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      Clarence Thomas discloses travel paid for by rightwing billionaire five years later – as it happened

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      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

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      Trump plots capture of DoJ in renewed assault on US justice system

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      Donald Trump is planning an assault on the American justice system should he win re-election to the White House, in which he would seek to destroy the independence of the justice department and turn it into an attack machine for his Make American great again (Maga) movement.At the heart of his plans is the desire to impose his will on the individual prosecutorial decisions taken by the Department of Justice. The move, if successful, would end half a century of accepted practice that prevents presidents from politically interfering with specific cases.It would allow Trump in his second term to eradicate the federal prosecutions currently being pursued against him as well as against insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 whom he has championed as “hostages”. It would also free him to instigate legal investigations as acts of revenge against his perceived political enemies, including Joe Biden and family.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year.No evidence has been presented linking Biden to any crime, though his son Hunter Biden did go on trial on Monday accused of falsifying a firearms license application.Trump repeated the threat that he use the justice system to go after his opponents on Tuesday, telling Newsmax that the prosecutions against him had set a “terrible precedent” that he implied he would turn against Democrats should he win in November. “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s gonna have to happen to them.”In his first White House term, Trump made clear that he aspired to total control of the DoJ. He failed in that attempt, largely because of the resistance of top justice officials.Trump’s determination to overcome the norm is now much more advanced than it was four years ago. His disdain for the fundamental building blocks of the justice system was on full display following his New York conviction last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an affair with the adult actor Stormy Daniels.In comments widely echoed by senior Republicans, Trump denounced the trial as “rigged” – an echo of his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.“His message is that whenever anything comes out in a way that isn’t positive for me, it’s illegitimate,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a law professor at New York Law School. “If people start to believe that, then really, you don’t have any rule of law.”Independence and impartiality were baked into the justice department in the wake of Richard Nixon’s abuses in the 1970s Watergate scandal, ensuring that while presidents can appoint the attorney general who heads the DoJ, as well as set general law enforcement priorities, they cannot influence individual cases.View image in fullscreenThat norm has held steady for 50 years, but it remains vulnerable to attack. Roiphe co-authored a study into whether presidents can control the justice department, concluding that while DoJ independence has become a cornerstone of American democracy, it is not so secure that “it couldn’t be dismantled by a president who was firmly committed to doing so”.Trump allies have been busy in recent months in laying down legal arguments for why he should be permitted to wield absolute power over federal legal decisions. The most significant work has been done by Jeff Clark on behalf of the Center for Renewing America, the rightwing thinktank led by Russ Vought.Vought, Trump’s former budget director, is considered a contender for White House chief of staff in a second term. He is a central participant in Project 2025, a mammoth effort by a coalition of rightwing groups to prepare a blueprint for a renewed Trump presidency.In an article titled “The US Justice Department Is Not Independent”, Clark argues that the practice of avoiding direct contact between the White House and the attorney general that has pertained since the Carter administration must be swept away. “Under the constitutional system as it stands, DoJ independence does not exist,” he wrote.This quasi legal doctrine has been dubbed the “unitary executive theory”, signifying the sole power of the president over all federal government affairs.Clark was at the center of Trump’s most egregious attempt to seize control of DoJ decision-making during his first term. In January 2021, at the climax of the “stop the steal” campaign, Trump tried to make Clark acting attorney general in place of Jeffrey Rosen who was refusing to play along with his election denial conspiracy.Clark, a relatively unknown justice official, was only stopped after several senior DoJ officials threatened to resign.He has written the roadmap that would allow Trump to demand a halt to the federal prosecution for his role in January 6 in which Clark himself is an unnamed co-conspirator.As Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist, put it on his War Room podcast, the DoJ would be purged and restructured to “get rid of lots of personnel”.A key early move would be choosing an attorney general open to the idea of the unitary executive theory. Problems with senate confirmation, which is designed as a check on presidential power, could be overcome at least in the short term by appointing an acting attorney general who can operate without congressional approval.Early moves on the part of the new attorney general would include dismissing the current special counsel Jack Smith. That in turn would pave the way for the termination of Smith’s two federal prosecutions against Trump – the January 6 case and the charges relating to Trump’s hoarding of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.The former president has also proposed forming a taskforce to review the cases of what he has called “every political prisoner who has been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration”. The trawl would likely be directed at pardoning January 6 rioters.Trump has indicated that he would deploy prosecutorial powers against Democratic foes, but he also has Republicans in his sights. The Washington Post reported that in private he has expressed a desire for revenge even against leading figures in his first administration who have since become critics. They include his former chief of staff John Kelly, former attorney general Bill Barr and ex-attorney Ty Cobb.Roiphe said that the structure of the criminal justice system, including grand juries and trial procedures, would stand in the way of any attempt to prosecute innocent people. But she warned of the possible corrosion of faith in the system that could ensue, with potentially dire long-term consequences.“That’s what happens in authoritarian states – there is a semblance of a legal system, but it becomes useless,” she said. “If that happens here it would be extremely troubling. We’re not there yet. But I do think a second term could cause significant damage that may or may not be permanent.” More

