US Politics

It is a founding document of the United States and inspired the Declaration of Independence and the purge of English power from the American colonies.But, ironically, George Mason’s seminal Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 was written on paper watermarked with the arms of the king of England, a British expert has discovered.As one of the most significant documents in American history, the Virginia declaration is held in a secure vault at the Library of Congress (LoC) in Washington, DC. Dr Ian Christie-Miller, a former visiting research fellow at London University and a specialist in paper analysis, has discovered a watermark that shows the Hanover crown and the emblem of King George III, under whose rule the American colonies were lost.He told the Observer: “The value of watermark research has been widely known but ignored for years. The evidence has been sitting there unnoticed until now.”Christie-Miller made the discovery while researching his forthcoming philosophy book, Conscience – The Restoration. “It is ironic that paper bearing the arms of the king was used by George Mason for his first draft declaration, which was to lead to the overthrow of English power in the American colonies. Apparently he had few qualms of conscience in using that watermarked paper.”View image in fullscreenThe US war of independence led to Britain’s 13 American colonies throwing off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America.British attempts to impose unpopular taxes had contributed to growing tensions between the Crown and colonists, who resorted to armed rebellion. The king opposed their bid for independence, although he was not directly responsible for policies such as the Stamp Act of 1765, which was passed by the British parliament.Mason drafted his call for American independence from Britain in 1776. It was amended by Thomas Ludwell Lee, and the Virginia Convention and Thomas Jefferson drew heavily on it for the Declaration of Independence.Dr Peter Thompson, associate professor of American history at Oxford University, said: “The paper may have had to be compliant with the Stamp Act – which deepens the irony.View image in fullscreen“I wonder, if Mason had had a choice and there had been some alternative supply of paper, whether he would still have chosen stamped paper, so as to make a point of complying with the law, even though he didn’t agree with it.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe LoC catalogue description notes: “This uniquely influential document was also used by James Madison in drawing up the Bill of Rights, 1789, and the Marquis de Lafayette in drafting the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789.”Mason wrote: “All men are born equally free and independant [sic], and have certain inherent natural rights … among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursueing [sic] and obtaining Happiness and Safety.”These beliefs did not extend to enslaved people, however, as Mason owned more than 100 enslaved people at the time, despite condemning slavery as “disgraceful to mankind”.The LoC said: “We’re always happy to help scholars with their research, but … we can’t comment on their finished work.” More

Donald Trump is determined to avoid jail, but if he does get handed a prison sentence after his conviction on 34 felony counts in New York last week, the former president’s inner circle is certain he will lay the blame squarely at the judge’s feet, sources familiar with the matter said.The precise way Trump might blame the judge, Juan Merchan, remains unclear because Trump has been avoidant of the issue and the matter was not resolved when he huddled with his top advisers at a Trump Tower meeting immediately after the verdict on Thursday, the sources said.But Trump is likely to double down on his attacks against Merchan, directing his supporters at rallies and in Truth Social posts to take up their grievances with the judge, one of the sources added.The consequences of Trump’s likely rhetoric are difficult to predict. Trump has been railing against Merchan for months as being unfair and in conspiracy cahoots with the Biden administration to prevent him from campaigning – and nothing concrete has happened.Still, Trump’s supporters have a history of making threats against judges Trump has assailed, including death threats to Tanya Chutkan, the US district judge who is presiding in his federal 2020 election interference case, and to the chambers of the New York judge who oversaw his civil fraud trial.Trump believes – correctly – that the ultimate decision with sentencing rests with Merchan, who has wide discretion to sentence him to fines or probation on the low end, to a carceral sentence on the high end, regardless of what prosecutors might request.That reasoning would be the basis for Trump to hold the judge responsible for any fallout, in the event he hands down a jail term days before the Republican national convention – even if the sentence would almost certainly be stayed pending appeal.Trump has already spent weeks railing against Merchan, taking advantage of the fact that the judge himself is not protected by the gag order. Both before and during the trial, Trump slammed the judge’s rulings as unfair and biased, and falsely suggested he was trying to stop him campaigning.Just one day after the trial, Trump appeared to open a new front against Merchan in freewheeling remarks at a news conference at Trump Tower, where he suggested Merchan looked like an “angel” but was really the “devil”.If a jail sentence does come, one of the sources said, they expected Trump to lash out in anger. But Trump has also been careful to not explicitly threaten or make foreboding warnings against Merchan to stave off prison.On Fox News Sunday, Trump said the public would not stand for him being sent to prison. “I’m not sure the public would stand for it. I think it would be tough for the public to take. At some point, there’s