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      Trump lawyers and prosecutors at odds over lifting gag order before sentencing

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      As Donald Trump fights for Judge Juan Merchan to lift a gag order barring him from speaking publicly about key figures in his New York trial, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office are urging the judge to keep the order in place.“The court has an obligation to protect the integrity of these proceedings and the fair administration of justice at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions,” wrote the prosecutors in a letter on Wednesday.During the trial – over Trump’s efforts to bury a sex scandal before the 2016 election – Trump repeatedly inveighed on social media against figures connected to the case, including witnesses and the judge’s daughter, who has worked as a Democratic consultant.In response, Merchan issued a series of orders barring Trump from speaking publicly about jurors, witnesses and the family of the judge.The trial concluded on 30 May, with the jury finding Trump guilty on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with the former president.Prosecutors had said they wanted the gag order to “protect the integrity of this criminal proceeding and avoid prejudice to the jury”. In the order, Merchan noted prosecutors had sought the restrictions “for the duration of the trial”. He did not specify when they would be lifted.Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche told the Associated Press last Friday that it was his understanding the gag order would expire when the trial ended and that he would seek clarity from Merchan, which he did on Tuesday.“It’s a little bit of the theater of the absurd at this point, right? Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this trial,” Blanche told the AP. “The trial is over. The same thing with all the other witnesses. So, we’ll see. I don’t mean that in any way as being disrespectful of the judge and the process. I just want to be careful and understand when it no longer applies.”In a letter on Tuesday, Blanche and Emil Bove asked Merchan to end the gag order, arguing there was nothing to justify “continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump” now that the trial is over.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAmong other reasons, the lawyers said Trump was entitled to “unrestrained campaign advocacy” in light of President Joe Biden’s public comments about the verdict last Friday, and continued public criticism of him by Cohen and Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.Trump’s lawyers also contend the gag order must go away so he is free to fully address the case and his conviction with the first presidential debate scheduled for 27 June.The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.Trump has continued to operate under the belief that he is still muzzled, telling reporters on Friday at Trump Tower: “I’m under a gag order, nasty gag order.”Referring to Cohen, Trump said, “I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order” before slamming his former lawyer-turned-courtroom foe as “a sleazebag”.During the trial, Merchan held Trump in contempt of court, fined him $10,000 for multiple violations of the gag order and threatened to put him in jail if he did it again.Trump’s use of the term “sleazebag” to describe Cohen just before the trial rankled prosecutors, but was not considered a gag order violation by the judge. Merchan declined to sanction Trump for a 10 April social media post, which referred to Cohen and Daniels by that insult.The judge said at the time that Trump’s contention that he was responding to previous posts by Cohen that were critical of him “is sufficient to give” him pause on whether prosecutors met their burden in demonstrating that the post was out of bounds.Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July. More

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      Joe Biden’s exquisite Trump verdict dilemma

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      Hello! Welcome back to our new US elections newsletter.I’m David Smith, Washington bureau chief, filling in for Adam Gabbatt this week.The fall from grace of Donald Trump, from commander-in-chief to convicted criminal, is still reverberating in Washington and beyond.Last week’s trial verdict drove yet another wedge between Republicans and Democrats. The former were fast and furious in denouncing it. The latter are less sure about how to proceed. And no one knows what impact it might have on the presidential election.First, some of the happenings in US politics.Here’s what you need to know …1. Biden’s border crackdownJoe Biden signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross outside of lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded. The move is a dramatic reversal for a president and a party that spent years embracing the ideal of the US as a nation of immigrants.2. Garland stands his groundThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated”. Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused Republican congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.3. Biden heads to France for D-day anniversaryJoe Biden is due to land in Paris, France, today ahead of the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings. France rescinded its decision to invite Russian representatives because of the Ukraine war. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, said: “Russia led by Vladimir Putin is literally trying to undermine the rules-based order that the Soviet Union actually had a role in world war two in helping create.”Joe Biden’s exquisite dilemmaView image in fullscreenIn the final line of the 1972 film The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, having just won election to the US Senate, turns to his political consultant and asks: “What do we do now?”That is the question for Joe Biden and Democrats after the euphoria of seeing Donald Trump become the first former US president convicted of a crime.Elections can be won or lost by defining a candidate with a single memorable framing: soft-on-crime Michael Dukakis, wealthy Mitt Romney, elitist Hillary Clinton. Last week’s conviction of Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York is a permanent stain and would, in past times, have made such branding easy.But in the Maga “mirror world”, where January 6 rioters are perceived as “hostages” and Biden as the true threat to democracy, Democrats are proceeding with care. Trump has an unrivalled ability to turn his opponent’s own power against them. Think of it like tennis. The harder you whack the ball at Trump, the harder it tends to come back at you over the net.As the trial unfolded in New York, Biden, a devout institutionalist, took the reasonable view that less was more: the head of state ought to remain above the fray. And pragmatically, he was aware any perceived interventions would feed the baseless rightwing media narrative that he had loaded the legal system against his rival.But for his campaign team in Delaware, it became increasingly difficult to watch Biden’s speeches and their carefully crafted emails disappearing into the ether. Just as in the 2016 campaign, Trump was sucking up all political oxygen.On Tuesday of last week, the frustration came to a boil and they started to fight back, holding a press conference outside the court. The Biden campaign communications director, Michael Tyler, told reporters: “We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there. We’re here today because you all are here.”The campaign deployed Robert De Niro, a Hollywood actor famed for playing gangsters, to castigate Trump as the biggest mob boss of all. He also veered off script by becoming embroiled in a verbal brawl with Trump supporters.The episode prompted characteristic Democratic hand-wringing over whether De Niro, 80, was the right messenger with the right message, and Republican cries of hypocrisy. Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign adviser, said: “After months of saying politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made a campaign event out of a lower Manhattan trial day for President Trump.”A day later Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, launched a Black voters initiative at Philadelphia’s Girard College, a majority Black boarding school. Wednesdays had typically been a safe bet to wrestle back the news cycle because it was the trial’s day off. But on that particular Wednesday the jury was deliberating its verdict.TJ Ducklo, a senior adviser for communications for the Biden-Harris campaign, peevishly posted on X: “The President just spoke to approx 1,000 mostly black voters in Philly about the massive stakes in this election. @MSNBC @CNN & others did not show it. Instead, more coverage about a trial that impacts one person: Trump. Then they’ll ask, why isn’t your message getting out?”Such complaints can themselves be counterproductive. Worthy as the Biden event was, would any news organisation worth its salt really not devote full coverage to the first conviction of a former president – and potential future president – in American history?A day after the verdict, the president had a brief, deliberate riff on the trial. “The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” he said. “And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”Biden then spoke about a Middle East peace plan. But as he walked away, reporters shouted questions about the Trump verdict. Biden said nothing but turned and beamed.That evening, the Biden-Harris campaign went further with a press release headlined 34 Lowlights from Convicted Felon Donald Trump’s Press Conference Speech, mocking Trump’s chaotic performance at Trump Tower earlier in the day. And at a campaign event on Monday, Biden referred to Trump as a “convicted felon”.But how long and how hard to press this case is a dilemma. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 10% of Republicans and 25% of independents say they are less likely to vote for Trump because of the verdict.Former Alabama senator Doug Jones told the Politico website: “I don’t think Democrats need to be shy about weighing in. I don’t think there’s anything to lose and a lot to gain, because I am convinced there’s a swath of people out there who are going to be very, very troubled by this at this point and haven’t really completely followed it, wondered about it – but now all of a sudden, this is a gamechanger.”Others, however, point to opinion polls suggesting that Trump’s criminal conviction will not shift many voters and could even backfire. The Trump campaign claims it raised $53m online in the 24 hours after the verdict. Republicans are keeping the topic alive at every opportunity, crying “sham” and “show trial” and vowing retribution.The more cautious Democrats also believe time and effort would be better spent promoting Biden’s record and drawing a contrast with Trump on policy: abortion rights, the economy, climate, racial justice, foreign affairs and defending democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters in crucial battleground states, the theory goes, are more exercised by the price of eggs or gas than the findings of a jury in Manhattan.Democrats have long been accused of pulling their punches, lacking the killer instinct that is part of Republicans’ DNA. In this case, Biden has to thread the needle with exquisite precision, offering a message that reminds independent voters why they should reject his opponent – while not firing up the Trump base or giving moderate Republicans a reason to return to the fold.Lock him up? It’s complicated.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreen“I didn’t say ‘Lock her up,’” the man who repeatedly both said and encouraged a frequent chant of “lock her up” claimed after he was convicted of 34 felonies.Former president Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview after his conviction in the New York hush-money trial that it was just his supporters who said “lock her up,” referring to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.“The people would all say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’” Trump claimed. “Then we won. And I say – and I said pretty openly, I said, ‘All right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great.’”He said he “could have done it” – locked her up – but decided it was for the good of the country to move ahead and that locking her up “would have been a terrible thing”.Trump very much said to lock up Clinton, or some version of the idea, at various times on the 2016 campaign trail. His supporters chanted it at rallies for years, with his encouragement. – Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterWho had the worst week?View image in fullscreenThe Washington Post, the newspaper of Watergate and “Democracy dies in darkness” fame, is in some disarray. Publisher Will Lewis ousted Sally Buzbee, the newspaper’s executive editor, and hastily announced a restructuring plan.At a contentious staff meeting on Monday, Lewis reportedly told staff: “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it any more.”Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor, has been named to temporarily replace Buzbee. After the elections in November, Robert Winnett, a longtime editor at the Telegraph in Britain, will take over the core reporting functions at the Post. Lewis is facing scrutiny over his commitment to gender and racial diversity.Like most media organisations, the Post boomed during Donald Trump’s presidency but has lost readers since. Its website had 101 million unique visitors a month in 2020, and had dropped to 50m at the end of 2023. The Post lost a reported $77m last year. A Politico website headline described the latest shake-up as “the Rupert Murdoch-ization of the Washington Post” – not a great sign five months before an impossibly high stakes election.Elsewhere in US politicsView image in fullscreenThe 2020 election reckoning continuesWisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, filed felony charges on Tuesday against three men who played a key role in the effort to appoint fake electors in the state as part of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Kenneth Chesebro, Jim Troupis and Michael Roman were each charged with one felony count of forgery, according to court documents.Further strains on Biden-Bibi relationsJoe Biden has said that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation. Biden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning, drawing a sharp response from the Israeli government, which accused the US president of straying from diplomatic norms.Hunter on trialView image in fullscreenFederal prosecutors painted Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a drug addict whose dark habits ensnared loved ones and who knew what he was doing when he lied on federal forms to buy a gun in 2018 when he said he was not in the throes of addiction. The judge also reportedly declined requests from the defendant to prohibit jurors from being shown messages, videos and photos that show him with drugs or discussing them around the time that he bought the gun in question, including one image depicting him undressed from the chest up. More

