Fani Willis’s father tells misconduct hearing he learned of relationship with Trump prosecutor when it became public – live | Donald Trump

Joanna Walters

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily halted the Boy Scouts of America’s $2.46 billion settlement of decades of sex abuse claims, which is being appealed by a group of 144 abuse claimants, Reuters reports.

Alito’s brief order freezing the settlement gives the court more time to decide a February 9 request by the abuse claimants to block the settlement from moving forward.

They contend that the deal unlawfully stops them from pursuing lawsuits against organizations that are not bankrupt, such as churches that ran scouting programs, local Boy Scouts councils and insurers that provided coverage to the Boy Scouts organization.

NPR reported last April that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced, as it was emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, that it would establish a $2.4bn fund for those in the organization who were victims of sexual abuse. as it emerges out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, covering more than 82,000 men who said they were victims.

The BSA had urged the supreme court on Thursday not to stop the settlement from moving forward, saying that a delay could “throw the Scouting program into chaos” and “potentially destroy BSA’s ability to carry out its 114-year-old charitable mission”, Reuters further reported.

Joanna Walters

Joe Biden commented briefly at the White House a little earlier about the development yesterday where a man at the center of congressional Republicans’ push to impeach the US president was arrested for lying about Joe and Hunter Biden.

“He is lying and it [impeachment] should be dropped – and it’s been an outrageous effort from the beginning,” Biden said. He made the brief remark in response to the last question he took from reporters, returning to the lecturn to do so, after appearing to talk chiefly about the deal of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The news emerged yesterday evening that an FBI informant has been charged with lying to his handler about ties between Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.

Alexander Smirnov, 43, falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Smirnov told the FBI that a Burisma executive had claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems”, prosecutors said in a statement.

The allegations became a flashpoint in Congress over the summer as Republicans demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the allegations as they pursued investigations of Biden and his family. They acknowledged at the time that it was unclear if the allegations were true.

The new development sharply undermines the thrust of congressional Republicans’ corruption accusations that the US president was making money from his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. Full story here.

Incidentally, the misconduct hearing in Georgia for the leading prosecutors in the election interference case against Donald Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants has resumed after lunch. It’s in the weeds at the moment, but we’ll bring you highlights.

Joanna Walters

Joe Biden, speaking at the White House moments ago about temporary ceasefire talks with Israel in its war on Hamas, reminded the public that Americans are among the hostages still held inside Gaza.

“And my hope and expectation is that we will get this hostage deal, we will get these Americans home, and the deal is being negotiated now,” the US president said.

At least 120 hostages are believed still to be held in Gaza by Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Palestinian territory and took more than 240 hostages from southern Israel after launching a massive attack on the area on 7 October last year. Most of the hostages are Israelis.

The White House said earlier this week that it was not known how many of the remaining hostages are still alive.

Biden ‘hopeful’ temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire, hostage deal can be done

Joanna Walters

Joe Biden has just spoken at the White House about the death of Russian activist Alexei Navalny but also discussing Nato, Israel and Burisma.

The US president expressed outrage at Navalny’s death in a Russian arctic prison camp. Biden’s remarks on that are in our live blog dedicated to Navalny news, here, and his comments responding to Donald Trump’s position on Nato earlier this week will also be in the blog.

But Biden also took some questions and one was about the latest on negotiations with Israel and the US demands that Israel have a credible plan for the 1.7 million people trapped in Rafah in the far south of Gaza before attacking the city in continued efforts to destroy Hamas. He said he has had “extensive talks” with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week “over an hour each” during phone calls.

“I have made the case and I feel very strongly about it – there has to be a temporary ceasefire to get the hostages out. I’m still hopeful that that can be done,” he said.

Biden added: “In the meantime, I do not anticipate … I’m hoping that the Israelis will not make a massive land invasion [of Rafah]. It’s my understanding that that will not happen.”

After Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis was not called back to the stand, the county’s hearing has continued with other witnesses, albeit much less explosive than yesterday’s testimony.

• Former Georgia governor Roy Barnes testified that he was asked to be special prosecutor, but turned it down because it didn’t pay enough and would risk his safety.

• John Floyd, Willis’ father, testified that he hadn’t met special prosecutor Nathan Wade until 2023 and didn’t know they were in a relationship until it became public. He also said he taught his daughter to keep cash on hand, something Willis said she used to pay back Wade for anything he paid for while they dated.

• More witnesses should take the stand this afternoon. You can livestream the courtroom here.

