Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro has been found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.

David Smith

Hunter Biden’s case has become a political lightning rod. Republicans accused the justice department of concocting a “sweetheart deal” and raised the prospect of impeaching the president over unsubstantiated claims that he played a role in his son’s foreign business affairs during his time as vice-president.

Hunter has been the target of congressional investigations since Republicans gained control of the House in January. Three committees are pursuing lines of inquiry. They have obtained thousands of pages of financial records from members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the treasury department and financial institutions.

But Republicans have failed to produce evidence that Biden directly participated in his son’s work, though he sometimes had dinner with clients or greeted them on calls.

Although Senate Republicans have voiced scepticism, the momentum behind an impeachment inquiry in the House may prove unstoppable. The speaker, Kevin McCarthy, told Fox News recently:

If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry.

Donald Trump – the clear frontrunner for the presidential nomination in 2024 despite facing 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions and civil lawsuits too – is urging Republicans to move quickly. He told Real America’s Voice:

I don’t know actually how a Republican could not do it. I think a Republican would be primaried and lose immediately, no matter what district you’re in.

David Smith

The White House is bracing for political trench warfare after prosecutors pursuing Joe Biden’s son on a gun possession charge said they would seek a criminal indictment by the end of September.

The prospect of Hunter Biden standing trial is likely to energise Republicans preparing to launch an impeachment inquiry into the president even as Congress tries to avert a government shutdown.

The White House has reportedly set up a “war room” of two dozen lawyers and aides to combat the Republican effort, partly by studying how Bill Clinton turned his 1998 impeachment to his political advantage.

Long a political liability for his father, Hunter Biden bought a pistol in 2018 and allegedly lied on a federal form by stating he was not a drug user at the time. In a Wednesday court filing, the special counsel David Weiss said the government would seek a grand jury indictment before 29 September.

The development followed the collapse of a plea deal under which Hunter Biden would have entered into a deferred prosecution agreement over the gun charge and pleaded guilty to tax charges too. The younger Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, insists the deal is still in effect.

We believe the signed and filed diversion agreement remains valid and prevents any additional charges from being filed against Mr Biden, who has been abiding by the conditions of release under that agreement for the last several weeks.

Hugo Lowell

Donald Trump has filed notice in Fulton County that he “may” seek to have his 2020 election subversion case removed to federal court.

I’m told by people familiar that Trump’s legal team is waiting to see what happens with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his arguments before taking that step.

The unusual notice appears to have been aimed mainly for presiding Fulton County superior court judge Scott McAfee.

Trump has 30 days from the day of his arraignment – or when he filed his not guilty plea and arraignment waiver on 31 August – to file for removal to federal court. Removal could upend things and McAfee noted the potential logistical headache at a hearing yesterday.

If Meadows wins his removal motion, then the case goes to US district court. If Meadows loses but the US court of appeals for the 11th Circuit reverses, then McAfee could face problem of having started a trial with no jurisdiction.

Matthew Cantor

Chris Christie digs Coldplay. Cornel West is into Coltrane. And Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical magnate whose net worth is approaching $1bn, has found a kindred spirit in Woody Guthrie.

These are a few of the 2024 presidential candidates revealing the music that “stirs their soul”, assuming they have one. The lists, solicited by Politico, are oozing with the raw passion politicians are known for: who hasn’t shed a tear while listening to Bananarama, as Nikki Haley apparently has?

Sure, the 20-song lists were probably focus-grouped beyond recognition, but you can learn a lot about someone from the music they pretend to like. Here’s what the playlists tell us.

Joan E Greve

There is warranted skepticism that Donald Trump’s efforts to remove the case will prove successful.

Trump’s lawyers attempted to make a similar argument in New York, where he is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records over his alleged role in a hush-money scheme to silence an adult film star who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the former president. The federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the argument, ruling that Trump’s alleged misdeeds did not qualify as acts under color of his office as president.

