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

Hugo Lowell

Federal prosecutors requested a hearing to inform Donald Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, about his lead lawyer’s potential conflicts of interest stemming from his defense work for at least three witnesses that could testify against Nauta and the former president in the classified documents case.

The prosecutors made the request to US district court judge Aileen Cannon on Wednesday, explaining that Nauta’s lead lawyer, Stanley Woodward, represents two key Trump employees and formerly advised the Mar-a-Lago IT director, Yuscil Taveras, who is cooperating in the case.

Prosecutors wrote in the 11-page court filing:

All three of these witnesses may be witnesses for the government at trial, raising the possibility that Mr Woodward might be in the position of cross-examining past or current clients.

At issue is Woodward’s prior representation of Taveras during the grand jury investigation earlier this year, when prosecutors concluded that Taveras had evidence that incriminated Nauta and had enough of his own legal exposure to warrant sending him a target letter.

After Trump and Nauta were indicted in the classified documents case on 8 June, Taveras changed lawyers and swapped out Woodward, whose legal bills were being paid by Trump’s political action committee Save America, and retained a new lawyer on 5 July.

In the weeks that followed, Taveras decided to share more evidence with prosecutors about how Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira had asked him to delete surveillance footage – details that resulted last week in a superseding indictment against Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira.

Frightening scenes played out at the US Capitol a few minutes ago, when police evacuated Senate office buildings in response to a threatening phone call that was reportedly a hoax.

US Capitol police say they dispatched officers after receiving warnings of a possible active shooter:

Politico reports the Washington DC police department, which helps secure the Capitol complex, said the call appeared to be a ruse:

It’s currently the Congress’s August recess, and most lawmakers are away from the Capitol, though staff are still working. Reporters at the scene saw people being led out from the Senate office buildings by police with their hands in the air:

Mike Pence kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech condemning former boss Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Pence reiterated that criticism today when asked about the indictment filed by Jack Smith:

It’s not exactly a winning message, at least not yet. Polls currently have Pence with single-digit support among Republican voters.

When Donald Trump appears at a federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon to answer the indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, he will not be formally arrested or have his mugshot taken, Bloomberg News reports.

Citing US Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade, Bloomberg said his appearance in Washington DC will be similar to one he made in June in Miami, where he pled not guilty to charges Smith filed over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Here’s more on what we can expect tomorrow, from Bloomberg:

The 4 p.m. hearing at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse is likely to be short, but it’s an important step in kicking off the latest case brought by Special Prosecutor John L. “Jack” Smith. Trump is expected to be arraigned in person — which means he’ll enter an initial plea to the charges — though the court has yet to announce specific details about the hearing.

Before that, Trump will be processed by the court, which will be similar to the former president’s experience in Florida after he was indicted in June over his handling of classified documents, US Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade said.

Wade confirmed that Trump:

— will have his fingerprints taken digitally

— will be required to provide his social security number, date of birth, address, and other personal information

— won’t have photograph taken, since he’s already easily recognizable and there are already many photographs available

Trump won’t be placed under arrest, according to Wade. In accepting the indictment Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya issued a summons for his appearance, not an arrest warrant.

The former president will then head into the courtroom for his appearance. The summons was issued by Upadhyaya, so the expectation is he’ll appear before her, but the case has been assigned to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. The court hasn’t put the hearing on the public calendar to confirm whose courtroom he’ll go to.

During the hearing, Trump’s lawyers will likely do most, if not all, of the talking. The government didn’t ask to put Trump in pretrial custody while the Florida case proceeds, and there’s no expectation they’ll ask for that now. If prosecutors want the judge to impose any conditions on his release, however, they could make those requests, and Trump’s lawyers would have a chance to raise objections.

Separately, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has released a terse statement about what Washingtonians can expect when the former president goes to court tomorrow:

Martin Pengelly

A powerful Democrat senator has called Samuel Alito’s public expression of opposition to US supreme court ethics reform “unwise and unwelcome”, rejecting the conservative justice’s contention that Congress cannot implement such measures.

“Justice Alito is providing speculative public commentary on a bill that is still going through the legislative process,” said Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and the chair of the Senate judiciary committee.

He added in a statement:

Let’s be clear: Justice Alito is not the 101st member of the United States Senate. His intervention … is unwise and unwelcome.

Last week, Alito spoke to the Wall Street Journal, often an outlet for his views and complaints. Discussing Washington scandals about rightwing justices taking gifts from donors with business before the court – most notably over Clarence Thomas’s links to Harlan Crow and Alito’s own fishing trip with Paul Singer – Alito said: “I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year.”

Saying he was defending himself because “nobody else is going to do this”, the George W Bush-appointed conservative, 73, said: “Congress did not create the supreme court.

I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the constitution gives them the authority to regulate the supreme court – period.

Durbin, who with Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has sought to pilot ethics reform in response to the Thomas and Alito scandals, rejected Alito’s position.

“The ethical conduct of supreme court justices is a serious matter within this committee’s jurisdiction,” he said.

Ensuring ethical conduct by the justices is critical to the court’s legitimacy.

Barack Obama warned Joe Biden that Donald Trump would be a formidable election opponent, even with his legal troubles, the Washington Post reports.

The warning came over lunch at the White House between the current president and Obama, whom Biden served under as vice-president from 2009 to 2017. Among the factors Obama cited as helping Trump were “an intensely loyal following, a Trump-friendly conservative media ecosystem and a polarized country”, the Post reports.

Here’s more from the Post’s report:

At the lunch, held in late June in the White House residence, Obama promised to do all he could to help the president get reelected, according to two people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversation.

That commitment was a welcome gesture for the White House at a time when Biden is eager to lock down promises of help from top Democrats, among whom Obama is easily the biggest star, for what is likely to be a hard-fought reelection race. The contents of the private conversation have not been previously reported.

Obama was visiting the White House for what Biden aides described as a regular catch-up between the two men who served in the White House together for eight years. During their lunch, Obama made it clear his concerns were not about Biden’s political abilities, but rather a recognition of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party, according to the people.

Recent polling suggests Trump has a significant lead over his GOP rivals and that he and Biden are essentially tied in a hypothetical rematch.

The White House said there was no specific agenda for the June 27 meeting, and people briefed on the conversation said the two presidents discussed a range of political, policy and personal matters, including updates about their families.

Donald Trump is expected to appear in court at 4pm eastern time tomorrow in Washington DC to answer the indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith over attempting to overturn the 2020 election. So far today, we’ve gotten hints of the former president’s potential defense strategy from his lawyer, heard various Republicans reaffirm their allegiance to him and suspicion of the justice department, and learned Smith has concerns about an attorney hired to represent one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case.

That’s not all that’s been happening:

• Why did Fitch downgrade the US’s debt from its highest rating? The January 6 insurrection was among the reasons.

• Robert F Kennedy Jr is running as Democrat for president, but is being bankrolled by a Republican.

• Reporters managed to track down Merrick Garland somewhere that wasn’t the justice department headquarters, but he still had little to say about the new charges against Trump.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that special counsel Jack Smith is concerned that Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, has a conflict of interest:

Smith indicted Nauta alongside Trump on charges related to hiding classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago and working the keep them out of the hands of government archivists. Nauta was arraigned in Florida last month in proceedings that were delayed because he struggled to find a lawyer: