Judge blocks Georgia DA from investigating ‘fake elector’ in setback for Trump inquiry – as it happened

We’re closing the US politics blog now. It’s been a busy day, thanks for being with us, and please join us again tomorrow.

Here’s what we’ve been following today:

• Joe Biden appeared at a virtual White House roundtable on the semiconductor industry, sounding somewhat hoarse from his Covid-19 infection, coughing occasionally and sipping from a mug, but otherwise looking relatively healthy. White House physician Kevin O’Connor said the president was “almost completely” recovered after contracting the virus last week.
• Six staffers were arrested in Congress for staging a sit-in at Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office to protest a lack of legislative action on the environment. One male staffer said they were demanding renewed negotiations on the climate reconciliation package.
• Elaine Luria, a member of the January 6 House panel looking into Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, posted to Twitter a video featuring handwritten changes he made to a speech the day after the deadly Capitol riot. The original script showed deletions and changes including the removal by Trump of a line saying the rioters “do not represent me”.
• A Georgia judge has blocked Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis from investigating one of the 16 “fake electors” who falsely certified Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the state. Superior court judge Robert McBurney said Willis’s hosting of a fundraiser for a Democratic rival to Burt Jones, Republican candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor, precludes her from pursuing him.
• Nancy Pelosi received rare praise from Republican former House speaker Newt Gingrich for her planned trip to Taiwan. Gingrich, the highest ranking American official ever to the island, said during a conservative conference in Washington DC that his Democratic successor should take a bipartisan delegation with her.
• Joe Biden’s Covid-19 symptoms are “almost completely” resolved, the president’s physician Dr Kevin O’Connor said in a letter. O’Connor said Biden’s blood pressure and breathing are normal, and he will continue to take the antiviral drug Paxlovid.
• Meanwhile, Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator for West Virginia, announced he had contracted the virus. Manchin said on Twitter he is experiencing only mild symptoms and is working remotely.
• Kamala Harris met with state lawmakers in Indiana to discuss a push for legislation to secure abortion rights, one month after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade protections. Politico reports the vice-president is taking the lead in a push to promote action at state level, as Democrats’ efforts to codify federal abortion rights falter.
• The White House is bracing for a slew of bad news in economic reports due this week, including the consumer confidence index and second quarter gross domestic product results, which could confirm the US is in recession. Biden administration officials have been talking up the strength of the economy, and low unemployment.

Joe Biden was asked at the conclusion of the meeting how he was feeling, and says he hopes to be back at work in person “by the end of this week”.

Four days after testing positive for Covid-19, Biden said:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m feeling great. I’ve had two full nights of sleep all the way through. My dog had to wake me up this morning, my wife’s not here. She’s takes him out in the morning while I’m upstairs working out, so I felt this nuzzle of my dog’s nose against my chest about five minutes to seven.

I’m feeling good. My voice is still raspy… I’m feeling better every day. I still have this little bit of a sore throat and a little bit of a cough.

But it’s changing significantly. It’s now up in the upper part of my my throat, actually around my nose and everywhere else, and they tell me that’s par for the course. And I think I’m on my way to full recovery, God willing.

Joe Biden is appearing virtually at a White House roundtable with leaders of the US semiconductor industry, sounding somewhat hoarse from his Covid-19 infection, but otherwise appearing relatively healthy.

White House physician Kevin O’Connor gave an update on the president’s condition earlier, saying he had “almost completely” recovered from symptoms after contracting the virus last week.

He was seen occasionally coughing during the meeting, and regularly sipping from a mug on the desk beside him, but exhibited few other signs of his illness.

Biden’s appearance at the summit, which also featured labor leaders, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, and Brian Deese, the president’s senior economic adviser, was announced at short notice, an apparent indication of the strength of his recovery.

Biden, wearing a blue suit and tie, and seated at his desk, gave brief opening remarks and listened attentively as the speakers laid out the importance of the US semiconductor industry to national security, healthcare and manufacturing.

The Chips act moving through Congress this week seeks billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits for the industry. A semiconductor shortage has disrupted production in industries from automobiles to electronics and high-tech weapons.

“We are unable to get the components we need. Semiconductors are what makes everything happen in the industrial sector just as they do in the medical sector,” said Tom Linebarger, chief executive of Cummings Inc, a manufacturer of engines and power generation equipment.

Biden asked Linebarger about the effect any increased availability of semiconductors would have, particularly in the electric car industry.

