End of day summary
It was a lively day in Washington with developments on several fronts this afternoon.
Former Vice-president, Mike Pence, will not fight a judge’s order compelling him to appear before a special grand jury hearing testimony in the justice department’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
King Charles invited Biden to the United Kingdom for an official state visit and the US president accepted, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. She offered no timeline for when the visit would take place.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday signed the repeal of a dormant 1931 law that the banned abortion and criminalized providers who performed them.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in California today, becoming the most senior US figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on US soil since 1979, despite threats of retaliation from China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has weighed in to say he does not agree with the criminal charges brought against former president Donald Trump in the US, calling the case political, Reuters reports.
Reflecting on his day in court, Trump said he sees a silver lining.
“As much as I can enjoy a day like Tuesday,” the former president wrote, denouncing liberals as “Radical Left Lunatics” and insisting there was “no crime” committed, “it was an unbelievable experience, perhaps the Best Day in History for somebody who had just suffered Unjustifiable Indictment!”
In a burst of posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump shared polling, promoted by conservative outlets, that showed him stretching his lead over the nominal Republican presidential field.
While Trump’s arraignment have appeared to rally Republican voters to his side, polling also shows that a majority of Americans agree with indictment, suggesting his legal woes could hinder him with the broader electorate.
He added: “My Poll Numbers have never been better, almost $10 Million was raised for the Campaign and, the day was capped off with a very important Speech. If we don’t stop the Radical Left, America is DEAD!”
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Nevada senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat, will seek re-election, an expected but nevertheless welcome announcement for the party facing a tough electoral map in 2024.
I ran for office to solve problems, fight for hardworking Nevada families, and make a real difference in people’s lives.
— Jacky Rosen (@RosenforNevada) April 5, 2023
Our work in the U.S. Senate is just getting started — that’s why I’m officially launching my re-election campaign today! pic.twitter.com/rKv62KfqqQ
The Silver State has proved to be one of the nation’s most competitive battlegrounds. In 2022, Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto narrowly eked out a victory against her Republican opponent, while the state’s Democratic governor lost re-election to the Trump-backed Joe Lombardo.
Next year Senate Democrats are defending seats in a handful of states Trump won as well as a number of swing states. This comes after they expanded their narrow majority to 51 in 2022 by flipping a seat Pennsylvania.
Rosen’s launch video emphasizes her biography, her support for the infrastructure law and legislation reducing the cost of prescription drug prices, and her focus on issues like abortion access and climate change.
Republican-led legislatures around the country are considering – and passing – new laws to control the lives of trans youth – from the care they can seek, to the sports’ team they can play on and the school bathrooms they can use.
On Wednesday, Indiana’s Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, signed into law a measure banning all gender-affirming care for minors, after telling reporters the bill sent to his desk was “clear as mud”. With his signature, Indiana joins at least 12 other states that have enacted similar bans or restrictions on such care.
Opponents of such legislation say the care, which includes hormone therapy and puberty blockers endorsed by top medical associations, are safe, largely reversible and can be life-saving for trans youth.
Republican lawmakers in Kansas, meanwhile, overrode the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill banning transgender athletes from participating in girl’s and women’s sports from kindergarten through college, per the Associated Press.
It follows a measure approved by Kansas lawmakers on Tuesday that critics say is among the most restrictive in the nation. The bill, which Kelly is expected to veto, would prevent trans people from using public restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities that do not align with the gender on their birth certificate. It would also prevent them from changing their name or gender on their driver’s license.
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Pence won’t fight order compelling grand jury testimony
Former Vice-president, Mike Pence, will not fight a judge’s order compelling him to appear before a special grand jury hearing testimony in the justice department’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Vice-president Pence will not appeal the judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law,” a spokesman for Pence said.
NEW: Former VP Mike Pence will not appeal order compelling to testify in criminal investigation into Jan. 6 Capitol attack, per spokesman: “Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law.”
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) April 5, 2023
“The court’s landmark and historic ruling affirmed for the first time in history that the speech or debate clause extends to the vice-president,” the spokesperson said. “Having vindicated that principle of the constitution, VP Pence will not appeal the judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena.”
