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      Previously unseen memo details Trump plot to subvert election results – report

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      A previously unseen internal memo from the 2020 Trump campaign describes in detail the plot by Donald Trump and his lawyers to subvert election results in six states, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.The memo describes a three-pronged plan to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory on 6 January 2020, that involved coordinating with Republican electors and campaign attorneys in six states, as well as Mike Pence.It also emphasized the importance of the participation by “all six states” and “messaging about this being a routine measure” as well as “logistics” regarding what is now known as the fake electors scheme.The letter was written by Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney associated with Trump who is believed to be one of six unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment against Trump over his attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Much of Chesebro’s actions have been revealed through previous memos and through the January 6 investigation last year, but this memo brings further details to light about the fake electors scheme that he concocted.It was addressed to a Wisconsin lawyer, James R Troupis, the lead attorney for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, who oversaw the fake electors scheme in his state. Troupis filed a lawsuit in December 2020 asking the Wisconsin supreme court to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, saying they violated voting requirements. The court ultimately rejected the lawsuit.Chesebro wrote to Troupis that “it seems feasible” the Trump campaign could subvert Biden’s victory. His plan would “force the Members of Congress, the media, and the American people to focus on the substantive evidence of illegal election and counting activities in the six contested States, provided three things happen”.He then lays out those three steps, describing a plan in detail.According to Chesebro’s plan, Republican electors in all six states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – would meet and cast votes for Trump on 14 December 2020, the deadline for electors to send their votes to Congress for certification in January.Attorneys in each of the six states would simultaneously file lawsuits that would lead to either a Trump victory or a Biden loss – which would be pending on 6 January, the certification date.Finally, on the day Congress meets to certify the electors’ votes, “Pence, presiding over the joint session, takes the position that it is his constitutional power and duty, alone, as president of the Senate, to both open and count the votes, and that anything in the Electoral Count Act to the contrary is unconstitutional,” according to language from the memo.Pence, who is running against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has lashed out against his former ticket-mate and his “gaggle of crackpot lawyers” for plotting to overturn the election.According to the indictment, Trump repeatedly “pressured” Pence to participate in the plan, to which the vice-president replied: “You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome”.The indictment identified six co-conspirators, including one who is widely believed to be Chesebro. Co-Conspirator 5, thought to be Chesebro, “assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding”.The indictment also described the previously unseen 6 December 2020 memo as a “sharp departure” from an earlier and previously reported memo that Chesebro sent to Troupis outlining a plan to use “alternate” electors to send votes for Trump to Congress for certification amid a recount – even though Biden won the state.“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on January 6,” Chesebro wrote in the 6 December 2020 memo. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on December 14.”Trump pleaded not guilty on all counts in the 6 January case, which charged him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding – certifying the electoral vote. More

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      Secret Trump memo outlined plot to overturn 2020 election; protection order hearing set for Friday – live

