Summary of the day
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Donald Trump faced a deadline of midnight on Thursday to say if he would appear before a Washington grand jury convened by the special counsel Jack Smith to consider federal charges over his election subversion and incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.
Prosecutors had assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes, the Guardian reported late on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. They were: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and an unusual statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.
A federal grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election has heard testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021. William Russell was asked to appear on Thursday after making previous grand jury appearances. A data expert who worked on the 2020 election was also reportedly scheduled to appear before a grand jury.
House speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied he privately promised Trump that he would get legislation passed that would erase Trump’s two impeachments. According to a Politico report, in return for delaying an endorsement for Trump’s 2024 president election, McCarthy pledged that he would get the House to vote to expunge both impeachments against the former president. The outlet said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess.
The Democratic-led Senate judiciary committee voted to advance a supreme court ethics reform bill that would tighten financial disclosures and bolster recusal requirements for justices. The vote was along party lines, with Republicans adamantly opposed. The panel vote came after months of scrutiny on the court over ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.
Conservative non-profit groups steered by the rightwing legal activist, Leonard Leo, reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m public relations campaign to defend and celebrate supreme court justice, Clarence Thomas, after he faced renewed scrutiny over his past misconduct claims.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr defended himself against accusations of racism and antisemitism at a hearing on alleged “weaponization” of the federal government. Kennedy provoked anger last week when he was filmed falsely suggesting that the coronavirus could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. A report seen by the Guardian said Kennedy has a long history of racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.
Updated
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis backed Senator Tommy Tuberville’s months-long blockade on military nominations over the Pentagon’s abortion policy, saying that the policy would “go out the window” if he became president.
Asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt if he thinks Tuberville should release his hold, DeSantis replied: “No I don’t.” He added:
The military’s policy is not following US law. They are using tax dollars. They’re funding abortion tourism, which is not an appropriate thing for the military to be doing.
He said:
Day one as commander-in-chief, that policy will go out the window.
Tuberville, the Republican senator for Alabama, mounted his obstruction effort earlier this year. He is seeking the end of Department of Defense policy that provides paid time off and covers travel costs for servicewomen and dependents in need of abortion services.
Tuberville’s blockade has so far impacted nearly 300 military promotions, according to the Hill. The Pentagon has said more than 650 leadership positions could be vacant by the end of the year.
Joe Biden and the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said last week that the senator’s hold is jeopardising US national security.
Texas women who were denied abortions took the stand and delivered harrowing testimonies of their experiences of carrying life-threatening pregnancies as a result of the state’s highly restrictive abortion laws.
The women are part of a lawsuit filed in March by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is seeking clarification on which situations fall under the “medical emergency” exception in Texas’s abortion bans. The lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind where women who were denied abortions are suing a state since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.
During Wednesday’s hearing, plaintiff Samantha Casiano delivered an emotional testimony about being forced to give birth to a baby who died four hours later as a result of a fatal birth defect.
Twenty weeks into her pregnancy, Casiano discovered that her baby had anencephaly, a rare condition in which parts of the baby’s skull and brain are missing. Casiano said that doctors informed her that they were unable to perform an abortion in the state and that she was instead given funeral home information.
“I felt like I was abandoned,” Casiano said.
I had this funeral home paper and this is just supposed to be a scan day.
Casiano went on to describe her thought processes upon learning about her baby’s defect, telling the court that she considered getting an abortion out of state but was also afraid of losing her job or being jailed. She said:
I felt like I was imprisoned in my own body.
At one point, as Casiano read aloud a doctor’s note about her high-risk pregnancy, she became overwhelmed and vomited during the hearing. Following a recess, Casiano returned to the stand and said that recalling the events “just makes my body remember, and it just reacts”. She added:
I now have a psychiatrist … I now vomit a lot more. I’ve never vomited before like that, ever, before my pregnancy. My body’s never reacted that way.
Updated
Stanley Woodward, a lawyer representing Trump aide William Russell, told a judge he was delayed because his client – who he didn’t name – was being asked questions before a grand jury that involved questions of executive privilege.
From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:
NOTABLE: Woodward was reluctant to reveal this in open court. McFadden asked him if that was due to grand jury secrecy rules. And Woodward said yes.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 20, 2023
McFadden then said he would absolve Woodward of any secrecy requirements so he could explain his belated appearance.