“The exponential curve will keep growing,” Linebarger replied. “We solve the problems we need to solve in the US and use the same technology to export to the rest of the world.

“We have a big opportunity here but we need to invest now.”

Six staffers were reportedly arrested in Congress on Monday afternoon for staging a sit-in at Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office and protesting about a lack of legislative action on the environment.

A tweet posted by NBC News reporter Julia Jester features a short video purporting to show one of the staff members in handcuffs, explaining why the group jeopardized their careers to take the action.

The reporter asked the male staffer what they were demanding of the senior Democrat. He replied: “to reopen negotiations on the climate reconciliation package … and pass climate legislation”.

Joe Biden’s efforts to advance climate legislation have been thwarted largely because of the opposition of Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who has been branded a “modern day villain” for his ties to the fossil fuel industry and killing off the president’s environmental proposals.

The reporter asked why the group had chosen Schumer’s office, and not that of Manchin. (Earlier today, Manchin announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was working remotely).

The staffer replied cryptically: “Because there’s always going to be a sheep that strays away from the herd.”

Earlier today, a tweet from an activist named Saul, who identified himself as a staffer for Democratic Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, said he was among the group.

“Right now, we Hill staffers are peacefully protesting Dem leaders INSIDE. To my knowledge, this has never been done,” he wrote.

“We’ve also never seen climate catastrophe, so we’re meeting the moment. Follow along as we fight with everything we have to jumpstart climate negotiations”.

Elaine Luria, a member of the January 6 House panel looking into Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, has posted to Twitter a video featuring handwritten changes he made to a speech the day after the deadly Capitol riot.

The committee showed last week during a public hearing outtakes of Trump’s speech on 7 January 2021 in which he refused to speak certain phrases critical of his supporters who violently ransacked the Capitol building.

The original script posted Monday by Luria, a Virginia Democrat, shows deletions and changes made by the outgoing president.

Lines included in the original stating that the justice department would “ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” and that the rioters “do not represent me” were struck through in black ink, presumably by Trump.

The video also includes Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, confirming to the panel the document “looks like a copy of a draft of the remarks for that day” and the writing “looks like my father’s handwriting”, the Associated Press reported.

In her tweet Monday, Luria said: “It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace. There were more things he was unwilling to say”.

In other highlighted changes to the script, in the original line: “I am outraged and sickened by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem”, the word “sickened” is crossed out.

So, AP reports, are the later lines, “I want to be very clear you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement.” But Trump left in, “You do not represent our country.” The line “you belong in jail” was replaced with “you will pay”.

In its succession of public hearings, which has concluded for the time being, the panel was attempting to present to the American public substantial evidence of Trump’s illegal efforts to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden.

The justice department is pursuing its own inquiry.

Read more here:

Here’s where things stand on a busy Monday in US politics:

• A Georgia judge has blocked Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis from investigating one of the 16 “fake electors” who falsely certified Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the state. Superior court judge Robert McBurney said Willis’s hosting of a fundraiser for a Democratic rival to Burt Jones, Republican candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor, precludes her from pursuing him.
• Nancy Pelosi received rare praise from Republican former House speaker Newt Gingrich for her planned trip to Taiwan. Gingrich, the highest ranking American official ever to the island, said during a conservative conference in Washington DC that his Democratic successor should take a bipartisan delegation with her.
• Joe Biden’s Covid-19 symptoms are “almost completely” resolved, the president’s physician Dr Kevin O’Connor said in a letter. O’Connor said Biden’s blood pressure and breathing are normal, and he will continue to take the antiviral drug Paxlovid.
• Meanwhile, Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator for West Virginia, announced he had contracted the virus. Manchin said on Twitter he is experiencing only mild symptoms and is working remotely.
• Kamala Harris met with state lawmakers in Indiana to discuss a push for legislation to secure abortion rights, one month after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade protections. Politico reports the vice-president is taking the lead in a push to promote action at state level, as Democrats’ efforts to codify federal abortion rights falter.
• The White House is bracing for a slew of bad news in economic reports due this week, including the consumer confidence index and second quarter gross domestic product results, which could confirm the US is in recession. Biden administration officials have been talking up the strength of the economy, and low unemployment.

There’s plenty more politics to come this afternoon, including the release by the January 6 committee of additional evidence detailing Trump’s efforts to reverse his election defeat. Please stick with us.

Newt Gingrich, the last speaker of the House of Representatives to visit Taiwan, has backed current speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to the self-governing island.

