Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign manager to pay $25k over Ohio train derailment scam

Isaiah Wartman and two others ordered to pay restitution over role in fraudulent fund claiming to help East Palestine victims

The manager of the 2020 campaign that launched the far-right politician Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress has been ordered to pay $25,000 for his role in a charity scam aimed at capitalizing on the East Palestine train crash.

Isaiah Wartman and his business partner Luke Mahoney must each pay $22,000 in restitution as well as $3,000 in investigative costs and fees as part of a settlement with the Ohio attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case. Meanwhile, the settlement calls for a co-founder of the fake charity, Michael Peppel, to pay a $25,000 civil penalty and be banned from starting, running or soliciting for any charitable organization in the state.

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Three-year-old asylum seeker dies after being bussed from Texas to Chicago

From Venezuela, the child died at a local Illinois hospital on Thursday evening after showing signs of illness

A three-year-old girl from Venezuela being transported to Chicago from Texas by bus with other migrants died at a local Illinois hospital after showing signs of illness, the Texas department of emergency management said on Friday.

“Once the child presented with health concerns, the bus pulled over and security personnel on board called 9-1-1 for emergency attention,” the TDEM said in a written statement.

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Prosecutors ask for 2 January start date for Trump 2020 election interference case – live

Federal prosecutors say they estimate it will take four to six weeks to present their case against former US president

US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been embroiled in ethics scandals for months following bombshell revelations by ProPublica, which included how Thomas repeatedly accepted luxury vacations such as a $500,000 trip to Indonesia in 2019 from Harlan Crow, a billionaire businessman, Republican donor and longtime friend.

Thomas, Samuel Alito and the Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch – all conservative hardliners on the supreme court – have fallen foul of recent ethics disputes.

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Democratic Senator Joe Manchin ‘thinking seriously’ about leaving party

The West Virginia member has crossed paths with his party over legislation to combat climate crisis and protect voting rights

The West Virginia senator Joe Manchin is “thinking seriously” about abandoning the Democratic party to run as an independent for Congress or as a third-party candidate for president.

“I’m thinking seriously,” Manchin, 75, told a West Virginia radio host on Thursday. “I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad, the ‘D’ brand and ‘R’ brand. In West Virginia, the ‘D’ brand because it’s [the] national brand. It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia, it’s the Democrats in Washington.

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Trump investigation: special counsel Jack Smith obtained search warrant for Twitter account – live

Twitter initially delayed producing the materials, resulting in a fine of $350,000

There has been open debate within the Democratic party over whether Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half-month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.

Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through.

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Pence has ‘no plans to testify’ against Trump but vows to ‘obey the law’

‘We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we’ll just tell the truth,’ says former vice-president during CBS interview

Former vice-president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said that he has “no plans to testify” against Donald Trump but vowed to “obey the law”.

In a recent interview after federal prosecutors charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Pence was asked by CBS correspondent Major Garrett whether he would be a witness against Trump if the case went to trial.

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Inside Trump’s ‘alternate electors’ plot to steal the vote in Georgia

We piece together the astonishing story of how 16 men and women tried to reshape the course of US history

At 11.30am on 14 December 2020, Greg Bluestein, a political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, hurried into the Georgia state capitol at the start of what he knew would be a momentous day. He was one of a handful of reporters who were to witness the casting of electoral college votes which would officially hand Joe Biden victory in the critical battleground state – and with it the US presidency.

As Bluestein rushed up to the state senate chamber where the 16 Democratic electors were assembling ahead of the historic vote, he passed meeting room 216. He noticed a gaggle of people milling around its heavy wooden door, among them some of the 16 Republican electors chosen to represent Donald Trump should he have won the Georgia race.

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Trump looked like ‘scared puppy’ on way to court, Nancy Pelosi says

Former speaker says she ‘didn’t see any bravado or confidence’ in comments likely to enrage Trump, a longtime Pelosi foe

Donald Trump looked like “a scared puppy” before his arraignment in court in Washington on charges related to his election subversion, Nancy Pelosi said, comments likely to anger an ex-president the former US House speaker has long delighted in baiting.

“I wasn’t in the courtroom of course but when I saw his coming out of his car and this or that, I saw a scared puppy,” Pelosi told MSNBC.

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Trump pleads not guilty to four charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election

Ex-president arraigned on four felony counts related to ‘criminal scheme’ to remain in office as Trump laments ‘sad day for America’

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, marking the third time this year the former president has been forced to respond to a criminal indictment.

