US Politics

Donald Trump Jr took the stand in the ongoing fraud trial against his father and the family business on Wednesday and tried to distance himself from the financial statements at the center of the case.Trump’s eldest son, 45, is the first family member to testify in the civil trial brought by the New York attorney general Letitia James. His younger brother Eric is expected to testify Thursday, with Trump and his daughter Ivanka expected in court next week.In court, Trump Jr was polite and courteous after his testimony was delayed as Trump’s lawyers quizzed earlier witnesses. “I should have worn makeup,” he joked as photographers took his picture ahead of his testimony.When asked to slow down, the fast-talking Trump Jr said: “I apologize, your honor. I moved to Florida but I kept the New York pace.”Trump Jr was asked a series of questions about the roles he, his father and Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, had as trustees of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, which holds assets for the “exclusive benefit” of the former president.When asked whether his father is still a trustee of the trust, Trump Jr said: “I don’t recall.”He said he did not recall much, including why there was a brief period in 2021 when he had resigned and then been restored to the trust. Trump Jr said there was “autonomy to do what I wanted” but that he consulted with Weisselberg and others. Pressed on his role in creating the financial statements at the heart of the case, Trump Jr said: “The accountants worked on it. That’s why we pay them.”Trump Jr was much more combative earlier in the week. In an interview with rightwing cable TV channel Newsmax on Monday, he claimed the “mainstream media, the people in [Washington] DC … want to throw Trump in jail for a thousand years and/or the death penalty. Truly sick stuff, but this is why we fight”.James has accused Trump, his eldest sons and other Trump executives of fraudulently inflating the former president’s wealth to secure better loans from banks.In one example, James said Trump claimed his Trump Tower triplex apartment was 30,000 sq feet, rather than its actual square footage of 10,996.Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that the Trumps committed fraud. He is holding the trial to determine the penalty that should be meted out. James has asked for $250m and the cancellation of Trump’s business licenses in New York – a move that would end the Trumps’ ability to run businesses in the state.Earlier in the day, one of the attorney general’s witnesses testified about the losses he believes banks suffered as a result of Trump’s alleged fraud. Michiel McCarty, the chair and CEO of investment bank MM Dillon & Co, said the inflation of Trump’s wealth allowed the Trump organization to secure better rates for loans. He calculated the banks lost more than $168m in interest payments as a result.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s lawyers asserted that the banks had not been misled.“They are not ill-gotten gains if the bank does not testify it would have done it differently,” Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise said.“I decided these were ill-gotten,” Engoron replied.Donald Trump has denied all wrongdoing and the former US president was not in court on Wednesday but once again blasted the trial on social media. “Leave my children alone, Engoron. You are a disgrace to the legal profession!” he wrote on social media on Wednesday morning.Trump attacked Engoron as a “political hack” in a post that ended with the line: “WITCH HUNT!!! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” More

The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case related to his retention of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago appeared inclined to delay the scheduling of the trial, expressing concern that the timetable would clash with Trump’s 2020 election subversion trial in Washington.The US district judge Aileen Cannon did not specify what changes she would make to the pre-trial timetable at a hearing on Thursday, but signaled she would make adjustments to certain deadlines – which could have the net effect of pushing back the start of the trial.Trump has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy in his criminal cases is to seek delay, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning re-election could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.The prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith explicitly complained to the judge that Trump’s requests to postpone some deadlines because of complications with the discovery process under the Classified Information Procedures Act amounted to a request to delay the trial.But the judge concluded the hearing by saying she would enter an order as soon as possible outlining “reasonable adjustments” to the timetable after repeatedly mentioning that she believed the delays in turning over the classified discovery to Trump’s team would cause the cases to clash.