Georgia grand jury foreperson’s remarks on Trump investigation could fuel legal challenges – as it happened

Donald Trump traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, where he took the opportunity to criticize the Biden administration’s response to the derailment and toxic waste spill earlier this month. Two can play at that game, however, and Democrats have seized on his trip to remind voters of his administration’s friendliness to the rail industry, and argue it set the stage for the derailment. We may hear more about that tomorrow, when transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg pays his own visit to the village.

Here’s what else happened today:

• The foreperson of the special grand jury investigating Trump’s election meddling campaign in Georgia has been making the rounds of news outlets, and that might not be helpful for prosecutors.

• Democrats got some good news in their quest to hold the Senate after next year, when Montana’s Jon Tester announced he’d stand for re-election. However, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin remains non-committal on another term.

• House Republicans want to learn everything they can about American support to Ukraine.

• Joe Biden is taking a page out of Trump’s book with new restrictions meant to dramatically crack down on asylum seekers arriving at the border with Mexico.

• “Serious vulnerabilities” in Arizona’s election systems? Apparently not.

One of the most under-the-radar political stories of the year is happening in Wisconsin, where voters yesterday cast ballots in a primary election that could set the stage for a change in the ideological balance on the state supreme court. That won’t just affect Wisconsinites, but particularly all Americans, since the Badger state is crucial to any victorious presidential campaign. Here’s more on that from the Guardian’s Sam Levine:

Wisconsin voters on Tuesday chose one liberal and one conservative candidate to face off in a race to determine control of the state supreme court in what is likely the most important election of 2023.

Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee circuit court judge, will be on the ballot against Daniel Kelly, a conservative former supreme court justice, in the state’s 4 April general election. Protasiewicz, who received 46% of the statewide vote, and Kelly, who received 24% of the statewide vote, advanced from a four-member field that included Everett Mitchell, a liberal judge in Dane county, and Jennifer Dorow, a conservative judge in Waukesha county.

Conservatives currently have a 4-3 majority on the court, but if Protasiewicz wins, the balance of the court would flip.

That would have enormous impact in Wisconsin, one of the most politically competitive states in America that often determines the outcome of the presidential election. The court is expected to have a say in the near future on a range of major voting rights and abortion decisions.

Among the news outlets Emily Kohrs, foreperson of the Georgia special grand jury investigating the 2020 election meddling campaign, spoke to was CNN.

Their legal analyst Elie Honig, a former assistant US attorney, was not impressed by her disclosures. Here’s what he had to say:

Legal experts who spoke to the Washington Post say the Georgia special grand jury foreperson’s media blitz won’t be helpful to prosecutors looking to hold Donald Trump’s allies to account, but aren’t necessarily fatal to their case.

“What the forewoman said in this case was nothing more than hearsay, and in theory isn’t damaging. But her statements could allow for stalling and delaying on the part of those facing indictment who might question the impartiality of the proceedings,” Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University, told the Post.

Washington University in St. Louis law professor Peter A. Joy said her comments could be fodder for future investigations.

“It could lead to an investigation into the grand jury itself and the possibility that anyone indicted may be able to obtain a copy of the transcript of the grand jury proceedings, which would be helpful to the defense,” he said.

Clark D. Cunningham of Georgia State University summed it up best: It is “speculative and maybe alarmist to say that her media appearances will be a problem for the prosecution. But the adverse effect on public confidence, I think, is clear.”

Lawyer for Republican officials who a special grand jury in Georgia may have recommended for indictment over their effort to meddle in the 2020 election could use the grand jury foreperson’s public statements to challenge any charges, CBS News reports:

Emily Kohrs, the foreperson of the special grand jury empaneled in the Atlanta area to investigate the effort by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia, has in recent days spoken publicly about the panel’s work. While she hasn’t named names, she confirmed that the panel did recommend indictments, and when it comes to the former president, “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.”

Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, marked Ash Wednesday in Warsaw today.

This is Facebook’s translation from the Polish of what the attending priest, Wieslaw Dawidowski, had to say:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Today is Ash Wednesday. Also the greats of this world accept the ashes – if they belong to the Catholic tradition. I had the honor to put ashes on the head of the President of the United States himself Mr Joe Biden.

Everything happened in great secret but now I can say: in an improvised house chapel just next to the president’s apartment, we held a Holy Mass with the intention of peace, the conversion of Russia and the light of the Holy Spirit for the president.

Dawidowski’s post included pictures of presidential challenge coins and of the priest and president together, ash on the president’s forehead.

Democrats and immigration advocates have harshly criticized Joe Biden over a new proposal that could stop migrants claiming asylum at the US-Mexico border. One advocate said the move would cause “unnecessary human suffering”.

The pushback came after the Biden administration unveiled the proposal that would deny asylum to migrants who arrive without first seeking it in one of the countries they pass through.

There are exceptions for children, people with medical emergencies and those facing imminent threats but if enacted the proposal could stop tens of thousands of people claiming asylum in the US.

The move prompted comparisons to Donald Trump’s attempts to limit asylum, attempts repeatedly struck down by federal courts. As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to reverse those policies.

The proposal “represents a blatant embrace of hateful and illegal anti-asylum policies, which will lead to unnecessary human suffering”, said Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

“Time after time, President Biden has broken his campaign promises to end restrictions on asylum seekers traveling through other countries.

“These are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and thousands of children who are simply looking for a fair chance for their case to be heard. We urge the Biden administration to abandon policy initiatives that further the inhumane and ineffective agenda of the Trump administration.”

The proposed rule was posted in the Federal Register this week, with 30 days for public comment.

Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Justice Immigration Center, said the brief comment period “suggests that the president already knows that this policy is a betrayal of his campaign promises”.

Full story:

Jon Tester has announced a run for re-election – good news for Democrats facing a tough map in their quest to hold the Senate in 2024.

In a statement earlier today, the Montanan, for three terms an increasingly rare blue (Democratic) senator from a very red (Republican) state, said: “I know that people in Washington don’t understand what a hard day’s work looks like or the challenges working families are facing in Montana.

“I am running for re-election so I can keep fighting for Montanans and demand that Washington stand up for our veterans and lower costs.”

Politico reports an unusually cross Republican response, in the form of a statement from Steve Daines, the other Montana senator.

“Jon Tester just made the same mistake Steve Bullock did in 2020. Both should have ended their political careers on their terms. Instead, they each will have their careers ended by Montana voters.”

Bullock, a former Montana governor, ran against Daines in 2020 … and was soundly beaten.

As Politico puts it, “it’s rare for an intra-state senator … to hammer someone on the record like this. Part of the history here is that Tester helped recruit Bullock to run against Daines”.

An interesting report from Politico says Joe Biden’s failure to say whether he will run for re-election or not has created a creeping “sense of doubt” among Democratic operatives.

Most expect Biden to announce a run for a second term in April and thereby answer those who say he is too old for the office, the report says, “but even that target is less than definitive”.

Politico adds: “According to four people familiar with the president’s thinking, a final call has been pushed aside as real-world events intervene.”

One such event, of course, was the president’s visit to Ukraine and Poland this week.

Nonetheless, “some potential presidential aspirants and scores of major donors” are reportedly “strategising and even developing a Plan B while trying to remain respectful and publicly supportive of the 80-year-old president”.

Among possible candidates should Biden not run, the site names three governors – JB Pritzker (Illinois), Gavin Newsom (California) and Phil Murphy (New Jersey) – and some of the usual suspects in Congress, including senators Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont), who it says are keeping the door open, just in case.

Sanders, of course, is a year older than Biden. Here’s what he says about those who say 80, or indeed 81, is too old to run for president:

A former Arizona attorney general omitted key context from investigators when he publicly said his office had discovered “serious vulnerabilities” in state election systems, according to new documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The documents provide new insight into how Mark Brnovich, a Republican who left office last year, investigated allegations of fraud in his state. The investigation took 10,000 hours and had the participation of all of the office’s 60 investigators at one point or another.

In April last year, Brnovich released an interim report saying there were issues with the handling and verification of mail-in ballots. The documents obtained by the Post show that in a draft report, Brnovich’s staff wrote: “We did not uncover any criminality or fraud having been committed in this area during the 2020 general election.”

Brnovich’s interim report also suggested that Maricopa county, the largest in the state, had not turned over information, making the investigation more difficult. In a draft report, staff wrote that investigators collectively believed the county “was cooperative and responsive to our requests”.

The Post documents also show that top Arizona Republicans who claimed widespread fraud in the 2020 election could not substantiate their claims when they met investigators and were subject to criminal penalties if they lied.

When Mark Finchem, a prominent election denier who unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state last year, met investigators, he did not have much to show, “specifically stating he did not have any evidence of fraud and that he did not wish to take up our time”. He offered four ballots that had not been opened nor counted, the Post said.

Sonny Borrelli, another GOP lawmaker, only provided the name of one voter he believed to be deceased. The voter turned out to be alive.

The Department of Transportation has sent out a statement, from “a spokesperson”, about why Pete Buttigieg has announced his own visit to East Palestine, Ohio, site of the toxic Norfolk Southern rail spill, tomorrow.

It’s basically an outline of the how and why of the federal response, which crosses jurisdictions and departments, in answer to Republican attacks on Buttigieg (and Joe Biden) for not visiting the disaster site sooner.

The statement says: “As the secretary said, he would go when it is appropriate and wouldn’t detract from the emergency response efforts. The secretary is going now that the Environmental Protection Agency has said it is moving out of the emergency response phase and transitioning to the long-term remediation phase.

“His visit also coincides with the National Transportation Safety Board issuing its factual findings of the investigation into the cause of the derailment and will allow the secretary to hear from [department] investigators who were on the ground within hours of the derailment to support the NTSB’s investigation.”

The statement says the EPA is leading federal efforts to hold Norfolk Southern accountable “and make the company clean up its mess”, because “that is how it works in response to a chemical spill”.

The statement also takes a veiled shot at Republicans, including Donald Trump, due in East Palestine today, for weakening federal safety regulations applicable to companies like Norfolk Southern and businesses like transporting dangerous chemicals.

“The [department] will continue to do its part by helping get to the bottom of what caused the derailment and implementing rail safety measures, and we hope this sudden bipartisan support for rail safety will result in meaningful changes in Congress.”

Donald Trump is expected in East Palestine, Ohio later today, where he’ll undoubtedly take every opportunity to criticize the Biden administration’s response to the derailment and toxic waste spill in the community earlier this month. Two can play at that game, however, and Democrats have seized on his trip to remind voters of his administration’s friendliness to the rail industry, and argue it set the stage for the derailment. We may hear more about that tomorrow, when transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg pays his own visit to the community.

Here’s what else has happened so far today:

• Democrats got some good news in their quest to hold the Senate after next year, when Montana’s Jon Tester announced he’d stand for re-election. However, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin remains non-committal on another term.

• House Republicans want to learn everything they can about American support to Ukraine.

• Joe Biden is taking a page out of Trump’s book with new restrictions meant to dramatically crack down on asylum seekers arriving at the border with Mexico.