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      The fake elector defense: what Trump allies are saying to justify the 2020 scheme

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      Three allies of Donald Trump were charged in Wisconsin Tuesday for their roles in advancing the fake electors plan, but the 10 fake electors themselves have not yet been criminally charged.That might be because the Wisconsin fake electors, like other fake electors across the US, have said in media interviews they were misled to believe their documents could only be used if court challenges went for the former president. Others have said they were following lawyers’ advice when they signed on.Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul’s office has said it is still investigating and hasn’t ruled out charges against the individual electors, who have faced a civil suit they settled by agreeing not to serve as electors for Trump again.In April, 18 people were charged in Arizona in that state’s inquiry into the fake elector scheme. Defense attorneys representing some of those charged in Arizona have used similar justifications, saying they were following lawyers’ advice when they signed on.One told the Arizona Republic that his client, Jim Lamon, was relying on “lawyers from back east” who said the slates would only be used if the state’s results changed. Another told the paper that there wouldn’t be any evidence of their client’s intent to commit fraud or forgery because they got legal advice from Trump’s lawyers that led them to believe they weren’t doing anything wrong.These claims pop up frequently by fake electors and those involved in the scheme to overthrow the 2020 election results, as do other defenses relying on historical precedent and changing election law. Defenders of the fake electors cite a 1960 election in Hawaii and changes to congressional procedure to count electoral votes among their justifications..Some of the defenses have shown up in legal motions in Georgia, which is further along in its case against some fake electors there. But the justifications are largely happening online as the cases move more slowly than the internet, with rightwing influencers saying the scheme had a historical precedent and wasn’t illegal.Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University, has started to see the false electors in two tiers: those who were clearly in “cahoots with Trump” and intended to subvert the election’s outcome, and others who were duped. Andy Craig, director of election policy at the Joseph H Rainey Center, has come around to this idea as well, saying it depends heavily on the facts in each fake elector’s case, but some of them did seem misled.“I do think, to my mind, it’s fair to say that some of these fake electors are the victims of Trump’s fraud and [Rudy] Giuliani’s fraud,” Foley said. “They were relatively low-level political operatives who were trying to do something for the team and were doing it because the leader of their team was asking them to. That doesn’t justify what they did, but I’m not sure I would think criminal punishment would be appropriate for them because again, I think they’re the victims of the crime, not the perpetrators.”In Georgia, prosecutors granted many of the fake electors, nearly all of them little-known party loyalists, immunity from prosecution. Only three of the 16 have been charged criminally, all of whom appear to have a more hands-on role in the scheme.And in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, for example, the fake electoral certificates contained a caveat that they would only be considered valid if courts eventually ruled in Trump’s favor and deemed him the legitimate winner. Fake electors in those states have not faced prosecution in large part because of that language.As a reminder, the US doesn’t elect presidents via a popular vote. Instead, voters in each state turn out at the polls, which dictates a slate of electoral votes that get sent to Congress, called the electoral college. Whichever candidate wins the electoral vote wins the presidency, and this is sometimes different from who wins the popular vote. At issue in the fake electors scheme is that Trump supporters signed falsely that Trump had won their states’ votes, when in reality Biden had won.Other defensesLegal experts say the fake electors’ other defenses hold less water – the 2020 scheme is much different than the 1960 Hawaii election, and any changes in the Electoral Count Reform Act don’t affect the illegality of what the false electors did.The 1960 Hawaii election, which involved two slates of electors, is a long-running justification on the right for the fake electors. In 1960, Nixon narrowly led Kennedy initially in Hawaii, though the margin was so small it kicked off a recount. Before the recount could be completed, the state had to send its electoral votes to Congress for counting, so electors for both Kennedy and Nixon signed separate documents saying they were the state’s electors and sent them off.After the recount, the results showed Kennedy actually won the state, and so Kennedy’s electors met again to sign that he won. Nixon, who was presiding over the electoral count in Congress as vice-president, accepted this final submission. No one got in trouble for the previous slates, though it was also possibly illegal for the Democrats to have met and signed as though Kennedy won before the recount concluded. Hawaii’s votes didn’t affect who won the presidency, as Kennedy had already clinched the win.“Hawaii is a very odd situation because it ultimately ended with then vice-president Nixon, who was one of the candidates, being willing to accept the Kennedy slate, which didn’t matter one way or the other, wasn’t going to affect the outcome of the electoral college majority” Foley said. “It was sort of like a politician trying to be magnanimous.”Influencers like Charlie Kirk, the leader of rightwing youth organization Turning Point USA, brought up Hawaii after the Arizona charges. In a post on X, Kirk cited the “precedent created by Democrats” in Hawaii in 1960.“The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute,” Kirk wrote. “They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election.”The major difference: there was a legitimate, ongoing, good faith debate over who won in Hawaii, and a razor-thin margin of less than 200 votes that led to a full recount. By contrast, the margins in the seven states involved in the 2020 plan were much higher, and legal avenues to overturn results had largely run out.“All of these states were won by bigger margins, far beyond what any kind of recount or litigation was ever realistically going to overturn,” Craig said. “And so there was no good basis to believe that the results would legitimately flip in these states.”Another line of defense, used less frequently, revolves around changes to the electoral count process after the fake electors scheme in 2020.Rightwing commentator Mike Cernovich said after the Arizona changes that “multiple electors were LEGAL until the law was recently amended”, presumably a reference to the changes to the Electoral Count Act.The original Electoral Count Act stemmed from the contentious mess of the 1876 election, where there were multiple competing slates of electors and no consensus over who had won the election. It spelled out the process and deadlines for how states would send electoral votes and how Congress would count them.“What the Electoral Count Act did and still continues to do is to furnish Congress with a procedure to evaluate competing claims by competing slates of electors,” said Jim Gardner, an election law expert at the University at Buffalo School of Law. “And that’s all it does. So it is a piece of congressional self-regulation. It does not in any way regulate the behavior of other parties outside Congress.”The 2022 reform act makes clear that the vice-president, when presiding over the count, can’t use their role to get involved in disputes over electors – stemming from the effort to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence to throw out the Biden electors in key states.It also says that governors must certify the electors and send them to Congress. None of the Trump fake electors were certified by their states’ governments, a required part of the process for Congress to accept a slate.These changes, though, aren’t evidence that fake electors were allowed under the act before it was amended, legal experts say. Additionally, the charges these electors face in some states are violations of state-level laws against forging documents or committing fraud – not violations of a federal law to count electoral votes.“I don’t think it’s correct to say that somehow it’s an acknowledgement that any fake submission before this was not criminal,” Foley said.Sam Levine contributed reporting More

