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      US judge orders Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit to be unsealed with redactions – as it happened

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      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that a federal judge has ordered a redacted version of the affidavit for the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago unsealed:Just in: Federal Judge orders the Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit to be unsealed in part with redactions https://t.co/zzd7gNASgf— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 25, 2022
      Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge handling the case, gave the government until noon eastern time tomorrow to make the redacted document public.“I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit,” Reinhart wrote in the filing. The portions that will be excluded include identifying information of witnesses, grand jury material and details of the investigation’s strategy and direction, he said.“I further find that the Government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”Tomorrow may bring more details of just what the FBI was looking for when it searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, after a federal judge ordered the affidavit for the search made public by Friday at noon eastern time. However, the justice department will redact the document first and could appeal the decision entirely, meaning it’s unclear how many new details will be released, if any.Here’s what else happened today:
      Barack Obama is set to appear at Democratic fundraisers ahead of the midterm elections, as the party aims to maintain its majority in the Senate.
      Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr said the ex-president controls the Republican party through “extortion”.
      A brass band appeared before the White House to thank Joe Biden for relieving student debt, though some Democrats aren’t comfortable with the plan.
      The Biden administration plans to unveil a federal rule to protect “dreamers”, as undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children are known, but it could still face a court challenge.
      Texas, Tennessee and Idaho became the latest US states to ban abortion.
      Biden pledged continued support for Ukraine in a phone call with its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that a federal judge has ordered a redacted version of the affidavit for the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago unsealed:Just in: Federal Judge orders the Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit to be unsealed in part with redactions https://t.co/zzd7gNASgf— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 25, 2022
      Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge handling the case, gave the government until noon eastern time tomorrow to make the redacted document public.“I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit,” Reinhart wrote in the filing. The portions that will be excluded include identifying information of witnesses, grand jury material and details of the investigation’s strategy and direction, he said.“I further find that the Government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”In Alabama, The Guardian’s Sam Levine has the story of how one resident’s lawsuit opened the door for a majority Black city to finally have a city council representative of its racial makeup:A few years ago, Eric Calhoun felt out of touch with his city council in Pleasant Grove, a small Alabama city of just under 10,000 people outside of Birmingham.Calhoun, who is 71 and has lived in the city for nearly three decades, couldn’t find contact information for any of the five council members online. During the 2016 election, none of the white candidates running asked him for his vote. Voters in the city had never elected a Black person to the city council. Calhoun, like 61% of the city, is Black.In 2018, Calhoun became a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that argued the racial makeup of the city council in Pleasant Grove was not an accident. The way the city was choosing its city council candidates made nearly impossible for a Black candidate to get elected. Essentially, the city allowed city council candidates to run citywide, instead of in districts, allowing blocs of white voters in the city to come together and defeat candidates preferred by Black voters.He challenged his all-white city council in Alabama. Now he’s on itRead moreIn yet another sign that the two men are no longer friends, Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s attorney general from 2019 until just before the end of his time in the White House, accused the former president of using “extortion” to control Republicans.The comments came during an interview with Barr on podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss:Former Attorney General Bill Barr accuses Donald Trump of using “extortion” to “exert control over the Republican Party”:”That shows what he’s all about. He’s all about himself.” pic.twitter.com/EgPVwXUghQ— The Recount (@therecount) August 25, 2022