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      From 3h agoGood morning, US politics blog readers. A lawyer allied with former president Donald Trump initially pitched the now-infamous plan to use fake electors in swing states to subvert the 2020 election results as “a bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” reject, according to a secret memo.Federal prosecutors are portraying the memo, dated 6 December 2020 and written by Kenneth Chesebro, as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts to keep him in power evolved into a criminal conspiracy, according to a New York Times report. The existence of the memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Trump.Chesebro, identified as “co-conspirator 5” in the federal indictment of Trump, reportedly argued that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”. He wrote in the memo:
      I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6. But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.
      The document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo”, provides new details about how the plan originated and was discussed behind the scenes. The memo show the plan was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect”, prosecutors said.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      3pm EST: President Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s clean energy and manufacturing investments in Albuquerque.
      5.55pm EST: Biden will fly to Salt Lake city.
      The House and Senate are out.
      An internal Trump campaign memo by Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer allied with Donald Trump, reveals new details about how the former president and his team initiated the plan to interfere with the electoral college process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states after losing the 2020 presidential election.The 6 December 2020 memo, made public on Tuesday by the New York Times, shows how Chesebro laid out the plan to put forth slates of Republican electors in seven key swing states that Trump had lost.The document, which federal prosecutors described as a “fraudulent elector memo”, revealed that Chesebro proposed the appointment of fake electors, and detailed a “messaging” strategy to portray them as evidence if legislatures later concluded Trump as the victor in those states.In the memo, Chesebro acknowledges that he is suggesting a “bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” ultimately reject. He argues that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”.The memo was referenced in the four-count indictment against Trump by a Washington DC grand jury last month. The indictment identifies, but does not name, Chesebro as a co-conspirator in Trump’s alleged conspiracy to obstruct certification of the 2020 election.In separate, previously seen emails, Chesebro had also suggested having then-vice president Mike Pence open and count the electoral votes alone. Pence would then certify the fake electors’ votes, even though Biden would have won the state, according to the plan.There has been open debate within the Democratic party over whether Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half-month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through.Feinstein’s compounding health issues and status as the oldest member of Congress now present Democrats with a complex problem that has pitted several prominent members of Congress against each other, as several lawmakers issued calls in recent weeks for Feinstein to step down.California Democrats, who voted her into office six times, are increasingly divided over whether she should continue to serve. More than 60 progressive organizations called on her to step down – noting that the 39 million constituents she represents deserve “constant representation”. It hasn’t helped that the senator has physically shielded herself from her constituents and the press, dismissing questions about her health and ability to serve.Feinstein’s eventual return to Washington on 10 May only prompted a new round of debate and news coverage, after she arrived looking exceedingly frail and appeared confused by reporters’ questions about her absence. Feinstein suffered more complications from her illness than previously disclosed, the New York Times reported, including post-shingles encephalitis and a condition known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome which causes facial paralysis.Read the full story here.California senator Dianne Feinstein’s latest medical setback comes days after she reportedly handed power of attorney over to her daughter.Katherine, a former San Francisco judge, is said to have been given power of attorney over her mother amid an ongoing dispute regarding her late husband Richard Blum’s estate, according to the New York Times.Senator Dianne Feinstein was hospitalized after tripping and falling in her San Francisco home, according to multiple reports.The 90-year-old Democratic senator was taken to a nearby hospital and returned home on Tuesday night, TMZ reported.Feinstein’s spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle that she spent an hour or two in the hospital. Her scans were clear, he added.Feinstein has struggled with her health in recent years. She was absent from the Senate for two-and-a-half-months due to shingles and other medical complications.The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s election subversion case, US district judge Tanya Chutkan, has set a date for a hearing on a proposed protective order by prosecutors.The protective order, if granted, will govern how evidence is handled in the case. The order, requested last Friday by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, asks for Trump to be prohibited from publicly sharing evidence in the case during the discovery phase.The decision to schedule the hearing for Friday morning comes a day after the special counsel’s office and Trump’s legal team filed dueling motions over the proposed protective order.Trump is not required to be present at the Friday hearing in Washington DC, Chutkan said.Donald Trump last week pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election by conspiring to block Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory over him. He also pleaded not guilty to charges that he obstructed the certification by directing his supporters to descend on the Capitol on the day of the January 6 attack.He is also accused of – and has pleaded not guilty to – scheming to disrupt the election process and deprive Americans of their right to have their votes counted.John Lauro slammed the indictment as politically motivated and full of holes. He said:
      This is what’s called a Swiss cheese indictment – so many holes that we’re going to be identifying.
      Lauro suggested that his side would argue that Trump’s actions were protected by his constitutional right to free speech as well as presidential immunity.Taking aim at Biden, the Democratic incumbent, Lauro added:
      This is the first time in history that a sitting president has used his justice department to go after a political opponent to knock him out of a race that creates grave constitutional problems.
