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      Trump increases Republican primary lead despite swirling legal peril

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      Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.Yet a month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.DeSantis’s hard-right campaign is widely seen to be out of fuel and on a glide path to destruction. Trump dominates early voting states and in national averages leads the Florida governor by more than 30 points.Heading for trials in primary season, Trump denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. But his chaos-agent campaign, which he has said he will not abandon even if convicted and sentenced, does not just threaten the national peace. It threatens his own party.Trump is demanding Republican support for impeaching Joe Biden over corruption allegations against Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.Republicans hold the US House, where impeachment would start, by just five seats. GOP members in Democratic areas seem likely to suffer at the polls next year.“If they’re not willing to do it,” Trump said, “we’ve got a lot of good, tough Republicans around. People are going to run against ’em, and people are going to win. And they’re going to get my endorsement every single time. They’re going to win ’cause we win almost every race when we endorse.”Factcheckers dispute that. Surveying the 2022 midterms, the New York Times said: “Mr Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates, and his 82% success rate is, on the surface, impressive. But the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win.”The paper added: “In the 36 most competitive House races … Mr Trump endorsed candidates in five contests. All five lost.”Trump’s influence on key Senate races won by Democrats has been widely discussed.In Pennsylvania, Trump also called for conditioning aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia on White House cooperation with investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump’s own first impeachment was for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to uncover dirt on the Bidens. Pundits noted the irony.“So much for denying the quid pro quo, as he did in 2019,” said Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House correspondent.In that impeachment, Trump was acquitted when Republican senators stayed loyal, Mitt Romney of Utah the sole GOP vote to convict.Trump beat his second impeachment, for inciting the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, despite 10 House Republicans and seven senators voting to convict.Thousands have been arrested over the Capitol attack and hundreds convicted, some of seditious conspiracy. Smith, the special counsel, is homing in on indictments regarding Trump’s election subversion, though as the Guardian revealed, likely charges do not directly relate to January 6.In Fulton county, Willis, the district attorney, seems confident of winning convictions over attempts to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia.Speaking to WXIA, a CNN affiliate, she said: “I made a commitment to the American people – but most importantly the citizens of Fulton county – that we were going to be making some big decisions regarding the election investigation and that I would do that before 1 September 2023. I’m going to hold true to that commitment.“The work is accomplished. We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”Previous Trump indictments in New York and Washington have not fueled significant protests or violence. But in Atlanta, barriers surround the Fulton courthouse.“I think the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis said. “I’m not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm’s way.”In Georgia on Monday, a judge rejected Trump lawyers’ attempt to block use of a grand jury report in prosecutions and remove Willis from the case. In Florida, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate, made his first court appearance in the classified records case. He did not enter a formal plea.In general election polling, Biden and Trump are closely matched.On Sunday, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a rank Republican outsider, told CBS it was “inappropriate” to float a pardon for Trump, as other candidates, DeSantis included, have done.Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer who went to jail then turned on Trump, told MSNBC Trump’s likely nomination posed a genuine threat to the nation.“I’m your retribution,” Cohen said, quoting Trump’s message to supporters. “They’re indicting me, I’m protecting you, I’m the only one between you and them.“It’s right out of Mein Kampf, which allegedly Donald used to keep on his bedside table.”In 1990, Vanity Fair said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. Trump told the magazine it was Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. The friend who gave Trump the book said it was the speeches.Cohen continued: “This is not a joke. And to anybody who thinks for a quick second there’s no way he’s going to win, that was a pretty packed audience in Erie, Pennsylvania.” More

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      Biden administration trials website for new student loan repayment scheme