“I’m having a hard time seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time,” Cannon said.The judge’s observation came in response to Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, arguing that the current pre-trial timetable in the classified documents case was unworkable as a result of the delays with the classified discovery and the multiple trials scheduled for next year.Trump faces three criminal trials between the start of March and the end of May, starting in New York for hush money payments before the 2016 election, then in Washington for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and finally in Florida for his retention of classified documents.The confluence of those three trials was too onerous on Trump and his lawyers, Blanche argued and, in a particularly bold moment, suggested it was the fault of prosecutors that the timetable had to be abandoned – because it was they who had chosen to bring two cases against Trump.Blanche also took advantage of the judge’s earlier skepticism with the special counsel’s lead lawyer, Jay Bratt, when he argued there was no reason to abandon the current pre-trial timetable because the concerns were hypothetical and they should strive to make the May trial date.The judge had scheduled the hearing after the Trump legal team asked to postpone a series of deadlines related to the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, the complex rules governing how classified documents are introduced at trial in national security cases.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was charged with retaining national defense information – including US nuclear secrets and plans for US military retaliation in the event of an attack – and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, which is why the case is being governed by Cipa rules.The Trump legal team had argued that delays with the production of the classified discovery meant they needed more time to identify what additional discovery requests they wanted to make before the special counsel asked to make redactions to the classified documents being turned over.In addition to the delays with the classified discovery, lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira complained that they were also having trouble accessing voluminous amounts of surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago they received in unclassified discovery.The lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants told the judge they knew what clips that the special counsel had identified as pertinent for their defense work – the period in 2022 when boxes of classified documents were moved at Mar-a-Lago – but that they needed to review all of the footage. More

NBC News caught up with Mike Johnson, who chalked up the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s determination that his Israel aid proposal would actually cost taxpayers money to the machinations of Washington:Punchbowl News separately caught two rightwing senators heading into Johnson’s office, and report they are expected to support his bill:But it is the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, who will decide whether the measure comes to the floor, and he has said he will not do that.Five House Republican lawmakers from New York are pressing on with their effort to expel George Santos, the congressman who admitted to lying about large parts of his résumé and who is also facing federal charges. A vote on their expulsion resolution is expected this evening, though it’s unclear if it will reach the two-thirds majority necessary for passage. The chamber’s ethics committee has meanwhile announced it will provide an update regarding its investigation into Santos by 17 November, while some worry that kicking him out of his seat before he is convicted will set a bad example.Here’s what else happened:
The House will also consider resolutions to censure far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, proposed aiding Israel by cutting the IRS’s budget, but that will just make the effort even more expensive for taxpayers, Congress’s nonpartisan budget analyst found.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic leader, endorsed using an unusual procedure to get around Republican Tommy Tuberville’s blockade of military promotions.
A new analysis shows Democrats appear to have the edge in winning back control of the House next year.
The Florida judge handling Donald Trump’s trial over the classified documents charges signaled she may delay the case.
We’ve talked plenty about the resolution to expel George Santos on this blog today, so let’s dive in to the dueling efforts to censure progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib and far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.Greene introduced the resolution targeting Tlaib, one of two Muslims in the House and the only Palestinian American, accusing her of antisemitism and participating in an insurrection:Greene is an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election, and has taken part in efforts to downplay the severity of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The insurrection she accuses Tlaib of participating in was a protest in a House office building where hundreds of people were arrested in what organizers described as planned acts of civil disobedience. Tlaib spoke to the protesters before they entered the building, which, unlike the Capitol building that rioters stormed on January 6, is open to the public.Tlaib, who is a vocal opponent of Israel’s government and its treatment of the Palestinians, rejected the charge of antisemitism in a statement:The same day Greene introduced her resolution to censure Tlaib, Vermont Democrat Becca Balint introduced a separate resolution to censure the Georgia congresswoman, accusing her of spreading racist conspiracy theories, Islamophobia and also being antisemitic:Ever since assuming the majority in the House at the start of the year, Republicans have moved to retaliate against Democrats who attracted their ire. The party censured Adam Schiff, a prominent Donald Trump antagonist, and booted Ilhan Omar, the second Muslim in the chamber and