. The Labor Department cited price increases in a wide array of consumer goods, though energy, shelter, food, used and new cars and trucks “were among the larger contributors.”
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Judge Rejects Trump’s Lawsuit to Block 1/6 Papers – Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied former President Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block the National Archives’ release of documents related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection to the House Select Committee investigating the riot. In her 39-page ruling, the judge said there is a public interest in releasing the documents (The Hill).
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president,” Chutkan said.
Note: While the House Select Committee hopes to procure the documents as early as this Friday, Trump’s attorneys have promised to appeal, and the case is likely headed to the Supreme Court. If Trump’s lawyers can draw out the case well into 2022, a long delay could come after the midterm elections, when Republicans expect to retake the House majority and a new speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, would likely dissolve the 1/6 investigation.
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Meanwhile, 1/6 Committee Subpoenas 10 More Trump Associates – The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has issued 10 more subpoenas, to former Trump administration officials. They are, per The Wall Street Journal:
•Kayleigh McEnany: Trump White House press secretary.
•Stephen Miller: Senior advisor, and key advocate for administration’s immigration policy.
•Chris Liddell: Former White House deputy chief of staff.
•Nicholas Luna: Trump personal assistant (“luggage carrier”).
•John McEntee: Former White House personnel director.
•Ben Williamson: Trump assistant and senior advisor to ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
•Keith Kellogg: Ex-Vice President Pence’s security advisor.
•Cassidy Hutchinson: Special assistant to ex-President Trump for legislative affairs.
•Molly Michael: Special assistant to the ex-president, and former Oval Office operations co-ordinator.
•Kenneth Klukowski: Former senior council to ex-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.
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Sununu Rejects Senate Run – Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has rejected pleas by GOP Senate leadership to run against Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, in next year’s midterms. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, considered Sununu their best chance for retaking the chamber’s majority with the November 2022 elections, Politico notes.
Sununu is the younger brother of former Sen. John Sununu, who lost re-election to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in 2008. Shaheen, a former governor who lost her first run against John Sununu in 2002, became the first Democratic U.S. senator from New Hampshire since 1981 when she took the seat in 2009.
Note: The pols have it that Sununu finds it easier to be a Republican governor with a distant relationship to Donald J. Trump, like Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, than to potentially run against a hand-picked Trump candidate for the Republican Senate primary next year.
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Obituary: Max Cleland – Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, D-GA, died Tuesday at the age of 79. As a U.S. Army captain who served during the Vietnam War, he lost both legs and an arm in a grenade accident in 1968. He served as administrator of the Veterans Administration under President Carter from 1977 to 1981, and ran for the Senate in 1996, where he served until January 2003. During his failed bid for a second term, Saxby Chambliss, his Republican opponent ran commercials claiming Cleland was “soft” on terrorism, picturing him side-by-side with a photo of Osama bin Laden. Republican Sens. John McCain, of Arizona and Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska expressed their outrage at their party’s smear campaign at the time.
“I publicly stated that I wanted it stopped,” Hagel later said. “To question Max Cleland’s patriotism was just astounding to me. And these are from people who had never served our country in uniform.”
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash