That’s all for the US politics blog for today, a Monday almost entirely dominated by news about Donald Trump’s legal troubles and developments in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection that the former president incited.

Trump is facing a fine of $10,000 a day after a New York judge held him in contempt for failing to release documents to state attorney general Letitia James, who is probing his business dealings. And CNN revealed thousands of texts sent to and by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows at and around the time of the Capitol riot.

Developments in the Ukraine conflict are recorded in our 24-hour live blog here. And please join us again tomorrow, when the House of Representatives returns from its Easter break.

Here’s where else our day went:

• Twitter agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk for $44bn. The White House said “no matter who owns or runs Twitter… tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.”
• The Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman convicted in the death of her two-year-old daughter.
• Joe Biden said he “felt good” about Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election.
• Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic hopeful to become Texas governor, announced he has tested positive for Covid-19.
• A district court judge in Kansas threw out a Republican-drawn congressional map that sought to decrease Democratic representation in the state.

Jen Psaki was also questioned about today’s meeting between Joe Biden and members of the Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who are concerned about the expected surge of migrants at the southern US border next month when the Trump-era Title 42 policy ends.

Psaki noted the policy, which blocked refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic, was ending on health grounds, although Republican lawmakers visiting the border today are painting the predicted surge as an immigration failure by Biden.

Psaki said the issue was a reminder that there was a need for comprehensive immigration reform:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We have a broken immigration system that’s been long overdue to be fixed. [The president] agrees with that, and he’s certainly happy to discuss that during this meeting, or any other meeting he has with members of Congress.

But this is not an immigration policy. Title 42 is a health authority that’s determined by the CDC, and we need to have a conversation about immigration reform, that’s vital. Maybe this is a reminder.

The homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas faces a series of congressional hearings later this week that will include discussions of Title 42, and which will undoubtedly feature some feisty questioning from Republicans.

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The White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the breaking news of Elon Musk’s reported Twitter deal early in her afternoon briefing, specifically the administration’s thoughts about Donald Trump’s possible return to the platform:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}No matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms, the power they have over our everyday lives, and he has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.

He has been a strong supporter of fundamental reforms to achieve that goal… and he’s encouraged that there’s bipartisan interest in Congress.

In terms of what hypothetical policies might happen, I’m just not going to speak to that.

Billionaire Elon Musk has reached an agreement to acquire Twitter for approximately $44 billion, the company said.

The outspoken Tesla chief executive, the world’s richest person, has said Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech, the Associated Press reported.

Twitter said it will become a privately held company after the sale is closed.Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal said in a tweet:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.

Who wouldn’t want Valerie Biden Owens in their corner? The first sister of the United States gives no inch in defending her big brother. Asked about Joe Biden’s notorious gaffes, for example, she simply rejects the premise.

“He doesn’t have gaffes,” she insists. “He speaks the truth. Like, hello, surprise, I just said what was true!”

At the end of a carefully crafted speech last month in Warsaw, Poland, the president ad libbed that Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, “cannot remain in power”. To the world’s media it was a howler implying regime change that upended weeks of diplomacy and sent aides scrambling.

To Biden Owens, however, it was truth-telling after meeting refugee mothers and children.

“This is a man, you see what you get,” she says, with recognisable flintiness. “His wife died. Two of his children died, one by a long death and one by a sudden death. And one almost from addiction. He was speaking from his heart. What kind of man [Putin] does this? That’s the real Joe Biden. That was not a gaffe.”

Biden Owens, 76, is talking about her newly published memoir. Growing Up Biden is a lucid account of a middle-class childhood remarkable only for its ordinariness, becoming the first woman in US history to run a presidential campaign, and helping “Joey” emerge from personal and political disasters to reach his own mountaintop.

It is also a moving portrait of sibling love. Joe is the oldest of four Biden children. Valerie was born three years later, followed by Jimmy and Frank.

“At an age when a lot of other older brothers pretended they didn’t even know their sister, Joey took me everywhere with him,” she writes. “When his friends would ask, ‘Why did you bring a girl?’ he answered, ‘She’s not a girl. She’s my sister. If you want me around, she’s going to be around, too.’”

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Following the New York judge’s decision to hold Donald Trump in contempt in the attorney general’s civil investigation, AG Letitia James said: “Today, justice prevailed. For years, Donald Trump has tried to evade the law and stop our lawful investigation into him and his company’s financial dealings. Today’s ruling makes clear: No one is above the law.”