a breaking point”, he said, though the campaign was quick to clarify he was talking about the election.To some degree, Trump has managed to put Merchan exactly where he wants him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was in effect found guilty of using an unlawful hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, which means if Merchan sentences him to anything less than jail, it could spark backlash that it did not encapsulate the gravity of Trump’s criminal conduct.But if Merchan does actually sentence Trump to jail, the judge would be thrust forward by Trump as responsible for any fallout and any unrest from his supporters who have a history of engaging in political violence merely on the former president airing grievances.At sentencing, Merchan will have the additional decision of whether to punish Trump not just for the conviction but also his clear lack of remorse and his repeated violations of the gag order, which would be reflected in Trump’s pre-sentencing report.In New York, defendants convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanors are required to meet with a probation officer, who conducts a lengthy investigation and compiles a pre-sentencing report that the judge uses to determine what sentence to issue.The pre-sentencing report is typically one major opportunity that defendants have to make a good impression on the judge, including by expressing contrition. Trump has suggested none of that since his conviction, including by attacking the verdict the very next day. More

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While dozens of her neighbors piled into buses bound from Michigan for the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, Penny Swan, a local Republican party activist and an outspoken Trump supporter, stayed home. But not for lack of enthusiasm: Swan wanted to join the throngs fighting to stop the certification of the 2020 election, but has a heart condition and worried about her ability to keep up.Instead, she watched social media in awe, as her friends and neighbors surged toward the Capitol.That was then.Since 2021, Swan, a medical equipment manager, has distanced herself from the rightwing group that organized the 6 January buses from her small, ruby-red town of Hillsdale, Michigan. Swan’s formerly close friends in the movement have become political rivals. And come November, she won’t vote for Trump.In an age of deepening political polarization, Swan’s story, of going deep into the Maga movement and defecting, is a rare one.According to a 2022 Pew study, “partisan antipathy” – deep dislike among members of a political party for the opposing group – has deepened in the US in the last decade. Democrats and Republicans are more likely today than 10 years ago to characterize each other as “unintelligent” and “close minded”. And Republicans who identify strongly with their party tend to prefer Trump overwhelmingly, as evidenced in the Republican primaries, which the former president swept.As the operator of a popular local politics page online and a longtime political activist, Swan has not only evolved as a voter. She has also documented, and at times participated in the unravelling of her county’s conservative movement – which, like the state Republican party, has gone to war with itself over far-right politics.View image in fullscreenA decade before 2,000 of Trump’s most diehard supporters stormed the Capitol, Swan, a lifelong Republican and Hillsdale resident, began documenting local government meetings. Some meetings were livestreamed, but not all – including meetings of the county commissioners.“I thought people needed to see the entire truth,” said Swan. “You could read something in the newspaper and that had a narrative, you could hear something on the radio, and that had a narrative, but it didn’t have the whole story. So I thought people should actually be able to see the entire process.”For years, Swan recorded and uploaded every meeting of local government she could attend on to her Facebook page, a repository of citizen journalism and pissed-off commentary called Penny Swan Political Activist Facts Matter. With more than 1,400 followers – in a town of about 8,000 – Swan’s page has become an important clearinghouse for political updates and a hub for heated debate, offering a window into the fraught world of Michigan conservative politics.In the wake of the 2020 election, the Republican party of Michigan – a swing state that flipped from Trump to Joe Biden in 2020 – saw a widening rift between the party’s establishment and its fired-up Maga base. The split spilled into the county Republican party chapters, with local party organizations devolving into factions. In Hillsdale, a group of Republican activists aligned with the Trump wing of the party created an informal caucus within the party chapter.The Hillsdale group – since dubbed the America First Republicans – aimed to change the local party “from neo-conservatism, your old establishment, George Bush-type crowd, to more of a modern day conservative group”, said Jon Smith, who helped form the caucus in late 2019. The idea, Smith said, was to turn the local GOP from what he viewed as a sleepy and bureaucratic organization into a mobilized one.View image in fullscreenSwan was excited when Smith approached her about a new, more active formation in the local party. It sounded like the perfect opportunity to ramp up her political work.“Those guys were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to take over the party, and we’re going to do more good stuff,’” said Swan. “And I’m like, ‘that sounds good. I’m coming because I want to do something and be proactive.’”And they did: in 2020, Daren Wiseley, an ally of the rightwing faction, was elected chairman of the Republican party of Hillsdale county. Swan continued to work with the party, taking on the role of deputy treasurer and joining the organization’s executive committee. The group was close-knit. They confided in each other about personal matters and hung out after meetings. Swan even spent holidays with Smith’s family.It’s not clear exactly when the relationship began to sour. By Smith’s account, Swan just wasn’t up for the job of deputy treasurer.