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      How to spot a deepfake: the maker of a detection tool shares the key giveaways

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      You – a human, presumably – are a crucial part of detecting whether a photo or video is made by artificial intelligence.There are detection tools, made both commercially and in research labs, that can help. To use these deepfake detectors, you upload or link a piece of media that you suspect could be fake, and the detector will give a percent likelihood that it was AI-generated.But your senses and an understanding of some key giveaways provide a lot of insight when analyzing media to see whether it’s a deepfake.While regulations for deepfakes, particularly in elections, lag the quick pace of AI advancements, we have to find ways to figure out whether an image, audio or video is actually real.Siwei Lyu made one of them, the DeepFake-o-meter, at the University of Buffalo. His tool is free and open-source, compiling more than a dozen algorithms from other research labs in one place. Users can upload a piece of media and run it through these different labs’ tools to get a sense of whether it could be AI-generated.The DeepFake-o-meter shows both the benefits and limitations of AI-detection tools. When we ran a few known deepfakes through the various algorithms, the detectors gave a rating for the same video, photo or audio recording ranging from 0% to 100% likelihood of being AI-generated.AI, and the algorithms used to detect it, can be biased by the way it’s taught. At least in the case of the DeepFake-o-meter, the tool is transparent about that variability in results, while with a commercial detector bought in the app store, it’s less clear what its limitations are, he said.“I think a false image of reliability is worse than low reliability, because if you trust a system that is fundamentally not trustworthy to work, it can cause trouble in the future,” Lyu said.His system is still barebones for users, launching publicly just in January of this year. But his goal is that journalists, researchers, investigators and everyday users will be able to upload media to see whether it’s real. His team is working on ways to rank the various algorithms it uses for detection to inform users which detector would work best for their situation. Users can opt in to sharing the media they upload with Lyu’s research team to help them better understand deepfake detection and improve the website.Lyu often serves as an expert source for journalists trying to assess whether something could be a deepfake, so he walked us through a few well-known instances of deepfakery from recent memory to show the ways we can tell they aren’t real. Some of the obvious giveaways have changed over time as AI has improved, and will change again.“A human operator needs to be brought in to do the analysis,” he said. “I think it is crucial to be a human-algorithm collaboration. Deepfakes are a social-technical problem. It’s not going to be solved purely by technology. It has to have an interface with humans.”AudioA robocall that circulated in New Hampshire using an AI-generated voice of President Joe Biden encouraged voters there not to turn out for the Democratic primary, one of the first major instances of a deepfake in this year’s US elections.