a prominent progressive, off the foreign affairs committee.The House is expected to vote on whether to expel Republican congressman and admitted fabulist George Santos sometime after 6.30pm this evening, Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s office has announced.Lawmakers will also consider resolutions to censure far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib.Congress’s lower chamber is currently in session, with lawmakers debating several pieces of legislation proposed in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel last month. Speaking of which, we have a separate live blog covering the latest events in the spiraling conflict, and you can follow it here:At a hearing in Florida today, federal judge Aileen Cannon seemed open to extending legal deadlines in Donald Trump’s classified documents case, potentially delaying his trial.Opening arguments in the case are set to start in May 2024, but Cannon noted that timetable could conflict with the former president’s trial on separate charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is scheduled to begin in March.In addition to those federal cases, Trump has also been indicted in Georgia for trying to overturn the 2020 election there, and for falsifying business documents in Manhattan.For more details, here’s our rundown of Trump’s legal problems:Meanwhile in New York City, the civil fraud trial of Donald Trump and his family members is continuing. Donald Trump Jr may at some point today take the witness stand in the proceedings, in which a judge is determining what penalties to impose after finding the Trump family committed fraud in their organization’s business practices.We have a live blog covering the latest in the case, which could potentially lead to the dismantling of the former president’s business empire. Follow along here:Another House Republican has decided against standing for re-election next year.Ken Buck told MSNBC he won’t stand again to represent his eastern Colorado district:A member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus, Buck made waves in September when he penned a Washington Post column saying he did not believe impeaching Joe Biden was a good idea.His district is seen as strongly Republican, and Democrats will have an uphill battle to claim the vacant seat in 2024.In cricket – and stick with me here – the “corridor of uncertainty” is a channel just outside off stump, which bowlers try to ply and in which batsmen must decide whether to play a shot or leave the ball alone, weighing up risk in the blink of an eye.In Congress, the corridors of uncertainty might be said to be any corridors in which Manu Raju, chief congressional correspondent for CNN, might decide to linger, thereby to catch congressmen and women and senators for a quick question about the issue of the day.Today, Raju, a master of the form, has been asking Republican senators about the proposal from the House GOP, newly under speaker Mike Johnson, to split Israel aid from Ukraine aid and to target the Internal Revenue Service for linked cuts. Here are some results:Rick Scott, Florida: “We have a Republican majority in the House. And so we have to listen to what they want to do.”Josh Hawley, Missouri: “I think it’s notable that [Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell] is standing with [Democratic majority leader Chuck] Schumer against the Republicans. [It’s] a mistake.”Lindsey Graham, South Carolina: “I like paying for things but in emergencies, we normally don’t. Democrats could put a ‘pay-for’ that I would disagree with. So when it gets over here, we’ll hopefully put a package together that includes Israel, Ukraine and border security.”Raju, to camera: “So that last comment from Lindsey Graham is a significant one, saying he’s concerned about including those measures to suddenly pay for that Israel package, saying that typically is not done on Capitol Hill and considering the number of concerns about the precedent it would set if that were to happen time and time again. On the other side of the equation, concerns about the sky-high national debt.“So that is the tension that is now playing out within the Republican party, but in the middle of all this is: what is the future of Israel aid? What’s the future of Ukraine [aid]? No one knows for certain how this will play out amid major concerns … both of those issues could get stalled or potentially fall by the wayside.”In a Guardian exclusive, Dharna Noor reveals plans for climate groups to tour the US, pushing for a Green New Deal …One year after the passage of the much-lauded Inflation Reduction Act, a coalition of organizers and representatives are relaunching the push for a Green New Deal with a national tour.“The Inflation Reduction Act was the largest climate investment in US history,” said John Paul Mejia, a national spokesperson for the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, one of the groups hosting the tour. “But for the next 10 years, we should work to make [it] the smallest by winning stuff that’s much larger.”The tour, which kicks off with an event in Michigan this month, will aim to showcase widespread support for even bolder federal climate action, and will feature Green New Deal champions including Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and the representatives Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Summer Lee alongside local advocates. It will be led by the Green New Deal Network, a coalition of progressive environmental groups that includes the Sunrise Movement, Greenpeace and Climate Justice Alliance, social justice organizations such as People’s Action and the Movement for Black Lives, and the liberal-left Working Families political party.Supporters are calling for stronger executive action as well as the passage of a suite of proposals in Congress.