“When our treasurer quit, [Swan] was the deputy treasurer and we were behind on filing reports,” said Smith. “That kind of pressure, Penny couldn’t handle it.”Swan has a different story. She says she raised concerns about the organization’s handling of finances, which the executives were unable, or unwilling, to address. In a 7 April 2022 email to former chairman Wiseley, Swan resigned.“It is with deep regret that I feel the need to step down as deputy treasurer,” wrote Swan. “I have spoken with you, Vice-Chairman Lashaway and also Secretary Smith about my concerns often over the past six months, to no avail.”Four months later, as the county party prepared for their annual convention, Swan’s old friends purged dozens of members who they viewed as insufficiently loyal to the Maga right. During the convention, armed security guards blocked those delegates, who had been formally “disavowed”, from entering. The standoff in the convention parking lot laid bare the divisions that had been festering in the organization for months and set the stage for a protracted legal battle over the rightful leaders of the Hillsdale county GOP. A court in 2022 found the America First faction could not rightfully claim to represent the county party, a victory for Swan’s faction.To her former friends in the Hillsdale Republican party, Swan is a turncoat – her defection, a betrayal.To others in the community, Swan is a rare ally with an inside view of the far right.“She was kind of brainwashed,” said Gail McClanahan, a Hillsdale county resident who led a successful recall campaign to unseat Stephanie Scott, an election-denying township clerk 2023. “Not now. Penny, she’s not scared,” said McClanahan. “She’s keeping us informed of the truth here in Hillsdale.”Swan’s split from the America First group, she says, was like leaving a “cult”. After she left and began criticizing the group online, her relationships with former friends in the group grew bitter. Swan says she even faced harassment and threats over her new political alignment.View image in fullscreenIn a letter sent to a close contact of Swan’s, someone who identified himself as “Lance” alleged that Swan had “spread hate, lies and misfortune”, and warned that “this is my only and last chance to save her from herself […] I cannot be held responsible for doing what needs to be done in defending my friends who do not deserve what she is doing to them”. Swan filed a police report and installed cameras in her apartment.In April 2022, Swan launched a campaign for an open seat on the city council, running on a pro-transparency platform. The race turned nasty.When a bitter fight broke out over the placement of children’s books with LGBTQ+ themes in the local library, Swan defended the librarian and the books. A meme circulated online, shared by her former friends, calling Swan a pedophile.In an email to the Guardian, Jessica Spangler, a former Hillsdale librarian, said the protracted controversy sparked “a considerable decline in my health, resulting in serious and lasting issues due to the undue stress endured during my tenure”.Joshua Paladino, a rightwing graduate student at Hillsdale College who called for the removal of books from the library, won the open seat.Swan suffered a third heart attack in December 2022, prompting her to back off from political work. She no longer films at every city council meeting, and says she is trying to resist the pull of vitriolic online arguments.But her goal is the same: to resist the current of rightwing extremism that has come to define politics in her town and county.She has found some allies in the Republican party, like Scott Sessions, a member of the Hillsdale county GOP and the former mayor of Hillsdale.“To me, it’s not really conservative,” Sessions said about the America First group. “It’s turned radical.”With elections coming up on 6 August for numerous county seats, Swan is helping out on a few campaigns that she sees as critical to fending off the far-right push. Two stand out in particular: an election for county sheriff, pitting the incumbent Republican against Jon Rutan, a self-proclaimed “constitutional sheriff”, and a race for county clerk, between Abe Dane, the current director of elections, and Stephanie Scott, who was recalled from a former post for embracing election conspiracy theories.The looming elections have Swan back on the politics beat.“When I get up at five o’clock in the morning, I’m reading and writing until I go to work,” said Swan. “For the most part, as soon as I get home at 2.30 or 3, I’m working on it till I go to bed.” More

Democrats will target Donald Trump’s first full-scale campaign rally since his criminal trial with a billboard that brands him “a convicted white-collar crook”.The ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is the latest indication that the party is ready to become more aggressive in capitalising on last month’s guilty verdict in New York.