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The president and the first lady are “very much looking forward” to welcoming LSU Tigers basketball team to the White House after they defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes to win their first NCAA championship, Jean-Pierre said.
But it appears unclear whether the team, or its star player, Angel Reese, is planning to attend after a verbal flap by the first lady, who attended the championship game, suggested both teams be invited to the White House.
Traditionally, only the champions are invited. Reese called the remark a “JOKE” on Twitter. The White House attempted to walk back the comment, saying Jill Biden’s comments were “intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes”.
“She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”
But in a podcast interview, according to CNN, Reese told the hosts that she did not accept Biden’s “apology”. “You can’t go back on certain things that you say … They can have that spotlight. We’ll go to the Obamas.’ We’ll go see Michelle. We’ll see Barack,” the star said.
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Biden accepted King Charles' invitation for an official state visit
Jean-Pierre said King Charles invited Biden to the United Kingdom for an official state visit and he accepted. The king extended the invitation during a recent call with the president, which Jean Pierre described as “very friendly”. She offered no timeline for when the visit would take place.
Biden is not planning to attend King Charles’ coronation next month in keeping with past precedent. The US delegation will be lead instead by the first lady, Jill Biden.
Pressed repeatedly on why Biden wasn’t attending, Jean-Pierre insisted that the British people should not see the decision as a “snub.”
“I will leave it at that,” she said. “It is not a snub.”
On whether he would meet with the king during his visit to the UK and Ireland next week, Jean-Pierre said to stay tuned.
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White House press briefing begins
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is at the podium this afternoon answering reporters’ questions on a range of subjects. Here’s a quick rat-a-tat.
She declined to offer a timeline of when the White House would release a comprehensive strategy for combatting antisemitism, as Biden announced in a CNN op-ed this morning.
She would not comment on Trump’s arraignment, citing the White House’s position that it does not comment on ongoing legal cases. However, she did in general terms say that the White House and the president condemns “any type of attacks on any judge or our judicial system”.
Biden was briefed by senior advisers about the charges against Trump, Jean-Pierre said, insisting his focus was not on the former president. “He’s not focused on this indictment,” she said.
On McCarthy’s meeting with the Taiwanese president, Jean Pierre said: “There is no reason for Beijing to turn this transit into something that is used as a pretext to overreact … We just do not see, there should not be a reason, for the PCR to overreact here.”
She would not say whether Biden planned to take family members with him on what he views as a return to his ancestral home. She said he would use his family’s history and Irish roots to tell a broader story about Irish immigrants influence on the nation.
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Michigan governor repeals state's 1931 abortion ban
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday signed the repeal of a 1931 law that the banned abortion and criminalized providers who performed them.
Today, we are repealing Michigan’s extreme 1931 law that bans abortion and criminalized nurses and doctors for doing their jobs.
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) April 5, 2023
This is long overdue. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/PCOqJhTtb4
A backlash to the supreme court’s to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion helped power Whitmer and a slate of Democratic candidates to victory in last year’s midterm elections.
Voters overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, which rendered the 1931 law unconstitutional. However, if at some point in the future, voters were to gather enough signatures to amend the state’s constitution and overturn abortion right, the 1931 ban would then have been enforceable.
Whitmer’s signature eliminated that possibility entirely, erasing the nearly-century old law completely.
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Testifying before a federal grand jury, former top Trump administration officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli said they repeatedly informed the then-president that he could not seize voting machines as part of his efforts to cling to power in the wake of his defeat in 2020, according to new reporting by CNN.
Citing three people familiar with the proceedings, CNN reported that Wolf and Cuccinelli were to describe discussions within the administration related to seizing voting machines when they appeared before the grand jury earlier this year.
One of the sources told CNN that Cuccinelli testified to the grand jury that he “made clear at all times” that the Department of Homeland Security did not have the authority to seize voting machines.
That line of questioning goes to the heart of [special counsel Jack] Smith’s challenge in any criminal case he might bring — to prove that Trump and his allies pursued their efforts despite knowing their fraud claims were false or their gambits weren’t lawful. To bring any potential criminal charges, prosecutors would have to overcome Trump’s public claim that he believed then and now that fraud really did cost him the election, per CNN.