Trump was arrested and arraigned on four felony counts outlined in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

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Trump pleads not guilty to January 6 charges and claims arraignment is ‘sad day for America’ – as it happened

In the minutes after the Trump indictment was filed in federal district court in Washington, conservative commentators rapidly scrambled to his defense. Rightwing pundits lined up to compare the charges to “criminalizing thoughts” and the dropping of “fifteen dozen” atomic bombs – and that was just on Fox News.

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News’s audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday’s indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden being a “crooked president”.

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Long-shot Republican candidates spend millions on their own campaigns

Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum have qualified for the GOP debate after each contributed over $10m to their own campaigns

Two wealthy Republicans running long-shot campaigns for president have qualified for the first GOP debate – even as they remain their own top donors.

The candidates, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota and former software company executive, have each contributed more than $10m to their own campaigns.

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Trump lawyer hints defense will focus on free speech; ex-president will not have mugshot taken – live

John Lauro claims four criminal charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election ‘absurd’; US officials say Trump will have fingerprints taken but no photo

It’s just gone 8 am in Washington DC.

I’m going to hand over now to the US politics live blogger, Chris Stein, who will guide you through the rest of the day.

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Donald Trump expects indictment ‘any day now’ in 2020 election subversion case – as it happened

The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.

A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.

Here’s what else has happened today:

Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.

At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.

Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.

Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).

The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.

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Nikki Haley suggests Mitch McConnell should step aside amid health concerns

Presidential hopeful makes comment after Senate Republican leader, 81, froze and was unable to speak this week

Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has suggested her fellow Republican Mitch McConnell – the longtime powerful US Senate leader – should step aside after an episode in which he physically froze and was unable to speak at the Capitol this week.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley was asked by the host Margaret Brennan whether she still had confidence in McConnell’s ability to lead after the episode.

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Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules

Senator Chris Murphy dismisses Justice Samuel Alito’s claims that Senate has ‘no authority’ to regulate the supreme court

Senator Chris Murphy has dismissed claims by the supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, that the Senate has “no authority” to create a code of conduct for the court as “stunningly wrong”.

The Connecticut Democrat made those remarks in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, adding that Alito “should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by Congress”.

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‘A rerun of a soap opera’: Republican governor warns against Trump 2024 bid

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu attacks ex-president and says his 2024 bid is a far cry from his victorious 2016 run

Donald Trump’s campaign for president is a far cry from his victorious run for the White House in 2016, his fellow Republican and New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu said on Sunday.

“This is not the Donald Trump of 2016, don’t fool yourself,” Sununu – who recently passed on an Oval Office run of his own in part to elevate his credibility in speaking out against the ex-president – said during an interview on ABC’s This Week. “He doesn’t have the energy, he doesn’t have the fastball, he basically is droning on for 90 minutes in his long-form speeches about his legal battles, as opposed to talking about the future of this country.”

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‘Stop’: Black Republican congressman attacks DeSantis over slavery curriculum

John James of Michigan says presidential contender has ‘gone too far’ as outrage grows over Florida teaching of history

Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has “gone too far” in defending his state’s new educational standards which require public schools to teach that enslaved Black Americans benefited from their forced labor by learning useful skills, Republican congressman John James has said.

James – who is Black – made his remarks in a post on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

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McCarthy plays down Trump charges as former White House lawyer says evidence in case is ‘overwhelming’ – live

Former president says he will not drop out of 2024 US election race despite new charges in classified documents case

CNN managed to track down Republican speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy at the Capitol to ask him if he was concerned about the new charges against Donald Trump.

The short version of the speaker’s answer, as you will see from the clip below, is that he is not:

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Republican congressman rebuked by senators for swearing at young pages

Bipartisan disapproval for Derrick Van Orden, who yelled and cursed at school-age Senate helpers during late-night Capitol tour

A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.

Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.

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Mitch McConnell should step down as Senate minority leader after freezing, GOP senator says

Questions remain around mental fitness of Republican Senate leader, 81, after health scare in public earlier this week

Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate who suffered a public health scare this week, should step down from the role he has filled since 2007, an unnamed GOP senator said.

McConnell, from Kentucky, remains “intellectually sharp” on “a whole host of issues including baseball”, the anonymous senator told NBC News.

Reuters contributed to this report

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