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      The Joe Biden White House is launching a beta – or testing – website as part of its new income-driven student loan repayment plan, according to reports.The site, which CNN first reported on Sunday, comes as part of the president’s Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan, which was announced earlier this year after the supreme court struck down an earlier iteration of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.According to the website, Save can “significantly” lower monthly payment amounts as compared to other income-driven repayment plans.“Part of the president’s overall commitment is to improve the student loan system and reduce the burden of student loan debt on American families,” a senior Biden administration official told CNN. “The Save plan is a big part of that. It is important in this moment as borrowers are getting ready to return to repayment.”CNN reported that administration officials estimate the plan enrollment process for federal student loan borrowers takes about 10 minutes on the website. The network added that borrowers will only be required to apply once, unlike previous systems that required yearly applications.This plan is expected to be “much easier to use”, officials told CNN.“We will be able to show borrowers their exact monthly payment amount and give them the ability to choose the most affordable repayment plan for them,” the outlet reports one official saying.The full website is expected to launch in August, with officials telling CNN that borrowers who submit their applications during the beta period will not be required to resubmit them.The Save plan, which will go into full effect on 1 July 2024, increases the income exception from 150% to 225% of the poverty line. Additionally, the plan intends to cut payments on undergraduate loans in half and ensure that borrowers “never see their balance grow as long as they keep up with their required payments,” the education department said.Moreover, a single borrower making less than $15 an hour will not be required to make any payments, it added.The website’s unveiling comes after the supreme court in June ruled against a $430bn student debt forgiveness plan from the Biden administration which was associated with the 2003 Heroes Act.Congress passed the Heroes Act in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US. But the supreme court ruled the act did not authorize Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan, dealing a blow to up to 40 million borrowers in the US.Biden then followed through on a promise to release a new relief plan under the Higher Education Act, which the supreme court’s ruling in June did not address. More

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      We bailed out the banks but we’re not prepared to bail out the planet

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      Like many other politicians, Joe Biden talks a good game about the need to tackle global heating. Climate change is an “existential threat”, the US president said last week, as America sizzled amid record-breaking temperatures.Biden had to do something in response to what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, described as the boiling of the planet. The White House announced a series of measures – such as improved access to drinking water and planting more trees – in response to what has been the hottest month on record.To Biden’s critics, this is fiddling while Rome burns. They say he should be declaring a climate emergency, which would allow him to block new fossil fuel projects without congressional approval. As it is, Biden has showed a marked reluctance to take this step. There are clearly limits to what the US government is prepared to do to counter this “existential threat”.It is a similar picture in the UK, where the Conservative party’s surprise victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection was in large part due to the plans by London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, to expand the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to the capital’s outer boroughs.Put simply, the Ulez seeks to improve London’s air quality by placing a charge on the use of older petrol and diesel vehicles, which tend to be not just the most polluting but also the most likely to be owned by poorer households already struggling with Britain’s cost of living crisis.The byelection defeat clearly rattled the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer. “We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour party end up on each and every Tory leaflet,” he said. “We’ve got to face up to that and learn the lessons.”In their different ways, recent events in the US and the UK show just how difficult it will be to put the global economy on a saner and more sustainable course.Problem number one is that politicians struggle to think beyond the next election. Biden is running for re-election next year, and Starmer wants to end a run of four successive defeats for Labour. The temptation to put off tough decisions to another day is powerful.That’s because of problem number two: the lack of consensus about what needs to be done and over what time period change needs to happen. What’s needed is for Democrats and Republicans in the US and Labour and the Conservatives in the UK to announce that they are jointly signed up to a course of action that will extend well beyond one presidential or parliamentary term. The failure to forge a bi-partisan approach provides an incentive for parties to look for short-term political gain, even when doing so risks longer-term harm.There’s a reason for that, namely that some of the policies required have upfront costs that make them unpopular for those that find them hard to bear. Telling a key worker who can only afford an ageing diesel car that they will have to pay £12.50 a day to drive to their job is never going to be easy, especially in a period when living standards are being squeezed. There is no getting away from the fact that the Ulez expansion is a regressive tax and, as Khan has found, changes that make hard-up people even worse off breed anger, and that anger will inevitably find a political outlet.So problem number three is that there are a lot of poor people in the UK and the US. And problem number four is that not nearly enough is being done to help these people make the green transition. For that to happen, there would need not just to be a recognition of the link between global heating and grotesque levels of inequality, but a willingness to do something about it.In the developed west, this means using the financial firepower of the state to reduce the number of losers from the green transition. In developing countries, it means transfers of both money and technical knowhow, so that countries that need growth as part of their anti-poverty programmes minimise the use of fossil fuels. Meeting the “existential” threat that Biden talks about requires action not just in the UK or the US but in China, India and other emerging countries, too. Climate action on a global scale will be costly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat brings us to problem number five. The change from one economic paradigm to another – the creative destruction that the political economist Joseph Schumpeter talked about – is hard because it requires those who have invested in existing industries to recognise that the game is up. This transition can be prolonged if those wedded to the status quo have invested huge sums and wield enormous power, as is the case with the fossil fuel industry.The solution to these problems lies ultimately in the hands of politicians such as Biden, because they alone have the power to remove barriers to change.As the rapid responses to the global financial crisis of 2007-09 and the Covid pandemic proved, governments can act speedily, collectively and decisively if the crisis is deemed big enough. When the banks were facing their existential crisis in 2008, money was created to bail them out and prevent a second Great Depression. In 2020, economies were effectively put on a war footing.Should the same approach be adopted in the fight against climate change? Yes. Is there any sign of this happening? Not on the scale required. Effectively, this is like the 1930s, when there was resistance to meeting the threat of fascism. Then, as now, what was needed was rapid rearmament. Then, as now, what we’re getting is a failure to do what needs to be done. More