      The Associated Press reports that guilty pleas have been entered in the bizarre case of two people in Florida who tried to sell possessions belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter to conservative activists:Two Florida residents have pleaded guilty in a scheme to sell a diary and other items belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter to the conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said on Thursday.Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, the office of the Manhattan US attorney Damian Williams said.“Harris and Kurlander sought to profit from their theft of another person’s personal property, and they now stand convicted of a federal felony as a result,” Williams said.Requests for comment were sent to lawyers for Harris, 40, of Palm Beach, and Kurlander, 58, and to Project Veritas.Duo plead guilty to plot to sell Biden daughter’s stolen diary to Project VeritasRead moreUS president Joe Biden called Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy today, and reaffirmed his support for the country against Russia’s invasion.Here’s the full readout from the White House:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. He congratulated Ukraine on its Independence Day and expressed his admiration for the people of Ukraine, who have inspired the world as they defended their country’s sovereignty over the past six months. He reaffirmed the United States’ continued support for Ukraine and provided an update on the ongoing provision of security assistance, including yesterday’s announcement of nearly $3 billion to support Ukraine’s defense capabilities for the long term. The two leaders also called for Russia to return full control of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine and for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the plant. And here’s Zelenskiy’s take:Had a great conversation with @POTUS. Thanked for the unwavering U.S. support for Ukrainian people – security and financial. We discussed Ukraine’s further steps on our path to the victory over the aggressor and importance of holding Russia accountable for war crimes. pic.twitter.com/4edng8vkvn— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 25, 2022
      Joe Biden announces $3bn in fresh Ukraine military aidRead moreA federal grand jury found a Florida man guilty on hate crime charges for a “racially motivated” attack on a Black man traveling with his family in Seminole, 24 miles west of Tampa, the US justice department announced on Thursday.The Black man, identified only by as “JT”, was driving with his daughter and girlfriend last August when Jordan Patrick Leahy, 29, spewed racial slurs and attempted to run him off the road for nearly a mile.The two drivers then encountered each other at a light, where Leahy got out of his car and “tried to assault” the Black man as he continued to yell racist invective, prosecutors said.Hate crimes, especially against Black, Asian and Jewish Americans, climbed across the US throughout the coronavirus pandemic.Florida man found guilty on hate crime charges for attacking Black manRead moreThe Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is in touch about Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan, and unsurprisingly it is not happy.The nonpartisan Washington think tank says: “President Biden yesterday announced a set of changes to student loans – including cancellation of up to $20,000 for some borrowers – that will cost between $440bn and $600bn over the next ten years, with a central estimate of roughly $500bn. “Combined with today’s announcement, the federal government’s actions on student loans since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic have cost roughly $800bn. Of that amount, roughly $750bn is due to executive action and regulatory changes.”The CRFB adds: “It is extremely troubling to see the administration reverse the legislative progress made on deficit reduction. “It is long past time that student debt repayments resume, and now it is even more important for policymakers to enact changes that reduce deficits through spending reductions and revenue increases in order to put the national debt on a downward sustainable path.”Here’s more on Biden’s plan, from Edwin Rios:Biden says his student loan relief is ‘life-changing’. Will it fix the system’s inequities?Read moreThe Democratic candidate for governor in Texas, Beto O’Rourke, has released his first general election ads targeting his opponent, the incumbent Republican, Greg Abbott – and the subject is abortion. The ads on an issue proving electorally productive for Democrats across the US as the midterm elections approach, come on the day Texas’s stringent post-Roe v Wade abortion ban goes into effect.One says: “From this day forward, 25 August, women all across Texas are no longer free to make decisions about our own body, no longer free to choose if a pregnancy is right for us or our families, not even in cases of rape or incest. “And women will die because of it. Because of Greg Abbott’s abortion law. It’s too extreme. So I’m voting for Beto, who will give women are freedom back.”Another features a couple, the woman described as a “lifelong Democrat”, the man a “lifelong Republican”.“Of course people are going to disagree on the big issues,” the woman says. “But Greg Abbott signed the most extreme abortion ban in the United States. The man says: “No exception for rape? No exception for incest? $100,000 fines and jail time?” The woman: “Only 11% of Texans agree with it.” The man: “I mean, this is a free country. We need a governor that gets that. That’s Beto.”Polling gives Abbott nearly nine points up on O’Rourke. But here’s Lauren Gambino with a look about how focusing on the supreme court ruling which removed the right to an abortion has paid off so far for Democrats:Democrats’ hopes rise for midterms amid backlash over abortion accessRead moreThree US states saw abortion trigger bans kick-in on Thursday, Tennessee, Texas and Idaho joining eight other states that have formally outlawed the procedure since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June.Depending on the state, trigger laws are designed to take effect either immediately following the overturn of Roe or 30 days after the supreme court’s transmission of its judgement, which happened on 26 July.Nearly one in three women between the ages of 15 to 44 live in states where abortion has been banned or mostly banned. According to US census data, that is nearly 21 million women.