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      Judge imposes gag order on Trump in hush-money trial – as it happened

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      The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.The supreme court heard arguments in a case brought by a conservative group that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone. The justices seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its health risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions, after an attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against it could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
      Donald Trump is reportedly prohibited from attacking witnesses, prosecutors or jurors in his trial on hush money-related charges under a gag order handed down by judge Juan Merchan.
      Robert F Kennedy Jr announced attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in an event in Oakland, California.
      Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
      Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
      A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
      Donald Trump-supporting Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc unleashed an attack on Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he announces Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking. It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate,” said spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer.Third party candidates with dedicated followings can add an element of unpredictability to tight presidential races – just ask Al Gore. But despite Team Trump’s vitriol, polls have shown Kennedy may sap support from Biden in states where he’s on the ballot.The Democratic National Committee has gone on the attack against Kennedy’s campaign, including by filing a complaint accusing him of improperly coordinating with a political action committee:Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced attorney and wealthy philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.He made the announcement in Oakland, California, at an event attended by hundreds of supporters, as well as protesters outraged by his opposition to vaccines.Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, said she disagrees with many of Kennedy’s ideas, and was particularly enraged by his opposition to vaccines.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.”Kennedy supporter Marilyn Chin, 71, said she voted Democrat for most of her life, but is now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”In seeking a gag order against Donald Trump, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued the former president had a “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him”, the New York Times reports.Judge Juan Merchan agreed, writing in the order that, “his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”The Times notes that earlier today, Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen “death”, in a post on Truth Social – just the sort of statement that Merchan’s gag order is meant to prohibit.The supreme court heard arguments in a case that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone, and seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions. An attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against the drug could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry, while an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
      Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
      Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
      A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
      The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.Liz Cheney, the Donald Trump foe who ended up being forced out of Congress due to her opposition to the former president, also described NBC’s elevation of McDaniel as a danger, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.“She spread his lies and called January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’. That’s not ‘taking one for the team’. It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”McDaniel rose in Republican politics as a member of the powerful Romney family before reportedly dropping the name at Trump’s behest and becoming RNC chair in 2017.In February 2022, the RNC said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the other anti-Trump Republican on the committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.Cheney lost her seat in Congress that year. Kinzinger chose to retire. McDaniel was eased out of the RNC last month, to be replaced in part by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.The White House said that meetings over the last two days between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have been “productive”.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday canceled a high-level delegation from Israel to the White House to discuss Rafah, with the visit meant to take place today. He withdrew his agreement for talks after the US abstained from – rather than vetoed – a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.Gallant was already in Washington for longer-planned talks at a lower level. Meanwhile, in the Middle East earlier today, Israel recalled its negotiators from Doha, in Qatar, after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, Reuters reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters board Air Force One moments ago: “We are committed to supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas … We cannot expect Israel to live under active threat.” She added that it was critical for Israel to do “whatever is possible” to protect civilians in Rafah.There, about 1.7 million Palestinians are trapped under Israeli siege and suffering bombardment and food deprivation as international talks about a ceasefire and access for more aid founder.Aid agencies and international bodies including United Nations officials have said that people stranded further north in Gaza are on the brink of famine.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has just been speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina.Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, are holding a joint event there to talk about healthcare.Reporters were firing off their questions, in a short gaggle on a short flight. Jean-Pierre is confirming the US president’s position is he will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.She’s being asked about the state of US infrastructure but emphasizes that although the government pledges to work with Congress for funding to rebuild the bridge, the search and rescue effort that’s still under way in Baltimore is the main focus.Here’s what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder had to say about the danger of NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, as told by the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:The former Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.“What NBC has done is they’ve invited into what should be a normal framework someone who doesn’t believe that framework should exist at all,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and author of On Tyranny, told MSNBC, part of the network now employing McDaniel.“What NBC has done of its own volition is bring into a very important conversation about democracy, one which is going to take place for the next seven months or so, someone who … tried to disassemble our democracy. Who personally took part in an attempt to undo the American system.”NBC announced the hire on Friday. Carrie Budoff Brown, the senior vice-president for politics, said McDaniel would contribute analysis “across all NBC News platforms”.On Sunday, McDaniel told Meet the Press Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”, adding that she did “not think violence should be in our political discourse”.NBC News will drop former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel after an outcry from its top talent over her promotion of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, Puck reports:McDaniel’s hiring by the network attracted criticism from former lawmakers and historians, who argued they were elevating a voice who had helped Trump attack US democracy. On Sunday, McDaniel acknowledged that the 2020 election had not been stolen, though maintained it was acceptable to say there were “problems” with the vote:Joe Biden did not say when he expected the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt or, more crucially for the nation’s economy, the port of Baltimore to be able to resume operations.The president also gave no update on the six people still missing from the collapse, but said the search and rescue operation to find them is a “top priority”.For the latest on this developing story, follow our live blog:Joe Biden says he has instructed the federal government to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and reopen its economically vital port.The government will also cover the cost of the reconstruction, the president added in a speech from the White House.“I’m directing my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said.“We’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort. It’s gonna take some time, and people of Baltimore can count on us so to stick with them at every step of the way till the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”The port is currently closed due to the span’s collapse, which occurred early this morning after the cargo ship Dali collided with it. The president noted that 15,000 workers rely on the its operations, and “we’re gonna do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers”.As we wait for Joe Biden to begin his speech on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, here are some scenes from earlier today in Baltimore: More