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      in Elections

      ‘Racial resentment’ a factor in violence of 6 January 2021, study says

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      Political observers are quick to blame hyperpartisanship and political polarization for leading more than 2,000 supporters of Donald Trump to riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.But according to a recently published study, “racial resentment” – not just partisanship – explains the violence that broke out after the 2020 election.Angered over the claim, promoted by Trump and his closest allies, that heavily Black cities had rigged the 2020 election in favor of Democrats, white voters – some affiliated with white-nationalist groups and militias, and others acting alone – stormed the US capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 election.“What Trump and Republicans did was they tried to make the point that something nefarious was going on in areas that were primarily African American,” said David Wilson, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who published the study with Darren Davis, a professor of political science at Notre Dame.The paper, Stop the Steal: Racial Resentment, Affective Partisanship, and Investigating the January 6th Insurrection, relied on a national survey of adults in the US conducted in 2021.Respondents were asked a question assessing their approval or disapproval of the House select committee investigating January 6, and responded to numerous statements evaluating racial resentment, such as “I resent any special considerations that African Americans receive because it’s unfair to other Americans” and “special considerations for African Americans place me at an unfair disadvantage because I have done nothing to harm them”.The research revealed a correlation between respondents’ feelings of racialized resentment and opposition to the House committee on January 6.Wilson and Davis also point to the fact that while a slew of polls show the general public split somewhat evenly over the legitimacy of the House select committee, Black Americans overwhelmingly supported the committee’s work, while white poll respondents generally opposed it.“Many of President Trump’s supporters believed they were being victimized by election fraud in the 2020 election, but they also believed that whites were being victimized more generally – the American way of life for them was changing and they were being disadvantaged by African Americans and other minorities,” Wilson and Davis wrote.The study comes as the former president and his allies are stoking unfounded fears of non-citizens voting and tainting political outcomes.The strategy activates “action emotions – primarily anger”, said Wilson. “When you’re angry, you want to see some problem resolved because it’s clearly not making you feel good. Your heart rate increases, you have a festering sense that things are wrong and you’re playing by the rules and other people aren’t and it’s just not right.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther forms of racial resentment, according to this framework, would include the perception that affirmative action unfairly hurts white applicants – or the idea that DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies unfairly benefit people of color.Distinct from racial hatred or prejudice, racial resentment, Wilson argues, is a particularly powerful motive to action because it stems from a sense of injustice.The psycho-social phenomenon can have consequences for democracy, Wilson said.“If you can get people to believe that democracy is about your freedom, and that the government is taking that away through taxes, through policies, through regulatory efforts, and [even] by fixing and rigging elections, you can stoke their resentment and they can even come to resent democracy.” More

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      in US Politics

      Donald Trump is now a convicted criminal. Do voters care?