Updated
A federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election is hearing testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021.
William Russell, a former White House aide who continued to work for Trump after he left office, was at a federal courthouse in Washington to testify before the grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith.
Russell was asked to appear on Thursday after making previous grand jury appearances, the Washington Post reported. According to the paper, a data expert who worked on the 2020 election was also scheduled to appear before a grand jury.
In addition, Smith’s team are reportedly in the process of scheduling a grand jury appearance by Bernard Kerik, a former New York city police commissioner who worked with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in the effort to overturn the election results.
Senate committee approves new supreme court ethics rules
The Democratic-led Senate judiciary committee voted to advance a supreme court ethics reform bill that would tighten financial disclosures and bolster recusal requirements for justices.
The vote, championed by Senate judiciary chair Dick Durbin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was 11-10 along party lines, with Republicans adamantly opposed.
The bill would demand the court create a code within 180 days and establish rules on recusals related to potential conflicts of interest and disclosure of gifts and travel.
The legislation has little chance to make it through the full Senate and in a divided Congress.
Donald Trump’s court dates are set to clash with the Republican primary calendar. The former president faces three civil trials in New York, one to begin in October and two in January.
The clash is raising extraordinary and unprecedented questions about the logistical, legal and political challenges of various trials unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign, according to the New York Times.
The paper cites Bruce Green, a Fordham University professor and former prosecutor, as saying:
The courts will have to decide how to balance the public interest in having expeditious trials against Trump’s interest and the public interest in his being able to campaign so that the democratic process works. That’s a type of complexity that courts have never had to deal with before.
In polling averages for the Republican primary, Donald Trump leads by about 30 points.
He has maintained that lead even while facing 34 criminal charges in New York, over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels; 37 federal charges over his retention of classified documents; the prospect of state and federal indictments over his election subversion; a $5m fine after being held liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll; and ongoing investigations of his business affairs. Denying all wrongdoing, Trump has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges.
Nonetheless, polling regarding a notional general election shows him in a close race with Joe Biden. Earlier this week, Miles Taylor, who was a US homeland security official when in 2018 he wrote a famous anonymous New York Times column warning of Trump’s unfitness for office, told the Guardian Trump could yet return to the White House.
“There’s been a number of polls that show the ex-president beating Joe Biden by several points,” Taylor said.
It would be hubris to say, ‘Oh, no, we would beat him again a second time.’ Actually, I don’t think that. If the election was held today, I think Donald Trump would defeat Joe Biden, and that really concerns me.
Taylor also pointed to the supine nature of the Republican party, saying McCarthy, the House speaker, “thought Trump was a buffoon and a danger and I’m sure Kevin still thinks that privately” but is unwilling, or unable, to move in any way against him. Taylor said:
Those people publicly, because they’re afraid, are still supporting the man. That collective anonymity is putting us in pretty seriously great danger.
House speaker Kevin McCarthy privately promised Donald Trump to hold a vote on expunging the former president’s two impeachments, the first in 2019 for withholding military aid in an attempt to extract political dirt from Ukraine, the second for inciting the Capitol attack, Politico reported on this morning.
But a vote to expunge Trump’s impeachments would not be guaranteed to succeed.
Republicans control the House by a very slim majority. Two sitting GOP congressmen, David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington state, voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot. Republicans in swing districts, particularly in heavily Democratic north-eastern states, already face uphill fights to keep their seats.
Donald Trump faced a deadline of midnight on Thursday to say if he would appear before a Washington grand jury convened by the special counsel Jack Smith to consider federal charges over his election subversion and incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.
Late on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter, the Guardian reported that prosecutors had assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes.
They were: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and an unusual statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.
Obstruction of an official proceeding is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Conspiracy to defraud the United States carries a maximum five-year sentence. The civil rights charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
By Thursday afternoon, all indications were that Trump would not agree to testify.
Biden also took jabs at Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville in his speech, as Tuberville has blocked consideration for about 200 military promotions.
While speaking in Philadelphia about his infrastructure agenda, Biden referred to Tuberville without naming the senator: “I’m glad the senator is coming along around on the infrastructure law but I’m not going to let up until he comes around on the critical military nominations as well.”
Biden pokes at Tuberville in his remarks in Philadephia: “I’m glad the senator is coming along around on the infrastructure law but I’m not going to let up until he comes around on the critical military nominations as well.”