      When Lyu’s team ran a short clip of the robocall through five algorithms on the DeepFake-o-meter, only one of the detectors came back at more than 50% likelihood of AI – that one said it had a 100% likelihood. The other four ranged from 0.2% to 46.8% likelihood. A longer version of the call generated three of the five detectors to come in at more than 90% likelihood.This tracks with our experience creating audio deepfakes: they’re harder to pick out because you’re relying solely on your hearing, and easier to generate because there are tons of examples of public figures’ voices for AI to use to make a person’s voice say whatever they want.But there are some clues in the robocall, and in audio deepfakes in general, to look out for.AI-generated audio often has a flatter overall tone and is less conversational than how we typically talk, Lyu said. You don’t hear much emotion. There may not be proper breathing sounds, like taking a breath before speaking.Pay attention to the background noises, too. Sometimes there are no background noises when there should be. Or, in the case of the robocall, there’s a lot of noise mixed into the background almost to give an air of realness that actually sounds unnatural.PhotosWith photos, it helps to zoom in and examine closely for any “inconsistencies with the physical world or human pathology”, like buildings with crooked lines or hands with six fingers, Lyu said. Little details like hair, mouths and shadows can hold clues to whether something is real.Hands were once a clearer tell for AI-generated images because they would more frequently end up with extra appendages, though the technology has improved and that’s becoming less common, Lyu said.We sent the photos of Trump with Black voters that a BBC investigation found had been AI-generated through the DeepFake-o-meter. Five of the seven image-deepfake detectors came back with a 0% likelihood the fake image was fake, while one clocked in at 51%. The remaining detector said no face had been detected.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenLyu’s team noted unnatural areas around Trump’s neck and chin, people’s teeth looking off and webbing around some fingers.Beyond these visual oddities, AI-generated images just look too glossy in many cases.“It’s very hard to put into quantitative terms, but there is this overall view and look that the image looks too plastic or like a painting,” Lyu said.VideosVideos, especially those of people, are harder to fake than photos or audio. In some AI-generated videos without people, it can be harder to figure out whether imagery is real, though those aren’t “deepfakes” in the sense that the term typically refers to people’s likenesses being faked or altered.For the video test, we sent a deepfake of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that shows him telling his armed forces to surrender to Russia, which did not happen.The visual cues in the video include unnatural eye-blinking that shows some pixel artifacts, Lyu’s team said. The edges of Zelenskiy’s head aren’t quite right; they’re jagged and pixelated, a sign of digital manipulation.Some of the detection algorithms look specifically at the lips, because current AI video tools will mostly change the lips to say things a person didn’t say. The lips are where most inconsistencies are found. An example would be if a letter sound requires the lip to be closed, like a B or a P, but the deepfake’s mouth is not completely closed, Lyu said. When the mouth is open, the teeth and tongue appear off, he said.The video, to us, is more clearly fake than the audio or photo examples we flagged to Lyu’s team. But of the six detection algorithms that assessed the clip, only three came back with very high likelihoods of AI generation (more than 90%). The other three returned very low likelihoods, ranging from 0.5% to 18.7%. More

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      ‘Rigged’: Trump attacks judge and courts in first post-conviction rally

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      In his first campaign rally after being convicted of 34 felonies, former president Donald Trump recalled how he just went through a “rigged” trial with a “highly conflicted” judge despite there being “no crime”.The court cases Trump faces have become a mainstay of his campaigning throughout the last year, where he frequently tells his followers that the charges are a form of election interference and designed to tamp down the Maga movement.“Those appellate courts have to step up and straighten things out, or we’re not going to have a country any longer,” he said.Trump spoke at a Turning Point Action event in sweltering Phoenix, at Dream City church, a megachurch where he and Turning Point have held rallies in the past. The extreme heat led to some waiting outside for the venue to open to need medical attention for heatstroke.Trump held a rally at the same church in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when church leaders claimed to have an air-purification system that killed 99% of the Covid-19 virus. Turning Point Action is the campaign arm of Turning Point, the conservative youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, a figure in the Maga movement.The former president also took aim at Joe Biden’s recent executive order limiting asylum seekers, which Trump called “bullshit” and said he would rescind on his first day in office, should he win. He condemned Biden on immigration and ran down Trump administration border policies, saying his Democratic rival could solve immigration problems by reinstating all of his old policies.“Arizona is being turned into a dumping ground for the dungeons of the third world,” Trump said.While immigration is a top issue for voters nationwide, it is especially acute in a border state like Arizona, which Trump hit on in his speech. He wistfully recalled the days of former Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for his strict immigration policies that led to frequent lawsuits and financial settlements, and brought Arpaio on stage for impromptu remarks.Trump kissed Arpaio on the cheek, then said: “I don’t kiss men, but I kissed him. We had a real border with this guy.” Arpaio called Trump his hero.Arizona is a key battleground this year, as Trump tries to win back the once solidly red south-western state from Biden, who beat him by about 10,500 votes. Election denialism has gripped the state for years – some Republicans who lost their races in 2022 midterms still have not conceded and have filed lawsuits to try to reverse the results.The Democratic National Committee put up a billboard in Phoenix on Thursday that is the first paid ad from the party to focus on the former president’s convictions, Meidas Touch News reported. The ad says: “Trump already attacked Arizona’s democracy once. Now he’s back as a convicted felon. He’s out for revenge and retribution. Trump: unfit to serve.”For the Trump faithful, the convictions have become a point of ire against the other side and something akin to pride. Shirts and signs at the Phoenix rally said “I’m voting for the convicted felon”.View image in fullscreenTrump repeated claims of a stolen election, saying the Democrats “used Covid to cheat” in 2020. He welcomed Kari Lake, the losing gubernatorial candidate in 2022 who is now running for Senate, and Abe Hamadeh, the losing attorney general candidate now running for Congress, claiming that they won their races but their elections were rigged.He directed people to a “Swamp the Vote” website after talking about how certain groups need to vote more consistently, such as gun owners and evangelicals. The site, paid for by the Republican National Committee, includes links for people to register and pledge to vote. “Do your part to guarantee we win by more than the Margin of Fraud by casting your vote and taking responsibility for ensuring every Republican and Trump voter in your household casts theirs too,” the site says.The end of the campaign event included a Q&A with audience members, who asked about border issues, drugs and cost-of-living issues. He said he would “get rid of inflation” in part by drilling to bring energy prices down. Cost-of-living concerns come up with voters frequently, Trump said; he used a regular-size container of Tic Tacs beside a mini version to demonstrate the effects of inflation.“People that made the same amount of money live half as well because the inflation is so high,” he said, adding that inflation is a “country-buster”.Trump’s answers often implored his supporters to vote him back in to solve whatever issue they were facing, though they were scant on details. How would he help restore access to healthcare in rural areas in Arizona, where the nearest hospital can be more than an hour away? He’ll handle it, because rural America loves him, he said.One woman who said she works with senior citizens who struggle to pay their bills and must choose between food or medication asked Trump what he would tell them.“Vote for Trump,” he responded. More