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      Where did it all go right for Biden? Facts blunt Republican attack lines

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      It was the word that the far right of the Republican party most wanted to hear. Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives, said this week his colleagues’ investigations of Joe Biden are rising to the level of an “impeachment” inquiry.Republicans in Congress admit that they do not yet have any direct evidence of wrongdoing by the US president. But, critics say, there is a simple explanation why they would float the ultimate sanction: they need to put Biden’s character on trial because their case against his policies is falling apart.Heading into next year’s presidential election, Republicans have been readying a three-pronged attack: crime soaring in cities, chaos raging at the southern border and prices spiralling out of control everywhere. But each of these narratives is being disrupted by facts on the ground: crime is falling in most parts of the country, there is relative calm at the border and inflation is at a two-year low.“Republican talking points are having a really bad summer,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. “The core attacks against Biden are evaporating. The economy is strong. Inflation’s down. The deficit’s down. The Washington Post called the border ‘eerily quiet’. We’ve seen murder rates have come down dramatically this year. He’s been competently managing foreign policy.”Inflation has been a millstone around Biden’s neck. Last year the prices of gas, food and most other goods and services surged by 9%, a 40-year high that took a toll on households. Some economists blamed Biden for pumping more money into the economy than it could handle with a $1.9tn coronavirus relief package. The president pointed to other causes such as global supply chain issues, the pandemic, stimulus from the Federal Reserve and the Russian war in Ukraine.But now inflation is down to 3%, lower than in any other major economy, while unemployment has been below 4% for the longest stretch in half a century. Consumer sentiment is at its highest point in two years, according to a survey by the University of Michigan, while both Federal Reserve staff and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office now predict that America will avoid a recession.Crime, meanwhile, has been seen as a vulnerability for Democrats since the days of Republican Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign. Violent offences rose sharply in major cities during the coronavirus pandemic, loomed large during last year’s midterm elections and prompted a backlash against progressives pushing to “defund the police”.But a study of crime trends in 37 cities by the Council on Criminal Justice found that the number of murders in the first half of 2023 fell by 9.4% compared with the first half of 2022 (a decrease of 202 homicides in those cities). Gun assaults, robberies, burglaries and aggravated assaults were also down.Immigration is another quintessential line of attack for Republicans. There were dire predictions about what would happen when pandemic-era Title 42 restrictions were lifted in May. Yet last month, under a new rule that makes it harder to attain full asylum, illegal border crossings fell to the lowest level in more than two years and the issue quickly faded from the news agenda.Rosenberg added: “His argument for re-election has gotten much stronger over the last few months. It’s getting very unclear how the Republicans are going to go after his record as president and what it means is that you’re probably going to see in the short term a much more significant ratcheting up of attacks on him as a person or father and not as a president.”With the numbers trending in Biden’s direction, there may be greater incentive than ever for Republicans to focus instead on his age, his vice-president, Kamala Harris, his son Hunter Biden and the threat of impeachment over an alleged foreign bribery scheme for which they are yet to provide evidence. “Culture war” attacks around gender identity and “wokeness” could also intensify.Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, commented: “It’s not a coincidence that Kevin McCarthy is talking about impeachment. They thought they were going to have the economy. They thought they were going to have inflation … People have a generally decent opinion of Biden’s character so chipping away at that is a smart move if Trump is going to be your nominee.”Mocking the criticisms as “a fragmented grab-bag”, Andrew Bates, deputy press secretary at the White House, wrote in a memo on Wednesday: “At 8am, House Republicans are shouting something about drag queens (yeah, we don’t know); at 9am, it’s ‘Joe Biden’s still old and also he keeps outsmarting us’ (but actually); at 10am, it’s calling Ukraine a US adversary (we’re as confused as you are).