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      Joe Biden links Grand Canyon national monument to fight against climate change – as it happened

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      From 4h agoJoe Biden is spending today in Arizona, where at 2pm eastern time he will announce that he is designating about one million acres around the Grand Canyon as a national monument, which will also protect it from uranium mining.The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh and Mary Yang have more:
      Joe Biden will designate a “nearly 1m acres” expanse around the Grand Canyon as a new national monument, protecting the region from future uranium mining.
      The designation, which Biden is expected to announce on Tuesday comes after years-long lobbying by tribal leaders and local environmentalists to block mining projects that they say would damage the Colorado River watershed and important cultural sites.
      The new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon national monument encompasses the headwaters of the Colorado River, as well as the habitat of the endangered California condor. It is also the homeland of several tribes. Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam” for the Havasupai tribe and I’tah Kukveni means “our footprints” for the Hopi tribe.
      “Establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument honors our solemn promise to Tribal Nations to respect sovereignty, preserves America’s iconic landscapes for future generations, and advances my commitment to protect and conserve at least 30% of our nation’s land and waters by 2030,” Biden said in a statement.
      In 2012, the Obama administration had blocked new mining on federal land in the area – but the protections are due to expire by 2023. The new designation would protect the area in perpetuity. Mining industry officials have said they will attempt to challenge the decision.
      Congress has been exploring new laws to boost national uranium production and enrichment, in an effort to reduce the US’s dependence on Russian imports.
      Democrats and Republicans are closely watching a special election in Ohio that could indicate if voters, even in red states, are willing to protect abortion access. Buckeye state residents are considering Issue 1, a GOP-backed measure that would make it more difficult to change the state constitution, which reproductives rights advocates are asking voters to do in November to ensure abortion remains legal. Today’s election is viewed as a test of whether the issue, which so animated voters in last year’s midterm elections and was seen as one reason why Democrats nationwide performed better than expected, remains as potent as it once was. Polls close in Ohio at 7.30pm eastern time.Here’s what else happened today:
      Joe Biden established a new national monument around the Grand Canyon, linking the decision to his fight against climate change.
      If Issue 1 is approved in Ohio, election-day turnout will likely be crucial, a top political analyst says.
      Ron DeSantis is replacing his campaign manager in an effort to jump-start his floundering presidential bid.
      The Washington DC grand jury that last week indicted Donald Trump is continuing its work, for reasons that remain unknown.
      Addressing a rally in New Hampshire, Trump made light of the multiple criminal indictments filed against him, saying they helped him in the polls.
      Below is a map of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, which Joe Biden established today.The new areas are around the national park situated in northern Arizona, and outlined in green:Meanwhile in Ohio, voting is ongoing in the special election over Issue 1, which would raise the bar to amend the state’s constitution through the ballot box, as abortion rights advocates hope voters will do later this year.It may only be one state of 50, but nonetheless expect today’s election to be viewed as a litmus test for how important the issue of reproductive rights is to Americans, more than a year after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.A CNN poll released today indicates that voters nationwide do indeed remain fired up by the court’s decision, which overturned nearly 50 years of precedent and allowed states to ban abortion completely. The share of those surveyed disapproving of the decision was 64%, the same as it was a year ago, CNN says.After a draft of the court’s decision was leaked in May 2022, the network’s pollsters found that 26% of respondents would only vote for a candidate who shared their view on abortion. That number is now up to 29% in the latest survey, according to CNN.Donald Trump is in New Hampshire, an early voting state in the Republican primaries, where he is basking in his status as the frontrunner for the nomination.The former president is an avid poll watcher, and is clearly relishing the noticeable uptick in his public support ever since the first criminal indictments again him became public earlier this year:Among those who joined Joe Biden for his speech at the Grand Canyon was Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona senator who last year left the Democratic party to be an independent:Sinema has had a tortured relationship with Biden and many Democrats, particularly progressives. When Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021 and 2022 by just a single vote, Sinema acted to block proposals that would have increased taxes on the wealthy, voted against raising the minimum wage and protected the filibuster, which requires most legislation to pass with at least 60 votes.She is up for re-election next year, though she has not said if she will stand for another term. Today, Emerson College released polling showing that if Sinema is on the ballot, she will probably pull support from the Republican candidate – not whoever the Democrats nominate. If that trend holds, it will be good news for Biden’s allies, who are defending several Senate seats in red or swing states next year, and can only afford to lose one and maintain their majority in the chamber.As he announced a new million-acre national monument around the Grand Canyon, Joe Biden connected the move to his fights against climate change and rightwing culture war policies.“I made a commitment as president to prioritize respect for the tribal sovereignty and self determination, to honor the solemn promises the United States made to tribal nations, to fulfill federal trust and treaty obligations,” Biden said.“At a time when some seek to ban books and bury history, we’re making it clear that we can’t just choose to learn only what we want to know. We should learn everything that’s good or bad, the truth about who we are as a nation. That’s what great nations do.”The new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon national monument is the homeland for several tribes, and includes the headwaters of the drought-stricken Colorado river.“Preserving these lands is good not only for Arizona but for the planet. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the soul of the nation, and I believe … to my core it’s the right thing to do. But there’s more work ahead to combat the existential threat of climate change,” Biden said.Joe Biden, who is lagging his predecessors when it comes to giving news conferences and interviews to reporters, has sat for a one-on-0ne with the Weather Channel.The network said its interview airs tomorrow, and will concern climate change:Expect the president to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, both in that interview and in his speech today at the Grand Canyon. Signed about a year ago, the measure is the first piece of federal legislation intended to address climate change.Few places in America are more beautiful than the Grand Canyon, which those aboard Air Force One got a good view of when Joe Biden arrived yesterday:According to the White House, the president will in a few minutes speak from the Red Butte Airfield, an abandoned facility that local broadcaster KPNX calls “one of Arizona’s hidden gems”.Joe Biden is spending today in Arizona, where at 2pm eastern time he will announce that he is designating about one million acres around the Grand Canyon as a national monument, which will also protect it from uranium mining.The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh and Mary Yang have more:
      Joe Biden will designate a “nearly 1m acres” expanse around the Grand Canyon as a new national monument, protecting the region from future uranium mining.
      The designation, which Biden is expected to announce on Tuesday comes after years-long lobbying by tribal leaders and local environmentalists to block mining projects that they say would damage the Colorado River watershed and important cultural sites.
      The new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon national monument encompasses the headwaters of the Colorado River, as well as the habitat of the endangered California condor. It is also the homeland of several tribes. Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam” for the Havasupai tribe and I’tah Kukveni means “our footprints” for the Hopi tribe.
      “Establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument honors our solemn promise to Tribal Nations to respect sovereignty, preserves America’s iconic landscapes for future generations, and advances my commitment to protect and conserve at least 30% of our nation’s land and waters by 2030,” Biden said in a statement.
      In 2012, the Obama administration had blocked new mining on federal land in the area – but the protections are due to expire by 2023. The new designation would protect the area in perpetuity. Mining industry officials have said they will attempt to challenge the decision.
      Congress has been exploring new laws to boost national uranium production and enrichment, in an effort to reduce the US’s dependence on Russian imports.
      The supreme court’s grant of a Biden administration request to reinstate its regulations on ghost guns while a legal challenge continues came about after a split among the six-member conservative majority.Conservatives Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, while Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts joined with the court’s three liberals in allowing the regulations to remains in place, at least for now, Bloomberg News reports.Expect further litigating over the rules, which Bloomberg reports were put in place by the Biden administration to stop gun violence, only to be challenged in court:
      The ATF rule subjects gun kits to the same federal requirements as fully assembled firearms, meaning dealers must include serial numbers, conduct background checks and keep records of transactions.
      “It isn’t extreme. It’s just basic common sense,” Biden said when he announced the rule at a White House event last year.
      US District Judge Reed O’Connor tossed out the regulation, and a three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals had left the core of his ruling in force while it considers the administration’s appeal on an expedited basis. All four lower court judges are Republican appointees.
      Alito last week temporarily blocked O’Connor’s order while the high court decided how to handle the case.
      The key legal issue is whether gun kits can be classified as “firearms” under a 1968 law that imposes requirements on dealers. The administration contends that kits qualify as firearms because the law covers items that can “readily be converted” into functional weapons. The disputed weapons can be assembled by almost anyone in as little as 20 minutes, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers.
      The rule is being challenged by a collection of manufacturers, dealers, individuals and gun-rights groups. They say the administration is trying to change a 50-year-old understanding of the 1968 Gun Control Act.
      The US Supreme Court has just granted a request by Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate – at least for now – a federal regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms called “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace, Reuters reports.The news agency further writes:
      The justices put on hold a July 5 decision by US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas that had blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal.
      O’Connor found that the administration exceeded its authority under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act in implementing the rule relating to ghost guns, firearms that are privately assembled and lack the usual serial numbers required by the federal government.
      The rule, issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2022 to target the rapid proliferation of the homemade weapons, bans “buy build shoot” kits without serial numbers that individuals can get online or at a store without a background check. The kits can be quickly assembled into a working firearm.
      The rule clarified that ghost guns qualify as “firearms” under the federal Gun Control Act, expanding the definition of a firearm to include parts and kits that may be readily turned into a gun. It required serial numbers and that manufacturers and sellers be licensed. Sellers under the rule also must run background checks on purchasers prior to a sale.
      Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency matters arising from a group of states including Texas, on July 28 temporarily blocked O’Connor’s decision to give the justices time to decide how to proceed.
      The administration on July 27 asked the justices to halt O’Connor’s ruling that invalidated a Justice Department restriction on the sale of ghost gun kits while it appeals to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.The administration said that allowing the O’Connor’s ruling to stand would enable an “irreversible flow of large numbers of untraceable ghost guns into our nation’s communities.”
      Who is James Uthmeier, Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s newly-designated campaign manager for the Republican’s presidential bid?Another youthful face now at the head of extremist DeSantis’s campaign, Uthmeier was gubernatorial chief of staff after being DeSantis’s general counsel, but he’s also a former senior adviser to Wilbur Ross, a controversial commerce secretary in the Trump administration.Reuters further reports that:
      It is unclear what direction Uthmeier will take the DeSantis campaign as its new manager. He has relatively little experience with campaigns or electoral politics in general.
      The latest shakeup fits into a historical pattern for DeSantis, said Whit Ayres, a Republican operative who was DeSantis’ pollster when he ran for Florida governor in 2018. “This is par for the course for DeSantis’ campaigns. He’s run for Congress three times, and for governor twice. He had different campaign staff for all five campaigns. It is very difficult to run for president the first time if you have nobody around you who has presidential experience,” he added.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis has replaced the campaign manager of his bid to win the 2024 Republican nomination for US president, Generra Peck, four days after Robert Bigelow, the biggest individual donor to a group supporting the DeSantis candidacy, told Reuters he would not donate more money unless the governor changes his approach because “extremism isn’t going to get you elected,” the news agency reports. The new campaign manager will be close adviser James Uthmeier.Reuters further reports:
      Bigelow said he had told Peck, who he called “a very good campaign manager,” that DeSantis needed to be more moderate to have a chance.Asked how Peck reacted, Bigelow said, laughing: “There was a long period of silence where I thought maybe she had passed out. But I think she took it all in.”DeSantis is running second in the race for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 2024 election, but has been sinking in opinion polls for months. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll put his national support at just 13%, far behind former President Trump, at 47%.“James Uthmeier has been one of Governor DeSantis’ top advisors for years and he is needed where it matters most: working hand in hand with Generra Peck and the rest of the team to put the governor in the best possible position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” Romeo, the communications director, said in a statement.
      DeSantis had been facing increasing pressure from donors to change tack in recent months as he continued to drop in the polls and he burned through cash at a faster-than-expected rate.Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor, suggested that the move was still too tepid.
      DeSantis faces a crucial moment on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the first Republican debate of the 2024 campaign. Donald Trump has said he plans to skip the debate, which would make DeSantis the focus of attacks from other candidates.
      Democrats and Republicans are closely watching a special election in Ohio that could indicate if voters, even in red states, are willing to protect abortion access. Buckeye state residents are considering Issue 1, a GOP-backed measure that would make it more difficult to change the state constitution, which reproductives rights advocates are asking voters to do in November to ensure abortion remains legal. Today’s election is viewed as a test of whether the issue, which so animated voters in last year’s midterm elections and was seen as one reason why Democrats nationwide performed better than expected, remains as potent as it once was. Polls close in Ohio at 7.30pm eastern time.Here’s what else is going on today: More

