Key events
Martin Pengelly
Donald Trump is demanding Republican support for impeaching Joe Biden over corruption allegations against Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.
“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Republicans hold the US House, where impeachment would start, by just five seats. GOP members in Democratic areas seem likely to suffer at the polls next year.
“If they’re not willing to do it,” Trump said, “we’ve got a lot of good, tough Republicans around.
People are going to run against ’em, and people are going to win. And they’re going to get my endorsement every single time. They’re going to win ’cause we win almost every race when we endorse.
Factcheckers dispute that. Surveying the 2022 midterms, the New York Times said: “Mr Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates, and his 82% success rate is, on the surface, impressive. But the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win.”
The paper added:
In the 36 most competitive House races … Mr Trump endorsed candidates in five contests. All five lost.
Trump’s influence on key Senate races won by Democrats has been widely discussed.
In Pennsylvania, Trump also called for conditioning aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia on White House cooperation with investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump’s own first impeachment was for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to uncover dirt on the Bidens. Pundits noted the irony.
“So much for denying the quid pro quo, as he did in 2019,” said Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House correspondent.
Martin Pengelly
A month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.
On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.
DeSantis’s hard-right campaign is widely seen to be out of fuel and on a glide path to destruction. Trump dominates early voting states and in national averages leads the Florida governor by more than 30 points.
Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.
Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.
Heading for trials in primary season, Trump denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. But his chaos-agent campaign, which he has said he will not abandon even if convicted and sentenced, does not just threaten the national peace. It threatens his own party.
Joe Biden just decided to keep the US Space Command headquarters in Colorado, rather than move it Alabama, the Associated Press reports. And, surprising as it might seem, Biden’s decision may soon be caught up in the debate over abortion access.
First, a recap: Donald Trump created Space Force in 2019, and near the end of his presidency ordered it moved from its temporary home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. Biden has now reversed that decision, dealing a blow to the economy of a deeply Republican state whose senator Tommy Tuberville has lately been blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest of defense department policies intended to help service members obtain abortions.
While there is no indication yet that Biden’s decision has anything to do with Tuberville’s blockade, the president has personally decried the senator’s campaign, calling it “ridiculous” and saying it threatens the military’s readiness.
Here’s more on the decision, from the AP:
The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.
The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the U.S. races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade.
House Republicans launch inquiry into Hunter Biden plea deal
House Republicans have announced an investigation into the deal reached between Hunter Biden and the justice department that would have seen the president’s son plead guilty to tax charges and enter a diversion agreement to resolve a gun charge.
Biden was expected to formally accept the agreement with prosecutors during a federal court hearing in Delaware last week, but judge Maryellen Noreika objected to portions of the deal and ordered the two sides to renegotiate it and present it to her at a future date.
Republicans have for years accused the president’s son of corruption, and since it was announced have called the plea agreement a “sweetheart deal”. In a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland, the Republican chairs of the House judiciary, ways and means and oversight committees demand a range of documents and explanations from the justice department.
“The Department’s unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Mr. Biden raise serious concerns — especially when combined with recent whistleblower allegations — that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct,” the committee chairs write. Earlier this month, the House oversight committee heard from two Internal Revenue Service agents who claimed politicization of the Hunter Biden investigation, despite statements from the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney who led the case that he had the ultimate authority to bring charges.
The letter marks the latest instance of the House GOP using the chamber’s powers to investigate the Biden administration. Since the start of the year, it has launched investigations into topics including the “weaponization” of the federal government under the Biden administration, and the state and federal prosecutions targeting Trump.
Dharna Noor
A small group of progressive lawmakers led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday urged the United States to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its alleged efforts to sow doubt about the climate crisis.
“The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the Department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions,” reads the letter, which was also signed by Democratic senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
The letter, addressed to attorney general Merrick Garland, references the well-documented climate misinformation campaign waged over decades by oil and gas companies, and the dozens of lawsuits filed by states, municipalities, and the District of Columbia about that campaign.
The letter was sent as swaths of the United States bake under sweltering temperatures. This summer’s record-breaking heatwaves in America and southern Europe, which have put tens of millions of people under heat advisories, would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to a recent study by scientists at World Weather Attribution.
The senators also implore the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file their own lawsuits against parties who participated in climate deception, and request a meeting with Garland.
“The polluters must pay,” the senators wrote.
Andy Biggs, a rightwing Republican member of the oversight committee, said Devon Archer revealed that Hunter Biden’s family name helped Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma’s business.
That’s according to Punchbowl News:
Andy Biggs says Devon Archer told Oversight, “‘Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked. People would be intimidated to really mess with Burisma because of the Biden family brand.'”
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) July 31, 2023
Fox News reports a unnamed source saying the same:
1) From a source familiar with the transcribed interview with former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer.
Archer testified there was value of adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board was “the brand.”
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 31, 2023
5) Archer testified that Hunter Biden put then-Vice President Joe Biden on the speakerphone during business meetings, over 20 times. Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 31, 2023
It is unclear if Biden actually participated in the meetings, or just took the calls to speak with his son, as Democratic congressman Dan Goldman, who attended the interview with Archer, characterized the conversations.
