‘We averted an economic crisis and economic collapse,’ says president in address to the nation about deal, but will not sign bill before Saturday
Here’s more on how the debt ceiling crisis will impact the US’s credit rating, from the Guardian’s Joan E Greve.
The US is not yet out of the woods on a potential credit downgrade, even though Joe Biden is scheduled to sign the debt ceiling bill tonight to avert a federal default.
Continue reading...Victims of con invested thousands of dollars in fake bills plastered with Trump’s face they believed would make them rich
Websites launched by companies selling “Trump Bucks” to some of the former president’s most ardent supporters have been taken down.
NBC reported the closures, after its investigation found several Colorado-based companies were behind the scam that promised investors they would get rich if the disgraced former president is re-elected in 2024.
Continue reading...Ken Paxton drew support from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz prior to the vote
Texas’ Republican-led House of Representatives impeached state attorney general Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.
Impeachment triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican governor Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim.
Continue reading...Ken Paxton’s call for protesters to be ‘peacefully’ heard at the state capitol echoes similar request from Donald Trump before 6 January 2021
The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has urged his supporters to protest at the state capitol when Republicans in the House of Representatives take up historic impeachment proceedings against him.
The state House has set a Saturday vote to consider impeaching Paxton and suspending him from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust – just some of the accusations that have trailed him for most of his three terms.
Continue reading...Development could raise stakes as investigation into former presidents handling of national security materials nears end
Federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump showed classified documents to people, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources, as the investigation into his handling of national security materials and obstruction of justice approaches its conclusion.
The development could raise the stakes for the former president as it exposes him to serious action under the Espionage Act, of wilfully communicating national security materials rather than simply retaining them, which is rarely charged.
Continue reading...Florida governor’s campaign gets off to shaky start after launch was marred by glitches
The House has finished its legislative work for the week, and members are preparing to go home for Memorial Day weekend without a deal reached on raising the debt ceiling.
The House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, told reporters this morning that debt ceiling talks continued well past midnight last night, and negotiators are working around the clock until a deal is reached.
Continue reading...Video hearing follows news that E Jean Carroll seeks new damages over ex-president’s comments in CNN town hall
Donald Trump’s trial in New York on criminal charges over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels will begin on 25 March 2024, amid the Republican presidential primary and less than than eight months before the general election the former president hopes to contest.
The trial date was announced in a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Trump attending by video link from his Florida home.
Continue reading...South Carolina senator makes speech referencing work and immigration as he announces campaign to run for Republican nomination in 2024 race
Tim Scott is on stage now announcing his presidential bid.
“America is the greatest nation on God’s green earth,” the senator began. “And our greatness doesn’t come from politicians, doesn’t come from the government. It comes from we, the people.”
Continue reading...Republican Florida governor reportedly dismissed Donald Trump’s chances as he gears up to announce his candidacy on Wednesday
The odds for Republican presidential candidates who are not Donald Trump appear to be long, but that doesn’t mean running is a bad idea. The former president is in an array of legal trouble, facing a felony indictment in New York City and an ongoing investigation by justice department special counsel Jack Smith. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that we could learn whether a county district attorney will bring charges against Trump or his allies in late July. If any of these matters became serious enough to knock him out of the race, candidates like Tim Scott or Ron DeSantis could benefit:
The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia signalled Thursday that charging decisions in the case may come starting the final week of July, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Continue reading...Fani Willis prepared her team for remote work during that time, expected to be the window for indictments
The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia signalled Thursday that charging decisions in the case may come starting the final week of July, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The indication from the prosecutor, Fani Willis, first came during a meeting with her full team where she told them to make preparations to work remotely during the final week of July and through the first weeks of August, the people said.
Continue reading...Ex-prosecutors express criticism as key Republican allies attempt to derail investigations into former president
As Donald Trump’s legal troubles mount at the federal, state and local levels, the ex-president and his lawyers are banking on their political allies in the Republican party to make attacks on a New York prosecutor who has charged Trump with criminal offenses and to also get them to help derail investigations that endanger his 2024 campaign.
Former prosecutors and members of both parties have voiced strong criticism about the drives by Trump, his lawyers and Republican House allies to attack prosecutors who have filed charges against Trump, or are investigating him, calling such moves antithetical to democratic principles and the rule of law, as well as fruitless.
Continue reading...Special counsel also concludes no charges should be brought against the FBI
The Guardian’s Alexandra Villarreal has more on just how Joe Biden is trying to discourage migrants, and why advocacy groups say in this area, he’s not that different from Donald Trump:
Last week, the Biden administration toughened its stance against migration at the US-Mexico border through a new federal regulation that severely restricts access to asylum. This “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” rule effectively replaces the Title 42 public health order, which Donald Trump introduced ostensibly to stem Covid-19 but has functioned increasingly as an immigration enforcement tool, allowing border officials to quickly expel migrants without the chance to request asylum in the US. Title 42 ended on 11 May.