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      Prosecutors seek to prevent Trump from sharing January 6 case evidence

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      Federal prosecutors asked a federal judge to reject Donald Trump’s request for fewer restrictions over how he can publicly share evidence in the case involving his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, arguing the former president was seeking to abuse the discovery process.“The defendant seeks to use the discovery material to litigate this case in the media,” prosecutors wrote in an eight-page brief on Monday. “But that is contrary to the purpose of criminal discovery, which is to afford defendants the ability to prepare for and mount a defense in court.”The court filings, submitted to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, highlighted comments made over the weekend by Trump lawyer John Lauro about former vice-president Mike Pence being a potential witness to stress the importance of strict restrictions.“This district’s rules prohibit defense counsel from doing precisely what he has stated he intends to do with discovery if permitted: publicize, outside of court, details of this case, including the testimony of anticipated witnesses,” prosecutors wrote.Trump has characterized the indictment, charging him with four felonies over his attempt to obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021 and overturn the results of the 2020 election, as a political witch-hunt and infringing on his first amendment rights.To that end, his lawyers filed a brief earlier on Monday asking the judge to issue a less restrictive protective order, a routine step in criminal cases to ensure evidence turned over to defendants in discovery is used to help construct a defense and not to chill witnesses.The 29-page document asked for various accommodations, such as giving Trump the ability to make public any transcripts of witness interviews that are not protected by grand jury secrecy rules, and to expand the circle of people who could gain access to the discovery material.But the prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith provided a line-by-line refutation of Trump’s requests, including that he be permitted to share evidence turned over to his legal team in discovery with people other than his own lawyers, such as volunteer attorneys.Allowing such broad language, prosecutors wrote, would render it boundless and allow Trump to share evidence, for instance, with any currently unindicted co-conspirators who are also attorneys and could benefit from otherwise confidential information.The procedural dispute between prosecutors and Trump’s legal team sets up an early test for Chutkan, who will now decide the matter. Chutkan ordered both sides to confer and jointly inform her by Tuesday 3pm of potential dates for a hearing to take place before 11 August.But a bitter fight this early in the process, over the protective order, which prosecutors say must be implemented before they start turning over evidence to Trump, suggests the case could be marked by contentious pre-trial motions from the former president with an eye on delay.As in the classified documents case, Trump’s overarching strategy in legal cases is to delay them. If a trial drags past the 2024 election and Trump were to win, he could try to pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges and jettison the case.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe current dispute started almost immediately after Trump was arraigned last week, when prosecutors took the routine step of asking for a protective order but specifically referenced a vaguely threatening post from Trump that read “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”The prosecutors did not ask the judge to impose a gag order on Trump to prevent him from discussing the case, but made an inferential argument that there needed to be clear rules on how Trump could publicly use evidence turned over to him in discovery.Their main requests were to limit the people with access to the discovery materials to just people with an interest in the case, such as Trump’s lawyers, and to create a special category of “sensitive materials” that “must be maintained in the custody and control of defense counsel”.The sensitive materials would include things like “personally identifying information” of witnesses and information that emerged from the grand jury during the criminal investigation, which is kept secret under federal law.Under the proposed protective order, the government also allowed Trump’s lawyers to show him the sensitive materials. But he would not be permitted to keep copies or write down any personal information about the people in the materials, since that would circumvent the rule about copies.The Trump campaign responded hours later, saying in a statement that the post had not been directed at anyone involved in the case and suggesting that prosecutors were seeking to punish him for engaging in first amendment activity, or “the definition of political speech”. More

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      in US Politics

      DeSantis says Trump ‘of course lost’ in 2020 when pressed in interview

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      “Of course” Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Ron DeSantis said in an interview broadcast Monday – after being pressed on the issue.Appearing on NBC, the Florida governor and nearest challenger to Trump for the nomination in 2024 was asked: “Yes or no – did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”DeSantis said: “Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on 20 January every four years is the winner.”His interviewer, Dasha Burns, said: “If you can’t give a yes or no on whether or not Trump lost –”DeSantis said: “No, of course he lost!”Burns said: “Trump lost the 2020 election?”DeSantis said: “Of course! Joe Biden’s the president.”Trump continues to lie that the 2020 election was decided by voter fraud, even after the former president was last week indicted on four criminal charges related to his attempts to overturn the result.Despite those charges and 74 others over hush-money payments and retention of classified records, and despite the prospect of more election-related charges in Georgia, Trump leads DeSantis by more than 30 points in most polling averages and by healthy margins in early voting states.DeSantis’s campaign is widely seen to be tanking. He and the rest of the Republican field have struggled to find a way to attack Trump, given his hold on the party. Discomfort when asked to say Biden won in 2020 or to condemn Trump’s lie is widely seen to be a symptom of that malaise.DeSantis told NBC the 2024 election should be a “referendum on Joe Biden’s policies, and the failures that we’ve seen and we are presenting a positive vision for the future”.If it is, he said, “We will win the presidency, and we will have a chance to turn the country around.“If, on the other hand, the election is not about 20 January 2025 [inauguration day] but 6 January 2021 [the day of the deadly attack on Congress by Trump supporters] or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it is a referendum on that, we are going to lose, and that’s just the reality.”A Trump spokesperson, Steve Cheung, told NBC: “Ron DeSantis should really stop being Joe Biden’s biggest cheerleader.”Another Trump aide, Liz Harrington, said: “If you think Joe Biden got 81 million votes, you’re an idiot. If you’re just saying that, you’re either a coward or corrupt. Either way it’s disqualifying.”In 2020, Biden received 81,282,916 votes to 74,223,369 for Trump. Biden won the presidency in the electoral college by 306-232, the result by which Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016.DeSantis did offer Trump support, echoing his claim that his proliferating legal problems are the results of political persecution.DeSantis also said the 2020 election was not a “good-run election”.“But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back,” DeSantis added. “You’ve got to fight back when that is happening.“But here’s the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about: Why did we have all those mail votes? Because of Trump turned the government over to [former Covid task force leader Dr Anthony] Fauci.“They embraced lockdowns. They did the Cares Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country.”As NBC pointed out, Florida has long allowed voting by mail.In the interview, scheduled to air on NBC Nightly News on Monday night, DeSantis was also asked about new standards for teaching history in Florida schools, which have proved controversial for saying some Black people benefited from being enslaved.DeSantis said: “We’ve been involved in education, not indoctrination. Those standards were not political at all.”Kamala Harris, the vice-president, has attacked DeSantis on the issue.Asked about criticism from Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the US Senate and a rival for the presidential nomination, DeSantis said: “Don’t take that side of Kamala Harris against the state of Florida. Don’t indulge those lies.” More

