Today so far
Thank you for reading along with us during this busy news day. You can read more about Trump’s recusal filing from The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell here.
Here’s a rundown of what else we have covered:
The FDA authorized updated Covid-19 vaccines that closely match the Omicron variants that are circulating, starting the process to deploy the shots this month.
Several people were arrested after entering the office of Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, during a protest for HIV/Aids funding on Monday.
The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine.
Five American prisoners being detained in Iran could soon be freed, thanks to a new deal the countries reached today. In exchange for the 5 US citizens, 5 Iranians held in the US will be released and the US will allow the transfer of $6bn in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar without sanctions.
President Biden marked the anniversary of 9/11 by speaking to service members, first responders, and their families in Anchorage, Alaska. Biden used the speech to highlight the battles the country is still fighting – deep-seated divisions that continue to threaten its future.
In a court filing on Monday, former president Donald Trump moved to recuse federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the 2020 election subversion case, citing her previous comments about his culpability.
The filing is believed to be in response to the Trump team’s disapproval of the date set for the trial on March 4th – the day before Super Tuesday. But analysts and experts are already highlighting the high unlikelihood that it will work.
Chutkan is a highly respected federal judge, appointed by Obama and confirmed in 95-0 vote by the Senate in 2014. She also has been harsher than her colleagues in handing down sentences for rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan 6.
As of July this year, all 38 defendants who came before her were given prison sentences, NPR reports, including 4 who weren’t recommended for prison by prosecutors.
NPR reports:
Chutkan has handed down tougher prison sentences than the government asked for in nearly 25% of her Jan. 6 cases. That is a notably higher rate than nearly all other judges handling these cases.
“She was definitely on the high end of the range of those people,” said Bob Driscoll, a defense attorney at the McGlinchey Stafford firm in Washington. “She was, in fact, still might be the only — if she’s not the only she’s one of the only — judges that has several times gone above the recommendation made by the government.”
With the trial date set for March 4, this case will be the first Trump will face against prosecutors and the special counsel Jack Smith – just as voters go to the polls for the primaries.
Analysts believe the interesting timing of Trump’s somewhat unsurprising attempt to get Chukan off the case came down to his frustration over scheduling.
Chukan set the date for the trial – which will examine the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election – to start on March 4. The start falls the day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states will hold primaries.
Trump, who is attempting to retake the White House in 2024, pushed for a more than 2-year delay, asking for the trial to be held until April 2026. Chutkan rejected the request (opting for one about a month later than prosecutors initially argued for) and said Trump’s legal time would have plenty of time to prepare.
“Setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal and professional obligations,” Chutkan said.
Analysts and experts are beginning to weigh in on the filing for recusal, highlighting the high unlikelihood that it will work.
“Judge Chutkan‘s statements were made at January 6 sentencings, based on evidence in those proceedings,” lawyer Max Kennerly said in a social media post. “The defendants argued they were following Trump’s instructions, so Judge Chutkan addressed that. Thus, Liteky v US applies, and the bar for recusal is nearly insurmountable.”
Adam Klasfeld, a senior legal correspondent at the Messenger, highlighted how Trump has long-been critical of Chutkan, even though her rulings tend to align with Judge Aileen Cannon – who he appointed – and whose rulings he favors. Still, as Klasfeld highlights in a recent analysis, rebuking Chutkan will not likely help the former president.
“I think that is to their great peril,” former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told Klasfeld, noting that treating the two judges differently was a poor legal strategy.
Keith Boykin, a national political commentator and author who served as a White House aide to President Bill Clinton framed the call as a more sinister tactic to discredit Chutkan.
“Trump trying to get Judge Tanya Chutkan to recuse herself is textbook Trump trying to smear a Black woman,” Boykin said in a post. “Judge Chutkan didn’t indict Trump. A grand jury did. Judge Chutkan didn’t bring the case. Jack Smith did. And Judge Chutkan won’t decide his fate. A jury of his peers will.”
Updated
Though the filing only surfaced Monday, conservative calls for Chutkan to step down have been mounting in recent weeks. Republican congressman and Trump-loyalist Matt Gaetz filed a resolution to condemn and censure the federal judge for her comments in recent weeks.
Just last night, Mark Levin, a conservative pundit and Fox News show host, took aim at Judge Chutkan on his program.
Making the case that she is “unqualified” to preside over the case against Trump, Levin cited an investigation on Real Clear Politics, a right-leaning website largely funded by pro-Trump conservatives, that outlines many of the arguments used by the former president’s legal team to call for Chutkan’s recusal.
But for all the crying-foul coming from conservatives, it will be difficult for the Trump legal team to succeed in getting her off the case. As New York University professor of law Stephen Gillers told Real Clear Politics: “Almost never will a judge be recused for opinions she forms as a judge – in hearing cases and motions. Judges are expected to form opinions based on these ‘intrajudicial’ sources. It’s what judges do.”