However, Punchbowl reports Biggs said Archer had no knowledge of an unverified bribery allegation against Joe and Hunter Biden that was reported to the FBI:
Andy Biggs says that Devon Archer didn’t know anything at all about the Joe and Hunter Biden bribery allegation contained in the FD-1023 form
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) July 31, 2023
Following the Republican-led House oversight committee’s interview with Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, a Democratic lawmaker on the committee downplayed the president involvement in his son’s business.
Archer testified that Hunter would call up Joe Biden during business meetings in the period when they served on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, but only for “casual conversation,” Democratic congressman and committee member Dan Goldman said, Punchbowl News reports.
“The witness was very, very consistent, that none of those conversations ever had to do with any business dealings or transactions,” Goldman said, adding that Hunter and Joe Biden spoke frequently.
“[Biden] says hello to someone that he sees his son with. What is he supposed to say? ‘Hi, son. No, I’m not gonna say hello to the other people at the table or the other people on the phone.’”
Here’s more of Goldman’s comments to the press:
“The only evidence we have right now of any official action by President Biden in connection to Hunter Biden’s business interests is bad for Hunter Biden’s business interests.“
— Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) gives an update on House Oversight’s closed-door meeting with Devon Archer pic.twitter.com/5dt7Brhfjv
— The Recount (@therecount) July 31, 2023
Several Republican presidential candidates have vowed that, in the as-of-now unlikely scenario that they are elected to the White House next year, they would pardon Donald Trump. But as the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is trying to distinguish himself by promising to do no such thing:
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has said it is “inappropriate” for some of his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls to publicly discuss potentially pardoning Donald Trump, who is their party’s frontrunner for its 2024 nomination despite his mounting criminal charges.
“Anybody who promises pardons during a presidential campaign is not serving our system of justice well,” Hutchinson said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And it’s inappropriate.”
The remarks from Hutchinson cut a stark contrast with comments from other Republicans in the running for the presidency, who said they would pardon Trump if they eventually defeated the Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden.
Nikki Haley, once South Carolina’s governor and the Trump White House’s United Nations ambassador, has said she would be inclined to pardon the former president if she won the election to help the country “move forward”.
Former New York city police commissioner Bernard Kerik, a leading Trump ally, will meet with special counsel Jack Smith in the coming days as part of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Kerik’s attorney told CNN on Sunday that the special counsel’s office will meet with Kerik and his lawyers “in about a week” to discuss efforts taken by former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate potential election fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. He said:
We have a meeting scheduled in about a week with the special counsel’s office to talk about a lot of the efforts that the Giuliani team was taking at the time to investigate fraud, and that’s really going to get into, you know, the core of whether they can charge somebody with having corrupt intent.
The meeting will come after Kerik turned over thousands of pages of documents to the special counsel’s office connected to the debunked voter fraud claims made by Trump and Giuliani.
In early 2020, Trump pardoned Kerik for crimes including tax fraud and lying to investigators, for which Kerik had been sentenced to four years in jail. Later that year, Kerik worked with Giuliani on attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a push which culminated in the failed but deadly January 6 attack on Congress.
Trump expects to be indicted ‘any day now’ on January 6 charges
Donald Trump said he expects he could be indicted “any day now” as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.
Smith has been looking into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Federal prosecutors have assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes, the Guardian has reported: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.
Trump, posting to Truth Social on Monday, wrote:
I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my “PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now, as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs, and extortion, coming from the Biden ‘camp.’ This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!
Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager and third co-defendant in the special counsel’s classified documents case, declined to answer questions as he left the Miami courthouse.
De Oliveira was escorted by federal agents and his attorney, John Irving, who said it was time for the justice department “to put their money where their mouth is” after charging his client.
De Oliveira was added as a third defendant in Donald Trump’s complicated classified documents indictment on Thursday. He faces charges such as trying to obstruct justice, concealing records and documents, and making false statements to the FBI.
De Oliveira, 56, was a valet, maintenance worker and more recently a property manager at Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago, according to the superseding indictment. The indictment said De Oliveira helped Trump’s personal valet, Walt Nauta, move 30 boxes of documents, from Trump’s residence to a storage room, and asked the person responsible for surveillance at the resort to delete the footage on behalf of Trump. He was also accused of draining the resort pool to flood the rooms that contained surveillance footage.
When the FBI discovered the documents at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump allegedly called De Oliveira and said he would get him an attorney.
Trump co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira makes first court appearance
Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, made his first appearance in a Miami courtroom on Monday as part of the special counsel’s investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
During the roughly 10-minute hearing, De Oliveira, the third and newest co-defendant in Trump’s classified documents case, heard the charges against him and received pre-trial orders. He was unable to enter a plea because he had failed to secure local counsel.
Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres granted an extension request, and the arraignment is now scheduled to take place on 10 August at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. De Oliveira was released on a $100,000 bond pending trial.
De Oliveira was indicted on Thursday on four charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the FBI.
Trump and his longtime valet, Walt Nauta, were charged in the classified documents case last month and face additional counts in the indictment that charged De Oliveira. Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.
