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      Springsteen, Dolly Parton and the Killers: songs presidential candidates think make them look good

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      Chris Christie digs Coldplay. Cornel West is into Coltrane. And Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical magnate whose net worth is approaching $1bn, has found a kindred spirit in Woody Guthrie.These are a few of the 2024 presidential candidates revealing the music that “stirs their soul”, assuming they have one. The lists, solicited by Politico, are oozing with the raw passion politicians are known for: who hasn’t shed a tear while listening to Bananarama, as Nikki Haley apparently has?Sure, the 20-song lists were probably focus-grouped beyond recognition, but you can learn a lot about someone from the music they pretend to like. Here’s what the playlists tell us.Chris Christie: Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, EaglesThe tough-talking former New Jersey governor has a well-documented obsession with the Boss, so it’s no surprise that his list starts with Springsteen. His alleged favorite song is Thunder Road, a politically deft option: it’s popular enough without being obvious, avoids any political messaging, yet still screams “regular guy”. The choice of a pathos-tinged tune also feels appropriate given Christie’s shifting position. Once the loudest bully in the room, he’s been so thoroughly out-evilled by red-meat maniacs that he seems to be running as the guy with a heart.To prove his New Jersey credentials – did you know Chris Christie is from New Jersey? He’s from New Jersey – he’s also chosen the obscure Bon Jovi hit Livin’ on a Prayer. And among the other highlights on his list – which features a truly remarkable number of ageing white guys – is the Eagles’ Hotel California, whose tale of self-imprisonment must ring true for any anti-Trump Republican:
      And in the master’s chambers
      They gathered for the feast
      They stab it with their steely knives
      But they just can’t kill the beast
      Nikki Haley: Dolly Parton, the Killers, Post MaloneThe former South Carolina governor’s favorites feature a bit more variety, squeezing in Dolly Parton, Cat Stevens and Abba. Virtually everything on her list is pre-2010, which is perfectly understandable for a 51-year-old – and then suddenly there’s Post Malone’s Take What You Want, featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott.It’s unclear how she stumbled on this song the year after she stepped down as Donald Trump’s UN ambassador, and what about it stirred her soul. Does she cut a rug to lines like “I feel you crumble in my arms down to your heart of stone / You bled me dry just like the tears you never show” while mulling over policy ideas?The only other recent hit on her list is Fast Car – the 2023 version by Luke Combs, rather than the 1988 original by Tracy Chapman, a bona fide American classic. Maybe that version has somehow slipped under her radar for the past 35 years. Or perhaps, like Christie, she’s trying to flex her home-state credentials (Combs is from North rather than South Carolina, but they’re close). Then again, Chapman is from Ohio – a swing state.Haley and Christie have something else in common: a love for the Killers’ Mr Brightside. Tough to imagine why a song about cheating, lies and paranoia would appeal to two Republican presidential candidates.Vivek Ramaswamy: Imagine Dragons, Imagine Dragons, MozartThe Harvard-educated businessman apparently doesn’t know 20 songs: he only submitted eight pieces of music, and one isn’t a song – it’s Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca, a staple of fifth-grade piano recitals. (That said, it is an absolute banger.) Beyond an inability to count, he also appears to have trouble following directions: he has two songs by the banal pop outfit Imagine Dragons, despite Politico’s one-song-per-artist rule.Eminem’s Lose Yourself tops Ramaswamy’s list, presumably to the artist’s chagrin: Eminem recently told the politician never to perform his song again after Ramaswamy started rapping at the Iowa State Fair. He’s not the only candidate to have a rocky relationship with one of his musical heroes – Springsteen has rejected performance invitations from Christie and mocked him on TV, though they did hug once after Hurricane Sandy.And like Christie, Ramaswamy has chosen Aerosmith’s Dream On; like Haley, he’s into Dolly Parton’s Jolene. In a country that can feel so divided, it’s nice to know that politicians can agree on which songs are most likely to make them look good.Will Hurd: A Tribe Called Quest, Demi Lovato, MatisyahuCredit where credit is due: this former congressman who will never be president has a very interesting list, including tracks from A Tribe Called Quest, Hootie & the Blowfish, Matisyahu and Demi Lovato. Either he has taste so eclectic it’s verging on bizarre, or he closed his eyes and jabbed at random sentences on the Wikipedia page for “American popular music”.Larry Elder: Sam Cooke, Gladys Knight, the BeatlesElder works in radio, so you’d think he might have heard a few songs written after 1992, but apparently none have stirred his soul. To be fair, his list is probably genuine – no focus group would suggest picking two Boyz II Men songs from the same album.Elder grew up in the 60s, and his favorite songs are mostly from that turbulent era – Sam Cooke, Gladys Knight, the Beatles. It was a time of youthful idealism, of fights for civil rights and gender equality and against war. One can only imagine how proud these musicians would be of Elder’s views – his preferred minimum wage of “$0.00”, his assertion that “women know less than men about political issues”, and his support for ending birthright citizenship and allowing the denial of emergency care to undocumented people.Asa Hutchinson: Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, PinkThe former Arkansas governor also struggled to come up with 20 songs; like Ramaswamy, he managed a total of eight. They’re mostly country and folk hits from the likes of Johnny Cash, Levon Helm and Garth Brooks – not surprising for an Arkansas man.But don’t be fooled: this 2024 Republican contender knows a beat when he hears one. When things start to get wild in the ex-governor’s household – perhaps when the Hutch reflects on such accomplishments as blocking Syrian refugees from entering Arkansas, or resuming executions – he cranks up Pink’s Get the Party Started.Cornel West: John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Aretha FranklinGiven that the philosopher and activist has worked with Talib Kweli, André 3000, Killer Mike and a host of other musicians, he must know more than four songs. But that was all the Green party candidate was able to provide, falling short of even Ramaswamy and Hutchinson.Then again, maybe there are only four songs that truly stir his soul – and tracks from John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin and the Isleys seem like reasonable candidates. More

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      Majority of likely Democratic voters say party should ditch Biden, poll shows

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      A majority of likely Democratic voters say the party should nominate someone other than Joe Biden for president next year, according to a poll released on Thursday.Two-thirds of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters surveyed by CNN and SSRS from 25 to 31 August said they would prefer someone other than Biden. Among those voters, 18% specified another candidate but the overwhelming majority – 82% – said they “just want to see someone besides” the current president.Among declared Democratic candidates, however, Biden is seen as the best-positioned to beat the clear Republican favorite, Donald Trump, CNN said. Other contenders include Robert F Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, and the self-help author Marianne Williamson, who also ran in 2020.Most observers say the US economy is strong, and note legislative successes for Biden, including the passage of ambitious infrastructure and domestic spending packages. In last year’s midterms, messaging about Republican extremism, particularly on abortion and voting rights, helped Democrats avoid the kind of heavy losses usually suffered by a president’s party.Polling now shows voters are split on partisan lines when it comes to the merits or otherwise of a likely impeachment effort driven by far-right House Republicans over business deals involving the president’s son, Hunter Biden.But Biden’s own poll numbers remain stubbornly low. In the new poll from CNN and SSRS, the president’s approval rating was just 39%. Nearly 60% of respondents said they thought Biden’s policies had made economic conditions worse, while 76% said they were seriously concerned that, at 80, the president was too old to serve a full term if re-elected.That echoed other recent polls, including a survey conducted during roughly the same period and released on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. In that poll, 73% of voters said Biden was “too old to run for president” but just 47% of voters said the same about Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden.Despite widespread opposition to a second term for Biden, the CNN poll found that Nikki Haley was the only possible Republican nominee who voters said would conclusively beat Biden next year.Haley, 51 and a former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, enjoyed a clear lead over Biden in a notional general election, by 49% to 43%. On the campaign trail, Haley has repeatedly targeted Biden’s age, calling for mental competency tests for politicians over 75.Haley is, however, generally fourth in Republican polling averages, behind the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. All of them are way behind Trump, who has long dominated the race regardless of an extreme legal predicament that now features 91 criminal charges and civil suits including a defamation case in which he has been adjudicated a rapist.On Wednesday, in the strongest challenge yet to Trump’s eligibility to participate in the election, a watchdog group sued to remove him from the 2024 ballot in Colorado. The suit argues that Trump’s involvement in the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 – when supporters he told to “fight like hell” sought to block certification of Biden’s election win – disqualifies the former president because the US constitution bars from office any state or federal official who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”.Trump did not take part in the first Republican debate in Wisconsin last month, a contest Haley was widely held to have won. But she has not seen a meaningful bump in support among Republican voters.Jim Messina, a former campaign chair for Barack Obama, to whom Biden was vice-president, this week called Democrats worried about Biden’s prospects “fucking bedwetters” and said electoral signs remained positive.But according to the CNN poll, match-ups between Biden and all other major Republican candidates returned ties or scores within the margin of error.Trump is set to face a series of criminal and civil trials in election year. Nonetheless, he led Biden by 47% to 46%. DeSantis and Biden were tied on 47%. Biden was one point ahead of Ramaswamy, 47% to 46%. The former vice-president Mike Pence, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a rare Trump critic, edged Biden out by two points each.Nearly half of respondents said any Republican would be a better choice than Biden. More

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      Presidential libraries call for US unity amid ‘perilous’ state of democracy

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      Concern for US democracy amid deep national polarization has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries dating back to Herbert Hoover to call for a recommitment to principles including the rule of law and respecting diverse beliefs.In a statement, the first such public declaration, the libraries said Americans have a strong interest in supporting democratic movements and human rights around the world because “free societies elsewhere contribute to our own security and prosperity here at home”.“But that interest is undermined when others see our own house in disarray.”The message emphasized the need for compassion, tolerance and pluralism while urging Americans to respect democratic institutions and uphold secure and accessible elections. Noting that “debate and disagreement” are central to democracy, the libraries also alluded to the coarsening of dialogue in an era when officials and their families are receiving death threats.“Civility and respect in political discourse, whether in an election year or otherwise, are essential,” the statement said.Polls show many Republicans still believe the lie perpetuated by Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump has also lashed out at the justice system as he faces indictments in four criminal cases, including two related to his efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.The libraries’ statement did not name individuals.“I think there’s great concern about the state of our democracy at this time,” said Mark Updegrove, president and chief executive of the LBJ Foundation, which supports the Lyndon B Johnson library in Austin, Texas.“We don’t have to go much farther than January 6” – when Trump supporters attacked Congress – “to realize that we are in a perilous state.”Efforts to suppress or weaken voter turnout were of special interest, Updegrove said, given Johnson considered the Voting Rights Act his “proudest legislative accomplishment”.The bipartisan statement was signed by the Hoover Presidential Foundation, the Roosevelt Institute, the Truman Library Institute, the John F Kennedy Library Foundation, the LBJ Foundation, the Richard Nixon Foundation, the Gerald R Ford Presidential Foundation, the Carter Center, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, the Clinton Foundation, the George W Bush Presidential Center and the Obama Presidential Center.Those organizations all support libraries created under the Presidential Library Act of 1955, along with the Eisenhower Foundation. That group said it “respectfully declined to sign this statement … we have had no collective discussion about it, only an invitation to sign”. The foundation also said each presidential entity had its own programs related to democracy.The push for the statement was spearheaded by David Kramer, executive director of the George W Bush Institute. Kramer said the former president “did see and signed off on this statement”.He said the aim was to send “a positive message reminding us of who we are and also reminding us that when we are in disarray, when we’re at loggerheads, people overseas are also looking at us and wondering what’s going on”. He also said it was necessary to remind Americans that democracy cannot be taken for granted.Kramer said he hoped the statement would generate wide support, but added: “It’s hard to say whether it will or not in these polarized times.”Melissa Giller, chief marketing officer at the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute, said the statement represented “everything our center will stand for”.“We need to help put an end to the serious discord and division in our society,” Giller said. “America is experiencing a decline in trust, social cohesion and personal interaction.”Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Barack Obama now the chief executive of the Obama Foundation, said the former president supported the statement.Saying Obama has led a democracy forum and is planning another this year in Chicago, Jarrett added: “I think part of it is recognizing that we are very fragile … the wheels on our democracy bus feel a little wobbly right now.” More

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      Mitch McConnell rejects speculation about future amid concerns over health

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      Mitch McConnell rejected speculation about his future as Republican leader in the US Senate, telling reporters: “I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term.”The remarks on Wednesday came amid intense speculation about the 81-year-old Kentucky senator’s health, after two recent freezes in front of reporters, one on Capitol Hill in July and another in McConnell’s home state last week.“I think Dr [Brian P] Monahan covered [the question of my health] fully,” McConnell said, regarding two public letters in which the congressional physician has discussed possible causes of the freezes and cleared his patient to continue working.The first letter said McConnell might be suffering the after-effects of a concussion, sustained in a fall in March, or from dehydration. The second letter said McConnell was not suffering from a “seizure disorder”, a stroke or a “movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease”. That letter also called McConnell’s freeze in Kentucky last week a “brief episode”.“I have no announcement to make on that subject,” McConnell said.McConnell is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, in place since 2007. His power over his caucus has rarely been questioned but health scares including the freezes and a series of falls have stoked speculation about whether he will finish his seventh six-year term, which ends in January 2027.Earlier, in a sign of growing uncertainty in Senate Republican ranks, McConnell’s fellow Kentuckian, Rand Paul, cast doubt on the assurances from congressional physician.Paul, once a practising opthalmologist, told reporters: “When you get dehydrated you don’t have moments when your eyes look in the distance with a vacant look and you’re sort of basically unconscious with your eyes open. That’s not a symptom of dehydration.”Monahan has also said “several medical evaluations” of McConnell included “brain MRI imaging, EEG [electroencephalogram] study and consultations with several neurologists for a comprehensive neurology assessment”.Paul said: “It is a medical mistake to say someone doesn’t have a seizure disorder because they have a normal EEG.“My point is that I’m just trying to counter the misinformation from the Senate doctor. It is basically not believable to come up and say that what’s going on is dehydration. It makes it worse.”Paul also said his remarks had “nothing to do with [McConnell’s] fitness to serve and whether he’s doing a good job or a bad job”.According to Fox News, McConnell used a closed-door party luncheon to reassure senators he was up to the job. Rick Scott of Florida, who challenged McConnell last year, told Fox McConnell did well.But press attention to McConnell’s health has been constant since he fell in Washington in March, sustaining injuries that kept him away from Capitol Hill, and since he froze in front of congressional reporters in July. Other falls were reported then, including a “face plant” at an airport.Polling shows most Americans think many politicians stay in their roles too long. More than 75% think that at 80, Joe Biden is too old for a second term as president.McConnell is a member of the oldest Senate on record. He is however nine years younger than the oldest senator, 90-year-old Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and eight years younger than the oldest Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. More

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      in Elections

      Latest E Jean Carroll lawsuit against Trump limited to damages in victory for writer – live

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      From 1h agoThe judge presiding over E Jean Carroll’s second civil defamation case against Donald Trump said a forthcoming trial will only determine the damages she is to receive from the former president, in a major victory for the writer.Politico obtained a copy of the judgment:Earlier this year, Carroll prevailed in her first lawsuit against Trump when a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her, and ordered him to pay $5m in damages. According to Reuters, the second suit Carroll filed accused Trump of defaming her by denying in 2019 that he had raped her in the mid-1990s.Because of the jury’s finding earlier this year, New York-based federal judge Lewis Kaplan found that Trump made his 2019 statements with “actual malice”, and a jury will only need to decide how much in damages he should pay.Last month, the same judge dismissed a counterclaim filed by Trump against Carroll, an advice columnist.Opening arguments are starting today in the trial of a former White House aide to Donald Trump who is accused of contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas from the January 6 committee, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Federal prosecutors are expected to present the case on Wednesday that former Trump White House official Peter Navarro should be convicted of contempt of Congress because he wilfully ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.The only standard that prosecutors will have to reach is that Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was deliberate and intentional – and Navarro will not be able to argue in defense that he blew off the subpoena because he thought Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege.Navarro is about to face his contempt of Congress trial without what he had hoped would be his strongest defense, after the presiding US district court judge Amit Mehta ruled last week Navarro had failed to prove Trump had actually asserted executive privilege to block his cooperation.In an added twist, prosecutors also said the day before trial that they intend to argue that Navarro’s claim of executive privilege was actually self-incriminating because it reinforced his failure to comply with the subpoena was calculated and deliberate, according to court documents.That sets the stage for a trial in federal court in Washington which could end in a quick defeat for Navarro given his lack of defenses, though the consequential nature of the case could also mean it immediately becomes tied up for months on appeal.E Jean Carroll’s defamation suit is not the only instance where Donald Trump’s words are getting him into trouble. As the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports, attorneys for special counsel Jack Smith are complaining about the former president’s constant public comments as the federal case against him for trying to overturn his election loss moves forward:Donald Trump is making “daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool” in the federal criminal case dealing with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, attorneys for special counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing.Trump has not hesitated to criticize the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case. He has called her “highly partisan” and “VERY BIASED & UNFAIR,” pointing to her comments sentencing one of the January 6 rioters. Trump has also attacked Smith, calling him “deranged” and someone with “unchecked and insane aggression”.Chutkan has warned Trump’s attorneys about his comments. She has also imposed a protective order in the case, limiting what documents and other materials can be made with the public.“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” she said to John Lauro, one of his lawyers, during a hearing in August. “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”Here’s more from Reuters on E Jean Carroll’s latest lawsuit against Donald Trump, which seeks damages based on allegations that he raped her in the 1990s, then lied about it two decades later:A federal judge on Tuesday said E Jean Carroll, the New York writer who last month won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, can pursue a related $10m defamation case against the former US president.US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of the former Elle magazine columnist, after Trump had argued that the defamation case must be dismissed because the jury had concluded he never raped her.Kaplan said he may explain his reasoning later.Through a spokeswoman, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba maintained that Carroll should not be allowed to change her legal theory supporting the defamation case “at the 11th hour” to conform to the jury verdict.Habba was in Miami, where Trump pleaded not guilty in a separate case to federal criminal charges that he mishandled classified files.Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to Judge Kaplan, said: “We look forward to moving ahead expeditiously on E Jean Carroll’s remaining claims.”Both of Carroll’s civil lawsuits arose from Trump’s denials that he had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.On 9 May, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $2m for battery and $3m for defamation over Trump’s October 2022 denial.The judge presiding over E Jean Carroll’s second civil defamation case against Donald Trump said a forthcoming trial will only determine the damages she is to receive from the former president, in a major victory for the writer.Politico obtained a copy of the judgment:Earlier this year, Carroll prevailed in her first lawsuit against Trump when a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her, and ordered him to pay $5m in damages. According to Reuters, the second suit Carroll filed accused Trump of defaming her by denying in 2019 that he had raped her in the mid-1990s.Because of the jury’s finding earlier this year, New York-based federal judge Lewis Kaplan found that Trump made his 2019 statements with “actual malice”, and a jury will only need to decide how much in damages he should pay.Last month, the same judge dismissed a counterclaim filed by Trump against Carroll, an advice columnist.In an interview with the Associated Press, Kamala Harris broke the White House’s relative silence on the prosecutions of Donald Trump and others for trying to overturn the 2020 election, and said those responsible for the campaign should be held accountable.“Let the evidence, the facts, take it where it may,” the vice-president in an interview held during a trip to Indonesia, where she is attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” said Harris, a former attorney general of California. “I believe that people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability.”Biden and other top White House officials have generally stayed mum as prosecutors have indicted Trump for the Mar-a-Lago documents and his campaign to overturn the 2020 election. Two of the cases Trump is facing were brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, whom Biden nominated for the job.People typically hire lawyers to give them advice on how to handle legal matters. But as ABC News’s report this morning on Evan Corcoran’s recollections of his time representing Donald Trump shows, the former president was not immediately interested in his advice on handling a grand jury subpoena to return whatever classified documents he had at Mar-a-Lago:
      Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump. “The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
      But while sitting together in Trump’s office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran’s notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
      As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, “the great things” he’s done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little “kept returning to the boxes,” according to the transcripts.
      Corcoran wanted Trump to understand “we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena,” Corcoran said in the memos.
      …
      As Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing. “We’ve got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran recalled telling Trump.
      Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, “what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?”
      The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump. “Well, there’s a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here,” Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago.
      According to CNN, investigators from special counsel Jack Smith’s office are asking witnesses about fundraising done by Donald Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell, and whether it was used to fund efforts to breach voting systems in four swing states:
      According to sources, witnesses interviewed by Smith’s prosecutors in recent weeks were asked about Powell’s role in the hunt for evidence of voter fraud after the 2020 election, including how her nonprofit group, Defending the Republic, provided money to fund those efforts.
      Powell promoted Defending the Republic as a non-profit focused on funding post-election legal challenges by Trump’s team as it disputed results in key states Biden had won. Those challenges and fundraising efforts underpinning them were all based on the premise that evidence of widespread voter fraud was already in hand.
      But according to documents reviewed by CNN and witness testimony obtained by the House select committee that investigated January, 6, 2021, the group was used to fund a desperate search to retroactively back-up baseless claims that Trump’s lawyers had already put forward in failed lawsuits challenging the results in several states.
      A series of invoices and communications obtained by election integrity groups including The Coalition for Good Governance and American Oversight show Defending the Republic contributed millions of dollars toward the push to access voting equipment in key states.
      In a court filing after her indictment in Georgia, Powell denied involvement in the Coffee County breach but acknowledged that “a non-profit she founded” paid the forensics firm hired to examine voting systems there.
      Powell did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
      Smith’s investigators have also dived deep into the bewildering conspiracy theories that Trump allies pedaled following his election loss to try to convince his supporters that the polls were rigged:
      Smith’s team has specifically asked witnesses about certain conspiracy theories pushed by Powell including that Dominion Voting Systems had ties to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and featured software he used to rig his own election. The software company, Smartmatic, has previously said the turnout in those Venezuelan elections, not the voting system, was manipulated.
      Both Dominion and Smartmatic have said that they are competitors with no corporate links, knocking down the claim pushed by Powell.
      One witness who met with Smith’s team earlier last month, former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, spoke at length about how Trump allies accessed voting systems in Antrim County, Michigan, shortly after Election Day. Kerik also discussed the origins of a theory that voting machines could switch votes from one candidate to another, according to his lawyer Tim Parlatore.
      Kerik also acknowledged the breach of voting systems in Coffee County during his interview with federal prosecutors, Parlatore told CNN, adding that while his client raised the topic, the conversation did not delve into specifics.
      Kerik and another witness who met with Smith’s team in recent weeks were both asked if Powell was ever able to back-up her various claims of fraud, including conspiracy theories that foreign countries had hacked voting equipment.
      Both were also asked about Defending the Republic and how it was used as a source of funding efforts to find evidence of voter fraud, sources told CNN.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. New reports have emerged in recent days that offer more details of the legal peril that Donald Trump has found himself in. Weeks after he indicted Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election, CNN reports that special counsel Jack Smith is continuing his investigation, focusing in particular on attorney Sidney Powell’s activities in Georgia. Powell was last month among the 19 people – Trump included – who were charged by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis in a racketeering indictment over the campaign to block Joe Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes.Separately, ABC News reports this morning that another attorney for Trump, Evan Corcoran, specifically warned the president that if he did not comply with the government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, the FBI could search the property. But then another attorney for the former president warned Corcoran that if he continued to press him, Trump is “going to go ballistic”. In June of this year, Smith indicted Trump and his aides on charges related to the documents hidden at the resort.Here’s what’s happening today:
      Officials from border security agencies will appear before a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee to testify about the touchy subject of asylum law at 2.30pm eastern time.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken snuck away to Kyiv for a surprise visit. Follow our live blog for all the latest news from Ukraine.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 1pm. More