“Trump was a disaster for Nevada’s economy,” says the billboard, which will be displayed in Las Vegas, where Trump is due to speak on Sunday. “Now he’s back. A convicted white-collar crook. Coddling billionaires, leaving workers behind.”A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money criminal trial, making him the the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. Judge Juan Merchan set a sentencing hearing for 11 July.But Democrats have been unsure how far to go in hammering home the verdict to voters in this year’s presidential election campaign. Some fear it could fuel a narrative that the trial was politically motivated and backfire by generating sympathy for the presumptive Republican nominee.View image in fullscreenHowever, this week there have been signs of a more direct approach. On Monday, at a campaign reception in Greenwich, Connecticut, Joe Biden referred to his opponent as a “convicted felon”.The Las Vegas billboard attempts to tie Trump’s criminal record to his economic one, portraying him as a “white-collar crook” who ripped off Nevada’s working class when he was president. The phrase also has echoes of the “Crooked Hillary” label that proved effective for Trump during the 2016 campaign.Stephanie Justice, a DNC spokesperson, said: “As Donald Trump returns to Nevada this weekend for the first time as a convicted felon, voters will remember this crook left Nevada’s workers out to dry as president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“After promising to take care of Nevada’s middle class, he implemented a tax scam that made the ultra-wealthy and corporations wealthier off the backs of working families, repeatedly attacked unions and sat back as Nevada bled tens of thousands of jobs.”Justice added: “Now he’s promising tax handouts to his billionaire donors instead of putting the interests of working Nevadans first. Nevada voters know that Trump is too corrupt and unfit to serve, and will reject him again in 2024.”The political impact of Trump’s conviction remains uncertain, but a post-verdict analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews with voters who previously participated in New York Times/Siena College surveys found that Trump’s lead over Biden narrowed from three points to just one point. More

The Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake addressed supporters with a Confederate flag displayed behind her during a campaign event at a Trump merchandise store in Arizona last week, where she repeated false claims about election fraud.In footage obtained by the Guardian, Lake is seen speaking into a microphone, surrounded by a group of supporters, at the Trumped Store in Show Low, Arizona. Behind her, a Confederate battle flag and a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flag are affixed to the wall. Both flags are available for purchase on the website of Trumped Store, which sells an array of merchandise with the former president’s name and likeness.Writing on X last week, Lake described the event as a “magical day”.“So many incredible patriots in Heber-Overgaard, Show Low and the White Mountains,” she said. “America is stepping up. Arizona is stepping forward. It’s time to save this great Republic. I’m honored to be in this fight with all of these amazing patriots.”The Confederate flag has long been condemned as a symbol of racism and slavery, and a number of institutions have sought to distance themselves from it in recent years. In 2020, the Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves, a Republican, signed a law to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, making Mississippi the last state to do so.Reached for comment about the video, a spokesperson for Kari Lake told the Guardian: “The Kari Lake campaign does not respond to British propaganda outlets. We stopped doing that in 1776.”In the video, Lake is heard repeating her baseless accusations of widespread election fraud in the 2022 gubernatorial race, which she lost to the Democrat Katie Hobbs. When a supporter told Lake that she actually won the 2022 election, she replied: “Of course we did. They stole our government.”In the months after the 2022 election, courts repeatedly dismissed Lake’s legal claims challenging the results of the gubernatorial race, and her lawyers were sanctioned for making “false factual statements”. In April, the US supreme court dismissed Lake’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s use of electronic voting machines. At the Trumped Store event, Lake indicated she planned to reopen her appeal in the voting machines case, which she confirmed on Friday.“We’re trying to get rid of these damn machines that are corrupt,” Lake told supporters last week.Lake went on to repeat the false claim that Trump won the 2020 presidential election, presenting her belief in election fraud as an asset in the Senate race. If Lake wins the Republican primary on 30 July, as she is widely expected to do, she will go on to face the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego in November.“I’m the only person running for US Senate – either Republican or Democrat – who truly believes there was fraud in the election in 2020,” Lake said to applause from attendees. “Anybody believe there wasn’t fraud in 2020? Anybody believe Joe Biden really, truly got 81 million votes?”Courts rejected dozens of Trump’s lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election, and the former president has failed to produce substantive evidence corroborating his claim that widespread fraud tainted the results in battleground states. A group of Trump’s supporters later attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory in the election, and some carried Confederate battle flags into the building.Lake appeared at the campaign event alongside Steve Slaton, the Trumped Store owner and Republican state legislative candidate who has attracted controversy over allegations that he inflated his military record. On his campaign website, Slaton claims to have served in Vietnam as a “crew chief/co-pilot on an AH-1G Cobra Attack Helicopter”. But military records obtained by the Mountain Daily Star indicate that Slaton was stationed only in Korea, primarily serving as a helicopter repairman, and did not even join the army until after the last US troops left Vietnam.Slaton’s campaign website also includes a photo of him standing in front of a Confederate battle flag at the Trumped Store. A photo, posted to X by the Arizona state senator Wendy Rodgers, shows Lake and Slaton posing together at the campaign event last week. More