“I feel very strongly that Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and she should take a bipartisan congressional delegation,” Gingrich told a conservative gathering in Washington on Monday. “And I say this with some authority as the highest ranking American official ever to visit Taiwan.”

Gingrich, a Republican, went to the island in 1997. Pelosi’s planned visit has prompted China to threaten “forceful measures” and even a possible military response, the Financial Times reported, causing a headache for the White House.

Joe Biden has said the US military assessed “it is not a good idea right now”.

But Gingrich, addressing the America First Policy Institute – a thinktank comprising many Donald Trump administration alumni – accused the state department of “timidity covered by insecurity and an eagerness to appease” and claimed that the “woke” defence department’s own timidity is “dangerous”.

He added: “If the Department of Defense is not certain that it can protect the American speaker of the House in a public visit, why would they think they could protect Taiwan? If you’re the Chinese communists and you watch us flinch after the total mess in Afghanistan and the total mess in Ukraine, you begin to think this is an administration that’s just begging to be bullied.”

Gingrich added that he has “enormous disagreements” with Pelosi on many issues. “But on this one, I think her instinct is right and I hope she sticks to her guns. The only thing I would suggest is she should make it a bipartisan congressional delegation to show both parties are committed to the independence of China.”

The criminal inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden in Georgia has hit a speed bump.

In what the Atlanta Journal Constitution calls “a surprise decision and a significant rebuke” of Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, superior court judge Robert McBurney said Monday she cannot pursue her investigation of state senator Burt Jones.

Jones was one of the 16 secretive “fake electors” who were lined up to fraudulently certify a Trump victory in the state he lost to Biden in 2020 by almost 12,000 votes.

McBurney granted a motion by Jones, a Republican running for Georgia lieutenant governor, to remove Willis and her team from looking into his role in the scandal, citing the fact Willis hosted a campaign fundraiser last month for Jones’s now opponent, Democrat Charlie Bailey.

McBurney wrote:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}An investigation of this significance, garnering the public attention it necessarily does and touching so many political nerves in our society, cannot be burdened by legitimate doubts about the district attorney’s motives.

The district attorney does not have to be apolitical, but her investigations do.

As a consequence, an alternative prosecutor must now decide whether to continue treating Jones as “a target” of the investigation, as Willis designated the 16 “fake electors” last week, and whether to charge him with criminal misdeeds.

The Georgia inquiry is widely seen as one of the best chances of holding Trump liable for his “big lie” that the election was stolen from him, and efforts to alter the result, which included the deadly 6 January Capitol insurrection.

Earlier this month, the Georgia prosecutors issued subpoenas for several members of Trump’s legal team, including South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham and former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani to testify.

On Monday, CNN reported, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who has clashed frequently with Trump over the state’s certification of Biden’s victory, gave recorded testimony to a grand jury assisting the investigation.

The inquiry has focused in part on an infamous phone call Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger after the 2020 election urging him to “find” the number of votes the outgoing president needed to win the state.

Dan Cox, an extremist pro-Trump Republican, won his party’s nomination for governor in Maryland last week thanks to “collusion between Trump and the national Democrats”, the current Republican governor said.

“I don’t think there’s any chance that [Cox] can win,” Larry Hogan added, speaking to CNN’s State of the Union.

Hogan previously called Cox “a QAnon whack job”.

“Collusion” is a loaded word in US politics, in the long aftermath of the Russia investigation, in which the special counsel Robert Mueller scrutinised election interference by Moscow and links between Trump aides and Russia.

The battle to succeed Hogan as governor of Maryland might seem small beer in comparison. But the race attracted national attention.

Cox, endorsed by Donald Trump, surged past Kelly Schulz, a member of Hogan’s cabinet, to win the Republican nomination.

In the Democratic race, Wes Moore, a bestselling author, beat candidates including Tom Perez, a former Democratic national committee chair and US labor secretary.

In a midterm election year, Democrats have sought to boost pro-Trump Republicans in competitive states, placing the risky bet that as the January 6 committee remains in the headlines, extremists who support the former president’s lie about electoral fraud in his 2020 defeat will prove unpalatable to voters.

Hogan said: “There’s no question this was a big win for the Democratic Governors Association that I think spent over $3m trying to promote this guy [Cox]. And it was basically collusion between Trump and the national Democrats, who propped this guy up and got him elected.

“But he really is not a serious candidate.”