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      in Elections

      Trump should be held accountable for January 6, says Kamala Harris

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      Donald Trump should “absolutely” be held accountable for inspiring the January 6 attack on Congress, said Kamala Harris, speaking after a former leader of a far-right group involved in the riot was sentenced to 22 years in jail.“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” the vice-president told the Associated Press. “I believe people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability. And I support it when it happens.”Asked, “Does that extend to the former president?”, Harris said: “Well, everyone has their right to their day in court. But absolutely, people should be held accountable under our system of law, right? Let the evidence and facts take it where it may.”More than 1,100 people have been arrested over the deadly attack of 6 January 2021, which happened after Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, according to his lie the result of electoral fraud. Hundreds have been convicted and sentenced.In Washington on Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, was given the longest sentence yet. Others convicted of seditious conspiracy have been given terms ranging from 10 to 18 years.Trump faces four federal criminal charges related to election subversion. He also faces 13 charges related to election subversion in Georgia; 40 related to his retention of classified information; and 34 regarding hush-money payments in the 2016 election.He denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution, including in civil cases regarding his business affairs and a defamation claim arising from an allegation of rape. In the Republican presidential race, he leads national and key state polls by wide margins and seems set to face Biden again. Trials are set for primary season but convictions would not stop Trump running.Harris spoke to the AP in Jakarta, Indonesia, during a regional summit. She said: “Democracies are very fragile. They will only be as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”She dismissed concerns that Biden is too old. In 2021, at 78, the former senator and vice-president was the oldest president ever inaugurated. If re-elected he will be 82 when his second term starts and 86 when it ends.Polling shows more than three-quarters of Americans believe Biden is too old, a concern less strongly expressed regarding Trump, who is 77.Harris said: “I see [Biden] every day. A substantial amount of time we spend together is in the Oval Office, where I see how his ability to understand issues and weave through complex issues in a way no one else can to make smart and important decisions on behalf of the American people have played out.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“And so I will say to you that I think the American people ultimately want to know that their president delivers. And Joe Biden delivers.”In a new book, the journalist Franklin Foer not only describes aides’ concerns about Biden’s age but also Harris’s struggles in a role John Nance Garner, vice-president to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, famously said was “not worth a pitcher of warm piss”.Harris is the subject of Republican attacks, focused on the possibility of her succeeding Biden. Asked about her readiness to be president, Harris told the AP: “Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition.“But let us also understand that every vice-president … understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president.” More

