Closing summary
Donald Trump’s aide Walt Nauta appeared in Miami federal court for a brief hearing where he pleaded not guilty to six charges related to concealing secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago. Neither Trump nor Nauta’s cases are expected to be resolved anytime soon, but a new survey found most Americans would like the former president’s trial to conclude before the 2024 election, if not the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election continues, with a former top Republican lawmaker in Arizona confirming he spoke to the FBI.
Here’s what else happened today:
Newly unsealed portions of the affidavit used to justify federal agents’ search of Mar-a-Lago last year revealed some fresh details of the investigation.
A top Senate Democrat vowed to move forward with legislation to impose a code of ethics on the supreme court after a term marked by controversies.
Marjorie Taylor Greene had a rough day, with Joe Biden zinging her in a speech and a group of fellow rightwing Republicans booting her out of their caucus.
Cocaine in the White House: not as uncommon as you might think.
For as long as we live, and as long as our children live, and our children’s children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and for generations to come, school funding in Wisconsin will increase.
On the campaign trail, former vice-president Mike Pence defended his actions on January 6, when he rejected Donald Trump’s request that he meddle in Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
The moment came during a meeting with voters in Iowa, and saw Pence elaborate on statements he made when announcing his campaign for the Republican nomination last month:
.@Mike_Pence is confronted by an Iowa voter on his handling of the Electoral College count on January 6th. "I'm sorry ma'am, but that's actually what the Constitution says. No Vice President in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had." pic.twitter.com/u9rR19ZjEf
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 6, 2023
Polls indicate Trump remains far and away the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination next year.
Senate Democrats will move forward with legislation imposing a court of ethics on the supreme court, after a term in which the conservative-led bench struck down affirmative action and Joe Biden’s student loan relief plan while dealing with a swirl of ethics controversies.
Dick Durbin, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee, says the body will take up the legislation when lawmakers return from the current Independence Day break:
‘God save the United States and this Honorable Court!’ These are the words spoken by the Marshal when she gavels the Supreme Court into session. But many questions remain at the end of the Court’s latest term regarding its reputation, credibility, and ‘honorable’ status. I’m sorry to see Chief Justice Roberts end the term without taking action on the ethical issues plaguing the Court—all while the Court handed down decisions that dismantled longstanding precedents and the progress our country has made over generations.
The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards. That’s why, as I previously announced, the Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up Supreme Court ethics reform legislation when the Senate returns after the July 4th recess. An announcement on the timing of this vote will be made early next week.
Since the Chief Justice has refused to act, the Judiciary Committee must.
In a May hearing on the supreme court’s ethics following revelations of ties between conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch and parties with interests in its decisions, Republicans made clear they were opposed to any ethics legislation, potentially derailing chances of any bill getting through Congress.
Congress is on recess and lawmakers are dispersed across the country, taking time off, meeting with constituents, and, if you are Missouri’s Republican senator Josh Hawley, getting called out by their local newspaper for a loose relationship with the truth. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington tells the tale:
Josh Hawley has become the poster boy for blurring fact and fiction in the era of Donald Trump: the Republican senator from Missouri will forever be remembered as having raised a manly fist in solidarity with January 6 protesters at the US Capitol then, hours later, having been caught on security camera fleeing the rioting mob he helped to incite.
But even for a public figure known for his use of trolling imagery to foment culture wars, Hawley’s current record is impressive. His local Missouri newspaper, the Kansas City Star, has had to call him out twice in almost as many weeks for his egregious distortion of the facts.
Earlier this week, Hawley reframed Independence Day on Twitter as a great Christian event, quoting the founding father Patrick “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Henry as saying that America was founded “not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
In addition to getting voted out of her rightwing House caucus, Marjorie Taylor Greene was today turned into a laugh line by Joe Biden.
Speaking in South Carolina about his efforts to boost domestic manufacturing, he said he would attend the groundbreaking of a factory in the rightwing lawmaker’s district:
President Biden: “Since I took office, we’ve seen over 60 domestic manufacturing announcements … One of the biggest is in Georgia. You may find it hard to believe, but that’s Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district. I’ll be there for the groundbreaking.” pic.twitter.com/bh0rsMH382
— The Recount (@therecount) July 6, 2023
The president has lately taken to singling out Republicans who voted against the bipartisan infrastructure law he signed in 2021, but then applauded the fact their districts or states were set to benefit from its billions of dollars in funds.