“More people will lose abortion access across the nation as bans take effect in Texas, Tennessee and Idaho. Vast swaths of the nation, especially in the south and midwest, will become abortion deserts that, for many, will be impossible to escape,” Nancy Northup, chief executive of the Center of Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.“Evidence is already mounting of women being turned away despite needing urgent, and in some cases life-saving, medical care. This unfolding public health crisis will only continue to get worse. We will see more and more of these harrowing situations, and once state legislatures reconvene in January, we will see even more states implement abortion bans and novel laws criminalizing abortion providers, pregnant people, and those who help them.”More:Slew of trigger laws kick in as three more US states ban abortionsRead moreTaiwan has a new American visitor: Republican senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.I just landed in Taiwan to send a message to Beijing — we will not be bullied.  The United States remains steadfast in preserving freedom around the globe, and will not tolerate efforts to undermine our nation and our allies. pic.twitter.com/yVcaYN7yIA— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) August 25, 2022
      She elaborated on her reasons for visiting the island in a statement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Taiwan is our strongest partner in the Indo-Pacific Region. Regular high-level visits to Taipei are long-standing U.S. policy. I will not be bullied by Communist China into turning my back on the island. During my visit to Taiwan, I look forward to hearing directly from the nation’s leadership about their needs and how we can support freedom for the Taiwanese people. I look forward to meeting with leaders in Taipei to advance and strengthen our partnerships.Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island enraged China, which launched military exercises in response. But since then, more American lawmakers have visited what Beijing considers to be a breakaway province.US congressional delegation visits Taiwan on heels of Pelosi tripRead moreThe wheels of justice have ground forward ever so slowly in Donald Trump’s various court battles today. The justice department appears to have submitted the redactions it proposes should a judge decide to release the affidavit for the Mar-a-Lago search. Meanwhile, the ex-president’s lawyers are due to respond to another judge’s questions about their own lawsuit over the case.Here’s what else happened today:
      Barack Obama is set to appear at Democratic fundraisers ahead of the midterm elections, as the party aims to maintain its majority in the Senate.
      A brass band appeared before the White House to thanks Joe Biden for relieving some student debt, though some Democrats aren’t comfortable with the plan.
      The Biden administration plans to unveil a federal rule to protect “dreamers”, as undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children are known, but it could still face a court challenge.
      It appears the justice department has filed its proposed redactions to the affidavit in the Mar-a-Lago search, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Just in: New entry on the Trump Mar-a-Lago docket — under seal — appears to indicate the Justice Dept has now filed proposed redactions for the FBI affidavit— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 25, 2022
      Another lawyer for Donald Trump who assisted in his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election has filed a court motion resisting a subpoena for his appearance before a special grand jury in Georgia, Politico reports.The panel in Fulton county is looking into election meddling in the state two years ago, and has already heard from testimony Rudy Giuliani, who was informed he is a target of its investigation.JUST IN: Kenneth Chesebro, one of the architects of Donald Trump’s plan to remain in power, is suing to block a Fulton County Grand Jury subpoena, claiming he’s bound by attorney-client privilege to the Trump campaign.https://t.co/r0RWoRI0y0 pic.twitter.com/ypvHxXbd22— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 25, 2022
      Republican senator Lindsey Graham has also been subpoenaed by the grand jury, but is currently fighting it in court. More

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      in World Politics

      Ditching the Northern Ireland Protocol is unConservative and May Break the UK

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump is reading my memoir, Kushner claims of famously book-shy boss

