Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, accused the former president of threatening his former chief of staff after he spoke to investigators, ABC News reports.
Smith’s team cited posts Trump made on Truth Social after reports emerged that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff in the final months of his presidency, spoke to investigators about his attempts to stop Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump’s comments “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” Smith’s team wrote in a Wednesday filing.
Here’s more from ABC:
In a filing Wednesday night to the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat is just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case is needed as soon as possible.
Chutkan had issued such a gag order early last week but then temporarily suspended it after the former president’s legal team appealed the judge’s order to a higher court.
…
In their filing Wednesday, Smith’s team argued that Trump is now trying to “use external influences to distort the trial in his favor,” and that “These actions, particularly when directed against witnesses and trial participants, pose a grave threat to the very notion of a fair trial based on the facts and the law.”
Trump has a “long and well-documented history of using his public platform to target disparaging and inflammatory comments at perceived adversaries,” and “When the defendant does so, harassment, threats, and intimidation foreseeably and predictably follow,” Smith’s team wrote.
Washington is adjusting to the new reality presented by Mike Johnson’s ascension to the speaker’s podium in the House of Representatives. The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch but low-profile conservative who wants abortion banned, doubts the scientific consensus regarding climate change and has promoted Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims over the 2020 election. But as much as they are likely to seize on those positions next year to argue Republicans are too extreme to govern, Democrats must first work with Johnson and his party on legislative business. In remarks on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged the new speaker to embrace bipartisanship and avoid “the Maga road”.
Here’s what else happened today:
Federal prosecutors accused Donald Trump of threatening Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff who spoke to them about the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Joe Biden and Johnson met at the White House to discuss the president’s request for more aid to Israel and Ukraine.
A federal judge ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional maps with another majority Black district, potentially offering Democrats an opportunity to gain a seat in the US House.
The president cheered better-than-expected economic growth data that undercut forecasts of a looming US recession, and warned Republicans against sparking a government shutdown.
Patrick McHenry dished on what it was like to be acting speaker of the House for three weeks.
It’s still too soon to say what kind of speaker of the House Mike Johnson will be, but the Guardian’s Carter Sherman reports all signs point to him acting zealously in trying to roll back abortion access:
The day after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June last year, Mike Johnson of Louisiana celebrated his home state’s new penalties for abortion providers. “The right to life has now been RESTORED!” the Republican crowed on X, formerly known as Twitter, on 25 June. “Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”
Opposition to abortion is virtually a job requirement for Republicans these days. But Johnson, the newly minted speaker of the House, is a committed abortion opponent even by the standards of his fellow conservative colleagues.
Johnson ascended to the speakership after the sudden ouster of Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and weeks of tumult in the House. A member of the House since 2016, Johnson is a loyal supporter of Donald Trump – to the point that he served on Trump’s legal defense team during Trump’s first impeachment – and a social conservative fueled by his evangelical Christian faith.
And, at a time when many Republicans in Congress are trying to quietly ignore abortion, wary of the backlash from their constituents over proliferating abortion bans, Johnson has continued to champion an array of anti-abortion bills.
At her briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden had invited Mike Johnson to meet shortly after he won election as House speaker last night.
She said the Louisiana Republican was with the president for “a bipartisan briefing with leadership and relevant committee chairs and ranking members on the president’s supplemental national security package”.
In a primetime television address from the Oval Office last week, Biden called on Congress to approve billions of dollars in aid to Israel and Ukraine. While the former is a popular cause with both parties, a growing number of Republicans is against further funding Kyiv’s defense against the Russian invasion. Here’s more on that:
We are learning more about Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House who Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just said is currently attending a meeting at the White House. As the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports, he has a history of channeling taxpayer funding to conservative Christian causes:
Mike Johnson, the newly-elected Republican speaker of the US House, won taxpayer funding for a Noah’s Ark amusement park while working as a lawyer, in a graphic illustration of his uncompromising rightwing Christian beliefs.
Working for Freedom Guard, a non-profit proclaiming a commitment to defending religious liberty, Johnson was hired by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, in 2015, after the state of Kentucky rescinded an offer of tourism tax incentives for the project in Williamstown, citing discrimination against non-Christian believers.
The state retracted an offer of tax breaks after the then-governor, Steve Beshear, said the ministry reneged on a commitment to refrain from hiring based on religious belief.
“It has become clear that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions,” Beshear said.