Ultimately, Chutkan will be the one to rule on whether she is too biased to preside over the case. If she denies the recusal, Trump’s lawyers could petition an appeals court, but it’s still a long shot.
This also isn’t the first time Trump has tried to get a new judge. He previously failed to get a new judge to preside over his New York State court case and also attempted to get the case moved to federal court.
Trump has challenged the judge or jurisdiction in three of his four criminal cases this year, CBS News reports, excluding only Aileen Cannon – presiding over the 40 felony counts charged for “willful retention of national security information” – who he appointed.
Updated
Trump moves to recuse Judge Chutkan
In a court filing on Monday, former president Donald Trump moved to recuse federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the 2020 election subversion case, citing her previous comments about his culpability.
“Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,” the motion for recusal reads. “Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying.”
The filing includes a reference to a statement Chutkan made during cases in 2022 before the special counsel issued findings:
This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government by individuals who were mad that their guy lost. I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man – not to the constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
“Fairness and impartiality are the central tenets of our criminal justice system,” Trump’s legal team wrote in the filing. “Both a defendant and the public are entitled to a full hearing, on all relevant issues, by a Court that has not prejudged the guilt of the defendant, and whose neutrality cannot be reasonably questioned.”
Updated
Biden urges unity in his speech for 9/11
President Biden marked the anniversary of 9/11 by speaking to service members, first responders, and their families in Anchorage, Alaska.
Standing before an enormous American flag the president recounted memories of that tragic day while championing the acts of patriotism and courage performed in response.
“Those terrorists could never touch the soul of America,” the President said resolutely. “Heroes, like all of you,” he added, “never faltered to defend our nation, our people an dour values in times of trial”.
He used the speech to tell the gathered troops that his administration is working to ensure broader support for service members when they return home. Outlining the ways in which the US has fought terrorist foes over the last two decades, and noting that Osama Bin Laden was sent “to the gates of hell,” Biden turned toward the battles the country is still fighting – the deep-seated divisions that continue to threaten its future.
To drive home the point, the President ended with an anecdote about his late friend, Senator John McCain.
“John and I were friends. Like a lot of us we had differences,” he said, adding that the two, “disagreed like hell,” on the Senate floor but would always find time to lunch afterward.
On their last meeting, Biden shared, McCain pulled him close, said he loved him, and asked Biden to perform his eulogy.
“He put duty to country first,” Biden said. “Above party, above politics, above his own person.” The president invoked the American people, including the military members in attendance, to reflect on that during this day of remembrance.
“We must never lose that sense of national unity,” he said. “Let that be the common cause of our time.”
Updated
The US has reached a deal with Iran to swap prisoners
Five American prisoners being detained in Iran could soon be freed, thanks to a new deal the countries reached today. In exchange for the 5 US citizens, 5 Iranians held in the US will be released and the US will allow the transfer of $6bn in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar without sanctions, the Associated Press reports.
Congress was notified of the deal today, after it was signed off by the Biden Administration late last week. AP reports that significant sum cleared for use by Iran was a key aspect to the deal, encouraging foreign banks to perform the transfer intended to be used to purchase humanitarian supplies. The cnetral bank of Qatar will hold the funds, which will be controlled by Qatar’s government, to ensure its use is dedicated to aid, including medicine and food for the people of Iran.
The American prisoners have also been transferred out of Iranian jails and are now in house arrest.
The deal is the result of more than two years of negotiations between the two countries, according to the The New York Times, which reported on the tentative agreement in August.
“This is just the beginning of a process that I hope and expect will lead to their return home to the United States,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters at the time. “There’s more work to be done to actually bring them home. My belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare.”
US close to approving long-range missiles armed with cluster bombs for Ukraine - report
The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine, Reuters is reporting, citing four US officials.
The US is considering shipping either or both Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 190 miles (306 km), or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles with a 45-mile range packed with cluster bombs, the report says.
If approved, either option would be available for rapid shipment to Kyiv, giving Ukraine the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory.
The decision to send ATACMS or GMLRS, or both, is not final and could still fall through, according to the sources.
The US has approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising cases of coronavirus around the country, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The FDA said it had approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which can be administered even to people who never previously received a Covid-19 vaccination.
As with earlier vaccinations, the new round of shots are cleared for adults and children as young as age 6 months.
Starting at age five, most people can get a single dose even if they have never had a prior Covid-19 shot, per the FDA. Younger children might need additional doses depending on their history of Covid-19 infections and vaccinations.
Hospitalizations from Covid-19 have crept up in recent weeks, although the rise is lower than the same time last year. In the week ending 26 August just over 17,400 people were hospitalized from Covid-19, NBC reported, up 16% from the week before.
In August, two hospitals in New York state re-introduced mandatory masking after an increase in Covid-19 cases, while the Lionsgate film studio reinstated a mask mandate for half its employees in its flagship Los Angeles offices.
That same month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that it had discovered a new Covid-19 variant and warned high-risk individuals to resume wearing masks.