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      in US Politics

      Mitch McConnell did not have stroke or seizure, Capitol doctor says

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      Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, is not evidently suffering from “a seizure disorder”, a stroke or a “movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease”, the congressional physician said on Tuesday.The doctor’s remarks came a little less than a week after the 81-year-old senator suffered a second worrying freeze in front of reporters.Last week, the physician, Brian P Monahan, cleared McConnell to return to work after the freeze in Kentucky on Wednesday. Monahan said McConnell might have been suffering from the effects of concussion sustained in a fall in March, or perhaps dehydration.In a letter released on Tuesday, Monahan referred to the senator’s “brief episode” and said he had carried out “several medical evaluations”, including “brain MRI imaging, EEG [electroencephalogram] study and consultations with several neurologists for a comprehensive neurology assessment”.“There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, TIA [transient ischemic attack] or movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease,” Monahan’s letter asserted. “There are no changes recommended in treatment protocols as you continue recovery from your March 2023 fall.”That fall also resulted in a rib injury, keeping McConnell away from the Capitol.Speculation about his future as Republican leader is bound to continue despite Monahan’s assurances. After McConnell’s first freeze in front of reporters, at the Capitol in late July, other falls including a “face plant” at an airport were widely reported.Senate Republicans have avoided openly questioning their leader’s fitness to serve but some, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said it is increasingly at issue.Senators returned to Washington on Tuesday for a month packed with political problems, including a push by Republican extremists in the House to impeach Joe Biden, shut down the government or both.On Tuesday afternoon, McConnell delivered remarks on the Senate floor.Alluding to his freeze in Kentucky as a moment in the Senate summer recess that “received its fair share of attention in the press”, he pivoted to discussing constituency business and work to come.“The Senate returns with our work cut out for us and a deadline fast approaching,” he said, referring to the 30 September deadline for continuing government funding.Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, told CNN: “I’ve had the chance to interact with Senator McConnell and find him to be very much still in charge of that [Republican] caucus … I think it’s a decision that his caucus is going to have to make as to whether he continues. It certainly appears that he can continue to be able to do that job.”Public polling shows that most Americans think their leaders are becoming too old, with majorities in favour of upper age limits.Majorities also think that at 80, Biden is too old to run for re-election as president. Smaller majorities are concerned about the age of his likely challenger, Donald Trump, who at 77 has 14 fewer years on the clock than he faces criminal indictments.In the Senate, the oldest on record, the evidently deteriorating health of the 90-year-old senior Democrat from California, Dianne Feinstein, has long been a subject of controversy, particularly during her own lengthy, health-enforced absence.Feinstein will retire next year. McConnell has repeatedly said he intends to complete his seventh term in office, which ends in 2026.If the seat became vacant, Kentucky state law says the Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, must pick a Republican replacement. Asked if he would seek a way round that requirement, Beshear has avoided comment. More

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      Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio awaits sentencing for January 6 conspiracy – live