      Lauro confirmed that he planned to file a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charges, as well as another to transfer the case from Washington DC’s federal courthouse to one in West Virginia, a state where Trump won 69% of the votes in 2020, his second largest margin of victory in a state after Wyoming.“We would like a diverse venue and diverse jury to have an expectation that will reflect the characteristics of the American people,” he said. “I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue.”Lauro was brought on to Trump’s legal team in mid-July. He has defended a string of controversial clients who include Dewayne Allen Levesque – manager of the Pink Pony nightclub in Florida who was acquitted of charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting prostitution – and the disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who admitted to taking payoffs from bookies in exchange for a one-year, three-month prison sentence.Trump will not accept a plea deal in the criminal conspiracy charges, Lauro told CBS.Donald Trump’s attorney has suggested that Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the “best witness” for the defence.In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, attorney John Lauro played down differences between the former president and Pence’s accounts of what happened in the run up to the 6 January 2021 certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol that day.Asked on Face the Nation whether he feared that Pence would be called as a prosecution witness in the case, Lauro said: “No, no in fact, the vice-president will be our best witness.
      There was a constitutional disagreement between the vice-president [Pence] and president Trump, but the bottom line is never, never in our country’s history, as those kinds of disagreements have been prosecuted criminally. It’s unheard of.
      Earlier on Sunday, Pence – who is running against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – told CBS that he had “no plans” to testify for the prosecution. But he did not rule it out. In response to Lauro’s assertion last week that all Trump did was ask him to pause the certification, Pence said: “That’s not what happened.”The Fulton county district attorney’s office investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has been issuing summons to witnesses to testify before the grand jury, as part of the final presentation by prosecutors that is expected to take just a couple of days before they ask the grand jury to return an indictment, according to two people familiar with the matter.Charges stemming from the Trump investigation could come as early as next Tuesday if the presentment starts on Monday, the people said. That dovetails with a timeline inferred from district attorney Fani Willis instructing her staff to move to remote work during that period because of security concerns, the Guardian has previously reported.The district attorney’s office has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, including impaneling a special grand jury that made it more straightforward to compel evidence from recalcitrant witnesses.Unlike in the federal system, grand juries in the state of Georgia need to already be considering an indictment when they subpoena documents and testimony. By using a special grand jury, prosecutors can collect evidence without the pressure of having to file charges.The special grand jury in the Trump investigation heard evidence for roughly seven months and recommended indictments of more than a dozen people including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews with multiple news outlets.Trump’s legal team sought last month to invalidate the work of the special grand jury and have Willis disqualified from proceedings, but the Georgia supreme court rejected the motion, ruling that Trump lacked “either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Ms Willis’s disqualification”.The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia is expected to present evidence to a grand jury and ask it to return indictments as early as next Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.The prosecutors in the office of district attorney Fani Willis completed its internal reviews for criminal charges in the Trump case weeks ago, the people said. The review process, to identify any weakness with the case, is typically seen as the final step before charges are filed.Willis has also privately indicated to her senior staff that the prosecutors on the Trump case were sufficiently prepared that they could go to trial tomorrow, the people said.In the Trump investigation, prosecutors have developed evidence to pursue a sprawling racketeering case that is predicated on a statute about influencing witnesses and computer trespass by Trump operatives in Coffee county, the Guardian has previously reported.The extent of Trump’s legal jeopardy remains unclear. But the racketeering statute in Georgia is especially expansive and attempts to solicit or coerce certain activity – for instance, Trump’s call to the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger – could be included in the indictment.The district attorney’s office has also weighed several state election law charges, including: criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation to destroy, deface or remove ballots.Willis originally suggested charging decisions were “imminent” in January, but the timetable has been repeatedly delayed after a number of Republicans who sought to help Trump stay in power as so-called fake electors accepted immunity deals as the investigation neared its end.The newly disclosed memo by Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro includes a strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Joe Biden was declared the winner, the Times reported.Chesebro wrote:
      I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes. It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. A lawyer allied with former president Donald Trump initially pitched the now-infamous plan to use fake electors in swing states to subvert the 2020 election results as “a bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” reject, according to a secret memo.Federal prosecutors are portraying the memo, dated 6 December 2020 and written by Kenneth Chesebro, as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts to keep him in power evolved into a criminal conspiracy, according to a New York Times report. The existence of the memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Trump.Chesebro, identified as “co-conspirator 5” in the federal indictment of Trump, reportedly argued that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”. He wrote in the memo:
      I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6. But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.
      The document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo”, provides new details about how the plan originated and was discussed behind the scenes. The memo show the plan was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect”, prosecutors said.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      3pm EST: President Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s clean energy and manufacturing investments in Albuquerque.
      5.55pm EST: Biden will fly to Salt Lake city.
      The House and Senate are out. More