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      One Way Back review: Christine Blasey Ford faces down Brett Kavanaugh again

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      In September 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified that Brett Kavanaugh, then an intermediate appellate judge nominated by Donald Trump to the US supreme court, sexually assaulted her 36 years earlier when they were high school students, fixtures of the suburban-DC country club set.“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford, then 51, told the Washington Post. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”Kavanaugh vehemently denied it. He also professed his penchants for suds.“We drank beer … I liked beer,” the judge memorably told Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, at his Senate hearing. Pressed by Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota over whether he had ever blacked out because of drinking beer, Kavanaugh ratcheted up the heat. On SNL, Matt Damon memorialized the rabid performance. PJ, Squi, Handsy Hank and Gang-Bang Greg: all are now part of TV lore. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh anyway, 50-48, a party-line vote.Ford now returns to retell her story, in One Way Back: A Memoir. In essence, she dares Kavanaugh to sue her for defamation. Both know truth constitutes an absolute defense.Kavanaugh is not a “consummately honest person”, Ford writes. “The fact is, he was there in the room with me that night in 1982. And I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know.”Ensconced on the high court, Kavanaugh holds his peace.Ford is a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a faculty member of Stanford medical school. She is an avid surfer. Metallica is her favourite band. She invokes personal circumstance to explain why she delayed coming forward, electing not to bring her story to the attention of law enforcement as Kavanaugh rose in the Washington legal firmament.“Honestly, if it hadn’t been the supreme court – if my attacker had been running for a local office, for example – I probably wouldn’t have said anything,” Ford writes, adding that this is “a sad, scary thing to admit”.From Kavanaugh’s clerkship to Anthony Kennedy, his immediate predecessor on the supreme court, to his time in the White House of George W Bush and on the US court of appeals, Ford stayed silent. Even with her explanation, the reader is left wondering why.Ford also sheds light on her own college days.“I’d tried mushrooms and pot occasionally before, but now also explored MDMA, which helped me get outside of myself,” she writes, adding: “At the time, I just knew that they seemed to call bullshit on everything, including my self-esteem issues … I never got into anything harder, since cocaine didn’t help with my anxiety and heroin never crossed my path until I was out of college, and by that point I’d kind of missed the window of experimentation that heroin would have required.”Should any rightwingers seeking vengeance think of pouncing on such admissions, it should be noted that Trumpworld is littered with tales of drugs and alcohol. Consider the very public cases of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, and Ronny Jackson, the Trump White House physician turned congressman from Texas. The GOP likes to hound Hunter Biden, who has struggled with addiction. But he never held office.For Ford, the Kavanaugh confirmation fight took a heavy personal toll. There were threats on her person and family. There were wounds to her psyche. One day, she recalls, she stared at a construction site and imagined it to be a Lego set. “That’s so cool,” she thought. “I wish I was a construction worker. Perhaps people were right. Perhaps I was crazy.”Ford writes favorably of meeting Anita Hill, the staffer who in 1991 confronted Clarence Thomas over his alleged sexual harassment, stoking another epically nasty supreme court nomination fight. Like Kavanaugh, Thomas was confirmed. In 2019, in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh fight, Hill told Ford time can help salve wounds.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFord’s politics shade left. In One Way Back, she records her satisfaction with the “blue wave” of 2018, “progressive wins” and in particular the victory in a New York House race that year of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, praises One Way Back on its jacket. So does Hill.Kavanaugh is a consequential and controversial figure. In 2022, he cast his lot with four other conservatives in Dobbs v Jackson, voting to overturn Roe v Wade. Those five justices eviscerated the concept of a constitutionally protected right to privacy. In a separate concurrence, Kavanaugh said that in doing so the court had not undercut precedents protecting contraception, interracial marriage and same-sex unions. Other justices differed.The tremors of Dobbs reverberate across the political divide. In the 2022 midterms, a much-anticipated red wave failed to materialize, thanks in part to Dobbs. In reliably Republican Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, voters have conferred legal protections for abortion rights.On Capitol Hill, Pelosi’s successors as House speaker are also subject to the whims of Republican zealots. Kevin McCarthy is no longer even a congressman. Mike Johnson holds the gavel by the narrowest of margins. In February, Democrats flipped the seat previously held by George Santos, the indicted fabulist. Postmortems found that abortion rights played an outsized role in that Republican defeat. The threat of a national abortion ban drove voters to the polls. For the moment, for Democrats, Dobbs is a gift that keeps on giving – thanks to Kavanaugh and co.“I’d like to believe we’re in the middle of a revolution that will only be recognizable in the years to come,” Ford writes.Maybe sooner than that.
      One Way Back: A Memoir is published in the US by Macmillan More

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      Defendants can appeal decision to keep Fani Willis on Trump case, judge rules

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      The judge overseeing the election interference criminal case against Donald Trump and others in Georgia on Wednesday ruled that the defendants can appeal the decision last week to allow the prosecutor Fani Willis to remain on the case despite a past romantic relationship with her deputy.Last Friday the judge, Scott McAfee, in Georgia ruled that the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, could continue to head the prosecution of Trump for trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election in the state, as long as the top deputy agreed to step down.The deputy, the special prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom Willis had a romantic relationship, resigned on Friday, clearing the way for Willis to continue.Now the judge will allow an appeal, according to a new court filing.Reuters contributed reportingskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore details soon … More

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      Trump lawyers say he can’t post bond covering $454m civil fraud judgment

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump said on Monday he could not post a bond covering the full amount of the $454m civil fraud judgment against him while he appeals the New York ruling, because to do so was “a practical impossibility” after 30 surety companies turned him down.In a court filing seeking a stay on the payment, which is due on 25 March, lawyers for the former president and this fall’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee quoted Gary Giulietti, an executive with the insurance brokerage Lockton Companies, which Trump hired to help get a bond.The filing said: “Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is ‘a practical impossibility’.”In an affidavit, Giulietti said few bonding companies would consider issuing a bond of the size required. The bonding companies that might issue such a huge bond would not “accept hard assets such as real estate as collateral” but “will only accept cash or cash equivalents (such as marketable securities)”, Giulietti wrote.“A bond of this size is rarely if ever seen. In the unusual circumstance that a bond of this size is issued, it is provided to the largest public companies in the world, not to individuals or privately held businesses.”Trump maintains he is worth several billion dollars and testified last year that he had about $400m in cash, in addition to properties and other investments.In January, a jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3m – on top of $5m awarded by a jury last year – to the writer E Jean Carroll, for defaming her after she accused him of sexual assault in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, a claim a judge called “substantially true”. Trump posted a bond for that amount as he appeals.The civil fraud case against Trump was brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James.Trump also faces an unprecedented slate of criminal charges: 14 for subversion of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden, 34 over hush-money payments and 40 regarding his retention of classified documents.Nonetheless, the 77-year-old dominated the Republican presidential primary and is poised to face Biden at the polls again in November, even as his legal problems deepen.In the New York civil fraud case, the judge, Arthur Engoron, ruled in February that Trump, his company and top executives – including his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr – schemed for years to deceive banks and insurers by inflating financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.Among other penalties, Engoron put strict limitations on the ability of the Trump Organization to do business.James, a Democrat, has said she will seek to seize assets if Trump is unable to pay the judgment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWith interest, Trump and co-defendants including his company and top executives owe $467.3m. To obtain a bond, Trump lawyers said, they would be required to post collateral worth $557m.“A bond requirement of this enormous magnitude – effectively requiring cash reserves approaching $1bn – is unprecedented for a private company,” the Monday filing said.“Even when it comes to publicly traded companies, courts routinely waive or reduce the bond amount. Enforcing an impossible bond requirement as a condition of appeal would inflict manifest irreparable injury.”In February, a state appeals court judge ruled that Trump must post a bond covering the full amount to pause enforcement of the judgment. Trump is asking a full panel of the state’s intermediate appellate court to stay that judgment while he appeals. His lawyers previously proposed a $100m bond – an offer rejected by an appeals court judge, Anil Singh.Trump first appealed on 26 February, his lawyers asking the court to decide if Engoron “committed errors of law and/or fact” and if he abused his discretion or “acted in excess” of his jurisdiction.Trump was not required to pay his penalty or post a bond in order to appeal. Filing the appeal did not automatically halt enforcement of the judgment. Trump would receive an automatic stay if he were to put up money, assets or an appeal bond covering what he owes.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Fani Willis accepts resignation of deputy Nathan Wade in Trump Georgia case

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      The Fulton county district attorney on Friday formally accepted the resignation of her top deputy with whom she had a romantic relationship, ensuring she would continue to prosecute the criminal case against Donald Trump over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.The move by Fani Willis came shortly after the judge overseeing the case ruled that the relationship had created enough of a distraction that either Willis or the deputy, Nathan Wade, needed to step down.The choice to step down was straightforward and expected, and Wade submitted his resignation to allow Willis to stay on as lead prosecutor against Trump and dozens of allies indicted on charges of violating Georgia’s state racketeering statute.“You led a team that secured a true bill of indictment against nineteen individuals who are accused of violating Georgia law to undermine the 2020 election for the former President of the United States,” Willis wrote in a letter obtained by the Guardian.“Please accept my sincere gratitude on behalf of the citizens of Fulton county, Georgia, for your patriotism, courage, and dedication to justice. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.”The ruling by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee stopped short of disqualifying Willis, which Trump and his co-defendants had sought over allegations that the relationship was a conflict of interest.The decision avoided catastrophe for Willis. An order removing her and her office from the case would have almost certainly delayed the prosecution significantly during reassignment to another prosecutor in Georgia, who might have opted to toss the charges altogether.Although the judge found the evidence insufficient to disqualify her from bringing the case, he was unsparing in his criticism of the way Willis so casually handled the relationship and the manner of her testimony on the witness stand during a series of hearings on the matter.The Wade-Willis relationship amounted to such a fatal appearance of impropriety that one of the pair needed to resign even if no actual conflict of interest existed, the judge wrote, making clear that the commingling of personal and professional relations was untenable.Shortly after Willis announced that she had accepted Wade’s resignation, Trump went on his Truth Social site and said the development was “BIG STUFF”.“The Fani Willis lover, Mr Nathan Wade Esq, has just resigned in disgrace,” Trump wrote, among other things.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump co-defendant Michael Roman in January moved to disqualify Willis because of her relationship with Wade, which at the time was not publicly known. Willis and Wade admitted to having a relationship but said it did not begin until after Wade had been hired to work on the Trump case in 2022.The case being led by Willis’s office contains only some of the dozens of criminal charges against Trump for subversion of his failed 2020 re-election run, retention of classified documents and hush-money payments. In civil litigation, Trump has been found liable of sexual abuse of writer E Jean Carroll and has been adjudicated as having committed business fraud.Trump nonetheless has secured the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Joe Biden for a second presidency in November. More