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      Nancy Pelosi calls indictments against Trump ‘beautiful and intricate’

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      Indictments of Donald Trump regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified information are “exquisite … beautiful and intricate”, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.“The indictments against the president are exquisite,” Pelosi, 83 and a regular antagonist of the 77-year-old former president, told New York magazine in an interview published on Monday.“They’re beautiful and intricate, and they probably have a better chance of conviction than anything that I would come up with.”Pelosi’s words to New York magazine seemed likely to prompt a response from Trump, with whom she frequently clashed when she was speaker and he was in the Oval Office. In one high-profile incident, in February 2020, Pelosi famously tore up a Trump speech, after his State of the Union address.Pelosi also told the magazine that if Trump were to win the Republican nomination and the 2024 election against Joe Biden, “it would be a criminal enterprise in the White House”.“Don’t even think of that,” she said. “Don’t think of the world being on fire. It cannot happen, or we will not be the United States of America.”Despite 78 criminal indictments in total, including 34 over his hush-money payments to a porn star, and the likelihood of more over his election subversion in Georgia, Trump is the clear frontrunner in the Republican primary.Denying wrongdoing and claiming political persecution, he enjoys a 30-plus point lead in national averages and clear advantages in early voting states.In general election polling, he generally leads Biden.Pelosi also oversaw two impeachments of Trump and the House committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection.Stepping down as speaker but remaining in Congress, she has not let up on Trump.Last week, the California congresswoman told MSNBC that Trump looked like a “scared puppy” when he arrived in court in Washington to face four charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Trump, who has called Pelosi “crazy” and an “animal”, denied being scared.In a characteristically extreme response, he also called the former speaker “really quite vicious … a Wicked Witch … a sick and demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!”Speaking to New York magazine, Pelosi called Trump’s Washington arraignment a “triumph for the truth”.She would not predict if Trump would be convicted. But she also said: “When we saw what he did on January 6, I knew that was a crime … I know he committed a crime that day.” More

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      Trump claims protective order against him would infringe his free speech rights – live

