Trump news – live: Trump Organization jury selected as Jan 6 panel plans to interview Secret Service agents

Oliver O'Connell and Andrew Naughtie
·18 min read
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A jury has been selected for the upcoming trial of the Trump Organization, which has been indicted for allegedly perpetrating a massive tax fraud scheme. Prosecutors noted the difficulty in choosing a fair jury in Manhattan, where the former president is especially unpopular.

The company, which denies the allegations, has already seen its former CFO Allen Weisselberg plead guilty.

Meanwhile, as Donald Trump’s attorneys take receipt of the January 6 select committee’s subpoena compelling the former president to turn over documents and appear before its members, reports say that the panel is planning to call key Secret Service agents to testify as to what happened in the days leading up to the attack on the US Capitol.

In the course of the summer, it became clear that the service had lost or deleted messages exchanged between staff on the day of the riot and before it despite having been instructed to preserve them. The official explanation of how and why they were wiped has shifted over the last months, but at least some have been recovered.

Key points

Jan 6 panel seeking Secret Service testimony

12:06 , Andrew Naughtie

The House select committee investigating the Jan 6 attack on the US Capitol is reportedly planning to interview top Secret Service officials and agents in the coming weeks.

The growing list of witnesses, which includes about half a dozen current and former officials, showed that the investigating committee is still pursuing answers from the Secret Service on a number of fronts, CNN reported, citing multiple sources.

Although the dates for the interviews have not been confirmed, the effort comes after the panel was given more than one million electronic communications by the federal agency, of which some of the text messages from the day of the riots were “erased”.

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar has the story.

Jan 6 committee to call in Secret Service agents and officials for interviews

Can Trump run again in the 2024 election?

12:00 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump made history in becoming the first president in US history to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives.

After losing the 2020 election, can he run again?

Can Trump run again in the 2024 election?

Trump shares post of Megyn Kelly blasting DeSantis’s 2024 prospects

11:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Donald Trump gleefully shared comments made by former Fox News anchor and Trump nemesis Megyn Kelly dismissing the chances of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024.

The former president shared the comments which were included in Dave Rubin’s podcast after Ms Kelly initially made them on The Rubin Report on 16 October.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

Trump shares Megyn Kelly rant blasting DeSantis’s 2024 prospects

Tension in US intel community highlighted by withdrawal of 2020 election study

10:15 , Oliver O'Connell

As US spy agencies ramped up their work to catch foreign meddling in this year’s election, a team of CIA experts studied lessons learned from the contentious 2020 vote.

Unexpectedly, their report sparked controversy within parts of the intelligence community.

Withdrawal of study highlights tension in US intel community

Justice Thomas and DeSantis met day before Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, emails show

08:15 , Oliver O'Connell

A government accountability group has revealed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis met with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas the day before the Supreme Court announced its ruling that overturned Roe v Wade.

The organisation, American Oversight, made a Freedom of Information Act request for Supreme Court emails with the Republican governor and potential 2024 presidential candidate’s office.

Eric Garcia has the story.

Clarence Thomas and DeSantis met the day before Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade

Former Trump aide Hope Hicks interviewed by Jan 6 panel

06:15 , Oliver O'Connell

The House January 6 committee has interviewed Hope Hicks, a longtime aide to former President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Tuesday’s interview came as the investigation is winding down and as the panel has subpoenaed Trump for an interview in the coming weeks. The person requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

Read on:

Jan. 6 panel interviews former Trump aide Hope Hicks

Trump’s valet becomes target of Mar-a-Lago documents probe

04:30 , Oliver O'Connell

The Department of Justice investigation into whether former president Donald Trump violated laws prohibiting unauthorised retention of national defence information and obstruction of justice has reportedly zeroed in on a US Navy veteran.

The veteran is Walt Nauta, who served as Mr Trump’s White House valet and remained in the ex-president’s employ after the end of his term.

Andrew Feinberg reports.

Trump document probe zeroes in on ex-president’s valet

Trump: Woodward had ‘no right’ to release recordings of their conversations

03:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday lunchtime to complain about veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s recent release of his recorded conversations with the former president.

Here’s what he said:

Trump says Bob Woodward had ‘no right’ to release recordings of their conversations

Cheney predicts Trump would ‘shatter’ GOP into two parties if he wins 2024 nomination

02:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Liz Cheney has a dire outlook for the GOP if Donald Trump were to run for president and win the party’s nomination in 2024.

The conservative Wyoming congresswoman says the divides in her party are too deep to endure another run by the ex-president. Speaking on Meet the Press this past Sunday, she warned that they would be stressed to their breaking points should he do so.

John Bowden reports on Ms Cheney’s remarks.

Liz Cheney predicts Trump would ‘shatter’ GOP into two parties if he is 2024 nominee

Trump pressed Arizona GOP Senate candidate to keep pushing ‘big lie’

01:30 , Oliver O'Connell

A clip from new Tucker Carlson documentary on Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters’ campaign shows former President Donald Trump urging Mr Masters to more forcefully peddle the myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Abe Asher has the story.

Trump pressed Arizona GOP Senate candidate to push ‘big lie’, documentary reveals

ICYMI: Woodward makes rare barbed attacked on Trump

Friday 28 October 2022 00:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Longtime Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who made his career during coverage of the Watergate scandal, has made critical comments about former President Donald Trump, calling him “an unparallelled danger”.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

Bob Woodward makes rare barbed attacked on Trump: ‘An unparalleled danger’

Trump will be person most worried by DeSantis display of Maga meanness

Thursday 27 October 2022 23:30 , Oliver O'Connell

The Florida governor shows he has bigger political ambitions, writes Andrew Buncombe.

The person most worried by DeSantis’s display will be Trump | Analysis

IRS can turn over Trump tax returns to House committee, appeals court rules

Thursday 27 October 2022 22:45 , Oliver O'Connell

CNN reports that the House Ways and Means Committee can now receive former President Donald Trump’s IRS tax returns in one week after a federal appeals court on Thursday declined Mr Trump’s request to stop their release.

The former president could still appeal to the Supreme Court to intervene.

A three-judge panel on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided they won’t put the handover of the former president’s tax returns on hold after the full appeals court rejected Mr Trump’s request that they review an earlier decision allowing for the release of the returns.

Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

Thursday 27 October 2022 22:30 , Oliver O'Connell

And if he did, what would happen to Truth Social?

Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

Ex-Trump Ambassador hails Biden for doing ‘the impossible’ on Ukraine

Thursday 27 October 2022 21:50 , Oliver O'Connell

Gordon Sondland, the man whose testimony confirmed Donald Trump’s sham investigations for military aid quid-pro-quo, tells Andrew Feinberg that Mr Trump’s successor has done ‘the impossible’ by rallying Nato and the EU in support of Kyiv.

Ex-Trump Ambassador Gordon Sondland says Biden has done ‘the impossible’ on Ukraine

Jan 6 committee to interview top Secret Service agents and officials

Thursday 27 October 2022 21:13 , Oliver O'Connell

CNN reports that the House Select Committee investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol is concluding its review of more than one million pages of Secret Service documents and plans to bring in top agents and officials from the agency to testify in the coming weeks.

The network cites multiple sources who say that about half a dozen witnesses will be called and asked about what the agency knew ahead of the attack and what happened during it, referencing earlier testimony from other witnesses.

Jan 6 rioter sentenced for dragging officer Michael Fanone into Capitol riot mob

Thursday 27 October 2022 20:50 , Oliver O'Connell

A Tennessee man who dragged a police officer into a mob of rioters, initiating one of the most harrowing acts of violence during the US Capitol attack, was sentenced on Thursday to more than seven years years in prison.

Albuquerque Cosper Head declined to address the court before US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced him to seven years and six months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. The judge said Head was responsible for “some of the darkest acts committed on one of our nation’s darkest days.”

Read on for the full details of his sentence and crime.

Jan 6 rioter who dragged officer Michael Fanone into mob jailed for over seven years

Jury selected in Trump Organization frud trial, despite difficulties in anti-Trump Manhattan

Thursday 27 October 2022 20:27 , Oliver O'Connell

A prosecutor in the New York criminal tax-fraud trial of the Trump Organization said on Thursday that if every prospective juror who disliked former President Donald Trump was excused from the case, there would not be a jury.

“If we were to strike every juror who had a negative opinion about Donald Trump, we wouldn’t be able to get a jury at all,” lead prosecutor, Susan Hoffinger, told New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Manuel Merchan, Insider reports.

“This is not about Donald Trump,” but about his business, stressed Ms Hoffinger, chief investigator for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Defence attorneys for the Trump Organization, Mr Trump eponymous real estate company, have already tried to deny a juror a place on the panel because he referred to the former president as “narcissistic”.

The huge allowed the juror to remain on the panel as he had also said he used to think Mr Trump was funny before he became president, noting that his opinions of the former president referred to how he conducted himself and not about him overall.

Jury selection for the high-profile trial in heavily Democrat Manhattan took three days, but all 12 jurors have now been selected.

Here’s some of our earlier reporting on the case and the difficulty in choosing a fair jury.

Dismissed juror says ‘no way in hell’ she can be unbiased in Trump tax trial

Trump teasing 2024 run with Iowa rally

Thursday 27 October 2022 20:10 , Oliver O'Connell

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to return to Iowa ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms, to headline a rally for Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The event, set for Nov. 3 in Sioux City, the hub of Iowa’s conservative northwest, comes as Trump has continued to tease interest in a White House comeback campaign as he has campaigned around the country for Republican candidates.

Returning to Iowa, where the 2024 Republican presidential caucuses are scheduled to launch the GOP nominating sequence, would likely further stoke speculation of Trump’s future.

Read more:

Trump to rally in Iowa ahead of midterms as he teases 2024 run

Trump knocks Biden while teeing off at Saudi-backed golf tournament

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:51 , Oliver O'Connell

Former President Donald Trump joked about his successor Joe Biden while taking part in a golf tournament at the Saudi-backed LIV Invitational Pro-Am in Miami today.

The former president was at the Trump National Doral course alongside a number of professional players this morning when he made the comment.

Mr Trump hit a shot and then said to the camera: “Do you think Biden could do that? I don’t think so. I don’t so.”

Trump to hold Florida rally but snubs DeSantis

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:35 , Oliver O'Connell

Donald Trump will host a rally in his new chosen home state of Florida just two days before Election Day, and a key absence is already raising eyebrows in the GOP and national press.

Typically, when a former president holds a campaign rally in an election year, their attendance is the big story of the day. But when Donald Trump’s Save America PAC announced his plans to host the rally in the backyard of rising GOP star Ron DeSantis without the governor in attendance, the potential snub became the headline.

John Bowden has the latest.

Trump snubs DeSantis by announcing rally in Florida without governor

Armed ‘vigilantes’ and conspiracy theorists threaten to disrupt midterm elections

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:04 , Oliver O'Connell

The latest calls to action join an army of election observers – fuelled by bogus claims of widespread election fraud and Donald Trump’s ongoing false narrative that the presidency was stolen from him – preparing for Election Day and its aftermath, and aiming to do what Trump and his allies failed to do in 2020.

More than 40 per cent of voters are now worried about threats of violence or intimidation at the ballot box this year, according to polling from Reuters.

Alex Woodward looks at the potential threats to the 2022 midterms.

Armed ‘vigilantes’ and conspiracy theorists threaten to disrupt midterm elections

Trump shares Megyn Kelly rant blasting DeSantis’s 2024 chances

Thursday 27 October 2022 18:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Donald Trump gleefully shared comments made by former Fox News anchor and Trump nemesis Megyn Kelly dismissing the chances of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024.

The former president shared the comments which were included in Dave Rubin’s podcast after Ms Kelly initially made them on The Rubin Report on 16 October.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Trump shares Megyn Kelly rant blasting DeSantis’s 2024 prospects

Justice Kagan blocks Jan 6 subpoena for Arizona GOP official’s phone records

Thursday 27 October 2022 17:56 , Oliver O'Connell

US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has temporarily blocked a subpoena from the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol seeking phone records for an Arizona Republican Party official who joined a scheme to falsely declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Justice Kagan issued an administrative stay on 26 October, giving the full court a chance to weigh in on the decision.

Alex Woodward reports.

Justice Kagan blocks Jan 6 subpoena for Arizona GOP official’s phone records

Trump-flavoured violence rears its head in advance of midterm elections

Thursday 27 October 2022 17:15 , Andrew Naughtie

More than 40 per cent of voters are now worried about threats of violence or intimidation at the ballot box this year, according to polling from Reuters. The same survey found that 67 per cent of voters are worried about post-election violence – and an elections task force at the US Department of Justice also found that Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all particular hotbeds for threats against election workers.

There is no direct connection between Donald Trump and the sometimes armed vigilante groups that are cropping up to “defend” the integrity of the midterm elections, but as Alex Woodward writes, the rhetoric and tactics of these groups carry a distinct echo of January 6 – and of the lies Mr Trump has told about the 2020 election since before it was even held.

Read more:

Armed ‘vigilantes’ and conspiracy theorists threaten to disrupt midterm elections

ICYMI: Mark Meadows ordered to testify in Georgia

Thursday 27 October 2022 16:51 , Andrew Naughtie

A judge in South Carolina ruled that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a grand jury in an investigation about Republican attempts to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 election, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Circuit Court Judge Edward Miller denied Mr Meadows’s attempt to stop a petition to stop him from testifying in an investigation advised by Fulton County’s district attorney. Mr Miller said that going to Atlanta would not present an “undue hardship.”