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      Key takeaways from Georgia judge’s ruling on Fani Willis’s role in Trump case

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      The Georgia judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state on Friday declined to remove Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, from leading the prosecution, finding there was no conflict of interest stemming from her romantic relationship with her top deputy.But the judge, Scott McAfee, ruled the relationship had the “appearance of impropriety” and gave Willis a choice: either she could step down, or the deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, could do so. Wade resigned just hours later.Nonetheless, the prosecution against Trump will be one that is deeply politically damaged, especially due to the scathing criticism of her by McAfee.Here are the top takeaways from the 23-page ruling:Willis can continue with the prosecutionThe principal result of the judge’s decision is that Willis can stay on the case, along with her other top deputies and line attorneys who have lived and breathed the Trump Rico case for years as they combed through the evidence and presented the evidence to the grand jury.There had been no showing that the Willis-Wade relationship violated the Trump defendants’ rights or hurt them in any way, the judge wrote, and disqualifying Willis was unnecessary when she could simply have Wade step down.The fear with this disqualification motion brought by Trump’s co-defendant Mike Roman was that if Willis was removed, it would also disqualify her entire office and have the case referred to a council of prosecutors which, in theory, could have seen the end of the case.But that is not happening. In many ways, the judge gave Willis a straightforward choice in a balanced opinion. There were two ways to cure the appearance of impropriety – either Willis went or Wade went – and the judge left it up to Willis to decide how to set things straight.No financial gain as alleged by Trump“The evidence demonstrated that the financial gain flowing from her relationship with Wade was not a motivating factor on the part of the district attorney to indict and prosecute this case,” McAfee wrote.That finding was notable because the whole theory of the conflict of interest allegation, as put forward by the Trump defendants, was that Willis was involved in some kickback scheme whereby her relationship with Wade meant she was obtaining an unlawful benefit.And while the judge wrote that Willis’s claim that she and Willis reimbursed each other for personal expenses was unusual and understandably concerning, the evidence did not show it was so incredible that it was inherently unbelievable.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBrutal criticism for Willis“This finding is by no means an indication that the court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the district attorney’s testimony during the evidentiary hearing,” McAfee wrote.Although the judge found the evidence was insufficient to disqualify her from bringing the case, he was unsparing in his deep criticism of the way that Willis so casually handled the relationship and the manner of her testimony on the witness stand.The Wade-Willis relationship still amounted to such a fatal appearance of impropriety that one of the pair needed to resign even if no actual conflict of interest existed, the judge wrote, making clear the commingling of personal and professional relations was untenable.Willis may face a gag order“The court cannot find that this speech crossed the line to the point where the defendants have been denied the opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial, or that it requires the district attorney’s disqualification. But it was still legally improper,” McAfee wrote.Trump’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, had additionally asked the judge to remove Willis because of a speech she gave that complained vaguely about the disqualification motion, decrying the use of the “the race card” – which Sadow argued inflamed racial animus inappropriately.While the judge found Willis’s remarks did not amount to trying the case in public, he condemned the speech and suggested he might be prepared to issue a gag order against the district attorney’s office to prevent further public commentary. More

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      Judge dismisses six charges against Trump and defendants in Georgia election case

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      The Georgia judge overseeing the election-interference case against Donald Trump and 14 defendants dismissed six of the charges in the wide-ranging indictment on Wednesday, saying they were not detailed enough.One of the many crimes Trump and some of the co-defendants in the case were charged with was soliciting officials in Georgia to violate their oath of office. Those charges were dismissed. The other charges in the case against Trump and other defendants remain.More details soon … More

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      Brett Kavanaugh knows truth of alleged sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford says in book

