Closing summary
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
The US special counsel who is investigating Donald Trump obtained a search warrant for the former president’s Twitter account, and the social media platform delayed complying, a court filing on Wednesday showed. The delay in compliance prompted a federal judge to hold Twitter in contempt and fine it $350,000, the filing showed.
A previously unseen internal memo from the 2020 Trump campaign describes in detail the plot by Donald Trump and his lawyers to subvert election results in six states, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. The memo describes a three-pronged plan to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory on 6 January 2020, that involved coordinating with Republican electors and campaign attorneys in six states, as well as Mike Pence.
The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia is expected to seek more than a dozen indictments when she presents her case before a grand jury next week, according to a report. The prosecutors in the office of district attorney Fani Willis completed its internal reviews for criminal charges in the Trump case weeks ago, and could present evidence to a grand jury and ask it to return indictments as early as next Tuesday, the Guardian reported on Tuesday.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s election subversion case, US district judge Tanya Chutkan, has set a date for a hearing on a proposed protective order by prosecutors. The protective order, if granted, will govern how evidence is handled in the case. The order, requested last Friday by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, asks for Trump to be prohibited from publicly sharing evidence in the case during the discovery phase.
The California US senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was hospitalized on Tuesday evening after suffering a fall in her home, a spokesperson said. “Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “All of her scans were clear and she returned home.” At 90, Feinstein is the oldest serving US senator.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando on Wednesday, claiming “dereliction of duty” on crime. In return, the prosecutor said DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was a “weak dictator” acting undemocratically and for political reasons.
A respected conservative judge who advised the former Republican vice-president Mike Pence not to attempt to overturn the 2020 election believes Donald Trump has destroyed the Republican party. “American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties,” J Michael Luttig told CNN on Wednesday. “So today, in my view, there is no Republican party to counter the Democratic party in the country.
J Michael Luttig told CNN:
A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America. Today, there is no such shared set of beliefs and values and principles or even policy views as within the Republican party for America.
Donald Trump, he said, was a danger “more so today” than last year, when Luttig testified to the House January 6 committee.
A respected conservative judge who was considered for the supreme court under George W Bush, Luttig made a tremendous impact with his January 6 testimony.
Speaking on primetime television, Luttig said:
I believe that had Vice-President Pence obeyed the orders from his president … and declared Donald Trump the next president of the United States … [he] would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution, within a constitutional crisis.
On Wednesday, Luttig also told CNN he did not think Trump could avoid conviction for election subversion.
“The evidence is overwhelming that the former president knew full well that he had lost the election,” he said.
Updated
