Closing summary
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September.
Trump said he expected he could be indicted “any day now” as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Smith has been looking into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Federal prosecutors have assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes, the Guardian has reported.
Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, made his first court appearance on Monday on charges in the classified documents case against the former president. De Oliveira was added last week to the indictment with Trump and the ex-president’s valet, Walt Nauta, and faces charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to investigators.
A month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll. On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.
House Republicans announced an investigation into the deal reached between Hunter Biden and the justice department that would have seen the president’s son plead guilty to tax charges and enter a diversion agreement to resolve a gun charge.
A former business partner of Hunter Biden told the House oversight committee on Monday that Hunter sought to create an “illusion of access” to his father Joe Biden to impress clients and business associates, but he insisted the then vice-president was never directly involved in any deals, according to Democratic Representative Dan Goldman.
But the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer, said Archer’s testimony “confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved”. Republican representative Andy Biggs, who attended the interview, told reporters: “I think we should do an impeachment inquiry.”
Joe Biden decided to keep the US Space Command headquarters in Colorado, rather than move it Alabama. The move deals a blow to the economy of a deeply Republican state whose senator Tommy Tuberville has lately been blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest of defense department policies intended to help service members obtain abortions. There is no indication yet that Biden’s decision has anything to do with Tuberville’s blockade.
A Massachusetts district attorney called for a federal investigation into Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to transport migrants by plane across state lines. In a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland, Cape and Islands district attorney Robert Galibois asked the justice department to investigate a September 2022 incident in which 49 immigrants were transported from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr raised $6.47m in July, according to a press release from American Values 2024. The press release noted that American Values 2024 has received donations from both Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump mega donor Timothy Mellon, Democratic Party donor Abby Rockefeller, and Gavin de Becker, a security consultant close to Jeff Bezos.
A Massachusetts district attorney called for a federal investigation into Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to transport migrants by plane across state lines.
In a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland, Cape and Islands district attorney Robert Galibois asked the justice department to investigate a September 2022 incident in which 49 immigrants were transported from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
Galibois asked the DoJ to investigate allegations that the migrants were misled into getting on the planes.
Subsequent reporting and public statements also indicate that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his administration planned, initiated, funded with taxpayer monies, and executed this enterprise.
He added:
My office posits that, due to the interstate transportation of these migrants, this alleged scheme remains available for federal prosecution.
California governor Gavin Newsom has also called on the justice department to probe Florida over the flights.
The chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer, has released a statement after Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer testified before the committee on Monday.
During his closed-door interview, Archer said Hunter Biden sought to create an “illusion of access” to his father while doing business in Ukraine but that Joe Biden played no role in any deals, according to Democratic representative Dan Goldman, who attended the interview.
But Comer said Archer’s testimony “confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved”. The then vice-president “was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family”, he said.
The statement goes on to say:
Why did Joe Biden lie to the American people about his family’s business dealings and his involvement? It begs the question what else he is hiding from the American people. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will continue to follow the Bidens’ money trail and interview witnesses to determine whether foreign actors targeted the Bidens, President Biden is compromised and corrupt, and our national security is threatened.
Updated
Hunter Biden sold 'illusion of access' to his father, says former business partner
Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, said Hunter sought to create an “illusion of access” to his father Joe Biden to impress clients and business associates, but he insisted the then vice-president was never directly involved in any deals.
The Republican-led House oversight committee conducted a more than-five hour interview with Archer as part of its expanding congressional inquiry into the Biden family businesses.
The interview focused on the 2010s, when Hunter Biden sat on the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma and his father was vice-president under President Barack Obama.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers inside the closed-door interview said Archer testified that over the span of 10 years, Hunter Biden put his father on the phone around 20 times while in the company of associates but “never once spoke about any business dealings”, AP reported.
Democratic Representative Dan Goldman told reporters that Archer testified that Hunter sold the “illusion of access” to his father and “tried to get credit for things that [Hunter] had nothing to do with”.
But Republican representative Andy Biggs, who has co-sponsored legislation to impeach Biden, said Archer’s testimony implicated the president and quoted the witness as saying Burisma could not have survived without the “Biden brand”. He told reporters:
I think we should do an impeachment inquiry.
The Susan B Anthony List, the nation’s leading anti-abortion group, called Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ failure to support federal abortion restrictions “unacceptable”.
DeSantis signed into law a controversial six-week abortion ban in Florida in April. In a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, DeSantis was asked if he would support abortion bans at the federal level.
He replied:
I’ve been a pro-life governor. I’ll be a pro-life president and I’ll come down on the side of life.
DeSantis added that he would “be a leader with the bully pulpit to help local communities and states advance the cause of life but he avoided answering if he would enact a federal abortion ban.
In response, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America group, criticized DeSantis, saying that “a pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans”.
Dannenfelser said in a statement:
Gov. DeSantis’s dismissal of this task is unacceptable to prolife voters. A consensus is already formed. Intensity for it is palpable and measurable.
A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr raised $6.47m in July, according to a press release from American Values 2024.
The press release noted that American Values 2024 has received donations from both Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump mega donor Timothy Mellon, Democratic Party donor Abby Rockefeller, and Gavin de Becker, a security consultant close to Jeff Bezos.
Mellon said in the press release:
The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption and that he’s the one Democrat who can win in the general election.
The super PAC said it raised $6.47m in July, bringing its total fundraising for Kennedy to about $16.82m.
About $5m of that haul came during his testimony in front of the House judiciary select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, according to the press release.
Kennedy’s appearance before the House subcommittee on 20 July came days after he told reporters at a press dinner that Covid-19 had been “ethnically targeted” at Caucasians and Black people, while Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people had greater immunity.
The false claim was enthusiastically embraced by neo-Nazi groups, while being condemned by scientists and Jewish organizations.
Donald Trump is demanding Republican support for impeaching Joe Biden over corruption allegations against Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.
“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Republicans hold the US House, where impeachment would start, by just five seats. GOP members in Democratic areas seem likely to suffer at the polls next year.
“If they’re not willing to do it,” Trump said, “we’ve got a lot of good, tough Republicans around.
People are going to run against ’em, and people are going to win. And they’re going to get my endorsement every single time. They’re going to win ’cause we win almost every race when we endorse.
Factcheckers dispute that. Surveying the 2022 midterms, the New York Times said: “Mr Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates, and his 82% success rate is, on the surface, impressive. But the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win.”
The paper added:
In the 36 most competitive House races … Mr Trump endorsed candidates in five contests. All five lost.
Trump’s influence on key Senate races won by Democrats has been widely discussed.
In Pennsylvania, Trump also called for conditioning aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia on White House cooperation with investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump’s own first impeachment was for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to uncover dirt on the Bidens. Pundits noted the irony.
“So much for denying the quid pro quo, as he did in 2019,” said Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House correspondent.
A month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.
On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.
DeSantis’s hard-right campaign is widely seen to be out of fuel and on a glide path to destruction. Trump dominates early voting states and in national averages leads the Florida governor by more than 30 points.
Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.
Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.
Heading for trials in primary season, Trump denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. But his chaos-agent campaign, which he has said he will not abandon even if convicted and sentenced, does not just threaten the national peace. It threatens his own party.
Joe Biden just decided to keep the US Space Command headquarters in Colorado, rather than move it Alabama, the Associated Press reports. And, surprising as it might seem, Biden’s decision may soon be caught up in the debate over abortion access.
First, a recap: Donald Trump created Space Force in 2019, and near the end of his presidency ordered it moved from its temporary home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. Biden has now reversed that decision, dealing a blow to the economy of a deeply Republican state whose senator Tommy Tuberville has lately been blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest of defense department policies intended to help service members obtain abortions.
While there is no indication yet that Biden’s decision has anything to do with Tuberville’s blockade, the president has personally decried the senator’s campaign, calling it “ridiculous” and saying it threatens the military’s readiness.
Here’s more on the decision, from the AP:
The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.
The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the U.S. races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade.
House Republicans launch inquiry into Hunter Biden plea deal
House Republicans have announced an investigation into the deal reached between Hunter Biden and the justice department that would have seen the president’s son plead guilty to tax charges and enter a diversion agreement to resolve a gun charge.
Biden was expected to formally accept the agreement with prosecutors during a federal court hearing in Delaware last week, but judge Maryellen Noreika objected to portions of the deal and ordered the two sides to renegotiate it and present it to her at a future date.
Republicans have for years accused the president’s son of corruption, and since it was announced have called the plea agreement a “sweetheart deal”. In a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland, the Republican chairs of the House judiciary, ways and means and oversight committees demand a range of documents and explanations from the justice department.
“The Department’s unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Mr. Biden raise serious concerns — especially when combined with recent whistleblower allegations — that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct,” the committee chairs write. Earlier this month, the House oversight committee heard from two Internal Revenue Service agents who claimed politicization of the Hunter Biden investigation, despite statements from the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney who led the case that he had the ultimate authority to bring charges.
The letter marks the latest instance of the House GOP using the chamber’s powers to investigate the Biden administration. Since the start of the year, it has launched investigations into topics including the “weaponization” of the federal government under the Biden administration, and the state and federal prosecutions targeting Trump.
A small group of progressive lawmakers led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday urged the United States to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its alleged efforts to sow doubt about the climate crisis.
“The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the Department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions,” reads the letter, which was also signed by Democratic senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
The letter, addressed to attorney general Merrick Garland, references the well-documented climate misinformation campaign waged over decades by oil and gas companies, and the dozens of lawsuits filed by states, municipalities, and the District of Columbia about that campaign.
The letter was sent as swaths of the United States bake under sweltering temperatures. This summer’s record-breaking heatwaves in America and southern Europe, which have put tens of millions of people under heat advisories, would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to a recent study by scientists at World Weather Attribution.
The senators also implore the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file their own lawsuits against parties who participated in climate deception, and request a meeting with Garland.
“The polluters must pay,” the senators wrote.
Andy Biggs, a rightwing Republican member of the oversight committee, said Devon Archer revealed that Hunter Biden’s family name helped Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma’s business.
That’s according to Punchbowl News:
Andy Biggs says Devon Archer told Oversight, "'Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked. People would be intimidated to really mess with Burisma because of the Biden family brand.'"
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) July 31, 2023
Fox News reports a unnamed source saying the same:
1) From a source familiar with the transcribed interview with former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 31, 2023
Archer testified there was value of adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board was “the brand.”
5) Archer testified that Hunter Biden put then-Vice President Joe Biden on the speakerphone during business meetings, over 20 times. Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 31, 2023
It is unclear if Biden actually participated in the meetings, or just took the calls to speak with his son, as Democratic congressman Dan Goldman, who attended the interview with Archer, characterized the conversations.
However, Punchbowl reports Biggs said Archer had no knowledge of an unverified bribery allegation against Joe and Hunter Biden that was reported to the FBI:
Andy Biggs says that Devon Archer didn’t know anything at all about the Joe and Hunter Biden bribery allegation contained in the FD-1023 form
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) July 31, 2023
Following the Republican-led House oversight committee’s interview with Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, a Democratic lawmaker on the committee downplayed the president involvement in his son’s business.
Archer testified that Hunter would call up Joe Biden during business meetings in the period when they served on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, but only for “casual conversation,” Democratic congressman and committee member Dan Goldman said, Punchbowl News reports.
“The witness was very, very consistent, that none of those conversations ever had to do with any business dealings or transactions,” Goldman said, adding that Hunter and Joe Biden spoke frequently.
