Closing summary
Three years of court battles came to a close today, when the supreme court allowed the Democratic-led House ways and means committee to receive Donald Trump’s tax returns over the former president’s opposition. Also ending today was Anthony Fauci’s streak of appearances at the White House. The top US public health official who became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic made his last briefing to reporters before he steps down from the role, and implored Americans to get a booster shot to protect against the virus.
Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden extended the pause on federal student loan repayments until 30 June in order to give his administration time to defend his debt forgiveness plan at the supreme court.
A former top prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election has some thoughts for how newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith could approach the criminal investigations into Trump.
Democrat Raphael Warnock has a narrow lead over GOP candidate Herschel Walker in the runoff election for Georgia’s Senate seat scheduled for 6 December.
Florida’s legislature appears to be moving to change a law that would allow Governor Ron DeSantis make a much-expected run for president.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham spoke to a special grand jury investigating meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election result, after months of trying to get out of it.
Updated
The NAACP civil rights group is among those cheering Biden’s decision to extent the pause on federal student loan repayments.
“In the face of extreme greed and hypocrisy by the far-right, President Biden today is standing up for all Americans – middle-class and low-income families – who carry the heavy burden of student loan debt,” the group’s president Derrick Johnson. “The impact this extension will have in the lives of those who have been targeted by predatory student loans cannot be overstated.”
Progressive House Democrat Ro Khanna joined in:
This is the right move from @POTUS and a victory for those fighting to cancel student debt. We must cancel debt and make public higher education and trade school free for all. https://t.co/2MoDdLzoPL
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) November 22, 2022
Here’s Joe Biden in his own words, explaining his decision to extend the pause on federal student loan repayment:
I'm confident that our student debt relief plan is legal. But it’s on hold because Republican officials want to block it.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 22, 2022
That's why @SecCardona is extending the payment pause to no later than June 30, 2023, giving the Supreme Court time to hear the case in its current term. pic.twitter.com/873CurlHFZ
Biden first announced the plan in August, and said federal student loan payments would restart in January of next year, and no later. He’s now reversed that, and in the video above, cites recent court rulings putting his loan forgiveness program on hold as the reason.
The Biden administration will extend its pause on student loan repayments until 30 June, Bloomberg News reports:
WHITE HOUSE TO EXTEND STUDENT LOAN REPAYMENT HALT UP TO JUNE 30
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) November 22, 2022
per @nancook
The decision comes after Joe Biden’s plan to relieve as much as $20,000 of some borrowers’ federal student loan debt was blocked by a federal court. The White House is appealing that order before the supreme court.
Updated
Lindsey Graham’s office has released a brief statement after the Republican senator appeared today before a special grand jury investigating attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to meddle in the state’s election results.
“Today, Senator Graham appeared before the Fulton County Special Grand Jury for just over two hours and answered all questions. The Senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism, and courtesy. Out of respect for the grand jury process he will not comment on the substance of the questions,” the statement read.
No supreme court justices recorded dissents to the order lifting a stay on an appeals court ruling that allows the House ways and means committee to access Donald Trump’s tax returns.
The Democratic-led committee in 2019 requested the then-president’s returns under federal law, saying they were part of their investigation into Trump’s compliance with Internal Revenue Service auditing. Trump has been fighting the matter in court ever since, and supreme court chief justice John Roberts had earlier this month put a stay on the most recent ruling from a federal appeals court in the committee’s favor.
The Treasury department is now cleared to hand the documents the ways and means committee. Democrats currently control the House, but will lose it at the start of 2023, when the new Republican majority takes their seats.
Congress cleared to get Trump tax returns after supreme court ruling
The supreme court will allow a congressional committee to receive Donald Trump’s tax returns, the Associated Press reports, ending a three-year battle by the Democratic-led body to see the documents the former president has famously refused to release since his first White House bid.
We’ll have more on this developing story as it happens.
Donald Trump is having his day in court as the justice department challenges the appointment of a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case.
Politico reports that the appeals panel hearing the matter is skeptical of why an official was appointed to filter out privileged documents from the trove seized by federal agents:
HAPPENING NOW: Appeals court panel (with two Trump appointees and a GWB appointee) is sharply critical of Trump effort to save special master process.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 22, 2022
They think Trump is seeking special pre-indictment treatment as an ex-president.