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      The US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh is not a “consummately honest person” and “must know” what really happened on the night more than 40 years ago when he allegedly sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser writes in an eagerly awaited memoir.A research psychologist from northern California, Ford was thrust into the spotlight in September 2018 as Kavanaugh, a Bush aide turned federal judge, became Donald Trump’s second conservative court nominee. Her allegations almost derailed Kavanaugh’s appointment and created headlines around the world.Ford’s memoir, One Way Back, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.“The fact is, he was there in the room with me that night in 1982,” Ford writes. “And I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know.“Once he categorically denied my allegations as well as any bad behavior from his past during a Fox News interview, I felt more certainty than ever that after my experience with him, he had not gone on to become the consummately honest person befitting a supreme court justice.”Kavanaugh’s nomination became mired in controversy after a Washington Post interview in which Ford said Kavanaugh, while drunk, sexually assaulted her at a party in Montgomery county, Maryland, when they were both in high school.“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford, then 51, told the Post. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”Kavanaugh vehemently denied the accusation, helping fuel hearing-room rancor not seen since the 1991 confirmation of Clarence Thomas, a rightwinger accused of sexually harassing a co-worker, Anita Hill.Supported by Republicans and Trump, Kavanaugh rode out the storm to join Thomas on the court. Trump would later add another conservative, Amy Coney Barrett, tipping the court 6-3 to the right. That court has since passed down major rightwing rulings, most prominently removing the federal right to abortion.In her book, Ford says she thought Kavanaugh might “step down to avoid putting his family through an investigation or further scrutiny”, adding that she wanted to tell him he should “save us both the trouble”, because “I don’t want this as much as you don’t want this”.She has been asked, she says, what she would have done if Kavanaugh had “reached out and apologised”.She writes: “Who would he be apologising to – me? The country? What would he be apologising for – that night? The harassment [of Ford by Trump supporters] around the testimony?“All I can guess is that if he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general … I might’ve wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know what, he was a jackass in high school but now he’s not.’“But when my story came out and he flat-out denied any possibility of every single thing I said, it did alleviate a little of my guilt. For me, the question of whether he had changed was answered. Any misgivings about him being a good person went away.”Ford says she decided to press through the difficulties of coming forward – meeting Democratic senators opposed to Kavanaugh, being grilled by Republicans supporting him, becoming famous herself – because of the importance of the court.She writes: “Honestly, if it hadn’t been the supreme court – if my attacker had been running for a local office, for example – I probably wouldn’t have said anything.Calling this “a sad, scary thing to admit”, Ford adds: “But this was a job at one of our most revered institutions, which we have historically held in the highest esteem. That’s what I learned at school.”Saying she was “thinking and behaving according to principle”, she adds: “I was under the impression (delusion?) that almost everyone else viewed it from the same perspective.“Wasn’t it inarguable that a supreme court justice should be held to the highest standard? A presidency you could win, but to be a supreme court justice, you needed to live your perfection. These nine people make decisions that affect every person in the country. I figured the application process should be as thorough as possible, and perhaps I could be a letter of (non)reference.”Ford also describes occasions on which she discussed the alleged attack as Kavanaugh rose to prominence. As well as conversations in therapy reported by the Post, she cites others triggered by high-profile events.Among such moments, Ford says, were the 1991 Thomas hearings in which Hill was brutally grilled by senators of both parties; a 2016 criminal case in which a Stanford swimmer was convicted of sexual assault but given a light sentence; and the #MeToo movement of 2017, in which women’s stories of sexual assault led to convictions of prominent men.After Kavanaugh was named as a potential supreme court nominee, Ford contacted Anna Eshoo, her Democratic California congresswoman, and the Post. She may have inadvertently leaked her identity, she writes, by contacting a tip line using her own phone. Either way, she was soon at the centre of a political hurricane.“I never, ever wanted [Kavanaugh’s] family to suffer,” Ford writes, adding: “When my allegations came out publicly, the media started reporting that he was getting threats. It troubled me a lot.“Then I remembered that I’d already had to move to a hotel because of the threats to me and my family. Again and again I thought, ‘Why is he putting us all through this? Why can’t he call those people off? Say something – anything – to condemn the harassment happening on both sides?”Kavanaugh, she writes, was at the mercy of rightwing interests pushing for his confirmation. Ultimately, she says, he should have expected “a thorough review of [his] entire history to be part of” becoming a justice.“If you can’t handle that,” Ford writes, “then maybe you’re not qualified for the job.” More