Updated
For what it’s worth, Politico reports that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus.
Greene is one of the most prominent far-right lawmakers in Congress, and known for all sorts of stunts and incidents. The Freedom Caucus is a grouping of rightwing Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives, many of whom supported the effort to stop Kevin McCarthy from becoming speaker for days in January, until he acceded to their demands.
You would think they would get along, but as Politico reports, they apparently do not. The disagreement, which culminated in the group voting to expel Greene, appears to center on her support for McCarthy and his agenda, including his deal with Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling:
👀 ANDY HARRIS, a Freedom Caucus R, says his understanding is MTG is no longer an HFC member.
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) July 6, 2023
He called it “an appropriate action," & cited her debt deal vote, support of McCarthy, & criticism of other HFC Rs, per @jordainc
Comes after my scoop on this vote below 👇 https://t.co/wvvjsXP0df
Updated
The Biden administration is expected to announce a new Ukraine weapons aid package on Friday – and it will include cluster munitions, two US officials have told Reuters.
The weapons, which were first used during the second world war, typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets and are notorious for killing civilians.
They do not always explode, posing a future risk to civilians, and were banned by most of the world under a 2008 treaty called the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which the US, Russia and Ukraine did not sign.
You can read the latest updates from the Russia-Ukraine war in our live blog:
Joe Biden has spoken of his economic plans – or “Bidenomics” at a manufacturing plant in South Carolina.
The US president told the audience that he had created more jobs than any other US president in the first two years of an administration. He said inflation is down, job satisfaction up and more working-age Americans are in jobs.
CNN has a clip of his remarks:
President Biden touts his economic plans at a manufacturing plant in South Carolina pic.twitter.com/t73C19kTwo
— CNN (@CNN) July 6, 2023
The day so far
Donald Trump’s aide Walt Nauta appeared in Miami federal court for a brief hearing where he pleaded not guilty to six charges related to concealing secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago. Neither Trump nor Nauta’s cases are expected to be resolved anytime soon, but a new survey found most Americans would like the former president’s trial to conclude before the 2024 election, if not the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election continues, with a former top Republican lawmaker in Arizona confirming he spoke to the FBI.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Newly unsealed portions of the affidavit used to justify federal agents’ search of Mar-a-Lago last year revealed some fresh details of the investigation.
Cocaine in the White House: not as uncommon as you might think.
For as long as we live, and as long as our children live, and our children’s children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and their children, and for generations to come, school funding in Wisconsin will increase.
Updated
Meanwhile, answers remain elusive in the cocaine discovered in the White House over the weekend (though Donald Trump didn’t fail to mention it in yesterday’s Truth social tirade). But as the Guardian’s Wilfred Chan reports, the presence of drugs in the executive mansion should not come as a surprise:
Cocaine in the White House? Chances are it’s not the first time – and the drug could well have been used by at least one past president, according to a leading presidential historian.
Lab tests confirmed that a white substance found inside the building on Sunday was indeed cocaine, the Secret Service told reporters. The discovery, on the floor near an entrance to the West Wing that’s commonly used by tour groups, led to a security alert and a brief evacuation of the executive mansion. Authorities are working to figure out who brought the drug into the building. (At the time, Joe Biden and his family were at Camp David in Maryland.)
Still, there’s good reason to think that coke has entered the US presidential office on past occasions – and that its most famous user may have been Franklin D Roosevelt.
Former top Arizona Republican spoke to investigators looking into 2020 election meddling
Rusty Bowers, the former Republican speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives, told CNN that he had spoken to FBI agents looking into the campaign by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election result:
Last year, Bowers told the January 6 committee that Trump had pressured him to send Congress a fake slate of electors. The then-president and his allies made the request of lawmakers and officials in several states critical to Joe Biden’s election win.
Bowers was later ousted from his post by a Trump-endorsed primary challenger.
Nauta arraignment concludes
Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta has left the courthouse in Miami, Reuters reports, after he pleaded not guilty to six federal charges related to hiding classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago.