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      From 19m agoAhead of an afternoon deadline for his lawyers to respond to a request from special counsel Jack Smith for a protective order in the January 6 case, Donald Trump said such a ruling would infringe on his free speech rights.From his Truth social account:
      No, I shouldn’t have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to FREE SPEECH. Deranged Jack Smith and the Department of Injustice should, however, because they are illegally “leaking” all over the place!
      The former president’s attorneys have until 5pm eastern time to respond to the request from Smith, who asked for the protective order after Trump on Friday wrote, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” on Truth.Smith wants Trump’s attorneys barred from publicly sharing “sensitive” materials including grand jury transcripts obtained during the January 6 case’s pre-trial motions.Aileen Cannon, the federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, appeared to disclose an ongoing grand jury investigation in a court filing today, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump, and faced scrutiny last year for a decision in an earlier stage of the Mar-a-Lago case that some legal experts viewed as favorable to the former president, and which was later overturned by an appeals court.Cannon’s is presiding over Trump’s trial in Florida on charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith, who alleges the former president illegally stored classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and conspired to hide them from government officials sent to retrieve them.In response to the charges filed against him over January 6, Donald Trump’s lawyers have argued the former president did not know that he indeed lost the 2020 election. But as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, that defense may not be enough to stop prosecutors from winning a conviction:Included in the indictment last week against Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a count of obstructing an official proceeding – the attempt to stop the vote certification in Congress on the day his supporters mounted the January 6 Capitol attack.The count is notable, because – based on a review of previous judicial rulings in other cases where the charge has been brought – it may be one where prosecutors will not need to prove Trump knew he lost the election, as the former president’s legal team has repeatedly claimed.The obstruction of an official proceeding statute has four parts, but in Trump’s case what is at issue is the final element: whether the defendant acted corruptly.The definition of “corruptly” is currently under review by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit in the case titled United States v Robertson. Yet previous rulings by district court judges and a different three-judge panel in the DC circuit in an earlier case suggest how it will apply to Trump.In short: even with the most conservative interpretation, prosecutors at trial may not need to show that Trump knew his lies about 2020 election fraud to be false, or that the ex-president knew he had lost to Joe Biden.“There’s no need to prove that Trump knew he lost the election to establish corrupt intent,” said Norman Eisen, special counsel to the House judiciary committee in the first Trump impeachment.“The benefit under the statute is the presidency itself – and Trump clearly knew that without his unlawful actions, Congress was going to certify Biden as the winner of the election. That’s all the corrupt intent you need,” Eisen said.Donald Trump’s team has clearly been paying attention to Ron DeSantis’s NBC News interview, with a spokeswoman attacking the Florida governor for his comments dismissing the ex-president’s false claims about his 2020 election loss:Speaking of Republican presidential candidates, NBC News scored a sit-down interview with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and got him to again say that his chief rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.DeSantis, whose campaign for the White House is in troubled waters, had been vague on the issue until last week, when he started saying publicly that he did not believe the former president’s false claims about his election loss.Here he is saying it again, on NBC:In his final days as vice-president, Mike Pence faced pressure from Donald Trump to go along with his plan to disrupt Joe Biden’s election victory. Pence refused his then-boss’s request, and the two running mates are now foes, but could Pence potentially be a witness in the trial on the federal charges brought against Trump over the election subversion plot?In an interview with CBS News broadcast over the weekend, Pence, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said he has “no plans to testify”, but added “people can be confident we’ll obey the law. We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we’ll just tell the truth.”Far from being worried about what Trump’s former deputy might have to say about him, the former president’s attorney John Lauro said his legal team would welcome Pence’s testimony.“The vice-president will be our best witness,” Lauro said in a Sunday appearance on CBS, though he didn’t exactly say why he felt that way. “There was a constitutional disagreement between the vice-president [Pence] and president Trump, but the bottom line is never, never in our country’s history, as those kinds of disagreements have been prosecuted criminally. It’s unheard of.”Good morning, US politics blog readers. Mere days have passed since special counsel Jack Smith indicted Donald Trump for his failed effort to reverse his 2020 election loss, but the two sides are already battling over what the former president can say and do. On Friday, Trump wrote “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”, prompting Smith’s prosecutors to request a protective order that would restrict what the former president’s legal team can share publicly, saying it is necessary to guard people involved in the case against retaliation.Trump’s lawyers have until 5pm eastern time today to respond. It’s an early salvo in what is expected to be the lengthy process Smith’s case is expected to take, and which will undoubtedly hang over the 2024 election, where Trump is currently the frontrunner. Either way, the former president has not been shy about sharing his thoughts regarding the unprecedented criminal charges leveled against him, and do not be surprised if today is no different.Here’s what else is happening:
      Voters in Ohio are gearing up to decide on Tuesday whether to approve a Republican-backed proposal that will raise the bar for changing the state’s constitution. What this is really about is a ballot initiative scheduled to be put to a vote in November that would enshrine abortion protections in the state’s laws, but which would face a much more difficult road to passage if tomorrow’s vote succeeds.
      Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose presidential campaign appears to be floundering, just sat down for an interview with NBC News, where, among other things, he reiterated that he believed Trump lost the 2020 election.
      Joe Biden is hosting World Series winners the Houston Astros at the White House today, before heading to the Grand Canyon. More

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      Will Donald Trump be jailed before his trial? | Robert Reich