“Well, you have eloquently enumerated your arguments, which I think perhaps an appellate court can review, but based on what’s before me today I’m going to find that the witness is material and necessary to the investigation,” Mr Miller told Mr Meadows’s attorney James Bannister.

Eric Garcia has the story:

Judge rules that Mark Meadows must testify in Georgia election meddling probe

Analysis: Why Trump isn’t campaigning in important states

Thursday 27 October 2022 16:15 , Andrew Naughtie

In today’s Inside Washington dispatch, Eric Garcia takes a look at Donald Trump’s latest midterm campaign rally itinerary, which includes stops in relatively safe Iowa and Florida but ignores Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.

As ever, it seems the logic underpinning the plans revolves around Mr Trump alone:

While rumors floated that Trump would head to Georgia to campaign with Herschel Walker after his debate with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, those plans never came to fruition – for good reason. With the exception of Walker, many of the Georgia Republicans that Trump endorsed fell flat, including both David Perdue’s challenge to Governor Brian Kemp and Jody Hice’s challenge to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Instead of helping out in vital races, Trump is focusing on states where he can brag about being undefeated in primary endorsements.

Read the full analysis below.

Trump is holding rallies in some strange places during the midterms. Here’s why

Fanone speaks at Jan 6 rioter’s sentencing

Thursday 27 October 2022 15:50 , Andrew Naughtie

Sentencing is underway in the case of Albuquerque Head (his real name), who has been found guilty of multiple offences at the January 6 riot. Among them is participating in the assault on police officer Michael Fanone, who has since spoken out many times about the brutality he and his fellow officers faced on the day – and who has been addressing the court today:

Tucker Carlson firing up election lies in advance of 8 November

Thursday 27 October 2022 15:15 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump’s relentless lying about the theft of the 2020 election began well before that election was even held, and has not stopped in the two years since. And just as last time, the same sort of groundwork is being laid for any Democratic victories in important 2022 races to be violently disputed from the right:

Can Trump run again in 2024?

Thursday 27 October 2022 14:45 , Andrew Naughtie

Losing to Joe Biden in November 2020 may have dented Donald Trump’s pride, but it now seems almost certain that he will run again for the White House in 2024.

Mr Trump has not stopped fundraising since moving from Washington DC to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, amassing a war chest of well over $100m with which he can help boost Republicans who backed his “Big Lie” to defeat those in the GOP who did not.

And Mr Trump has been back out on the road this year ahead of the midterm elections. He’s been holding MAGA rallies in state after state with candidates he’s endorsed, insisting to crowds that he did not legitimately lose to Mr Biden and repeatedly hinting that he plans on avenging his defeat by running again.

So what, if anything, could stop him?

Here’s an analysis from Graeme Massie and Gustaf Kilander:

Can Trump run again in the 2024 election?

Trump finally receives Jan 6 subpoena – report

Thursday 27 October 2022 14:16 , Andrew Naughtie

Attorneys for former president Donald Trump have formally accepted service of a subpoena commanding the ex-president to provide documents and give evidence before the House January 6 select committee next month.

According to Politico, the select committee’s subpoena for the ex-president was received on Wednesday by Matthew Sarelson, an attorney for Mr Trump with the Dhillon Law Group.

The report that Mr Trump’s team has accepted the panel’s compulsory process comes just days after it was issued by the select committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.

Trump attorneys receive Jan 6 committee subpoena, report says

Trump claims people voted 28 times in 2020

Thursday 27 October 2022 13:45 , Andrew Naughtie

Donald Trump gave an interview yesterday to Dinesh D’Souza, the longtime right-wing conspiracy merchant whose documentary 2000 Mules propagates numerous debunked claims about the supposed theft of the 2020 election. And in the course of their discussion, Mr Trump came out with an alarming figure: apparently, some people who took part in the last election voted up to 28 times in a day.

Palin: Trump has “nothing to hide” from Jan 6 panel

Thursday 27 October 2022 13:15 , Andrew Naughtie

At a four-way debate in Alaska’s ranked-choice congressional election campaign, former governor and early Trump presidential endorser Sarah Palin was asked what she thought of the January 6 committee’s subpoena for Donald Trump’s testimony. Her response? “Subpoena away!”

In her view, Mr Trump committed no crime and has nothing to hide. Whether he will actually comply with the subpoena and testify on 14 November, however, is not yet clear.