Read the full story:

Here’s the letter from Joe Biden’s physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor, giving the president an (almost) clean bill of health as he recovers from Covid-19.

Biden is apparently now feeling so robust he’s willing to take on a virtual meeting later today with chief executives of Lockheed Martin, Medtronic, Cummins Inc and labor leaders to discuss the US semiconductor industry.

A bill moving through Congress this week seeks billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits for the industry. A semiconductor shortage has disrupted production in industries from automobiles to electronics and high-tech weapons.

Progressive Democrat Tom Nelson has dropped out of the race to challenge incumbent Republican Ron Johnson for his Wisconsin Senate seat in November, he announced on Monday.

Nelson was trailing Lt Gov Mandela Barnes, businessman Alex Lasry, owner of basketball’s Milwaukee Bucks, and state treasurer Sarah Godlewski, in support and donations for the 9 August primary.

Barnes and Lasry are in a close tussle for the nomination, with Nelson now opting to support Barnes.

Toppling Johnson and flipping the Wisconsin seat is one of the Democratic Party’s top priorities in the midterms, with the most recent polling indicating the race is a toss-up.

Joe Biden’s Covid-19 symptoms are “almost completely” resolved, his physician said in a memo on Monday, according to Reuters.

Biden tested positive for the virus last Thursday, and carried on working remotely. He is scheduled shortly to address remotely a gathering of black law enforcement executives.

In a White House memo released Monday morning, the president’s physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor, said: “When questioned, at this point he only notes some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness”.

Biden, the memo said, is experiencing no shortness of breath, his blood pressure is normal, and he is continuing to take the prescribed antiviral Paxlovid.

First lady Jill Biden, who remained in Delaware while her husband was in Washington, tested negative for Covid-19 this morning, her office said.

While we’re (briefly) discussing Trump’s apparently falling star, another bête noire, congressman Adam Kinzinger, says the former president’s waning popularity is extending even to his formerly “hard core” supporters.

The Illinois Republican and 6 January committee member made the comment on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, warning that “Trumpism isn’t dying, even though Trump is becoming irrelevant”.

Asked if he believed the 6 January panel’s revelations about Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden was having any impact on colleagues, Kinzinger said:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every day I ceased to be amazed at how much they’re willing to accept and not say anything. In terms of Republicans in general, you have kind of the bulk of Republican voters, this doesn’t appear to be having a ton of impact, maybe people are shifting more towards a potential for, I don’t know, a Ron DeSantis.

I’m hearing a lot of anecdotal stuff around the edges of people who have been hard core with Trump that now just can’t stand him… in like five years I still believe that it’s going to be hard to find somebody that will admit they were ever a Trump supporter.

West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin has Covid-19, he announced this morning on Twitter.

Manchin, who is vaccinated and boosted, said he was experiencing “mild symptoms” of the infection and was continuing to work remotely.

The announcement comes as Joe Biden, whose agenda Manchin has blocked in recent months, continues his own recovery after the president tested positive for Covid last week.

Biden is reportedly in much better condition this morning, and will address a gathering of black law enforcement executives at lunchtime remotely.

It’s not been a good few days for Donald Trump in media circles. Two prominent newspapers owned by one-time cheerleader Rupert Murdoch have turned against him, and one of the former president’s favorite bugles, the far-right One America News (OAN), has lost its last major US television platform.

My colleague Ed Helmore has this report on the New York Post issuing an excoriating editorial indictment of Trump’s failure to stop the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The editorial, in a tabloid owned by Murdoch since 1976, began: “As his followers stormed the Capitol, calling for his vice-president to be hanged, President Donald Trump sat in his private dining room, watching TV, doing nothing. For three hours, seven minutes.”

Trump’s only focus, the Post said, was to block the peaceful transfer of power.

“As a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”

The Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch paper, issued a similar critique in which it said evidence before the House January 6 committee was a reminder that “Trump betrayed his supporters”.

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports Verizon Fios will no longer carry OAN from the end of this month, dealing a major blow to the network that has become a hotbed of misinformation.

Verizon was the largest pay-TV provider still carrying the OAN, according to the Daily Beast, which first reported the network was getting dropped. Verizon and OAN were unable to reach an agreement to continue providing the network and customers will not be able to access the service after 30 July.

The development means that OAN in effect will not have a major television platform in the US. DirecTV, a major revenue provider, announced it was dropping the network in April.