The variant, BA 2.86, was detected during monitoring of wastewater, the CDC said. It said it was too soon to tell if BA 2.86 could lead to more severe illness than other variants, but reported “reassuring” results of early research which showed that existing antibodies work against the BA 2.86 variant.
Donald Trump urged supporters they need to “fight like hell” or risk losing their country during a speech at a South Dakota rally in which the former president used language resonant of the run-up to the January 6 US Capitol attack, according to a CNN report.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a darkness around our nation like there is now,” Trump said on Friday, as he accused Democrats of allowing an “invasion” of migrants over the southern border and of trying to restart Covid “hysteria”, the report says.
The Republican front-runner’s stark speech raised the prospect of a second presidency that would be even more extreme and challenging to the rule of law than his first. His view that the Oval Office confers unfettered powers suggests Trump would indulge in similar conduct as that for which he is awaiting trial, including intimidating local officials in an alleged bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
Here are some images from the news wires of how the US has been marking the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which took the lives of nearly 3,000 people.
Several people were arrested after entering the office of Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, during a protest for HIV/Aids funding on Monday.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), a widely bipartisan program, has since been reauthorized three times, and Joe Biden earlier this year indicated that he would work with Congress to extend it a fourth.
But the program’s latest extension has been caught up in a partisan fight over abortion and is under threat amid Congress’s negotiations over a government shutdown.
Some Republicans are opposing Pepfar’s reauthorization, arguing that current restrictions do not sufficiently prevent the funds from being used to support abortions, according to an August report by the Federation of American Scientists.
New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs the House foreign affairs subcommittee, in a letter to colleagues in June:
Any multi-year PEPFAR reauthorizing legislation must ensure that Biden’s hijacking of PEPFAR to promote abortion be halted.
The program was first established in 2003 by President George W Bush to prevent and treat HIV/Aids in developing countries worldwide, and it is overseen by the US Department of State.
About 20 million people depend on the program globally, according to a White House statement in January.
Smith was a co-sponsor of the 2018 bill extending Pepfar for five years but is now seeking to block its renewal after Biden in 2021 lifted Trump-era restrictions that barred Pepfar and other global programs receiving US funding from performing or promoting abortions.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the green light to updated Covid-19 vaccine shots from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, but it is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommends who should get the shot, according to a Washington Post report.
The CDC is leaning toward a broad recommendation that covers almost all ages, mirroring the FDA approach, the paper writes, citing federal officials.
But it is possible that some on the agency’s panel of outside experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will push for a targeted recommendation focused on those at greatest risk — older Americans or people with weakened immune systems or other illnesses.
Experts interviewed by the paper said they would get the coronavirus shot as soon as possible amid a late-summer uptick in Covid cases across the US
Updated Covid-19 vaccinations could begin later this week, and the US hopes to ramp up protection against the latest coronavirus strains amid steadily increasing cases.
The newest shots target an omicron variant named XBB.1.5, replacing combination vaccines that mixed protection against the original coronavirus strain and even older omicron variants.
“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s center for biologics evaluation and research.
The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.
There has been a late-summer uptick in Covid cases across the US.
Experts are closely watching two new variants, EG.5, now the dominant strain, and BA.2.86, which has attracted attention from scientists because of its high number of mutations.
Experts have said that the US is not facing a threat like it did in 2020 and 2021. “We’re in a different place,” Mandy Cohen, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC News last month.
I think we’re the most prepared that we’ve ever been.
Updated Covid-19 vaccine shots made by Pfizer and Moderna are expected to be available in the coming days, according to Moderna. A third shot, by the vaccine maker Novavax, is still under review by the FDA, according to the company.
Advisers from the US centers for disease and protection (CDC) are due to meet on Tuesday to recommend who should receive the shot. An endorsement by the CDC’s director should clear the way for millions of doses to be shipped nationwide within days.
As part of the FDA’s update, the original Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the US.
Updated
FDA authorizes updated Covid vaccines
The US health regulator on Monday authorized updated Covid-19 vaccines that closely match the Omicron variants that are circulating, starting the process to deploy the shots this month, Reuters reports.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots, which target the XBB.1.5 subvariant, from manufacturers Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech SE, and US pharma company Moderna.
More details to follow.
A trial began Monday over a sweeping Texas voting law that sparked a 38-day walkout by Democrats in 2021 and were among the strictest changes passed by Republicans nationwide following former US president Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, the Associated Press reports.
The AP further notes:
The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of voting rights groups after Republican governor Greg Abbott signed the changes into law. The trial in San Antonio federal court could last weeks and it is unclear when US district judge Xavier Rodriguez might rule. Potentially at stake are voting rules Texas will use for the 2024 elections, although any decision is likely to be appealed.
The challenge, from the American Civil Liberties Union, (ACLU) the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and others, has not stopped the measures from taking effect, including a ban on 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting.
Many changes targeted Harris county, which includes Houston and is where a slate of Republican candidates are challenging their defeats last year.
