Judge Tanya Chutkan, holding a hearing in Washington on Donald Trump’s election interference case, is now moving on to the Trump’s team request that she consider whether the special counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed before grappling with the ramifications of the supreme court’s immunity decision on the indictment.
Chutkan notes that the Trump team could have filed a motion to dismiss based on Smith’s appointment last year and didn’t, while there is binding law from the US court of appeals for the DC circuit that means she would have to deny such a motion in any case.
Lauro says it’s twofold: US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas raising the appointment issue in his concurrence in the immunity ruling, and the fact that US district judge Aileen Cannon – in the classified documents case – dismissed that indictment on the appointment issue last month.
A skeptical Chutkan tells Lauro that he can file a motion for leave, which means in legal jargon that he can file a formal request for permission to file the motion, laying out why the Trump team has legal authority for such a move.
Hunter Biden arrives at Los Angeles courthouse as he begins second federal trial in three months in tax case
For the second time in three months, Hunter Biden will sit in a federal courtroom as a jury of his peers is assembled to assess whether he is guilty of a slew of criminal charges.
The son of Joe Biden stands accused of failing to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, as well as two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion.
Three months ago, the younger Biden, who is 54, was found guilty in Delaware on three felony counts relating to his purchase of a handgun in 2018 because he wrote on his gun-purchase form, falsely, that he was not a user of illicit drugs.
The new trial takes place in Los Angeles, where Biden has lived for years and where, according to the prosecution, he spent lavishly on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes”.
The trial begins in Los Angeles on Thursday with jury selection expected to last two days, and opening statements scheduled for Monday. The most serious charges relate to his 2018 return on which, according to the prosecution, he sought to claim his children’s college tuition fees and more than $27,000 in online pornography as business expenses.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding over the hearing in Donald Trump’s election interference case, is discussing with Trump’s lawyer John Lauro whether they should be able to file the opening brief counteracting the slimmed-down indictment charging Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 election, or if the special counsel gets to go first.
Lauro is arguing that the superseding indictment is buttressed by Trump’s communications with his vice-president Mike Pence, which US supreme court decided were presumptively immune – and prosecutors have to overcome the presumption.
As a result, Lauro argues, the Trump team should go first so they can file a motion to dismiss the case based on the supreme court’s immunity decision. Chutkan is skeptical.
Updated
Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris puts her on the growing list of lifelong Republicans who will be voting against Donald Trump.
In March, the former vice-president Mike Pence told Fox news that he will not be endorsing his former running mate in November, citing Trump’s actions on 6 January and course reversals on issues such as forcing China to sell TikTok.
Other prominent Republicans to vote against the party’s nominee include Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican representative for Illinois; Olivia Troye, who worked in the Trump administration as homeland security adviser to Pence; and Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s former press secretaries, all of whom spoke at the recent Democratic national convention in Chicago.
These appearances follow years of the establishment Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, known as “Never Trumpers”, decrying Trump and the risks they see him posing to the health of the nation.
Liz Cheney, the Republican former representative of Wyoming, endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Tuesday, making her the latest Republican to publicly say that they will not be supporting Donald Trump.
Cheney, the daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, made the pronouncement on Tuesday at an event at Duke university in North Carolina. “I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” she said.
And as a conservative, as somebody who believes in and cares about the constitution, I have thought deeply about this and the present danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, I am voting for Kamala Harris.
Liz Cheney endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris at Duke University@newsobserver pic.twitter.com/taoMYNQ6d1
— Emma Cline (@emmacline_) September 4, 2024
Donald Trump has, so far, successfully avoided coming face to face with the judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his federal election subversion case.
Trump is not expected to be in attendance on Thursday for the first court hearing since prosecutors reworked their indictment in his election interference case, after the supreme court’s ruling granting him broad immunity from criminal charges.
Instead, the former president’s team of lawyers are in federal court in Washington to argue on his behalf. They are Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Lauro and Greg Singer.
Appearing in court today for the prosecution are Thomas Windom and Molly Gaston.
Updated
Last week, Donald Trump’s lawyers suggested to the judge a months-long process to move the case forward, in light of the supreme court’s ruling that conferred broad immunity to former presidents.
Judge Tanya Chutkan says she will not set a schedule in the Trump January 6 case at this status conference but hopes to do so later today.
Chutkan, addressing Trump’s attorney John Lauro, noted that it had almost been a year since they were last in a courtroom together, adding that he looked “rested”. Lauro responded:
Life was almost meaningless without you.
Chutkan, laughing, replied:
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Updated
Trump pleads not guilty to charges in revised election interference indictment
Trump’s attorney John Lauro has confirmed that Trump is entering a plea of not guilty to the superseding indictment.
Federal prosecutors and lawyers for Donald Trump are in court today to discuss how to move forward with the federal election subversion case against Trump in the first hearing after the supreme court’s ruling granting him broad immunity from criminal charges.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is in federal court in Washington DC where she will hear arguments from Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith, who submitted dueling proposals on Friday in the case that charges the former president with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the runup to the 6 January 2021 riot at the Capitol.