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      Steve Bannon vows to appeal jail sentence and says order about ‘shutting down the Maga movement’ – as it happened

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      Speaking outside the courthouse, Steve Bannon vowed to appeal his jail sentence to the supreme court, and accused the justice department of pursuing him as a way to retaliate against Donald Trump.“They’re not going to shut up Trump, they’re not going to shut up Navarro, they’re not going to shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up Maga,” said Bannon. He was referring to Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House trade adviser, who is serving a similar prison sentence on contempt of Congress charges.Bannon went on to predict an overwhelming victory in the November presidential election:
      All of this is about one thing. This is about shutting down the Maga movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump. Not only are we winning, we are going to prevail, and every number and every poll shows that. There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up … There’s not a prison built, or a jail built that will ever shut me up.
      All victory to Maga. We’re going to win this, we’re going to win at the supreme court, and more importantly, we’re going to win on November 5 an amazing landslide, with the Senate, the House and also Donald J Trump back as president United States.
      Almost two years after he was first found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee, a federal judge today ordered Steve Bannon, an influential figure in Donald Trump’s Maga movement, to begin serving his four-month sentence by 1 July. In a defiant speech outside the courthouse, he accused the justice department of using his case to retaliate against Trump, and predicted a big win for Republicans in the November presidential election. Speaking of Trump, the former president gave an interview to Fox News last night, where he argued he “would have every right to go after” political adversaries like Joe Biden, if he is returned to the White House. In response, the Biden campaign said Trump was “visibly rattled” by his conviction last week on felony business fraud charges.Here’s what else happened today:
      The supreme court released a new batch of opinions, which did not include much-awaited decisions on Trump’s petition for immunity from federal prosecution over his 2020 election meddling, and two cases dealing with abortion access.
      The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Milwaukee over restrictions on protesters ahead of the Republican National Convention.
      Trump called for the supreme court to overturn his conviction on felony charges connected to falsifying documents related to hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election.
      Hunter Biden’s federal gun charges trial continues in Delaware, with testimony from the widow of his late brother, Beau Biden.
      The NAACP civil rights group asked Biden to halt all shipments of weapons to Israel.
      Joe Biden does not do too many sitdown interviews with reporters, but took questions from ABC News during his visit to France for the D-day anniversary.He was asked about his recent decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied weaponry to strike inside Russia. Here’s what he had to say:Here’s more on the president’s decision, which comes as Russia steps up attacks aimed at the city of Kharkiv:The American Civil Liberties Union said this morning it has filed a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee over restrictions on protesters at the Republican National Convention that it says violate the first amendment.The convention, beginning on 15 July, will see thousands of delegates converge on the city’s Fiserv Forum and culminate in Donald Trump formally accepting the party’s nomination. Various groups have already announced plans to protest the event, and the ACLU claims the city’s restrictions on where they can do that are not in line with the constitution.Here’s more:You’re not hearing too much about Joe Biden on this blog today, because the US president is in France to mark the anniversary of D-day, and call for support for Ukraine. The Guardian’s Leonie Chao-Fong has the scoop:Joe Biden has marked the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy with an impassioned call to western allies to continue supporting Ukraine in the face of the “unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom”.Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery attended by his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and dozens of surviving veterans from the second world war, Biden drew parallels between the Allied troops who fought to free Europe and the alliance of nations that came together to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.The president warned that democracy was under great threat than at any time since the end of second world war. Describing Vladimir Putin as a “tyrant bent on domination”, Biden said the Russian leader and “the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked.“To surrender to bullies, to bow to dictators, is simply unthinkable,” Biden said. “If we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there, Ukraine’s neighbours will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened.”Joe Biden criticized the international criminal court last month, after its chief prosecutor, Karim Kham, requested arrest warrants for two of Israel’s top leaders over their actions during the war in Gaza.That did not sit well with actor George Clooney, whose wife, Amal Clooney, worked on the case. He called up the White House to make his displeasure known, the Washington Post reports:
      Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, to express concern about Biden’s denunciation of arrest warrants sought by ICC prosecutors for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, especially his use of the word “outrageous.” The prosecutors also sought warrants for top Hamas leaders.
      The actor was also upset about the administration’s initial openness to imposing sanctions on the ICC because his wife might be subject to the penalties, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.
      Clooney’s call came just weeks before he is set to appear at a fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign next Saturday in Los Angeles. His concerns spread throughout Biden’s orbit, leaving some officials to worry that the high-profile actor would withdraw from participating in the marquee fundraiser, which will also feature former president Barack Obama, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel and actress Julia Roberts.