“By the time 4 o’clock shows up, it’s a game of mad libs with bizarre conspiracies about the President’s family and then something about ‘wokeness’ (we keep asking them what ‘wokeness’ is, but then they leave the chat). Apparently, this clown carousel wasn’t weird enough. Now House Republicans are channeling their frustrated energy into a measured and purposeful urge to impeach … someone … somewhere … for something.”Republicans, however, deny the premise that they have already lost the battle of ideas. They contend that average hourly earnings (not adjusted for inflation) are now $33.58 and a gallon of gas costs $3.60, whereas in January 2021, when Trump left office, those figures were $29.92 and $2.39 respectively – meaning that a worker can afford less “gas for an hour of work” today than when Biden become president.Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said this week: “No matter how many ways administration officials spin the numbers, folks who work for a living and manage a family budget know that ‘Bidenomics’ has made their lives harder. They know that prices have risen 16.6% since the president took office because they feel it every time they pay their bills.”In addition, America’s immigration crisis is far from resolved. House Republicans describe Biden’s border policy as cruel, inhumane and ineffective and say illicit drugs are flowing into the country. They are continuing with a drive to lay the groundwork to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, over the “illegal immigration crisis”.Crime, while falling, also remains above levels seen before the pandemic and protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd. Motor vehicle theft rose by 33.5% in the first half of the year. Recent history suggests that Republicans will not hesitate to highlight particularly horrific incidents to whip up fear.Whit Ayres, a political consultant and pollster, said of the policy areas: “They may be moving in the right direction but they still are major problems from the perspective of Republican voters as well as a number of independents. We are a long way from having the border under control.“We’re a long way from having inflation back at the rate we became used to for quite a while. And crime remains a very significant problem in lots of American cities. So while each of those may not be quite as bad as they were, they are still very significant problems and likely to remain so through the election.”Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, agreed that it was too soon to say whether Biden will keep winning on policy. “It’s quite easily possible that inflation pops up, that the border gets worse – June tends to be a low month anyway – what’s it going to look like in September and October? Crime has always been more of a local issue. The argument has points but it’s way overstated at this point in the cycle.”If it comes down to a communications war, Democrats are far from assured of victory. Biden’s claims of success over two and a half years have often not translated to opinion polls. His public approval rating remained at 40% in early July, close to the lowest levels of his presidency, according to Reuters/Ipsos. The president is trying to break through the media noise with a series of public events trumpeting “Bidenomics”.Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns, said: “There’s a lag time so it’s going to take a while for people to fully feel it in their own lives. Now, the good news for Biden is he’s got a while. There were points in 1983 where Democrats were salivating to run against [Ronald] Reagan and, by 1984, the impact of the economy was being felt by people and Reagan went on to win 49 states, which you can’t do any more because we’re living in a very polarised environment.”Democrats have long been criticised for lacking clear messaging and a sense of swagger even when the statistics are on their side. But Biden did prosecute a successful case against Republicans in last year’s midterms over abortion rights and the threat of Maga [Make America great again] extremism. A rematch against Trump could make the choice unusually stark.Schiller, the political scientist at Brown University, said: “It’s definitely clear the Democrats do not know how to benefit from their own success in terms of messaging. They’re historically bad at it with the exception of Bill Clinton.“But the intrinsic tendency for Americans, at least up until this point, to go with the status quo incumbent administration when things are pretty good because they fear change I think still holds. So how much advertising Democrats have to do is unclear because people know things are good and Donald Trump represents chaos.”Earlier this week Biden poked fun at Republicans over the threats.Speaking at a manufacturing plant in Auburn, Maine, the president said: “While there is more work ahead, earlier this week, the Washington Post suggested Republicans may have to find something else to criticise me for now that inflation is coming down. Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down. I don’t know. I love that one.” More