The special master review is seen as an attempt to frustrate and learn details of the investigation into alleged government secrets discovered at the former president’s south Florida resort.
On another note:
Trump attorney Jim TRUSTY says among the items seized from Trump's home: a picture of Celine Dion.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 22, 2022
An interesting development from Florida, where the new leader of the Republican-controlled House appears ready to repeal the state’s “resign to run” law, currently an obstacle to Ron DeSantis’s expected campaign for the White House.
As things stand, DeSantis, who was re-elected this month in a landslide to a second term, would have to step down if he were to challenge for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. His supporters acknowledged as much by chanting “two more years!” at his election night party. Governors in Florida serve four year terms.
It’s the same rule that required Charlie Crist, DeSantis’s beaten Democratic opponent, to resign his US House seat earlier this year to challenge him.
Politico’s reports that state House speaker Paul Renner says he’s willing to change the law next year, and allow DeSantis to fulfil his four-year term as governor at the same time as pursuing a presidential campaign in 2024.
Fla House Speaker @Paul_Renner says he’s willing to change state law during 2023 session so @GovRonDeSantis can run for president without having to resign. Called it a “good idea.”
— Gary Fineout (@fineout) November 22, 2022
And with a compliant, super-majority in both chambers of the state’s legislature, Republicans can pretty much do as they please.
The US relationship with Saudi Arabia is still under review despite a Biden administration ruling that the Saudi crown prince has immunity from a lawsuit over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today.
Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist then living in the United States, was killed and dismembered in 2018 by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, in an operation US intelligence believes was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Reuters writes.
The prince has denied ordering the killing, which has cast a pall over relations between the two countries.
Khashoggi’s fiancee has sued the prince in US court, but in a ruling last week, US justice department lawyers concluded that the prince had immunity as a result of having been named prime minister in the Saudi government in September.
The opinion that we provided does not in any way speak to the merits of the case or the status of the bilateral relationship.
Our review of that relationship is ongoing,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Qatar after an annual US-Qatar strategic dialogue.
Blinken also said there were no plans for the prince to visit the United States.
Updated
Donald Trump today asked a federal court in Florida to provide him and his lawyers with a complete version of the affidavit that federal investigators used to obtain a search warrant for his Florida property in August.
Prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the retention of government records at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after his presidency ended, Reuters reports.
The request to unseal the search warrant affidavit was made to US District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida.
A redacted version of the affidavit was made public in August after media organizations sought its release, with sections blacked out that prosecutors said should remain secret.
The Justice Department said the redactions included information from “a broad range of civilian witnesses” as well as investigative techniques that, if disclosed, could reveal how to obstruct the probe.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland last Friday appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to preside over criminal investigations involving the former president after Trump announced he would run for president again.
A federal appeals court later today will hear arguments on whether an outside arbiter appointed by Cannon should be allowed to continue a review of documents seized in the search and determine whether any of the records should be kept from criminal investigators.
Updated
The day so far
Juror are deliberating over whether to convict five Oath Keepers militia members of seditious conspiracy, in what would be a milestone for the government’s prosecution of alleged January 6 insurrectionists. Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci made what could be his last appearance at the White House podium and asked Americans to get the latest Covid-19 vaccine booster as the holiday travel season arrives.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy plans a “major” announcement around 4:30 pm eastern time during his visit to El Paso, Texas. This could be the start of a GOP effort to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the surge in migrants to the US-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office.
A former top prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election has some thoughts for how newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith could approach the criminal investigations into Donald Trump.
Democrat Raphael Warnock has a narrow lead over GOP candidate Herschel Walker in the run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat scheduled for 6 December.
Andrew Weissmann was one of the top members on special prosecutor Robert Mueller's team looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election that brought Trump to power.
Now another special prosecutor has been appointed to decide on whether to bring charges against Trump over the January 6 insurrection and the alleged government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago. Writing in the New York Times, Weissmann shares some advice for Jack Smith, the veteran prosecutor appointed to the role.