The chair of Colorado’s Republican party is facing calls to resign from members of his own group after the state organization sent out an email criticizing Pride month – and later calling for rainbow-colored Pride flags to be burned.Dave Williams, who is also a representative in Colorado’s legislature, has faced swift backlash from his fellow Republicans in the wake of the controversial email sent Monday.Much of the criticism aimed at Williams by other Republicans focused on the potential for his remarks to hurt the chances for members of their party to be elected.In a post to X on Friday, Valdamar Archuleta, a candidate for Colorado’s first district and head of the state’s Log Cabin Republicans, said that Williams “does not have effective communication skills” and should resign.“Building an effective winning team takes skills and talents not everyone has,” wrote Archuleta, who on Wednesday rejected the state Republican party’s endorsement. “Dave Williams should resign … or be removed.”Archuleta, who has supported transphobic groups in the past, previously defended Williams, telling 9News that the state party chair was attempting to get a reaction and mimic the persona of former president Donald Trump.When asked whether Williams should resign, Colorado’s house minority whip, Richard Holtorf, said: “Hell, yeah.” Holtorf added that a petition is being initiated for Williams’s removal.“He’s incompetent and he should step down,” Holtorf said. “He’s done so many destructive things in Colorado to not promote unity and [done] things that are outside the boundary and the scope of his role and responsibility as the state party chair.”He added: “Dave Williams should not be preaching to the Colorado electorate. It is not his place and it’s not the state party’s role.”In an email to the Guardian, Mary Bradfield, a representative who serves as the chair of the Colorado house Republican caucus, called on Williams to resign.“I think these statements made by chairman Dave Williams are inappropriate,” she wrote. “He should step down.”Nancy Pallozzi, the chair of the Jefferson county, Colorado, Republicans, told Fox21 News in a statement that several of the party’s county chairs, candidates and other members had called for Williams’s resignation over his latest comments and for sending out emails endorsing Trump, despite the party’s stance on primary neutrality.The email sent by the Colorado Republican party, with the subject line “God Hates Pride”, accused members of the LGBTQ+ community of being “godless groomers” who were out to “harm children”.Pride month is an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ people held in June each year. It recognizes the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where patrons essentially sparked the modern LGBTQ+ protest and celebration movement by resisting police harassment and extortion.“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” read the state Republican party email, which was signed by Williams.The email also included a sermon from the controversial anti-LGBTQ+ pastor Mark Driscoll, entitled “God Hates Flags”, a pun alluding to Pride flags and a homophobic slur that rhymes with flag.A subsequent tweet on Wednesday from the official Colorado Republican account called for Pride flags to be burned. “Burn all the #pride flags this June,” read the tweet.Williams has been relatively unapologetic despite backlash.In an email to USA Today on Wednesday, Williams said Colorado Republican party officials “make no apologies” for their comments.“We make no apologies for saying God hates pride or pride flags as it’s an agenda that harms children and undermines parental authority, and the only backlash we see is coming from radical Democrats, the fake news media, and weak Republicans who bow down at the feet of leftist cancel culture,” Williams said.Williams did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on Friday.The latest remarks from Williams come as the state has politically wrestled against anti-LGBTQ+ groups.Last year, in a blow to LGBTQ+ rights, the US supreme court ruled that a Colorado civil rights law that mandates businesses and organizations treat same-sex patrons equally was unfair to a Christian web designer based in the state who refused to make wedding websites for same-sex couples.Furthermore, Williams’s “God Hates Pride” email came just days after police in Carlisle, Massachusetts, launched an investigation into the theft of more than 200 Pride flags as June and the annual LGBTQ+ celebration arrived. More

Clarence Thomas, the conservative supreme court justice, has belatedly acknowledged that he went on two trips paid for by rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow, NBC News reports.The admission comes in an amended financial disclosure covering 2019:Last year, ProPublica broke the story of the entanglements between Thomas and other conservative supreme court justices, including Samuel Alito, and rightwing figures with interests before the court such as Crow.It drew objections from Democrats, who called for the supreme court to adopt an enforceable ethics code. But their efforts to hold the conservative-dominated body to account have been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the justices, and the fact that they do not have the votes to pass legislation addressing the court.In a speech on the Normandy coastline, Joe Biden honored the US soldiers who stormed the strategic Pointe du Hoc on D-day, and likened the war against Nazi Germany to today’s struggle against Vladimir Putin. The day before, Biden gave a rare sit-down interview to ABC News, and hit back at Donald Trump’s comment that his executive order on immigration was “weak and pathetic”. “Is he describing himself?” Biden quipped. In Washington DC, supreme court justice Clarence Thomas returned to the news when he belatedly disclosed that he had gone on two trips with conservative activist Harlan Crow – which generated much controversy among Democrats when they were first revealed last year.Here’s what else happened today:
Trump raked in big bucks at a fundraiser hosted by tech figures in San Francisco.