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      US-Saudi talks amid reports of far-reaching diplomatic plan for Middle East

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      The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah, in what was reported to be part of a bid for an ambitious and far-reaching diplomatic breakthrough in the region.The White House said Sullivan and the prince discussed on Thursday “initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world”.A New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, said that based on an interview with Joe Biden last week, he believed Sullivan went to Jeddah to “explore the possibility of some kind of US-Saudi-Israeli-Palestinian understanding”.The deal would amount to a grand bargain involving a US-Saudi security pact and the normalisation of Saudi-Israel diplomatic relations, in which recognition of Israel would be exchanged, on Washington’s insistence, on some improvement in the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories, such as a halt to Jewish settlement building, and a promise never to annex the West Bank.Friedman said Biden had yet to make up his mind whether to proceed and the talks in Jeddah were exploratory. Any such deal, he said, would be “time-consuming, difficult and complex”.Bruce Riedel, a former CIA Middle East analyst and White House adviser, said the idea of such a multifaceted agreement was politically far-fetched.“The Saudis don’t want to see Joe Biden re-elected. They strongly prefer Donald Trump being back in the White House. He never questioned them on human rights issues, he supported the Yemen war 100%, he did nothing to them after [Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident] Jamal Khashoggi was murdered,” Riedel said.“So there is a big question mark about why would the Saudis do something which would be so beneficial to Joe Biden. I don’t see that in the works, and I would assume the Biden people are smart enough to recognise this.”Getting the Senate to approve a security pact with Saudi Arabia would also be extremely difficult. Republicans would not want to help Biden achieve diplomatic progress and most Democrats would resist US commitments to a Saudi monarchy with such a bad human rights record, and demand substantial gains for the Palestinians, which Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-rightwing Israeli government would not accept.Khaled Elgindy, a Palestinian expert at the Middle East Institute, said that the extremists in Netanyahu’s cabinet would “shoot down” proposals of a settlement freeze and territorial transfers within the West Bank to Palestinian Authority control, “never mind taking substantive steps toward a two-state solution, which is simply not on the table”.“The other aspect of this that I find unsettling is the way it totally sidesteps Palestinian interests and even Palestinian agency,” Elgindy said. “It’s like we’ve gone back to the days when the US, Israel and Arab states could decide the fate of Palestinians without any Palestinian involvement. This alone should disqualify it from being taken seriously – but of course it won’t.”Friedman said Saudi demands would include guarantees that the US would come to the kingdom’s defence if attacked, that Washington would allow a US-monitored Saudi civil nuclear programme, and that the kingdom could buy an advanced US air defence system, Thaad.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMatt Duss, former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, called the first demand a “non-starter” and the second and third “very bad ideas”.“Biden is weighing a world historical sucker’s bet,” Duss said on social media.Kirsten Fontenrose, a former senior director for the Gulf at the national security council during the Donald Trump administration, was also pessimistic about the chances for success.“I expect the Palestinian Authority to refuse to recognise a Saudi-Israel peace deal … the Israeli government to refuse a promise never to annex; the US Congress to refuse a collective defense pact with Saudi Arabia; the Saudi leadership to refuse to agree publicly never to weaponise their nuclear programme as long as Iran is close to doing so,” Fontenrose said. Riedel said there were more modest diplomatic gains to be won from engagement with the Saudi leadership, such as a further winding down of the conflict in Yemen, and Saudi aid to the occupied territories in the effort to forestall a third intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the expansion of settlements and other measures from an extreme Israeli government.The White House said that in his Jeddah talks, Sullivan had “reviewed significant progress to build on the benefits of the truce in Yemen that have endured over the past 16 months and welcomed ongoing UN-led efforts to bring the war to a close”. More