— AlexGangitano (@AlexGangitano) July 20, 2023
Biden has previously attacked Tuberville over the stalled nominations. The senator has blocked the nominations to protest the Pentagon’s policy on abortion.
Updated
During his speech, Biden also took an opportunity to criticize Trump, who is a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
Biden was discussing wind energy projects, which he has supported for their ability to create clean energy and produce jobs.
During the speech, Biden noted that “windmills do not cause cancer”, mocking a claim made by Trump in 2019.
Biden takes dig at Trump during his speech in Philadephia: “not withstandling what the other guy said, windmills do not cause cancer.”
— AlexGangitano (@AlexGangitano) July 20, 2023
Trump in 2019 claimed that the noise from a windmill causes cancer.
Biden says Wall Street 'didn't build the middle class' in Bidenomics remarks in Philadelphia
Biden is in Philadelphia now, delivering remarks on his plans to grow the US economy under his Bidenomics plan.
Biden began his remarks by acknowledging mass flooding in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
“The idea that there is not global warming cannot be denied by anyone anymore,” Biden said.
Biden emphasized that his plan for the economy is to strength the middle class.
“I often say, and I mean this sincerely, Wall street [has] good folks down there, but they didn’t build the middle class. They didn’t build America.”
Biden emphasized the 13m jobs that have been added in two and half years, including nearly 500,000 in Pennsylvania.
Biden also noted that unemployment is down, along with inflation, as the rising price of goods and services have impacted many across the country.
Updated
The Republican-led House oversight committee will hold a hearing on UFOs, officially called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), next week, according to congressman Tim Burchett.
The committee hearing, spearheaded by Burchett, will investigate the increase in sightings of UAPs and their impact on national security.
It comes after a former intelligence community official alleged that the US government has a covert program focused on recovering debris from crashed, non-human origin spacecraft, according to a Debrief report.
The former intelligence official, David Grusch, will testify at the hearing along with two former Navy pilots, including one who recorded a widely seen video of a UAP near his fighter jet.
Burchett and Representative Anna Paulina Luna said members of Congress have been “stonewalled” by military officials when they’ve asked for details on UAPs, including their possible origins. Burchett said:
This is ridiculous folks. Either they do exist or they don’t exist. They keep telling us they don’t exist, but they block every opportunity for us to get a hold of the information to prove that they do exist.
And we’re gonna get to the bottom of that dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the coverup.
Oversight hearing on UAPs: July 26th, 10:00amEST.
— Rep. Tim Burchett (@RepTimBurchett) July 20, 2023
Witnesses: David Grusch, David Fravor, Ryan Graves.
Full press conference: https://t.co/5UUZjKPmSP pic.twitter.com/otldAPjn0b
Joe Biden is in Philadelphia today to talk “Bidenomics” and tout his administration’s efforts to boost clean energy manufacturing and create union jobs.
As the president launches his 2024 re-election campaign, the White House hopes to revamp the messaging on the president’s economic performance with a series of speeches, memos and the term “Bidenomics”.
Biden will visit the Philadelphia Shipyard for a steel-cutting ceremony to mark the construction of a union-built vessel that will be used to help build offshore windfarms.
Updated
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s appearance before the House judiciary select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government came despite requests from outside groups to disinvite him after his recent remarks.
Republicans are eager to elevate Kennedy, a long-shot Democratic candidate for president and heir to the famous political family.
A watchdog group asked the panel’s chairman, Jim Jordan, to drop the invitation to Kennedy after he falsely claimed that Covid-19 was engineered to target some ethnic groups and spare others.
Jordan said that while he disagreed with Kennedy’s remarks, he was not about to drop him from the panel, AP reported. Speaker Kevin McCarthy took a similar view, saying he did not want to censor Kennedy.
Updated
RFK Jr uses House panel appearance to deny accusations of racism and antisemitism
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr defended himself against accusations of racism and antisemitism at a hearing on alleged “weaponization” of the federal government.
Kennedy, speaking before the House judiciary select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, said “no evidence” exists that he is antisemitic and that the attacks that have been made on him in recent days have been intended to keep him quiet.
Kennedy provoked anger last week when he was filmed falsely suggesting that the coronavirus could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. A report seen by the Guardian said Kennedy has a long history of racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.
"I wanna say this while I'm on the record that in my entire life ... I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemetic."