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      From 2h agoHere’s more from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe on the sentencing of the two Proud Boys militia group members last Friday:Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, got 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding.Prosecutors had sought terms of 27 and 20 years, respectively, for Nordean and Pezzola.The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.With Mark Meadows’s plea, all but one of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case have pleaded not guilty and opted to skip tomorrow’s arraignment in Atlanta.The lone holdout is Misty Hampton, the former elections supervisor for Coffee county, Georgia, who was present when a Trump-aligned group sought to illegally access voting machines in search of fraud, and directed much of the group’s search.Mark Meadows, who served as Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff during the period when he lost re-election to Joe Biden, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to trying to overturn Georgia’s election result, Reuters reports.Meadows was among the 19 people indicted last month by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis for the campaign to keep Biden from collecting the swing state’s electoral votes three years ago. By entering his plea, Meadows has opted to skip the arraignment scheduled for tomorrow in Atlanta. Trump, along with several other defendants including attorney Rudy Giuliani, have also entered not guilty pleas.Republican lawmakers have been on a losing streak lately, as judges strike down congressional maps drawn by the party that disadvantage Black lawmakers, the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports:A judge in Florida has ruled in favor of voting rights groups that filed a lawsuit against a congressional redistricting map approved by Ron DeSantis in 2022. Voting rights groups had criticized the map for diluting political power in Black communities.In the ruling, Leon county circuit judge J Lee Marsh sent the map back to the Florida legislature to be redrawn in a way that complies with the state’s constitution.“Under the stipulated facts (in the lawsuit), plaintiffs have shown that the enacted plan results in the diminishment of Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in violation of the Florida constitution,” Marsh wrote in the ruling.The ruling is expected to be appealed by the state, likely putting the case before the Florida supreme court.The lawsuit focused on a north Florida congressional district previously represented by the Democrat Al Lawson, who is Black. Lawson’s district was carved up into districts represented by white Republicans.DeSantis vetoed a map that initially preserved Lawson’s district in 2022, submitting his own map and calling a special legislative session demanding state legislators accept it. Judge Marsh rejected claims from Florida Republicans that the state’s provision against weakening or eliminating minority-dominant districts violated the US constitution.“This is a significant victory in the fight for fair representation for Black Floridians,” said Olivia Mendoza, director of litigation and policy for the National Redistricting Foundation, an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, in a statement.A three-judge federal court panel struck down Alabama’s new congressional map, saying the Republican-dominated state again violated the Voting Rights Act. The judges wrote that they were “deeply troubled” the state’s effort to redraw its map did not fix issues it identified.The supreme court had in June ruled that Alabama must draw a second majority Black congressional district, which would likely give Democrats another seat on the southern state’s congressional delegation. But rather than go along, GOP lawmakers attempted to sidestep the ruling by approving new maps that still included only one district where a majority of voters are Black – an effort the federal judges just rejected.Meanwhile, in Texas, the state senate will today begin considering whether to impeach attorney general Ken Paxton, a staunch conservative who used his office to try to stop Joe Biden’s 2020 election win but has now attracted the ire of his fellow Republicans over corruption allegations.Texas’s house of representatives impeached Paxton in May, and he’s been suspended without pay ever since. If a two-thirds majority of senators convicts him, he will be removed from his position, but they will need to take another vote to decide whether to permanently bar Paxton from office, the Associated Press reports.Here’s more from the AP on what we can expect from his trial, which is expected to last between two and three weeks:
      Paxton is only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached. The House vote suspended the 60-year-old from the office he used in 2020 to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump.
      Paxton decried the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and said he expects to be acquitted. His lawyers have said he won’t testify before the Senate, but the trial remains fraught with political and legal risk.
      The attorney general is under federal investigation for the same conduct that prompted his impeachment, and his lawyers say removal from office would open the door to Paxton taking a plea in a long-stalled state fraud case.
      Here’s what Paxton is accused of and how the trial will work.
      WHY WAS PAXTON IMPEACHED?
      At the center of Paxton’s impeachment is his relationship with a wealthy donor that prompted the attorney general’s top deputies to revolt.
      In 2020, the group reported their boss to the FBI, saying Paxton broke the law to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul fight a separate federal investigation. Paul allegedly reciprocated, including by employing a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair.
      Paul was indicted in June on federal criminal charges that he made false statements to banks to get more than $170 million in loans. He pleaded not guilty.
      Paul gave Paxton a $25,000 campaign donation in 2018 and the men bonded over a shared feeling that they were the targets of corrupt law enforcement, according to a memo by one of the staffers who went to the FBI. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015 but is yet to stand trial.
      The eight deputies who reported Paxton — largely staunch conservatives whom he handpicked for their jobs — went to law enforcement after he ignored their warnings to not hire an outside lawyer to investigate Paul’s allegations of wrongdoing by the FBI. All eight were subsequently fired or quit and four of them sued under the state whistleblower act.
      Paxton is also accused of pressuring his staff to intervene in other of Paul’s legal troubles, including litigation with an Austin-based nonprofit group and property foreclosure sales.
      Jury selection has started today in the trial of Peter Navarro, a former aide to Donald Trump who was indicted for contempt of Congress after defying subpoenas from the January 6 committee, Politico reports:Last week, a judge rejected Navarro’s argument that Trump had asserted executive privilege in the case, clearing the way for him to stand trial.Trump confidant Steve Bannon was convicted of similar charges last year, after declining to cooperate with subpoenas from the committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. He is appealing the verdict.Yesterday, the White House announced that first lady Jill Biden had tested positive for Covid-19, but the president appears to have avoided the virus.“This evening, the first lady tested positive for Covid-19. She is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. She will remain at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware,” her communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement.“Following the first lady’s positive test for Covid-19, President Biden was administered a Covid test this evening. The president tested negative. The President will test at a regular cadence this week and monitor for symptoms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said minutes later.Both Joe and Jill Biden came down with Covid-19 in the summer of 2022, and recovered without side effects.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe on the sentencing of the two Proud Boys militia group members last Friday:Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, got 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding.Prosecutors had sought terms of 27 and 20 years, respectively, for Nordean and Pezzola.The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The comeuppance continues today for the the Proud Boys, a rightwing militia group whose members are blamed for organizing and perpetrating some of the violence on January 6, and have been convicted of serious federal crimes. The Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio will be sentenced today after being found guilty of seditious conspiracy, and prosecutors are asking he receive a 33-year prison term.Last week, a judge handed down an 18-year sentence to Ethan Nordean, a leader of the group, and a 10-year term for Dominic Pezzola – both penalties that were less than prosecutors had requested. We’ll see if that pattern continues when Tarrio goes before a judge in Washington DC.Here’s what else is going on today:
      The first big book providing an insider account of Joe Biden’s presidency is out today, and appears to be full of scoops.
      The Senate is back to work for the first time since July, and will today consider Philip Jefferson’s nomination as vice-chair of the Federal Reserve
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security adviser Jake Sullivan brief reporters at 1pm eastern time. More