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      Trump says lawyers were given no indication of looming indictment from DoJ – live

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      From 4h agoDonald Trump said his attorneys had a “productive” meeting with the Department of Justice this morning, and that “no indication of notice” was given during the meeting.Posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote:
      My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting — Do not trust the Fake News on anything!
      It was reported earlier today that Trump’s lawyers were seen entering the offices of special counsel Jack Smith, a week after the former president said he had received a target letter from Smith. According to NBC, Trump’s attorneys were told to expect an indictment against him.The grand jury conducting special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss has left the federal courthouse in Washington.Just before 3pm EST, a deputy clerk at the courthouse told journalists that no indictments had been returned on Thursday and that none were expected by the end of the day.According to a Politico report, anticipation was palpable at the courthouse throughout the day.
      Throngs of journalists crowded hallways and looked for signs of movement in the vicinity of the courthouse’s sealed grand jury spaces. Trump’s announcement that his lawyers had met with Smith’s team earlier in the day further fueled speculation that an indictment was imminent.
      The media encampment outside the D.C. courthouse continued to grow through the day Thursday, despite the sweltering heat.
      Vice-President Kamala Harris expressed deep concern over the attempted army coup in Niger during a call with Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, the White House said in a statement.The statement reads:
      The vice president strongly condemned any efforts to seize power by force in Niger, and emphasized that our substantial cooperation with the government of Niger is contingent on Niger’s continued commitment to democratic standards.
      Harris and Tinubu committed to “defending democracy” in west Africa and the Sahel, it said.Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, remained held in the presidential palace this afternoon and it was unclear who had taken charge of the country, after a group of soldiers declared a military coup on Wednesday evening.Rightwingers have long cried foul over Hunter Biden’s treatment by federal authorities.The pardon power is established in article 2 of the US constitution, which says the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.The use of the pardon power has become increasingly controversial; presidents including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump having bestowed pardons and acts of clemency on donors and supporters.Trump was widely reported to have considered whether he could pardon himself, on issues including alleged collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 election.Trump also reportedly explored the idea of giving preemptive pardons to family members, another step he did not ultimately take.Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter on tax- and gun-related charges, the White House said on Thursday.At a briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked: “From a presidential perspective, is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?”“No,” Jean-Pierre replied. Pressed, she said:
      I just said no. I answered.
      In court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to two tax charges, both misdemeanours. He had been expected to plead guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that also included a pre-trial diversion program on the guns charge, a felony.Donald Trump confirmed earlier today that his lawyers met with officials at the office of special prosecutor Jack Smith in Washington DC.Trump’s attorneys attended the meeting not to argue the facts of the case against indicting the former president, but instead with a broader appeal that indicting him would only cause more turmoil in the country’s political environment, CNN is reporting, citing two sources.In other justice department news, the Guardian’s Erum Salam reports that it will investigate Memphis’s police department after the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of officers earlier this year:The US Department of Justice has announced an investigation into the city of Memphis and the Memphis police department over its policing practices to examine if they are discriminatory.The civil pattern or practice investigation will determine if Memphis police violated federal laws or the US constitution. The announcement comes after the police department came under scrutiny for its use of force, stops, searches and arrests that often targeted people of color.One of these instances involved Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died on 10 January, three days after an encounter with Memphis police during a traffic stop in which he was violently beaten.Republican senator Ted Cruz gave a taste of how Donald Trump’s defenders could react if special counsel Jack Smith indicts the former president over his involvement in the January 6 insurrection:Here are his comments to the conservative Newsmax network:In the House, Republicans vowed that today would be the day they vote to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt, but then changed their mind. The Guardian’s Mary Yang reports on why:Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, is no stranger to Capitol Hill, where he has sparred with Republicans and Democrats over how he runs his platforms. A Republican-led panel was set to vote on Thursday on a resolution to hold him in contempt of Congress, for allegedly failing to turn over internal documents on content moderation.However, House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, a Republican of Ohio, temporarily suspended the vote.Jordan announced on Twitter that the committee “decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now” and posted a series of tweets of alleged internal communications among Meta executives hours ahead of the hearing.A day after Hunter Biden’s agreement with prosecutors to resolve federal charges was upended by a judge, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden would not consider pardoning his son, CNN reports:Yesterday, federal judge Maryellen Noreika unexpectedly rejected a deal that would have seen Hunter Biden plead guilty to charges related to failure to pay taxes, and enter a diversion program to resolve lying in a background check to purchase a firearm. Prosecutors and Biden’s attorneys are now expected to negotiate a new agreement that will address concerns Noreika raised about the orgininal’s scope, and present it to the judge within 30 days.Republicans have for years seized on Biden’s history of addiction and troubled business dealings to argue that both he and his father are corrupt, though they have struggled to find proof of their allegations.The wait to find out whether Donald Trump will be charged over the January 6 insurrection continues, as Politico reports that the federal court in Washington DC says no indictments are expected to be filed today: More