Johnson, who would win a seat in Congress from Louisiana in 2016, was among a team of attorneys engaged to press a federal lawsuit described by the Answers in Genesis president and chief executive, Ken Ham, as involving “freedom of religion, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech in this great nation of America”.
Johnson accused the state of “viewpoint discrimination”, adding: “They have decided to exclude this organisation from a tax rebate programme that’s offered to all applications across the state.”
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell on the news that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had spoken to special counsel Jack Smith as part of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election:
Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows testified to a federal grand jury earlier this year about efforts by the former president to overturn the 2020 election results pursuant to a court order that granted him limited immunity, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The immunity – which forces witnesses to testify on the promise that they will not be charged on their statements or information derived from their statements – came after a legal battle in March with special counsel prosecutors, who had subpoenaed Meadows.
Trump’s lawyers attempted to block Meadows’ testimony partially on executive privilege grounds. However, the outgoing chief US district judge Beryl Howell ruled that executive privilege was inapplicable and compelled Meadows to appear before the grand jury in Washington, the people said.
The precise details of what happened next are unclear, but prosecutors sought and received an order from the incoming chief judge James Boasberg granting limited-use immunity to Meadows to overcome his concerns about self-incrimination, the people familiar with the matter said.
That Meadows testified pursuant to a court order suggests prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith were determined to learn what information he was afraid to share because of self-incrimination concerns – but it does not mean he became a cooperator.
Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, accused the former president of threatening his former chief of staff after he spoke to investigators, ABC News reports.
Smith’s team cited posts Trump made on Truth Social after reports emerged that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff in the final months of his presidency, spoke to investigators about his attempts to stop Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump’s comments “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” Smith’s team wrote in a Wednesday filing.
Here’s more from ABC:
In a filing Wednesday night to the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat is just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case is needed as soon as possible.
Chutkan had issued such a gag order early last week but then temporarily suspended it after the former president’s legal team appealed the judge’s order to a higher court.
…
In their filing Wednesday, Smith’s team argued that Trump is now trying to “use external influences to distort the trial in his favor,” and that “These actions, particularly when directed against witnesses and trial participants, pose a grave threat to the very notion of a fair trial based on the facts and the law.”
Trump has a “long and well-documented history of using his public platform to target disparaging and inflammatory comments at perceived adversaries,” and “When the defendant does so, harassment, threats, and intimidation foreseeably and predictably follow,” Smith’s team wrote.
Sam Levine, our dedicated voting rights reporter, has more on the federal ruling today which says Georgia Republicans must redraw congressional and state legislative maps to give Black voters a fair shot at electing the candidate of their choice, a decision that could result in an additional Democratic seat in Congress.
When Georgia Republicans drew the state’s 14 congressional districts last year, they placed the lines in such a way that they weakened the influence of Black voters in the west metro-Atlanta area, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, US district judge Steve Jones ruled on Thursday.
Jones gave Georgia lawmakers until 8 December to draw an additional majority-Black district in the west metro-Atlanta area, and said the court would draw a map if the legislature could not come up with a new plan by then.
Georgia is likely to appeal the ruling and to try and drag out the redrawing process as long as possible. A lengthy legal dispute is to the state’s advantage because federal courts have been hesitant to intervene when elections are close.
Republicans currently have a 9-5 advantage in Georgia’s congressional delegation. Since voting in the south of the US is often racially polarized, any district that gives Black voters a chance to elect the candidate of their choosing is likely to favor Democrats.
Republicans also have a 102-78 advantage in the state House of Representatives, where Jones ordered the addition of five majority-Black seats. They also have 33-23 advantage in the state senate, where Jones ordered two additional majority-Black seats.
Georgia gained an additional seat in Congress last year after significant population growth over the last decade. Almost all of that growth was due to a surging minority population in the state, Jones noted in a 516-page opinion, but the number of majority-Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same. Jones wrote:
“The court reiterates that Georgia has made great strides since 1965 towards equality in voting. However, the evidence before this court shows that Georgia has not reached the point where the political process has equal openness and equal opportunity for everyone.”
The ruling is the latest in a series from federal courts in recent months finding that Republicans, who dominate state legislatures in the south and control the redistricting process, discriminated against Black voters when they drew district lines.
Judges have also ordered Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana to reconfigure their maps to add districts that give Black voters adequate power. There is also ongoing litigation in South Carolina and Florida claiming district lines illegally minimize the influence of Black voters.