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      Trump is reading my memoir, Kushner claims of famously book-shy bossSon-in-law and former adviser says ex-president has ‘given me some compliments on’ critically panned 500-page tome Donald Trump was notoriously averse to reading his briefing papers as president but according to Jared Kushner he has started reading Breaking History, his son-in-law and former adviser’s 500-page White House memoir.Breaking History review: Jared Kushner’s dispiriting Trump bookRead moreSpeaking to the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday, Kushner said: “When I gave it to him, he said, ‘Look, this is a very important book. I’m glad somebody wrote a book that’s really going to talk about what actually happened in the room.’ And he says, ‘I’m going to read it.’“So he started reading and he’s given me some compliments on it so far. And again, I hope he’s proud of it. I don’t know if he’ll like anything [in it].”Critics have not liked much in Kushner’s book. For the Guardian, Lloyd Green called it “a mixture of news and cringe” which “selectively parcels out dirt”. In the New York Times, Dwight Garner called the book “earnest and soulless”, saying “Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one”.“Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye-goo,” Garner wrote.Kushner has said he “read that review and … thought it was hysterical” and wanted “to hang it on my wall”. He also said sales had increased since the Times piece. The book does not appear on the Times bestseller list.Married to Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka, Kushner was a senior adviser through a presidency that ended in a deadly attack on Congress as Trump attempted to stay in power.Kushner said: “Sometimes he listened. Sometimes he didn’t but we had a lot of fun.”Whether Trump will finish Kushner’s book remains to be seen. The former president has never been known to be much of a reader – although his first wife, Ivana Trump, did say he kept a volume of Hitler’s speeches by his bed.At the time, Trump told Vanity Fair: “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”TopicsBooksJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansTrump administrationPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Trump officials tried to ‘bully’ FDA over Covid treatments, House panel says

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      Trump officials tried to ‘bully’ FDA over Covid treatments, House panel saysCongressional investigation finds new evidence of efforts to override health decisions early in pandemic Officials in the Trump White House tried to pressure health experts to reauthorize a discredited Covid treatment, according to a congressional investigation.A report published on Wednesday by the Democratic-led House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis contained new evidence of efforts to override Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions early in the pandemic.Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millionsRead moreThe report also shed new light on the role TV personalities played in bringing hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, to the attention of top White House officials.The FDA authorized the use of hydroxychloroquine in late March 2020, based on small studies suggesting it could have some effectiveness against the coronavirus.At that time, many researchers hoped existing antiviral drugs could be used. But by June 2020 FDA officials had concluded the drug was likely ineffective and could cause potentially dangerous heart complications. Authorization for emergency use was revoked.The report by the House subcommittee focused on pressure on the FDA, which serves as gatekeeper for drugs, vaccines and other counter-measures against Covid.The subcommittee chairman, James Clyburn of South Carolina, said: “As today’s report makes clear, senior Trump administration officials undermined public health experts because they believed doing so would benefit the former president politically.”He also said officials had been “plotting covertly with known conspiracy theorists to dangerously push a disproven coronavirus treatment, bullying FDA to change its vaccine guidance, and advocating for federal investigations into those who stood in their way”.Much of the subcommittee’s information came from an interview with Stephen Hahn, who Trump picked as FDA commissioner in late 2019. Frustrated by the pace of FDA reviews, Trump repeatedly accused Hahn – without evidence – of delaying decisions on Covid drugs and vaccines for political reasons.Although FDA commissioners are politically appointed, agency scientists are expected to conduct reviews free from outside influence. Hahn told investigators he felt pressure due to the “persistence” of the Trump aide Peter Navarro to reauthorize hydroxychloroquine after the decision to pull its emergency use.“We took a different stance at the FDA,” Hahn told investigators. “So that disagreement, which of course ultimately became somewhat public, was a source of pressure.”Much of the report focuses on actions taken by Navarro and Steven Hatfill, a virologist and outside adviser described by the subcommittee as a “full-time volunteer” on Covid for the White House.