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      At Donald Trump’s arraignment last Thursday for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election, the magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya warned him that he could be taken into custody if he violated the conditions of his release, including attempting to influence jurors or intimidate future witnesses.Calling him “Mr Trump” rather than President Trump – thereby emphasizing that he was being treated as any criminal defendant would be treated – she said:“I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”The judge then warned Trump: “You have heard your conditions of release. It is important you comply. You may be held pending trial in this case if you violate the conditions of release.”She asked Trump: “Do you understand these warnings and consequence, sir? Are you prepared to comply?”Trump responded: “Yes.”But not 24 hours later, Trump posted on social media a message that could be understood as an attempt to influence potential jurors or retaliate against any witness prepared to testify against him: He wrote: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”On Friday evening, prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith asked the court for a protective order to stop Trump from making public any of the information they were about to deliver to his lawyers under the discovery phase of the upcoming criminal trial, such as the names of witnesses who will testify against him.They noted that such protection was “particularly important” because Trump “has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him”.Citing his social media message from earlier in the day, they argued that publishing such information “could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses”. The prosecutors included a screenshot of Trump’s threatening post from that same evening.On Saturday, the presiding judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, ordered that Trump’s lawyers respond to the prosecutor’s request for a protective order by 5pm Monday.All through the weekend, Trump continued to threaten potential witnesses.“WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him VP, has gone to the Dark Side,” he posted on Saturday.And Trump hasn’t stopped attempting to obstruct justice.On Sunday he called Jack Smith “deranged”, and in another all-caps message he accused Smith of waiting to bring the case until “right in the middle” of his election campaign.In another post he asserted that he would never get a “fair trial” with Chutkan and jurors from Washington DC.These statements directly violate the conditions of Trump’s release pending trial.They also could inflame Trump supporters, thereby endangering those who are trying to administer justice, such as Smith and Chutkan, as well as potential witnesses like Pence.It’s going to get a lot worse unless Chutkan – on her own initiative or at the urging of prosecutors – orders Trump’s lawyers to show cause why his release pending trial should not be revoked, in light of his repeated violation of the conditions of his release.This would at least put Trump on notice that he will be treated like any other criminal defendant who violates conditions of release pending trial.That’s what the rule of law is all about.At this moment, about 400,000 criminal defendants are in jail in the United States awaiting trial because they didn’t meet a condition of their release.Trump is now under the supervision of the court, as would be any criminal defendant after an arraignment.But he will continue to test the willingness and ability of the court to treat him like any other criminal defendant unless he’s reined in.The court must fully assert the rule of law during these proceedings, even if that requires threatening Trump with jail pending his trial. And if he continues to refuse to abide by the conditions of his release, it might be time to actually jail him.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Prosecutors may not need to show that Trump knew he had lost the election

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      Included in the indictment last week against Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a count of obstructing an official proceeding – the attempt to stop the vote certification in Congress on the day his supporters mounted the January 6 Capitol attack.The count is notable, because – based on a review of previous judicial rulings in other cases where the charge has been brought – it may be one where prosecutors will not need to prove Trump knew he lost the election, as the former president’s legal team has repeatedly claimed.The obstruction of an official proceeding statute has four parts, but in Trump’s case what is at issue is the final element: whether the defendant acted corruptly.The definition of “corruptly” is currently under review by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit in the case titled United States v Robertson. Yet previous rulings by district court judges and a different three-judge panel in the DC circuit in an earlier case suggest how it will apply to Trump.In short: even with the most conservative interpretation, prosecutors at trial may not need to show that Trump knew his lies about 2020 election fraud to be false, or that the ex-president knew he had lost to Joe Biden.“There’s no need to prove that Trump knew he lost the election to establish corrupt intent,” said Norman Eisen, special counsel to the House judiciary committee in the first Trump impeachment.“The benefit under the statute is the presidency itself – and Trump clearly knew that without his unlawful actions, Congress was going to certify Biden as the winner of the election. That’s all the corrupt intent you need,” Eisen said.According to the 45-page indictment, prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith have evidence that Trump knew of the significance of impeding the vote certification when he pressured his vice-president, Mike Pence, to interfere, saying he otherwise could not remain president.Trump plainly attempted to obstruct the vote certification that would have affirmed Biden’s election win, the indictment shows, as he implored Pence to accept the fake slates of Trump electors from battleground states and delay proceedings, or reject the Biden slates entirely.Trump also took steps he knew would impede proceedings, the indictment shows, when he called senators seeking further delay after the certification was interrupted by the riot, and when he later refused a plea from the White House counsel to “allow the certification”.Trump and his allies have suggested he tried to stop the vote certification because he genuinely believed the 2020 election was stolen, and that prosecutors would have to prove Trump did not believe the claims. But that may not be necessary.Last month, US district court judge Royce Lamberth wrote an opinion in the conviction of January 6 riot defendant Alan Hostetter in which he made it clear that Hostetter’s belief about a stolen 2020 election was not a defense to the “corruptly” element to the obstruction charge.“Even if Mr Hostetter genuinely believed the election was stolen and that public officials had committed treason, that does not change the fact that he acted corruptly with consciousness of wrongdoing,” Lamberth wrote. “Belief in the greater good does not negate consciousness of wrongdoing.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLamberth took into account the fact that Hostetter was “actively cheering on rioters” as the Capitol attack unfolded. The Trump indictment had a parallel, when prosecutors described the former president as having “exploited the disruption” when violence ensued.Those reasonings could be applied to Trump, legal experts said, especially because Lamberth also found that Hostetter had satisfied the stricter interpretation of “corruptly” to mean “unlawful benefit”, as suggested in April in an opinion from DC circuit judge Justin Walker.The interpretation by Walker would not be a material difference to Lamberth’s opinion, the experts said, because prosecutors could simply argue Trump gained a benefit he was not otherwise entitled to: still being president because Congress had not announced Biden as the next president.Coming in the same case as Walker’s opinion was a dissent from DC circuit judge Gregory Katsas, another Trump appointee, who thought the “corruptly” element should mean a defendant sought “an unlawful financial, professional, or exculpatory advantage”.The interpretation by Katsas should not discourage prosecutors, the experts said, because Trump could still be argued to have gained a professional advantage through the obstruction, namely he would have remained president.It was not clear when the three-judge panel in the Robertson case – composed of Bush-appointed Karen Henderson, Obama-appointed Cornelia Pillard and Biden-appointed Florence Pan – will issue a ruling on the definition of “corruptly”, after it heard arguments in the case on 11 May. More