During the hurried rollout of the law last year, more than 23,000 mail ballots in Texas were rejected during the March 2022 primary elections as voters struggled to navigate the new rules. By November’s general election, the rejection rate fell significantly, but was still higher than what experts consider normal.
In August, Rodriguez separately struck down a requirement that mail voters provide the same identification number they used when they registered to vote.”
Interim summary
Joe Biden is up in the air literally and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s future as House Speaker is likewise, but metaphorically. It’s been a busy day in Vietnam for the US president post-G20, but he’s now on his way back to the US and is due to address the public during a stopover in Alaska en route to Washington, DC.
Here’s where things stand:
Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, appealed a judge’s ruling last Friday denying his bid to transfer his Georgia 2020 election interference case from state to federal court.
Jury deliberations for the impeachment trial of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, could start late Thursday or Friday, according to the presiding officer Dan Patrick.
Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, reportedly doesn’t have the votes to move forward with an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden being clamored for by the right wing of his House caucus.
Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican congressman, said that there was a “perfect storm” brewing in the House over government spending and on impeachment of the president that could pose a threat to Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. More on this by Politico.
Joe Biden will address the nation late on Monday afternoon on the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. On Monday morning, US vice president Kamala Harris attended the annual memorial ceremony in New York at the spot where the al-Qaeda hijackers destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
In the months before the supreme court handed down Citizens United, the 2010 ruling which unleashed a flood of dark money into American politics, the wife of a conservative justice worked with a prominent rightwing activist and a mega-donor closely linked to her husband to form a group to exploit the decision.
So said a blockbuster report from Politico, detailing moves by Ginni Thomas – wife of Justice Clarence Thomas – and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society chief who has worked to stock the court with rightwingers, leading to a series of epochal decisions, including the removal of the federal right to abortion.
Half a million dollars in seed money, Politico said, came from Harlan Crow, the Nazi memorabilia-collecting billionaire whose extensive and mostly undeclared gifts to Clarence Thomas have fueled a spiraling supreme court ethics scandal.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and champion of ethics reform, said the report laid out “the creepy intermingling of dark billionaire money, phoney front groups, far-right extremists and the United States supreme court”.
Politico noted that the ruling in Citizens United was widely expected after justices “took the unusual step of asking for re-arguments based on a sweeping question – whether they should overrule prior decisions approving laws that limited spending on political campaigns”.
Noting that conservative groups moved to capitalise faster than others, the site quoted an anonymous source as saying Ginni Thomas “really wanted to build an organisation and be a movement leader. Leonard was going to be the conduit of that.”
The justice department has dropped its five-year-old criminal case against Bijan Rafiekian, a one-time business partner of the former national security adviser Michael Flynn who had been charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey during the 2016 US presidential election.
Rafiekian, who also goes by the name Bijan Kian, was indicted in 2018 on charges including failing to register as a foreign agent. Prosecutors had accused Rafiekian of illegally lobbying to have the cleric Fethullah Gülen extradited from the US to Turkey.
The move wraps up a long-running tangent of the Mueller-era Russia investigation that originally had been used as leverage to pressure Flynn, CNN reported. Prosecutors had planned on calling Flynn to testify against Rafiekian at his trial to solidify their evidence of a connection between Flynn’s lobbying group and the government of Turkey.
In 2019, a jury convicted Rafiekian on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. But the judge who presided over the trial later set aside the verdicts, citing insufficient evidence. The case then went into appeals, hanging in the criminal justice system for years.
In a court filing on Monday, the justice department said it sought to dismiss the charges against Rafiekian. Prosecutors wrote:
After carefully considering the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in this case and the principles of federal prosecution, the United States believes it is not in the public interest to pursue the case against defendant Bijan Rafiekian further.
After defending the integrity of US elections from an onslaught of threats over the last several years, secretaries of state across the US are now turning to a new high-stakes question: is Donald Trump eligible to run for president?
Several secretaries are already working with attorneys general in their states and studying whether Trump is disqualified under a provision of the 14th amendment that bars anyone from holding public office if they have previously taken an oath to the United States and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.
That language clearly disqualifies Trump from running in 2024, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, two prominent conservative scholars, concluded in a lengthy forthcoming law review article. They write in the article:
If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close. He is no longer eligible to the office of Presidency, or any other state or federal office covered by the Constitution. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.
A flurry of challenges to Trump’s candidacy are expected – one was filed in Colorado on Wednesday – but the legal issues at play are largely untested. Never before has the provision been used to try to disqualify a presidential candidate from office and the issue is likely to quickly come to a head as soon as officials make their official certifications about who can appear on primary ballots.
Secretaries are studying who has the authority to remove Trump from the ballot and what process needs to occur before they do so. They also recognize that the issue is likely to be ultimately settled by the courts, including the US supreme court.
Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat in her second term as Michigan’s secretary of state, said she had spoken with another secretary of state about the 14th amendment issue “nearly every day”.