Late-night hosts cracked wise about Biden’s age as the president visited D-day veterans who were even older than him.
The supreme court may issue more opinions next Thursday. Trump’s immunity petition and two major abortion cases remain pending before the conservative-dominated court.
Rudy Giuliani is looking to sell his apartment as he goes through bankruptcy.
More GOP senators are pledging not to work with the Democrats over Trump’s felony convictions.
Meanwhile, the ranks of Republican senators who have signed a pledge vowing not to work with Democrats on issues like spending bills and confirming judges in protest of Donald Trump’s conviction have grown.Eight Republicans initially signed on after a jury found Trump guilty of felony business fraud charges last week, and the number has now grown to 14, Utah’s Mike Lee announced:Donald Trump’s felony conviction may have been a boon for his fundraising, but as the Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports, it may be costing him support in his general election rematch against Joe Biden:After a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last week, Republicans rallied around the former president, insisting the verdict would only damage Joe Biden’s standing in the presidential election.But some new polling data casts doubt upon that argument, as a small but crucial number of Americans in key voting blocs appear to be moving toward Biden in the aftermath of the verdict.According to a post-verdict analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews with voters who previously participated in New York Times/Siena College surveys, Trump’s advantage over the president has narrowed from three points to one point. That shift may seem insignificant, but it could prove decisive in a close presidential election, as is expected in this year’s contest. In 2020, just 44,000 votes across three battleground states prevented a tie in the electoral college.Perhaps more worrisome for Trump is the specific areas where he appears to be bleeding support. According to the Times analysis, disengaged Democratic-leaning voters and those who dislike both Trump and Biden were more likely to say that the verdict made them reconsider their options in the election.Donald Trump may be raking in the dough, but the same cannot be said for some of his closest allies.His attorney Rudy Giuliani is moving to sell his Manhattan apartment, after he late last year filed for bankruptcy:Giuliani’s financial woes intensified in December, when two Georgia election workers won a massive defamation judgment against him after he falsely claimed they tampered with ballots in the swing state after the 2020 election:San Francisco is known for its liberal politics, but Donald Trump yesterday brought in $12m from a fundraiser in the city hosted by tech and crypto entrepreneurs friendly to his campaign to the White House, Reuters reports.Trump has seen a fundraising surge following his conviction last week on felony business fraud charges in New York. Here’s more from Reuters about how yesterday’s fundraiser, which brought Trump-flag waving supporters to San Francisco’s chilly, foggy streets, came about:
Venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, as well as Sacks’ wife Jacqueline, held the reception and dinner with Trump at the Sacks’ swanky mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
The gathering – where top tickets were $500,000 per couple – was sold out, a source with knowledge of the fundraiser told Reuters. It raised some $12 million, according to Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon and another source.
While San Francisco is heavily liberal – Democrat Joe Biden won 85% of the city’s vote in the 2020 election against then-President Trump – a growing number of high-profile local venture capitalists and crypto investors have thrown their support behind Trump ahead of his November rematch against Biden.
“President Trump is relaxed, happy, and cracking jokes about AI,” Dhillon, a conservative lawyer, posted on X from the event.
Executives from crypto exchange Coinbase, crypto investor twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and other crypto leaders were in attendance, Dhillon added. Trump talked about how Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has warned about crypto being used by scam investors and criminals, is “going after crypto,” according to Dhillon.
Biden last week vetoed what he described as a Republican-led resolution that would “inappropriately constrain the SEC’s ability to set forth appropriate guardrails and address future issues” relating to cryptocurrency assets.
Trevor Traina, a San Francisco-based tech executive and former Trump ambassador to Austria, said business regulations implemented during Biden’s presidency had alienated some people in the tech industry.