He did not respond to reporters’ questions as he left the building. Legal proceedings for both Nauta and Trump are expected to take months.
A post by Donald Trump on his Truth social account kicked off a chain of events that led to an armed man being arrested near Barack Obama’s house, the Associated Press reports.
Trump uses the social network, which he owns, as his main platform ever since being booted off Twitter after the January 6 insurrection (his account there has since been reactivated by owner Elon Musk, but remains dormant).
According to the AP, the former president posted what he said was the address for Obama’s home on Truth, a soon after, an armed man was arrested nearby. Here’s more from their report:
Former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was the home address of former President Barack Obama on the same day that a man with guns in his van was arrested near the property, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in revealing new details about the case.
Taylor Taranto, 37, who prosecutors say participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, kept two firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside a van he had driven cross-country and had been living in, according to a Justice Department motion that seeks to keep him behind bars.
On the day of his June 29 arrest, prosecutors said, Taranto reposted a Truth Social post from Trump containing what Trump claimed was Obama’s home address. In a post on Telegram, Taranto wrote: “We got these losers surrounded! See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s.” That’s a reference to John Podesta, the former chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic presidential campaign.
Taranto also told followers on his YouTube live stream that he was looking to get a “good angle on a shot,” prosecutors said.
A federal defender representing Taranto did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. But in a motion seeking to have him released pending trial, the lawyer wrote that Taranto was not a flight risk, had a family in Washington state and had served in Iraq before being honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy.
“Mr. Taranto has been available and in plain sight for the last two and a half years,” wrote the lawyer, Kathryn D’Adamo Guevara.
Newly released portions of an affidavit have revealed more about what prompted federal agents to search Mar-a-Lago last August. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
Federal prosecutors used surveillance footage to determine within weeks of collecting subpoenaed classified documents from Donald Trump last year that there might be more national security materials at Mar-a-Lago, according to newly unsealed descriptions in the FBI search warrant application.
Much of the justification for executing a search warrant on Trump’s residence in Florida was detailed in the sprawling indictment charging him with retention of national defense information and obstruction of justice.
But the parts of the affidavit released on Thursday – filed by the justice department after the federal magistrate judge in the Trump documents case ordered the release – provided a clearer explanation of the probable cause used to justify the FBI search.
Reuters reports that Walt Nauta’s arraignment lasted just a few minutes, with the aide to Donald Trump heading into a conference room afterwards and not answering questions from reporters.
Attorney Stanley Woodward entered Nauta’s plea in the hearing that was also attended by Sasha Dadan, the lawyer he hired to represent him in Florida.
Walt Nauta is facing six federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing a document or record, and making false statements.
That’s fewer than the 37 federal charges Donald Trump is facing, but both men are named in the indictment brought last month by special counsel Jack Smith. You can read it below:
Nauta pleads not guilty in Mar-a-Lago case
Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta has pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to hiding secret government documents at the former president’s south Florida resort, Reuters reports.
One way or the other, Donald Trump’s legal troubles will eventually end, but as the Associated Press reports, school funding increases in Wisconsin will last pretty much forever, thanks to some clever thinking by its Democratic governor:
Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, signed off on a two-year spending plan on Wednesday after gutting a Republican tax cut and using his broad veto powers to increase school funding for centuries.
Evers angered Republicans with both moves, with some saying the Democratic governor was going back on deals he had made with them.
Wisconsin governors have broad partial veto power and Evers got creative with his use of it in this budget, which is the third passed by a Republican legislature that he’s signed.
He reduced the GOP income tax cut from $3.5bn to $175m, and did away entirely with lower rates for the two highest-earning brackets. He also edited the plan to increase how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student, by $325 a year until 2425.
Here’s the moment Walt Nauta walked into federal court in Miami:
Trump "body man" Walt Nauta arrives at a Florida courthouse to be arraigned on charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. pic.twitter.com/PHl4NqwQiA
— The Recount (@therecount) July 6, 2023
It was a much calmer scene than the circus that greeted Donald Trump outside when he made his initial court appearance.