“With our Green New Deals for public schools, housing, cities and more, we can make historic investments that transform our communities by repairing damage done by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis and giving every person the resources they need to thrive,” said Bowman.The Green New Deal – a plan to rapidly and fairly decarbonize the US economy and create millions of jobs in the process – swept the US progressive political scene during Donald Trump’s presidency. The Sunrise Movement in 2018 held sit-ins on Capitol Hill calling for its implementation, and months later, Markey and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled an official resolution fleshing out the proposal.The ambitious, sweeping vision hinged on the idea that tackling the climate crisis could entail the remaking of US society to be more just, prioritizing communities most affected by inequality, climate disasters and pollution. It sharply contrasted with previous national decarbonization plans, such as the failed 2009 attempt to create a cap-and-trade system for planet-heating pollution known as Waxman-Markey.“During that Inconvenient Truth era, climate advocacy was very technocratic in some ways,” said Kaniela Ing, the national director of the Green New Deal Network and a former Hawaii state legislator, referring to the 2006 documentary on the climate crisis by the former US vice-president Al Gore. “But the Green New Deal was about how all these things are connected, how climate is connected to schools, better infrastructure … things that people actually want.”Read on…The new Republican speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, is “dangerous”, the former Wyoming congresswoman and January 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney said, considering Johnson’s role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.“He was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong,” Cheney told Politics Is Everything, a podcast from the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “And I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character.“… One of the reasons why somebody like Mike Johnson is dangerous is because … you have elected Republicans who know better, elected Republicans who know the truth but yet will go along with the efforts to undermine our republic: the efforts, frankly, that Donald Trump undertook to overturn the election.”Johnson voiced conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s victory in 2020; authored a supreme court amicus brief as Texas sought to have results in key states thrown out, attracting 125 Republican signatures; and was one of 147 Republicans who voted to object to results in key states, even after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021, a riot linked to nine deaths and which has produced thousands of arrests and hundreds of convictions, some for seditious conspiracy.Cheney was one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the House January 6 committee, which staged prime-time hearings and produced a report last year. She lost her seat to a pro-Trump challenger. The other January 6 committee Republican, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, chose to quit his seat.Like Kinzinger, Cheney has written a book. She has also declined to close down speculation that she might run for president, as a representative of the Republican establishment – her father is Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary and vice-president – determined to stop Trump from seizing the White House again.Johnson ascended to the House speakership last month, elected unanimously after three candidates failed to gain sufficient support to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was ejected by the far-right, pro-Trump wing of his party.Johnson’s hard-right, Christianity-inflected views and past positions have been subjected to widespread scrutiny.Cheney told Larry Sabato, her podcast host and fellow UVA professor, that Johnson “was willing to set aside what he knew to be the rulings of the courts, the requirements of the constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience.“So it’s a concerning moment to have him be elected speaker of the House.”Five House Republican lawmakers from New York are pressing on with their effort to expel George Santos, the congressman who admitted to lying about large parts of his résumé and is also facing federal charges. A vote on their expulsion resolution could come as soon as today, though it’s unclear if it will reach the two-thirds majority necessary for passage. The chamber’s ethics committee has meanwhile announced it will provide an update regarding its investigation into Santos by 17 November, while some worry that kicking him out of his seat before he is convicted will set a bad example.Here’s what else is going on today:
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, proposed aiding Israel by cutting the IRS’s budget, but that will just make the effort even more expensive for taxpayers, Congress’s non-partisan budget analyst found.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic leader, endorsed a push to use an unusual procedure to get around Republican Tommy Tuberville’s block of military promotions.
A new analysis shows Democrats appear to have the edge in winning back control of the House next year.