Continue reading...Agency ‘failed to uphold mission of strict fidelity’, special counsel John Durham concludes in investigation launched by Bill Barr
Special counsel John Durham found no evidence that the US justice department and the FBI conspired in a deep-state plot to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016, though the report released on Monday found that the FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case were deficient.
The Durham report was sharply critical of how the FBI decided to open the counterintelligence investigation into Trump, known as “Crossfire Hurricane”, accusing top officials at the bureau of relying on raw and uncorroborated information to continue the inquiry.
Durham said the FBI was more cautious of allegations of foreign influence when it came to the Clinton campaign, and did not pursue evidence in two cases of foreign governments trying to gain influence with Clinton while providing defensive briefings, unlike with the Trump campaign;
Durham said the FBI was overly reliant on investigative tips from Trump’s political opponents and did not rigorously analyze the information it received, which extended the investigation and led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump;
Durham said the FBI decided to move ahead with Crossfire Hurricane despite a lack of information from the intelligence community that corroborated the hypothesis on which it was predicated and FBI agents ignored information that exonerated key people in the case;
Durham suggested that Crossfire Hurricane was “triggered” by the so-called Steele dossier, when it was in fact based on a tip from an Australian diplomat in London that a Trump campaign aide appeared to have advance knowledge about Russia releasing damaging information on Clinton.
Continue reading...Network’s own reporters criticise decision to give ex-president platform in ‘town hall’ format that allowed him to spout freely
Donald Trump and CNN were in rare agreement: the former president’s hour of free prime-time television on Wednesday evening, dressed up as a “town hall” with Republican voters, was a triumph.
“America was served very well by what we did last night,” CNN’s chief executive, Chris Licht, told skeptical members of his own staff at the network’s daily news conference the following morning.
Continue reading...Investigations are mounting, making it harder for the former president to spin his troubles as persecution by liberal elites
If the outcome of Donald Trump’s sexual assault trial wasn’t a foregone conclusion, his response to a jury finding he attacked the writer E Jean Carroll was all too predictable.
The former president lashed out at the judge as biased and the jurors as “from an anti-Trump area”, meaning liberal New York, after they believed Carroll’s account of the millionaire businessman attacking her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. The jury ordered him to pay $5m in damages for “sexual abuse” and for defaming Carroll by accusing her of “a made-up SCAM” for political ends.
Continue reading...Chris Sununu said the audience’s conduct ‘doesn’t shine a positive light’ on the state, which will hold the first Republican primary
The governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, said it was “embarrassing” that Republican voters from his state laughed and applauded when Donald Trump mocked E Jean Carroll during a CNN town hall this week.
Sununu may yet have to court such voters in a presidential run of his own.
Continue reading...The disparaging comments came just a day after the ex-president was found liable for sexually abusing the writer
Writer E Jean Carroll is considering suing Donald Trump for defamation again after the former US president made disparaging remarks about her during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually assaulting her.
“Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the New York Times about the prospect of a defamation lawsuit. “We have to weigh the various pros and cons and we’ll come to a decision in the next day or so, probably.”
Continue reading...Jury finds that former president defamed advice columnist, awarding $3m in damages in addition to the $2m in damages for battery
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has come out in favor of the GOP’s strategy on the debt ceiling, which involves pushing Joe Biden to accept spending cuts in exchange for increasing the limit:
During his time in the House of Representatives five years ago, DeSantis – who is expected to soon announce a campaign for president – was among the lawmakers who voted to raise the ceiling. And while the federal debt has indeed increased over recent years, that is because Washington has had to borrow to pay for spending approved under Democratic and Republican presidents alike.
Continue reading...Verdict for first time legally brands a former US president as a sexual predator but clears Trump of rape
A New York jury found on Tuesday that Donald Trump sexually abused the advice columnist E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago.
The verdict for the first time legally brands a former US president as a sexual predator. But as it is the result of a civil not criminal case, the only legal sanction Trump will face is financial.
Continue reading...CNN’s Wednesday town hall with the ex-president could be a warning bell for cable news to not repeat mistakes from 2016
It claims to be the most trusted name in news. But on Wednesday it will devote an hour of prime time to a serial liar who sought to overthrow American democracy.
CNN’s live town hall with Donald Trump, the former US president, has been condemned by critics as a marriage of convenience: an ailing network looking to boost ratings and a disgraced 76-year-old candidate seeking rehabilitation.
Continue reading...