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      Prosecutors seek to prevent Trump from sharing January 6 case evidence

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

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

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

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      Trump supporters condemn January 6 charges after third arraignment this year

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      It’s the third time Donald Trump has been arraigned this year, even as he is the only former US president in history to face criminal charges. Each time, Trump and his supporters, as well as detractors, have moved to gain from his time in court.Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a Washington federal court to three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction in a plot to subvert the results of the 2020 election. He similarly denied his guilt in March over hush money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, and then in June for illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida resort.A handful of Republicans, though competing with Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, fired off statements as the ex-president left the courthouse and returned to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.The biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy posted a video message filmed outside the federal courthouse calling the January 6 indictment “politicized persecution.” He earlier vowed to pardon Trump if elected.After Trump was indicted on Tuesday, the former vice-president Mike Pence – whom Trump allegedly called “too honest” after he refused to reject electoral votes according to the indictment – used the arraignment as fodder for his own campaign, including to sell merch. “[A]nyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.Trump has also moved to profit from each of his own indictments, blasting supporters with a barrage of fundraising requests after his court appearances in Miami and New York.Minutes after Trump left Washington, his son, Eric Trump, sent out a fundraising email with language calling the city “the belly of the beast”, according to NBC News. His campaign pulled in nearly $4m after his first arraignment in March and considerably less but still more than $1m after his arraignment in June, according to the New York Times.Trump earlier said being arrested was “a great honor” in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. He also posted Thursday ahead of his arraignment: “I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION!”A district attorney, Fani Willis, is due to hand down a fourth indictment, related to election interference in Georgia, in the coming weeks.Conservative media outlets largely heaped praise on Trump while blasting the current probes against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. When asked by a CNN reporter if he would follow the indictment as he was cycling on vacation, the president said: “No.”Fox News host Jesse Watters downplayed Trump’s January 6 charges on air while applauding Trump for his “calm demeanor” during the arraignment, according to Mediaite. “By this January 6th indictment, we’re kind of tired of it,” Watters said on Thursday evening.Trump has seemingly grown more comfortable with each indictment, according to NBC News’ Garrett Haake, who has covered each indictment from the ground.While Trump appeared “tight and tense” on his March court date in Manhattan, he was joking with his attorneys in Washington, Haake told MSNBC Thursday evening. “He seemed so much more comfortable and practised at this.”For many, the federal charges against Trump for his role in inciting the violence at the US Capitol were the first steps to finally holding the ex-president accountable for the deadly attack over which 1,000 individuals have been charged. A US Capitol police officer, Sgt Aquilino Gonell, was in the courtroom where Trump appeared for his arraignment, along with two other officers who were overwhelmed by rioters.“On that day, I risked my life defending everyone regardless of their political affiliation,” wrote Gonell in a statement released after Trump left the courthouse. “Our democracy is worth fighting for. Not prosecuting is far riskier than having no consequences for the alleged power grab attempts. Justice and the rule of law must win for our democracy to survive.”Adam Schiff of California, a member of the House January 6 select committee, signed a letter along with dozens of other Democratic lawmakers urging the district court to publicly broadcast the trial proceedings. “It is imperative the conference ensures timely access to accurate and reliable information surrounding these cases and all of their proceedings, given the extraordinary national importance to our democratic institutions and the need for transparency,” the letter said.After the Tuesday indictment, Schiff said in a statement posted online the law “must” be enforced against a former US president and candidate for “the sake of our democracy”.Trump attorney John Lauro, who joined the legal team after special prosecutor Jack Smith informed the ex-president he was a target in the January 6 case, suggested moving the trial to West Virginia, which he called a more “diverse area” than DC in an interview with NPR ahead of the arraignment. Former federal prosecutors and legal experts said there was no basis for doing so.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who is the strongest contender for the Republican nomination after Trump, though trailing by a wide margin, said in a statement released after the Tuesday indictment that he would “end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans”.DeSantis did not, however, refer to Trump by name, and said he did not read the indictment. More

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      Donald Trump’s January 6 indictment – podcast

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      “The attack on our nation’s Capitol on 6 January 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith said on Tuesday. “As described in the indictment, it was fuelled by lies.” Donald Trump has been charged over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The former president faces four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump, who is leading the polls in the Republican candidate race for the 2024 election, has been charged in three criminal indictments since leaving office. Hugo Lowell, a reporter at the Guardian’s Washington bureau, takes Michael Safi through the case outlined in the latest indictment and what it could mean for the upcoming election. More

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      Trump pleads not guilty to four charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election