NBC News caught up with Mike Johnson, who chalked up the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s determination that his Israel aid proposal would actually cost taxpayers money to the machinations of Washington:Punchbowl News separately caught two rightwing senators heading into Johnson’s office, and report they are expected to support his bill:But it is the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, who will decide whether the measure comes to the floor, and he has said he will not do that.The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, announced he will support deploying an unusual procedure to circumvent Republican senator Tommy Tuberville’s months-long blockade of more than 300 military promotions.The Alabama lawmaker has since February been holding up promotions of hundreds of top officers in the armed forces in protest of a new Pentagon policy intended to help service members access abortions. Democrats and some Republican have expressed outrage at the move, saying it harms national security.According to the Hill, Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed is proposing a standing order resolution that will allow Congress’s upper chamber to approve military promotions as a group through the end of next year. However, it needs 60 votes to pass, and Democrats only control 51 seats in the chamber, meaning at least nine Republicans must sign on.It’s unclear if that support exists yet, but in a speech on the chamber’s floor, Schumer said he will put the resolution up for a vote.“Yesterday, my colleague Senator Reed, chairman of the armed services committee, introduced a resolution that will allow the Senate to quickly confirm the nominations that are currently being blocked by the Senator from Alabama,” said Schumer, adding he had moved for the Senate to hold time-consuming floor votes on three military promotions that Tuberville had been blocking.“The resolution will be referred to the rules committee, and when the time comes, I will bring it to the floor of the Senate for consideration.”Here’s video of his remarks: More

A leading conservative congressman announced his retirement, in large part because his Republican party “continues to rely on this lie that the 2020 election was stolen”.“I have decided I’m not going to seek re-election,” Ken Buck of Colorado told MSNBC on Wednesday, after news that Kay Granger of Texas, the longest-serving Republican congresswoman, will also step down next year.“I always have been disappointed with our inability in Congress to deal with major issues and I’m also disappointed that the Republican party continues to rely on this lie that the 2020 election was stolen and rely on the January 6 narrative and political prisoners from January 6 and other things,” Buck said.“If we’re going to solve difficult problems, we’ve got to deal with some very unpleasant truths or lies and make sure that we project to the public what the truth is.”Donald Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud dominates the Republican party.The new House speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, played a key role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, authoring an amicus brief in a supreme court case that sought to throw out swing state results and joining 146 other Republicans in objecting to such results even after Trump incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Buck was asked about his own support for Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who last month attracted more votes for speaker than Johnson but was brought down by Trump’s opposition.Buck said: “Well, Tom and I both voted to certify the electors. It was a decision that I think was the right decision under the constitution.“Mike [Johnson] went to the supreme court with a challenge to the election. I think going to the courts is one thing. Trying to move the mob from the Mall up to the House floor and interrupting the congressional proceeding is a whole different issue.”Buck reported receiving death threats, after he opposed the candidacy for speaker of Jim Jordan of Ohio, a pro-Trump extremist.“Civility in politics generally is less now than it was before,” Buck said. “The ability to deal with major issues – you know, the sustainability of Medicare, social security, other big issues – we’ve got to address [those] and we can’t keep worrying about the last election. We’ve got to focus on where we’re going to take America in terms of policy.”Buck said he did not plan to leave the Republican party. Also, despite his disgust over election denial and January 6, and despite the threats he received, he would not say he would not support Trump if he wins the presidential nomination next year, 91 criminal charges and assorted civil trials notwithstanding.A “Trump-Biden redo” would present “a very difficult decision”, Buck said, adding: “I am not thrilled with either one of those candidates and I will just see what happens down the road.” More

The new Republican speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, is “dangerous” due to his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former Wyoming Republican congresswoman and January 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney said.