Category Archives: US elections 2020

Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows asks judge to block his arrest in Georgia

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Former White House chief of staff is among 19 defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, has asked a federal court to block his arrest in an emergency motion, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.

Meadows, a named defendant in the sweeping election interference case against Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton county, Georgia, has requested the case be moved to federal court, saying the charges concern his actions as an officer of the federal government.

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Joe Biden says US, Japan and South Korea ‘doubling down’ on joint defense against security threats – as it happened

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US president, Yoon Suk Yeol and Fumio Kishida meet as they agree to take trilateral defence cooperation to ‘unprecedented levels’

A standalone summit bringing together the leaders of Japan and South Korea would have been almost unthinkable just over a year ago, when the north-east Asian neighbours were embroiled in disputes over their bitter wartime legacy.

Bilateral ties were at a low point before the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, took office in May 2022, due to compensation claims by Koreans over Japan’s use of forced labour during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, and the longstanding controversy over Korean women who were coerced into working in Japanese military brothels.

It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America.

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Names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors posted on rightwing websites

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Sheriff’s office said investigators are working with local, state and federal agencies to track down origins of threats in Fulton county

Law enforcement officials in Georgia said they’re investigating threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies, after private information about jurors was published online.

On Thursday, the Fulton county sheriff’s office announced that it is “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms”.

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Trump indictment sparks fears of calls to violence as Georgia grand jury doxxed – as it happened

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This blog is now closed, but continuing coverage of Trump’s Georgia indictment can be found here and here.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.

In an interview with Politico, Haley said:

I think everybody that says, ‘She’s doing this to be vice president,’ needs to understand I don’t run for second.

That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.

Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.

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Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows files to move Fulton county election case to federal court – as it happened

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This live blog has closed. Read our analysis of the Georgia indictment here

After Joe Biden won the presidential race, Donald Trump and his associates immediately went to work challenging the legitimacy of the election results, as special counsel Jack Smith outlined in his own indictment filed earlier this month.

After dozens of his election lawsuits failed, Trump then attempted to pressure state leaders to overturn Biden’s wins in key battleground states.

This indictment should serve as a warning to future anti-voter politicians that the will and voices of Georgia voters cannot be silenced, and there is no place for election-denying conspiracy theorists in our democracy.

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Georgia indictment lays out Trump election plot in all its shocking detail

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Charging document, staggering in its breadth and ambition of its charges, may represent greatest legal peril for ex-president to date

There’s no other way to say it: the 98-page indictment handed down by a Fulton county grand jury on Monday represents the most aggressive effort to hold Donald Trump and allies accountable for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The document is staggering in its breadth and the ambition of its charges. The 41 counts of crimes in it, including 13 against Trump, detail the lies the former president and his co-defendants told the public about fraud to try and keep him in power. It doesn’t back away from charging Trump’s attorneys and inner circle with crimes for coordinating a plan to create slates of fake electors and to stop Congress from counting votes. Some of the state’s 16 fake electors themselves also face charges. And it also casts a wide net, not letting those who breached voting equipment and intimidated poll workers off the hook.

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Governor Brian Kemp tells Trump Georgia’s 2020 election ‘was not stolen’

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Republican says no one has produced evidence of fraud in court of law despite ex-president’s vow to present ‘irrefutable’ proof

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, insisted on Tuesday that the 2020 presidential election in his state “was not stolen” in an apparent defense of the latest criminal indictment of Donald Trump.

Kemp, who has clashed frequently with the former president over his false claim the election was rigged, responded on Twitter to an earlier post on Truth Social from Trump announcing a press conference next week at which he promised to present “irrefutable” evidence of fraud.

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Trump election investigation: Georgia grand jury witnesses called early as prosecutors ‘moving faster’ than expected – live

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Former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi to testify on Monday; court publishes then removes docket of charges against Trump

Twice impeached and now arrested and indicted three times. Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida and Washington over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is simultaneously reeling from a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation toward writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.

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Election-interference charges loom for Trump as docket posted then removed

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Georgia court appears to publish then take down key document, while ex-president lashes out against perceived persecutors

The indictment of Donald Trump over his attempted election subversion in Georgia loomed closer on Monday amid an apparent false alarm about charges being filed and a series of angry statements from the former president punctuating a day of prosecution presentations in court.

At about midday, a two-page docket report posted to the Fulton county court website indicated charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements. The appearance of the report set off a flurry of news media activity, but then the document vanished.

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Georgia DA summons former lawmaker and journalist in Trump election inquiry

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Fani Willis’s office will have former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi testify before a grand jury

The office of the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has issued summonses to former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi to testify before a grand jury on Tuesday regarding Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state.

The announcement of the summonses confirmed previous reporting by the Guardian that Willis’s office in Atlanta on Tuesday would present evidence to a grand jury weighing charges against the former president. Prosecutors could ask the grand jury to hand up charges on Tuesday as well, having completed an internal review of evidence in the case weeks ago.

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Twitter fined $350,000 for not complying in special counsel case against Trump

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The company now called X was served a search warrant in January, but delayed complying and was held in contempt by federal judge

The US special counsel who is investigating Donald Trump obtained a search warrant for the former president’s Twitter account in January, 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.

This is a developing story.

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Nancy Pelosi calls indictments against Trump ‘beautiful and intricate’

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Trump antagonist and former House speaker also says classified documents and 2020 election interference charges are ‘exquisite’

Indictments of Donald Trump regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified information are “exquisite … beautiful and intricate”, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

“The indictments against the president are exquisite,” Pelosi, 83 and a regular antagonist of the 77-year-old former president, told New York magazine in an interview published on Monday.

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Pence would be ‘best witness’ in Trump election conspiracy trial, attorney says

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John Lauro slams indictment as full of holes and says Mike Pence could help former boss fight off 2020 election conspiracy charges

Donald Trump’s attorney has suggested that Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the “best witness” for the defence.

In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, attorney John Lauro played down differences between the former president and Pence’s accounts of what happened in the run up to the 6 January 2021 certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol that day.

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

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

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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

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

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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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The indictment against Trump in 2020 election interference inquiry – full text

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Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election

Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the latest criminal case before the former president that comes just weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information.

You can read the indictment here in full:

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Trump under investigation for civil rights conspiracy in January 6 inquiry

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Federal prosecutors say they have evidence to charge Trump with three crimes over efforts to overturn 2020 election

Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.

The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.

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Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred over 2020 election, DC panel recommends

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Washington DC committee recommends revoking former New York City mayor’s law license over attempt to overturn election

Rudy Giuliani’s law license should be revoked over his work on a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results on behalf of then president Donald Trump, a Washington DC attorney ethics committee has recommended.

He now faces being disbarred in the capital after the review panel late on Friday condemned the lawyer and ex-politician for aggressively pursuing the false assertions Trump made about his defeat by Democratic rival and now US president Joe Biden.

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