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House speaker meets president of Taiwan in historic US visit
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in California today, becoming the most senior US figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on US soil since 1979, despite threats of retaliation from China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own, Reuters reports.
The friendship between America and the people of Taiwan has never been stronger. It is my honor to welcome President @iingwen to the @Reagan_Library. pic.twitter.com/2XSIJRv7Vp
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) April 5, 2023
McCarthy, a Republican who through his House position is number three in the US leadership hierarchy, welcomed Tsai on Wednesday morning at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, near Los Angeles.
China staged war games around Taiwan last August following the visit to Taipei of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Taiwan’s defense ministry said a Chinese aircraft carrier group was in the waters off the island’s southeast coast ahead of the meeting between Tsai and McCarthy in California.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said there was nothing new about a Taiwanese president transiting through the United States and Beijing should not use it as an excuse to take any action or ratchet up tensions.
Supporters waving Taiwan flags and pro-Taiwan and Hong Kong banners chanted “Jiayou Taiwan” – the equivalent of “Go Taiwan.”
Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
A meeting in California is seen as a potentially less provocative alternative to McCarthy visiting Taiwan, something he has said he hopes to do.
Updated
Even the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has now weighed in to say he does not agree with the criminal charges brought against former president Donald Trump in the US, calling the case political, Reuters reports.
Supposedly legal issues should not be used for electoral, political purposes. That’s why I don’t agree with what they are doing to ex-president Trump,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference this morning.
That’s a heck of a lot more than current US president Joe Biden has said on the matter, as he and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continue to rebuff requests for comment by political journalists on Trump’s legal crisis.
Trump is the first sitting or former US president to face criminal charges, as he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to business fraud, allegedly to cover up election finance fraud, in New York on Tuesday afternoon.
Leftist populist “Amlo” compared Trump’s case to the December ousting of former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office and arrested after trying to dissolve congress.
It should be the people who decide,” said López Obrador, who added that he could not say whether Trump was guilty or not.
Updated
Midday summary
Here’s where things stand today
Donald Trump continues to lash out at his opponents – real and perceived – the morning after his historic arraignment. In a pair of social media posts, he attacked the investigations against him, accused Democrats of “weaponizing” federal law enforcement agencies and called on Congressional Republicans to “defund” the DOJ and FBI.
Janet Protasiewicz won her race for the Wisconsin’s supreme court, beating out a conservative candidate who had advised Republicans on legal efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state through the use of “fake electors”. Her win will flip the ideological balance of the state’s highest court, in an election which democracy observers have called the most consequential one of the year, with abortion rights, redistricting and election rules at stake.
Progressive Cook county board commissioner Brandon Johnson won the election for Chicago mayor on Tuesday evening after pulling ahead of his opponent Paul Vallas on Tuesday.
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced that it had reached a tentative $144.5m settlement with victims and relatives of those killed in the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Still to come: House speaker Kevin McCarthy and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers will sit down with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen today in California, a carefully choreographed encounter that comes amid rising tensions between the US and China.
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DoJ reaches tentative settlement over Sutherland Springs shooting
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced that it had reached a tentative $144.5m settlement with victims and relatives of those killed in the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Dozens of worshipers were killed or injured when gunman Devin Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service at First Baptist church of Sutherland Springs. The gunman, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, had served in the Air Force. Twenty-six people, including a pregnant woman, were killed and 22 others were injured.
After the shooting, dozens of victims and their relatives sued the US air force, alleging that it failed to report the gunman’s history of violence, including an assault conviction, to the FBI’s national background check system. That conviction, they argued, should have prevented the former airman from being able to purchase the guns he used in the assault.
A judge had previously ruled that the air force was “60% liable” for the attack as a result of its failure to report the conviction.
“No words or amount of money can diminish the immense tragedy of the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs,” said associate attorney general Vanita Gupta in the press release. “Today’s announcement brings the litigation to a close, ending a painful chapter for the victims of this unthinkable crime.”
The DoJ said the settlement was still subject to court approvals.
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In an op-ed published by CNN, Joe Biden marked the start of Passover by imploring Americans and democratic citizens around the world to speak out against rising antisemitism.
He said the White House would soon release the “first-ever national strategy to counter antisemitism”, which he said would outline actions the federal government will take based on outreach to more than a thousand “Jewish community stakeholders, faith and civil rights leaders, state and local officials and more.”
During his time in office, the president noted, the White House hosted the first High Holiday reception and lit the first permanent White House Hanukah menorah in our nation’s history.
Here’s a bit more of Biden’s passover message:
To the Jewish community, I want you to know that I see your fear, your hurt and your concern that this venom is being normalized. I decided to run for President after I saw it in Charlottesville, when neo-Nazis marched from the shadows spewing the same antisemitic bile that was heard in Germany in the 1930s,” Biden wrote.
“Rest assured that I am committed to the safety of the Jewish people. I stand with you. America stands with you. Under my presidency, we continue to condemn antisemitism at every turn. Failure to call out hate is complicity. Silence is complicity. And we will not be silent.”
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Democrats had plenty to smile about by the end of the day on Tuesday.
After years of demanding accountability for Donald Trump, they were treated to a series of somber-looking images of the former president sitting in a prosaic Manhattan courtroom, reduced, in their eyes, to a common criminal defendant.
Hours later, their preferred candidate prevailed in a consequential Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and in the Chicago mayoral race, voters chose the liberal candidate over his opponent, who once described himself as a Republican.
But in North Carolina, their fortunes were reversed.
There a Democratic state lawmaker formally switched her political affiliation to the Republican Party on Wednesday, giving the GOP veto-proof control in both chambers of the state legislature.
It is a devastating development for Democrats in the state, and especially the Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, who had vowed to use his veto power to block hardline conservatives from advancing their policies during the final two years of his administration.
Here’s what the switch means, according to the AP:
The party switch announced by state Representative Tricia Cotham, of Mecklenburg County, means Republicans now hold the 72 seats required in the 120-seat House to hold a veto-proof majority. Republicans had already held 30 of the 50 seats in the Senate needed to override vetoes if party members are present and voting, but until Wednesday, they were one seat shy of a similar advantage in the House following the November elections.
Recently improving margins for Republicans in the General Assembly, capped off by Cotham’s switch, have emboldened the North Carolina party to try again on topics such as gun rights, immigration and voting. Republicans also are interested in further restricting abortion following last year’s US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. …
“I will not be controlled by anyone,” Cotham said as she announced she would switch her party registration to the GOP. She said the Democratic Party is no longer a big tent party and tries to bully its members. She said that she was considered a “spy” and a “traitor” and that the turning point was when she was criticized for using the American flag and praying-hands emoji on social media and on her vehicles.
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The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt spent the day covering the frenzy outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump was booked and arraigned on Tuesday.
In this video, he speaks to Maga-wearing Trump supporters and sign-wielding Trump antagonists about the former president’s day in court and what it means for the country.
Give it a watch here:
Rosa Parks. Jane Fonda. David Bowie. In the end, Donald Trump, the first president –current or former – to ever face criminal charges, will not join ranks of famous people with iconic mug shots. No police snap was taken of the former president during his booking on Tuesday.
None was needed, it was reported, as mug shots are intended to help authorities quickly identify defendants should they attempt to flee. Trump was not deemed a flight risk and, more to the point, is unlikely to escape notice as one of the most recognizable people on planet Earth.
But that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from trying to cash in on the moment.
An email sent to Trump supporters showed merchandise in the former president’s official store: a plain white T-shirt featuring a clearly doctored photo of the former president getting booked. A fake chart behind him gave his height as 6ft 5in. Underneath his photo were the words “NOT GUILTY”, printed in big block letters, Alaina Demopoulos writes.
Trump’s official store – which also sells hoodies emblazoned with photographs of Joe Biden falling down the stairs and “Trump was right about everything” bumper stickers – will send fans the mugshot T-shirt “for free”, if they donate $47 to his re-election campaign.