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      The 34 verdicts were all the same: guilty. Last week Donald Trump became the first former or serving US president to have been convicted of a crime. He was found to have falsified business records to hide ‘hush money’ paid to cover up a sex scandal he feared would hinder his run for office in 2016. Not long ago, it would have been a career-ending verdict. Instead, Trump has come out fighting, claiming the case was politically motivated. And, says David Smith, it has left Joe Biden in a quandary: if he focuses on the verdict he risks playing into Trump’s narrative that he was behind the prosecution. Alice Herman, who lives in the swing state of Wisconsin, has spoken to local voters about how the guilty verdict will affect their election decisions. The answers were not as decisive as Biden may have hoped. Many said they did not care about the outcome and that it had only confirmed their voting intentions for or against Trump. With a small number of voters enough to make a big difference, Michael Safi asks what Biden can do to shift the dial. More

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      Merrick Garland hits back at Trump and Republicans: ‘I will not be intimidated’

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      US attorney general Merrick Garland has defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated.”Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused GOP congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.“I will not be intimidated,” Garland told lawmakers. “And the justice department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”Garland’s fiery speech pushed back hard on the claim that the prosecution of Donald Trump – in the hush-money case that last week resulted in the president being convicted of 34 felony charges – was “somehow controlled by the justice department”.He described Republican attacks on the justice department under his watch as “unprecedented and unfounded”, vowing not to allow them to influence his decision-making.Garland also upbraided Trump for claiming the FBI had been “authorized to shoot him” dead when they raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to retrieve classified documents in 2022.“This is dangerous,” Garland told the committee. “It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.”Garland, 71, is currently overseeing special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump, and a prosecution of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. He was summoned to testify amid Republican assertions that the justice department had been “weaponised” against the former president, a claim Trump has stoked.His appearance came as he faces the likelihood of being held in contempt of congress for declining to hand over audio recordings of an interview between another special prosecutor, Robert Hur. Hur was appointed by Garland to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, an offence similar to some of those for which Trump is being investigated.Hur concluded that Biden had committed no crime but raised questions about Biden’s age and allegedly poor memory.Referring to Republican threats to hold him in contempt, Garland said: “I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”A full transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur was made public. But the White House rejected Republican demands for the audio to be released, arguing that it served no useful purpose other than to enable the president’s opponents to splice the recording to make him appear confused, perhaps by emphasizing his stammer.Garland said releasing the audio could have the effect of deterring future witnesses from cooperating in justice department investigations if they thought their words might be made public.In his opening statement, he said the Republicans were “seeking contempt as a means of obtaining – for no legitimate purpose – sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations”.“This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the justice department’s work,” he added.The committee chairman, Jim Jordan – a rightwinger Republican from Ohio – set the tone for the hearing, saying: “Justice is no longer blind in America. Today it’s driven by politics. Example number one is President Trump.”Matt Gaetz, another hard-right Republican from Florida, accused Garland of dispatching a former justice department official, Matthew Colangelo, to Manhattan, where he now serves as assistant district attorney and helped prepare the case against Trump.Garland replied: “That is false. I did not dispatch Colangelo.” More

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      ‘The necessary steps to secure our border’: Biden defends decision to impose limits on asylum seekers – as it happened

