Closing summary
This brings our live coverage of the day in US politics to an end, but we will be back on Thursday to continue chronicling the second Trump administration in real time. Here are the latest developments:
A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s executive order declaring an end to birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.
The House oversight subcommittee on federal law enforcement voted to issue a subpoena to the justice department compelling “the full, unredacted release” of files from the federal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein.
Columbia University signed an agreement with the US government to pay $221m to settle multiple investigations into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination and equal opportunity employment laws.
Trump repeated his tale that the king of Saudi Arabia told him during a visit to the kingdom in May: “You have the hottest country anywhere in the world”. Trump did not meet the king during his trip but was hosted by the crown prince, whom US intelligence says approved the murder of a US-based journalist.
The White House press secretary expressed “outrage” that, during the Obama administration, “the intelligence community was concocting this narrative … that the president’s son was holding secret meetings with the Russians”. Donald Trump Jr admitted in 2017 that he had secretly met a Russian who promised to deliver Russian government dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Trump signed executive orders, including one that would bar the US government from buying or promoting AI models that “embrace wokeism and critical race theory”.
Updated
In 2017, Donald Trump Jr admitted meeting Russian who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Today, the White House press secretary called that a lie.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters earlier on Wednesday that it was an “outrage” that, during the Obama administration, “the intelligence community was concocting this narrative that the president colluded with the Russians, that the president’s son was holding secret meetings with the Russians.”
“All of these lies”, Leavitt said, “that were never true”.
While Trump and his aides have for years tried to maintain that every accusation that his 2016 campaign was aware of or encouraged the Russian attempts to damage Hillary Clinton were false, it is very odd that Leavitt chose to call the idea that the president’s son met secretly with the Russians false, because Donald Trump Jr admitted it was true in 2017.
He even provided documentary evidence for how the meeting came about. On 11 July 2017, Donald Trump Jr tweeted a copy of an email exchange he had in June of 2016 with a publicist for a powerful Russian oligarch. The email showed that the British publicist, Rob Goldstone, on June 3, 2016, offered to pass on secret information about Clinton from one of the most senior officials in the Russian government.
“The Crown prosecutor of Russia” Goldstone wrote, in reference to the prosecutor general of Russia, Yuri Chaika, “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”, Goldstone added.
The younger Trump replied to this offer of Russian government help: “if it’s what you say I love it”. Six days later the president’s son, along with his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, met in Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was described to him by Goldstone as a “Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this.”