It was Trump’s first attempt at monetizing his historic arrest, after Rolling Stone reported that his campaign planned to use the mugshot “in a large marketing blitz”. In the end, the campaign was denied the opportunity: the Manhattan criminal court didn’t photograph Trump at his arraignment, so organizers went with a mock photo.
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This morning Donald Trump issued an all-caps missive, imploring Republicans in Congress to “DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES.”
It’s not the first time Trump and his loyalists have backed such calls, but they make Republican leaders nervous in a year when public safety and crime are front of mind for voters. Republicans worry that these calls will undermine their attempts to cast Democrats who favor policing and criminal justice reform as supportive of the “defund the police” movement, even though most in the party – from Joe Biden on down – do not.
But Trump, facing an array of legal threats, has ramped up his attacks against the FBI after agents recovered classified documents that Trump hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago property. The DOJ is investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents, as well as his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in January 6 assault on the US capitol.
Trump’s social media posts are a sign, perhaps, that even as the former president faces prosecutors in New York for his alleged role in a hush-money scheme to cover up damaging claims of extramarital affairs at the height of the 2016 presidential election, he is also worried about his legal exposure on other fronts.
Chicago voters elect progressive as next mayor
Meanwhile, voters in Chicago elected Brandon Johnson, the progressive Cook county board commissioner, as the city’s next mayor. He beat Paul Vallas, a more conservative Democrat who made crime a central issue of his campaign. Here’s how our reporter, Leigh Giangreco, characterized the race to succeed mayor Lori Lightfoot, after voters denied her a second term in a stunning upset last month.
The election had pit two Democrats from the furthest ends of their party’s spectrum against each other. Public safety has been the number one issue and Democrats across the country were watching to see if Johnson, a progressive who has previously supported the defund the police movement, could defeat Vallas, who nabbed the endorsement of Chicago’s police union and once described himself as a Republican. …
Johnson and Vallas had gone head-to-head after a crowded mayoral primary in February. In that race, incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot won voters in Chicago’s majority Black wards on the south and west side communities while Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García won Latino voters on the west side. Those votes were up for grabs on Tuesday.
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Liberal judge prevails in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
In an analysis of the Wisconsin senate, Sam Levine likens Protasiewicz’s victory to a “political earthquake” in the state, “one of America’s most volatile political battlegrounds” that has played a central role in recent elections. Though the race was ostensibly nonpartisan, Protasiewicz was forthcoming about her liberal views and especially her support for abortion rights, which proved decisive in the race. Her election will tilt the ideological balance of Wisconsin’s seven-member supreme court from conservative to liberal.
Here’s more from Sam:
Her election to the court means that the Wisconsin 1849 abortion ban will be struck down (a case is already coming through the courts). Just as they did across the country in 2022, Democrats made it a central issue in the supreme court campaign and voters turned out.
“Wisconsin voters have made their voices heard. They’ve chosen to reject partisan extremism,” Protasiewicz said during remarks at her election night party in Milwaukee. “It means our democracy will always prevail.”
… A challenge is expected shortly thereafter to Wisconsin’s electoral maps, which are so heavily distorted in favor of Republicans that it is virtually impossible for Democrats to ever win a majority. Protasiewicz has said the maps are “rigged” and the court is likely to strike them down, making elections much more competitive in the state.
These two significant consequences show how Democrats may have finally been able to catch up to Republicans when it comes to focusing on so-called down-ballot races – little-known contests for offices like state legislatures and state supreme courts that can have huge policy consequences.
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Good morning. I’m Lauren Gambino in Washington, taking over for Martin.
We’re going to break briefly from the fallout surrounding Trump’s historic arraignment on Tuesday to discuss a few other developments that will have significant consequences for American politics.
Wisconsin voters elected liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state’s supreme court in what had been described as the most important election of 2023.
Here’s a dispatch from our reporters on the ground in the Midwestern swing state: Alice Herman in Madison and Sam Levine in Milwaukee
In a historic election, the liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz is projected to win her race for a seat on Wisconsin’s supreme court. Her win will flip the ideological balance of the state’s highest court, which has been controlled by a conservative majority for 15 years.