      Biden has supported Israel’s response to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, despite a wave of protests from activists upset by the civilian toll caused the invasion of Gaza. Here’s more about why the president objected to the ICC chief prosecutor’s arrest warrant application:Johnson’s statement comes after a recent report from the Washington Post which revealed that Israeli fighter jets used US munitions to strike a UN school located in Gaza on Thursday.Two weapons experts verified the weapons’ type to the Post, using footage of debris from the attack.Here’s more from the Post’s Louisa Loveluck, Niha Masih, Hajar Harb, Kyle Melnick and Miriam Berger:
      Israeli fighter jets appear to have used US-made munitions in a strike that killed dozens of people inside a UN school in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to two weapons experts who examined verified footage from the debris.
      The nose cones of two GBU-39 small diameter bombs were visible in footage taken by an eyewitness, Emad Abu Shawish, in the aftermath of the strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp. His images were verified by Storyful and independently geolocated by the Washington Post.
      An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the strikes targeted a gathering of militants at the school. But the facility was also packed with thousands of civilians displaced by the war, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which aids Palestinian refugees.
      The Gaza Health Ministry said 40 people were killed, including 14 children and nine women, and 74 others were wounded. Khalil al-Degran, spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, said that the bodies of children killed in the strike were brought to his facility.
      Read the full article here (paywall).Johnson’s demand for Biden came after Israel launched airstrikes against a refugee camp in Rafah during the Memorial Day weekend, an attack that killed dozens of people and was widely condemned by the international community.Here are Johnson’s full remarks, available here:
      The NAACP has, and continues to express our profound sympathy to civilians whose lives have been unjustly impacted in the crossfire of conflict. What happened on October 7 was a tragedy, and it is our hope that those with loved ones still in captivity are reunited as expeditiously as possible.
      As the nation’s leading civil rights organization, it is our responsibility to speak out in the face of injustice and work to hold our elected officials accountable for the promises they’ve made. Over the past months, we have been forced to bear witness to unspeakable violence, affecting innocent civilians, which is unacceptable. The most recent statement from the Biden administration is useful but does not go far enough. It is one thing to call for a ceasefire, it is another to take the measures necessary to work towards liberation for all. Decades of conflict reflect that factions inside Israel and Hamas actively work against resolution of the conflict. The latest proposal must clarify the consequences of continued violence. The United States and the international community must be willing to pull the levers of power when appropriate to advance liberation for all.
      The Middle East conflict will only be resolved when the US government and international community take action, including limiting access to weapons used against civilians. The NAACP calls on President Biden to draw the red line and indefinitely end the shipment of weapons and artillery to the state of Israel and other states that supply weapons to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives, immediately stop. Hamas must return the hostages and stop all terrorist activity. Israel must commit to an offensive strategy that is aligned with international and humanitarian laws. Peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians can only align when the humanity and common needs of people within the region are respected. Centuries of conflict reflect that violence results in more violence. The spillover effect in the United States is more racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.
      The president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has asked Joe Biden to end the shipment of all weapons and artillery to Israel, in a new post to X.Derrick Johnson, who has led the civil rights organization since 2017, made the demand as more than 35,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israel’s attacks against the territory.Johnson said:
      We’re calling on [Biden] to draw the red line and end the shipment of all weapons and artillery to Israel. It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives comes to an end immediately.
      Almost two years after he was first found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee, a federal judge today ordered Steve Bannon, an influential figure in Donald Trump’s Maga movement, to begin serving his four-month sentence by 1 July. In a defiant speech outside the courthouse, he accused the justice department of using his case to retaliate against Trump, and predicted a big win for Republicans in the November presidential election. Speaking of Trump, the former president gave an interview to Fox News last night, where he argued he “would have every right to go after” political adversaries like Joe Biden, if he is returned to the White House. In response, the Biden campaign said Trump was “visibly rattled” by his conviction last week on felony business fraud charges.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      The supreme court released a new batch of opinions, which did not include much-awaited decisions on Trump’s petition for immunity from federal prosecution over his 2020 election meddling, and two cases dealing with abortion access.
      Trump called for the supreme court to overturn his conviction on felony charges connected to falsifying documents related to hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election.
      Hunter Biden’s federal gun charges trial continues in Delaware, with testimony from the widow of his late brother, Beau Biden.