“[Biden] says hello to someone that he sees his son with. What is he supposed to say? ‘Hi, son. No, I’m not gonna say hello to the other people at the table or the other people on the phone.’”
Here’s more of Goldman’s comments to the press:
“The only evidence we have right now of any official action by President Biden in connection to Hunter Biden's business interests is bad for Hunter Biden's business interests.“
— The Recount (@therecount) July 31, 2023
— Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) gives an update on House Oversight's closed-door meeting with Devon Archer pic.twitter.com/5dt7Brhfjv
Several Republican presidential candidates have vowed that, in the as-of-now unlikely scenario that they are elected to the White House next year, they would pardon Donald Trump. But as the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is trying to distinguish himself by promising to do no such thing:
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has said it is “inappropriate” for some of his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls to publicly discuss potentially pardoning Donald Trump, who is their party’s frontrunner for its 2024 nomination despite his mounting criminal charges.
“Anybody who promises pardons during a presidential campaign is not serving our system of justice well,” Hutchinson said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And it’s inappropriate.”
The remarks from Hutchinson cut a stark contrast with comments from other Republicans in the running for the presidency, who said they would pardon Trump if they eventually defeated the Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden.
Nikki Haley, once South Carolina’s governor and the Trump White House’s United Nations ambassador, has said she would be inclined to pardon the former president if she won the election to help the country “move forward”.
Former New York city police commissioner Bernard Kerik, a leading Trump ally, will meet with special counsel Jack Smith in the coming days as part of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Kerik’s attorney told CNN on Sunday that the special counsel’s office will meet with Kerik and his lawyers “in about a week” to discuss efforts taken by former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate potential election fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. He said:
We have a meeting scheduled in about a week with the special counsel’s office to talk about a lot of the efforts that the Giuliani team was taking at the time to investigate fraud, and that’s really going to get into, you know, the core of whether they can charge somebody with having corrupt intent.
The meeting will come after Kerik turned over thousands of pages of documents to the special counsel’s office connected to the debunked voter fraud claims made by Trump and Giuliani.
In early 2020, Trump pardoned Kerik for crimes including tax fraud and lying to investigators, for which Kerik had been sentenced to four years in jail. Later that year, Kerik worked with Giuliani on attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a push which culminated in the failed but deadly January 6 attack on Congress.
Updated
Trump expects to be indicted ‘any day now’ on January 6 charges
Donald Trump said he expects he could be indicted “any day now” as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.
Smith has been looking into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Federal prosecutors have assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes, the Guardian has reported: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.
Trump, posting to Truth Social on Monday, wrote:
I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my “PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now, as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs, and extortion, coming from the Biden ‘camp.’ This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!
Updated
Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager and third co-defendant in the special counsel’s classified documents case, declined to answer questions as he left the Miami courthouse.
De Oliveira was escorted by federal agents and his attorney, John Irving, who said it was time for the justice department “to put their money where their mouth is” after charging his client.
De Oliveira was added as a third defendant in Donald Trump’s complicated classified documents indictment on Thursday. He faces charges such as trying to obstruct justice, concealing records and documents, and making false statements to the FBI.
De Oliveira, 56, was a valet, maintenance worker and more recently a property manager at Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago, according to the superseding indictment. The indictment said De Oliveira helped Trump’s personal valet, Walt Nauta, move 30 boxes of documents, from Trump’s residence to a storage room, and asked the person responsible for surveillance at the resort to delete the footage on behalf of Trump. He was also accused of draining the resort pool to flood the rooms that contained surveillance footage.
When the FBI discovered the documents at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump allegedly called De Oliveira and said he would get him an attorney.
Trump co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira makes first court appearance
Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, made his first appearance in a Miami courtroom on Monday as part of the special counsel’s investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
During the roughly 10-minute hearing, De Oliveira, the third and newest co-defendant in Trump’s classified documents case, heard the charges against him and received pre-trial orders. He was unable to enter a plea because he had failed to secure local counsel.
Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres granted an extension request, and the arraignment is now scheduled to take place on 10 August at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. De Oliveira was released on a $100,000 bond pending trial.
De Oliveira was indicted on Thursday on four charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the FBI.
Trump and his longtime valet, Walt Nauta, were charged in the classified documents case last month and face additional counts in the indictment that charged De Oliveira. Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.
The day so far
A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.
At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.
Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.
A CNN analysis published on Sunday finds Donald Trump’s poll numbers add up to a commanding lead in the Republican primary, and any candidate who manages to overcome it would essentially be making history.
Here’s the gist of their findings:
Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.
No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.
Three prior candidates in open primaries were pulling in more than half the vote in primary surveys in the second half of the calendar year before the election: Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gore remains the only nonincumbent to win every single presidential nominating contest, while Bush and Clinton never lost their national polling advantage in their primaries.
Today, Trump’s closest primary competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has fallen below 20% nationally. No other contender is at or above 10%. This makes the margin between Trump and the rest of the field north of 30 points on average.
A look back at past polls does show candidates coming back from deficits greater than 10 points to win the nomination, but none greater than 30 points at this point. In fact, the biggest comebacks when you average all the polls in the second half of the year before the election top out at about 20 points (Democrats George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008).
CNN also finds that polls taken thus far show Trump mounting a dangerous challenge to Joe Biden, though with the election more than a year away, there are plenty of chances for that to change:
What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).
The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.
Updated
Over the weekend, Donald Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania, a swing state crucial to winning the White House, and made a demand that will be familiar to those who remember his stint as president.
The Washington Post reports that Trump said: “Congress should refuse to authorize a single additional shipment of our depleted weapons stockpiles … to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden Crime Family’s corrupt business dealings.”
It wasn’t that far removed from his actions in 2019 when, as president, he blocked aid to Ukraine then, on a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tried to get the Ukrainian president to cooperate with his administration in investigating Hunter Biden. That led to Democrats, who then controlled the House, impeaching Trump, though he was ultimately acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate.
Much has changed in the intervening three-plus years. Republicans now control the House, and Democrats the Senate, while Joe Biden is in the White House and Trump is just a candidate. But some things aren’t so different. Republicans seem willing to use their House majority to impeach Biden, but his conviction appears likely to be turned down by the Senate – a reversal of the dynamics that played out three years ago. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has, of course, become worse, but as his comments this weekend make clear, Trump seems ready to use the nation as a pawn for his political designs.
Updated
One of the biggest surprises of the presidential campaign season thus far is the flame-out of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign. The Florida governor has raked in cash, secured endorsements and bent the state legislature to his will, all in service to his presidential aspirations, but is getting defeated handily by Donald Trump in the polls. From Miami, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe looks into why:
Ron DeSantis is facing growing backlash in Florida as his presidential campaign flails across the country. Analysts and political opponents are seeing signs of a tail-off in his support, and evidence of Republicans recoiling at his extremist positions on slavery, education, abortion and immigration.
Hints at a shift in his standing came towards the end of the recently concluded legislative session in his home state, when several Republican lawmakers defied the governor by voting against new laws restricting abortions or expanding his feud with Disney. They passed anyway.
But observers say the strength of the resistance appears to have gathered pace since DeSantis’s glitch-ridden presidential campaign launch in May, and subsequent missteps on the stump.
This morning, the New York Times and Siena College released a poll that confirms Donald Trump’s popularity among Republicans, despite the legal troubles facing him.
The former president is far and away the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination, with 54% support the survey finds. His closest competitor is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, but even that’s a generous description, because the poll has him at a measly 17%. No other candidate cracks double-digit support, or even comes close. Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley all poll at 3%.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer has arrived for his interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee.
As CBS News reports, he declined to answer questions from reporters:
Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer arrives for transcribed interview GOP-led house oversight. @CBS_Herridge “What will you tell congressional investigators about Hunter Biden's business deals?"