Elections and democracy observers have called this election the most consequential one of the year, with abortion rights, redistricting and election rules at stake. The race pitted Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee circuit court judge and former prosecutor, against Dan Kelly, a former Wisconsin supreme court justice with ties to election deniers and the far right.
Protasiewicz will replace the conservative justice Patience Roggensack on 1 August; the court will be controlled by a narrow liberal majority.
While some former allies of Trump, like Mike Pence, and some of those in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination against Trump, like Ron DeSantis, have been put in the position of defending the former president in recent days since his indictment, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has kept his counsel. This morning Alexander Bolton writes for The Hill:
McConnell and his top deputies stayed silent Tuesday, signaling how far they have diverged from their former ally.
Many Republican senators blame Trump for the loss of the Senate majority and the disappointing performance of Senate Republican last year. His arraignment Tuesday only adds to the political baggage of the Republican presidential frontrunner.
McConnell, who hasn’t spoken to Trump since December of 2020, didn’t make any statement in response to the former president’s arrest Tuesday. He didn’t say anything when news of Trump’s indictment broke Thursday, either.
Al Cross, a professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky and a longtime commentator on McConnell’s career, said McConnell doesn’t feel the same pressure as other Republicans to rally around Trump.
“Mitch McConnell does not feel pressure in the same way that other human beings do. He has steeled himself to resist the typical politician’s urge to talk and it’s paid off for him, you don’t get in trouble for something you didn’t say.”
Cross speculated that McConnell doesn’t want to put himself out on a limb by defending Trump when the former president is facing additional possible indictments.
“There will be other shoes to drop and I expect Mitch McConnell knows more about Donald Trump’s situation than we do,” he added.
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Our video team have summarised yesterday’s historic day of media frenzy as news crews followed Donald Trump’s every step – from Trump Tower back to his Mar-a-Lago residence.
By the way, if you’ve got the time and inclination for it, ABC have published a full transcript of what happened in the courthouse Tuesday in the Trump arraignment hearing, which lasted 57 minutes.
Moira Donegan writes for the Guardian today that Trump isn’t the ringmaster he once was, but we’re still watching his show:
Will the criminal charges be good for Trump? Trump seems to think so, or at least that’s what he’s trying to project to the public. He raised a lot of money for his third presidential bid over the five days between his indictment and his arraignment: $7m, according to campaign officials. And as he was inside the courthouse being charged, his campaign sent out a fundraising email, asking supporters to purchase tee shirts featuring a fake mug shot of the former president, along with the words “NOT GUILTY.” They cost $47 a piece.
And the indictment has placed Trump’s would-be rivals for the Republican nomination in an awkward position: they want to distance themselves from Trump, but they can’t afford to alienate his supporters, those die-hards who still make up a ruling majority of the Republican base. If anything, the indictment has made it seem more likely that Trump will secure the Republican nomination, for the same reasons it seemed likely back in 2016: while Republican elites and donors scramble to stop him, and rival candidates define themselves against his example, he’s still the sun around which the Republican party orbits, a force exponentially more powerful than the party itself.
Should we even be paying attention to this? Have we learned nothing? But with Trump, even studied indifference to him still makes him the center of political attention, like when you tell someone not to think of a white elephant.
Read more here: Moira Donegan – Trump isn’t the ringmaster he once was, but we’re still watching his show
It would be fair to say that Donald Trump’s lawyers have got plenty of potential court dates ahead of them in the coming months and years. Here is a list from CNN’s Dan Berman of all the investigations and court activity that the former president is facing:
Mar-a-Lago documents – Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defence information at Trump’s resort.
2020 election and January 6 – Smith’s purview also includes the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol. Aspects of the Justice Department’s probe include the use of so-called fake electors from states that Trump falsely claimed he had won, such as Georgia and Arizona.
2020 election: Efforts to overturn Georgia results – Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.
2020 election and January 6: House select committee – before concluding at the end of 2022, the House select committee referred Trump to the Justice Department on at least four criminal charges.
E. Jean Carroll: Defamation suit over Trump’s denial of rape claims – Carroll alleged Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defamed her when he denied the rape
January 6: lawsuits by police officers – several members of the US Capitol Police are suing Trump saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot.
