Manhattan prosecutors seek gag order on Trump in hush money case – live

• Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush-money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.

• Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.

• Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.

• Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober was unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.

• Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

• Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.

• Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.

• Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.

• Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.

US authorities are investigating organizations that coordinate organ donations over allegations that the non-profits are potentially defrauding the federal government.

The federal investigation, first reported by the Washington Post, is looking at several organ procurement organizations (OPOs) that secure organs for transplants within the United States.

A focus of the inquiry is investigating whether the organizations knowingly overbilled the Department of Veteran Affairs as well as Medicare, two agencies that reimburse OPOs for the procurement of organs.

The investigation is also looking into whether OPOs arranged kickbacks between organizations, the Post reported, citing one person with knowledge of the investigation.

The latest investigation, led by the Department of Health and Human Services as well as inspector general Michael Missal with the Department of Veterans Affairs, could lead to a mass overhaul of the organ transplant industry, the Post reported.

At least six people with knowledge of the investigation told the Post that the inquiry has been taking place for several months. But it recently intensified as investigators visited the offices and homes of at least 10 chief executives at different OPOs.

Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.

Chesebro told investigators he did not use Twitter, now known as X, or have any “alternate IDs” on social media, but a CNN report has found he had a private Twitter account where he promoted a “far more aggressive election subversion strategy” than he later told investigators.

The anonymous account “BadgerPundit” included a post just days after the 2020 presidential election which said:

You don’t get the big picture. Trump doesn’t have to get courts to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead.

But in his interview with Michigan investigators, Chesebro said the very opposite, claiming that the entire electors plan was contingent on the courts.

An internal review has blamed the Pentagon’s failure to notify government officials and the public about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization on privacy restrictions and said no one should be held responsible.

The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization last month, which included several days in the intensive care unit, Associated Press reported.

There was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate”, according to an unclassified summary of the review released by the Pentagon today. Rather it in part blames the lack of information sharing on the “unprecedented situation” and says that Austin’s staff was trying to respect his medical privacy.

Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing on the matter and is expected to face sharp criticism.

Austin’s health became a focus of attention in January when he underwent prostate cancer surgery and was readmitted to hospital for several days because of complications – without the apparent knowledge of the White House.

Top advisers to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump have held discussions that included efforts to secure an endorsement of the former president by McConnell, according to reports.

The conversations, first reported by the New York Times, have been held between Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, and longtime McConnell adviser, Josh Holmes. The NYT report writes:

Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell haven’t said a word to each other since December 2020. But people close to both men are working behind the scenes to make bygones of the enmity between them and to pave the way for a critical endorsement of the former president by the one Republican congressional leader who has yet to offer one.

An endorsement from McConnell would be the culmination of a relationship that was frosty even before it collapsed over the January 6 Capitol attack. The longtime Senate GOP leader blamed Trump for being “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.

Trump is already under a limited gag order in his federal election interference case in Washington, and prosecutors in Manhattan sought a similarly “narrowly tailored order restricting certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements by defendant.”

In their motion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump had a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” adding:

Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.

If approved, the gag order would bar Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case.

Trump has been charged with 34 counts related to the alleged falsification of business records as part of a purported scheme to cover up extramarital affairs. Jury selection is set to begin on 25 March, making it the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go before a jury.

A longtime Democratic political operative has admitted he commissioned a robocall which featured an AI-created imitation of Joe Biden discouraging voters from participating in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

In a statement, Steve Kramer said he resorted to “easy-to-use online technology” to mimic the president’s voice and send out the infamous automated call to 5,000 Democrats who were most likely to vote in the 23 January primary.

The robocall remains the subject of a law enforcement investigation. The US government has since outlawed automated calls using AI-generated voices, saying they are a threat to democracy.

“With a mere $500 investment, anyone could replicate my intentional call,” Kramer’s statement – provided to NBC News on Sunday and the Guardian on Monday – also said. “Immediate action is needed across all regulatory bodies and platforms.”

Kramer’s statement stopped short of saying that he had permission from his client at the time of the robocall: the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips. The Minnesota congressman’s campaign has accused Kramer of commissioning the robocall without permission, and has said it would not work with the operative again after paying him nearly $260,000 in December and January.

Additionally, Kramer’s statement avoided addressing a version of events relayed by a magician and hypnotist from New Orleans who says he was paid $150 to create the audio used in the robocall.

Hello US politics blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there’s more news to come. We’ll bring you the developments as they happen.

Here’s where things stand:

• Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.

• Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.

• Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

• Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.

• Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.

• Donald Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.

• Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was re-arrested last Thursday morning while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas, the Associated Press reports.

In an emergency petition with the 9th US circuit court of appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be taken back into custody.

The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.

Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.

Prosecutors previously said that during an interview before his arrest last week, Smirnov admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter.

Prosecutors in the FBI informant case revealed that Alexander Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reports.

Prosecutors said Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, had been planning to travel overseas to multiple countries days after his February 14 arrest where he said he was meeting with foreign intelligence contacts.

Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, related to fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial.

Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.

In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, US magistrate judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of his trial.

A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge has just ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man, the Associated Press reports.

US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention after prosecutors raised concerns that the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence could flee the country.

A different judge had released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his February 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention.

Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him were “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”

Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, $5m each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

A majority of Americans support building a wall along the US-Mexico border, according to a new poll, the first time since Donald Trump popularized the idea during his 2016 presidential bid.

The Monmouth University poll, which found that 53% of respondents back a border wall, comes as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to make separate trips to the US-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday.

The poll found that public concern about illegal immigration is growing, with more than eight in 10 Americans seeing it as a serious or very serious problem. Some 91% of Republicans said it is a serious problem, up from 66% in 2015.

Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University polling institute, said in a statement:

Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year. Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden is due to sit for a closed-door interview with the House oversight and judiciary committees.

The same panels last week interviewed James Biden, the president’s younger brother. Coupled with charges and revelations concerning Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant behind allegations against the Bidens trumpeted by senior Republicans, the James Biden interview was widely held not to have advanced the GOP’s case.

Joe Biden’s surviving son, after the death of the former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden in 2015, Hunter Biden has previously publicly discussed his struggles with grief and addiction, not least in Beautiful Things, a memoir published in 2021.

Facing tax- and gun-related felony charges, Hunter Biden has sworn in federal court that he has not used alcohol or drugs since 1 June 2019. Axios said a representative said Biden continued to test negative for alcohol or drugs.

Biden said he felt “a responsibility to everyone struggling through their own recovery to succeed” with his attempt to stay sober.

I don’t care whether you’re 10 years sober, two years sober, two months sober or 200 years sober – your brain at some level is always telling you there’s still one answer.

Embrace the state in which you came into recovery, which is that feeling of hopelessness which forces you into a choice. And then understand that what is required is that you basically have to change everything.

In a rare interview, Hunter Biden said his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father seeks a second term as US president.

“Most importantly, you have to believe that you’re worth the work, or you’ll never be able to get sober,” Joe Biden’s son told Axios on Monday. “But I often do think of the profound consequences of failure here.

Maybe it’s the ultimate test for a recovering addict – I don’t know. I have always been in awe of people who have stayed clean and sober through tragedies and obstacles few people ever face. They are my heroes, my inspiration.

I have something much bigger than even myself at stake. We are in the middle of a fight for the future of democracy.

Biden, 54, became embroiled in the 2020 election between his father and Donald Trump amid Republican attempts to capitalize on his personal struggles and tangled business affairs, particularly in relation to Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine.

As the 2024 election approaches, Republicans are still using Hunter Biden and Burisma as political weapons, alleging corruption as they seek to impeach the president, notwithstanding the indictment for lying of a key source also linked to Russian intelligence.

That effort is in large part motivated by a desire for revenge for Democrats’ first impeachment of Donald Trump, which focused on attempts to extract dirt on the Bidens from the Ukrainian government.

Following Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel’s announcement that she would step down, her co-chair Drew McKissick has also announced his resignation.

McKissick, who serves as the chair of the South Carolina Republican party, is also expected to stand down on 8 March. In a statement, he said:

I’m honored to have had the privilege to serve as RNC Co-Chair for this past year, as well as to have worked with so many grassroots leaders to help make our party successful. It’s what drives me.

He added that he was looking forward to working with the RNC and Donald Trump’s campaign “to make sure that we WIN this November by taking back the White House, the Senate and maintaining our majority in the House of Representatives.”

Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

AFP Action said it “wholeheartedly” supports Haley’s plan to keep campaigning but that its backing would only come in the form of words. The announcement on Sunday came a day after Haley lost her home state’s GOP primary to Donald Trump. The statement said:

Given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory. And so while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus our resources where we can make the difference. And that’s the US Senate and House.

Haley’s campaign described the group as a “great organization and ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government” and insisted it has “plenty of fuel to keep going”.

The US Congress is lurching into a new week of political chaos.

Lawmakers are not only trying to avoid a partial government shutdown but also deal with hard right House Republicans’ push for an election-year impeachment trial of the Biden administration’s top official dealing with the US-Mexico border, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Reuters reports.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is also grasping for a way forward on vital US aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and plans to hear closed-door testimony from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an impeachment probe that has failed so far to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

Congress has been characterized by Republican brinkmanship and muddled priorities over the past year, more so since Donald Trump undermined a bipartisan border deal in the Senate and now wants aid to US allies extended as loans.

Almost two months have passed since Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed on a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending level for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, without the needed legislation to follow.

It’s becoming more chaotic. The longer Congress is dysfunctional, the further they fall behind on very time-sensitive, high-priority legislation,” said Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.

Some hardliners are threatening to oust Johnson as speaker, if the Christian conservative allows a vote on the $95bn foreign aid bill that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Joe Biden plans to meet with Schumer, Johnson and other congressional leaders on Tuesday.