“He was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong,” Cheney told Politics Is Everything, a podcast from the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “And I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character.”She added: “One of the reasons why somebody like Mike Johnson is dangerous is because … you have elected Republicans who know better, elected Republicans who know the truth but yet will go along with the efforts to undermine our republic: the efforts, frankly, that Donald Trump undertook to overturn the election.”Johnson voiced conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s victory in 2020; authored a supreme court amicus brief as Texas sought to have results in key states thrown out, attracting 125 Republican signatures; and was one of 147 Republicans who voted to object to results in key states even after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol.The events of 6 January 2021 are now linked to nine deaths, thousands of arrests and hundreds of convictions, some for seditious conspiracy. Trump faces state and federal charges related to his attempted election subversion (contributing to a total 91 criminal counts) yet still dominates Republican presidential primary polling.Cheney was one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the House January 6 committee, which staged prime-time hearings and produced a report last year. In Wyoming, she lost her seat to a pro-Trump challenger. The other January 6 Republican, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, chose to quit his seat.Like Kinzinger, Cheney has now written a memoir, in her case titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. She has also declined to close down speculation that she might run for president as a representative of the Republican establishment – her father is Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary and vice-president – attempting to stop Trump seizing the White House again.Johnson ascended to the speakership last month, elected unanimously after three candidates failed to gain sufficient support to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was ejected by the far-right, pro-Trump wing of his party.The new speaker’s hard-right, Christianity-inflected statements and positions have been subjected to widespread scrutiny.Cheney told Larry Sabato, her podcast host and fellow UVA professor: “Mike is somebody that I knew well.”“We were elected together [in 2016]. Our offices were next to each other, and Mike is somebody who says that he’s committed to defending the constitution. But that’s not what he did when we were all tested in the aftermath of the 2020 election.“In my experience, and I was very, deeply involved and engaged as the conference chair, when Mike was doing things like convincing members of the conference to sign on to the amicus brief … in my view, he was willing to set aside what he knew to be the rulings of the courts, the requirements of the constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience.“So it’s a concerning moment to have him be elected speaker of the House.” More

Donald Trump’s fraud trial becomes a family affair this week as three of his children, and the former president himself, prepare to be called to the witness stand in New York.Trump’s appearances in court so far have been controversial, to say the least. The former president has railed against the prosecution, calling it a “witch-hunt”, and has been threatened with jail for attacking one of the court’s clerks on social media.Donald and Eric Trump invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination hundreds of times in their pre-trial depositions. If any of the Trump family were to do the same on the witness stand, the judge would be entitled to draw an adverse inference. The upcoming days could stretch both Trump’s and the court’s patience to the breaking point.First up on the witness stand on Wednesday will be Donald Trump Jr, followed by Eric Trump on Thursday. The two sons are also listed as defendants in the case against the Trump company, other executives and their father, who is expected to take the stand on 6 November.Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump is waiting for an appeals court to rule on whether she has to testify in the trial. Trump’s eldest daughter was removed as a defendant in the case over the summer because the claims brought against her were too old. If the court rules Ivanka Trump has to testify, she will take the stand on 8 November.On current standing, the trial looks like an uphill battle for the family. Judge Arthur Engoron has already found Trump and his adult sons guilty of financial fraud for inflating the value of their assets on state financial documents to boost their net worth. If an appellate court upholds the ruling, Trump will essentially lose all ability to operate his real estate business in New York.Even though Trump does not face prison time for the issues in the case, Engoron has already threatened to send Trump to jail for violating his gag order. Trump has had to pay $15,000 in fines for failing to remove a social media post about Engoron’s principal law clerk – the post that had earned him the gag order in the first place – along with making inflammatory comments outside the courtroom. The judge interpreted the comments to be about his clerk and briefly put Trump on the witness stand to explain himself.At times, two trials appear to be taking place in Manhattan’s supreme court, one inside the courtroom and another in the court of opinion. Trump has used his appearances almost as mini campaign stops – attacking the prosecution and the Biden administration.It is unclear how Trump or his adult sons, who are also known for making incendiary comments on behalf of their father, will operate on the witness stand. While the former president has – generally – behaved in court, Trump has continued to blast Engoron on social media and outside the courtroom.“I truly believe he is CRAZY, but certainly, at minimum, CRAZED in his hatred of me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on 28 October, calling Engoron a “Trump Hating, Unhinged Judge, who ruled me guilty before this Witch Hunt Trial even started”.Eric Trump, the only one of Trump’s children to make an appearance in court so far, went on Fox News earlier in October to say that “these monsters want to have my father in a courthouse.”