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has just released a television advertisement slamming Donald Trump for comments it characterizes as derogatory towards the US military and its veterans.Its release comes after the president spent the last couple of days marking the 80th anniversary of D-day, including with a speech earlier today about the importance of democracy. See the ad here:The supreme court may issue another batch of opinions on Thursday, 13 June, when it will next convene for a non-argument session.The conservative-dominated body has a number of high-profile matters it has yet to weigh in on. These include Donald Trump’s petition for immunity from federal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, and two cases dealing with abortion access. One deals with whether abortion pill mifepristone can remain available, and the other over whether the Biden administration can require federally funded hospitals carry out abortions in emergencies, even in states with bans on the procedure.And despite the demands of Democrats, conservative justice Samuel Alito is poised to consider Trump’s immunity case, even though reports emerged that flags supporting rightwing causes were displayed at his properties.Other justices cashed in on book deals.Conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh, collected $340,000 in royalties from the Javelin Group and Regnery Publishing for a book that has not yet been published and Neil Gorsuch, reported $250,000 from royalties for his book “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” which will be published by HarperCollins.Also included in newly released annual reports of the finances of the supreme court justices are details surrounding Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who collected nearly $900,000 last year for her upcoming memoir and was gifted four Beyoncé concert tickets by the singer valued $3,700.Thomas belatedly reported the trips paid for by Crow, including a hotel room in Bali, Indonesia as well as food and lodging in Sonoma County, California, a region known for its fine wine.Thomas’s amendments to include Crow’s gifts are part of the financial disclosures of almost all nine supreme court justices that were released on Friday. (Justice Alito received a nearly three-month extension to release his).Clarence Thomas’s acknowledgement of travel with conservative billionaire Harlan Crow comes after Democrats recently demanded supreme court justice Samuel Alito recuse himself from cases dealing with the 2020 election after two flags linked to rightwing causes were reported to have flown at his properties. Last week, Alito declined to that, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reports:Justice Samuel Alito is rejecting calls to step aside from supreme court cases involving the former president Donald Trump and January 6 defendants because of the controversy over flags that flew over his homes.In letters to members of Congress on Wednesday, Alito says his wife was responsible for flying an upside-down US flag over his home in 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house last year.Neither incident merits his recusal, he wrote.“I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” he wrote.The court is considering two major cases related to the 6 January 2021 attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the Capitol, including charges faced by the rioters and whether the former president has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges.Alito has rejected calls from Democrats in the past to recuse on other issues.The New York Times reported that an inverted American flag was seen at Alito’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, less than two weeks after the attack on the Capitol.Clarence Thomas, the conservative supreme court justice, has belatedly acknowledged that he went on two trips paid for by rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow, NBC News reports.The admission comes in an amended financial disclosure covering 2019:Last year, ProPublica broke the story of the entanglements between Thomas and other conservative supreme court justices, including Samuel Alito, and rightwing figures with interests before the court such as Crow.It drew objections from Democrats, who called for the supreme court to adopt an enforceable ethics code. But their efforts to hold the conservative-dominated body to account have been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the justices, and the fact that they do not have the votes to pass legislation addressing the court.In attendance for Joe Biden’s speech earlier at Pointe du Hoc was John Wardell, a 99-year-old veteran who came ashore about a week-and-a-half after D-Day.For late-night talkshow hosts, Biden’s visit with World War II veterans was the perfect opportunity to crack wise about the president’s advanced age. Here’s our round-up of their zingers:Before he began speaking at Pointe du Hoc, Joe Biden was given a tour of the site by its superintendent, Scott Desjardins.The White House pool reporter covering the president today spoke to Desjardins, who said Biden was impressed by the bravery of the US army rangers that scaled the promontory and fought off German counter attacks for two-and-a-half days.“He was impressed of course. This is an impressive story. It’s hard not to be impressed,” said Desjardins, who noted Biden saw a link to the importance of Nato:
He made it very clear that this is required. No one can go at this alone anymore.
Joe Biden spoke from atop a former German bunker at Pointe du Hoc, a promontory that was a site of a fierce battle on D-Day:Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan spoke from the very same spot:When it comes to marking D-day’s anniversary, times have certainly changed, as C-SPAN points out.Joe Biden’s speech today was mostly about the importance of democracy, though he did name drop Vladimir Putin, and liken the threat he poses to Europe to that of the Nazis.Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy joined Biden and other western leaders for the commemoration in France, but when Barack Obama marked the occasion 10 years ago, Putin was in attendance: More

