Trump vows to appeal after judge sets March 2024 trial date – live

An elected Democratic prosecutor whose removal Ron DeSantis boasted about during the first Republican presidential debate said the hard-right Florida governor and his allies ousted her because she was “prosecuting their cops”.

Law enforcement agencies in central Florida were “all working against me”, Monique Worrell told the Daily Beast, “because I was prosecuting their cops, the ones who used to do things and get away with them”. She added:

They thought that I was overly critical of law enforcement and didn’t do anything against ‘real criminals’. Apparently there’s a difference between citizens who commit crimes and cops who commit crimes.

In Florida, DeSantis has removed two elected Democratic prosecutors: Andrew Warren of Hillsborough county in August 2022 and Worrell earlier this month.

Warren said he would not enforce an abortion ban signed by the governor. The prosecutor sued to regain his job but has so far failed, even though a judge found DeSantis to be in the wrong.

Worrell previously responded to her removal by calling DeSantis a “weak dictator” seeking to create a “smokescreen for [a] failing and disastrous presidential campaign”.

Former Trump campaign lawyer Ray Smith, one of the 19 defendants charged in Georgia as part of the sweeping indictment in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, has waived his arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty, according to a court filing.

The filing states:

It is counsel’s understanding that by filing this waiver of arraignment, prior to the arraignment date, that Mr. Smith and the undersigned counsel are excused from appearing at the arraignment calendar on September 6, 2023.

From Atlanta’s 11Alive News’ Faith Jessie:

The anti-Trump group, the Republican Accountability Project, is launching a six-figure ad campaign targeting Donald Trump over his indictment in Georgia.

The group announced that it will run 60-second ads on Fox News in Phoenix, Milwaukee and Atlanta, focusing on the former president’s four indictment, in which he was charged with 13 counts over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

As part of the campaign the group will be putting up a billboard in Times Square featuring Trump’s mug shot with the 91 charges facing Trump scrolling by next to him.

The House Appropriations Committee could consider amendments to a bill that would strip federal funding from prosecutors who are pursuing charges against Donald Trump.

House Freedom Caucus member Andrew Clyde, a member of the committee, announced plans for two amendments to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) fiscal 2024 appropriations bill that would “prohibit the use of federal funding for the prosecution of any major presidential candidate prior to the upcoming presidential election on November 5th, 2024”, a press release said.

Clyde said he intends to “defund” the efforts by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump in relation to hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, special counsel Jack Smith, who led dcharges against Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, who charged Trump in relation to his 2020 election subversion efforts in Georgia.

In a statement, the congressman from Georgia said:

Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars have no place funding the radical Left’s nefarious election interference efforts.

Bryan Hughes’ support of HB 3058 signals a new strategy by Republicans to insulate abortion bans from scrutiny by creating narrow exceptions for medical emergencies.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said:

There’s a feeling that abortion rights supporters are using those medical cases to delegitimize abortion bans altogether.

HB 3058 was first introduced in the aftermath of an explosive lawsuit in which five women denied abortions in Texas, along with two doctors, sued the state after they were refused care despite suffering severe complicationswith their pregnancies.

The horror stories that emerged from that lawsuit threatened public support of the Texas abortion ban.

Ziegler said:

Republicans can now point to these new exceptions and say, ‘Look, that kind of thing doesn’t happen any more’.

State representative Ann Johnson said that Texas Republicans genuinely wanted to address the problems raised by the lawsuit – even staunch abortion opponents do not want the state’s ban linked to dangerous delays in medical treatment. She said:

That’s hard for people to politically justify.

A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.

Crafted by state representative Ann Johnson, HB 3058 appeared to be a rare bipartisan victory in a fiercely conservative state legislature. Johnson, a Democrat who supports abortion access, found an unlikely ally in state senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican who crafted Texas’s infamous “bounty hunter” law, which allows citizens to sue abortion providers as well as anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care.

Johnson and her fellow Texas Democrats welcomed the bill’s passage as a small but important compromise to improve reproductive health in the state.

But abortion rights advocates across the country said HB 3058 offers little help to Texas doctors treating high-risk pregnancies.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said:

The exceptions in the bill are so narrow, and the penalties for violating the Texas ban are so high, that invariably, a lot of doctors are going to continue not to offer abortion in those situations because they don’t want to get in trouble.

The hearing that will determine whether the trial of Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in the Georgia election subversion case takes place in federal court is continuing today, with no decision yet made public. Here’s a recap from the Guardian’s Mary Yang on today’s events and why they’re important, including the significance of Meadow’s surprise decision to take the witness stand:

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, has testified for nearly three hours in a hearing to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court on Monday.

Meadows was charged alongside Trump and 17 other defendants for conspiring to subvert the 2020 election in a Georgia superior court. He faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer.

But Meadows is arguing that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.

Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment.

According to the indictment, Meadows arranged the infamous call between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, where the former president asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to block Biden’s victory.

He also at one point instructed a White House aide to draft a strategy memo for “disrupting and delaying” the electoral certification process on 6 January 2021, according to the indictment. Yet Meadows denied doing that on Monday, calling it the “biggest surprise”.

Meadows testified for about three hours on Monday, surprising legal experts who widely expected him to keep mum.

Donald Trump, whose attorneys proposed holding his trial on federal charges related to overturning the 2020 election in 2026, today vowed to appeal a federal judge’s decision to start the proceedings on 4 March of next year.

“Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!” the former president wrote on his Truth social account, referencing the multi-state Republican primary that will take place the day after his trial begins.

Citing legal experts, Reuters reports that trial dates are typically not subject to appeal.

Ron DeSantis has canceled some presidential campaign events and returned to Florida to deal with a racist shooting in Jacksonville and an approaching tropical storm that is expected to turn into a hurricane, Politico reports.

The Florida governor traveled to Jacksonville on Sunday, a day after a gunman who left behind manifestos peppered with racial slurs opened fire at a Dollar General store, killing three people. During an event in which DeSantis was booed, the governor pledge $1m to help a historically Black college improve security, and $100,000 to a charity on behalf of the victim’s families.

Politico reports that DeSantis plans to stay in the state as Idalia, a tropical storm that is expected to become a hurricane, moves closer to the Gulf coast:

Joe Biden said earlier today he has spoken to DeSantis, both to offer support for the expected storm damage, and condolences for the shooting victims. The two men are political rivals, but have in the past made appearances together in the Sunshine state in the aftermath of disasters:

Meanwhile, Politico has obtained the schedule of Donald Trump’s federal trial in Washington DC on charges related to overturning the 2020 election:

The trial itself begins on 4 March 2024, per judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling today.

Atlanta’s 11Alive News has published sketches from inside the courtroom as Mark Meadows testifies in his bid to be tried in federal court:

No electronic devices are permitted inside the courtroom, hence the employment of sketch artists.

In an ongoing hearing where a judge will determine whether to move his trial in the election subversion case to federal court, Mark Meadows has argued that he became involved in Georgia’s 2020 polls in his capacity as White House chief of staff, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

In order to succeed in his bid to have the charges brought against him by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, tried in federal rather than state court, Meadows will need to convince a judge that he was acting in his capacity as a White House official when he traveled to Georgia and spoke with its leaders. Citing legal experts, the Journal-Constitution reports that is “a fairly low threshold to clear if valid arguments can be made”.

“I don’t know that I did anything that was outside my scope as chief of staff,” Meadows testified in an unexpected appearance on the witness stand during what has been called a “mini-trial” in Judge Steve Jones’s court today, who will decide whether to grant his request.

Cross examined by special prosecutor Anna Cross, the Journal-Constitution reports Meadows defended his conduct as part of his role as chief of staff, saying he wanted “to make sure elections are accurate. I would assume that has a federal nexus.”

Jones has not yet ruled.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has been testifying at his hearing to move his trial to federal court, described his time serving under Donald Trump as “challenging”.

At the federal courthouse in Atlanta, Meadows described his duties as the former president’s chief of staff, which included meeting with state officials. Meadows is arguing that his case should be moved and subsequently dismissed because he has immunity from prosecution for carrying out what he says were his duties as a federal official.

Speaking about his time at the White House, Meadows said:

Those were challenging times, bluntly.

“I don’t know if anyone was fully prepared for that type of job,” he added.

On Sunday, Ron DeSantis was jeered while speaking at a memorial that drew a crowd of nearly 200 to remember the victims of the Dollar General shooting.

“He don’t care,” an attendee shouted as DeSantis was being introduced, the Hill reported.

At one point, a council member came to DeSantis’s defense and attempted to quiet the crowd, but the booing continued.

“It ain’t about parties today,” said Jacksonville city councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman. “A bullet don’t know a party.”

DeSantis referred to the shooter as a “major-league scumbag” in his remarks, adding that Florida opposed racist violence.

“What he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.”

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has announced $1m for heightened security at a historically Black college, a day after he was booed at a memorial gathering for victims of a deadly racist shooting in his state.

DeSantis said his administration would give $1m to Edward Waters University to enhance its security after the gunman in this weekend’s racist killings at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville tried to enter the historically Black college but was denied entry.

DeSantis said that an additional $100,000 would be given to a charity for the victims’ families. “As I’ve said for the last couple of days, we are not going to allow our HBCUs to be targeted by these people,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to provide security help with them.”

DeSantis’s funding measure comes as he faces criticism for limiting Black history education in Florida, a move that many have condemned as racist.

DeSantis has also come under renewed scrutiny for his support of expanded gun access in his state. The Florida governor signed legislation in April that allows resident to carry concealed guns without a permit.

Donald Trump saw a slight drop in support among Republican primary voters after skipping the first GOP debate last week, according to a new poll.

The poll by Emerson College, which was conducted 25-26 August, found that 50% of GOP primary voters said they plan to vote for the former president, down from 56% in a pre-debate survey. Trump still maintains a huge 38% lead over his closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley had the biggest post-debate gain, jumping from 2% to 7%. DeSantis gained two points to 12%.

Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement:

While Trump saw a slight dip in support, the question from this poll is whether this is a blip for Trump or if the other Republican candidates will be able to rally enough support to be competitive for the caucus and primary season.

After four arrests in as many months, Donald Trump has now been charged with 91 felony counts across criminal cases in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia. The former president and current frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary faces the threat of prison time if he is convicted.

As Trump attempts to delay his criminal trials, civil lawsuits endanger the former president’s financial and business prospects. A New York jury has already found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E Jean Carroll, awarding her $5m in damages. A separate civil inquiry, led by New York attorney general Letitia James, seeks $250 million that the Trump Organization allegedly obtained through fraud.

Here’s where each case against Trump stands.