Trump and Bob Woodward – Trump is suing journalist Woodward for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward had released audio from interviews without consent.
Trump and the New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN – Trump is suing his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.
Trump and CNN – Trump has sued CNN in a southern Florida federal court, accusing the network of a “campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander”. CNN has asked the judge for the case to be “dismissed with prejudice.”
Associated Press is carrying some quotes on the legal basis of the case against Donald Trump that district attorney Alvin Bragg is trying to make, and both of them think Bragg may face an uphill struggle.
The indictment raises many thorny issues about state and federal law that could provide openings for the defense to attack the charges to try to get them tossed before the case even gets to trial.
“The bottom line is that it’s murky,” said Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school. “And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this, how they can get around these potential hurdles. And it could potentially tie up the case for a long time.”
The 34 counts of falsifying business records would normally be misdemeanors, lower-level charges that would not normally result in prison time. But they were bumped up to felonies – which carry up to four years behind bars – because, Bragg says, they were done in an effort to commit or conceal other crimes.
The $130,000 payment to Daniels exceeded the federal cap on campaign contributions, Bragg said. He also cited a New York state election law that makes it a crime to promote a candidate by unlawful means.
Prosecutors filed a “statement of facts” that told their story of a scheme to protect Trump’s presidential prospects by buying and suppressing unflattering information about him.
“There are an awful lot of dots here which it takes a bit of imagination to connect,” said Richard Klein, a Touro Law Center criminal law professor. Bragg said the indictment doesn’t specify the potential underlying crimes because the law doesn’t require it. But given the likelihood of Trump’s lawyers challenging it, “you’d think they’d want to be on much firmer ground than some of this stuff,” said Klein, a former New York City public defender.
Hasen said it’s not clear whether candidates for federal office can be prosecuted in cases involving state election laws. The defense may also argue the case can’t be brought in state court if it involves a federal election law.
Our columnist Osita Nwanevu writes today that Donald Trump’s prosecution is a triumph:
One of the major questions in American political and legal thought has been whether presidents may be allowed to commit crimes. As it stands, the position of the Justice Department is that they may — for half a century, it has held that a president cannot face criminal prosecution while in office. And while there’s not even a theoretical bar to prosecuting a president once they leave office, no one had ever tried it, leaving the question of whether criminal laws functionally apply to presidents at all, as a practical matter, a matter of speculation.
Here Alvin Bragg has bravely taken a stand: a person may, in fact, be indicted for a crime even if they were once president— just as though they were an ordinary person to whom laws applied. This is tremendous news. No rifts have opened in the time-space continuum. Frogs, locusts, and lice have yet to descend upon Manhattan. For the time being, it appears that a prosecutor really may attempt to hold a president — or at least a former president — accountable for a suspected crime without reality collapsing in on itself. What’s more, Bragg’s indictment amounts to an insistence that a former president may be indicted even for a relatively low-level crime like falsifying documents — just like any other white collar criminal.
Read more here: Osita Nwanevu – Donald Trump’s prosecution is a triumph
The justice system in New York could not be described as the most fast-paced in the world. Lauren del Valle at CNN has set out the timeline of what we can expect:
Prosecutors said they expect to produce the bulk of the discovery in the next 65 days. Trump’s team has until 8 August to file any motions and the prosecution will respond by 19 September. Judge Juan Merchan said he will rule on the motions at the next in-person hearing, scheduled for 4 December.
Karen McDougal: who is second woman in Trump case?
In advance of Tuesday’s court hearing we knew that payments made to adult actor Stormy Daniels were at the heart of the case. But it emerged that the prosecution is also citing payments made to Karen McDougal. Joan E Greve writes:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has presented the grand jury with evidence involving the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims to have had an extramarital affair with Trump beginning in 2006.
As the Journal first reported in 2016, the parent company of the National Enquirer, which endorsed Trump’s first presidential bid, agreed to pay McDougal $150,000 for her story about the alleged affair. But the tabloid ultimately did not publish McDougal’s account, effectively quashing the story in an industry tactic known as “catch and kill”.