“Dr Hatfill and Mr Navarro devised multiple pressure schemes targeting FDA and federal officials who they contended were wrongly impeding widespread access to hydroxychloroquine,” the report said.The report found that Hatfill and Navarro attempted to gain outside support for hydroxychloroquine by engaging “known extremists and prolific conspiracists like former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Jerome Corsi, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons” (AAPS).The report found that Hatfill, under Navarro’s supervision, coordinated with the AAPS executive director, Jane Orient, and Bannon to gather support for a petition to “keep pressure on the FDA and the new emergency use authorization request”.According to the report, Hatfill also “courted researchers to pursue a study to show the purported benefits of hydroxychloroquine by dangling millions of taxpayer dollars in promised funding – doing so after the drug was shown to be ineffective and potentially dangerous for certain patients”.Responding, Hatfill said: “We never wrongly pressured anyone. We simply followed the science and the overwhelming evidence as detailed in several studies available at the time.”Navarro said the subcommittee was “wrongly” claiming hydroxychloroquine to be “somehow dangerous”.There is no evidence White House efforts changed FDA decisions on hydroxychloroquine or any other therapies.In fall 2020, the focus of FDA and White House officials turned to the authorization of the first Covid vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna.As previously reported, the White House objected to an FDA requirement that vaccine makers gather two months of safety data before filing applications, contending it would delay launch of the shots. Trump repeatedly said shots would be authorized before election day, despite government scientists signaling that was unlikely.The House report suggested that FDA guidance for vaccine manufacturers was delayed more than three weeks from mid-September until early October, due to White House concerns.Hahn told investigators the agency faced “pushback about the issue” from officials including Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who told Hahn on 23 September 2020 that the White House would not sign off on the two-month requirement.On 6 October, the FDA published its vaccine guidelines as part of a larger set of documents for drugmakers. After the materials posted online, Hahn said Meadows called him to indicate that the guidelines were approved. The online publication drew fury from Trump on Twitter.“New FDA rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before election day,” Trump tweeted at Hahn. “Just another political hit job!”TopicsCoronavirusDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millions

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      Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millionsPresident delivers on campaign promise and outlines debt relief measures for those on lower incomes in White House speech01:15Millions of Americans received welcome news on Wednesday when Joe Biden delivered on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt forgiveness.Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year will be eligible for loan forgiveness, with those whose low incomes qualified them for federal Pell Grants receiving up to $20,000 in relief. About a third of US undergraduate students receive Pell Grants.Biden also extended a pause on federal student loan payments through the end of the year. The White House said it would be the last pause, and borrowers should expect to resume payments in January.If it survives probable legal challenges, Biden’s plan could offer a windfall to many Americans in the run-up to midterm elections in November. More than 45 million owe a combined $1.7tn in federal student debt. Almost a third owe less than $10,000, according to federal data.Biden also proposed a new income-driven repayment plan that would cap loans for low-income future borrowers and introduce fixes to the loan forgiveness program for non-profit and government workers.“Twelve years of universal education is not enough,” Biden said, announcing the plan at the White House. “How do we remain the most competitive nation in the world with the strongest economy in the world with the greatest opportunities?“That’s what today’s announcement is about. It’s about opportunity. It’s about giving people a fair shot. It’s about the one word America can be defined by: ‘possibilities’. It’s about providing possibilities.Biden noted that the federal government gave loans to small businesses during the Covid pandemic.“Now, it’s time to address the burden of student debt the same way.”Biden added that “an entire generation is now saddled with unsustainable debt.“The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate, you may not have access to the middle-class life that the college degree once provided. The burden is especially heavy on Black and Hispanic borrowers who, on average, have less family wealth to pay for it.”Biden said more information on the plan would soon be released and borrowers who qualify for forgiveness could expect a “short and simple form to apply for this relief”, sent by the Department of Education.The US has a long history of student debt, the vast majority owed to the federal government, which has been offering loans for college since 1958. US student debt has more than tripled over the last 16 years.Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill cheered Biden’s announcement. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime advocate of the policy, issued a joint statement.They said: “With the flick of a pen, President Biden has taken a giant step forward in addressing the student debt crisis by cancelling significant amounts of student debt for millions of borrowers.“The positive impacts of this move will be felt by families across the country, particularly in minority communities, and is the single most effective action that the president can take on his own to help working families and the economy.”The senators added that Democrats would continue with efforts “to help close the racial wealth gap for borrowers and keep our economy growing”.Biden has faced pressure from liberals to provide broader relief. The cancellation falls short of the $50,000 many activist groups wanted. Some groups have called for full student debt cancellation.