Prosecutors ask for 2 January start date for Trump 2020 election interference case – as it happened

Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively day in political news, which we do our best to bring you as it happens. There will be more live coverage on Friday but, for now, this blog is closing.

Here’s where things stand:

• Donald Trump has lodged an appeal against the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit against the New York writer E Jean Carroll.

• The US supreme court has agreed to hear a challenge by Joe Biden’s administration to the legality of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would shield its owners, the Sackler family, from lawsuits.

• The Biden administration asked Congress for $13bn in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8bn for humanitarian support, plus money to replenish the US federal disaster funds and fortify the US-Mexico border, in a package worth $40bn.

• The House oversight committee intends to subpoena Joe Biden and Hunter Biden amid its ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.

• Federal prosecutors asked a judge to set a 2 January trial date for former president Donald Trump in the case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

• Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s Democratic US Senator, said he’s “thinking seriously” about becoming an independent.

• Donald Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, pleaded not guilty in Florida court to conspiring with the former president to obstruct the investigation into his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas received ‘unprecedented’ number of gifts from billionaire friends, according to a new report detailing even more largesse than previously revealed that has been showered upon the bench’s most conservative member.

Donald Trump has lodged an appeal against the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit against the New York writer E Jean Carroll, Reuters reports.

The development comes just three days after the former US president lost his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and fined $5m.

Carroll also continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.

The US supreme court has agreed to hear a challenge by Joe Biden’s administration to the legality of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would shield its owners from the Sackler family from lawsuits over their role in the country’s opioid epidemic, Reuters reports.

The court also paused bankruptcy proceedings concerning Purdue and its affiliates and said in a brief order that it would hold oral arguments in December in the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling upholding the settlement. The court’s new term begins in October.

Purdue’s owners under the settlement would receive immunity in exchange for paying up to $6bn to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by states, hospitals, people who had become addicted and others who have sued the Stamford, Connecticut-based company over its misleading marketing of OxyContin.

At issue is whether US bankruptcy law allows Purdue’s restructuring to include legal protections for the Sackler family, who have not filed for personal bankruptcy.

Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors in 2019 to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from thousands of lawsuits alleging that OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that has caused more than 500,000 US overdose deaths over two decades.

The Biden administration on Thursday asked Congress to provide more than $13bn in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8bn for humanitarian support through the end of the year, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces, the Associated Press writes.

The package includes $12bn to replenish the US federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms and funds to bolster the enforcement at the southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s a $40bn package.

While the last such request from the White House for Ukraine funding was easily approved in 2022, there’s a different dynamic this time.

A political divide on the issue has grown, with the Republican-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader, Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. Meanwhile, American support for the effort has been slowly softening.

White House budget director Shalanda Young, in a letter to House speaker Kevin McCarthy, urged swift action to follow through on the US “commitment to the Ukrainian peoples’ defense of their homeland and to democracy around the world” as well as other needs.

The request was crafted with an eye to picking up support from Republicans, as well as Democrats, particularly with increased domestic funding around border issues – a top priority for the GOP, which has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to halting the flow of migrants crossing from Mexico.

Still, the price tag of $40bn may be too much for Republicans who are fighting to slash, not raise, federal outlays.

Senate majority leader and New York Senator Chuck Schumer said:

The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad. We hope to join with our Republican colleagues this fall to avert an unnecessary government shutdown and fund this critical emergency supplemental request.”

Continuing on the issue of Jack Smith requesting a 2 January 2024 trial date for Donald Trump over the former president’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election while he was still in office:

On Thursday in a court filing, the government also noted that Trump’s legal team had known about the facts of the case for at least a year after prosecutors first contacted them in June 2022 and one of the lawyers involved in that initial outreach, presumably Evan Corcoran, was at Trump’s arraignment.

It also argued that Trump’s lawyers were wrong to characterize the Speedy Trial Act, which broadly mandates criminal cases to go to trial promptly, as existing for the benefit of the defendant and therefore allowing Trump to seek delays if he chooses.

The speedy trial rules in fact exist to protect the rights of the public as well as the defendant, prosecutors wrote, citing an opinion from United States v Gambino that found: “The public is the loser when a criminal trial is not prosecuted expeditiously, as suggested by the aphorism, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.”

But the draft schedule proposed by the government, that would see evidence turned over to Trump through discovery completed by the end of August and jury selection at the start of December, is almost certain to be delayed because of complicating factors.

The prosecution unexpectedly disclosed in a footnote that they intended to use classified information at trial, which means his case will be tried according to the time-consuming steps laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.

Cipa essentially requires the defense to disclose what classified information they want to use at trial in advance, so the courts can decide whether to add restrictions. If the government feels the restrictions aren’t enough, they can decide whether they still want to continue with the case.

While Cipa established a mechanism through which the government can safely charge cases involving classified documents, the series of steps that have to be followed means it takes longer to get to trial compared with regular criminal cases without national security implications.

In asking the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election to schedule the trial for the start of January 2024, the written filing from prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith set an aggressive timeline.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek substantial delay, according to a person close to the former president.

“A January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial,” prosecutors wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a public interest stronger than the one in this case in which the defendant – the former President of the United States – is charged with three criminal conspiracies.”

The eight-page filing submitted to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, who will hear arguments from both sides about the scope of the protective order in the case on Friday, argued it gave sufficient time to Trump to prepare a defense.

Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding, and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.

Among other things, the government said Trump’s legal team already appeared to know what arguments they intended to make at trial and what pre-trial motions they intended to file and therefore were in a position to quickly go to trial.

The prosecutors, for instance, sought to use the television appearances from Trump lawyer John Lauro – where he discussed potential legal defenses and the possibility of filing a motion to change the trial venue to West Virginia – against him.

“It appears that defense counsel is already planning which motions the defendant will file,” prosecutors said in one footnote. “On CBS’s Face the Nation on August 6, 2023, Mr Lauro stated, ‘We’re going to be identifying and litigating a number of motions that we’re going to file.’”

More of this report in the next post.

James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, said his committee will eventually move to subpoena Joe Biden and Hunter Biden amid its ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.

Comer, speaking on Fox Business on Thursday, said:

This is always going to end with the Bidens coming in front of the committee. We are going to subpoena the family.

He added:

We know that this is going to end up in court when we subpoena the Bidens. So we’re putting together a case and I think we’ve done that very well.

His comments came a day after the House oversight committee issued a memo laying out their intention to accuse Joe Biden of corruption even without direct evidence that he financially benefited from foreign business dealings by his son. The memo outlined millions of dollars in foreign funds paid to Hunter Biden and his former associates while his father was vice-president, but it did not show a direct payment to Joe Biden.

National security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed that the five Americans detained by Iran had been moved to house arrest, and said negotiations for their release were continuing.

Watson described the transfer as “an encouraging step” – but adding that they should never have been detained in the first place. She said:

We will not rest until they are all back home in the United States. Until that time, negotiations for their eventual release remain ongoing and are delicate. We will, therefore, have little in the way of details to provide about the state of their house arrest or about our efforts to secure their freedom.

The Iranian Americans include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, said Jared Genser, a lawyer who represents Namazi. The identity of the other two US citizens has not been made public.

Freeing the five would remove a major irritant between the US and Iran, though the nations remain at odds on issues from the Iranian nuclear program to Tehran’s support for Shia militias in nations such as Iraq and Lebanon.

Namazi, who in 2016 was convicted of espionage-related charges the United States has rejected as baseless, has been detained by Iran for more than seven years. His father, Baquer, was allowed to leave Iran in October for medical treatment after being detained on similar charges also rejected by Washington.

Tahbaz was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “assembly and collusion against Iran’s national security” and working for the United States as a spy. Shargi was convicted of espionage in 2020 and also sentenced to 10 years.

Iranian Americans, whose US citizenship is not recognized by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations, which are at odds over issues including Iran’s expanding nuclear program.

In February, NBC News reported Washington and Tehran were holding indirect talks exploring a prisoner exchange and the transfer of billions of dollars of Iranian funds in South Korean banks currently blocked by US sanctions. If transferred, those funds could only be spent for humanitarian purposes.

Any transfer could draw Republican criticism that Joe Biden had effectively paid a ransom for the US citizens and that Iran using that money for humanitarian purposes could free up funds for its nuclear program or to support militias in nations such as Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Donald Trump is likely to oppose the schedule proposed by special counsel Jack Smith in the latest court filing.

The former president’s lawyers have already suggested they will try to slow things down, citing the complexity of the case and Trump’s crowded legal and political schedule.

Trump’s legal team is due to respond by next Thursday. US district judge Tanya Chutkan has indicated she will make a decision on the trial date at a 28 August hearing.

Federal prosecutors asked a judge to set a 2 January trial date for former president Donald Trump in the case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In court documents, prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team said they want the case before US district judge Tanya Chutkan to move to trial swiftly in Washington’s federal court. Prosecutors estimate that it will take four to six weeks to present their case.

This trial date, and the proposed schedule outlined below, would give the defendant time to review the discovery in this case and prepare a defense, and would allow the Court and parties to fully litigate any pre-trial legal issues.

The team added:

Most importantly, a January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial—an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes.

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who has yet to decide whether to run for reelection next year or wage a long-shot third party bid for president, said he’s “thinking seriously” about becoming an independent.

“I’m thinking seriously,” Manchin told West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday. He added:

I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad. The D brand and R brand … You’ve heard me say a million times, I am not a Washington Democrat.

Asked how seriously he was about becoming an independent, Manchin said he has “been thinking about that for quite some time” and that he wanted to “make sure that my voice is truly an independent voice”.

Manchin, who earlier this year described himself as an independent Democrat, has been dropping hints for months that he might switch to become an independent. On Thursday, he said he was not yet ready to make an announcement about his future with the Democratic party immediately. “When I get ready to make a decision, I’ll come see you,” he told Kercheval.

The US and Iran have reached an agreement to win the freedom of five imprisoned Americans in exchange for several jailed Iranians and about $6bn in Iranian government assets blocked under US sanctions, according to reports.

Five Iranian-Americans were transferred from prison to house arrest, according to a lawyer for one of the prisoners. Jared Genser, counsel to Siamak Namazi, told CNN the move was an “important development”, adding:

While I hope this will be the first step to their ultimate release, this is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more.

In addition to Namazi, Emad Sharghi, Morad Tahbaz, and two others whose names have not been made public, were moved from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, and are anticipated to be held at a hotel under guard by Iranian officials, until they are allowed to board a plane.

The Biden administration has been engaged in negotiations to try to secure the release of the Americans from Iran, a country with which it does not have diplomatic relations.