Chief among these is the possibility of Smith bringing charges against Trump – an option Mueller didn’t have, Weissmann says. “Mr. Smith is stepping into a political context very different from the one that confronted Mr. Mueller. Most notably, because of Justice Department policy, Mr. Mueller was forbidden to charge a sitting president. Now that Mr. Trump is a former president, Mr. Smith is not subject to that limitation. (That policy does not apply to presidential candidates like Mr. Trump.),” Weissmann writes.
He also notes that Smith has the option of taking a more transparent approach to his investigation than Mueller, who was famously tight-lipped about what he was finding.
“Neither the current special counsel regulations nor Justice Department rules require Mr. Smith to take a vow of silence with the American public,” Weissmann writes. “His ability to explain and educate will be critical to the acceptance of the department’s mission by the American public. It will permit Mr. Smith to be heard directly and not through the gauze of pundits and TV anchors; it will allow the public to directly assess Mr. Smith, a heretofore little-known figure; and it will permit Mr. Smith to counteract those strong forces seeking to discredit or misleadingly shape the narrative about the investigations.”
Under Joe Biden, the United States passed the first significant piece of legislation to fight climate change and reversed decades of opposition to creating a fund for poor countries suffering the worst effects of global rising temperatures. Now, it’s trying to portray China as the world’s climate change villain – but as Oliver Milman reports, activists aren’t buying it:
The US, fresh from reversing its 30 years of opposition to a “loss and damage” fund for poorer countries suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis, has signaled that its longstanding image as global climate villain should now be pinned on a new culprit: China.
Following years of tumult in which the US refused to provide anything resembling compensation for climate damages, followed by Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the Paris climate agreement, there was a profound shift at the Cop27 UN talks in Egypt, with Joe Biden’s administration agreeing to the new loss and damage fund.
The US also backed language in the new agreement, which finally concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning after an often fraught period of negotiations between governments, that would demand the phase-out of all unabated fossil fuels, only to be thwarted by major oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Despite these stances, the US continued to be the leading target of ire from climate activists who blame it for obstruction and for failing to reckon with its role as history’s largest ever emitter of planet-heating gases. On Friday, the US was given the unwanted title of “colossal fossil” by climate groups for supposedly failing to push through the loss and damage assistance at Cop27.
The US delegation in Sharm el-Sheikh chafed at this image, with John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, using his closing remarks to shift the focus on to China, now the world’s largest emitter. Kerry said that “all nations have a stake in the choices China makes in this critical decade. The United States and China should be able to accelerate progress together, not only for our sake, but for future generations – and we are all hopeful that China will live up to its global responsibility.”
Fauci urges Americans to get latest Covid shot
Anthony Fauci is making his final appearance at the White House podium, ahead of his retirement next month as America’s top public health official:
.@PressSec says this is Dr Fauci’s last time at the podium pic.twitter.com/fgeE36pkzD
— AlexGangitano (@AlexGangitano) November 22, 2022
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, Fauci became a household name as the public face of the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020.
Here’s where his parting words to reporters gathered at the White House:
FAUCI: "So my message and my final message, may be the final message I give you from this podium, is that please for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you're eligible to protect yourself, your family and your community."
— Molly Nagle (@MollyNagle3) November 22, 2022
Fauci is appearing alongside the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator Ashish Jha to announce the Biden’s administration’s new six-week campaign to encourage Americans to get Covid-19 boosters in anticipation of the holidays.
Updated
He’s in court, he’s on the campaign trail and he’s once again being investigated by a special prosecutor.
Like it or not, Donald Trump will frequently be in the news for the next two years – at least – and the Guardian’s community team would like to hear your thoughts on how reporters should cover the former president. Weigh in at the link below:
Donald Trump has had a bit of an unlucky break in the appeals court hearing today over the appointment of a special master in Mar-a-Lago.
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that two of the three judges hearing the case have previously said that judge Aileen Cannon, who granted the former president’s request for the special master to filter out privileged documents from those federal agents seized by Mar-a-Lago, erred in her decision:
Really unfortunate for Trump to have drawn 2/3 judges for oral arguments before 11th Circuit today who ruled that Cannon “abused her discretion” in granting him a special master
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) November 22, 2022
Joe Biden might be going on vacation, but Donald Trump is heading to court, or at least his lawyers are. Hugo Lowell reports that the justice department will today present its arguments to an appeals court about why it should put a stop to the special master review of documents seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort:
The US justice department is scheduled to ask a court on Tuesday to void the special master review examining documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and make the materials available to the criminal investigation surrounding the former president.