— The Recount (@therecount) July 20, 2023
— Robert F Kennedy Jr. testifying before the House Judiciary Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee pic.twitter.com/h29XsmSYbt
Updated
Conservative nonprofit groups steered by the rightwing legal activist, Leonard Leo, reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m public relations campaign to defend and celebrate supreme court justice, Clarence Thomas, after he faced renewed scrutiny over his past misconduct claims.
According to a Washington Post report, Leo, a hugely influential figure said to have been the chief curator of supreme court nominees when Donald Trump was president, was the architect of a years-long “coordinated and sophisticated” campaign that included advertising aimed at boosting flattering content in online searches, promotion for a laudatory film, and websites and Twitter accounts celebrating his career.
The paper writes:
The 25th anniversary of Clarence Thomas’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was approaching — a moment that would draw attention to his accomplishments on the bench but also to the misconduct claims that had nearly derailed his rise. Among the wave of retrospective accounts set to come out that year, 2016, was a star-studded HBO film dramatically recounting Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations.
That spring, a flurry of opinion articles defending Thomas and railing against the film appeared in news outlets, penned by a D.C. lawyer who had worked in the George H.W. Bush White House during the confirmation. Websites celebrating Thomas’s career — and attacking his onetime accuser — popped up. And on Twitter, a new account using the name “Justice Thomas Fan Account” began serving up flattering commentary.
‘Justice Thomas: The most open & personable of Justices, intimate in sharing his feelings, easily moved to laughter,’ read one early tweet on the account.
The campaign, led by Leo, shows how the judicial activist has continued to exert influence in support of conservative justices after helping them secure lifetime appointments, the report says.
The UN’s security council will meet in New York tomorrow over the “humanitarian consequences” of Russia’s withdrawal from a deal that allowed the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain for the past year, according to Britain’s UN mission.
🚨 #BREAKING
— UK at the UN 🇬🇧🇺🇳 (@UKUN_NewYork) July 20, 2023
The UN Security Council will meet tomorrow at 10am for a briefing on Ukraine.
The Council will discuss the humanitarian consequences of Russia’s interruption of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.#UNSC 🇬🇧🇺🇳 pic.twitter.com/jKEEeV2nR0
For more live updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine, head over to our excellent Russia-Ukraine war blog.
Kevin McCarthy denies report he privately promised Trump to expunge impeachments
House speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied he privately promised former president Donald Trump that he would get legislation passed that would erase Trump’s two impeachments.
According to a Politico report, Trump was outraged at McCarthy for withholding his endorsement of his presidential run in the 2024 election. In an interview last month, McCarthy expressed doubt that Trump was the “strongest” candidate to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House next year.
“He needs to endorse me – today!” Trump is said to have fumed to his staff on his way to a campaign event in New Hampshire. McCarthy called Trump to apologize after the interview, claiming he misspoke, sources told CNN at the time.
In return for delaying that endorsement, according to Politico, McCarthy pledged that he would get the House to vote to expunge both impeachments against the former president. The outlet said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess. Recess begins in less than two weeks.
In 2019, a Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate his presidential election rival, Joe Biden, and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations.
The House impeached Trump for a second time in 2021 for his actions ahead of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. The Senate acquitted him both times, thanks to the votes of Republicans. McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump both times.
“There’s no deal,” McCarthy told a reporter in the Capitol on Thursday, Reuters reported.
Updated
The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, accused Democrats of trying to “destroy” the supreme court and said the ethics bill “is an assault on the court itself”.
Congress should stay out of the court’s business, Graham said.
JUST NOW:
— Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) July 19, 2023
“Congress needs to stay out of the Supreme Court’s business.”
— @LindseyGrahamSC
Opening the committee meeting, Senate judiciary chair Dick Durbin said the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court.
Graham vowed, in response, that “all of us are going to vote no”. From NBC’s Sahil Kapur:
Senate Judiciary Committee is now considering the Whitehouse-Durbin bill to bolster ethics, disclosure and recusal rules for Supreme Court justices.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 20, 2023
Durbin says it's a "crucial first step in restoring confidence in the court."
Graham trashes it, vows all Republicans vote no.
Updated
What ethical controversies are US supreme court justices facing?
Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.