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      Donald Trump and his allies have for years called for the closure of the southern border. Now, Joe Biden is doing that, albeit only occasionally, and specifically when arrivals of new asylum seekers exceed 2,500 a day.How did we get here? The answer can be found earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise to tighten access for migrants and approve a new infusion of aid to Ukraine and Israel’s military that the Biden administration said was desperately needed by two of Washington’s top allies.But despite the fact that one of their own lawmakers negotiated the deal, which contained hardline immigration policies Democrats normally would not support, the GOP voted it down, ostensibly so Trump could campaign on his own draconian approach to immigration.Which brings us to today. Congress went on to approve the foreign aid bill separately, and today, Biden used his presidential policies to limit access to asylum seekers on days when the border is “overwhelmed” as the White House put it – while repeatedly training his ire on Trump and his allies.“I’ve come here today to do what the Republican Congress refuses to do – take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said as he began his speech.Trump “told the Republicans … that he didn’t want to fix the issue, he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was … an extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”Here’s more on Biden’s new border policy:After months of ultimately fruitless haggling over immigration policy in Congress, Joe Biden announced new rules that will see the southern border temporarily shut to most new asylum seekers at periods when it becomes “overwhelmed”. The president blamed Republicans and Donald Trump for blocking legislation he said would be better suited to dealing with the issue, while warning the country’s hospitality was “wearing thin” amid the migration wave. The policy change comes amid signs voters are increasingly concerned about migrants arriving in the United States, but risk alienating some of Biden’s allies, who warn it amounts to a draconian response to what is essentially a humanitarian crisis. Back at the Capitol, the GOP continued its counteroffensive against Biden after Trump’s felony conviction last week. Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for the guilty verdict, saying it represents “a new low”, while attorney general Merrick Garland faced a tough crowd during a hearing before the judiciary committee.Here’s what else happened today:
      Republicans said Biden’s new policy amounted to an “election-year border charade”, and demanded tougher action on migrants.
      Biden attacked Trump as a “convicted felon” who should not be let back into the White House at a Monday evening fundraiser.
      Wisconsin’s attorney general filed charges against three Trump associates for attempting to disrupt Biden’s election victory in the state four years ago, including notorious attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
      An official with ties to a group promoting lies about the 2020 vote sits on the elections board in Fulton county, the most-populous in swing state Georgia.
      Opening arguments began in Hunter Biden’s trial on gun charges in Delaware, with prosecutors telling the jury that “no one is above the law”.
      In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump responded to Joe Biden’s executive order with a host of insults, and a recitation of his typically hardline rhetoric on immigration.“Crooked Joe Biden has totally surrendered our Southern Border. His weakness and extremism have resulted in a Border Invasion like we have never seen before,” Trump said in the post, which segues into a three-minute video in which he calls Biden “pathetic”.Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center provides legal services to migrants on both sides of the US and Mexican border, and, in a statement, executive director Marisa Limón Garza condemned Joe Biden’s new immigration policy:
      Today’s decision clearly illustrates that this administration is ignoring lessons from the failed deterrence measures put in place by its predecessors.
      Being strong on immigration doesn’t require an assault on asylum seekers or cruelty toward people seeking protection at our southern border. The Biden administration doesn’t need to rely on harsh deterrence tactics like Trump’s failed Muslim travel ban and Latino ban, which were also created to close the doors on refugees and send families back to the violent conditions they fought to escape.
      Together, these policies represent a concerning trend of political manipulation and irresponsible immigration practices. This does nothing to mitigate the violence and family separations, ignores due process, and moves us away from a humane, safe, and orderly system, inevitably forcing migrants into the hands of cartels and traffickers.
      Donald Trump and his allies have for years called for the closure of the southern border. Now, Joe Biden is doing that, albeit only occasionally, and specifically when arrivals of new asylum seekers exceed 2,500 a day.How did we get here? The answer can be found earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise to tighten access for migrants and approve a new infusion of aid to Ukraine and Israel’s military that the Biden administration said was desperately needed by two of Washington’s top allies.But despite the fact that one of their own lawmakers negotiated the deal, which contained hardline immigration policies Democrats normally would not support, the GOP voted it down, ostensibly so Trump could campaign on his own draconian approach to immigration.Which brings us to today. Congress went on to approve the foreign aid bill separately, and today, Biden used his presidential policies to limit access to asylum seekers on days when the border is “overwhelmed” as the White House put it – while repeatedly training his ire on Trump and his allies.“I’ve come here today to do what the Republican Congress refuses to do – take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said as he began his speech.Trump “told the Republicans … that he didn’t want to fix the issue, he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was … an extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”Here’s more on Biden’s new border policy:While Joe Biden has warned that his executive order intended to turn away some asylum seekers is a necessary step in the face of Republican opposition to broader immigration reforms, some Democrats have signaled their wariness – or outright objection.Here’s California congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus:
      I am disappointed at the enforcement-only strategies that the President announced today. Rather than address humanitarian issues at the border effectively and with the nuance they deserve, today’s actions will gut protections for countless migrants exercising their legal right to claim asylum. Rather than decimate the ability for those fleeing violence or persecution to seek asylum based on an arbitrary numerical cap, we should be redirecting our efforts to modernize ports of entry, expand legal pathways for migrants, and address the root causes of migration.
      And Raúl Grijalva, whose Arizona district encompasses most of the state’s frontier with Mexico:
      This executive action represents a significant departure from President Biden’s promise of a more humane and just approach to immigration. It tramples on the universal right to claim asylum and prevents migrants from attempting to legally access safety and security in the United States. It is ripe for legal challenges and antithetical to our values.
      Rather than appeasing Republicans who continuously refuse to work on bipartisan legislation and block immigration solutions for political gain, I urge President Biden, instead, to use his authority to take concrete action to help fix our broken immigration system. That starts with sending more resources to border communities, expanding legal pathways, streamlining the asylum seeking process, making it easier for individuals and families to work and live here, and creating a pathway to citizenship to give millions the certainty they deserve.
      Other Democrats welcomed the president’s actions. Here’s California’s Norma Torres, who serves on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s executive board:
      I strongly support the changes to expedite the process of deporting or removing individuals at the border who pose a national security risk or public threat. However, I have significant concerns about implementation, transparency, and the risk of curtailing fair, legal representation for legitimate asylum seekers.
      If rushed and without proper protections, these changes could embolden future anti-immigrant administrations to limit legitimate, eligible asylum seekers from obtaining the protections they seek.
      This executive order is a difficult but necessary measure to address the growing crisis at our border, but deeply underscores the urgent need to resolve the root causes of migration throughout Central America. I look forward to working closely with the administration on the implementation of these changes to ensure we stem the crisis at the border while ensuring asylees are processed expeditiously and fairly.
      The president’s executive order has faced criticism from progressive lawmakers and immigration reformers, who say it undermines protections for migrants fleeing humanitarian crises.Joe Biden addressed those concerns in his just-concluded White House speech, warning that the country was losing patience with the flow of migrants:
      For those who say the steps I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you … be patient. The goodwill of the American people are … wearing thin right now. Doing nothing is not an option – we have to act. We must act consistent with both our law and our values, our values as Americans.
      Joe Biden made a point of mentioning how his views of immigration differ from those of Donald Trump, who presided over a policy of separating migrant children from their parents as president, and has mulled deploying the military to round up undocumented people in the country, if re-elected.“I believe that immigration has always been a lifeblood of America. We’re constantly renewed by an infusion of people and new talent. The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It stands for who we are as the United States,” Biden said.He then laid into Trump:
      So, I will never demonize immigrants. I’ll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of a country. And further, I’ll never separate children from their families at the border. I will not ban people from this country because of the religious beliefs. I will not use the US military to go into neighborhoods all across the country, to pull millions of people out of their homes and away from their families, to put detention camps while we’re waiting deportation, as my predecessor says he will do if he occupies this office again.
      Biden then went on to describe how his executive order would work, while saying new legislation would be more effective.“Today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as President to do what I can on my own to address the border,” Biden said. “Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now that’s broken fixed – to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges.”Joe Biden did not hold back in blaming Donald Trump for the failure of a bipartisan immigration compromise negotiated in the Senate earlier this year, saying it would have been more effective than the executive order he signed today.“Four months ago, after weeks of intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats and Republicans, we came to a clear, clear bipartisan deal with the strongest border security agreement in decades. Then Republicans in Congress … walked away from it. Why? Because Donald Trump told them to,” the president said.He gestured to the officials flanking his podium, which he said were Democratic and Republican officials from border states.“They know the border is not a political issue to be weaponized – it’s a responsibility we have to share, to do something about it. They don’t have time for the games played in Washington. Neither do the American people.”Joe Biden is now speaking on his new immigration rule from the White House.He is flanked by a group of officials, including Arizona’s Democratic senator Mark Kelly.Joe Biden is scheduled to soon begin delivering remarks from the White House on his just-announced policy to close the southern border to new asylum seekers when authorities determine it is “overwhelmed”.He was supposed to start at 2pm ET, but, as always, is late. Mark Kelly, the Democratic senator representing border state Arizona, earlier appeared before reporters at the White House, and described the new rule as a “good step forward”.He then turned to blaming Republicans for rejecting a legislative compromise in Congress that would have made an array of changes to US immigration laws to stem the flow of migrants.“For three years the president has been calling on Congress to take action on this issue,” Kelly said.After months of ultimately fruitless haggling over immigration policy in Congress, Joe Biden has announced new rules that will see the southern border temporarily shut to most new asylum seekers at periods when it becomes “overwhelmed”. The policy change comes amid signs voters are increasingly concerned about migrants arriving in the United States, but risk alienating some of Biden’s allies, who warn it may amount to a draconian response to what is essentially a humanitarian crisis. Back at the Capitol, the GOP is continuing its counteroffensive against Biden following their standard bearer Donald Trump’s felony conviction last week. Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for the guilty verdict, saying it represents “a new low”, while attorney general Merrick Garland faced a tough crowd during a hearing before the judiciary committee.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      Biden attacked Trump as a “convicted felon” who should not be let back into the White House at a Monday evening fundraiser.
      Wisconsin’s attorney general filed charges against three Trump associates for attempting to disrupt Biden’s election victory in the state four years ago, including notorious attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
      Election denialism remains a concern in Georgia’s populous Fulton county, where an official with ties to a group promoting lies about the 2020 votes sits on its election board.
      At Hunter Biden’s trial, US justice department lawyer Derek Hines walked jurors through the events of October 2018, when prosecutors have said the president’s son lied on his background check about his drug use while buying the gun, Reuters reports.
      It was illegal because he was user of crack and a drug addict. No one is above the law,” Hines said.
      Biden has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges accusing him of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra .38-caliber revolver and of illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days in October 2018.Defense attorney Abbe Lowell urged jurors to listen carefully to evidence that would be presented. Lowell said the gun purchase form asked Hunter Biden only if he was currently an addict, not whether he had used in the past, adding that his client had no “intent to deceive”.US special counsel David Weiss, a Donald Trump appointee, brought the case against Hunter Biden and was present in the courtroom on Tuesday. Weiss has separately filed federal tax charges against Hunter Biden in California.The trial is expected to offer a tour of Hunter Biden’s years-long struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.First Lady Jill Biden attended court today, as did her and Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.The prosecution laid out its case on Tuesday in the historic criminal trial of Hunter Biden on gun charges, telling jurors that Joe Biden’s son was addicted to drugs and lied on paperwork to obtain a revolver. “No one is above the law,” the jurors were told, according to Reuters.The jury in federal court in Delaware heard opening statements from prosecution and defense lawyers before the first witness, an FBI agent, was called.Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury that evidence presented in the trial will show that Hunter Biden, 54, did not knowingly violate the law.It is the first ever criminal trial of the child of a sitting US president, with US district judge Maryellen Noreika presiding. Donald Trump last week became the first US president (sitting or former) to be convicted of a crime.In a speech on the Senate floor, Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer welcomed Joe Biden’s new actions on asylum seekers, but faulted Republicans for blocking legislation he said would better address the problems at the southern border.“As the president makes his announcement, let’s be very clear about one thing: legislation would have been the more effective way to go. President Biden has been clear from the beginning he prefers legislation, but given how obstinate Republicans have become – turning down any real opportunity for strong border legislation – the president is left with little choice but to act on his own,” Schumer said.He continued:
      Shame on our Republican friends. They say they want to protect the border. Donald Trump comes out with a very crass statement, let’s keep it in chaos so I might win the election. And they go along. They do a 180-degree turn. That’s a disgrace, and it’s forced President Biden to act the way he does, which is a lot better than doing nothing, but not as preferable as passing legislation, as the president admits.
      We had an opportunity to pass a strong bipartisan border bill back in February, and just over a few weeks ago.
      Both times, Republicans put politics ahead of bipartisanship, and blundered the best chance we have seen in decades to pass a border security bill America urgently needs. Americans will not easily forget it.
      Republicans have spent years insisting to voters that Joe Biden is not doing enough to address illegal immigration, and are not impressed by his just-announced policy to bar asylum seekers when the southern border becomes “overwhelmed”.“It’s window dressing. Everybody knows it … If he was concerned about the border, he would have done this a long time ago,” House speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference today. His office dubbed the new policy an “election-year border charade”, while Johnson added he did not believe the policy would do enough to discourage migrants. “From what we’re hearing, it will ignore multiple elements that have to be addressed,” he said.The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, was similarly dismissive:
      With an election just months away, the President hopes that issuing an executive order will demonstrate that he cares about this crisis and is trying to fix it.
      Never mind that his order would still allow more than 900,000 illegal aliens to come in every year at the southern border. This is on top of the half-million illegal parolees President Biden intends to continue waving into the country. Combined, that’s more than the population of 10 states. It’s a new Dallas, Texas, every year.
      This is like turning a garden hose on a five-alarm fire. And the American people are not fools. They know that this play is too little, too late.
      Joe Biden’s actions to limit migrant arrivals at the southern border come after months of ultimately futile negotiations aimed at passing an immigration policy compromise in Congress. But as the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino and Joan E Greve report, the new policy risks alienating some of the president’s supporters, who view it as a draconian response to a humanitarian crisis:The White House on Tuesday announced an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross outside of lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded.The order would take effect immediately, senior administration officials said on a press call. Those seeking asylum would be held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – would be excluded from the ban.“Individuals who do not manifest a fear will be immediately removable, and we anticipate that we will be removing those individuals in a matter of days, if not hours,” one official said. “The bottom line is that the standard will be significantly higher. And so we do anticipate that fewer individuals will be screened in as a result.”The move comes amid rising public concern over the number of migrants crossing into the US, with polls showing a majority of Americans dissatisfied with the president’s handling of the border. The White House has been under immense pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to reduce the number of migrants arriving at the southern border. More