“If we can cancel $10k, we can cancel it all,” the Debt Collective, a union of debtors, tweeted on Wednesday.Administration officials claimed the plan could reduce inflation. The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, argued that it would worsen the problem.McConnell said: “Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our armed forces in order to avoid taking on debt. This policy is astonishingly unfair.”Biden’s continuation of the pandemic loan payment freeze came just days before millions were set to find out when their next student loan bills were due. The end of the payment freeze extension was set for 31 August.During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden was initially skeptical of student debt cancellation as he faced progressive candidates including Warren and Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont.On Wednesday, Sanders hailed “a great step forward” but said: “We have got to do more.”New York special election victory gives Democrats hope for midterms – liveRead moreAs he tried to shore up support among younger voters, Biden unveiled a proposal for debt cancellation of $10,000 per borrower, with no mention of an income cap. That campaign promise was narrowed in recent months by embracing the income limit.Democrats pushed the administration to go as broad as possible, seeing debt relief as a galvanizing issue, particularly for Black and young voters.‘There’s been a dramatic shift in how Americans think about the role of government in helping people out for college,” said Brian Powell, professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington who co-authored a book on the student loan crisis.Powell noted that support for debt cancellation and college affordability has grown. Those who go to college make on average $30,000 more a year than those with just a high school degree.TopicsUS student debtJoe BidenUS politicsUS educationUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Fetterman hits back at Oz for ‘vegetable’ remark: ‘Politics can be nasty’

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      Fetterman hits back at Oz for ‘vegetable’ remark: ‘Politics can be nasty’Aide to TV doctor and Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz said Fetterman could have avoided stroke by eating vegetables The Democratic candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, has fired back at Mehmet Oz, after a senior aide to the Republican said Fetterman might have avoided a serious stroke in May had he only eaten more vegetables.Dr Oz campaign draws ire over unsavory remarks on Democratic rival’s strokeRead more“I had a stroke. I survived it,” Fetterman said. “I know politics can be nasty, but even then, I could never imagine ridiculing someone for their health challenges.”The Democrat, currently Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, was responding to a statement to Insider on Tuesday by Rachel Tripp, senior communications adviser to Oz.Responding to Fetterman’s mockery of a video in which Oz complained about the price of crudités, Tripp said: “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”Fetterman, 53, had a serious stroke in May. He returned to the campaign trail this month and has discussed the challenges of doing so.Oz, 62, is a former heart surgeon who became a popular if controversial voice on daytime TV. In Senate testimony in 2014, for example, he admitted promoting diet pills that did not work.Pennsylvania is a swing state, its Senate race seen as key to determining control of the chamber. But fivethirtyeight.com puts Fetterman more than 10 points ahead and Senate Republican leaders are widely reported to be moving spending elsewhere.Donald Trump endorsed Oz but according to Rolling Stone now thinks his candidate is set to “fucking lose” – a remark Trump denied.On Wednesday, Fetterman also released a letter signed by more than 100 Pennsylvania doctors who expressed “serious concern” about Oz’s candidacy.The doctors said: “As physicians, we strongly believe in evidence-based medicine and sharing honest health information with the public.“As a former daytime TV host, Dr Oz exploited the hopes and fears of his viewers by promoting unproven, ill-advised and at times potentially dangerous treatments. He has made clear that he will put enriching himself above all else, even in instances where people’s health is endangered.”“Dr Oz’s record of spreading misinformation and sharing factually incorrect medical advice on The Dr Oz Show and otherwise is thoroughly researched and well documented.”The letter cited British Medical Journal research and accused Oz of spreading misinformation about Covid-19.It also raised the issue of abortion rights, under threat since the US supreme court overturned a key ruling but a threat successfully seized upon by Democrats in campaigns across the country.Democrats’ hopes rise for midterms amid backlash over abortion accessRead moreThe doctors said: “Dr Oz would … be another vote to criminalise abortion and he has refused to condemn efforts to ban abortion in Pennsylvania, endangering the lives of women and people who can become pregnant. He has even said that he opposes abortions in cases of rape or incest.”The letter concluded with a statement of support for Fetterman.In a tweet on Wednesday, Oz said: “As a doctor, I saved the lives of thousands of patients. As your senator, I plan to bring the power of change to Washington that Pennsylvania desperately needs.”TopicsPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents

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      Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documentsCourt motion submitted by ex-president’s lawyers argues some materials seized by FBI could be subject to executive privilege Donald Trump appeared to concede in his court filing over the seizure of materials from his Florida resort that he unlawfully retained official government documents, as the former president argued that some of the documents collected by the FBI could be subject to executive privilege.The motion submitted on Monday by the former president’s lawyers argued that a court should appoint a so-called special master to separate out and determine what materials the justice department can review as evidence due to privilege issues.“The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago … were created during his term as President. Accordingly, the documents are presumptively privileged until proven otherwise,” the filing said. “Only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.”But the argument from Trump that the documents are subject to executive privilege protections suggests those documents are official records – which he is not authorized to keep and should have turned over to the National Archives at the end of the administration.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreThe motion, in that regard, appeared to concede that Trump violated one of the criminal statutes listed on the warrant used by the FBI to search the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort – 18 USC 2071 – concerning the unlawful removal of government records.“If he’s acknowledging that he’s in possession of documents that would have any colorable claim of executive privilege, those are by definition presidential records and belong at the National Archives,” said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and former associate dean at Yale Law School.“And so it’s not clear that executive privilege would even be relevant to the particular crime he’s being investigated for and yet in this filing, he basically admits that he is in possession of them, which is what the government is trying to establish,” Rangappa said.Trump remains able to make the case that a special master should be appointed to review the seized documents, seek a more detailed receipt for what the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago and restrain the justice department from further reviewing the materials until the process is complete.The reasoning, former US attorneys say, is that there could be communications seized by the FBI that are privileged, but not used in furtherance of a crime, and even if the justice department wanted to use them in its investigation, it should be precluded from doing so.Still, if Trump successfully argues the materials are protected by executive privilege, then he also successfully argues that he was in unlawful possession of official records. If he is unsuccessful, then executive privilege would not be a valid basis to seek a special master.A person directly involved in Trump’s legal defense noted – repeating parts in the filing – that the Presidential Records Act had no enforcement mechanism, even as they conceded that the justice department might pursue the privilege argument as a tacit admission.But Trump’s motion could throw up additional challenges for the former president, with additional passages in the filing laying out a months-long battle by the justice department to recover certain records in a pattern of interactions that could be construed as obstruction of justice.The search warrant for Mar-a-Lago listed obstruction for the statutes potentially violated, though it was not clear whether that was obstruction of the investigation into the very retrieval of government documents from Mar-a-Lago or for another, separate investigation.Yet the section in Trump’s motion titled “President Donald J Trump’s Voluntary Assistance” detailed the multiple steps the justice department took to initially retrieve 15 boxes in January, additional materials in June, and then 26 boxes when the FBI conducted its search.The filing discussed how Trump returned the 15 boxes to the National Archives, and then – one day after the National Archives told Trump’s lawyers that those boxes contained classified documents – “accepted service of a grand jury subpoena” for additional documents with classification markings.But despite taking custody of documents responsive to the subpoena, the justice department learned there may have been additional documents marked as classified, and issued a subpoena on 22 June demanding security camera footage of the hallway outside where the materials were being stored.That subpoena for security tapes, as well as a subsequent subpoena for CCTV footage of that area from just before the FBI search on 8 August, suggests the justice department did not think Trump was being entirely truthful or forthcoming in his interactions with the investigation.Those suspicions were well-founded: when the government retrieved materials from Mar-a-Lago on that second collection in June, Trump’s custodian of records attested they had given back documents responsive to the subpoena – only for the FBI to retrieve more boxes of classified materials.Separately, apart from late filing of the motion two weeks after the FBI search took place, the brief itself appears to be procedurally problematic.The motion was not filed in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the warrant was approved. Instead, it was filed in Fort Pierce, where the judge has no knowledge of the underlying affidavit – and could rule in such a way to reveal to Trump if he or his lawyers are suspects for obstruction.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBILaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book says