Real estate transactions
Clarence Thomas’s friend Harlan Crow, the Texas Republican billionaire mega-donor, bought three properties that the conservative justice and his family owned, including Thomas’s childhood home in Savannah, Georgia, where Thomas’s mother still lives. Crow made significant renovations, cleared blight and let Thomas’s mother live there rent-free. The cost was more than $100,000 but was not disclosed.
Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a 40-acre property he co-owned in rural Colorado after he became a justice, Politico reported. Brian Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, which has had more than 20 cases before the supreme court, bought the property in 2017. Gorsuch disclosed the sale and reportedly made between $250,000 and $500,000, but he left blank the buyer’s identity.
School support
Crow paid thousands of dollars in private school tuition for two boarding schools that Thomas’s great-nephew attended, ProPublica reported. The transaction was not disclosed.
An investigation by the Associated Press revealed how colleges and universities attract supreme court justices to campuses as a way to generate donations for institutions, raising ethical concerns around a court that, unlike other government agencies, does not have a formal code of conduct. The visits have resulted in all-expenses-paid teaching opportunities and book sales.
Money to partners
The Republican activist Leonard Leo paid Thomas’s wife, Ginni, $25,000 for polling services in January 2012, telling the Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to make “no mention of Ginni”, the Washington Post reported. It’s unclear whether that is a direct ethical concern for Clarence Thomas but it may constitute a conflict of interest.
Ginni, who also attended the January 6 attack at the Capitol, reportedly exchanged text messages with the then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, encouraging him to support then president Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims aimed at subverting the results of his 2020 electoral defeat. The Judicial Education Project, a law firm tied to Leo, filed a brief to the supreme court in the landmark case that eventually gutted the Voting Rights Act not long after the payment was made.
Roberts’ wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, ran a legal recruiting firm that raised ethical concerns since she made millions of dollars in commissions from placing lawyers at firms, some of which appeared before the court. The New York Times obtained a letter from a former colleague of Roberts to the US justice department and Congress inquiring about the connection.
Luxury trips
For more than two decades, Thomas accepted millions of dollars’ worth of luxury trips on private planes and “superyachts”, and vacations from his friend Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reported. Crow has said that he did not attempt to influence Thomas politically or legally nor did he discuss pending supreme court cases. Thomas said he was told he was not required to disclose the trips. Notably, a company linked to Crow was involved in at least one case before the US supreme court, Bloomberg reported. Thomas did not recuse himself from the case.
Justice Samuel Alito reportedly took a private jet to an all-expenses-covered fishing trip to Alaska, paid for by the hedge fund billionaire and conservative mega-donor Paul Singer. NPR reports that Singer has been involved in 10 appeals to the supreme court. In an unprecedented move, Alito defended himself in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, declaring he did not have to recuse himself and followed what he “understood to be standard practice”.
Senate committee to vote on supreme court ethics reform
The Senate judiciary committee is expected to vote today on a bill that would require the supreme court to adopt a code of ethics.
Senate Democrats have called for a measure to establish a code of conduct for the supreme court justices similar to those that other government agencies must follow.
The bill, unlikely to pass in a divided Congress, would demand the court create a code within 180 days and establish rules on recusals related to potential conflicts of interest and disclosure of gifts and travel.
The panel vote comes after months of scrutiny on the court over ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.
Senate judiciary committee chair, Dick Durbin, said this week:
Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.
Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.
The bill would need at least nine GOP votes to pass, and Republicans appear united against it, arguing that the legislation would undermine the separation of powers and “destroy” the court.
Trump’s legal problems: where does each case stand?
Twice impeached and now twice arrested and indicted. Donald Trump faces serious charges in New York and Florida over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
And more criminal charges could be on the way for Trump in Georgia and Washington DC. Here is where each case against Trump stands:
Classified documents case in Florida
Status: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial scheduled for August
Charges: 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements and representations, among others
Hush-money case in New York
Status: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial forthcoming
Charges: 34 felony charges of falsifying business records
January 6 case in Washington
Status: Subpoenas issued by grand jury
Potential charges against Trump: Obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government and incitement of an insurrection
2020 election meddling case in Georgia
Status: Grand jury report finished; charging decisions expected this summer
Potential charges against Trump: Election code violations
E Jean Carroll lawsuits in New York
Status: First lawsuit going to trial; second lawsuit on appeal
Allegations against Trump: Defamation and sexual abuse
Donald Trump has said he has until midnight tonight to testify before the federal grand jury deciding whether to indict him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Targets of criminal investigations rarely speak to grand juries, as they are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.