James had asked for the contempt finding this month stating that Trump had not complied with a subpoena requiring him to produce documents and information.

James’ civil investigation has focused on whether the Trump Organization misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions. Earlier in April James said investigators had found “significant evidence” of wrongdoing.

In a court filing then, the New York attorney general said Trump failed to abide by his earlier agreement to comply “in full” with her subpoena for documents and information by 31 March.

On Monday, Judge Arthur Engoron, a New York state supreme court judge, agreed with James that Trump was in contempt of court.

The contempt finding by the judge came despite a spirited argument by Alina Habba, Trump’s attorney, who insisted repeatedly that she went to great lengths to comply with the subpoena, even traveling to Florida to ask Trump specifically whether he had in his possession any documents that would be responsive to the demand.

“The contempt motion is inappropriate and misleading,” she said. “He complied … There are no more documents left to produce by President Trump.”

She also derided the James investigation as “political” and “truly a fishing expedition,” saying Trump and his companies had turned over more than six million documents and paperwork related to 103 Trump entities over an eight-year period.

The Texas court of criminal appeals has issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, the Mexican-American woman who was set to be judicially killed within 48 hours, ordering a lower court to consider new evidence of her innocence in the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah.

The court issued its order on Monday as the final clock was ticking on Lucio’s transfer to the death chamber. She would have been the first Hispanic woman executed by Texas.

As Wednesday’s scheduled execution date grew closer, calls for a stay to give time for new scientific evidence of her innocence to be reviewed grew to fever pitch. The intensity of the outcry against her pending death rivaled that of the case of Troy Davis, the African American man executed by Georgia in 2011 despite serious doubts around his guilt.

New evidence presented by Lucio’s legal team in a 266-page petition suggested that the murder of her toddler daughter had never even happened. Medical and eye-witness evidence pointed towards Mariah having died after accidentally falling down a steep flight of stairs at Lucio’s rental home.

In a statement, Lucio thanked the court of criminal appeals for giving her the chance “to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always.”

Sandra Babcock, one of Lucio’s legal team and a professor at Cornell law school, said that the court’s decision paved the way for a new trial which would allow a jury to hear evidence that was not presented at her original trial in 2008. Five of the 12 jury members from that trial have said that had they known what is now known about the case they would have decided differently.

Babcock said: “Melissa’s life matters.As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate partner violence, and now locked away for these past 15 years, Melissa’s voice and experiences have never been valued. The Court’s decision signals its willingness to finally hear Melissa’s side of the story.”

Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, who also represents Lucio, said: “Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was consistent with an accident. But for the State’s use of false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of capital murder because no murder occurred.”

Jeff Leach, the Republican lawmaker who led the push for a delay of execution in the Texas House, greeted the news of the stay with delight, saying it would secure “justice for Melissa and for Mariah and the entire Lucio family”.

Earlier, Leach told the Guardian in an interview that the failings of the prosecution in Lucio’s case had shaken his belief in the death penalty. He said her treatment had “given me great pause and made me reconsider my stance on whether this is the way we want to do things in the state of Texas”.

While we await Donald Trump’s almost inevitable statement of fury over a New York judge’s decision to hold him in contempt, and fine him $10,000 a day for failing to hand over financial documents to the state’s attorney general, it’s worth revisiting the extent of legal jeopardy the former president is in.

A Guardian tally back in February found 19 separate legal actions against Trump at federal, state and local levels, ranging from his actions seeking to overturn the 2020 election he lost, to sexual misconduct and financial impropriety. Half allege improper conduct during his single-term presidency.

As recently as last week he was ordered to pay his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman more than $1.3m in legal fees, closing a case over her alleged violation of a non-disclosure agreement.

My colleague Ed Pilkington examined Trump’s legal woes in an article in February.

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Beto O’Rourke, the prominent Democrat who is seeking to oust Greg Abbott from the Texas governor’s mansion later this year, has announced he has Covid-19.

“I tested negative yesterday morning before testing positive today. I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines,” O’Rourke said in a tweet that indicated he became infected on the campaign trail.

O’Rourke, who narrowly failed to unseat Ted Cruz in their 2018 US Senate race, trails Abbott by a significant margin ahead of November’s election, according to RealClearPolitics.

A district court judge in Kansas has struck down a Republican-drawn congressional map that would likely make it harder for the only Democrat in the state’s delegation to win reelection this year, according to the Associated Press.

