Closing summary
Joe Biden eased into his re-election campaign with the announcement of a nationwide push to expand high-speed internet, and plans for a speech on “Bidenomics” set for Wednesday. The president’s idea is to campaign for another four years in the White House not with promises of new policies, but rather with a reiteration of the proposals that got him elected in the first place. Meanwhile, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled an openness to impeaching the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, if the US attorney involved in prosecuting Hunter Biden doesn’t speak to the judiciary committee. The House is on recess for the next two weeks or so, but we’ll keep an eye on if that goes anywhere.
Here’s what else happened today:
A White House spokesman condemned McCarthy for threatening to impeach Garland.
The supreme court ordered Louisiana to draw a new majority-Black congressional district as the fallout from a recent decision concerning the Voting Rights Act continues.
A top Democratic senator thinks the supreme court’s conservatives know they’ve gone too far.
The Biden administration plans yet another aid package for Ukraine, while the president said the US had “nothing to do” with the attempted mutiny in Russia over the past weekend.
There is yet another balloon over Montana, but it’s not suspicious, Norad says.
Updated
Judge denies prosecutor’s request to keep witness list in Trump case secret
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s trial in Florida on charges of conspiring to store classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, denied a request from the justice department to keep its witness list secret:
JUST IN: US judge Aileen Cannon denies Special Counsel request to file 84 potential witnesses in the Trump classified docs case under seal -- says the government does not explain why it is necessary and notes media coalition has moved to have it public.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 26, 2023
The justice department can appeal the decision. The decision is one of several expected in the pretrial motions before the start of the proceedings, which are currently scheduled for the middle of August but likely to change.
Appointed to the federal bench by Trump, Cannon faced criticism for decisions made in the case prior to his indictment that some analysts saw as partial to the former president.
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