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      Trump-appointed judges strike down fund for Black female entrepreneurs

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      A US federal court of appeals panel has suspended Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based, Black woman-owned venture capitalist firm, from continuing the firm’s Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, a grant program for Black female business owners.In the 2-1 ruling, the panel of three judges, two appointed by Donald Trump and one appointed by Barack Obama, ruled that the grant program “is substantially likely to violate” section 1981 of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits the use of race in making contracts. The act aimed to fully integrate formerly enslaved Black Americans as citizens, give them the full rights of American citizenship and to make it illegal to deprive any Americans of rights “on the basis of race, color, or prior condition of slavery or involuntary servitude”.American Alliance for Equal Rights, founded by Edward Blum, the conservative activist who led the supreme court case that ended affirmative action in college admissions, brought the case against Fearless Fund last August. The fund is one of several firms, organizations and government institutions that have been targeted by conservative, rightwing groups working to make it illegal for public and private entities to pursue diversity initiatives.Less than than 1% of venture capital funding goes to Black and Hispanic women-owned businesses, according to Digitalundivided, a non-profit advocacy organization. The group found that firms started by Black women received only .0006% of VC funding raised by startups between 2009 and 2017. And in 2019, a report found that “Black entrepreneur’s loan requests are three times less likely to be approved than white entrepreneurs”.Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was referenced in the ruling, guarantees citizens the right “to make and enforce contracts … and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens”.The panel of judges ruled that Fearless Fund is unlikely to enjoy first amendment protection and that its program “inflicts irreparable injury”.The Fearless Fund CEO and founder Arian Simone expressed disappointment at the ruling.“I am shattered for every girl of color who has a dream but will grow up in a nation determined not to give her a shot to live it,” she said in a statement. “On their behalf, we will turn the pain into purpose and fight with all our might.”The ruling is a victory for conservative groups that continue to target diversity initiatives, but it may not be a cut and dry harbinger of what’s to come. Last week, a federal judge in Ohio dismissed a lawsuit against the insurance company Progressive and the fintech platform Hello Alice, which jointly offer a grant program that helps Black-owned small businesses purchase commercial vehicles.In a statement, Simone vowed that the ruling against Fearless Fund was “the beginning of a renewed fight.“We are committed more than ever to advocating for equity, pushing forward with resilience, and ensuring that women of color receive the opportunities they rightfully deserve,” the statement reads. Fearless Fund and the organization’s legal representatives have indicated that they are evaluating all options to fight the lawsuit. More