From 4h ago
Federal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to newly unsealed court filings.
Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.
Informing Trump about the Twitter search warrant “could precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” the prosecutors warned. The news was first reported by Politico.
Prosecutors argued for keeping Trump in the dark about the Twitter search warrant was necessary because they said the former president presents a “significant risk of tampering with evidence, seeking to influence or intimidate potential witnesses, and ‘otherwise seriously jeopardizing’ the Government’s ongoing investigations.”
“These are not hypothetical considerations in this case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the former President propagated false claims of fraud (including swearing to false allegations in a federal court filing), pressured state and federal officials to violate their legal duties, and retaliated against those who did not comply with his demands, culminating in violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
In response, Twitter said the prospect of violence was “facially implausible” and argued that Trump already knew many details about Smith’s investigation. US district court judge Beryl Howell ultimately rejected the social media company’s arguments.
The new filings also show Twitter turned over at least 32 direct messages from Trump’s account, @realDonaldTrump, to prosecutors. Prosecutors also obtained data that could show his location at the time certain tweets were sent, or if anyone else was accessing his account.
It’s 4pm eastern time. That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the US politics live blog today.
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Americans do not trust the government’s economic news – or the media’s reporting of it – according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian that presents the White House with a major hurdle as it pushes Joe Biden’s economic record ahead of next year’s election.
Prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith urged the judge overseeing his federal 2020 election interference criminal case to deny a request by Donald Trump to recuse herself from the case. There is “no valid basis” for US district judge Tanya Chutkan to remove herself from the case, Smith wrote.
Twitter gave the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for alleged election subversion access to at least 32 of the former president’s private messages. The company, now known as X, turned over the messages after receiving a search warrant, citing newly unsealed filings to the US circuit court of appeals.
Federal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to the newly unsealed court filings. Prosecutors worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.
Joe Biden spoke out in support of auto workers as they launched a historic series of strikes after their union failed to reach an agreement with the US’s three largest vehicle manufacturers. “No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ rights to use their options under the collective bargaining system, and [I] understand their frustrations,” the US president said in a brief, unscheduled appearance at the White House.
Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Maine as Hurricane Lee rapidly approaches the north-easternmost US state amid the likelihood of a landfall there or more likely in Canada over the weekend.
Donald Trump’s October trial in a civil case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, could be delayed because the former US president has quietly sued the judge Arthur F Engoron.
Donald Trump said he would testify under oath denying he asked a staffer to delete surveillance footage at the center of an investigation into whether he mishandled classified documents. In an NBC interview, the former president said it is “very unlikely” he would pardon himself if he is re-elected in 2024.
The House oversight committee announced it will be launching a Republican-led investigation into the Biden administration’s response to the deadly wildfires in Hawaii, which killed at least 115 people last month.
The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he would drop out of the Republican presidential primary if he does not show well in New Hampshire.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden, who was indicted on Thursday over illegally possessing a firearm, said he expected the case “will be dismissed before trial”. The president’s son was indicted by special counsel David Weiss on three felony gun charges after a plea agreement he struck with prosecutors imploded in recent months.
Three men were acquitted in the final trial connected to a scheme to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, a pandemic-era plot steeped in extremist politics and domestic terrorism that saw others imprisoned for lengthy terms.
About half of Americans are interested in getting an updated Covid-19 vaccine, according to a new poll, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising coronavirus cases around the country.
The House oversight committee announced it will be launching a Republican-led investigation into the Biden administration’s response to the deadly wildfires in Hawaii.
A joint statement by James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Pete Sessions, the subcommittee chair, reads:
The deadly wildfire in Maui shocked the nation and left many, especially those directly impacted by the tragedy, with serious questions that remain unanswered today. President Biden built his entire reputation on empathy and compassion but failed to deliver an appropriate response when it mattered most.
At least 115 people were killed in last month’s wildfires on the island of Maui. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Lahaina, and caused more than $5.5bn in damage, according to estimates by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The House oversight committee’s investigation into the fires is separate from a hearing by the energy and commerce committee, which will feature testimony from Hawaii utility and energy officials.
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has subpoenaed former justice department official Jody Hunt for an upcoming hearing to transfer Jeff Clark’s case to federal court.
From my colleague Hugo Lowell:
About half of Americans are interested in getting an updated Covid-19 vaccine, according to a new poll, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising coronavirus cases around the country.