      Speaking outside the courthouse, Steve Bannon vowed to appeal his jail sentence to the supreme court, and accused the justice department of pursuing him as a way to retaliate against Donald Trump.“They’re not going to shut up Trump, they’re not going to shut up Navarro, they’re not going to shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up Maga,” said Bannon. He was referring to Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House trade adviser, who is serving a similar prison sentence on contempt of Congress charges.Bannon went on to predict an overwhelming victory in the November presidential election:
      All of this is about one thing. This is about shutting down the Maga movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump. Not only are we winning, we are going to prevail, and every number and every poll shows that. There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up … There’s not a prison built, or a jail built that will ever shut me up.
      All victory to Maga. We’re going to win this, we’re going to win at the supreme court, and more importantly, we’re going to win on November 5 an amazing landslide, with the Senate, the House and also Donald J Trump back as president United States.
      After a federal judge revoked Steve Bannon’s bail and ordered him to begin serving his prison term by 1 July, he held a brief press conference outside Washington DC’s federal courthouse.Before he began speaking, a protester holding up a sign reading “lock him up” shouted “Get out of my way” at Bannon’s security guards, who were keeping him away from the former Donald Trump White House adviser.A federal judge has ordered Steve Bannon, a far-right strategist and Donald Trump ally, to report to prison by 1 July to begin serving his sentence for contempt of Congress, Reuters reports.Bannon was convicted in 2022 for ignoring a summons from the bipartisan House committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection, and his four-month sentence was upheld by an appeals court last month. Here’s more on the long-running legal saga:This post has been corrected to note that Bannon must begin serving his sentence by 1 July, not on 1 July.Meanwhile, in Congress, Donald Trump has orchestrated the appointment of two allies to the House intelligence committee, which deals with some of the most sensitive information the US government possesses. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:Two far-right Republicans have been appointed to the highly sensitive House of Representatives intelligence committee at the direction of Donald Trump, a move likely to antagonise the security establishment.Representatives Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas, known for their fierce loyalty to Trump and vocal support of his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, were installed by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, ahead of other qualified GOP members and apparently without consulting the body’s chair, Mike Turner.Turner has sought to restore the committee’s bipartisan character following years of bitter party infighting between Republicans and Democrats.The appointments of Perry and Jackson to a committee that helps to shape US foreign policy and oversees intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA has caused consternation on Capitol Hill. It also signals Trump’s hostility to organisations that he has vowed to purge if he is re-elected.Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who served on the House select committee that investigated the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, called the move “insane” on a social media post.The pair were appointed to slots opened up by the resignations from Congress of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Chris Stewart of Utah.Joe Biden is also dealing with some unwelcome legal attention. His son, Hunter Biden, is on trial in Delaware on federal gun charges, and the Associated Press reports that the widow of the president’s late son Beau Biden took the stand today:Testifying in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial, Hallie Biden – the widow of Joe Biden’s oldest son, Beau – described panicking after finding a gun in his truck.“I panicked and I wanted to get rid of them,” she testified about finding a gun and ammunition in the console of Hunter Biden’s truck in October 2018.Prosecutor Leo Wise asked why she panicked, and Hallie responded: “Because I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves.”Hallie said she considered hiding the gun but thought her kids might find it. She then decided to throw it away.“I was afraid to touch it. I didn’t know if it was loaded,” Hallie said.She put the gun in a leather pouch, stuffed it in a shopping bag, and tossed it in a trash can outside an upscale grocery market near her house.The prosecution played surveillance footage showing Hallie dumping the gun in the trash.While Donald Trump’s felony business fraud trial in New York concluded last week with a guilty verdict, other prosecutions of the former president have stalled. Yesterday, an appeals court in Georgia put his trial on election fraud charges on hold, likely until after the 2024 election, the Guardian’s George Chidi reports:The Georgia court of appeals has put a hold on the trial of Donald Trump and other defendants while it considers whether to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor in the case.Trump had appealed an order by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee that declined to disqualify Willis after bombshell revelations about a romantic relationship with her chosen special prosecutor. As part of their effort to dismiss the case, Trump and his co-defendants alleged Willis’s relationship meant she should be recused from the case.On Monday, the appeals court selected a three-judge panel to hear the appeal and docketed the case to be heard in October. Then on Wednesday, the court paused the case while this argument plays out.Both Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow and a spokesperson for Willis’s office declined to comment on the court’s order.The order staying the case in Fulton county essentially ensures that the former president will not be tried on charges of election interference and racketeering in Georgia before the November election.“The history books will look back on what the country lost by not having a televised trial before November 2024 and historians will wonder what Fani Wills was thinking. And they’ll just scratch their heads,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor in Georgia and a close observer of the case. “I don’t know how much Judge McAfee could have done between now and the appeal’s pendency anyway. But the real loss is McAfee’s ability to deal with the question of presidential immunity and the supremacy clause over the summer.” More

