Closing summary
As Republicans scramble to find a new House speaker, Donald Trump is mulling visiting the Capitol to weigh in on what the party should do next. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy’s staffers are reportedly working to secure support for judiciary chair Jim Jordan to replace him. It’s unclear why, but it could have something to do with another report saying majority leader Steve Scalise began his campaign for the speakership before McCarthy had even been formally ousted.
Here’s what else happened today:
Environmentalists are outraged after the Biden administration began constructing new border fencing. Joe Biden says he doesn’t think it will be effective, but federal law required him to do so. Meanwhile, his administration reportedly will resume deportation flights to Venezuela, a major source of migrants.
Trump for speaker of the House? It could theoretically happen, and one Republican wants it to, but it would probably be a bad idea for the GOP.
A Georgia judge rejected former Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s attempt to get charges against her related to trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election result dismissed.
George Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to an unspecified felony. It’s unclear what his means for the congressman and admitted fabulist, who is under federal indictment.
Alabama will get a second majority Black congressional district, despite the best efforts of state Republicans. A Democrat will likely represent it, bolstering their margins in the House.
Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, is facing criminal charges over her involvement in a scheme to breach election systems in a rural Georgia county. Her case is on course to continue after a judge today turned down an attempt to dismiss the charges.
Brian Rafferty, Powell’s attorney, argued in a 213 page motion filed last week that the case should be thrown out because prosecutors had presented misleading evidence to the grand jury that indicted Powell, and failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. The central thrust of Powell’s defense in the case is that she was not involved in the voting machine breach. Will Wooten, a prosecutor in the Fulton county district attorney’s office, strongly disputed those claims during a brief hearing on Thursday, saying they were “absurd and unsupported.”
Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing the case, said that he had not heard anything meriting dismissal ahead of a jury trial scheduled to begin later this month. “Just purely on procedural grounds, I don’t believe that this motion to dismiss for misconduct … I don’t see that as clearing just the procedural bar of being something under the court’s authority,” he said. “It’s the jury’s role to decide contested issues.”
McAfee also pressed Rafferty to give a concrete list of items he wanted prosecutors to ensure they wanted to turn over. Wooten said all relevant evidence had been turned over to Powell’s team, but agreed to have his office again review special grand jury transcripts and other materials to double check.
Powell, who was one of Trump’s key lawyers as he sought to overturn the 2020 election, faces seven criminal charges in Georgia, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, and conspiracy to commit computer trespass. She is alleged to have helped facilitate a scheme in which a team gained access to Coffee county’s election equipment and copied sensitive information.
Powell and Ken Chesebro, another Trump attorney who was the architect of the fake elector scheme, successfully severed their trial from Trump and the 17 other defendants, and will have the first trial of the group.