Federal prosecutors rested their case against Hunter Biden on Friday morning after days of testimony that revealed deeply personal and grim details about his struggles with drug addiction.Hunter Biden, the only surviving son of Joe Biden, faces three felony charges tied to a 2018 firearm purchase while using narcotics. He is accused of making false statements on a gun-purchase form when he said he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs, and then unlawfully possessing the gun for 11 days.Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though such a sentence would be highly unusual given that he would be a first-time offender. It is unclear whether the presiding judge, Maryellen Noreika, would give him time behind bars. Hunter Biden also faces a separate federal trial in California on charges of failing to pay $1.4m in taxes.Here are some key takeaways from the trial’s first week’s proceedings:1. Jury selection centered on the toll of the US drug epidemicA jury of 12 – six men and six women– and four alternates was seated from a pool of more than 60 people on Monday. Potential jurors were quizzed individually by Noreika about their knowledge of the case and views on gun ownership to determine whether they could be fair and impartial.Among the questions asked of potential jurors was whether they, or anyone close to them, had struggled with substance abuse or addiction. Many said they did, as stories of loved ones’ battles with addiction unravelled over the course of the day. One said they had a childhood best friend who died from a heroin overdose, one had a daughter who was a recovering addict, and another had a brother addicted to PCP and heroin.Drug addiction plays a central role in the case, as prosecutors have delved into Hunter Biden’s battle with drug use after the death of his older brother, Beau Biden, as they seek to prove that he knowingly lied on a form to buy a Colt Cobra revolver at a Wilmington gun store in October 2018.Hunter Biden has been open about his battle with crack cocaine, and the defense is hoping that the jury will see in him a familiar and sympathetic story reflected in their own lives. A study published this month found that one in three Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose; nearly 20% said the person they knew who died was a family member or close friend.2. Prosecutors used Hunter Biden’s memoir against himThe jury heard long excerpts from the audiobook of Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, narrated by the president’s son himself, detailing his descent into drug addiction leading up to and after the gun purchase.Hunter Biden and his family listened for more than an hour on Tuesday as a lead prosecutor for the special counsel, Derek Hines, played extracts from the memoir detailing how crack cocaine plunged the president’s son into the “darkest recesses of your soul”, including a story of how he tried to buy drugs from a homeless woman in Franklin Park in Washington DC.Prosecutors pointed to how Hunter Biden detailed his four-year addiction to crack cocaine that would cover the time period when he bought the firearm to argue that he was a high-functioning drug addict who lied to friends and family and ultimately broke the law. “Addiction may not be a choice, but lying and buying a gun is a choice,” Hines said. “Nobody is above the law.”Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that his client did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to buy a weapon. Pointing to a two-week rehab visit in August 2018, Lowell suggested that Hunter Biden was not using drugs at the time he bought the gun.3. Witnesses called to the stand included Hunter Biden’s exes and daughterProsecutors said part of their case would come from the testimony of several women from Hunter Biden’s past, including his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and two girlfriends, Zoe Kestan and Hallie Biden, who is also the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother Beau.Buhle was married to Hunter Biden for nearly 25 years and shares three daughters with him. Buhle testified about her ex-husband’s long battle with addiction, and how his drug use and infidelity fueled the collapse of their marriage.Kestan, who was involved with Hunter Biden around 2017-2018, told jurors about his near-constant crack cocaine use at lavish hotels. “He would want to smoke as soon as he woke up,” she testified, and described meetings with a “scary” drug dealer and hunting for instructions on the internet to cook powder cocaine into crack.Hunter Biden’s daughter, Naomi Biden, gave emotional testimony on Friday as the defense’s witness, telling jurors that she was “proud” to see her father in rehab in 2018. As she left the stand, she stopped to give her father an embrace and was seen wiping her eyes.4. Widow of Beau Biden testified about finding gun in Hunter Biden’s truckThe prosecution’s most important witness, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law turned girlfriend, Hallie Biden, took to the stand on Thursday. The pair had a brief romantic relationship after Beau Biden, Hallie Biden’s husband and Hunter Biden’s brother, died of brain cancer in May 2015.Hallie Biden is a central part of the prosecution case because she discovered the gun that Hunter Biden had bought and threw it out. The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden – and Hallie Biden’s disposal of it – are the fulcrum of the case against him.Hallie Biden told jurors that she “panicked” when she discovered the gun and ammunition in his truck, and described how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it into a trash can outside a market near her home. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she said.Early in her testimony, Hallie Biden testified to using drugs, saying that Hunter Biden introduced her to crack cocaine in 2018. She testified she stopped using drugs in August 2018, but that Hunter Biden continued smoking crack cocaine. “It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life,” she said.5. Biden family turned out for trialHunter Biden’s family and close friends have attended the trial en masse to show their support, even as their father’s presidential campaign and the White House strive to distance themselves out of fear of handing political grist to Republicans searching for a distracting issue in the wake of Donald Trump’s 34-count conviction last week.The first lady, Jill Biden, was seated in the Delaware courtroom behind her stepson for the first three days of the trial until leaving late on Wednesday to attend a D-day commemoration ceremony in France. Joe Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, flew in from the west coast to take the first lady’s seat in court on Thursday, next to Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden. Hunter Biden’s sister, Ashley Biden, has appeared in court as have several of his close friends.In contrast, several members of the Trump family steered clear of the New York courthouse during the former president’s hush-money trial. Most notably, Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and daughter, Ivanka Trump, were conspicuously absent.Joe Biden, who is in France this week for the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, has indicated he will not pardon his son if he is convicted at his federal gun trial. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us,” Biden said in a statement on Monday. More