The Reuters/Ipsos nationwide poll found that almost 30% of respondents were “very interested” in getting the vaccine and another 24% were “somewhat interested”.
On Monday, the FDA approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines that target a recently circulating Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus.
The results of the poll suggest that more Americans are willing to get a booster shot than a year ago. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in six Americans opted for an updated shot.
About 14% of those who said they were not interested in getting the booster said it was because they had Covid-19 already, while another 14% said they believed their previous vaccinations provided sufficient protection.
The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he would drop out of the Republican presidential primary if he does not show well in New Hampshire.
“I can’t see myself leaving the race under any circumstances before New Hampshire,” he told the New York Times. “If I don’t do well in New Hampshire, then I’ll leave.”
As the Times pointed out, Christie is following the playbook he used in 2016, when his run for the Republican nomination focused on New Hampshire … and ended after it, after he finished sixth in the primary.
Christie then became the first major figure to endorse Donald Trump in his insurgent run to the White House.
Christie planned the transition at Trump Tower, only to be brutally (if of course metaphorically) defenestrated by Jared Kushner, whose father Christie put in jail back when he was a prosecutor in New Jersey. That didn’t stop Christie supporting Trump, and nor did Trump’s part in Christie ending up in the ICU with Covid. It took January 6 to finally propel Christie away from Trump, whose unfitness to govern the former governor is now dedicated to exposing.
As the Times reported, Christie is portraying the Republican primary as an existential matter for the country:
‘The future of this country is going to be determined here,’ Mr Christie told a crowd this week at a local brewery, clutching an IPA. ‘If Donald Trump wins here, he will be our nominee. Everything that happens after that is going to be on our party and on our country. It’s up to you.’”
The Times also noted the current state of play in primary polling:
Though Mr Christie has improved in recent polls, he still trails Mr Trump in New Hampshire by double digits, and by much more in national polls and surveys of Iowa, the first nominating state.
Christie told the Times he wanted to emulate John McCain, the Arizona senator who “broke late” in New Hampshire in 2000, ending up winning the state.
McCain, of course, did not win the Republican nomination in 2000. George W Bush did. McCain did win it in his second attempt, eight years after his first. He was then heavily beaten in the general election, by Barack Obama.
An exhaustive manifesto for the next conservative US president produced by Project 2025, an initiative led by the hard-right Heritage Foundation, uses “dehumanising language” about LGBTQ+ Americans too extreme even for candidates currently seeking the Republican presidential nomination, a leading advocate said.
“The dehumanising language is consistent with the way the right talks about LGBTQ+ people overall,” said Sasha Buchert, director of the Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal.
“They’re never talking about transgender people or gay and lesbian people, it’s always referring to them as an ideology of some kind, or an ‘ism’. There’s no humanity involved … Not even the presidential candidates in the Republican debates are embracing this kind of rhetoric.”
Donald Trump is the clear leader of that Republican race, despite facing 91 criminal indictments and multiple civil suits. Primary candidates have eagerly embraced anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, particularly over state anti-trans laws and the place of LGBTQ+ issues in public education. This summer, however, Trump’s closest polling rival, Ron DeSantis, was forced on to the defensive over an online video that used harsh imagery and language to accuse Trump of being too soft on LGBTQ+ issues.
By its own description, Project 2025 is the work of “a broad coalition of over 70 conservative organisations”, aiming to shape the presidential transition should a rightwing candidate beat Joe Biden next year.
In the words of Paul Dans, its director, Project 2025 is “systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponised conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state”.
Such language may echo conspiracy-tinged rants by Trump and his supporters, but that “army” has produced something solid: Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, a 920-page document that sets out policy wishes across the breadth of the federal government.
Read on…
As the old saying goes, “where there’s smoke there’s fire”: the Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s claim not to have been vaping during a theatrical performance in Denver from which she and a male companion were ejected has been proven false.
In an episode that generated widespread headlines, the far-right controversialist was escorted out of a performance of the Beetlejuice musical at the Buell Theatre last weekend.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a woman who sat behind the congresswoman told the Denver Post: “These people in front of us were outrageous. I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.”
The woman, who is pregnant, said she asked Boebert to stop vaping.
Boebert said simply: “No.”
Boebert and her companion were eventually escorted from the theatre. Boebert’s office confirmed the incident but denied the congresswoman had been vaping, even though such behaviour was detailed in a widely cited incident report.
Surveillance footage obtained by 9News, an NBC affiliate, disproved Boebert’s claim.