OAN is facing billion-dollar lawsuits from voting equipment vendors Dominion and Smartmatic over its false claims the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Read more:

Kamala Harris is in Indianapolis this morning, talking to lawmakers in her new role as spearhead for the Biden administration’s push to codify abortion rights into law.

According to Politico, the vice-president is taking the lead on what looks to be an uphill fight following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade abortion protections one month ago.

She is planning an “aggressive bid to elevate Democratic state legislators and governors on the abortion rights frontlines”, Politico says, claiming Harris recently told staff:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We need to make it a goal that we’re out in America three days a week.

In a bleak assessment of the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court decision, the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports today on the creation of a “dystopian American reality” and consequences “both chaotic and predictable”.

Alarmingly, activists are promising even more draconian restrictions to come.

Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization, told the Guardian:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Everything is super in flux right now. We’re looking at probably about 15m women living in a state with an abortion ban.

That number we expect to increase, because more states are looking to ban abortion – and we could see as much as half of the country without abortion access very soon.

Democrats lost their first attempt to enshrine abortion rights into federal law in May, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin crossing the aisle to join Republicans in voting down the measure.

A renewed effort passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, but was largely symbolic because of ongoing Republican resistance in the evenly-divided Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.

Harris’s upcoming tour is, Politico says, aimed more at securing action at state level. A poll taken in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision showed 62% of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Read more here:

What some are calling Joe Biden’s “moment of truth” on the economy comes this week, with a number of key data indicators likely to paint a bleak picture for the president as Congress heads for summer recess and the midterm elections loom ever larger.

That’s why treasury secretary Janet Yellen and other White House figures have been prominent, attempting to talk up the strengths and resilience of the US economy while inflation rages at four-decade highs.

On Sunday, Yellen told NBC’s Meet the Press that, despite what she conceded were “threats on the horizons”, the US was not in recession:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You don’t see any of the signs now – a recession is a broad-based contraction that affects many sectors of the economy – we just don’t have that.

It’s a message Brian Deese, Biden’s senior economic adviser and director of the national economic council, was keen to reinforce in an appearance on CNN on Monday:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We have seen extraordinary resilience in this economy due largely to the resilience of our businesses and our consumers, but we need to take more action right now to make things more affordable.

In a tweet, Deese insisted that “hiring, spending and production data look solid”.

Their comments are widely seen as efforts to get ahead of bad news on the economy coming this week, starting with the consumer confidence index report coming tomorrow, an expected steep interest rate hike on Wednesday, then second quarter gross domestic product results the following day.

Analysts say the predicted interest rate rise by the Federal Reserve could help slow inflation, but fuel the recession risk at the same time.

It’s a gamble that Biden, whose popularity ratings are at term lows, is likely to support. In a CNN poll last week, only 18% of Americans described the nation’s economy as in good shape, while 82% said economic conditions are poor.

Tellingly, 75% said inflation and the cost of living were the most important economic problems facing their family, up from 43% last summer.

The conservative National Review on Monday accused Biden’s economic team of being in “recession denial”, and predicted that official confirmation the US was in recession could come as early as Thursday when the second quarter GDP figures are released.

Good morning, politics blog readers. Joe Biden’s allies are scrambling to get ahead of what’s likely to be a troubling week of economic news for the White House, with Congress beginning to think about its August recess with little to no progress on the president’s economic agenda, and inflation at 40-year highs.

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has been talking up the resilience and “historical strengths” of the US economy, and low unemployment, while conceding “threats on the horizon” could nudge the country closer to recession, just as the midterm elections loom.

We’ll get a snapshot of consumer confidence in a report tomorrow, while Wednesday is likely to bring a sharp hike in US interest rates that could help slow inflation, but fuel the recession risk.

Biden, whose popularity ratings are slumping, has plenty else on his plate. Here’s what else we’re watching today.

• We’ll get the chance to gauge the progress of the president’s recovery from Covid-19 when he addresses the national organization of black law enforcement executives at 12.30pm.
• Covid-19 will feature heavily at the White House press briefing. Pandemic response coordinator Dr Ashish Jha will join WH press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the podium.
• It’s the last full week in Congress before the August recess. Today, senators will discuss healthcare benefits for veterans episode to toxins, and vote to progress a bill providing grants to the computer chip industry.
• There’s also a push to get the same-sex marriage bill through the Senate this week, after it passed the House with supports from dozens of Republicans last week.

We’ll bring you all the developments as they happen. Please stay with us…