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      House speaker appoints two Trump loyalists to intelligence committee

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      Two far-right Republicans have been appointed to the highly sensitive House of Representatives’ intelligence committee at the direction of Donald Trump, a move likely to antagonise the security establishment.Representatives Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas, known for their fierce loyalty to Trump and vocal support of his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, were installed by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, ahead of other qualified GOP members and apparently without consulting the body’s chair, Mike Turner.Turner has sought to restore the committee’s bipartisan character following years of bitter party infighting between Republicans and Democrats.The appointments of Perry and Jackson to a committee that helps to shape US foreign policy and oversees intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA has caused consternation on Capitol Hill. It also signals Trump’s hostility to organisations that he has vowed to purge if he is re-elected.Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who served on the House select committee that investigated the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, called the move “insane” on a social media post.The pair were appointed to slots opened up by the resignations from Congress of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Chris Stewart of Utah.Perry, a former chairman of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, was at the forefront of Trump’s efforts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. His endeavours led to his phone being confiscated by the FBI, an organisation he will now have a role in scrutinising.“I look forward to providing not only a fresh perspective, but conducting actual oversight – not blind obedience to some facets of our Intel Community that all too often abuse their powers, resources, and authority to spy on the American people,” Perry wrote in a pointed statement posted on X.Last December, a federal judge ordered him to hand over 1,600 text messages and emails to the FBI concerning his efforts to keep Trump in office after his election defeat.Jackson, a former White House physician to both Trump and Barack Obama, came to public notice in 2018 when the then Republican president tried to appoint him as secretary of veterans affairs.He withdrew his nomination after allegations of professional misconduct emerged, including accusations of drinking on the job and inappropriate behaviour towards female colleagues. It was also said that he took the prescription-strength sedative, Ambien, while on duty.Jackson denied the allegations and said they were politically motivated. But they were upheld by a scathing Pentagon inspector general’s report that said Jackson “disparaged, belittled, bullied and humiliated” subordinates. The report resulted in his demotion from the rank of rear-admiral to captain by the US navy, in which he served.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile serving as Trump’s White House doctor, he was renowned for his extravagant claims about his patient’s supposedly robust health.A spokesman for Johnson said the speaker “has the utmost confidence in Congressmen Perry and Jackson to capably serve the American people on the intelligence committee”.However, the appointments recall the committee’s stewardship under Devin Nunes, a Trump acolyte who helped to turn into a partisan battleground as he used his position to combat allegations that the former president had won the 2016 presidential election with the help of Russian interference.Nunes was rewarded for his efforts by being given a Medal of Freedom by Trump and is now chief executive of the ex-president’s social media company, Truth Social.Talking to AP, Ira Goldman – a former Republican congressional aide and counsel to the committee in the 1970s and 1980s – accused Johnson of “giving members seats on the committee when, based on the public record, they couldn’t get a security clearance if they came through any other door”. More