The north star for me is always: ‘What is the law? What does the constitution require?’ To keep politics and partisan considerations out of it. And simply just look at this from a sense of ‘what does the 14th amendment say?’ We’re in unprecedented, uncharted territory.
Past government shutdowns prove the widespread upheaval caused by lapses in government funding.
During the last partial shutdown, which ended in January 2019, roughly 800,000 federal workers went without a paycheck.
The Trump administration tried to keep national parks open with limited staff, resulting in damage to the grounds. Loan programs overseen by the Small Business Administration and federally funded research projects were also halted or delayed.
David Reich, senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said:
It’s very disruptive. Federal agencies spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out what they’re allowed to do and not allowed to do. It’s a total waste of effort and energy.
Even though history shows the fallout of government shutdowns, Gordon Gray, vice-president for economic policy at the center-right thinktank American Action Forum, still anticipates a lapse in funding – if not in October then later this year.
I could envision a brief [continuing resolution] – like two weeks – with some disaster supplemental funding in it. My expectation is that we’ll still have a shutdown this fall.
Mark Meadows files appeal to move Georgia case to federal court
Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, appealed a judge’s ruling denying his bid to transfer his Georgia 2020 election interference case from state to federal court, according to a court filing reported by Reuters.
US district judge Steve Jones denied Meadow’s request on Friday, meaning the prosecution brought by the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis stays in superior court in Atlanta, unless the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit approves Meadows’ appeal.
Last month, the Atlanta-area grand jury handed up a sprawling 41-count indictment against Donald Trump and 18 others, including Meadows, alleging that they violated Georgia’s state Rico statute in their efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Meadows had sought to remove the case to federal court arguing that the sprawling racketeering charges related to his normal work undertaken as a White House chief of staff, which gave him immunity from prosecution and prevented him from being prosecuted at the state level.
But the judge rejected his arguments in a detailed 49-page decision, determining that Meadows did not meet his burden to show that he was acting within his job description when he undertook efforts to benefit Trump as a political candidate rather than Trump as president.
Updated
Decision in Texas AG Ken Paxton's impeachment trial could come this week
Jury deliberations for the impeachment trial of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, could start late Thursday or Friday, according to the presiding officer Dan Patrick.
Proceedings resumed this morning for the fifth day of Paxton’s trial – the first impeachment trial in modern Texas history. The ultra-conservative attorney general has a history of ethically questionable conduct that dates back to his first term in 2014, when he was fined by the Texas state securities board for violating financial laws.
The core of Paxton’s alleged wrongdoing involves his relationship with the Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. Paxton has been accused of illegally using his office to benefit Paul, who in return gave Paxton’s mistress, Laura Olsen, a job in his office. In early June, Paul was arrested on eight charges of making false statements to financial institutions. Also being scrutinized are allegations that Paxton wrongly fired former employees who blew the whistle to the FBI and other agencies.
At the end of the trial, it will be known if Paxton will be removed from office and if he can ever hold office again. Paxton has pleaded not guilty.
Lt Gov Patrick, who is presiding over the proceedings, said each side has so far used about half its allotted time for arguments and that the case could go to the jury later this week, AP reported. He also said there will be no more days off until the trial is resolved, raising the possibility that a decision could come over the weekend.
Updated
A pro-gun group is suing the New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, in an effort to block a 30-day emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in Albuquerque’s Bernalillo county issued last week after a spate of shootings.
The governor announced open and concealed carry restrictions on Friday in a public health order relating to gun violence after the fatal shootings of an 11-year-old boy on his way home from a minor league baseball game last week, as well as the fatal shooting of a four-year-old girl in her bed in a motor home and a 13-year-old girl in Taos county in August.
Lujan Grisham said she expected someone to legally challenge her executive order, adding that she welcomed “the debate and the fight about making New Mexicans safer”.
That challenge arrived on Saturday when the National Association for Gun Rights said it would file a lawsuit in federal court against the governor, citing 2021’s Bruen US supreme court ruling easing gun restrictions.
The president of the pro-gun group, Dudley Brown, accused the governor of “throwing up a middle finger to the constitution and the supreme court”.
Her executive order is in blatant disregard for Bruen. She needs to be held accountable for stripping the God-given rights of millions away with the stroke of a pen.
The order calls for monthly inspections of firearms dealers statewide to ensure compliance with gun laws and for the state health department to compile a report on gunshot victims at hospitals that includes age, race, gender and ethnicity, along with the brand and caliber of firearm involved, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Lujan Graham said she issued the order to open up more resources to help New Mexico get the gun violence issue under control and called on the federal government for help.
“These are disgusting acts of violence that have no place in our communities,” Lujan Grisham said on Thursday, adding that Bernalillo county needed a “cooling off period” during an epidemic of gun violence.
Activists entered the speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office in the US Capitol demanding the reauthorization of the law governing US global Aids funding, Politico’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.