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      White House rules out Joe Biden pardon for son Hunter

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      Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter on tax- and gun-related charges, the White House said on Thursday.At a briefing, the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked: “From a presidential perspective, is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?”“No,” Jean-Pierre replied.Pressed, she said: “I just said no. I answered.”In court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to two tax charges, both misdemeanours. He had been expected to plead guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors also including a pre-trial diversion program on the guns charge, a felony.In the event, a question from the judge about the scope of the deal led to its delay.Republicans claim Hunter Biden’s business affairs, and personal problems including public struggles with addiction, show Joe Biden to be corrupt and worthy of impeachment.Rightwingers have long cried foul over the younger Biden’s treatment by federal authorities.The pardon power is established in article 2 of the US constitution, which says the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.The use of the pardon power has become increasingly controversial, presidents including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump having bestowed pardons and acts of clemency on donors and supporters.Trump was widely reported to have considered whether he could pardon himself, on issues including alleged collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 election.Trump also reportedly explored the idea of giving pre-emptive pardons to family members, another step he did not ultimately take.Now, Trump faces 71 criminal indictments and the prospect of more. As he seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, most observers expect his lawyers to seek to draw out such legal battles in the hope he or another Republican in the White House will seize the pardon power.State-level indictments, however, are not subject to presidential pardons. In New York, Trump faces 34 criminal charges over hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election. In Georgia, he is expected to be indicted over his election subversion in 2020.On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre told reporters Hunter Biden was “a private citizen”, and called his legal problems “a personal matter for him”.“As we have said, the president [and] the first lady, they love their son, and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life. This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the justice department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president.”Biden has used the pardon power sparingly, focusing largely on convictions for offenses relating to drugs.In four years in office, Trump issued 143 pardons and 94 commutations. Many were highly controversial, including pardons for his advisers Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.The Pew Research Center, however, points out that an analysis of justice department data shows Trump “used his executive clemency power less frequently than nearly every other president since the turn of the 20th century”. More

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      Biden announces new measures to protect Americans from extreme heat

