US attorney general appoints special counsel in Trump DoJ investigations – live

Gabrielle Canon here, taking over from the west coast to bring you the latest this afternoon.

Trump-supporting Republicans have been quick to criticize the newly announced special counsel, with figures like Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene sounding off against the ongoing investigation in an attempt to paint the move as a politically motivated.

“Joe Biden has completely weaponized the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents,” Cruz said on Twitter, trying to make a connection between the timing of Trump’s presidential campaign launch and Garland’s announcement.

But Trump’s renewed attempt to regain the presidency could add complications to hold him to account. As Chris McGreal highlights:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}But then there is the politics of a prosecution against a presidential candidate who has already dismissed the investigations of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the hoarding of top secret documents, and allegedly fraudulent business practices, as “politically motivated” and a Democratic “witch-hunt”.

Republican party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has offered her thoughts on the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel handling the investigations into Donald Trump:

CBS News reports that the White House said it had no advance warning of attorney general Merrick Garland’s announcement today of Smith’s appointment. Joe Biden has previously said the justice department has not consulted with him during its investigation into government secrets found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort:

In an interview with Fox News, Donald Trump slammed the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith to weigh charging him over the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago and the January 6 insurrection.

“I have been going through this for six years – for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump told the network. “And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.”

“I have been proven innocent for six years on everything – from fake impeachments to Mueller who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?” he continued, adding, “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”

The former president tied attorney general Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special prosecutor to his own announcement this week of another run for the White House.

“I announce and then they appoint a special prosecutor,” Trump said. “They found nothing, and now they take some guy who hates Trump. This is a disgrace and only happening because I am leading in every poll in both parties … I am not going to partake in this.”

Garland acknowledged that Trump’s run along with Joe Biden’s plans to seek a second term were both factors in his appointment of a special prosecutor, arguing it was the appropriate way to handle the question of whether to seek charges against the former leader after he returned to the campaign trail.

“The department of justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Garland said in his press conference earlier today.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

Texas’s Republican senator John Cornyn has reacted to the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Trump investigations by asking the justice department to do the same for Hunter Biden:

The US attorney in Delaware is said to be weighing whether to bring federal charges against the president’s son, whose business dealings have been a target of scrutiny from GOP politicians and federal investigators for years.

Andrew Weissmann was a seasoned justice department prosecutor whose last job was as a manager on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Here’s what he had to say about Jack Smith:

Special counsel Jack Smith has released a statement after being appointed to the role in which he will determine whether to charge Donald Trump and his allies over the January 6 insurrection and government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.

“I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the department of justice. The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch,” Smith wrote. “I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

So who’s Jack Smith?

As described by Merrick Garland, Smith is a veteran justice department prosecutor who from 2010 to 2015 was head of its public integrity section, responsible for handling corruption cases. He then served as a US attorney in Tennessee during the final years of Democrat Barack Obama’s administration.

Lately, he’s been working in international law. He’s currently in The Hague as the specialist prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling trials of war crimes suspects from the eastern European country. He also worked as an investigator for the international criminal court from 2008 to 2010.

“I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity. And I also believe that appointing a special counsel at this time is the right thing to do,” Garland said.

“The extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it. Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even handed and urgent manner.”

Merrick Garland said his appointment of a special prosecutor was necessary because of Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail, as well as Joe Biden’s plans to seek a second term in the White House.

“The department of justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Garland said in the just-concluded press conference.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

Attorney general Merrick Garland has named veteran prosector Jack Smith as the special counsel to decide whether to bring charges against Donald Trump.

Attorney general Merrick Garland has started his press conference by announcing a special prosecutor will be appointed to handle two inquiries.

The first is “the investigation into whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6 2021.”

The second is “the ongoing investigation involving classified documents and other presidential records, as well as the possible obstruction of that investigation, referenced and described in court filings… in the Southern District of Florida.” That is likely the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

As we wait for what is looking to be a consequential announcement from attorney general Merrick Garland, a winner appears to have emerged from one of the last uncalled House races.

The Pueblo Chieftain reports that Democrat Adam Frisch has conceded to Republican incumbent Lauren Boebert after a surprisingly close race:

Boebert is among a group of conservative lawmakers known for their extreme rhetoric, but nearly lost to Frisch even though her district normally votes for Republicans. The House representative has in the past made Islamophobic comments and condemned the separation of church and state.

Attorney general Merrick Garland plans to hold a press conference at 2.15pm eastern time, following reports that he will name a special prosecutor to decide whether to bring charges against Donald Trump and his allies.

Beyond just the investigation into government secrets Trump allegedly retained at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Politico reports that the special counsel will also look into Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election. The justice department has not yet announced who they will be appointed to job.

This blog will cover Garland’s address as it happens.

The plan for a special counsel appears to be linked to allegations of the unlawful retention of national defense information at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in Florida, according to the Reuters news agency, which cites an unnamed senior Department of Justice official.