The President’s Emergency Program for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which has saved 25 million lives and stands as one of the US’ most successful foreign aid programs, is in danger of becoming a victim of abortion politics as it reaches its expiration date at the end of the month.
BREAKING: Activists are occupying @SpeakerMcCarthy’s office demanding a full 5 year reauthorization of PEPFAR, which some Rs are opposing. Background: https://t.co/nQVnCxPDE0 pic.twitter.com/wCZx4Z6wzu
— Alice Miranda Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) September 11, 2023
6 activists are being arrested by Capitol Police, lined up against the wall and handcuffed pic.twitter.com/qgWCCcgsM2
— Alice Miranda Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) September 11, 2023
Updated
McCarthy doesn't have votes to advance Biden impeachment inquiry, reports say
The speaker, Kevin McCarthy, doesn’t have the votes to move forward with an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, according to the CNN report.
One moderate GOP lawmaker told the news channel there are as many as 30 Republicans who don’t believe there’s enough evidence yet for impeachment.
Republican congressman for South Dakota, Dusty Johnson, said:
There is a constitutional and legal test that you have to meet with evidence. I have not seen that evidence, but I guess I’m not suggesting it doesn’t exist. I do think the fact that the committees continue to ask for additional documents suggests that they don’t think their evidentiary record is complete yet.
Updated
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman from Georgia, told CNN she personally would like to see an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden happen this week.
Greene has made clear that her support for government funding is contingent upon the House GOP launching an impeachment inquiry into the president, among other things. She said:
Our conference needs to stop capitulating to the left, more members that are in blue districts. That’s not what the donors are donating money for. And we need to stop allowing Biden-district Republicans to hold up our agenda.
She added:
Put the vote to the floor, even if it fails. I guarantee you, if you put it back, it’ll pass because every single Republican that votes no to it will get destroyed by their districts.
Citing sources, the report says Donald Trump is set to forcefully weigh in on the looming government shutdown, the White House’s request for disaster relief and aid for Ukraine, and the growing calls on the right to impeach Biden.
The former president is likely to ramp up his calls to impeach Biden and come out strongly against Ukraine aid, further ratcheting up pressure on McCarthy as he plots his strategy for the treacherous month ahead.
All of this is expected to be discussed in a closed-door party meeting Wednesday, the first time House Republicans will huddle in person since before the six-week August recess. How McCarthy and his leadership team handles this critical month of governing will have major implications for both the country and his speakership.
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Republican senator Bill Cassidy’s comments follow increasing speculation surrounding the mental competence of Capitol Hill leaders, including 81-year-old Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who appeared to freeze up in front of reporters during two separate instances this summer. Meanwhile, in March, McConnell received treatment for a concussion after he tripped and fell at a Washington DC hotel during a private dinner.
The most recent freezing episode occurred less than two weeks earlier in Kentucky. McConnell appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds before being eventually escorted away by staff members.
Afterwards, the congressional physician, Brian P Monahan, conducted several evaluations on McConnell, including brain MRI imaging, an EEG study and consultations with several neurologists for a “comprehensive neurology assessment”, he said in a letter. He added:
There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, TIA [transient ischaemic attack or mini-stroke] or movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease.
During Sunday’s interview, Cassidy praised McConnell, saying he “handled it perfectly”. “His doctor is releasing not just the tests but the results of the tests,” Cassidy said.
And with that, there is a transparency that allows people to move beyond a number – how old is the person – into ‘What is actually the kind of science, if you will, the medical science, of how to evaluate?’ And I think that should be the standard that folks are held to, and I think he’s responded.
Asked if he believed he had received enough information from McConnell, Cassidy said:
I do. The doctor is not lying.
Cassidy urged Joe Biden to also release similar records, calling on the president to “do what Mitch just did”.
Shouldn’t President Biden, for example, release a full kind of neurologic evaluation of his cognitive ability and whomever else?
Republican senator says top federal officials should disclose medical records
Congress should have a rule requiring certain top federal officials to disclose medical records, the Republican senator Bill Cassidy said on Sunday.
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Cassidy – a gastroenterologist who was elected as a US senator for Louisiana in 2008 – said that it “should certainly be a House rule” for elected officials to disclose their medical records.
I think if you want to be the president of the United States, or a senator or House member, then there is a responsibility over and above that of just offering yourself. It has to be that you can show that you have clarity.
On his last show hosting Meet the Press, Chuck Todd went on to ask Cassidy whether it would be a good idea to standardize both the disclosure of tax returns and medical records. Cassidy replied:
Actually, I think that would be reasonable, too. Because if the voter is going to make a decision, we need to give her as much information as we possibly can.
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Joe Biden, in Hanoi earlier today, visited a memorial for his late friend and senator, John McCain, who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam war.
Before departing Vietnam to return to the US, the president visited the John Sidney McCain III memorial near the site where a 31-year-old McCain was shot down and captured in 1967.
