Judge delays ruling on Trump’s request for special master to review evidence seized by FBI – as it happened

Another very eventful day in US political news. We are closing this blog now but Guardian US will have a special live blog firing up in just a short while, ready for Joe Biden’s prime-time speech on, so it’s flagged: “The battle for the soul of the nation.”

The fresh live blog will begin at 7pm ET for the run-up to the US president’s speech, which is due at 8pm ET, in Philadelphia, and we’ll have a live stream.

The regular US politics blog will be back tomorrow morning.

Here’s where things stand:

• Donald Trump reportedly said on a radio show today that he’ll pardon some of the rioters who took part in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, after being urged by him to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Trump is dangling this prospect if he stands and is elected president again. He has also admitted to financially helping some of them.

• The Florida hearing in which Donald Trump’s legal team asked for a “special master” to look at the classified evidence the FBI seized from the former president’s home is over and the judge has not issued a decision on the spot.

• South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham will have to testify before the special grand jury sitting in Georgia in the criminal case hearing evidence related to allegations that Donald Trump illegally attempted to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result, in which Trump lost to Biden.

• US federal agents have reportedly raided two New York properties belonging to a Russian oligarch and close ally of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.

• Kellye SoRelle, general counsel for the extremist right-wing Oath Keepers group, has been indicted and arrested for alleged involvement in the 6 January 2021, Capitol attack.

• New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House committee on oversight and reform stated that at least some of Donald Trump’s key financial papers will be available to a House panel investigating the former president’s “unprecedented conflicts of interest, self-dealing and foreign financial ties”.

• A lawyer for Donald Trump is arguing that there is “no cause for alarm” over the fact that the former president stashed top secret government documents at his club resort and residence Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.

Meanwhile in other news … Trump promises pardons for January 6 insurrectionists

The consummate troll Donald Trump – perhaps with half a mind on Joe Biden’s speech tonight warning of the Republican threat to US democracy – has weighed in with the idea that he will pardon January 6 rioters if he is elected president again. He has also admitted to financially helping some of them.

The Washington Post reports: “Former president Donald Trump said he would issue full pardons and a government apology to rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and violently attacked law enforcement to stop the democratic transfer of power.

“I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he told conservative radio host Wendy Bell on Thursday morning. Such a move would be contingent on Trump running and winning the 2024 presidential election.”

It adds: “Trump, during his conversation with Bell on Thursday morning, also said he met with some January 6 defendants in his office this week and that he is helping some financially.

“I am financially supporting people that are incredible and they were in my office actually two days ago, so they’re very much in my mind,” Trump said. “It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them. What they’ve done to these people is disgraceful.””

“What is the harm?” judge says of special master request

The judge in the hearing issued no ruling from the bench on whether or not to appoint a special master, instead deferring the decision for a written filing at some future date.

But a hint of judge Aileen Cannon’s thinking came during the court session when she asked: “What is the harm?”

Per AP: There was no immediate ruling, but the judge had indicated last week that she was inclined to grant the request and asked Thursday, “What is the harm?” in such an appointment.

Lawyers for Trump say the appointment of a special master is necessary to ensure an independent inspection of the documents.

This kind of review, they say, would allow for “highly personal information” such as diaries or journals to be separated from the investigation and returned to Trump, along with any other documents that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

Trump lawyers claim “overdue library book” defense

To most of the world the retention of a trove of top secret national security documents at Mar-a-Lago would appear pretty serious. But perhaps not to the Trump legal team, who said during today’s hearing it was a bit like forgetting to return a library book on time.

From NBC: While the government characterized the case in grave terms related to national security and classified documents, Trump lawyer Jim Trusty compared it to something more mundane.

“We’ve characterized it at times as an overdue-library-book scenario where there’s a dispute – not even a dispute – but ongoing negotiations with [the National Archives] that has suddenly been transformed into a criminal investigation,” he said, sidestepping that the justice department had issued a subpoena for the documents earlier this year.

Judge Aileen Cannon also said she would make public a more detailed list of the items the FBI took in the 8 August search, some of which was revealed in the justice department’s legal filing on Tuesday in response to Trump’s “special master” request.

A photograph accompanying the filing showed the covers of a number of top secret and classified folders that were seized. Today’s ruling opens the prospect of a far detailed picture emerging of what documents might be among the classified/secret materials.

The FBI has already finished a review of the seized materials by agents not involved in the investigation surrounding Trump’s retention of government secrets, and say they identified a number of files that may be privileged and set aside from the evidence cache.

It is not yet known when the detailed inventory authorized by Cannon will be available.

And Trump’s attorneys are staying tight-lipped, it seems, as they await Judge Cannon’s written ruling:

Donald Trump’s lawyer Jim Trusty appears to have suggested during the hearing that it was no big deal that numerous “top secret” and “highly classified” documents found at Trump’s Florida resort were not returned to the National Archives, according to Katherine Faulders of ABC News:

Here’s the Associated Press account of what just went down in the West Palm Beach courthouse:

A federal judge said she would issue a written ruling “at some point” after hearing arguments Thursday on whether to appoint an outside legal expert to review government records seized by the FBI last month in a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.