It was the first time a court has declared that the Kansas constitution prohibits political gerrymandering. The state is expected to appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Wyandotte county district judge Bill Klepper was scathing of Republicans’ attempts to manipulate district boundaries to their advantage:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}How strong are Kansans? Strong enough to expect nothing more than a level playing field devoid of partisan advantage for one group of Kansans.

Strong enough for the merits of the issue to be the deciding factor. Strong enough to make their political decisions based upon the content of a candidate’s character rather than the color of their political party.

The map sought to move some voters from the Democratic stronghold of Kansas City into a Republican-dominated district, thus weakening support for Democratic Representative Sharice Davids in her own district.

Critics argued that the map also diluted the political power of Black and Hispanic voters in the Kansas City area by splitting them up. The state rejected all of those allegations, but Klepper agreed and ordered lawmakers to draw up a new one.

The Kansas case will be watched closely in Florida, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis last week signed a “racist” congressional redistricting map that strips representation from Black voters. Numerous voters’ rights groups immediately filed a lawsuit.

Here’s another dose of Monday opinion poll news, this time from Harvard Kennedy school’s institute of politics, which finds young voters are losing confidence in the US political system.

“While 18 to 29-year-olds are on track to match 2018’s record-breaking youth turnout in a midterm election this November and prefer Democratic control 55%-34%, there was a sharp increase in youth believing that ‘political involvement rarely has tangible results’ (36%), their vote ‘doesn’t make a difference’ (42%), and agreement that ‘politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing’ (56%)”, the study found.

And Joe Biden’s job approval has dropped to 41% among young Americans, down five points from a similar poll in the fall of last year.

According to Mark Gearan, director of the Harvard Kennedy school’s institute of politics:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the past two election cycles, America’s youngest voters have proven themselves to be a formidable voting bloc with a deep commitment to civic engagement. Our new poll shows a pragmatic idealism as they consider the state of our democracy and the concerning challenges they face in their lives.

Elected officials from both parties would benefit from listening to young Americans and as we head into the midterm elections.

Read the poll here.

A fringe party in Canada says notorious right-wing American strategist Roger Stone, known for his political ‘dirty tricks’, will join its campaign ahead of an upcoming provincial election.

On Monday, the Ontario Party announced Stone, 69, would join as a “senior strategic advisor” ahead of the province’s expected June election.

The statement called Stone, who has worked on multiple US presidential campaigns, including Donald Trump’s in 2016, a “seasoned veteran of hard-nosed politics”. The release said Stone had been “inspired” by the Canadian trucker protests, which paralyzed the nation’s capital for nearly a month before it was broken up by police.

Formed in 2018 and with little electoral success to date, the Ontario Party has been sharply critical of the province’s public health measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

The party’s leader, Derek Sloan, was expelled from the Conservative party in 2021 after he received a campaign donation from a white supremacist. Then-leader Erin O’Toole cited Sloan’s pattern of “destructive behaviour” and “disrespect towards the Conservative team” as justification for removing him from the party.

In a tweet, the Ontario Party leader warned incumbent premier Doug Ford to “watch out big guy”.

It is unclear how much of a role the controversial American strategist will play in the province’s election, as Ford looks to renew his legislative majority. In 2019, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison after attempting to sabotage a congressional investigation into former president Trump. He was subsequently pardoned by Trump.

Reuters has provided more detail on the decision by a New York judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt, ordering the former president to be fined $10,000 per day until he complies.

Trump lost a bid to quash a subpoena from state attorney general Letitia James, then failed to produce all the documents by a court-ordered 3 March deadline, later extended to 31 March at his lawyers’ request, the agency says.

Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that a contempt finding was appropriate because of what the judge called “repeated failures” to hand over materials and that it was not clear Trump had conducted a complete search for responsive documents.

Although Trump was not in court, Judge Engoron addressed him directly:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously. I hereby hold you in civil contempt.

James is investigating whether the Trump Organization, the former president’s New York City-based family company, misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions.

James has said her probe had found “significant evidence” suggesting that for more than a decade the company’s financial statements “relied on misleading asset valuations and other misrepresentations to secure economic benefits.”

The attorney general has questioned how the Trump Organization valued the Trump brand, as well as properties including golf clubs in New York and Scotland and Trump’s own penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan’s Trump Tower.

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