Updated
Trump's 2020 election interference case resumes
Donald Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Lauro and Greg Singer are in the courtroom for today’s status conference in the Trump January 6 case, where they will press judge Tanya Chutkan to adopt their delay-inducing schedule to go through the immunity ruling.
Updated
In addition to the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump has also refocused his campaign efforts on North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, where he had significant polling leads before Harris made them competitive, according to the Axios report.
It’s a stark contrast from late July, when the Trump campaign came rolling out of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee boasting that it could expand its electoral map.
In the days after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the Republican National Committee chair, Michael Whatley, laid out an ambitious plan to campaign in the major battleground states and also court votes in states that Trump lost in 2016 and 2020. Whatley said:
We’ve now started to engage in Minnesota and in Virginia and in New Hampshire. So we’re playing offense all around the country. The Biden campaign is playing defense.
Today, New Hampshire stands as a sign of how Trump’s path to victory is narrowing, with a series of polls showing Kamala Harris opening a lead over Trump, according to Politico.
In an email on Sunday, a top Trump volunteer wrote that the campaign “as determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state” and advised supporters to instead direct their attention to Pennsylvania.
Updated
Trump scaling back campaign efforts in some swing states – reports
Donald Trump is scaling back his campaigning in several states he had previously targeted, including some swing states, according to reports, in a sign of how the Republican presidential candidate’s path to victory is narrowing in his run against Kamala Harris.
Trump’s campaign is placing less emphasis on New Hampshire, Minnesota and Virginia and instead pouring resources into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – three states seen as crucial to both sides’ chances of victory, according to an Axios report.
In New Hampshire, Trump’s campaign appears to be drawing down its operations. The Republican candidate has not set foot in the state since he won the state’s primary in January, and his campaign has not sent a high-profile surrogate there since the spring, according to Politico.
Updated
Donald Trump lobbed his usual insults and accusations at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz during a town hall aired on Fox News and then falsely claimed that immigrants from around the world were pouring into the US.
In the pre-taped interview that aired on Wednesday evening, the former president walked onto the stage in a Pennsylvania arena to cheers, applause and chants of “USA” from his supporters.
The town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, comes less than a week before Trump and Kamala Harris meet on the debate stage and as both presidential candidates’ campaigns have drilled down on the US’s six so-called battleground states: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. The election forecaster Nate Silver predicted that Pennsylvania is likely to be the “tipping point” for the election.
Read the full report here: Trump lobs same insults at Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania town hall
Updated
Donald Trump, in characteristically capricious style, had threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate, claiming he would not be given a fair opportunity.
Last week, he posted on his Truth Social network that ABC News was “fake news” and attacked its “so-called Panel of Trump Haters” after seeing the Republican senator Tom Cotton interviewed by Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week.
On Wednesday, Trump attended a town hall event moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity, during which he took the chance to ridicule ABC News, which is hosting the debate.
“ABC is the worst network in terms of fairness,” Trump said.
They are the most dishonest network. The meanest, the nastiest, but that is what I was presented with. I was presented with ABC … I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see how nasty they are, how unfair they are. I agreed to do it because they wouldn’t do any other network.
Harris and Trump accept debate rules, including allowing mics to be muted
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have accepted the rules for the presidential debate in Philadelphia, due to air on ABC next week, the network said on Wednesday – including muted mics when the other candidate is speaking.
ABC News said in a release that Harris and Trump “have qualified for the debate under the established criteria, and both have accepted the following debate rules”.
The Trump and Harris campaigns had been in dispute over the debate guidelines, including over whether microphones should be shut off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak. The Harris campaign had previously pushed for live, or “hot”, microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”. Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, had been pressing for them to be turned off.
The statement released by ABC made it clear that candidates’ microphones would be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak – and muted when the time belongs to another candidate.
It also said the debate would last 90 minutes and have two commercial breaks, and would be administered by two seated moderators, the ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, who would be the only people asking questions. There will be no audience in the room.
Updated
Harris heads to Pittsburgh to prepare for high-stakes debate
Good morning US politics readers. Kamala Harris will travel today to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she will prepare for next week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump. Trump, meanwhile, is set to deliver remarks at the Economic Club of New York and later appear remotely before a gathering in Las Vegas of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
On Wednesday, ABC News announced that both Harris and Trump had accepted the rules for the 10 September debate, drawing an end to a dispute between the two campaigns over the debate guidelines, including over whether microphones should be shut off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
A federal judge will hear arguments today to consider how to proceed with special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case against Donald Trump, in the first hearing since the supreme court’s immunity ruling.
Joe Biden will travel to Westby, Wisconsin, to deliver remarks on his economic agenda.
Jury selection is set to begin in Los Angeles for Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in his federal tax trial, his second trial of the year after he was convicted on felony gun charges in June.