Lawyers for Trump claimed the appointment of a “special master” was necessary to ensure an independent inspection of the documents. Such a review, they said, would allow for “highly personal information” such as diaries or journals to be separated from the investigation and returned to Trump, along with any other documents that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

The justice department argued an appointment is unwarranted because investigators have completed their review of potentially privileged records and identified “a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information”.

The government says Trump lacks legal grounds to demand the return of presidential documents because they do not belong to him. The department has also expressed concerns that the appointment could delay the investigation, in part because a special master probably would need to obtain a security clearance to review the records and special authorization from intelligence agencies.

District court judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has previously indicated she was inclined to agree to the request, said she would issue a written ruling later at an unspecified future time.

The Florida hearing in which Donald Trump’s legal team asked for a “special master” to look at the classified evidence the FBI seized from the former president’s home appears to be over.

There’s no immediate ruling. We’ll have more details coming up.

A snippet of news from the Trump hearing in West Palm Beach. Looks like the Trump legal team reversed itself, and now wants a detailed inventory of what was taken in the FBI raid kept secret.

Judge Aileen Cannon agrees to the request.

The wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas contacted at least two Wisconsin state lawmakers, including the chair of the senate elections committee, urging them to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, emails obtained Thursday by The Associated Press show.

Virginia ‘“Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist, also had sent messages to more than two dozen lawmakers in Arizona, the news agency says.

In her communications with lawmakers in both states, Thomas urged Republicans to choose their own slate of electors after the election, arguing that results giving Biden a victory in the states were marred by fraud.

Despite numerous reviews, lawsuits and recounts, no widespread fraud calling into question the results has been discovered in either state.

The House January 6 committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win is seeking an interview with Thomas.

“We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the panel, said in June.

Time for a quick look at where we stand:

• Lawyers for the Donald Trump are in court in West Palm Beach, Florida, arguing why a judge should appoint an independent “special master” to review highly classified papers seized in an FBI raid on the former president’s home. The justice department opposes the move. The court has cut off wifi access for the media, so developments are not immediately forthcoming.

• A judge has ruled South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham will have to testify to Georgia grand jury hearing evidence related to allegations that Trump illegally attempted to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result and prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

• Federal agents raided two New York properties belonging Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch and close ally of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin. Vekselberg, billionaire founder of a Russian energy conglomerate, has been under sanctions by the US for four years.

• At least some of Trump’s key financial papers will be available to a House panel investigating the former president. New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House committee on oversight and reform, said subpoenas to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, yielded “critical” documents, and halted his legal action to protect them.

• A special election for Alaska’s only seat in the US House was won by Democrat Mary Peltola, delivering a blow to the former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s hopes of a political comeback.

• Kellye SoRelle, general counsel for the extremist Oath Keepers group, has been indicted and arrested for alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot, at which a mob of Trump’s supporters attempted to halt Biden’s certification as president.

From what little we’re able to glean, progress appears slow in the West Palm Beach courtroom where Donald Trump’s lawyers are arguing for an independent review of evidence seized in the FBI raid on his Florida home.

This from Harry Litman of the Los Angeles Times:

Obstacle to swift reporting and transparency at the hearing in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Lawyers for Donald Trump and the Department of Justice have been going head to head today in front of federal judge Aileen Cannon as they fight over whether to appoint a “special master” to review the documents seized by the FBI at the-then president’s home at nearby Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.

It’s the latest stage in the dispute that erupted after Trump’s resort and residence was searched on 8 August.

The FBI action, conducted in an active criminal investigation about the alleged harboring of secret documents at Trump’s premises, was the first time a former president has been subject to such an indignity in US history.

The hearing is being covered by the Guardian and many other members of the media, but here’s a disturbing development in the logistics, reported by Reuters.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham will have to testify before the special grand jury sitting in Georgia in a criminal case.

The panel is hearing evidence related to allegations that Donald Trump illegally attempted to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result and prevent Joe Biden from taking power.

Former Trump lawyer John Eastman appeared before the panel yesterday, pleading the fifth throughout, and followed hot on the heels of Rudy Giuliani in making an appearance in that case.

Now a judge has denied Graham’s efforts to avoid testifying, despite putting some limits on what he can be asked.

The prosecutor in the case is Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta.

Here’s Norm Eisen, Brookings fellow and former White House chief ethics lawyer in the Obama administration, on Twitter.

This case is about that call when Trump asked Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s crucial victory in the state in the 2020 election, and a whole lot more, including many of the then-president’s men.

Lindsey Graham ran against Trump for the GOP nomination in 2016 and dismissed his opponent as, among other things, a jackass, a “kook, and a race-baiting bigot, but later became an adoring and some would say potentially dangerous loyalist. He’s now in legal danger himself.