The hearing is particularly consequential for Trump: should he lose, it could mark the end of the special master process on which he has relied to delay, and gain more insight into, the investigation surrounding his potential mishandling of national security information.
In a 40-page brief filed in advance of an expedited afternoon hearing in the 11th circuit court of appeals, the department argued that Trump should never have been able to get an independent arbiter because the federal judge who granted the request misapplied a four-part legal test in making her judgment.
The department also argued that the 11th circuit should terminate the injunction preventing federal investigators from examining the documents in the special master review since Trump appeared to drop his claims that some of the materials are subject to privilege protections.
“Absent any likelihood of any success in the merits of the claim, there is no justification for an injunction,” the department wrote in its brief, as it sought the appeals court to reverse the entirety of the Trump-appointed US district court judge Aileen Cannon’s special master order.
Joe Biden isn’t alone in traveling today. In fact, it’s the busiest day of the year for air travel, and the Federal Aviation Administration has tweeted out a graphic that shows just how packed the skies will be as Americans move around ahead of the thanksgiving holiday:
Today is the busiest day for air travel! Check out our animated map of more than 48,000 expected flights. Get other tips to prepare for your trip at https://t.co/6VENOnPw9Z. #Thanksgiving2022 pic.twitter.com/s9VsQz4okv
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) November 22, 2022
Joe Biden heads today to Nantucket, Massachusetts, keeping with a family tradition of spending thanksgiving there. Yesterday, he honored another tradition: pardoning a turkey before the annual holiday. David Smith went to the White House see the spectacle for himself:
Hail to the grandpa-in-chief!
With important legislation under his belt, Republicans in disarray and Vladimir Putin in retreat, Joe Biden is looking pleased with himself and ready for family time.
On Saturday he hosted the wedding of his granddaughter, Naomi Biden, on the White House South Lawn. On Sunday he was at family brunch to celebrate his 80th birthday.
So if it’s Monday, it must be the annual pardoning of a Thanksgiving turkey, complete with “God love yas” and grandad jokes.
“It’s a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition here at the White House,” America’s first octogenarian president said as he welcomed turkeys Chocolate and Chip on the South Lawn. “There’s a lot to say about it, but it’s chilly outside, so I’m going to keep this short. Nobody likes it when their turkey gets cold!”
People laughed politely. Looking over at the gobblers, Biden added: “I don’t know if they’re mad yet or not.”
In other unfinished business from the midterms, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump won re-election in California, after a lengthy ballot count, Richard Luscombe reports:
A Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump in the House of Representatives has won re-election in California, making him only the second of the 10 to do so still in Congress.
David Valadao was called the winner of his competitive race with Democrat Rudy Salas late on Monday, almost two weeks after election day.
With his party having already secured control of the House, albeit narrowly, his result was significant only for the survival of his political career after turning on the former president.
Other than Dan Newhouse, who swept to victory in his Washington state race, none of the Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment last year will serve another term.
Democrat Warnock holds narrow lead over GOP's Walker for Georgia Senate seat: poll
Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock has a slight lead over his Republican challenger Herschel Walker ahead of the 6 December runoff election for Georgia’s Senate seat, a poll released today finds.
The survey by AARP Georgia finds Warnock has 51% support over Walker’s 47%. The Democrat has an edge among young voters, while Walker is more popular among people older than 50, which are a large part of the electorate.
Walker and Warnock are battling for a Senate seat that Democrats took control of only last year in a special election. While Joe Biden’s allies have secured a majority in Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, a victory by Warnock would pad their margin of control. Republicans, meanwhile, hope Walker’s victory would put them in a better position to retake the chamber in the next elections set for 2024.