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      Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, marking the third time this year that the former president has been forced to respond to a criminal indictment.Trump was arrested and arraigned on four felony counts outlined in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.The arraignment came two days after Smith’s office filed its indictment, accusing Trump of executing a “criminal scheme” to remain in office even after it became clear that he had fairly lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.Trump traveled from his Bedminster Club in New Jersey to Washington on Thursday with his lawyers and several top aides to appear at the arraignment. He was formally arrested at the E Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse, just blocks from the US Capitol, where the deadly January 6 insurrection unfolded.Sitting in the courtroom Thursday, Trump was accompanied by two of his attorneys, John Laura and Todd Blanche. Smith also attended the arraignment, which was overseen by US magistrate judge Moxila Upadhyaya. After entering his plea of not guilty, Trump was released on the conditions that he adhere to all federal, state and local laws and avoid discussing the case with any witnesses. The next hearing in the case has been set for 28 August.Smith’s 45-page indictment asserts that Trump and his associates disseminated lies alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election while convening slates of fake electors in key battleground states. The indictment also listed six co-conspirators who were not charged in the indictment.While they were unnamed, the descriptions of five of the six matched those of the Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro as well as the former US justice department official Jeff Clark. According to Smith’s indictment, Trump and his associates’ relentless campaign of misinformation culminated in the insurrection, which claimed the lives of at least seven people.“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment reads. “So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”The charges in Washington represented the second indictment filed by Smith, who previously charged Trump in June with retaining national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. That case is currently scheduled to go to trial in May 2024.Trump has also been indicted in an unrelated case by the Manhattan district attorney, who charged him over hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. He is expected to be indicted a fourth time in Georgia, where he may face racketeering charges over his election subversion efforts.Trump’s legal team has already sought to delay the trials in New York and Florida, arguing the cases should not move forward until after the 2024 presidential election. Trump remains the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, and his nomination would set up a rematch against Biden in the general election next November.But Smith said Tuesday that his office would “seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post shared to his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said he viewed the indictment as “a great honor because I am being arrested for you”, speculating that the criminal charges would actually bolster his presidential campaign. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who is currently on vacation in Delaware, maintained his silence on the arraignment, ignoring reporters’ questions about the case.Trump also demanded that his case be moved out of Washington to “an impartial Venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia”, where he won by 39 points in 2020. Writing on Truth Social, Trump claimed it would be “impossible” to receive a fair trial in Washington, which he lost by 87 points in 2020. The chances of a court venue charge appear slim, given that similar arguments in other federal January 6 cases have proven unsuccessful.As Trump made his way to Washington for the arraignment, some of his supporters gathered outside the E Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse to welcome the former president. Anti-Trump protesters also congregated outside the courthouse, holding signs that read, “Save our democracy!” and “Lock him up”.Upadhyaya oversaw the Thursday hearing because magistrate judges typically handle the more routine or procedural aspects of court cases, such as arraignments, but the case itself has been assigned to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by Barack Obama.Chutkan is expected to set a trial date at the next hearing, but Trump’s lawyers already indicated Thursday they disagree with Smith’s push for a speedy timeline.“All we would ask, Your Honor, is the opportunity to fairly defend our client,” Lauro said. “But in order to do that, we’re going to need a little time.” More

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      Who is Tanya Chutkan, the judge assigned to Trump’s January 6 case?

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      A federal judge who has emerged as one of the toughest authorities against rioters who participated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol will soon meet her most high-profile defendant: Donald Trump.Tanya Chutkan, a 2014 appointee of former president Barack Obama, was randomly assigned to oversee the case on Tuesday after a federal grand jury indicted the former president on four counts related to his attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election, including conspiracy and obstruction of official proceedings.Chutkan was born in Jamaica, where she trained as a classical dancer, and moved to the US where she attended George Washington University before earning her JD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, according to the DC district court website. She worked as a public defender in DC for a decade before joining the private law firm where she specialized in “litigation and white-collar criminal defense”.Chutkan has ruled on a Trump case before. She once blocked an attempt by Trump to refuse the House January 6 select committee’s request for White House files in the months after the election. That decision released mounds of evidence that shaped the committee’s investigation, according to Politico.In her November 2021 ruling, Chutkan described the attack as an “unprecedented attempt to prevent the lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next [that] caused property damage, injuries, and death”.But that case involved only legal questions about court proceedings and did not require her to rule on Trump’s role in the riot.Chutkan is also the only judge who has delivered stricter sentences against January 6 defendants than requested by federal prosecutors. In December 2021, she imposed the longest sentence at the time for a January 6 rioter – 63 months in jail for Robert Palmer, a Florida man who sprayed Capitol police with a fire extinguisher.“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” she said at his sentencing, justifying lengthy jail time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEleanor Norton, the US congresswoman who has represented DC since 1991, recommended Chutkan, then a partner at a private law firm, to the post in 2013, according to a press release at the time. Chutkan became the third Black woman ever to serve on the sole DC district court, joining Ketanji B Jackson, now a supreme court justice, on the bench in 2014.A different federal judge, Moxila A Upadhyaya, presided over Trump’s arraignment at a federal courthouse in DC on Thursday afternoon. More