The harrowing incident began a more than five-year ordeal that became the defining moment for the future Republican senator from Arizona and two-time presidential candidate, according to AP.
Earlier today, President Biden paid his respects to his friend John McCain at his memorial in Hanoi, Vietnam.
— The Recount (@therecount) September 11, 2023
McCain was a POW in Hanoi during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1973. pic.twitter.com/Mps4mgSIWv
Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country.
“I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said.
I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.
Biden also said that China’s recent economic downturn may limit any inclination to invade Taiwan. He added that the country’s economic woes had left President Xi Jinping with “his hands full right now”.
The president’s remarks came after a meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist party, in the nation’s capital designed to secure global supply chains of semiconductors and critical minerals, which would offer a strategic alternative to China.
The meeting came during a multi-front diplomatic push to shore up international support for Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion and enunciate a policy toward China that both encourages trade and reduces the potential for US-Chinese conflict.
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‘Perfect storm’ brewing in House over impeachment and spending, says GOP congressman
Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican congressman, said on Sunday that there was a “perfect storm” brewing in the House that could pose a threat to Kevin McCarthy’s speakership.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, Buck said:
On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution. We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our Southern border.
McCarthy has “made promises” on those issues to different groups “and now it is all coming due at the same time”, Buck said.
He added that the GOP’s focus should be on issues like border security, crime and inflation, and warned against aggressively pursuing an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. He added:
There is not a strong connection at this point between the evidence on Hunter Biden and any evidence connecting the president.
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In early May, James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley, investigating Hunter Biden’s work for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, published an open letter to the FBI announcing subpoenas for an unclassified document supposedly describing an alleged “criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions”.
But when Comer and Grassley obtained the document, form FD-1023, and publicly released a redacted version – against the advice of intelligence officials who feared it would “unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source” – it turned out to be an uncorroborated FBI tip.
Also in May, Comer published a bank memo attacking Biden for his alleged foreign business ties but even the conservative Fox News network was unimpressed. Host Steve Doocy challenged Comer:
That’s just your suggestion. You don’t actually have any facts to that point. You’ve got some circumstantial evidence. And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is that – there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy brutally confronts Republican Congressman James Comer over his “Biden crime family” allegations: “You don’t actually have any facts...there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.” pic.twitter.com/FOLtFnvrlA
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 11, 2023
In June, Comer and Grassley began touting potential audio tapes supposedly proving that Biden accepted a $5m bribe from a Ukrainian energy company during the Barack Obama administration. But during a Newsmax interview just five days later, Comer admitted:
We don’t know if they are legit or not.
The threat of an abrupt ouster hovers over Kevin McCarthy’s every move, as the speaker takes on an unusual and politically fraught undertaking of running a government funding process alongside an impeachment drive, AP writes.
McCarthy has signaled an impeachment inquiry is coming but there is “no date circled on the calendar”, according to a source.
Congress also has a pending request from the White House to provide an additional $40bn on three fronts – some $21bn in military and humanitarian relief for Ukraine as it battles the Russian invasion; $12bn to replenish federal disaster aids after floods, fires and other problems, including to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl at the southern US border with Mexico.
McCarthy has vowed there won’t be any “blank check” for Ukraine as he works to appease skeptical Republicans who want to end US involvement in overseas affairs, particularly involving Russia.
While the shutdown is the more pressing problem for McCarthy, the Biden impeachment inquiry is his bigger political gamble.
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Biden impeachment inquiry ‘eight months of abject failure’ – watchdog report
The man leading the Republican charge for an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden has endured “eight months of abject failure” in trying to prove the US president guilty of wrongdoing, a watchdog report says.
James Comer, the ambitious chairman of the House of Representatives’ oversight committee, has repeatedly overhyped allegations of bribery and corruption against Biden without once producing hard evidence, according to the Congressional Integrity Project.
The lack of a case underlines the huge political risks facing House Republicans when they return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Some are threatening to force a government shutdown unless an impeachment inquiry is opened despite objections from wary Republican colleagues in the Senate.
Comer has been leading an aggressive investigation into unsubstantiated claims that Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business affairs during his time as vice-president. A CNN/SSRS poll this week found that 61% of Americans believe that Biden did play such a role, including 42% who think he acted illegally. But establishing the link between father and son has proved an elusive holy grail.
The report says:
After months of political stunts, dozens of hearings, transcribed interviews, and memos, and despite hours on Fox peddling conspiracy theories, Comer and his Maga crew have failed to find a single shred of evidence linking President Biden to any of their lurid accusations.
In fact, Republicans have been forced to walk back claim after claim.
The report offers an anatomy of a fake scandal, detailing a series of exaggerated assertions that have shriveled under scrutiny. They include Comer saying at his first press conference that he had evidence of “federal crimes committed”, relentlessly invoking “deep state” conspiracy theories and claiming that his whistleblowers “fear for their lives”.