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      Joe Biden announced new steps on Thursday to help Americans face the “existential threat of climate change” and extreme heat.“We want the American people to know help is here, and we’re gonna make it available to anyone who needs it,” the president said, speaking in a summer of record-breaking temperatures in the US and globally.The new measures will shield workers from high temperatures, improve weather forecasting, strengthen access to drinking water and otherwise improve heat resilience, Biden said.Experts described the measures as positive but modest, and the president stopped short of declaring a climate emergency or directly addressing the need to phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.Biden directed the Department of Labor to issue a hazard alert for workplaces such as farms and construction sites, where workers face a higher risk amid high temperatures. Heat has killed 436 workers since 2011, according to federal statistics.Sectors including agriculture and construction also frequently see heat-related safety violations, so the labor department will also increase its inspections of high-risk workplaces, Biden said. He also took a veiled swipe at Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, who this year banned his state’s municipalities from requiring workers be offered water breaks.“We should be protecting workers from hazardous conditions and we will, and those states where they do not, I’m going to be calling them out,” Biden said, later adding that when he played football as a young man, coaches would be fired for refusing players water breaks.The president also said the US Forest Service will award more than $1bn in grants to help cities and towns plant trees, “so families have a place to go to cool off”. Tree coverage can help lower temperatures in urban areas by more than 15 degrees fahrenheit.Biden added that the Department of Housing and Urban Development had set aside billions to help communities make their buildings more energy efficient and to open cooling centers. And he said the Department of Interior was boosting funding to “expand water storage capacity in the western states”, referring to the earmarking of $152m for water storage and pipelines for the drought-stricken western states, according to the White House.Biden also highlighted $7m in funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will use to improve weather forecasts, thereby improving preparedness for extreme weather like heatwaves.The press conference, held from a White House auditorium, came as nearly 40% of Americans face heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service.The president was joined virtually by mayors of Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas, which have both roasted under scorching temperatures this summer.Phoenix has experienced 27 consecutive days where temperatures crossed 110F (43C), while San Antonio saw temperatures cross 100F (38C) on at least 15 straight days.“We feel like we are very much on the frontlines of climate change,” said Phoenix’s mayor, Kate Gallego.Gallego has been pushing Congress to pass a bill adding extreme heat to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s list of major disaster qualifying events, which would allow states to be reimbursed opening cooling centers, distributing water and otherwise tackling high temperatures.“We would love it if Congress would give you the ability to declare heat a disaster,” she said on Thursday.San Antonio’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg, touted the steps his city is taking to promote climate action, including boosting public transit and solar energy production.“Thankfully, sustainability and green energy are no longer four-letter words in the state of Texas,” he said.The nation’s capital is experiencing its own heat crisis, with officials warning that temperatures this week could exceed 100F (37.8C) for the first time in seven years. Oppressive heat is expected to spread into the midwest and north-east in the coming days.Heat is the “number one weather-related killer” in the US, Biden said.“Six hundred people die annually from its effects – more than from floods, hurricanes and tornadoes in America combined,” he said.Thursday’s announcement followed other heat-related measures from the White House. Last year, federal officials launched the interagency heat-focused website Heat.gov. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) also announced it was developing a heat standard for workers, but it could take years to finalize.Juley Fulcher, a health and safety advocate at the non-profit Public Citizen, said that while Thursday’s heat hazard alert reaffirmed existing federal heat-related protections, the new rule is crucial to expanding those measures.“Without a rule, Osha is in a very difficult position trying to hold employers accountable,” she said. “It must be a priority.”Industry interests are attempting to stall the rule’s completion, she said. On Wednesday, legislators introduced a bill which would require Osha to issue an interim rule.Climate activist Jamie Henn, who founded Fossil Free Media and previously co-founded 350.org, said Thursday’s announcements were insufficient. He noted that the president had failed to declare a federal climate emergency, which could allow him to speed the energy transition and block fossil fuel projects without congressional approval.“Addressing extreme heat will require us to stop pouring fuel on the flames,” said Henn.On Thursday, federal officials are expected to greenlight the expansion of a gas liquefaction and export terminal in Port Arthur, Texas, enabling the equivalent of 698bn cubic feet of the planet-heating fuel to be exported each year for three decades.“Stop approving and subsidizing projects which will increase climate-changing carbon in our atmosphere that’s fueling this extreme weather,” said John Beard, the chief executive of Port Arthur Community Action Network. More