Nauta arrives at court for arraignment
Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta has arrived at federal court in Miami for his arraignment on charges related to the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, Reuters reports. He smiled but did not comment to reporters when entering.
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell confirms that he has managed to hire an attorney, after weeks of searching:
New: Trump valet and co-defendant in classified docs case Walt Nauta has retained Florida-based lawyer Sasha Dadan for his arraignment at 11am in Miami today, per source familiar.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 6, 2023
Nauta arraignment expected at 11am eastern time
The arraignment of Walt Nauta, Donald Trump’s valet who was charged alongside him over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, is set for 11am eastern time in Miami.
Previous arraignments for Nauta were delayed because he had difficulty finding a lawyer to represent him in Florida, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported:
Meanwhile, we’ll be keeping an eye out today for any further answers on the cocaine discovered this past weekend at the White House. For those that missed this unusual story, here’s the Guardian’s Edward Helmore with a recap:
A formal laboratory test of a white powder found in a “highly trafficked” area of the White House has been confirmed as cocaine, NBC News reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed official with knowledge of the investigation.
A Secret Service review of visitor logs and surveillance cameras will seek to determine how the cocaine, described as being in a small, zippered bag, came to be in the executive mansion.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that public tours of the West Wing had taken place over the weekend but deferred to the Secret Service for details about the investigation. “We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,” Jean-Pierre said.
Here’s the Guardian’s Edward Helmore with a look at what we should expect today when Donald Trump’s aide Walt Nauta is arraigned:
Waltine “Walt” Nauta, widely known for his role as Donald Trump’s personal valet, is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday over his role in the federal classified documents case.
Nauta, 40, arrived in the former president’s orbit by way of a military assignment.
Trump’s “body man”, as he would become known, was raised as one of six siblings in the village of Agat, Guam, which has a population of about 4,515. His aunt Elly Nauta told the Washington Post in March that he was always a “good boy” and had enlisted in the Navy as a cook in 2001 “to see the world”.
After rising to the rank of culinary specialist, Nauta was assigned to presidential food service in 2012, which prepares meals for the president and first family, as well as catering dinners for visiting heads of state.
Americans want Trump trial over with — survey
Donald Trump has now been indicted twice, first by Manhattan’s district attorney Alvin Bragg for allegedly falsifying business records, the second time by special counsel Jack Smith on charges of hiding government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
No former US president has ever faced such legal peril, and a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll released today finds that a majority of Americans want the matter resolved relatively quickly.
The survey conducted late last month of more than 1,000 American adults shows 57% believe Trump should be tried before the Republican primaries, and 62% say the proceedings should occur before the presidential election next year.
Around half of those surveyed think Trump is guilty in the two cases, the report finds, but views differ between Democrats and Republicans over what punishment he should face. Overall, a plurality think he should be jailed if convicted, including, unsurprisingly, majorities of Democrats in both cases. But a plurality of GOP respondents say he should not be imprisoned if found guilty in either case.
Court proceedings are notoriously unpredictable, and often take longer than expected. As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported last week, there are already signs Trump’s federal trial could stretch into next year:
Trump valet Nauta to be arraigned as new details of Mar-a-Lago search made public
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today in Miami, Donald Trump’s aide Walt Nauta will be arraigned in federal court on charges related to hiding government secrets at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
A 40-year-old native of Guam, Nauta began his lengthy path to the White House and eventually becoming Trump’s “body man” after joining the Navy, and was indicted alongside the former president last month by special counsel Jack Smith. As was the case when Trump appeared in court in June, Nauta is expected to be processed into custody and enter a plea.
Meanwhile, a federal magistrate judge unsealed more parts of the search warrant affidavit used to justify the initial search of Mar-a-Lago in August of last year, the New York Times reports. The newly released details underscore how federal investigators zeroed in on security camera footage of Nauta moving around boxes they suspected contained government secrets at the south Florida property.
Here’s what else is happening today:
A majority of Americans think Trump should face trial before the 2024 election, according to a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll released today.
Joe Biden is heading to South Carolina, where he will promote his economic policies, also known as “Bidenomics”.
Iowa’s Republican governor has called the legislature back for a special session next week, with the sole purpose of passing abortion restrictions.