Updated
McCarthy plans 'major' announcement on DHS secretary
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy will make a “major” announcement about homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas today, Fox News reports:
NEW: GOP Minority Leader/Speaker elect Kevin McCarthy tells me he will be making a “major” announcement regarding DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a press conference in El Paso, TX this afternoon. McCarthy is here w/ a GOP delegation touring the border & meeting w/ BP agents.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 22, 2022
The announcement will come during McCarthy’s visit to El Paso, Texas, where he will probably draw attention to the surge in migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office. Republicans have criticized the White House for its handling of the situation, and rightwing lawmakers in Congress have reportedly called for impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, a rare step to take against a sitting cabinet secretary.
McCarthy is hoping to be elected speaker of the House when Republicans take control next year, after winning a majority of seats in the 8 November midterms. But he is scrambling to find the votes after several of the chamber’s most conservative lawmakers said they would not support him.
Lindsey Graham set to testify in Georgia election meddling inquiry
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham will today appear before a special grand jury investigating efforts by Donald Trump’s allies to meddle with Georgia’s election result, Fox 5 Atlanta reports.
Graham has fought the subpoena from Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis for months, but exhausted his legal options when the supreme court turned down his challenge earlier this month. The South Carolina lawmaker’s appearance before jurors in an Atlanta courthouse will not be public, but Willis could use evidence he provides to bring charges in the case.
The district attorney has said she wants to ask Graham about two calls he made to Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and his officials following the 2020 election, in which he alleged voter fraud in the state and asked about the possibility of “reexamining certain absentee ballots,” Fox 5 reports. Georgia was one of several states whose votes for Joe Biden proved crucial to his election victory two years ago.
The Oath Keepers don’t dispute that some of their members were around the Capitol on January 6, but jurors need to believe they entered the building in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Whether prosecutors have succeeded at this will be key to determining if they win a conviction in the seditious conspiracy case. Here’s more from the Associated Press on what’s come out of the trial so far:
As angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, ready to smash through windows and beat police officers, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes extolled them as patriots and harked back to the battle that kicked off the American revolutionary war.
“Next comes our Lexington,” Rhodes told his fellow far-right extremists in a message on 6 January 2021. “It’s coming.”
Jurors will begin weighing his words and actions on Tuesday, after nearly two months of testimony and argument in the criminal trial of Rhodes and four codefendants. Final defense arguments wrapped up late Monday.
Hundreds of people have been convicted in the attack that left dozens of officers injured, sent lawmakers running for their lives and shook the foundations of American democracy. Now jurors in the case against Rhodes and four associates will decide, for the first time, whether the actions of any January 6 defendants amount to seditious conspiracy – a rarely used charge that carries both significant prison time and political weight.
The jury’s verdict may well address the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, coming soon after 2022 midterm results in which voters rejected Trump’s chosen Republican candidates who supported his baseless claims of fraud. The outcome could also shape the future of the justice department’s massive and costly prosecution of the insurrection that some conservatives have sought to portray as politically motivated.
Failure to secure a seditious conspiracy conviction could spell trouble for another high-profile trial beginning next month of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of that extremist group. The justice department’s January 6 probe has also expanded beyond those who attacked the Capitol to focus on others linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
In the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors built their case using dozens of encrypted messages sent in the weeks leading up to January 6. They show Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection”.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Prepare your mind, body and spirit,” he wrote shortly after the 2020 election.
Jury begins deliberating in Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial
Good morning, US politics blog readers. A Washington federal jury is starting deliberations in the trial of five members of the Oath Keepers militia, including its founder Stewart Rhodes. The group stands accused of seditious conspiracy, a rarely used charge that prosecutors say is an appropriate way to describe the alleged plot they attempted to carry out on January 6 to stop Joe Biden from taking office. The trial will be an important indicator of if the government can win convictions against the most violent actors in the insurrection, and a verdict could come at any time.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy is visiting border patrol personnel in El Paso, Texas. Expect him to talk up the GOP’s plan to address the surge of migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border when they take control of the House next year, and criticize Joe Biden’s handling of the situation.
Biden is heading to Nantucket, Massachusetts, this afternoon for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Anthony Fauci and Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha will appear at the daily White House press briefing at 11.30am eastern time, where they’ll likely talk about the threat of coronavirus during the holiday season.