For months, the report says, Comer talked to the media about four individuals he claimed were “whistleblowers”, a term increasingly hijacked by the right. It adds:
Problem is – they weren’t whistleblowers and there were only two people.
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House freedom caucus member Matt Rosendale told Politico he was displeased when the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, suggested a government shutdown would make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden.
Rosendale:
He’s trying to intimidate us ... It’s called a distraction. And guess what? I will not be intimidated by such distractions.
If the speaker chooses a stopgap funding deal with help from Democrats, “it would be very costly to him ... it basically completely undermines his credibility”, Rosendale added.
House Republicans are barreling toward an existential clash over this month’s government funding talks, as Kevin McCarthy faces the greatest peril to his speakership since he began his role eight months ago, according to a Politico report.
The report, based on interviews with GOP members and aides, writes that it would only take a few defectors to send the Republican party spiraling into a new period of chaos.
The last time a GOP speaker faced this intense level of fall spending pressure with a Democrat in the White House, it was September 2015. And while John Boehner avoided a shutdown, he didn’t survive the month.
McCarthy has built a deeper well of goodwill with the right than Boehner ever did. Still, the Californian has other headaches too, from a party bitterly divided on Ukraine aid to the dicey politics of pushing his centrists into a Biden impeachment inquiry that many are leery of. And he’s navigating a significantly smaller majority than his Ohio predecessor.
Hard-right Republicans demand impeachment inquiry against Biden to avert government shutdown
Members of the House freedom caucus, who abhor the idea of extending funding at levels previously approved by a Democratic Congress, have already outlined a litany of demands in exchange for their support on a continuing resolution.
In a statement released late last month, the caucus said its members would only back a continuing resolution if it included a Republican proposal on border security and addressed “the unprecedented weaponization of the justice department and FBI”, an implicit reference to the four criminal cases against Donald Trump.
The caucus also demanded an end to the so-called “woke” policies at the department of defense, which has faced rightwing criticism for providing funding to servicemembers and their family members who need to travel to access abortion care.
Hard-right Republicans have now added another item to their list of demands: the launch of an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, said last week:
I’ve already decided I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden.
Another hard-right House member, Matt Gaetz of Florida, has warned that McCarthy’s failure to act on impeaching Biden could cost him his speakership. “I worked very hard in January to develop a toolkit for House Republicans to use in a productive and positive way. I don’t believe we’ve used those tools as effectively as we should have,” Gaetz said on Tuesday.
We’ve got to seize the initiative. That means forcing votes on impeachment. And if Speaker McCarthy stands in our way, he may not have the job long.
The trouble for Kevin McCarthy started in the spring, after the House passed the compromise debt ceiling bill, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Seventy-one members of the House Republican conference opposed the legislation over concerns that it did not go far enough to reduce government spending, and they sharply criticized McCarthy for agreeing to the inadequate deal.
Gordon Gray, vice-president for economic policy at the center-right thinktank American Action Forum, said he had been bracing for a potential shutdown ever since the debt ceiling showdown concluded.
Since the debt limit grenade was diffused, there’s a big chunk of House Republicans who just want to break something. That’s just how some of these folks define governing. It’s how their constituents define success.
Now House Republicans have reneged on the debt ceiling deal, instead choosing to advance appropriations bills with spending levels below those agreed to in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Democrats warn that the proposed cuts could deal a devastating financial blow to early education programs, climate initiatives and housing assistance.
House Republicans’ strategy in the spending talks has been met with exasperation in the Senate, which returned from its recess on Tuesday. Before the upper chamber adjourned at the end of July, the Senate appropriations committee advanced all 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2024 with bipartisan support.
The Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has implored the House to take a similar approach to the budget process. Even the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, offered a mild rebuke of his colleagues in the House when asked about the spending fight last week.
US government shutdown and Biden impeachment inquiry threats loom over House’s return
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The House returns from its summer recess this week, as the speaker, Kevin McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges – avoiding a costly government shutdown, and addressing growing calls on the right to launch an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.
With just 12 legislative days left before the end of the fiscal year, the Republican-controlled House must quickly pass some kind of spending package to keep the federal government open after 30 September. If it does not, the government will shut down for the first time in nearly five years, furloughing federal employees and stalling many crucial programs.
McCarthy has indicated his preference to pass a continuing resolution, but members of the hard-right House freedom caucus insist they will not back a continuing resolution unless the speaker agrees to several significant policy concessions, such as increased border security and an impeachment inquiry into Biden over the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Given House Republicans’ narrow majority and a new rule allowing any single member of the chamber to force a vote on removing the speaker, McCarthy’s handling of this fraught situation could determine whether he loses his gavel after just eight months in power.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
Joe Biden has departed Hanoi, Vietnam for Anchorage, Alaska, where upon arrival he will deliver remarks to service members, first responders, and their families on the anniversary of 9/11.
The Senate will meet at 3pm ET to take up Tanya Bradsher’s nomination as deputy veterans affairs secretary, with a cloture vote at 5.30pm.
The House is out.