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) July 31, 2023
Devon Archer: “No comment.”
Herridge: "Are White House denials about… pic.twitter.com/YsXKtSvWW7
Over the weekend, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis told Atlanta’s WXIA that her office was “ready to go” when it comes to deciding charges in the long-running investigation into the attempt by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.
Willis reiterated that charging decisions will be announced by the first day of September. Here are her full comments:
"The work is accomplished. We've been working for 2.5 years. We're ready to go."
— The Recount (@therecount) July 31, 2023
— Fulton County DA Fani Willis reaffirmed she will announce charging decisions by September 1 in her investigation into Donald Trump/his allies in Georgia pic.twitter.com/1iM4d0rrpi
Updated
Judge denies Trump attempt to block potential prosecution in Georgia
A superior court judge in Georgia has rejected an attempt by Donald Trump to derail district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his campaign to overturn the 2020 election result in the state.
The ruling by judge Robert McBurney is in response to a motion Trump filed in March seeking to block a grand jury report ordered by Willis and stop it from being used in any prosecutions. Willis has said that indictments in the case could come anytime between now and the end of August.
“The movants’ asserted ‘injuries’ that would open the doors of the courthouse to their claims are either insufficient or else speculative and unrealized. They are insufficient because, while being the subject (or even target) of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation,” McBurney wrote.
He added that the request to block the report’s use “is not what either statutory or case law generally allows”, and also rejected Trump’s request that Willis be removed from the case.
Updated
Lawyer rejects GOP speculation that justice department wants former Hunter Biden business partner in jail before testimony
Last year, Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer was sentenced to a year in prison on fraud charges unrelated to his dealings with the president’s son. Archer has yet to turn himself in, but on Saturday, the justice department wrote to the judge handling his case and asked that a date be scheduled for Archer to begin his sentence.
The following day, on Fox News, James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, said it was “odd” that prosecutors would request Archer report to prison just before he was scheduled to meet with the panel’s investigators.
Comer and fellow GOP lawmakers have long insinuated that the justice department is covering up for the Biden family, but Matthew Schwartz, an attorney for Archer, rejected the chair’s allegation.
“We are aware of speculation that the Department of Justice’s weekend request to have Mr. Archer report to prison is an attempt by the Biden administration to intimidate him in advance of his meeting with the House Oversight Committee on Monday,” Schwartz said in a statement obtained by CNN.
“To be clear, Mr. Archer does not agree with that speculation. In any case, Mr. Archer will do what he has planned to do all along, which is to show up on Monday and to honestly answer the questions that are put to him by the Congressional investigators.”
Updated
Amid impeachment threats, House GOP to question Hunter Biden's former business partner
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Joe Biden is on vacation and House and Senate lawmakers are on their August recess, but not everyone in Congress is taking a holiday. Investigators with the Republican-led House oversight committee will today sit down for an interview with Devon Archer, the former business partner of Hunter Biden. The committee has taken the lead in the GOP’s quest to prove corruption on the part of the Bidens, and while we may not find out what Archer told them for weeks to come, the ultimate goals of the GOP’s investigation may soon become clear.
In recent days, top Republicans, including speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, have openly mused about impeaching the president. No such inquiry would start till September, when their break is over, and, at this point, impeachment looks more political than practical: with the Senate in Democratic hands, the chances of Biden being removed from the White House are slim to none. House GOP has, however, not yet definitively said if they’ll go through with it, but expect to hear plenty of saber rattling in the weeks to come.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Ron DeSantis, whose presidential campaign at this point appears to be well off the rails, sits down for an interview with Fox News that will air at 6pm eastern time.
Kamala Harris spoke with ABC News in an interview that will air at 7pm eastern time, though portions of her remarks have already been broadcast.
A New York Times/Siena poll has found what almost all the other polls before it have found: Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
