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      Trump vows to appeal after judge sets March 2024 trial date – live

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      From 2h agoDonald Trump, whose attorneys proposed holding his trial on federal charges related to overturning the 2020 election in 2026, today vowed to appeal a federal judge’s decision to start the proceedings on 4 March of next year.“Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!” the former president wrote on his Truth social account, referencing the multi-state Republican primary that will take place the day after his trial begins.Citing legal experts, Reuters reports that trial dates are typically not subject to appeal.An elected Democratic prosecutor whose removal Ron DeSantis boasted about during the first Republican presidential debate said the hard-right Florida governor and his allies ousted her because she was “prosecuting their cops”.Law enforcement agencies in central Florida were “all working against me”, Monique Worrell told the Daily Beast, “because I was prosecuting their cops, the ones who used to do things and get away with them”. She added:
      They thought that I was overly critical of law enforcement and didn’t do anything against ‘real criminals’. Apparently there’s a difference between citizens who commit crimes and cops who commit crimes.
      In Florida, DeSantis has removed two elected Democratic prosecutors: Andrew Warren of Hillsborough county in August 2022 and Worrell earlier this month.Warren said he would not enforce an abortion ban signed by the governor. The prosecutor sued to regain his job but has so far failed, even though a judge found DeSantis to be in the wrong.Worrell previously responded to her removal by calling DeSantis a “weak dictator” seeking to create a “smokescreen for [a] failing and disastrous presidential campaign”.Former Trump campaign lawyer Ray Smith, one of the 19 defendants charged in Georgia as part of the sweeping indictment in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, has waived his arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty, according to a court filing.The filing states:
      It is counsel’s understanding that by filing this waiver of arraignment, prior to the arraignment date, that Mr. Smith and the undersigned counsel are excused from appearing at the arraignment calendar on September 6, 2023.
      From Atlanta’s 11Alive News’ Faith Jessie:The anti-Trump group, the Republican Accountability Project, is launching a six-figure ad campaign targeting Donald Trump over his indictment in Georgia.The group announced that it will run 60-second ads on Fox News in Phoenix, Milwaukee and Atlanta, focusing on the former president’s four indictment, in which he was charged with 13 counts over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.As part of the campaign the group will be putting up a billboard in Times Square featuring Trump’s mug shot with the 91 charges facing Trump scrolling by next to him.The House Appropriations Committee could consider amendments to a bill that would strip federal funding from prosecutors who are pursuing charges against Donald Trump.House Freedom Caucus member Andrew Clyde, a member of the committee, announced plans for two amendments to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) fiscal 2024 appropriations bill that would “prohibit the use of federal funding for the prosecution of any major presidential candidate prior to the upcoming presidential election on November 5th, 2024”, a press release said.Clyde said he intends to “defund” the efforts by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump in relation to hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, special counsel Jack Smith, who led dcharges against Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, who charged Trump in relation to his 2020 election subversion efforts in Georgia.In a statement, the congressman from Georgia said:
      Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars have no place funding the radical Left’s nefarious election interference efforts.
      Bryan Hughes’ support of HB 3058 signals a new strategy by Republicans to insulate abortion bans from scrutiny by creating narrow exceptions for medical emergencies.Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said:
      There’s a feeling that abortion rights supporters are using those medical cases to delegitimize abortion bans altogether.
      HB 3058 was first introduced in the aftermath of an explosive lawsuit in which five women denied abortions in Texas, along with two doctors, sued the state after they were refused care despite suffering severe complicationswith their pregnancies.The horror stories that emerged from that lawsuit threatened public support of the Texas abortion ban.Ziegler said:
      Republicans can now point to these new exceptions and say, ‘Look, that kind of thing doesn’t happen any more’.
      State representative Ann Johnson said that Texas Republicans genuinely wanted to address the problems raised by the lawsuit – even staunch abortion opponents do not want the state’s ban linked to dangerous delays in medical treatment. She said:
      That’s hard for people to politically justify.
      A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.Crafted by state representative Ann Johnson, HB 3058 appeared to be a rare bipartisan victory in a fiercely conservative state legislature. Johnson, a Democrat who supports abortion access, found an unlikely ally in state senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican who crafted Texas’s infamous “bounty hunter” law, which allows citizens to sue abortion providers as well as anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care.Johnson and her fellow Texas Democrats welcomed the bill’s passage as a small but important compromise to improve reproductive health in the state.But abortion rights advocates across the country said HB 3058 offers little help to Texas doctors treating high-risk pregnancies.Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said:
      The exceptions in the bill are so narrow, and the penalties for violating the Texas ban are so high, that invariably, a lot of doctors are going to continue not to offer abortion in those situations because they don’t want to get in trouble.
      The hearing that will determine whether the trial of Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in the Georgia election subversion case takes place in federal court is continuing today, with no decision yet made public. Here’s a recap from the Guardian’s Mary Yang on today’s events and why they’re important, including the significance of Meadow’s surprise decision to take the witness stand:Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, has testified for nearly three hours in a hearing to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court on Monday.Meadows was charged alongside Trump and 17 other defendants for conspiring to subvert the 2020 election in a Georgia superior court. He faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer.But Meadows is arguing that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment.According to the indictment, Meadows arranged the infamous call between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, where the former president asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to block Biden’s victory.He also at one point instructed a White House aide to draft a strategy memo for “disrupting and delaying” the electoral certification process on 6 January 2021, according to the indictment. Yet Meadows denied doing that on Monday, calling it the “biggest surprise”.Meadows testified for about three hours on Monday, surprising legal experts who widely expected him to keep mum.Donald Trump, whose attorneys proposed holding his trial on federal charges related to overturning the 2020 election in 2026, today vowed to appeal a federal judge’s decision to start the proceedings on 4 March of next year.“Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!” the former president wrote on his Truth social account, referencing the multi-state Republican primary that will take place the day after his trial begins.Citing legal experts, Reuters reports that trial dates are typically not subject to appeal.Ron DeSantis has canceled some presidential campaign events and returned to Florida to deal with a racist shooting in Jacksonville and an approaching tropical storm that is expected to turn into a hurricane, Politico reports.The Florida governor traveled to Jacksonville on Sunday, a day after a gunman who left behind manifestos peppered with racial slurs opened fire at a Dollar General store, killing three people. During an event in which DeSantis was booed, the governor pledge $1m to help a historically Black college improve security, and $100,000 to a charity on behalf of the victim’s families.Politico reports that DeSantis plans to stay in the state as Idalia, a tropical storm that is expected to become a hurricane, moves closer to the Gulf coast:Joe Biden said earlier today he has spoken to DeSantis, both to offer support for the expected storm damage, and condolences for the shooting victims. The two men are political rivals, but have in the past made appearances together in the Sunshine state in the aftermath of disasters:Meanwhile, Politico has obtained the schedule of Donald Trump’s federal trial in Washington DC on charges related to overturning the 2020 election:The trial itself begins on 4 March 2024, per judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling today.Atlanta’s 11Alive News has published sketches from inside the courtroom as Mark Meadows testifies in his bid to be tried in federal court:No electronic devices are permitted inside the courtroom, hence the employment of sketch artists.In an ongoing hearing where a judge will determine whether to move his trial in the election subversion case to federal court, Mark Meadows has argued that he became involved in Georgia’s 2020 polls in his capacity as White House chief of staff, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.In order to succeed in his bid to have the charges brought against him by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, tried in federal rather than state court, Meadows will need to convince a judge that he was acting in his capacity as a White House official when he traveled to Georgia and spoke with its leaders. Citing legal experts, the Journal-Constitution reports that is “a fairly low threshold to clear if valid arguments can be made”.“I don’t know that I did anything that was outside my scope as chief of staff,” Meadows testified in an unexpected appearance on the witness stand during what has been called a “mini-trial” in Judge Steve Jones’s court today, who will decide whether to grant his request.Cross examined by special prosecutor Anna Cross, the Journal-Constitution reports Meadows defended his conduct as part of his role as chief of staff, saying he wanted “to make sure elections are accurate. I would assume that has a federal nexus.”Jones has not yet ruled.Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has been testifying at his hearing to move his trial to federal court, described his time serving under Donald Trump as “challenging”.At the federal courthouse in Atlanta, Meadows described his duties as the former president’s chief of staff, which included meeting with state officials. Meadows is arguing that his case should be moved and subsequently dismissed because he has immunity from prosecution for carrying out what he says were his duties as a federal official.Speaking about his time at the White House, Meadows said:
      Those were challenging times, bluntly.
      “I don’t know if anyone was fully prepared for that type of job,” he added.On Sunday, Ron DeSantis was jeered while speaking at a memorial that drew a crowd of nearly 200 to remember the victims of the Dollar General shooting.“He don’t care,” an attendee shouted as DeSantis was being introduced, the Hill reported.At one point, a council member came to DeSantis’s defense and attempted to quiet the crowd, but the booing continued.“It ain’t about parties today,” said Jacksonville city councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman. “A bullet don’t know a party.”DeSantis referred to the shooter as a “major-league scumbag” in his remarks, adding that Florida opposed racist violence.“What he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.”Florida governor Ron DeSantis has announced $1m for heightened security at a historically Black college, a day after he was booed at a memorial gathering for victims of a deadly racist shooting in his state.DeSantis said his administration would give $1m to Edward Waters University to enhance its security after the gunman in this weekend’s racist killings at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville tried to enter the historically Black college but was denied entry.DeSantis said that an additional $100,000 would be given to a charity for the victims’ families. “As I’ve said for the last couple of days, we are not going to allow our HBCUs to be targeted by these people,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to provide security help with them.”DeSantis’s funding measure comes as he faces criticism for limiting Black history education in Florida, a move that many have condemned as racist.DeSantis has also come under renewed scrutiny for his support of expanded gun access in his state. The Florida governor signed legislation in April that allows resident to carry concealed guns without a permit.Donald Trump saw a slight drop in support among Republican primary voters after skipping the first GOP debate last week, according to a new poll.The poll by Emerson College, which was conducted 25-26 August, found that 50% of GOP primary voters said they plan to vote for the former president, down from 56% in a pre-debate survey. Trump still maintains a huge 38% lead over his closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley had the biggest post-debate gain, jumping from 2% to 7%. DeSantis gained two points to 12%.Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement:
      While Trump saw a slight dip in support, the question from this poll is whether this is a blip for Trump or if the other Republican candidates will be able to rally enough support to be competitive for the caucus and primary season.
      After four arrests in as many months, Donald Trump has now been charged with 91 felony counts across criminal cases in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia. The former president and current frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary faces the threat of prison time if he is convicted.As Trump attempts to delay his criminal trials, civil lawsuits endanger the former president’s financial and business prospects. A New York jury has already found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E Jean Carroll, awarding her $5m in damages. A separate civil inquiry, led by New York attorney general Letitia James, seeks $250 million that the Trump Organization allegedly obtained through fraud.Here’s where each case against Trump stands. More

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      Mark Meadows testifies in bid to move Georgia election case to federal court

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      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, has testified for nearly three hours in a hearing to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court on Monday.Meadows was charged alongside Trump and 17 other defendants for conspiring to subvert the 2020 election in a Georgia superior court. He faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer.But Meadows is arguing that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment.According to the indictment, Meadows arranged the infamous call between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, where the former president asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to block Biden’s victory.He also at one point instructed a White House aide to draft a strategy memo for “disrupting and delaying” the electoral certification process on 6 January 2021, according to the indictment. Yet Meadows denied doing that on Monday, calling it the “biggest surprise”.Meadows testified for about three hours on Monday, surprising legal experts who widely expected him to keep mum.“Those were challenging times, bluntly,” said Meadows, testifying about his time as Trump’s chief of staff during the pandemic and through the 2020 election, according to CNN. “I don’t know if anyone was fully prepared for that type of job.”He also testified that his duties involved sitting in on nearly all of Trump’s meetings, which he would help arrange with various states and agencies, according to ABC News. “There was a political component to everything that we did,” said Meadows, referring to his actions during the final weeks of the Trump administration.Willis subpoenaed Raffensperger, along with his office’s chief investigator Frances Watson, to testify during the Monday hearing.According to the indictment, Meadows asked Watson if there was “a way to speed up Fulton county signature verification in order to have results before Jan 6 if the trump campaign assist financially”. He claimed on Monday that he was not trying to offer federal funds but rather asking if there was a financial constraint.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeadows was booked at the Fulton county jail after voluntarily surrendering last Thursday. He filed an emergency motion to block his arrest but a judge denied his request. Meadows was released shortly after arriving at the jail, earlier entering a $100,000 bail agreement.Moments before Meadows’ federal court hearing, Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the Fulton county election interference case, said all 19 defendants would be arraigned on 6 September in 15-minute increments. Meadows is set to be arraigned at 10.30am local time, following Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.Three other defendants have filed motions to remove their cases from Fulton county. Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official, along with Georgia fake electors David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathy Latham, are each seeking to move their cases to federal court.Trump is expected to file a similar request in the coming weeks. More

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      Whether or not he is convicted, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president | Lloyd Green

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      Donald Trump’s legal headaches have drawn one step closer to colliding with the Republican nomination calendar.On Monday, the US district judge Tanya Chutkan set 4 March 2024 as the first day of jury selection in the Washington DC election interference and civil rights case. Super Tuesday is one day later. Republican nominating contests in California, Texas, and 14 other jurisdictions will be immediately set against the backdrop of the 45th president’s woes. In the weeks that follow, Ohio, Illinois and New York will be hosting primaries of their own.Talk about split-screen moments. Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley will receive a non-stop barrage of questions about the former guy as they struggle to unfurl their own separate closing messages, assuming they’re still in the hunt.Just hours before the hearing, Trump unloaded on the prosecutors, branding them “fascist thugs”. The contrast between his professed commitment to law and order and his relentless attack on law enforcement grows starker as the possibility of his own conviction is no longer theoretical.Trump’s own lawyers made sure to bring their client’s grievances into court. Twice during their presentation, the judge directed them to “take the temperature down”. Even without TV cameras present, the former guy must be reminded of his legal team’s commitment to his cause.Like Commodus, the deranged Roman emperor, Trump’s wrath needs to be sated. Loyalty is part of survival.In setting an early March date, the court made clear that it was unimpressed by Trump’s efforts to delay. As the hearing began, the judge indicated that his political calendar would not be a factor. Likewise, Judge Chutkan rejected the defendant’s contention that the case posed novel difficulties. “Why is this case complex, other than the historic aspect of it?” she asked.Trump’s team probably shot their client in the foot when they referred to the government’s case as “a regurgitation of the [January 6th] committee report”. In that moment, they tacitly acknowledged that the DC indictment did not cover new ground. Trial preparation was manageable. Key information and documents were already out there.Beyond that, prosecutors pointed to Trump’s daily social media dumps as potentially tainting the jury pool. His need to rile his own political base may have served to hasten his own trial. For the record, this would not be the first time that Trump’s impulses were self-injurious. In its ruling, the court advised that it was “watching carefully” for anything that might affect or “poison” the jury pool.By the numbers, Trump has converted the blizzard of indictments into fundraising gold. His campaign raised $7m on the Fulton county booking late last week. His mugshot now graces coffee mugs and sweatshirts.In that same spirit, since his March 2023 indictment in Manhattan on state charges, Trump has managed to lap the Republican field. DeSantis has lost whatever traction he had hoped for. He remains in retrograde as his likability quotient shrinks.Yet little is unalloyed. Even as doubts grow about Joe Biden and his age, the Trump indictments have left three in five Americans believing that the one-time reality show host ought to be tried. In other words, outside of the Republican party, Democrats and independents refuse to buy that this is simply an endless witch-hunt. Where there is smoke, fire is frequently nearby.Monday’s ruling by Judge Chutkan is also likely to cast a shadow over the other cases that Trump faces. In early October, the lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization is due to begin in Manhattan. When and what comes after that grows iffy.The constitutional imperative of due process and a criminal defendant’s right to help prepare his own defense will probably cause delays in the other Trump trials presently set for next year.For starters, don’t bet on the E Jean Carroll defamation case proceeding as scheduled in mid-January. Even if Trump doesn’t need to be there, his lawyers will seek to convince Judge Lewis Kaplan that a delay is required in favor of the proceedings in Washington.Similarly, the Stormy Daniels hush-money case set for next spring in Manhattan is another candidate for delay. Already, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has signaled his willingness to yield to the feds. In the hierarchy of public interest, it is the dog’s tail, hardly the main event.The 20 May 2024 trial in the special counsel’s documents case, too, is likely to be re-set to sometime during the summer or fall of 2024 at the earliest. To what degree Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed trial judge, again defers to his wishes remains to be seen.Last, when and where the charges brought by Fani Willis, the Fulton county prosecutor, will be heard is an open question. It is possible that they will ultimately be heard in federal court, not a Georgia state court. Already, Mark Meadows and others seek removal. With Trump joined by a posse of co-defendants, don’t count on a quick trial.Rather, bet on Judge Chutkan and Washington DC hosting the Main Event. By extension, if he is acquitted there, expect Trump to be nominated by acclamation. And if convicted, he will still be the Republican presidential nominee. Either way, and for better or worse, he will make history.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Trump’s federal trial in election subversion case set for March 2024

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      Donald Trump’s criminal trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results will take place on 4 March 2024, the federal judge presiding over the case in Washington ruled on Monday, marking a sharp repudiation of the former president who had sought to delay the case for years.The schedule set by US district court judge Tanya Chutkan means Trump’s first trial defending himself against prosecutors and the special counsel Jack Smith will be the election subversion case – and it will come during the height of the 2024 Republican primary season.“The events giving rise to this case occurred at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. To propose trying this case over five years later risks the real danger that witnesses become unavailable or their memories may fade,” Chutkan said. “My primary concern here, as it is, in every case, is the interest of justice and that I’ve balanced the defendant’s right to adequately prepare.”Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.The former president had asked ahead of the hearing for the trial to take place in April 2026, citing the supposed “median time” of 29.2 months that it took to convict defendants in cases that involved the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.But prosecutors had argued in response that using the median time as a benchmark was misleading because it included the time it takes for jury selection, trial, verdict and several months of sentencing deliberation, rather than just the duration of pre-trial proceedings.The judge set a trial for 4 March 2024 – hewing to the government’s January 2024 trial date request – explaining that she agreed that the Trump legal team’s statistics were “misleading” adding that one of the cited cases was one she is currently overseeing and delayed because of Covid-19 issues which didn’t apply to Trump.The date means Trump will be in the federal courthouse in Washington starting the day before Super Tuesday of the Republican primaries. Chutkan reiterated that Trump, like any other criminal defendant, would have to “make the trial date work regardless of his schedule”.At the hearing, Chutkan said that to make her determination she would instead consider the volume of discovery materials prosecutors were turning over to the defense and what a reasonable time would be for Trump’s lawyers to review the 12m pages of evidence.The judge also explained that the Speedy Trial Act, which requires criminal cases to go to trial within 70 days of indictment, exists to protect not just Trump but the public interest in ensuring the timely administration of justice.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe theme of Chutkan’s questioning of Trump’s lead lawyer, John Lauro, repeatedly returned to her contention that he did not have to read every one of the 12m pages anew because many of the documents were duplicative and the key facts were made public by the House January 6 select committee.The judge said that she considered the government as having made a considerable effort to produce the discovery in an organized and keyword-searchable manner that should expedite their review. “You are not going to get two years,” she said.Lauro objected to the judge’s characterization that the facts and legal theories were not new and emphasized that the Trump legal team needed extended time to review each of the pages, though he did not address his comments that the indictment was a regurgitation of the committee’s report.The prosecutors seized on Lauro’s prior public comments to argue that the Trump legal team were not looking at the material for the first time. “When Mr Lauro appeared on multiple news programs and podcasts following the indictment, he described a number of defenses he plans to raise.” More

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      Three-quarters of Americans say Biden too old for second term, poll finds

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      More than three-quarters of respondents in a new US poll said Joe Biden would be too old to be effective if re-elected president next year.But as many people in the survey said the 80-year-old Biden was “old” and “confused”, so a similar number saw his 77-year-old likely challenger, Donald Trump, as “corrupt” and “dishonest”.The poll from the Associated Press and Norc Center for Public Affairs said 77% of Americans – 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats – thought age would be a problem if Biden won the White House again. Significantly fewer said Trump’s age would be a problem: 51%, with only 29% of Republicans concerned.Trump skipped the first Republican debate last week. On Monday another national survey showed his whopping primary lead slipping only slightly thereafter.Emerson College Polling showed Trump at 50% support, a six-point drop from a pre-debate poll. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor widely held not to have performed strongly in Milwaukee, was second with a two-point bump to 12%.The investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who barged into the spotlight with an angry debate display, dropped one point to 9%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador who confronted Ramaswamy, climbed five to 7%.Trump faces 14 more criminal charges than he has years on the calendar, but those 91 counts under four indictments, and other legal problems including being adjudicated a rapist, have not dented his popularity with Republicans or opened him to significant attacks from his main rivals.Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, did note an apparent “softening of support for Trump since last week’s survey, where 82% of Trump voters said they would definitely support him, compared to 71% after the debate”. But on that score there was also worrying news for DeSantis, whose support “softened from 32% who would definitely support to 25%”.Biden won a US Senate seat in 1972, ran for president in 1988 and 2008, and is already the oldest president ever elected. If re-elected, he would be 86 by the end of his second term.Haley has repeatedly said Biden will probably die in office, claiming to warn voters of the dangers of Kamala Harris, the vice-president, rising to power herself.The AP/Norc poll said: “When asked about the first word that comes to mind when they think of each candidate, 26% of all adults cited Biden’s age and 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused, while only 1% and 3% did so for Trump.”There was a less welcome sign for Republicans, particularly those threatening to impeach Biden over alleged corruption involving his son Hunter.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“For Trump, nearly a quarter mentioned words associated with corruption, crime, lying, or untrustworthiness, while only 8% mentioned those traits for Biden.”Two-thirds of respondents supported age limits for presidents, members of Congress and supreme court justices.On Sunday, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was asked about Biden’s age.“When people look at a candidate, whether he’s Joe Biden, or Trump, or Bernie Sanders, anybody else, they have to evaluate a whole lot of factors,” the 81-year-old told NBC, adding that when he met Biden recently, “he seemed fine to me”.“But I think at the end of the day, what we have to ask ourselves is, ‘What do people stand for?’ Do you believe that women have a right to control their own bodies? Well, the president has been strong on that.” More

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      ‘Bring them to justice’: Georgia town residents demand answers in Trump election plot

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      On Saturday afternoon, roughly 70 people gathered on folding chairs in a sweltering church meeting room in the small town of Douglas, about 200 miles (322km) south-east of Atlanta, Georgia. Less than a week earlier, Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in Fulton county for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including allegedly entering the Coffee county elections office less than a mile away and copying the state’s voter software and other data.County residents at the town hall raised concerns about the lack of accountability for those who played a role in copying software and other data, and said they felt insecure about the safety and integrity of future elections.“People think, ‘He’s been indicted in Atlanta, so it’s over,’” 80-year-old county resident Jim Hudson said to the room, referring to Trump. “[But] how do we regroup? How do we become a county not referred to as ‘Crooked Coffee’?”The Rev Bruce Francis read a message from Bishop Reginald T Jackson, who oversees 500 Black churches in Georgia, referring to “troubling improprieties” that had brought this town of about 12,000 residents to the world’s attention.“The nation is now aware of the travesty that happened in 2020,” he read. “What do we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”The “travesty” was what Marilyn Marks, the town hall’s main speaker, called “the largest voting system breach in US history”. It happened in January 2021, when multiple people working on behalf of Donald Trump allegedly entered the Coffee county elections office and copied software and other digital information from the agency’s computers, gaining access to the entire elections system of the state of Georgia, home to about 7.9 million registered voters.The digital information obtained is now in an unknown number of hands, meaning that future elections could be affected in Georgia and in other states that use Dominion Voting Systems and other equipment made by partner companies. The breach has been publicly reported for more than a year, but was launched into a global spotlight on 14 August, when the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, issued indictments to Trump and 18 others. Several people were indicted for their direct role in the Coffee county breach, and nearly half the group had some kind of involvement in the incident, according to Marks.It wasn’t federal, state or local investigators who turned up evidence of the incidents, but Marks’ nonprofit organization, the Coalition for Good Governance. The group obtained video, text messages and other information about what happened in Douglas as part of a lawsuit against Georgia, now in its sixth year, that seeks to force the state to switch from computers to hand-marked paper ballots in elections, due to vulnerabilities in digital voting systems. Seventy percent of US voters mark ballots by hand.The town hall was the first occasion for residents of Douglas to hear a detailed explanation of how events that took place in their own back yard had become headlines, what those events mean for future elections and, perhaps most important, who among their neighbors had not been held accountable, what can be done to change that and how to prevent such a breach from happening again.Local residents wanted to know whether their personal information was “floating around in cyberspace”, if poll workers in Coffee county would be safe in future elections, and whether “money was exchanged for favors” during any of the visits to the local elections office by Trump’s associates.Hanging over the room were not just the challenges members of small communities face when their own neighbors are implicated in serious wrongdoing, but, also, the issue of race.Coffee county is about 68% white, but most of the attendees at the town hall were Black. One white woman said she had urged other white locals to attend, but was met with indifference.Many were also aware that one of the more prominent locals present – city commissioner of 24 years and voting rights activist Olivia Coley-Pearson – was persecuted for years by the state for helping disabled and illiterate voters, while state election officials have shown little interest in investigating the breach, according to Marks. Coley-Pearson is Black; Trump’s associates involved in the breach here have all been white.Before Marks began her talk, titled, “What the hack happened in Coffee Co?”, Hudson, a retired lawyer, addressed the room. A thin, soft-spoken man, Hudson told those gathered how, as a seventh-generation Georgian and county resident, he felt had “skin in the game” when it came to the breach. “That’s why, when I discovered what happened, I was so disappointed,” he said.He lamented there had been “no independent investigation by our officials … [and] almost no local press coverage”.Hudson suggested there needs to be an independent, local investigation and a plan for the future – “So this never occurs again in our county,” he said. The first reform, he said, should be that “the elections department office should never be used for a partisan meeting again”. The crowd applauded.Marks took the stage. “Coffee county is the central foundation for this incredible indictment that the world is watching,” she said. The nonprofit director recounted how Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall called her on 7 March 2021 and told her that he and others had been to Douglas and “scanned all the equipment … imaged all the hard drives, scanned every ballot … all the poll pads – everything”.On Tuesday morning, Hall became the first defendant named in last week’s indictments to surrender to authorities in Fulton county. He was shortly thereafter released on $10,000 bond.Marks went on to detail how local elections director Misty Hampton – also indicted last week – communicated with people in Trump’s orbit, including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has repeatedly backed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Later, Hampton’s replacement found the business card of Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the group that performed a discredited audit of Arizona’s votes, in the county elections office, according to information Marks uncovered. Lindell and Logan remain unindicted.She pointed the room to “unanswered questions”: what happened to Hampton’s emails and laptop, which state investigators say they haven’t been able to obtain, and when did local election board members and the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, learn of the breach? Also, why did local elections board member Eric Chaney, seen on video obtained by Marks welcoming Scott Hall and others into the elections office, remain on the board until September of last year? Chaney is also unnamed in Willis’s indictments.“You can’t wait on the state,” Marks told the room. “It’s up to local people to demand accountability.”Cliff Albright, co-founder of the national group Black Voters Matter, took the stage and told the audience that he knew what it was like to be dealing with political controversy in a small town in the south, “where everybody knows what car you drive, and whether you’ve been at a meeting”.Albright also reminded the audience what was at stake, pointing to Coley-Pearson, who faced multiple felony charges for allegedly breaking election laws. Coley-Pearson was never found guilty, but has suffered greatly from years of legal battles, she told the Guardian.“They put all this money and time into investigating one woman?” Albright asked the room, again bringing applause. “And then you’re talking about the largest breach in US history? My message to the secretary of state and the county … is ‘Act like you care about it!’”Then Coley-Pearson addressed her neighbors. “This is so important,” she said. “This is a threat to our democracy.” She noted that she had invited local elected officials from the county commission, the city commission and the board of elections – and only two came.Referring to the breach, she said: “They felt like they could come to Coffee county because ain’t nobody gonna get involved except for Olivia and her few folks … [but] we’ve worked too hard … to let them take our rights away!”Afterward, 70-year-old Alphermease Moore, who is Black and a Coffee county resident, noted that she was part of the local high school’s first integrated graduating class, in 1971.“I was in Coffee high school’s first integrated group and was hoping, 50 years later, that things would be different. But the same things happening then are happening now,” she said, referring to Coley-Pearson’s prosecution on the one hand, and the lack of accountability for local white officials on the other. “It’s a constant climb.”Standing outside the church, Hudson was emotional. He had learned about the breach months ago, after reading about it in the national press. “I was stunned. I could not believe it.”Hudson, a well-known, longtime white resident of Coffee county, has been writing the county commission and board of elections, seeking an independent investigation. He attended an elections board meeting this spring and remarked, “If this was Olivia Coley-Pearson [who breached the elections system], she’d be in jail already.”Douglas resident Larry Nesmith has been active in local Democratic party politics for 14 years. He said he would have been at the board of elections office on 7 January 2021, when the first visit by Trump’s associates occurred, but Hampton “told me not to come”.Months later, he said, “I found out what happened on TV. I was shocked to find out. I feel our board of elections tried to cover [it] up. There’s no way they didn’t know.”“Those responsible need to be held accountable,” he added. “These are people I know. Those who haven’t been indicted need to be. Bring them to justice. Don’t let them walk away!” More

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      The Observer view on the sorry Trump circus and its impact on US democracy | Observer editorial

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      It would be a relief not to see or hear anything more from Donald Trump for a while. Unfortunately, that is unlikely. When he was finally brought to book last week at Fulton County Jail, Georgia, on multiple charges of racketeering and conspiracy, the former president should have been refused bail. That might have shut him up for a while. But showing an undeserved leniency characteristic of the legal proceedings against him to date, prosecutors allowed inmate P01135809 to walk away with a $200,000 bond – despite his recent, blatant attempts to intimidate witnesses and judges.It’s far from clear, in any case, that the American people want Trump to be silenced or an end to the gripping, often surreal, dark-sided reality show in which he stars. With typical chutzpah, Trump timed his surrender at the jail to maximise live cable news coverage. The result was nationwide publicity for his bogus claim to be the victim of a vendetta by President Biden, the Democrats and the “deep state”. Turning the tables with customary brazenness, he said they were guilty of 2024 election interference – exactly what he himself stands accused of after 2020.America’s fascinated TV news channels, radio show hosts, newspapers and social media platforms are enjoying all this hugely, whatever their politics. Trump’s supporters laud him as a modern hero – a reborn Paul Revere, warning the republic of the enemy’s approach. Trump made sure his prison mugshot was instantly disseminated, using it to solicit campaign donations. His son, Donald Trump Jr, described it as “the most iconic photo in the history of US politics”. Hardly.Some American progressives and liberals seem to be relishing the spectacle, too. The squeals of shock and anger that greet each atrocious Trump lie and twist are delicious in their way. But Trump and his Maga followers, by making a mockery of the justice system and treating the courts with contempt, do their country a great disservice.Quite what Republicans (and Democrats) would do if Trump were locked away is an intriguing question. Joe Biden is assured of his party’s nomination, despite a noisy challenge from Robert Kennedy Jr. But his national approval rating of minus 11% remains unusually low. Recent polls suggest many Democratic voters are unenthusiastic about a second Biden term. They would support him if push came to shove. Majorities in both parties would prefer a younger president to Biden, 80, or Trump, 77.But who might that be? Last week’s first televised debate between Republican presidential hopefuls, boycotted by Trump, failed to produce a likely or convincing alternative – and certainly not one capable of overturning Trump’s 40-point internal party lead. The more sensible candidates, such as Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, struggled to make an impression. More attention was paid to Vivek Ramaswamy, a ranting, egotistical younger version of Trump, who seemed to be there largely for kicks (which he received in plenty).The entertainment value of these legal high jinks, courtroom dramas, poll battles and pugilistic TV showdowns is undeniable. It’s politics as theatre. Like one of the more evil Roman emperors, Trump gives good circus. Yet the proper conduct of the first-ever criminal prosecutions of a president and next year’s pivotal election are matters of enormous importance for the US and the world. Americans may need to take their democracy more seriously as a decisive juncture approaches – or risk losing it. More

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      Defiant Trump seeks to gain advantage by using mugshot in fundraising push

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      Donald Trump’s campaign sought to turn his public disgrace into a political weapon on Friday by raising funds and creating merchandise with his glowering prison mugshot.The mugshot, a historic first for a former US president, was made public after a 20-minute booking at the decrepit prison in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, over charges that Trump ran a criminal racket to overturn the 2020 election in the state.The 77-year-old was fingerprinted and listed in jail records as inmate P01135809, with blue eyes and blond or strawberry hair. He gave his height as 6ft 3in (1.91m) and his weight as 215 pounds (97.5kg): some 24lb less than the White House doctor reported in 2018.On Friday, the remaining indicted co-conspirators, among them the former justice department official Jeffrey Clark, surrendered themselves at the jail. Legal wrangling over procedure to trial continued. One co-conspirator, the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, saw his request for a speedy trial granted, a date set in October. Lawyers for Trump said they did not want a quick trial.The Georgia indictment was Trump’s fourth but the first to produce a mugshot, a medium often associated with drug dealers or drunk drivers. In the picture, the one-time most powerful man in the world is seen scowling at the camera while wearing his customary blue suit, white shirt and red tie. The image flashed up on screens across the nation and ran on the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and newspapers around the world.But while millions saw a symbol of justice finally catching up with an unrepentant plotter, proof no one is above the law, millions saw a face of defiance, the indelible image a martyr targeted by his enemies.Released on $200,000 bail, Trump wasted no time in seeking advantage. On X, formerly known as Twitter, he posted the mugshot and the words “Election interference. Never surrender!” with a link to his website, which directs to a fundraising page.It was his first post since 8 January 2021, when Twitter suspended his account after the Capitol attack. His account was reinstated last November, shortly after Elon Musk bought the company, but Trump had stuck with his own Truth Social platform.The post came as Trump was flying back to New Jersey. He has 86.6 million followers on X, dwarfing his rivals in the 2024 race, and used the platform as a personal megaphone before and during his presidency. But it remained unclear whether the post was a one-off or not. Trump posted the same message on Truth Social, writing: “I love Truth Social. It is my home!!!”Trump’s 2024 campaign plastered the mugshot on flasks, mugs, T-shirts and other merchandise. An email advertised a T-shirt: “Breaking news: The mugshot is here.” It said: “This mugshot will forever go down in history as a symbol of America’s defiance of tyranny.”The mugshot appears to be a necessary cash cow, given how much money Trump’s campaign is spending on lawyers as he battles 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions. It could also be a rallying point for his effort to win back the White House, perhaps his best hope of avoiding prison.His son, Donald Trump Jr, told reporters after the first Republican debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday: “It’s going to be the most iconic photo in the history of US politics, if not perhaps the history of the United States.”Asked by the Guardian if his father was afraid of going to prison, Don Jr replied: “We’ve gotten so used to this, we don’t even think about it. We’re joking around because we understand exactly what’s going on and hopefully the American people wake up to exactly what’s going on as well.“This is the stuff that the Democrat [sic] party and many in the media actually would be outraged about and are outraged about when it’s happening in Russia. When it happens in the United States, they’re strangely quiet and that’s very telling.”Far-right Republicans joined in the incendiary rhetoric. Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, told the rightwing Newsmax network: “Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them what the heck, do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen.”She added: “We’re not going to keep putting up with this.”There is no evidence Joe Biden or Democrats have interfered in the process that led to Trump’s indictments, which are set to collide with next year’s election.In an another head-spinning week, Trump’s arraignment came a day after he skipped the debate, choosing instead an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that was posted on X.When the candidates were asked if they would support Trump even if he had a criminal conviction, four instantly raised their hands and two, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, wavered before following suit. Chris Christie made an awkward gesture and only Asa Hutchinson kept his hand down.Trump dominates polling. Charlie Sykes, editor of the Bulwark website and a former conservative radio host, said: “If you would have told someone back in 2015 that a candidate for president had been indicted for obstruction, racketeering, false witnessing, had tried to stage a coup, and yet was still actually in the race, they would have thought you were out of your mind.“Think about how the moral standards of the political party have changed. Think about what’s happened to the party of law and order that basically says, ‘Yeah, Donald Trump may be a criminal, but he’s our criminal, and we’re OK with that.’”Republicans return to Milwaukee in less than a year for a convention that will anoint their candidate to take on Biden. Sykes said: “There’s a real possibility Donald Trump will, by the time he comes back to Milwaukee, be a convicted felon, and will be wearing an ankle bracelet when he accepts the Republican nomination.” More