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President – a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” Hellerstein wrote in his ruling.

Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.

Of course, the New York and Georgia cases differ significantly in terms of their substance, which will affect Trump’s chances of success in Fulton county.

Trump could theoretically make a stronger argument that questions of election administration fall under the umbrella of his presidential duties, a more far-fetched claim when it comes to his involvement in a hush-money scheme. But Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis will likely rebut that Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election, after he had already lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results, do not qualify as official presidential duties.

Even if the case does stay in state court, legal wrangling over state versus federal jurisdiction could theoretically stretch on for months, jeopardizing Willis’s preference for a quicker trial date.

Why is Trump desperate to move the Georgia trial to federal court?

Joan E Greve

Donald Trump’s legal team are expected to rely on a little known legal statute called the federal officer removal statute to argue the case should be moved to federal court, and that jurisdictional question could delay a trial for months.

The statute allows a federal official to have a state case moved to federal court if the matter of concern is “for or relating to any act under color of such office”. Trump’s legal team is expected to argue that, as he attempted to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, he was acting in his official capacity as president, and thus the case is a federal issue.

A federal judge will be called upon to determine whether Trump’s case will remain in state court. If a judge rules in Trump’s favor, the case would move out of Fulton county, killing the possibility of a televised trial and significantly altering the legal stakes for the former president.

“This jurisdictional issue is the key to this case right now,” said Eric Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “Talking about anything other than the federal removal statute is putting the cart before the horse.”

If Trump’s motion is successful, the case could continue in federal court, but Segall warned that such a ruling might ultimately result in a dismissal of the charges.

“He may get immunity in federal court … States aren’t allowed to arrest federal officers for performing federal duties,” Segall said.

The issue is not, did he do the acts? The issue is, is it part of his official conduct? And if it is, charges could get dropped.

Donald Trump may seek removal of his prosecution to federal court in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case, according to a court filing by his lawyers.

Here’s a copy of the filing, shared by Lawfare’s Anna Bower:

Florida governor Ron DeSantis had a heated exchange during a press conference with an audience member who blamed him for the recent racist killing in Jacksonville that left three Black people dead.

An unidentified audience member accused DeSantis of allowing “people to hunt people like me”. The Florida governor responded:

That is nonsense. That is such nonsense!

The man, who was removed from the press conference, accused DeSantis of enacting policies “that hurt people like myself and the people that I love,” including his children. He said:

You have allowed weapons to fill the street into immature, hateful people that have caused the deaths of the people who were murdered a few weeks ago.

The audience member spoke about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Black boy murdered in Sanford, Florida, in 2012 by George Zimmerman. DeSantis interrupted, saying that “I did not allow anything with that.”

I’m not going to let you accuse me of committing criminal activity. I am not going to take that.

The Jacksonville shooting sparked criticism of DeSantis and his policies on guns and education, and the Florida governor was loudly booed as he addressed a vigil for the deceased.

Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, has accused House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan of improperly interfering in her criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

In a scathing nine-page letter to Jordan first reported by the Atlanta Journal–Constitution, Willis wrote:

There is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.

The letter comes after Jordan demanded Willis turn over documents and communications with the Department of Justice, among other information, by today. In the letter, Willis wrote:

Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations.

She went on to say:

Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically.

Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, asked a judge to shield prospective jurors’ identities.

In a motion filed late afternoon on Wednesday, Willis asked the court to “prevent any defendant, members of the press, or any other person from videotaping, photographing, drawing, or otherwise creating or publishing images of the jurors or prospective jurors inside or outside the courtroom”.

The move comes after the grand jurors who indicted Trump and his 18 co-defendants last month faced harassment after their names and addresses were posted online. Willis has also faced racist online abuse amid a proliferation of calls to violence across far-right sites since the charges were made public.

The motion states that the grand jurors’ information was posted “with the intent to harass and intimidate them” and that Willis’ own personal information and that of her family and staff were posted online ”intertwined with derogatory and racist remarks”.