Trump has not exercised that right in the two other criminal cases in which he’s been charged, Politico’s Kyle Cheney writes.
Lots of anticipation at the federal courthouse in DC today — Trump, of course, is not expected to show up but high likelihood of grand jury activity today as Jan. 6 probe nears charging stage.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 20, 2023
Recent witnesses who have appeared before the grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were reportedly asked about the former president’s state of mind surrounding the January 6 insurrection.
Federal prosecutors asked multiple former senior Trump White House officials to speak to Trump’s mindset in the days and weeks after losing the 2020 election, leading up to 6 January, according to a New York Times report.
Witnesses including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were asked if he had privately acknowledged that he had lost the election, it said. Kushner is understood to have said that it was his impression that Trump truly believed the election was stolen.
The line of questioning suggested prosecutors were trying to determine if Trump acted with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power, the paper said.
January 6 grand jury to hear testimony from Trump aide
A federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will hear testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021, according to multiple reports.
William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump’s presidential campaign, is scheduled to testify before the grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, both CNN and NBC reported.
Russell, who has previously testified before the grand jury, served in the Trump White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance, before moving to Florida to work as an aid to Trump after he left office.
Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before the grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Among those who have testified are Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former top Trump aide, Hope Hicks.
In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.
Updated
What the potential charges means for Trump is unclear.
Prosecutors have been examining various instances of Trump pressuring officials like his former vice-president Mike Pence, but Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power could also be construed as conspiring to defraud voters more generally.
The other two statutes, meanwhile, suggest a core part of the case against Trump is focused on the so-called fake electors scheme and the former president’s efforts to use the fake slates in a conspiracy to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021.
The target letter did not cite any seditious conspiracy, incitement of insurrection or deprivation of rights under color of law – other areas for which legal experts have suggested Trump could have legal risk.
Last year, the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack concluded that Trump committed multiple crimes in an attempt to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.
The committee issued symbolic criminal referrals to the justice department, although at that point the justice department had since stepped up its criminal investigation with the addition of new prosecutors in spring 2022 before they were folded into the special counsel’s office.
House investigators also concluded that there was evidence for prosecutors to charge Trump with conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of an official proceeding. They also issued referrals for incitement of insurrection, which was not listed in the target letter.
Should prosecutors charge Trump in the federal January 6 investigation, the case could go to trial much more quickly than the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case – before the 2024 election – because pre-trial proceedings would not be delayed by rules governing national security materials.
Trump under investigation for civil rights conspiracy in January 6 inquiry
Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.
The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.
Prosecutors appear to have evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the target letter, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.
The target letter to Trump identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.
The statute, enacted to protect the civil rights of Black voters targeted by white supremacy groups after the US civil war, is unusual because it is typically used by prosecutors in law enforcement misconduct and hate crime prosecutions, though its use has expanded in recent years.
Deadline looms for Trump to appear before January 6 grand jury
Donald Trump has until Thursday midnight to respond to special counsel Jack Smith and tell his office whether he will appear before a grand jury in the justice department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
A letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office on Sunday identified the former president as a “target” in the probe into the January 6 insurrection, Trump posted to his Truth Social website on Tuesday. He wrote:
Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment.
People who receive target letters from federal authorities are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.
Trump quietly adds new lawyer as he faces potential indictment in January 6 case
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The former president, Donald Trump, has quietly added a criminal defense attorney to his legal team as he faces a potential indictment in the justice department’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.
Attorney John Lauro, who has also represented Trump attorneys Christina Bobb and Alina Habba, is joining Trump’s legal team alongside Todd Blanche, according to sources, CNN reported late on Wednesday.
Lauro will be solely focused on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, including the deadly 6 January 2021 riot in which his supporters overran the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Federal prosecutors have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, the Guardian reported last night, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Trump faces being charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.
The target letter also identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.
The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
9am ET: Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
9am ET: The House will hold a hearing on online censorship. Democratic presidential hopeful, Robert F Kennedy, is expected to testify.
10am ET: The Senate will meet to resume consideration of an EPA nomination and the NDAA.
10.20am ET: Biden will leave for Joint Base Andrews, where he will fly to Philadelphia.
10.45am ET: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly news conference.
1pm ET: Biden will speak about “Bidenomics”. He will depart Philadelphia to return to the White House in the afternoon.
Updated