Beyond the hearing, the big news of the day: US Sen. Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, will not run for president, ending speculation that he could spoil the election as a third-party option. That’s a sigh of relief for President Joe Biden.

We’re still keeping an eye out for the expected ruling out of New York on the Trump fraud case, which should come sometime today. Stay tuned!

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’ father took the stand now, testifying about threats she faced at the home he lived in with her in 2019 and 2020, before she moved to a new place after people outside her house called her slurs and threatened her there.

John Floyd, Willis’ dad, was asked about her romantic relationships and how often he saw people she had dated, including special prosecutor Nathan Wade. He said he hadn’t met Wade until 2023, and a previous boyfriend he saw often in earlier years was a disc jockey. (Previous testimony from a former friend of Willis claimed the two started dating much earlier than they’d claimed.)

Floyd also said he didn’t know Willis and Wade were dating until it became public knowledge weeks ago as part of the Trump case. He said he knew his daughter had gone on trips, but not with Wade. And he said he hadn’t been able to see his daughter in person much in recent years or go to her home because of safety concerns they both had.

For more info on Floyd’s background and long resume, check out this backgrounder from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He’s also a lawyer, was a Black Panther as a young man, and once dated Angela Davis, the paper writes.

One thing that came up in questioning of Floyd: Willis’ use of cash. The DA has said she would keep cash at home and pay Wade back for travel expenses in cash. She said her dad had told her to keep cash on hand at home, a lesson she followed.

Floyd confirmed this lesson, telling the attorneys keeping cash was something he did to protect himself as a Black man.

“Most Black folks, they hide cash and they keep cash. I was trained, you always keep some cash,” he said, sharing how he had been discriminated against in the past and not allowed to use credit cards or checks, highlighting the need for cash.

He would keep cash in safes in his home and gifted his daughter her first cash box, too. “I’ve told my daughter, you keep six months worth of cash, always,” he said.

The Fulton county district attorney won’t be taking the stand again, the state said.

The hearing over the effort to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from the sprawling election subversion case against Trump and his allies resumes this morning, with Willis expected to again take the stand for questioning.

The former romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade is a sideshow to the case, which alleges Trump and his network tried to steal the 2020 election.

But it’s become a way for Republicans and Trump to undermine the case. On the campaign trail, Trump often calls the handful of court cases he now faces “election interference”, though he also campaigns on the cases, too, talking about how they’re evidence of a deep state and that he’s doing something right if so many people are coming after him. He’s spent recent weeks popping back and forth between campaign stops and courtrooms, and the fact he could end up on jail doesn’t seem to be hurting his campaign.

These cases are a main feature of the 2024 election, with Trump’s foes hoping for accountability that keeps the former president away from the White House, and his allies wanting him to fend off the challenges to show his strength.

The hearing in Fulton county will begin shortly. We’ll have coverage from on the ground and analysis from our reporters who’ve covered the case here.

You can follow a livestream of Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom here.

Good morning, US politics readers. Yesterday was dominated by two Trump-related hearings in different parts of the country. Today, one will resume, in Georgia. And a ruling is expected in another Trump case, in New York.

• Former president and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday for his first criminal trial, a case that revolves around hush money paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels and the playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump’s run for reelection played into the president’s antics in and out of the courtroom.

• Further south, in Georgia, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, sat for a hearing where her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was picked apart and questioned by a defendant in the Trump case, Mike Roman, who is seeking to have them both removed from the case, alleging a conflict of interest because of their romantic relationship.

• At issue in the hearing were the timeline of the two attorneys’ relationship and any shared finances, like Wade potentially paying for trips they took together, as defense attorneys try to make the case that Wade’s payments for working the case somehow enriched Willis.

• The Georgia hearing was salacious and heated, with Willis hitting back at defense attorneys questioning her with: “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

• The hearing resumes in Georgia today at 9am eastern. Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom has a livestream here, or you can check out news stations’ livestreams.

• Meanwhile, back in New York but in a different case from the hush money one, a ruling is expected today in a fraud trial where Trump faces a potential $370m fine and a lifetime ban on doing real estate in the state.

• The New York fraud case came from the state attorney general’s office suing the former president for inflating the value of his assets on government financial statements.

• If you’re having trouble following all the Trump cases, we have a rundown of them here, with the key players and details of the allegations in each one.

• Beyond Trumpworld, news broke late yesterday that an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, was charged for lying to his handler about ties between Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company, allegations that became fodder for Republicans.

The Trump trials will probably be today’s big news in US politics again, as we follow the second day of the hearing over Willis and Wade’s relationship in Georgia and the expected ruling on the New York fraud case.