The agency says a senior DoJ official has named a special prosecutor to investigate the entirety of the department’s criminal investigation into that potential offense.

Meanwhile, CNN reports that the special counsel will also review the parallel DoJ investigation into Trump’s involvement around the insurrection on January 6, 2021, when extremist supporters of the-then president invaded the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election by congress.

We will bring you more developments as they happen.

US attorney general Merrick Garland plans to name a special counsel to examine whether former president Donald Trump should be prosecuted as a result of investigations carried out by the Department if Justice (DoJ), the Wall Street Journal reports, citing an unnamed source “familiar with the matter”.

The Journal reports:

“A formal announcement, which is expected by Friday afternoon, would come three days after Mr. Trump announced another bid for the presidency and would mark the naming of the third independent prosecutor in five years to examine issues involving Mr. Trump. The exact scope of the special counsel’s remit and who it would be couldn’t be determined.”

More details to come…

A judge refused today to quash a subpoena issued to former White House press secretary Jen Psaki that seeks her deposition in a lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Biden administration conspired to silence conservative voices on social media, the Associated Press reports.

Psaki filed a motion in federal court in Alexandria seeking to quash the subpoena, saying that she had no relevant information to provide and that a deposition would place an undue burden on her. The Justice Department supported her efforts to quash.

US magistrate Ivan Davis said during a hearing today that he was unimpressed with Psaki’s arguments. But he did not reject her request outright. Instead, he transferred the case back to Louisiana, where the lawsuit was filed.

Psaki was allowed to file a separate opposition in Virginia because she lives in the state and would be deposed there.

Davis, though, said it makes no sense for him to wade into the questions of whether Psaki’s testimony is relevant when the judge in Louisiana is more familiar with the case.

He also said Psaki failed to show how sitting for a deposition in her home state would be an undue burden. In fact, he said that if Psaki has little information to contribute, as she alleges, it shouldn’t be much of a burden at all.

Justice Department lawyer Indraneel Sur indicated he would appeal Davis’ ruling to a district judge in Alexandria and asked the judge to stay his ruling to provide time to do so, but Davis declined.

The lawsuit filed by the attorney general in Missouri and Alexandria accuses Joe Biden, former federal health official Anthony Fauci and others of conspiring with social media companies to restrict free speech by censoring conservative opinions about the Covid-19 response and other issues.

Readers will have noticed that politicians, and indeed journalists and people, are still tweeting. But for how much longer?

Here’s the Guardian’s Kari Paul:

Amid ongoing fallout from Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, speculation of the platform’s imminent collapse is swirling – leaving users wondering what parts of their online selves they’ll get to keep.

After Musk laid off thousands of workers, many users have reported signs the platform is falling apart in real time – from glitching home pages to log-in failures – and researchers are desperately urging users to download their tweets in case Twitter implodes completely.

“If there’s something you care about on Twitter, now’s the time to become like a temporary expert in digital archiving measures,” said Caroline Sinders, an artificial intelligence researcher and founder of human rights lab Convocation Research and Design.

Digital archiving – the process of preserving online content for future use – has expanded steadily since the launch of the internet, but still exists in a patchwork, decentralized framework.

There’s more to read, here. But the last bit is killer:

If you want to save tweets – whether jokes from a favorite celebrity or the last thoughts of a loved one who has passed – an expert suggests a relatively analog solution.

“Print out their tweets, and put them in a box,” the expert said. “They will last longer in every way.”

He may still be the most popular man in the Republican party, but Donald Trump’s announcement of a new run for the White House this week has been fodder for his opponents, most recently his former top diplomat Mike Pompeo. Meanwhile, conservatives have continued their quest to stop Kevin McCarthy from becoming speaker in the Republican-run House next year, while Democrats’ transition away from Nancy Pelosi’s leadership appears to be running much more smoothly.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• The January 6 committee could, as soon as today, file its response to Trump’s attempt to quash its subpoena for his testimony as the end-of-the-year expiration of its mandate draws nearer.

• Joe Biden’s administration has asked the supreme court to allow its student debt relief plan to proceed.

• Republicans on the House judiciary committee want homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas and a host of top officials to testify. Expect the situation at the southern border to be a major topic of questioning for the GOP.

Donald Trump’s former top diplomat Mike Pompeo has again attacked his one-time boss:

Pompeo’s wording echoes Trump’s promise on the campaign trail 2016 that if he was elected, supporters would “get tired of winning.” Pompeo, who served as secretary of state from 2018 till the end of Trump’s term in 2021, is thought to be considering a run for the presidency in 2024.

Perhaps he’ll elaborate on his thoughts about the former president in his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition later today:

The Biden administration has petitioned the supreme court to allow its plan to relieve some student debt relief to proceed, Bloomberg News reports:

Biden in August announced the plan to forgive as much as $20,000 in federal student debt for people earning less than $125,000 a year, or households earning below $250,000.

Conservative activists and states immediately sued to stop the program, and last month, an effort by six Republican-led states succeeded in getting it temporarily halted.