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      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysFormer New York mayor’s ex-wife describes breakdown Trump helped hide, years before mutual White House drama Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of a close friend and ally – Donald Trump.Trump stash retrieved from Mar-a-Lago runs to hundreds of classified filesRead more“We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” Giuliani’s third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, by Andrew Kirtzman, will be published in September. The Guardian obtained a copy.In 2018, Giuliani told the New York Times he “spent a month at Mar-a-Lago, relaxing” after the primary a decade before. He has not otherwise discussed the period.Giuliani initially polled well in 2008 but won just one delegate and dropped out after placing fourth in Florida.The former mayor, Kirtzman writes, had “dreamed of becoming president from a young age, [but] blew his big moment when it arrived”.Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman her husband fell into “what, I knew as a nurse, was a clinical depression”.“She said he started to drink more heavily,” Kirtzman writes. “While Giuliani was always fond of drinking scotch with his cigars while holding court at the Grand Havana or Club Mac, his friends never considered him a problem drinker. Judith felt he was drinking to dull the pain.”Giuliani has repeatedly denied having a drinking problem. But reports of his drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump’s personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted.In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” that night.Kirtzman’s reporting of Giuliani’s little-known 2008 stay at Mar-a-Lago – a period when in Giuliani’s ex-wife’s words he was both speaking to therapists and “always falling shitfaced somewhere” – also prefigures Giuliani’s current role in American public life, as a chaotic, picaresque Trump booster seemingly impervious to personal or political embarrassment.Trump is a lifelong teetotaler but also a longtime Giuliani ally. In 2008, Kirtzman says, as Giuliani was struggling even to get out of bed, Trump came to his rescue.The former mayor and his wife, Kirtzman writes, moved into a bungalow across the street from Mar-a-Lago but connected by a tunnel underneath South Ocean Boulevard, one of many little known passages and rooms beneath the expansive resort. The secret route allowed the couple to come and go from Trump’s home without the media knowing.As Kirtzman’s book nears publication, underground rooms at Mar-a-Lago are in the news, after the FBI searched some for classified material taken from the White House at the end of Trump’s four years as president.Giuliani eventually emerged from seclusion to appear on Saturday Night Live. He made “self-deprecating jokes about the failure of his campaign”, Kirtzman writes, but “his makeup barely hid a large scar above his right eyebrow”. According to Judith Giuliani, the scar was the result of a fall when getting out of a car.Kirtzman writes that Giuliani’s third wife “was known to exaggerate, and the depth of his depression [during his secret spell at Mar-a-Lago] is something that only she and Giuliani knew for certain”. But the author also quotes friends, among them the 2013 Republican New York mayoral candidate Joe Lhota, as saying the Giulianis were out of touch at the time in question.Kirtzman recounts Giuliani’s career from his days as a hard-charging New York prosecutor to two terms as a controversial mayor, the 9/11 attacks and Giuliani’s widely praised leadership in the immediate aftermath.The author also covers Giuliani’s business deals after leaving office and his failed Senate run against Hillary Clinton in 2000.04:35In Giuliani’s meltdown after the primary in 2008, Kirtzman finds the seeds of a relationship which ultimately saw Giuliani contribute to Trump’s first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for political dirt, and to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those efforts resulted in Trump’s second impeachment, over the Capitol riot, and extensive professional and legal jeopardy for Giuliani.Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaRead moreAs reported by the New York Times, Kirtzman ultimately describes a Giuliani associate’s failed request that Trump pardon his ally in the aftermath of the Capitol attack – and give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom while he was at it.Giuliani and Trump had “a compelling kinship”, Kirtzman writes. “The former mayor and the famous developer were two New York colossuses, dinosaurs from another time and place.” Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman Trump and his own third wife, Melania Trump, “kept a protective eye” on their friends.Judith, Kirtzman writes, “contends that, eight years before Washington began talking about Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump in the same breath, the future president took the failed candidate under his protective wing at a vulnerable moment.“What’s clear is the two men’s friendship survived when a hundred other Trump relationships died away like so many marriages of convenience. Giuliani would never turn his back on Trump, much to his detriment.”TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansPolitics booksBiography booksnewsReuse this content More