“Look at the portfolio of properties, they’re incredible,” he said. “No one has done more for the New York City skyline than Donald Trump.”As easy as it is to make those claims to Fox News, much of the case relies on thousands of pages of documents that have been submitted as evidence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“There’s enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom,” Engoron said, when Trump’s lawyers tried to dismiss the case based on Michael Cohen’s testimony last week.So even if the Trump family remains evasive on the stand – perhaps saying “I don’t recall” to many of the questions – they will probably have to face the facts and figures shown in the documents, said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. It’s the reason prosecutors put witnesses on the stand in the first place, even if they may not cooperate much.“Some of the family members may take the bait and make explanations” for what is shown in the documents, she added. “With witnesses, even when you try to prepare them, expect the unexpected.”The trial, now in its fifth week, has had at least 19 witnesses take the stand so far. Engoron is using the actual trial to decide the fine Trump will have to pay. The attorney general’s office is asking for at least $250m in disgorgement. It is a bench trial, meaning there is no jury, and Engoron is the sole decider of the case.So far, witnesses ranging from former Trump Organization executives and Trump accountants to real estate executives have testified about the Trump family’s involvement in obtaining various loans using inflated financial figures.Trump and his team have maintained throughout the trial that the New York attorney general’s case is politically motivated and that Trump actually deflated the value of the assets on the financial documents.That Trump is scheduled to testify after his two sons means the former president will get the brunt of their unanswered questions, said Levenson. The attorney general’s office has indicated it will rest its case after the Trump family, including Ivanka Trump, finish testifying.“It’s going to box Trump in a bit,” Levenson said. “Will his children let him take the fall for it?” More

Donald Trump’s eldest son will take the stand today at the New York civil fraud trial surrounding the former president’s business empire.Donald Trump Jr, a defendant in the case alongside his father, is set to testify as the judge considers whether the Trump Organization and its top executives lied about the value of its properties.Both Don Jr and his brother Eric – executive vice-presidents at the company – are due to be questioned in court this week. Donald Trump, a former president, is expected to testify next week, before his daughter, Ivanka, who is not a defendant in the case, is set to appear.In an interview with Newsmax on Monday, Don Jr claimed the “mainstream media, the people in [Washington] DC … want to throw Trump in jail for a thousand years and/or the death penalty. Truly sick stuff, but this is why we fight.”Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his family business committed fraud. Engoron is using this trial – focused on remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records – to decide on punishment.The $250m fraud case against the former president, his eldest sons and other Trump executives has been brought by the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James.The trial is a bench trial, with no jury. Engoron is presiding over the case, and will be the sole decider. Because this is a civil trial, Trump will not be sent to prison if found guilty. While he is not required to appear in court, he has on several occasions, including for last week’s testimony by Michael Cohen, his former fixer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEngoron imposed a gag order on Trump after he criticised the judge’s law clerk on social media. He has since fined the former president twice: first $5,000 after the offending post remained online, and then $10,000 for comments outside the court last week that he concluded amounted to a further attack. More

Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco in November for “constructive” talks, the White House said on Tuesday.The comments came days after China’s foreign minister made a rare visit to Washington to pave the way for Xi to meet Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.China has not yet confirmed that Xi will come.“We’re aiming to have a constructive conversation, meeting between the leaders in San Francisco in November,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said of the long-awaited talks.“That’s what’s going to happen next month in November. We’re having a constructive conversation in San Francisco. I think I just confirmed it,” she added.A senior US administration official told AFP: “There is an agreement in principle to meet in San Francisco in November. We are still working through important details needed to finalize those plans.”Biden and Xi have had no contact since a meeting in Bali in November 2022.Relations have been tense for years between the world’s top two economies as they vie for influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, and as Beijing boosts cooperation with Russia in a bid to reduce US dominance.After Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi met senior US officials last week, the White House said that the two sides were “working together towards a meeting”.But the Chinese foreign minister said on Saturday that the road to talks was still “not smooth”.Wang told a Washington event hosted by the Aspen Strategy Group that “both sides hope to stabilize and improve bilateral relations as soon as possible and agreed to work together toward a San Francisco summit between the two heads of state”, state news agency Xinhua reported.“The path to San Francisco is not smooth and cannot be left to ‘autopilot’,” Wang warned, according to Xinhua.The two sides must “eliminate interference, overcome obstacles, enhance consensus and accumulate results”, he said. More