Our columnist Margaret Sullivan thinks the installation of the Republican Mike Johnson as House speaker bodes ill not just for Democrats – but perhaps for democracy, in the sense of the prospects of a more peaceful election next year than in 2020, when the Louisianan was at Donald Trump’s side as he attempted to cling onto power…
The process was appalling, and the outcome even more so, as Republicans in the House of Representatives finally found someone they could more or less agree on.
That agreement, though, may be more accurately described as simple exhaustion after three weeks of embarrassing misfires.
And who is it they have managed to elect speaker of the US House, the person in line to lead the nation just after the president and vice-president?
It’s Mike Johnson of Louisiana who, as one example of his profound unsuitability, brags that he doesn’t believe that human beings cause the climate crisis, though his home state has been ravaged by it. He is against abortion, voted against aid to Ukraine and stridently opposes LGBTQ+ rights.
Perhaps most notably, Johnson had a leading role in trying to overturn he 2020 election.
That means that the official second in line to the presidency “violated his oath to the constitution and tried to disenfranchise four states”, as the writer Marcy Wheeler neatly put it.
Johnson certainly has his Trumpian bona fides in order. In 2020, he helped lead a legal effort to reverse the results of the election in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and he hawked Trump’s lies that the election had been rigged.
Whatever his shortcomings, we know that Johnson excels at one thing: pleasing Donald Trump, the autocrat wannabe and Republican party leader who loves nothing more than a good yes man.
Read on…
Before the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, won election to Congress in 2016, he worked as an attorney for rightwing Christian groups. Here, Robert Tait reports on events in Kentucky in 2015, when Johnson successfully fought the corner of builders of a Noah’s Ark-themed amusement park, who were seeking government support despite the separation of church and state outlined in the US consitution…
Mike Johnson, the newly-elected Republican speaker of the US House, won taxpayer funding for a Noah’s Ark amusement park while working as a lawyer, in a graphic illustration of his uncompromising rightwing Christian beliefs.
Working for Freedom Guard, a nonprofit proclaiming a commitment to defending religious liberty, Johnson was hired by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, in 2015, after the state of Kentucky rescinded an offer of tourism tax incentives for the project in Williamstown, citing discrimination against non-Christian believers.
The state retracted an offer of tax breaks after the-then governor, Steve Beshear, said the ministry reneged on a commitment to refrain from hiring based on religious belief.
“It has become clear that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions,” Beshear said.
Johnson, who would win a seat in Congress from Louisiana in 2016, was among a team of attorneys engaged to press a federal lawsuit described by the Answers in Genesis president and chief executive, Ken Ham, as involving “freedom of religion, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech in this great nation of America”.
Here’s more on Johnson’s own beliefs and previous work…
Washington is adjusting to the new reality presented by Mike Johnson’s ascension to the speaker’s podium in the House of Representatives. The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch but low-profile conservative who wants abortion banned, doubts the scientific consensus regarding climate change and has promoted Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims over the 2020 election. But as much as they are likely to seize on those positions next year to argue Republicans are too extreme to govern, Democrats also have to work with Johnson and his party on legislative business. In remarks on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged the new speaker to embrace bipartisanship and avoid “the Maga road”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Joe Biden cheered better-than-expected economic growth data that undercut forecasts of a looming US recession, and warned Republicans against sparking a government shutdown.
A federal judge ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional maps with another majority Black district, potentially offering Democrats an opportunity to gain a seat in the US House.
Patrick McHenry dished on what it was like to be acting speaker of the House for three weeks.
Back in the House, Patrick McHenry, who was the acting speaker for three weeks during the Republican civil war over finding a replacement for Kevin McCarthy, shared some details of his brief term leading the chamber.
The Associated Press reports that McHenry was given advance notice that McCarthy had named him as a temporary replacement before the then speaker was removed from office:
McHenry also made a point of noting his continued ill feelings towards those who removed McCarthy:
A federal judge has ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw another majority-Black congressional district, arguing that the state’s current lines violate the Voting Rights Act.
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports the legislature will have to convene for a special session to make a new map, which could present Democrats an opportunity to pick up another House seat from the state, since African American voters tend to support the party:
Meanwhile, Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman insisted he was not trying to disrupt Congress last month when he pulled a Capitol complex fire alarm amid fervent negotiations aimed at passing a government spending bill:
The New York lawmaker is moving to resolve the issue today by entering a not guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge and paying a fine. Here’s more on that:
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