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      Pence would be ‘best witness’ in Trump election conspiracy trial, attorney says

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      Donald Trump’s attorney has suggested that Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the “best witness” for the defence.In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, attorney John Lauro played down differences between the former president and Pence’s accounts of what happened in the run up to the January 6 2021 certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol that day.Asked on Face the Nation whether he feared that Pence would be called as a prosecution witness in the case, Lauro said: “No, no in fact, the vice-president will be our best witness.“There was a constitutional disagreement between the vice-president [Pence] and president Trump, but the bottom line is never, never in our country’s history, as those kinds of disagreements have been prosecuted criminally. It’s unheard of.”Earlier on Sunday, Pence – who is running against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – told CBS that he had “no plans” to testify for the prosecution. But he did not rule it out. In response to Lauro’s assertion last week that all Trump did was ask him to pause the certification, Pence said: “That’s not what happened.”Trump, the leading Republican contender in the 2024 presidential race, last week pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election by conspiring to block Congress from confirming Biden victory over him. He also pleaded not guilty to charges that he obstructed the certification by directing his supporters to descend on the Capitol on the day of the January 6th attack.He is also accused of – and has pleaded not guilty to – scheming to disrupt the election process and deprive Americans of their right to have their votes counted.Lauro slammed the indictment as politically motivated and full of holes.“This is what’s called a Swiss cheese indictment – so many holes that we’re going to be identifying,” Lauro said.Lauro suggested that his side would argue that Trump’s actions were protected by his constitutional right to free speech as well as presidential immunity.Taking aim at Biden, the Democratic incumbent, Lauro added: “This is the first time in history that a sitting president has used his justice department to go after a political opponent to knock him out of a race that creates grave constitutional problems.”Lauro confirmed that he planned to file a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charges, as well as another to transfer the case from Washington DC’s federal courthouse to one in West Virginia, a state where Trump won 69% of the votes in 2020, his second largest margin of victory in a state after Wyoming.“We would like a diverse venue and diverse jury to have an expectation that will reflect the characteristics of the American people,” he said. “I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Sunday, Trump took to the rightwing social media platform Truth Social to claim – again and without evidence – that he would not get a fair trial in Washington DC. He has repeatedly insulted the nation’s capital by calling it a swamp of radical liberals.Lauro was brought on to Trump’s legal team in mid-July. He has defended a string of controversial clients who include Dewayne Allen Levesque – manager of the Pink Pony nightclub in Florida who was acquitted of charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting prostitution – and the disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who admitted to taking payoffs from bookies in exchange for a one-year, three-month prison sentence.Trump will not accept a plea deal in the criminal conspiracy charges, Lauro told CBS.The charges which Lauro discussed Sunday are contained in one of three criminal indictments pending against the former president.He is also facing New York state charges related to hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels. And he also faces a separate federal indictment pertaining to his allegedly illegal hoarding of government secrets at his Florida resort after his presidency.Trump has pleaded not guilty in the two other cases against him as well.Shortly after Lauro made his remarks Sunday to CBS, the news network released a poll showing that a little more than half of Americans believe Trump tried to stay in office after losing to Biden through illegal and unconstitutional means. And most Americans see the charges pursued against Trump as attempts to defend democracy and uphold the rule of law, despite the former president’s insistence that he is being politically persecuted. More