More:
Donald Trump has widened his lead in the Republican presidential primary in the three weeks since the first GOP primary debate – in which he did not take part, according to a new poll.
The Fox News poll showed 60% of potential Republican primary voters support Trump, up from 53% in a survey taken before the 23 August debate in Milwaukee. The report said:
Some of Trump’s biggest gains come from women (+10), voters under age 45 (+9), White evangelicals (+8), and White men without a college degree (+8).
Trump’s closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has seen his support drop since the debate, the results showed. The survey found 13% of GOP voters back DeSantis in the primary, down three points. Vivek Ramaswamy held his third-place slot at 11%
Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife, may be back on the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign trail with him “pretty soon”, he said.
In an interview with Meet the Press, moderator Kristen Welker asked the former president, “we’ll get her on the trail soon?” Trump replied:
Yes. Soon? Yeah, pretty soon. When it’s appropriate, but pretty soon. She’s a private person, a great person, a very confident person and she loves our country very much.
He added:
Honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It’s so nasty and so mean.
The former first lady was a prominent fixture in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency, but she has rarely been spotted by her husband’s side since leaving the White House. Most notably, she did not appear at any of his court appearances.
Joe Biden appeared to support the auto workers strike in strong comments made during his White House address this afternoon. He said:
No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ right to use their options under the collective bargaining system.
“I understand the workers’ frustration,” he added.
Record corporate profits … should be shared by record contracts for the UAW.
My colleague Maya Yang is covering the strike on our dedicated UAW strike blog.
The team of special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant in January directing Twitter, now known as X, to produce “data and records” related to Donald Trump’s Twitter account as well as a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting Twitter from disclosing the search warrant.
Court filings last month showed Twitter delayed complying with the warrant, leading to a federal judge holding the company in contempt and fining it $350,000.
The filing said prosecutors got the search warrant after a court “found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses”.
The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump would “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior”, according to the filing.
Federal prosecutors secretly argued that informing Donald Trump about their efforts to access his Twitter account could “precipitate violence”, according to newly unsealed court filings.
Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant or his Twitter feed, as he did on his Truth Social platform when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year.
Informing Trump about the Twitter search warrant “could precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” the prosecutors warned. The news was first reported by Politico.
Prosecutors argued for keeping Trump in the dark about the Twitter search warrant was necessary because they said the former president presents a “significant risk of tampering with evidence, seeking to influence or intimidate potential witnesses, and ‘otherwise seriously jeopardizing’ the Government’s ongoing investigations.”
“These are not hypothetical considerations in this case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the former President propagated false claims of fraud (including swearing to false allegations in a federal court filing), pressured state and federal officials to violate their legal duties, and retaliated against those who did not comply with his demands, culminating in violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
In response, Twitter said the prospect of violence was “facially implausible” and argued that Trump already knew many details about Smith’s investigation. US district court judge Beryl Howell ultimately rejected the social media company’s arguments.
The new filings also show Twitter turned over at least 32 direct messages from Trump’s account, @realDonaldTrump, to prosecutors. Prosecutors also obtained data that could show his location at the time certain tweets were sent, or if anyone else was accessing his account.
Twitter handed over at least 32 direct messages from Donald Trump’s account to special counsel Jack Smith earlier this year in the justice department’s investigation into the 2020 election subversion case, according to newly unsealed court filings.
In the new filings, Smith’s team revealed “the materials Twitter produced to the Government included only 32 direct-message items, constituting a minuscule proportion of the total production”.
From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:
A prominent New York progressive is warning that mayor Eric Adams’s hostile comments about the rising number of migrants in the city are “dangerous” and risk inciting violence against the new arrivals and other immigrants.
Tiffany Cabán, aiming for re-election to the city council this November and long endorsed by leading leftwing figures, including US senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked as “irresponsible” the mayor’s remarks last week that the sharp increase in migration to New York would “destroy” the city.
Cabán told the Guardian:
The idea that new arrivals would destroy New York City is absurd to me. New arrivals, immigrants, made our city.
“I think there’s a real possibility of his rhetoric fomenting violence, and that’s the last thing we need,” Cabán, a former public defender, added.
New York and other Democratic-led cities have received hundreds of thousands of people who crossed the US-Mexico border to request asylum since last year.
More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York, most making their own way but many also bussed by Texas authorities, without liaison. Officials say they are struggling to provide for nearly 60,000 migrants currently in the city’s care.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