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      Trump’s gun license to be revoked following conviction, media reports say

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      Donald Trump’s license to carry a gun is expected to be revoked by the New York City police department now that he has been convicted of a felony, according to reports on Wednesday evening.The former president once boasted that he was so popular with the electorate, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He made the claim in January 2016 during the Iowa caucuses campaign.Trump’s permit to carry a concealed weapon was suspended in April last year after he was indicted on charges of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, according to CNN.Now, the NYPD is preparing to revoke Trump’s license altogether, CNN first reported, followed by NBC, with the latter citing a police spokesperson.Last week Trump was found guilty on 34 charges stemming from a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election, including felony falsification of business records.Prosecutors successfully argued that Trump falsely recorded payment he made to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, to cover fees paid to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about an affair with Trump.Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 election, will retain some privileges not afforded to all US felons. It appears he will still be able to vote in the November race, because New York – the state where the hush-money trial took place – is one of 23 states where people convicted of a felony can vote as long as they are not incarcerated.Trump is due to be sentenced on 11 July but experts say it is unlikely that he will serve time in jail. Trump has denounced the historic conviction as a “rigged trial”.More details soon … More

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      Putin says Trump conviction ‘burns’ idea of US as leading democracy

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      Vladimir Putin has described the recent criminal conviction of Donald Trump as politically motivated and claimed that it had “burned” the idea that the US was a leading democracy.Trump last week became the first former US head of state ever convicted of a felony crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges over efforts to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.In a press conference on Wednesday, Putin said: “It is obvious all over the world that the prosecution of Trump – especially in court on charges that were formed on the basis of events that happened years ago, without direct proof – is simply using the judicial system in an internal political struggle.”“Their supposed leadership in the sphere of democracy is being burned to the ground,” Putin said.Putin has previously described the four separate criminal cases against Trump as “political persecution”.His comments echoed Trump’s own response to the conviction. The former president has repeatedly attacked the criminal justice system and claimed, without evidence, that the verdict was orchestrated by Joe Biden.Speaking earlier this week, the former White House Russia specialist Fiona Hill warned that Putin was likely to see Trump’s conviction as a chance to undermine the US’s global influence and boost his own standing.“What mischief does he have to make when you have people within the American system itself denigrating it and pulling it down?” Hill, a former senior adviser to three US presidents – including Trump – said to AP.Putin, she said, was probably “rubbing his hands with glee” at Trump’s attacks on the US criminal justice system.In his 25-year rule, Putin has repeatedly used the Russian court system to impose long prison terms to crack down on dissent and expand political control, transforming the country from once tolerating some dissent to ruthlessly suppressing it. The Russian rights group OVD-Info estimates that more than 1,000 people are currently behind bars on politically motivated charges.Earlier this year, Putin said he would prefer to see Biden re-elected in remarks that were met with skepticism by many Russia watchers who believe his intention may be to use his notoriety to boost Trump. Trump, on his part, has frequently voiced admiration for the Russian leader.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Basically, we don’t care,” Putin said when asked what this year’s US elections would mean for relations with Moscow. “We will work with any president the American people elect.” He added that he “never had any special ties with Mr Trump”.Trump and Putin have been entangled on the world stage for nearly a decade amid warnings of Russian interference in US elections. Moscow was accused of meddling in the 2016 election with the aim of boosting Trump and damaging Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.A 2019 special counsel investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow ended with multiple indictments and extensive evidence of attempted obstruction by Trump, but no proof of collusion.Last month, Trump boasted that he would quickly free the jailed US journalist Evan Gershkovich from Russia if he wins the election. Putin “will do that for me, but not for anyone else”, he wrote on his Truth Social platform, prompting fresh allegations of collusion. The Kremlin, in turn, denied discussing the case with Trump.“There aren’t any contacts with Donald Trump,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters. More