Closing summary
We’re wrapping up our live coverage of US politics for today, another day of extraordinary news on multiple fronts:
Even as a Trump-brokered ceasefire to end the war in Gaza moved forward, and both Israelis and Palestinians were celebrating, Trump’s Justice Department moved forward with a criminal prosecution of one of his longtime political foes, New York attorney general Letitia James, who previously sued Trump and his business for civil fraud and won, initially securing a roughly $500m penalty.
A federal grand jury in Virginia has now returned an indictment charging James with one count of bank fraud and one count of making a false statement to a lending institution, after an investigation that centered on paperwork for properties she owns in Virginia and New York.
Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s newly appointed US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, personally presented the case to the grand jury on Thursday, a very unusual move for a US attorney.
News outlets noted that the Trump administration last month pushed out Erik Siebert, the veteran prosecutor who had overseen both investigations for months and had resisted pressure to file charges, and replaced him with Halligan, a White House aide who has worked as lawyer for Trump but has never previously served as a federal prosecutor.
Siebert had resigned on 19 September, hours after Trump told reporters: “I want him out.” Siebert believed the evidence against Comey and James was weak, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.
James, who will continue in her elected role, vowed to fight the charges, calling the case a“desperate weaponization of our justice system.” Prominent Democratic officials, including New York’s governor, issued messages of support, while civil rights groups attacked what they also called a weaponization of the justice system.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Illinois issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, saying in court that there was no evidence of a rebellion brewing in Illinois and that the Department of Homeland Security’s “narrative of events is simply unreliable.”
In a similar case unfolding in federal court in San Francisco, challenging Trump’s deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, appellate judges heard arguments and seemed more likely to rule in Trump’s favor, allowing the deployment of troops.
Meanwhile, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is slated to be announced tomorrow. Donald Trump wants to win the prize this year, but probably won’t.
It’s been a day full of legal battles over the Trump administration’s desire to send National Guard troops into the liberal cities of Chicago, Illinois and Portland, Oregon.
While a federal judge in Chicago issued an order blocking the deployment for two weeks, a three-judge panel at a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday appeared likely to set aside the ruling blocking Trump’s Portland deployment, which would clear the way for hundreds of soldiers to enter that city.
At the appellate court in San Francisco, Stacy Chaffin, an Oregon assistant attorney general, echoed the language of the lower court judge who blocked Trump’s deployment, saying the president’s descriptions of Portland as riven by violence were “untethered from reality.”
But he judges questioned whether they should only consider the current circumstances or take into account more active protests earlier this year that temporarily shut down ICE’s Portland headquarters. US circuit judge Ryan Nelson, a Trump appointee, said courts should not engage in a “day-by-day” review of whether troops were needed at any given time.
On the ground in Portland tonight, outside the Ice administration building, not much is going on at the moment, the Washington Post reports, with one of their reporters noting on social media just a few minutes ago that “The crowd is small. Jack the chicken protester is there.”