In her first televised appearance in 2018 McDougal detailed her relationship with Trump, saying that he would take her to his Manhattan home in Trump Tower through the back entrance and point out Melania’s room. She also said the affair took place in several locations, including Lake Tahoe, Trump’s private golf club in New Jersey, and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The incident bears key similarities to the handling of Daniels’ story about her alleged sexual encounters with Trump beginning in 2006. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, gave Daniels $130,000 for her story in 2016, and that transaction was not publicly reported until 2018. Cohen has said that Trump reimbursed him for the payment, but the former president denies wrongdoing in the hush money scheme, and he has dismissed the allegations of affairs with Daniels or McDougal.
The grand jury hearing evidence about the McDougal payment raises the possibility of Trump facing additional charges over the incident, or prosecutors may cite the transaction to establish a pattern of hush money schemes on the former president’s part.
There has been a fair amount of commentary that the high profile indictment of former President Donald Trump would boost his campaign for the Republican nomination for the 2024 election, and help Republicans at the polls. That didn’t bear any fruit immediately, most notably in Wisconsin, where liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz is projected to win her race for a seat on Wisconsin’s supreme court.
Her win will flip the ideological balance of the state’s highest court, in an election which democracy observers have called the most consequential one of the year, with abortion rights, redistricting and election rules at stake.
In yesterday’s other vote, progressive candidate and Cook county board commissioner Brandon Johnson won the election for Chicago mayor on Tuesday evening after pulling ahead of his opponent Paul Vallas in the evening.
Here is how my colleague David Smith in Washington assessed Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Largo last night:
The former president ignored a plea from the judge in the case to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric, even launching a broadside at the judge’s daughter over her political connections.
Supporters wore “Make America Great Again” and “Trump 2024” caps and snapped pictures of the president turned defendant. The audience included Trump’s son Eric and his wife, Lara, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and pillow maker and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said. “I never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, alleges that Trump – the first former president to face criminal charges – falsified business records to conceal a violation of election laws.
He described Bragg, an elected Democrat, as “a local failed district attorney charging a former president of the United States for the first time in history on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said there is no case.
“There’s no case. They kept saying there’s no case. Virtually everyone. But it’s far worse than that because he knew there was no case.”
Trump added: “The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted or, at a minimum, he should resign.”
Read more of David Smith’s report here: ‘US going to hell’ – Donald Trump attacks hush money case in grievance-filled Mar-a-Lago speech
On Tuesday Donald Trump gave a 25-minute speech after his New York arrest, where he listed long-held grievances and complaints about the several investigations he is facing before briefly addressing the indictment. As well as the hush money indictment, Trump is being investigated over his handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and pressure he put on state officials over the 2020 election result in Georgia. Trump repeated falsehoods about the nature of the accusations he is facing, and personally attacked the prosecutors and investigators leading the cases.
What we know so far …
Welcome to our live US politics coverage the day after former president Donald Trump appeared in a New York courthouse, and then after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts, returned to his base in Mar-a-Lago to give a speech condemning the prosecution. Here is what we know so far …
Donald Trump was charged on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic case over allegations he orchestrated hush-money payments to two women before the 2016 US election to suppress publication of their alleged sexual encounters with him.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. The frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024, Trump was subdued, responding briefly when the judge asked him if he understood his rights.
Trump flew home to Florida where he addressed family, friends and supporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, delivering a litany of grievances against investigators, prosecutors and rival politicians. He falsely described the New York prosecution as election interference.
The former US president attacked the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, and his family in the speech at the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, in which he also claimed the US was “going to hell”.
Merchan, the judge assigned to Trump’s case, did not impose a gag order but warned Trump to avoid making comments that were inflammatory or could cause civil unrest. Prosecutors said Trump made a series of social media posts, including one threatening “death and destruction” if he was charged. If convicted of any one of the 34 felony charges, Trump could face a maximum of four years in prison.
The judge set the next hearing for 4 December. Legal experts said a trial may not even get under way for a year. An indictment or conviction will not legally prevent Trump from running for president.
Trump’s mugshot was not taken, according to two law enforcement officials, though the Trump camp did create their own one to put on a T-shirt as part of a fundraising effort.
