Closing summary
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Donald Trump is expected to appear in court at 4pm eastern time on Thursday in Washington DC to answer the indictment brought against him by the special counsel Jack Smith over attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Prosecutors in Washington will outline the four conspiracy and obstruction counts and a judge will set bail conditions in the latest criminal case involving the ex-president.
In a possible preview of Trump’s defence, his lawyer John Lauro called the indictment “an attack on free speech and political advocacy”, implying Trump’s lies about election fraud were protected under the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Lauro told CNN the indictment was “an effort to not only criminalise, but also to censor free speech”.
Trump had a private dinner with Fox News executives shortly after learning that he would be indicted a third time, according to a report. During the dinner held in a private dining room at the former president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, reportedly lobbied Trump to attend the first Republican presidential primary debate later this month.
Federal prosecutors requested a hearing to inform Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, about his lead lawyer’s potential conflicts of interest stemming from his defense work for at least three witnesses who could testify against Nauta and the former president in the classified documents case.
Frightening scenes played out at the US Capitol on Wednesday, when police evacuated Senate office buildings in response to a threatening phone call that was reportedly a hoax. The incident comes amid heightened security concerns created by Trump’s indictment. The former president is due in federal court Thursday just a few blocks from the Capitol.
Barack Obama reportedly warned Joe Biden about how strong a challenge Trump would be in their second election battle in 2024, should Trump win the Republican nomination next year as expected. At a private White House lunch with Biden in June, Obama also reportedly “promised to do all he could to help the president get re-elected”. Polling now shows Trump and Biden closely matched for a second presidential contest.
Kamala Harris fired back at the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after he invited her to discuss new school standards for the teaching of African American history which claim some enslaved people derived benefits that could be used in later life. Harris had previously attacked the Florida school standards, saying last month the state was “pushing propaganda” at children.
A Super Pac affiliated with the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr owes half its cash to a longtime Republican mega-donor and Trump backer, according to campaign finance reports filed on Monday. The group, American Values 2024, reported receiving $5m from Timothy Mellon, a wealthy businessman from Wyoming.
A powerful Democratic senator, Dick Durbin, has called Samuel Alito’s public expression of opposition to US supreme court ethics reform “unwise and unwelcome”, rejecting the conservative justice’s contention that Congress cannot implement such measures.
The rating agency Fitch downgraded the US government’s top credit rating, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors. After the announcement, the dollar fell across a range of currencies, stock futures ticked down and treasury futures rose.
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A coalition of voting rights groups and law firms have filed a lawsuit asking Wisconsin’s newly liberal-controlled supreme court to throw out the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional.
The petition comes a day after the Wisconsin supreme court flipped from a conservative to liberal majority, after Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in on Tuesday night. Protasiewicz had campaigned on abortion access and previously argued that the state’s legislative maps were “rigged”.
The Wisconsin lawsuit is just one of many expected or pending court challenges that could force lawmakers or special commissions to draw yet another set of maps before the 2024 election, the AP reports. It asks that all 132 state lawmakers be up for election that year in newly drawn districts.
The petition filed with the Supreme Court argues that the current maps unconstitutionally retaliate against some voters based on their viewpoint and free speech; create non-contiguous districts that include scattered fragments of detached territory; treat some voters worse than others based on their political views and where they live; and violate the promise of a free government.
Jeff Mandell, board president of Law Forward, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit, said:
Despite the fact that our legislative branch is meant to be the most directly representative of the people, the gerrymandered maps have divided our communities, preventing fair representation.
The lawsuit does not challenge the congressional maps but an attorney at Law Forward said targeting the legislative maps was a “first step” and did not rule out a future challenge to the congressional maps.
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